Peter J Williams & Bart Ehrman • The story of Jesus: Are the Gospels historically reliable?

but and Peter welcome along to the show it's great to have you both with me now believe it or not it was over ten years ago that you were both with me in person to discuss the Gospels talking on that occasion about the textual critisism and transmission of the Gospels today we're really looking at their historical reliability and for those who aren't familiar with you both let's have some quick introductions but welcome back to the show you've been engaged with the Bible since you were a Christian and since you haven't been a Christian as well because your story of faith as it were go side by side with your academic journey doesn't it no that's right I got interested in the Bible as a teenager when I had a born-again experience in high school and went off to Moody Bible Institute to study the Bible and continue my education and went off to Princeton Theological Seminary eventually to study Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and while I was there I I took all sorts of courses and started studying the Bible intensely in Greek and Old Testament in Hebrew and started realizing that my earlier belief that the Bible is without any mistakes and it was just wrong there are mistakes and it took me a long time to get to that point I went reluctantly but I finally got to a point I just said the evidence is here I mean this is a contradiction of that and they both can't be true and so it changed my change my understanding of the Bible I remained a Christian for many years after that but one who was more had not as high of a view of Scripture and it wasn't until maybe 25 years ago or so that I ended up leaving Christianity altogether for reasons unrelated to my scholarship and we've we've actually talked to you about that as well on it on a different show back in the archives of unbelievable but we're coming back again today to the story of the reliability of the Gospels I mean you you're so interesting about because on the one hand you obviously are a critic at some level of some evangelical views of Scripture but at the same time you've got your critics on the so-called Jesus mythos aside because you fully endorse obviously that Jesus existed and and you've written books obviously in defense of that as well yeah no I get it from both sides and I suppose that's a good thing but no that's right but you know the thing is I don't I don't believe in in toting a party line one way or the other it's not that you know okay if you're an atheist you have to believe this or if you're of your Christian you have to believe that it's you I think you have to you have to decide what what appears to be right based on whatever evidence you look at and why does the person of Jesus continued to inspire such interest on both sides in in that sense by people who are both dogmatically against as it were his existence and those who obviously want to affirm his existence down to the the smallest detail yeah it's an interesting phenomenon and it's I mean it's more interesting depending which country you happen to live in I mean in the United States most people are interested in Jesus on one level and a lot of places in Europe they're they're not and but those who those who recognize the importance of Jesus historically whether they're Christian or not they have to realize I mean as you said he's the most important figure in the history of our civilization and so of course people who should be interested it's just that some are firm believers and think that Jesus is the only way to salvation and you have to believe in him and as long with believing everything in the Bible or you won't be saved and other people don't look at it like that at all they think that Jesus is just this amazing cultural figure that we need to know more about mmm well I'm looking forward to to getting into the historical aspects of the Gospels which obviously you've written extensively on and Peter J Williams has as well Peter welcome back to the show it's round two isn't it we have with bar opposite you but you've in a sense been engaged with Scripture on a similar way with Bart you know you you're aware of all the arguments and the issues that he's come across yet you as a Christian have retained your faith and indeed I have it's quite a strong faith so what's been different would you say about your journey well I mean I've just had we've had very different experiences and growing up different countries and so on I grew up in a Christian family and was able to go to a school High School where you could learn Greek and Latin I think I'm not sure this but I think I'd read the entire Greek New Testament before going to versatile and then I went to university too because I wanted to be a Bible translator mmm and studied Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek and Latin and as my undergraduate degree and when I was there I encountered a lot of the same sort of scholarship that we're gonna be talking about today many people who knew the Bible very well but did not believe it to be authoritative and that sent me through a lot of internal questioning and doubt and looking through that over time what I'd say is my journey and scholarship has been a firming up in my faith because I also would say that through my experience I now believe I have arguments for the truthfulness of Scripture which are not generally known by laypeople so that you know there are a one side you can say that there can be problems through scholarship that aren't known by laypeople but I think that can also be arguments for truthfulness which aren't generally known by laypeople so I think it's a has been a very positive experience for me to what extent as a scholar does what you know of the scripture impact the way you approach it as a Christian a you know in a devotional kind of way well I mean III think that Scripture is is God's Word I think it's one of the things about that it makes me want to study it and it harder um but of course what that does do I think everyone's got bias and so I'm gonna be quite open about my bias but it does mean that I want to I'm I've got to test myself and and think how is someone else through another perspective going to see this I want to make sure that any argument I use in public is something that's able to be looked at from a number of different angles and make sense but you know I I do think we all have ways of trying to make sense of the world and so for me Christianity makes the most sense of the world and obviously by that I mean Christianity which fully embraces the Bible as from God so that to me makes more sense than any other system we can talk about that but yeah yeah I mean it might be interesting to touch at some point in discussion on the sort of the intersection of obviously those who are treating the Bible both as a historical document and obviously as a document from which they draw their faith but we're going to really talk about the historical aspect of the Gospels we're going to be looking at them as historians in that sense well well I won't be but you guys will be there's people who yeah i might question that go ahead a little bit what I mean cuz we're gonna have to sometime talk about miracles yeah the relationship between miracles yeah and history and the discipline of history yeah so that may well come into it it may but it doesn't need to as far as I'm concerned because I'm and the miracles aren't something I'm the miracles are not the reason I think the Bible is not reliable okay okay like we can we can do about yeah sure well look we're gonna try and cover things like how do we get these accounts in the first place what when we think they were written down by whom what are some of the things within them that either give us pause for thought casting doubt upon their veracity or maybe give us telltale clues of that they are historically reliable so let's first of all just simply ask that that opening question what how do we get these accounts Matthew Mark Luke and John that we typically have in our New Testament where where do you think these essentially came from but and were they as it were you know was it a case of the winners right history as it were because that's often the point that's often put across that these are the cats we have perhaps these weren't the only accounts that well there certainly weren't the only accounts I mean so there's no there's no controversy about that I mean the Gospel of Luke begins by the author says that there were many people who before him had written an account of the things Jesus said and did and I think he's probably right and he says that um that that these accounts came down from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word and so in other words their accounts based on what hung stories and people had passed along orally before somebody wrote them down and Luke at least is admitting that he acknowledging that there were people before him and presumably before the others as well so the the ultimate answer is that the stories go back to something that happened in the life of Jesus people told the stories for a number of years there's nothing controversy about that I mean the book of Acts people are telling stories the whole time without they're just telling the stories that they've heard and so my view is a fairly standard view which is that the stories were in circulation for many years before the Gospel writers produced their accounts Jesus and His disciples of course were Aramaic speakers in in Galilee were a rural part of Galilee and the Gospels are written in Greek and so these are these are accounts that've were originally