Where the gospel writers truthful?
Dr. Blomberg implies that the honesty of the gospel writers is supported because they are not shown to be dishonest. Were it a formal argument this would be a logical fallacy. It may be that the gospel writers were honest people, but it may also be that they were not. Could they have perpetrated a great hoax, or perhaps a small hoax of embellishing history? It may be unlikely, but it is possible. For example there is no historical reference of Jesus that Lee Strobel mentions that was written while Jesus was alive. All writings regarding Jesus were written after his death. Why is it impossible that later references refer to an established hoax? However, I'm willing assume that Dr. Blomberg mentions the lack of negative information about the gospel writers not to convince us of their honesty, but only as fact.
So perhaps it is because Jesus' followers were willing to die for their beliefs? There are other possibilities to consider: the person may not know that what they believe is false, the liar may prefer death than to have the truth disclosed, the consequences of either disclosing the truth or maintaining the lie are equivalent, or some combination. In any event, someone enduring unspeakable hardships because of their professed beliefs does not necessitate the validity of those beliefs. Since you can find religious people of other faiths being persecuted terribly for their beliefs, perhaps the Christian may agree that the willingness to endure suffering and death due to firmly held beliefs does not necessitate the truth of those beliefs.
So once again, this test gives us no more or less information than we had before as to the validity of the beliefs held by the writers of the gospels, nor their written word. Some parts may be true, some parts may be false, some may be a mix.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Ability Test
Is it possible that information in the gospels was accurately preserved before it was recorded?
Lee Strobel's expert, Dr Blomberg, makes one primary argument in defense of this test.
A. Jewish scholars were used to memorizing huge amounts of scripture
B. Jewish scholars could accurately retell scripture from memory
C. ancient middle eastern retellings differ one from another by about forty percent
D. the gospels differ one from another on any given passage by about forty percent
Therefore, it is likely that early Christians engaged in the same kind of retelling practices.
Even if you ignore the admission of doubt signaled by the use of the word "likely," such an argument is almost impossible to defend. There is so much that we don't know. We don't know how many of the pre-gospel early christians were Jewish scholars and could have participated in accurate memorization, or been available to check the accuracy of other's retelling of scripture. More over, even if this practice was done, and we had concrete proof, we wouldn't know for which parts of the gospels it was used, and to what rate of success.
We know that there are chiasms in the New Testament, but we don't know if these are there because the material was passed orally and then written, or written to facilitate oral tradition, or both. We are left with the same dilemma, some parts of the gospels may go on a fact pile, and other parts may not. However, I still see no way to determine one from the other. In any event this test and accompanying argument do not convince me that accurate oral traditions were used to communicate facts about Jesus from the time the occurred to the point when they were related in the Gospels. But does it convince you?
Lee Strobel's expert, Dr Blomberg, makes one primary argument in defense of this test.
A. Jewish scholars were used to memorizing huge amounts of scripture
B. Jewish scholars could accurately retell scripture from memory
C. ancient middle eastern retellings differ one from another by about forty percent
D. the gospels differ one from another on any given passage by about forty percent
Therefore, it is likely that early Christians engaged in the same kind of retelling practices.
Even if you ignore the admission of doubt signaled by the use of the word "likely," such an argument is almost impossible to defend. There is so much that we don't know. We don't know how many of the pre-gospel early christians were Jewish scholars and could have participated in accurate memorization, or been available to check the accuracy of other's retelling of scripture. More over, even if this practice was done, and we had concrete proof, we wouldn't know for which parts of the gospels it was used, and to what rate of success.
We know that there are chiasms in the New Testament, but we don't know if these are there because the material was passed orally and then written, or written to facilitate oral tradition, or both. We are left with the same dilemma, some parts of the gospels may go on a fact pile, and other parts may not. However, I still see no way to determine one from the other. In any event this test and accompanying argument do not convince me that accurate oral traditions were used to communicate facts about Jesus from the time the occurred to the point when they were related in the Gospels. But does it convince you?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)