The Gospels and Acts as History

1. The Gospels and Acts as History Dr. Timothy McGrew Reasonable Faith Belfast November 07, 2011

2. 2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

3. Why defend the Gospels as history? • The “minimal facts” argument dispenses with the defense of the substantial historical truthfulness of the Gospels. • But if their substantial historicity can be credibly maintained, they afford much richer resources for argument than the “minimal facts” approach does.

4. Two trilemmas • Liar, Lunatic, or Lord • Deceivers, Dupes, or Direct Witnesses • Either what the authors of the Gospels said was true or it was false. • If it was true, we have the word of some direct witnesses. • If it was false, either they knew that it was false (deceivers) or they did not (dupes).

5. Assessing historical credibility • External tests • Attributions of authorship • Early use in other works • Integration with other sources • Internal tests • Overall consistency among the books • Undesigned coincidences

6. External Evidence: Attribution • Augustine’s criterion (Contra Faustum 33.6) Why does no one doubt the authenticity of the books attributed to Hippocrates? “[B]ecause there is a succession of testimonies to the books from the time of Hippocrates to the present day, which makes it unreasonable either now or hereafter to have any doubt on the subject. How do we know the authorship of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and other similar writers, but by the unbroken chain of evidence?”

7. The attestation: summary of the facts • The attestation of authorship is not only significant and early, it is also geographically diverse, coming from every quarter of the Roman empire. • Irenaus in France • Papias in Asia Minor • Clement in Alexandria • There is no rival tradition of authorship for any of the four Gospels.

8. Assessing historical credibility • External tests • Attributions of authorship: Strong and consistent • Early use in other works • Integration with other sources • Internal tests • Overall consistency among the books • Undesigned coincidences

9. External Evidence: Early use • Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians (~108) • Matthew – Galatians • Mark – Ephesians • Luke – Philippians • Acts – 1 Thessalonians • Romans – 2 Thessalonians • 1 Corinthians – Hebrews • 2 Corinthians – 1 Peter . . . and more . . .

10. Early use of the Gospels and Acts

11. Assessing historical credibility • External tests • Attributions of authorship: Strong and consistent • Early use in other works: Overwhelming • Integration with other sources • Internal tests • Overall consistency among the books • Undesigned coincidences

12. External Evidence: Integration • We are not looking here for non-Christian reports of the resurrection or the life of Christ. • We are looking for the writers to demonstrate familiarity with the Palestinian setting and the Greco-Roman world in general. • Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius illustrates what happens when the author is not a well-informed contemporary.

13. External Evidence: Integration • “Augustus” in Acts 25:21 • The denarius in Luke 20:24-25 • Archelaus in Matthew 2:22 • The titles of local and regional officials • Cyprus • Philippi • Thessalonika • Ephesus • Malta • Allegations of error

14. Augustus who? • In Luke 2 we are told of a decree sent out by Caesar Augustus just prior to Jesus’ birth (c. 6 BC). • When John the Baptist begins his ministry (Luke 3:1, 2), Augustus is long dead and we are in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (AD 27) • About 30 years later still (~AD 60), Paul makes an appeal from Festus to Augustus (Acts 25:21). • No competent forger writing long after these times would make such a reference without explaining it.

15. Nero, upon becoming Emperor, was styled Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The coin at right shows his preferred title clearly. Luke passes a first test. Oh, that Augustus!

16. The denarius: Luke 20:24-25 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.”He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

17. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Exodus 20:4 The image on the denarius

18. AUGUSTUS TI CAESAR DIVI AUG F “Augustus Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus.” “You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3 The inscription on the denarius

19. A curious detour: Matthew 2:22 But when [Joseph] heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.

20. A curious detour: Matthew 2:22 Since Herod the Great was dead, it was only natural that his eldest son, Archelaus, would take the throne. So why does this news cause Joseph to change plans and go into Galilee?

21. The news about Archelaus • Herod the great had died, and his son Archelaus had taken his place, not long before the Passover of 4 B.C. • As the feast approached, a mob of angry Jews killed some Roman soldiers.

22. The news about Archelaus • In panic, Archelaus sent a troop of armed horsemen to surround the Temple, with orders not to let anyone outside go in and not to let anyone inside get out. • He then sent in soldiers and slaughtered 3,000 Jews in the Temple. • Passover was canceled.

23. Joseph’s decision in context As Mary, Joseph, and the young Jesus made their way north from Egypt, they must have encountered distraught Jewish pilgrims carrying the news of Archelaus’s massacre.

24. The accuracy of Acts • Colin Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989), pp. 108-58, goes through the last 16 chapters of Acts almost verse-by-verse. • Hemer lists 84 specific facts from those 16 chapters that have been confirmed by historical and archaeological research—ports, boundaries, landmarks, slang terminology, local languages, local deities, local industries, and proper titles for numerous regional and local officials.

25. The accuracy of Acts: some examples • The governor of Cyprus is called the ἀνθύπατος (proconsul) (Acts 13:7), • . . . while the magistrates of Philippi were στρατηγοί (governors) (Acts 16:20, 22), • . . . and those of Thessalonica are simply πολιτάρχαι (rulers) (Acts 17:6, 8), • . . . the chief executive magistrate in Ephesus is a γραμματεὺς (town clerk) (Acts 19:35), • . . . and the ruler of Malta is only a πρώτος (chief man) (Acts 28:7).

26. Allegations of error • An inquiry into the integration of the Gospels and Acts with external sources is not complete until we have asked what can be said against them. • To avoid the charge of cherry picking, we will consider only passages that have been called errors by Christianity’s critics.