passed around probably in the native language of Palestine but then are they later written some decades later by by Greek speaking Christians and so ultimately they go back to to oral traditions and before the url' traditions there were their events that happened that these traditions are based on okay and when it comes to the four that we typically have in our New Testaments what what do you say about exactly when we like lead which would you say is the first where how long after the events of Jesus life would you estimate that it was written and what do we make of well I don't have an unusual dating of this I mean I basically follow the mainstream scholarly line which is that mark is probably the first gospel written sometime around the Year 70 or so probably which would put it about 40 years or so 40 years after Jesus and it's it's our first account that we have there were probably ones earlier but we don't have them Matthew Matthew appear to have used mark as one of their sources I can't remember if Peter actually agrees with that or not but but wealth right now there's a lot of I mean their work forward agreements in Greek that that are sustained over a long period of time is hard to explain that unless somebody's copying somebody else or copying a common source and so Matthew and Luke have those similarities between each other and with Mark and so it's usually thought that Matthew Luke came later than Mark and they're normally dated to the eighties 80 85 something like that so 50 55 years after Jesus death and John is almost always seen as the last couple and usually dated toward the end of the first century say 90 or 95 so maybe 60 65 years after Jesus death so so the time gap between Jesus death and the first accounts of his life are between 40 and 65 years okay and we'll come to talking about the actual authorship of those Gospels in a moment but where do you stand on on the dating of the Gospels I know this is a big area in in New Testament scholarship though we're talking well I'm deliberately non-committal on the subject of dating because the way I'd put it is the Gospels don't come with dates on but they do come with names on so you know if we just start with Matthew Mark Luke and John and there there are no yet there aren't early manuscripts without those names on and I don't think it's likely that four Gospels are each composed anonymously and then got these names on we can have something about that good yeah I think we're gonna differ so then you ask yourself the question say with Mark and Luke if it weren't for the Gospels of Mark and Luke the names mark and Luke would be sort of nobodies so I can't see a reason for people to stick those names on unless those are authentic and then the time scale for the Gospels has to be the time scale of people who can do the things that Mark and Luke did Luke is portrayed as a companion of Paul so I'm not gonna be putting it late in the first century I'm gonna be putting it somewhat earlier with Matthew and John again you can't say the dates but if these are people who were disciples of Jesus then it's going to have to be plausibly within a lifetime of people who could be disciples of Jesus around the year thirty so those are the way I would look at it but then I'd also say let's look at the internal signs within the Gospels and you start saying what's the level of familiarity that these people have with the time and place they're writing about do they know the geography do they you know when they just write about the valley of Kidron say and Gotland John okay checked you know they know certain amounts about where things are when they're starting to use Aramaic words or specialist terms so the way Luke will talk about he'll use drying measures and liquid measures which are very Palestinian the seer the core and the bath you know which he uses in chapters 13 and 16 you know what sort of knowledge to that presuppose and I think from that you build up a sense of these people either came from the land and therefore they knew this sort of stuff all they'd had very detailed conversations with people who are in the land or they follow detailed sources that have been in land that's the sort of way I'd look at it so in other words I I got a different story from the way Bart puts it where I think Bart has you know rural peasant Aramaic speakers big sort of gap through some time of transmission to Greek speaking writers and I would want to explore the various stages of that because although I would say rural in one sense you know I would say well if they're hanging around Capernaum it's one of the most densely populated you know areas Josephus says you know he may be exaggerating that every village had at least 15,000 people and so on and so we want to know here you you know the archaeological reports on Capernaum well I mean yes but what does the archaeology tell us about the population well one of the things is people do tend to ignore and what does the archaeology actually tell us I'm answering there when we look at it tells you there are 40 by 40 blocks that you know people have found but doesn't tell you how far things go when you've had two massive Roman wars the second one in the second century which wipes out 900 plus settlements I mean every stone is going to be reused as people are trying to you know fortify you know things I think there's a lot I mean we can talk about this more you do you know that the stones that are used in one reused in another place can be located to the original place I mean this happens all the time in archaeology so is there any evidence that Capernaum was larger than the archaeologists say it was what I'd say is Josephus Josephus says and how reliable is Josephus when it comes to population statistics well this is a really interesting thing because Josephus I would say is you know he's a writ a written source who gives quite good numbers I mean you know now people people doubt doubt this but I'd say there is a there's a major tension between archaeological numbers generally and literary numbers the literary numbers as you'd know are generally far higher aren't they I mean as in when when you have people who are writing who say they were there at the time you get different numbers from what you get when you ask material archaeologists today and we not fair well what so in terms of population size if you want to evaluate that all you have to do is look at newspapers that report events that happened in our own day where you have photographs of the crowds Trump for example during his inauguration claimed that there were X number of people millions of people so in the photograph showed it wasn't true now he he was there yeah he could say so the fact that he was there doesn't show that he's right and ancient ancient authors are notorious for getting them through populations so if anybody's really interested in looking this up don't don't take you to our to just read the archaeological report and the easiest place to do it is simply the book done by Jonathan Reed and John Dominic Crossan where they talk about the archaeology of Palestine and they lay out the information in a very simple level it's not not just it's based on Skaar is not for scholars and you can see how populated is but you've just said it ancient authors are notorious for getting it wrong in other words are you basing this on archaeology they're not basing it on authors say it's a question of it's a question of method so in other words they tend to set aside what the literary authors at the time say about their land they then in the 20th and 21st century develop material methods which they say are more reliable than the ancient authors and I think I've won but the reason may I just say one thing about the reason they do that is because different authors give different estimates that are offered by unbelievable amounts in the antiquity if you simply look at for example what Tertullian says about the population of Christians in the Roman Empire he claims that if the Romans wipe out the Christians there'll be nobody left to rule that there are more Christians than pagans this is in the year 200 yeah that's hot there's no way but we're gonna have some discussion about this later on I think a number of Christians that there were because you know I think Bart goes for lower numbers in the first century than I would like I got four pretty standard nightly anyway what I'm establishing is that obviously you have a label it's later dating for these for these accounts of Jesus's life the Gospels you would go for a a more optimistic and earlier dating yeah so I mean I would say you know within the lifetimes of Matthew Mark Luke and John and it doesn't have to be towards the end and I've got no problem with Jesus predicting the fall of Jerusalem before I was gonna ask about this so yeah the fall of Jerusalem 80 70 this is a major event in in the life of Jerusalem the destruction of the temple and of course the Gospels appear to have Jesus talking about the destruction of Jerusalem now as I understand it that leads many scholars to think well there must have been written afterwards and this is sort of retro actively placing the destruction of Jerusalem on the lips of Jesus but you actually believe actually there there's evidence that the Gospels were written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD I wouldn't it depends how you're coming at it I mean I'm I'm coming from a trying to make Co hit a coherent sense of everything and so in that I think there's evidence that Jesus was the son of God based on that I have no problem with saying he predicted things I have of course I don't have copies of the Gospels from the it before the year 70 so you know I'm coming it from the point of view of we have these documents which have all these other signs of reliability that I find in that they portray Jesus as predicting the fall of Jerusalem it seems to me to make sense that he predicted the fall of Jerusalem now you know but that's where I do think ones belief in the supernatural or not inevitably is going to about this is this is probably a key point of difference between you know okay go ahead no I said I thought Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem as in before it happened yeah yeah you said you can have a naturalistic prediction yes so so just people so in that sense do you think it's quite possible that that was written down before Jude before the fall of Jerusalem in that sense that well there you go I'm glad we've got some agreement but that isn't the only reason for dating the Gospels after 70 okay so you don't have that you don't have to be like a secular humanist who's an atheist to think that the Gospels were written after seven he's got nothing to do the way that we believe in miracles or not I mean I believe to the guy I believe John was written the nineties when I was a fundamentalist Christian I mean what's at stake here is it simply that obviously the earlier we have these Gospels the more likely it is that they are historically reliable we may well agree on on the date the Gospel of John you know I mean as in there the thought that he wrote this late on is in a long life you know is yeah it's perfectly fine fine for me but I would be interested on the subject of Luke because I mean Luke and acts by the same author the author of Acts clearly knows his way around the Mediterranean pretty well he's done a lot of research on the sort of localities there and wouldn't you need almost to have to have that pair of writings you need to have someone if they're writing in the 90s replicate the journey that Luke is supposed to have made in the 60s to do the research in order to write the book I mean isn't there a problem well let's just spell this out then so so what we know is that that Luke and acts appear to be sort of a part one in part two of the story of Jesus and then the early church and appeared to have the same author essentially writing it now obviously we attribute that to Luke traditionally who is mentioned in the book of Acts and so on and just just as a starting point what do you have any idea yourself but in your view who wrote Luke and acts I don't think we know okay he doesn't doesn't give us his name he in four places in acts he moves into the first-person narrative where he says we did this we did that as somebody who with on Paul's journeys and so most most readers have thought that this was was a companion of Paul because of that there are disputes about that the the disputes are very technical and complicated I spend many pages talking about it and a couple of my books and but we probably don't want to go there now my view is that if it was a companion of Paul that would be somebody was not one of the companions of Jesus Paul himself is not a companion of Jesus and so the issue is where does Luke it is information from right he doesn't say that he got information from the disciples or from anyone else he says that people before him had written accounts and he's done research and now this is this is an accurate account okay so what's your take on what miles just described I think we agree that the writer of Luke's Gospel is not an eyewitness himself and I'm very glad to hear that Bart is open to it being a companion of Paul it sounds like you're open to it being but I don't think it is no no oh okay but I'm just saying even if it is even if it is that it's not going to change any of my views about it my view of the historicity of the Gospel of Luke has no bearing on whether it was written by a companion to Paul because I have other reasons for thinking that it's problematic not related to who the author was but in terms of the I would just want to say from the Earthship clearly the person who's done it has done a lot of research both around the Mediterranean and they happen to know everything from their being sycamore trees in Jericho to you know the dry and measures and they know about parable themes yes in Palestine they've got this sort of knowledge and so we have to credit this author with a massive amount of research and given that I would say given the sort of consistency with which we across the Book of Luke gets high levels of knowledge about the land and you can't you know this this works very well if you have someone like let's say you know a doctor who happens to have visited Palestine and interviewed people you know is that that explains what we have most easily and the most easily is a problem it would explain it and there are lots of other things it would explain it the reason for suspecting that Luke isn't accurate has nothing to do with whether he knows about sycamore trees or about names of people living past and so those are not arguments that people use to say that Luke isn't accurate the arguments but being accurate have have to do with other things we haven't gotten to yet well what why don't we aim to get to some of those in a very short moments time we're talking on the show today about the story of Jesus the historical reliability of the Gospels my guest today on the big conversation are Bart Ehrman and Peter J Williams for more conversations between Christians and skeptics subscribe to the unbelievable podcast and for more updates and Onis content signup to the unbelievable newsletter having a great conversation here on the big conversation between Peter J Williams and Bart airman today I'm Justin Briley bringing you this conversation on can we trust the story of Jesus looking at the historical reliability of the Gospels let's talk about Luke and acts first of all Peter because obviously Bart feels that there are reasons why we shouldn't necessarily trust the credibility in historicity of this just just give us a little more detail first of all on some of the factors that you think authenticate this as being someone who knew the area knew the people and so on yeah so when you look at the text I'd say either the person who's been young that's lived in the land or they they spent detailed conversations talking to people who lived in the land I'd say that about all four Gospels that they know where the land goes up and down that you get between them them in mentioned 26 town names they know traveling times and so on when I look at Luke I find that there are certain features I can think of four verses in a row say in Luke 16 where you get you know he's get a dry measure and a wet measure and then we get the sons of light as a phrase which is a Palestinian religious phrase and then unrighteous mammon in the next verse and those are four bits of language which I would expect really reflect the the land of Palestine and so if we've got them in a row it's because we actually have the wording somehow preserved I look at a story like the story of the the runaway son the prodigal son the two sons whatever you want to call it and I don't think it's a story that's made by committee I think it's a story which represents someone's thought who's been really very very deeply into the Old Testament and they've rearranged bits from the Laban Jacob narrative from the Jacob Esau narrative they're pulling out phrases here there and everywhere from the Old Testament and it comes together and so I'd say well which genius comes up with this am I gonna have a later literary genius who comes up with a great story like this or am I gonna say no Jesus is the genius and somehow that story has basically been preserved I then look at say Luke chapter 19 you've got he knows that there's toll collection in Jericho he knows there's a sycamore tree in Jericho and then straight after that you have this story about a nobleman going off to receive a kingdom and people revolting while that's happening in the course based on the story of arc Elias and who went off many years earlier to Rome to get his kingdom confirmed but the geographical setting implied by the context would be that you know you're just coming out of Jericho and guess what there's arc Elias you know that the palace that arc Elias tried to build right nearby so I want to say all of these things come together now I know there are problems we might want to talk about the chronology in in the beginning of Luke as well but underlying this I say someone has done a huge amount of research to get this together and I think the most obvious interpretation is that we have a lot of tradition of Jesus coming through okay so so for you it just strikes you looking at that the detail that's there the local knowledge that the language and everything else that this is someone writing close to the time of the events who knew the place knew that the people was able to to muster quite a lot of information that wouldn't have been available to someone writing in a more sort of distant or different place location at a hazy a time and in that sense as far as you're concerned from any hearing you believe the Gospel accounts should be taken as authoritative in the way that we might say you know almost beyond other historical accounts I mean people often compare and contrast you know different types of documents from the ancient world these as far as you can see are very reliable when you put them side-by-side with yeah I think I want to distinguish two sorts of argumentation one is a sort of this is what I can show on a first pass historically and the other is what I might believe because I embrace the entire and an entire