27. Six alleged historical errors • The Gospels err in reference to kings and governors • The Gospels err in reference to the high priests • John invents a landmark to make a metaphorical point • Nazareth didn’t exist at the turn of the first century • There were no synagogues in Capernaum in the first century • Luke bungles the date of the census under Quirinius

28. Those kings and governors … Matt 2:22, Archelaus is reigning as a king in Judea Matt 27:2, ~ AD 30, Pilate is governor of Judea Acts 12:1, ~ AD 41, Herod is king of Judea Acts 23:33, ~ AD 56, Felix is governor of Judea

29. “[T]here could be no such person as a King Herod, because the Jews and their country were then under the dominion of the Roman Emperors who governed then by tetrarchs, or governors.” —Thomas Paine, “Examination of Prophecies,” in Daniel Edwin Wheeler, ed., The Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 7 (New York: Vincent Parke and Co., 1908), p. 262. Thomas Paine’s accusation

30. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, was born around AD 37 and wrote The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews late in the first century. Flavius Josephus

31. Josephus and Matthew agree • Matthew 2:22 says, not that Archelaus was king, but that he was reigning as king (in Greek, βασιλεύει, “kinging”). • His claim to the throne had not been certified by Caesar, and one of the complaints against him was that he had already taken the kingship over to himself, before Caesar had granted it to him. (Antiquities 17.9.5)

32. Josephus and Luke agree There was no time during the previous thirty years, nor ever afterward, when there was a king at Jerusalem, except the last three years of the life of Herod Agrippa I. —See Josephus, Antiquities 18.6.10 and 19.5.1

33. Matthew 2:1–“in the days of Herod the king …” ΗΡΩ∆ΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ, “King Herod.” The witness of the coins

34. Prutot of Herod Agrippa I (AD 37-44) Each of these coins bears the inscription ΑΓΡΙΠΠΑΒΑCΙΛΕΟC – “Agrippa the King” (cf. Acts 12:1)

35. Two high priests? Luke 3:1-2 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, . . . during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

36. High priest for a year? John 18:13 First they led him [Jesus] to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

37. Did Luke and John blunder? “[A]ny person being acquainted with the history and polity of the Jews, must have known that there never was but one high priest at a time, ... no Jew could have been ignorant that the high-priest’s office was not annual, but for life, ...” –Robert Taylor, The Diegesis, 3rd ed. (1845), p. 126.

38. Luke and John vindicated Annas (sometimes called Ananus) had held the office of high priest from A.D. 6-15, but Pilate’s predecessor had deposed him and then successively appointed and deposed one after another, including one of Annas’s sons. Joseph Caiaphas, his son in law, was the fourth of these. —See, Josephus, Antiquities 18.2.2

39. Luke and John vindicated Throughout the period of the Gospel events and for more than a decade afterward, Annas kept the power of the high priesthood and controlled the Temple through his sons, five of whom were appointed high priest by Roman procurators.

40. Luke and John vindicated Josephus himself uses the same language, e.g. The Jewish War 2.12.6 (“And both Jonathan and Ananias, the high priests …”)

41. How this fact sheds light on Acts Acts 23:5: “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, …” Ananias had been the high priest, but he had been deposed, and his successor had then been murdered. In the meantime, Ananias took it upon himself to step back into the high priest’s role. —See Josephus, Antiquities 20.8.8 ff.

42. The pool at Bethesda: John 5:2 In a passing remark, John describes the pool at Bethesda as having five στοας —roofed colonnades, or walkways. “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.”

43. «Les anciens qui croyaient trouver dans la source un symbole du judaïsme, et dans les cinq portiques une allusion aux cinq livres de la Loi, rencontraient sans doute la pensée de l'évangéliste.» —Alfred Firimin Loisy, Le Quatrième Évangelie (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils, 1903), p. 386. Alfred Loisy on the pool of Bethesda

44. The pool of Bethesda

45. The pool of Bethesda Archaeological work at the pool of Bethesda in 1956 revealed that it was located near the Sheep Gate, just as John said, surrounded by four roofed colonnades—and spanned across the middle by a fifth.

46. “[A]t the turn of the era, there was no place called Nazareth, and we do not know when the place now called by that name became so identified. . . . Nazareth was as mythical as the Mary, Joseph, and Jesus family that was supposed to have lived there.” —Frank Zindler, “Where Jesus Never Walked,” American Atheist 36 (1996-7), pp. 33-42. Frank Zindler on Nazareth

47. “The discovery is of the utmost impor-tance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth and thereby sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus. The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period.” — Yardenna Alexandre, excavation director for the Israeli Antiquities Authority, “For the Very First Time: A Residential Building from the Time of Jesus was Exposed in the Heart of Nazareth” (12/21/09) A Jewish archaeologist on recent excavations in Nazareth

48. “A major collision between the gospel tradition and archaeology concerns the existence of synagogues and Pharisees in pre-70 C.E. Galilee. Historical logic implies that there would not have been any, since Pharisees fled to Galilee only after the fall of Jerusalem.” —Robert M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), p. 14 Robert M. Price on Synagogues and Pharisees in Capernaum

49. “Capernaum, like Nazareth, is unknown outside the gospels before the end of the first century.” —Frank Zindler, “Where Jesus Never Walked” Frank Zindler on the existence of Capernaum

50. Luke 7: 1-5 on Capernaum • After [Jesus] had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.”