Christian system and I want to distinguish those two yeah but so quite a lot of detail there about times places events language that you know Peter feels tie the gospel of Luke and acts to someone who knew knew his stuff close to the events in that way and you say none of this really actually impacts the way in which you see actually they're the problems that exist we know that's right so I I mean we will have some differences on whether everything's accurate in Luke and acts in terms of geography and such so well and we could argue those out those 10 be kind of technical little arguments I should say that Peters not arguing that necessarily it's early as you summarized he's he's saying he's not committing to a date Luke acts might be after 70 it might be 40 50 years later he's acknowledging that but he's saying that that the authors done a lot of research to come up with his information I personally don't think he did a lot of research I mean I think that I think I can we can get to my views about how it happened but I'll say that I think that the entire argument that he's making doesn't really relate to the issue we want to discuss the reason is because if if Luke is accurate in terms of what trees were in Palestine what customs were followed what measurements were used if he knows what cities were there and what the distances were between them that has no bearing on the question of whether the stories he tells about Jesus are historically right you can read a an article and tomorrow's in tomorrow's Guardian which talks about something that happened in in London and the author can get everything right in terms of the geography and the measurements and the trees and get everything right about that but he might be completely wrong about the story he told we're not talking about whether he's a cure about the customs we want to know is is the article right I mean just as an example that they've come up with a hypothetical example here so suppose in two thousand years there's a scholar has heard that there's the story about a debate that took place on this radio show unbelievable in Westminster and there's this American scholar happens to be in England and his name's airman and he he he was in Wimbledon and he took a over ground trained to voxel and then he walked across the the voxel bridge and it came - and he's gonna have this debate with somebody named Pete Williams who actually came from Cambridge and and he'd heard the story and he wants to verify it mmm so he goes on an archeological dig and he finds there was a place called London and it's big place and there was a there's a place southwest of it Wimbledon and there was a train line that went to a place called Vauxhall and oh my god he finds that there's somebody named Herman who actually had a place in Wimbledon and and he digs further digs in Cambridge five lanes and but the story the way the story continued was hmm that before Erman got to the interview there was a big explosion in westminster that blew up the entire neighbourhood thousands of casualties because of the gas leak and he wants to see is that if that's true what he finds is that every geographical marking is right there is a wimbledon there is a voxel there is a westminster there is an ermine there he can fight off his facts is he therefore write that there was a gas leak that led to an explosion that leveled westminster I'm glad to say he's wrong about that I am too because we're all here but I'm interested yeah what what Peter is arguing for is that the author knew about the geography of Palestine and we could have that argument but it's not the one that really matters to people because people don't really care that much whether they had sycamore trees there what they really want to know is if if the New Testament says that Jesus did X Y & Z did he do it or not if the New Testament says that Jesus said this did he say it or not the fact that the author happens to know about the geography has no bearing okay let's come back to these questions I would want to reply on that because I think there are two points I'd want to make one is there is more connection because the sort of things they know are non-trivial you can't get them through reading Pliny the Elder or reading Strabo or any book you know so if they're from outside the land they have to have gone to the lengths to know I mean Jericho's got a different climate you get different trees they need to know that sort of thing and then the other issue is in order to get the story of Jesus wrong you'd have to have a different mechanism of information so it's like they've gone to the efforts of doing this research to get on the contacts right and then you're gonna say but they were casual about the stories and for that I think you'd need to have some sort of system of selective corruption of information that that corrupts the most important stuff and leaves all the trivial stuff in place and I don't want to know how do you do that okay good I'd like to return to that for one thing I don't think you have to do a lot of research if you're living near 72 report about what happened in Palestine forty years earlier in terms of geography and such the reason is because as you yourself are saying these authors are basing their accounts on things that they've heard the stories everybody agrees the stories go back to Palestine not all of the stories probably but but let's just say oh they all do let's say all the stories go back to Palestine that means you have an oral tradition about what happened that includes details within the stories this is what happens in oral traditions it's not just unusual it's just not the New Testament every oral tradition is like this you get these little details the fact you get the details doesn't mean that the tradition itself is right and it's and when you say that somebody had to do a lot of research and if they got all the trivial stuff they also got the big stuff that's ignoring what we know about oral tradition we know what happens in oral traditions and what happens is you save little details that you get right but you can get the entire story wrong and so the question is what is the evidence that the story is right we haven't gotten to this a bit yeah okay what is the evidence that in fact there are problems with these stories I think the the I enjoy I enjoyed I enjoyed Peters book very much can we trust the Gospels it's it's well thought out very smart intelligent with a lot of information in it the problem I have with it is that it doesn't actually deal with the issues that scholars have pointed to as problems in the Gospels to show that they're not reliable okay let's talk about this and I mean so Bart's overall criticism here is okay lots of details can come through in an oral tradition the question is is the story that's being told true in itself or has it obviously changed over time and that sort of thing what gives you confidence that we are not only getting the details right but the main thrust of the story correct so I'd want to say I mean one things Bart himself is written helpfully about is a quoting FC Bartlett you know and how one of the quotations you've got is how named usually get corrupted within one or two repetitions of an oral tradition so if we've got all of the geographical names plausible all of the personal names haven't even talked about that are right for the time and place that suggests that we've not gone through many stages of tradition before we come to that yet can you just explain the personal name sigh because this is another significant area and and so the basic argument is that when you look at the four Gospels as a whole and you look at the proportions of names that they have the sort of different persons you know Simon is the most popular name for Jewish men in Palestine at the time as shown from bone boxes and other things it's also the most popular in the Gospels Mary is the most popular female name it's also the most popular in the Gospels and then what you get with all of the most popular names is you tend to get to disambiguate or something at it like Simon Peter or Mary Magdalene and that's happening with the popular most popular names and not with the less popular names so but so it's it's all of these things together that I think add up to something of more substance about the nature of the tradition we got that it's not come through lots of steps or the telephone analogy a game analogy is sometimes yeah used you know I don't I don't think that analogy is compatible with with what we get so essentially because you feel like you've got these names which accord very well with historically what we would expect in that time in place it feels like it's all coming to this this point where there's there's everything seems right about it why wouldn't they get the words in the story well maybe add one more thing which is I'm not trying to prove and I don't think I can prove that the things go back to Jesus rather I'm saying the simplest hypothesis the thing that explains the data is positing that Jesus said these things and they come through that that will beautifully and simply explain things obviously often we've only got a single witness on these things so by some history department you know criteria I haven't proven it you know it's not historical I'm asking question rather about is it rational and rational irresponsible to trust something which is sometimes slightly different from history department criteria that's the question we're asking can we trust the story of Jesus and in that sense we ultimately come to this significant question do we have the words of Jesus do we have the story as it happened or are we getting a sort of interpreted changed version of the story even if we have historical details right and in my views that names have nothing to do with the question I mean you can have you can have Donald Trump talking about Bill and Hillary Clinton and about the about Joe Biden who is in the administration about you he can name all the names but he can tell a very full story yes and so the fact that he's got the names has no bearing on the question do you agree at least in principle that there is good archaeological historical evidence for the accuracy of for instance the names matching up and that so when that son you guys know we have a broad amount of agreement so I thought that the question is he is interesting he is he's using a counter-argument to an argument that doesn't exist you know there he's so you know Peters at Peter's saying yes but you know they're wrong because of this but nobody's saying that that isn't why anybody thinks the Gospels is inaccurate all right tell us why you think they are then well okay so first I'll say I mean Peter I'll do it first in general terms then I'll look and then I'll really hit hit it but but but in general terms I mean Peter mentioned a scholar of oral tradition named Bartlett so there are there is massive research done on oral traditions and how they work by people who are interested in antiquity people who are interests in the modern world very famous names British scholars Americans Milman Perry Albert Lord Walter Ong Jeff goody yong-man Cena all of these people have written big books on them and they all agree that when traditions get passed along orally even in oral cultures where you would think you would think they'd keep everything right because like there's no way to check it because there's no right so you think well they must like memorize it or they just pass they don't change it and all of these studies show that that's wrong they do change the stories often quite significantly so if the Gospels are written 40 50 years later at least I mean Peters agreeing that Luke and Mark are not eyewitnesses they've heard these stories what happens to the stories so the question is that that's what happens in every oral cultures that that's been ever been studied so is it true with the early Christians and there's only one way to find out which is to compare their stories with each other when two authors tell us the same story do they tell the same story or not or are there contradictions are there discrepancies now Peter deals with this in his book he has a he has a chapter on contradictions and but it I didn't I mean I didn't quite understand it because he he listed I for oh it was six or seven possible contradictions and then shows they weren't contradictions but they there weren't six or seven things that anybody points out to his contradictions and so the ones that people do point out as contradictions he didn't didn't deal with and so I'd like to well well I mean you you I know you're well known you know in in debates and talks for rattling off you know for instance differences and discrepancies between the resurrection accounts and those sorts of things and you'll say did was it two women or was it one woman or was it you know was there an angel that wasn't there an angel and so on and so for you does just simply the fact that the different accounts have different details in them about the same general story if you like is that if you like enough to say didn't happen no that is that no what what's going on then notes what's that no the question is if somebody tells a story is the story right or not mm-hmm and if two people tell stories that are at odds with each other not just different of course everybody tells us very differently but it doesn't mean they're both wrong you know four people can tell the same story tell it come very differently and they're just one person's telling one part of it another sorry another one's emphasizing one thing one and so of course that kind of thing happens all the time and that doesn't mean but if you've got stories that have differences that cannot be reconciled with one one says one thing one says yeah not whether there's two women or one women if you if two women go to the tomb in one story and one woman goes through two many others they just say well okay this person's no entering the one but there were two so there are ways to reckon there are other things that simply can't be reconciled give us an a couple of examples and see what people but I would suggest that people listening to this do is not take my word for it or Peter's work more because what people are going to do is people are my side are going to agree with me Eva beers they're going agree with them and so I suggest just don't do that just just do it for yourself get to stories in the Gospels and go through them word for word line for line write down everything that happens and compare your lists and it doesn't matter do it with the birth stories do with the crucifixion stories do with the resurrection just do it yourself and find out are there differences here nah I mean just okay just one example one example that involves Luke the death of Judas Iscariot so Judas in in in Mark Luke and John Judas nothing happens to him after he just disappears in Matthew's Gospel Judas hangs himself and what happens is he goes he feels remorse about what he's done he's betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver he he tries to return the thirty pieces the high priests won't take it so he throws them down in the temple and goes off and hangs himself and the priests then say ah we've got these thirty pieces of silver we can't put him back the Treasury because it's blood money is used to betray blood so so they go off and they buy a field and it's called the field of blood because it's purchased the blood money after you do this was hanged himself Luke also wrote the book of Acts as we were saying and in Chapter one there's a second account of Jesus's death in this account what happens is there's nothing about Judas hanging himself nothing about the priest buying in the field this account Judis goes and buys the field before he dies and he doesn't hang himself he somehow falls headfirst and as his intestines broke break open to bleed all over the ground and so the people in Jerusalem start calling this the field of blood because Judas bled all over it so so those two accounts cannot be right now okay so and before we hear Peter's response to that is the issue then that you know we we we don't know what happens to Judas at all because these accounts as far as you can see I think we can know some things okay I think there really was a Judas I think that he really did betray Jesus to the authorities and I think he probably came to some kind of untimely death that was somehow connected with a field of various led but but we but as to reconciling these two stories they're just different but if you want to read Matthew and say yes that's what really happened or if you want to read Acts that's what really happens helpful to drill down on a specific example sometimes so how do you read these two accounts of Judas's sure I'd like to come to that first but I hope also to come back on the whole question of oral tradition okay that's really um so I think it's really interesting that we've got these two accounts and Bart mentioned two things as he went through the accounting Acts one is he used the word somehow that Judas somehow and the phrases became headlong well that to me is just crying out for some more details we need to explain we need something like vertical elevation Oh Matthew has vertical elevation because he has to hang himself so I'd want to say that the account in acts is is crying out for a bit more and the other issue we got is his intestines how on earth do his intestines start bursting forth I mean like that wouldn't normally happen if you just in fall fell over so in other words I'd want to say you know that makes a lot of sense that as firt so how'd it happen so how'd it happen I'd want to say I don't I think you you can put put the two together probably the data are under determined as in that is I can't there would be multiple scenarios that we're giving one let's say some what's on someone hangs and then the Rope snaps and you know after after after they're dead and their entrails burst I'm not a medic on that but you know yes okay so let me ask this if somebody's hanging in the Rope snaps mm-hmm that's happened before mmm how did they fall down do they fall headfirst well it depends what their thumbs edit and yes it does it depends what they're hanging over what do you mean well I mean if you're hanging over something and there's a rock forward and you're gonna trip on it and you go ahead pull it forward I mean like these things can happen I don't know it sounds like we're doing CSI here you know I think let me just say this yeah it's underdetermined so to reconcile it you have to come up with a completely implausible scenario to reconcile it you can reconcile anything let me just let me give you an exactly how you can reconcile anything right right now in America they're celebrating the moon landing one out of six Americans don't think there was a moon land mm-hmm and so yet people say there is not a moon landing and people say there wasn't moon landing and so well how do you those two and most human beings would say well you know it either is this or it's not that if you really want to you could say oh no you can reconcile that because actually they first didn't get there and so they didn't land but then they'd circle around the earth again and went back and landed the second time so there wasn't and there was now you could do that but like is it really the best explanation but but I mean firstly I'd want to uh say how important is it that we know the exact way in which dude has met his fate and and secondly I are you essentially trying to come up with some theory that I'm just to impossible I'm not trying to say we know exactly how things happened I think there are multiple ways I'm trying to use charity yeah and the same charity I'd want to use on Bart you see Bart a few minutes ago said that some things cannot be reconciled then a few minutes later said you can reconcile anything and I don't want to say I have the charity to say that there's a coherence behind Bart's thinking he'd want to qualify one in the light of the other and the way we should deal with these things is we should you know do the same ancient sources as I would do okay so it's fairly easy what I said I would I would I would like to know a single case in history where somebody was hanged and he died by going headfirst and his guts opened up I don't have one you don't nobody nobody does so is that so either either they are irreconcilable or they're not I mean you obviously feel that there's we you say it's underdetermined so we've got two accounts both in which involve a field both of which involve Judas killing himself you know because he feels you know but essentially I suppose a lot of people might sort of sit back and say well look guys we know he died we know that the he betrayed Jesus does it matter I'm not arguing I'm not arguing that the Gospels are completely unreliable I'm not saying I'm not saying that the Gospels have historical information in them can you trust that what they say about what happened in life of Jesus actually happened or not I'm saying in many cases no you cannot trust that if Peter wants to say that in every case they're trustworthy that would be worth talking about like do you think that there are any mistakes I don't but I think then you explain how your view would be different from a fundamentalist view well I think that's not a very helpful analytical term no I just I don't know where you stand I mean do you think it's completely inerrant what I think that the traditional Christian view is that all Scripture is true that does not mean that the copy that someone has in front of them you know valid but do I follow the belief that when God speaks words of Scripture they are they bear his own character of truthfulness yes so you think everything in the Bible is true there are no mistakes of any kind the word Bible has multiple values a physical value and if I prefer the word Scripture do I believe all Scripture is true yes with no mistakes of any kind anywhere do i yeah I believe that God didn't make any mistakes of any kind I don't think God makes mistakes either but I'm not talking about God you talk anything good exactly but I mean I I do I do need to be able to you express what I do believe and not have words for the moment well I believe that all scripture is true yes I mean and and from that point of view you're willing to look for ways in which that there can be reconciling of what Bart obviously believes are irreconcilable yes not that I'm necessarily that interested in following what because again there are multiple alternatives I mean you can look at this the word he hanged himself you know in in Matthew is just one word in Greek so you ask yourself how much detail is there actually telling you about what actually went on yeah okay but you should explain to people how lexicography works I mean how do we know what it means well we'd need to look and surrounding context and so on but often things are under determined I mean so we go is that word under determined I'd need to have a greater greater look at it but you know you can visualize something from I just want to ask yourself the question you know is this really a defeater and I don't think it is I just wonder what it would take I mean if if you're already committed to the idea that there can't be any mistakes then how would you be open to the idea that there might be a mistake so I think the way I'd look at it is like this it's to do with having a coherent view of well view so I think you'd be pretty skeptical if I proposed a miracle to you because it would be inconsistent with your worldview in the same way I would say I've got lots of positive reasons for thinking that Scripture is miraculous and it all builds up to its climax with Jesus and there's prophecy beforehand and he seems to do lots of remarkable things and so I'm trying trying to make sense of you know yeah things together as I think you would do I have nope I have no problem with that but what I'd like is to be knowledge that's doing theology it's not doing history history has not done history is not done by coming at it with a theological presupposition about what had to happen you look at the evidence and then you see does the evidence move me that way or not you don't approach it by saying this has to be right because I'm saying that that no one who holds to a theological view that say of the authority of Scripture can therefore do proper history I'm saying that if you're going to do proper history you cannot allow your presuppositions god did it take the outcome right and I would say I've never tried to claim that I am doing history I'm often would want to make a distinction between the sorts of things that go on in history departments and what I believe rationally you should trust I mean all sorts of male on female violence have happened for which there is only one witness and you probably can't prove it to a history department but you you should jolly won't believe the victim when she says this has happened you know there's all sorts of things in life that we believe on the basis of one testimony but which won't rise to the criteria the fairly artificial criteria of a history department which is also going to take on the overall worldview that tends to be around in academia at the time what Peter's saying though is a Christian history isn't the same as history in other words if you go to a history department there are there are criteria just as if there's a crime that's committed if there's a crime committed the way you solve the crime is not by asking the victim what happened you have a trial and you look at evidence and you want to go where the evidence goes you don't want to go with what you your gut tells you this has to be right because I'm just gonna trust it is there a sense though in which for you Peter the if you like the secular standards if you like of history are enough to affirm and confirm if you like that the theological stance that you take regarding the Bible I think you've got several different things going on here one is a history department will never lose out well it tends to be weighted towards not believing something so when you know gee our driver first heard sir Godfrey driver of great Hebrew professor the Dead Sea scroll had been discovered he said you know probably not genuine and it turned out to be genuine but his reputation didn't suffer damage when you know Hugh trevor-roper said the Hitler Diaries are probably genuine and they turned out not to be his reputation really took a hit so there is a way in which I think is a bit like hedge fund managing you know that history departments can stack things so that you know skepticism it is more favoured that again is different from what you do as a jury when you're looking at someone that's also different from what you do as a friend if someone to you and says to you that they're a victim and you say I trust you so I think these are all different things my argument is not about whether I can prove something to a history department my argument is about whether I can show that this is rationally able to be trusted but but my the problem is when you get down to the details because when you when you start looking at detailed contradictions of which there are hundreds the only way to reconcile them is to come up with implausible scenarios that never happen and so do you really want to go that route and say that that in fact you know it's just like this is so implausible but it's got to be right because the scripture cannot be wrong so I don't feel a burden to come up with particular reconciliations and harmonies and answers you know the sort of Christian arts a man's style thing because I don't think that's really necessary because I think that life is full of things that I have on their own 1% probability or 2 percent whatever it is and often what I'm looking at is the overall pattern and I recognize that I have some difficulties in my view in terms of how I take Scripture but I think at others who are more skeptical have far more difficulties on their view because you know they have to come to implausible views about that then we maybe we talk about this went on yeah the resurrection or somewhere I'd find them less plausible you know we're gonna go to a quick break and fascinating I'm sorry to interrupt it's a great dialogue at this point but we will talk about oral tradition as well because I think this is significant and the words of Jesus because if you like if there's anything that Christians you know need to rely on it's it's whether Jesus really said the things that he's ascribed to have been said in the Gospels so we'll continue this conversation in a very short moments time if you listen to unbelievable Justin brierley on premier Christian radio and enjoy the conversations between Christians and skeptics and is the perfect app for you for the latest updates podcasts videos articles bonus content and much more download premier unbelievable app today [Music] so continuing our conversation on can we trust the story of Jesus we're looking at the historical reliability of the Gospels but Eman and Peter Williams with me it's been a fantastic discussion so far and we're into part three now and why don't we talk about the words of Jesus folks because you know that's what it often comes down to in the end just in that last segment but you were saying that hey Peter are you doing theology or are you doing history and many people you know who are critical let's say of the historical reliability of the Gospels would say well this is more someone doing theology someone kind of wanting to give Jesus a certain supernatural son of God look and we can't trust that this was actually the words of Jesus that are coming they're being put in his mouth and so on is is that is is that your view that the Gospels in that sense or more a work of theology than history so I don't think I'd put it that way because I think I know that there are there are critics who say that you know it's all just made up and it's just you know putting people's own theological beliefs onto Jesus and I don't think that I mean I think that there there's a lot of material in the Gospels that absolutely goes back to the historical Jesus I think some of the sayings and the Gospels actually go back to the historical Jesus so I so I I don't think that they are just theology I also don't think that they are just history I think it's quite clear that the authors of the New Testament have shifted their stories in line with their theological views and that the storytellers before them did the same thing the these story has been passed along for 30 40 50 years and one person tells it to the next tells the next everybody's telling it in their own way just as we all tell stories in our own way and when you tell it in your own way you put your own framing on it and these are people who are believers in Jesus of course they've got certain ideas about Jesus and so they're framing it and so the task of the historian is to decide which of these sayings of Jesus and which of these activities of Jesus which of these experience of Jesus probably actually happened and which ones have been either modified or made up in the process of the retelling and so I think that it isn't a simple matter of are they theology or the history I think they're both and anybody who thinks that they're pure history I think we'd have to bear the burden proof I mean you write a book called how Jesus became God and of course one of the key claims of the Gospels is Jesus claiming divinity claiming to be God and that takes different manifestations in different Gospels but what's your view is that is your view that anything that looks like Jesus claiming some kind of divine status is more likely an amendment of the Jesus story than an original part I wouldn't I wouldn't put it quite that simply I mean there there are people today who claim to be God and so I don't say they didn't say that because you know somebody wouldn't say that people do say that and so the the issue is always how do you know what Jesus said when it comes to the New Testament Gospels of course have the Matthew Mark Luke and John and as I've sang earlier it looks like Matthew and Luke at both use mark mark is probably our earliest account Matthew Luke or later Matthew Luke appear to have used some other source that we don't have anymore for a number of their sayings of Jesus and scholars would call the source Q and it doesn't matter to my argument whether you think you existed or not but but Luke does say he had earlier sources so it's not impossible they had a source that is some of them Jesus sayings and so what scholars do when trying to figure out what Jesus really said once they acknowledge that maybe he didn't say everything because we know Jesus didn't say everything that's attributed to him in the early church because we have other Gospels there everybody agrees Jesus didn't say these things so somebody's making up stories and the question is and people and people are changing stories and so we have absolute evidence that there's no question about it so the question is whether the four that happens in the four Gospels or not or whether somehow they were protected from ever recording anything that Jesus actually didn't ever say you know were they protected from that and what is striking to most scholars is that when you lay out the sources chronologically over time Jesus starts changing the sorts of things that he says and so for example in Mark and in Q which would be the the sayings in Matthew look not found in Mark those would probably be our earliest sources Jesus principally talks about the kingdom of God that's coming there's a kingdom of God that's coming you need to repent and prepare for it because if you don't you're gonna be destroyed if you are on the side of God you'll enter into this kingdom and you'll be a a glorious existence and so Jesus is preaching about the coming kingdom of God in in mark and Q when you get to the Gospel of John Jesus no longer preaches about the kingdom of God he doesn't tell people to repent in preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God he doesn't say that you you will be destroyed when the came of God comes he the way he talks is different now and rather than talking principally about God in the coming Kingdom he talks about himself who he is and so you get some of the most famous sayings of Jesus the way the truth and the life way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but by me I am the light of the world I am the bread of life before Abraham was I am I am the father are one you get all of these claims many of which have a component of divine identity connect with him he's claiming to be a divine being that's crystal clear in the narrative of John because whenever Jesus will say I and the father are one and the Jews will pick up stones to stone him to death for committing blasphemy you don't have those stories in the earliest Gospels and it's it's striking and you have to explain if Jesus did go around calling himself a divine being you know if that really happened as John says John says it happened and it's it's the major teaching of Jesus in John if that's what happened why isn't it in marker q is it is it that they didn't think it was important to report that part of Jesus teachings or a more plausible explanation for most people for most critical scholars a more plausible explanation is that over time the Christians understanding of Jesus changed and they started seeing him is less of just a human Messiah and more as some kind of divine being over time and and as they saw him that way they recorded his words in those ways and so the later sayings of John are later representations of what later Christians said about Jesus rather than what the earliest Christian and if you think the earliest Christian said it thought that's about you why don't they require those sayings so this developmental idea in the Gospels and the earlier Christian later traditions around Jesus are developing the dear in the words yeah I mean I think this is a great example of showing how so much scholarship while claiming to be historically neutral is basically very philosophically drink driven because I think even as you tease out your chronology in your development I mean it's really interesting how it's all stacking up towards a system in which you don't get Jesus you know claiming as much early on and I think that it's it's been developing for a couple hundred years in it within scholarship and it's so intertwined the historical argumentation and the sort of slight philosophical nudges here and there that it's really really hard to to unpack it but I would just say let's take take mark's gospel example mark begins with this opening you know i'm gonna send my messenger before your face and it's all about you know quoting the Old Testament but with John the Baptist going before the face of Jesus when you know it's about in Malachi that it's from you know the messenger going before the face of God and so it's presenting Jesus as in that place of God next chapter he's forgiving sins a couple of chapters later he's stealing the storm like only God does like and it's calling on themes from Jonah couple of chapters later chapter six he's walking on the water like only God does in job chapter nine and then he gets to the the boat and he says be of courage I am it's pretty dramatic I am there in mark 6 verse 50 it's so it's not just that you know John's I am saying slightly different but they would do is present for them and I'd want to say a lot of people see this as a systematic presentation of Jesus's very very exalted status such that people are wondering you know who is this they're asking this question and the fact that it's doing it through you know a sort of more Socratic method of getting you to think who this is is is not I mean God's the only one who opens the eyes of the blind and that's also something Jesus does you know uniquely in the gospel so I'd want to say that all of these things come together to give you a portrait a very exalted portrait of Jesus so there's a there's a consistency as far as you're concerned between those earlier if you like accounts in mark I think the whole question of development you know we've got to say when we lay out sources and we say this comes before this and this what actually are we basing that on how much is historically verifiable how much of it is philosophical system how much of it is literary system and what's fed into that and I think all of those things have to be laid on the table so that you can be very clear about when you're saying this is this is a fact you know what's it actually based on yeah so I'd love to respond to that I mean yeah I mean when you start out by saying that this chronology the development is based on a chronology that's driven by skepticism I didn't say driven by self skepticism but yeah I think it's it's got an input of that because I was just going on your chronology I mean you you you said earlier that you think mark was the first gospel I haven't said that oh okay you said you thought John was the end of the first Alaska yes that's I have said that which one do you think first I don't have a view okay would you agree John's later than the others yeah yeah okay that's that's the only development I need and I don't see why skepticism has anything to do with it I mean I believe this when I was in heaven Jellicle Christian I know yeah so but then you want to say that it's wrong to say that Jesus isn't portrayed as divine in mark because of all these other things and I know you can go through them one by one no no no it's well I mean there are things you say they aren't true I mean it's not true that only God can heal the blind prophets do it all the time faith healers do it so they do it with the power you know in the Old Testament yes so well and in the New Testament I mean we're in the Old Testament people he owned the blind well in Jewish traditions all over the place yeah but not in the Old Testament yes but why would you say that only God can heal the blind I mean I know people who say they were blind that I've been finding in the Old Testament where are that people who heal blind I don't know I don't know any so but I didn't say anything because I was saying sorry get your pet girl gone testament portrayal only God heals the blind and then Jesus comes along and does it but so do other Jewish healers I think it's significant the way Jesus is portrayed in if you think about it doesn't make somebody divine to be able to heal somebody you have you healers throughout history they aren't God they're empowered by God but I think that the signs just in the message to John the Baptist is one of the things okay so there's just a side but but it doesn't really matter you're saying that mark portrays Jesus as divine and that isn't that has no bearing on what I was saying I didn't deny that I think that mark does see Jesus as divine what I'm asking is what did Jesus himself say about himself now you pointed out things like John the Baptist looking to Jesus Jesus walking in the water Jesus healing the blimey we could talk about each with all those but I'm agreeing I'm agreeing if Mark portrays Jesus as divine my question is did Jesus go around Palestine Galilee and then Judea saying I and the father are one before Abraham was I am I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but by me these are sayings found in the Gospel of John which you agree is the last of the Gospels those sayings are not found in mark which you agree is in the earlier gospel and they're not only found not in mark they're not found in Luke they're not found in Matthew they're not from Q they're not in any of the early sources where Jesus says these things when you pointed out that in Mark's Gospel people continually are asking who is this mm-hmm the answer is never he is God and Jesus himself never says I am God in Matthew Mark Taylor their sources I totally agree on that I mean and that could be also some reasons not to say that but what I want to say is there is precedent for all of the I am saying so for instance Jesus you know I am the bread of life he says in the Synoptics this is my body you know take click this bread he you know says I am The Good Shepherd in John and then he's portraying himself in stories as basically fulfilling the role of the shepherd he says you know I am the light of the world in John in Matthew he says you are the light of the world to his disciples if he's prepared to accept the other lives of the world I let's see why you can't say that he is as well so I think all of these things we can we can we can make connections and I don't think yes the Gospels are about 9 hours long when you read them in English so in this two-hour section of John there are things which aren't in the others but don't build a massive you know castle out of that I mean it seems see for me of course they're gonna be some things that are in one that are mean no I agree with that and I'm not trying to build a castle out because I'm just responding to Justin's question this wouldn't be a point that I would have raised I mean I don't this wouldn't be this is not why I think the Gospels are unreliable so this isn't for me this isn't even the point but I will say that the whole idea of development is that there are things earlier that get developed later and so the the fact that you see things earlier that could lead to John's proclamations is that's what the developmental view is what you don't get is in Matthew Mark and Luke Jesus saying that he's God and my point is if the historical Jesus really did go around saying those things it is inconceivable to me that our earliest sources fail to mention it like they didn't think that part was important this is this would be the most significant thing to say and yet none of them not just smart but Matthew and their sources by the way I mean Scott I don't know what you think but virtually every scholar I know thinks that you've got mark and you've got cue and you've got em and you've got L and then you've got Matthew and you got Luke themselves you've got six sources before John none of them has these things and so are we supposed to think well yeah yeah it was just like a minor detail they decided not to get into I I just completely implausible but I think you know John dozens have Jesus go around saying I am God either so I think I am the father are one before Abraham was I am yeah these are these are big things but you know I mean when you walk up to it I mean okay you may not believe it happen but when it's portrayed as someone walking up to people on the water and then saying I am you know it's a pretty dramatic thing isn't it so now in the Gospel of John the man born blind is asked were you the one who was born blind and he replies eggo Amy sure sure I am sure saying I am is just a way of saying yes yeah but it's not just that when you just walked across the water it's something different walk on the water - yeah yep okay they make him God know again but he was the one who fell down of course I exactly within the story but Peter doesn't go round some but I mean what do you think mark six is about when Jesus walks on the water I mean isn't this portraying each one the guard he I think mark understand Jesus as a divine being if we drill down a little bit on the the Synoptics because obviously John in a way kind of there there are lots of detailed arguments about exactly what John represents in terms of Jesus story but I suppose your argument is that there is an oral tradition before you get to the synoptic Gospels Matthew Mark and Luke especially and that already in that process we're getting a different story of Jesus different sayings of Jesus and things changing before they get written down in that way yeah well it's not just it's just not a hypothetical based on oral and what we know about oil today it's based on the fact that you can compare what this gospel say to each other to each other and see that there are differences what why for you Peter you satisfied that we've got a if you like a historically reliable set of sayings and stories and words of Jesus that haven't really changed a great deal from from what he would have actually said to people so I think it's really the simplest hypothesis so if we look at things that are only in math you're only in Luke is sort of for the sake of what you find is these things fit very well with the early context I mean whoever comes up with the story of the Good Samaritan the rich man and Lazarus you know the prodigal son I mean there's some genius at an early stage and it makes far more sense to me to say this is Jesus these stories also have huge integrity they have very deep Old Testament references they fit Palestinian Judaism so the simplest hypothesis is to say they come with integrity now one of the things that you know as you hear about oral tradition is I think sometimes what Bart is talking about is more like AK Acuras you know actuaries study how long people tend to live and gravestones tell you how long a particular person actually left and I think you can have this actuarial approach to the Gospels where you say well how likely is it stuff got through and I'd want to say well look at the actual text of the Gospels to see whether stuff got through not start with this sort of a priori system of how much can get through based on oral tradition and and I think I'd also want to say Bart to answer you know does he really believe that when people are doing history of Jesus in you know university is that there is no input from naturalistic world views as they work in mainstream universities I think there is you know as I know obviously there were Christians working University but I think it does affect so for instance that would mean well any story or saying that involves merit the miraculous is automatically going to be assumed to have been automatically it's it's simply it's it's a question of subtle bias that will actually show up cumulatively and you know within an academic sociology yeah so a couple of issues there then firstly the oral tradition itself is it really as as as flawed potentially in Jesus's cases as you think no it's great yeah so what I would say is that I I do not approach the Gospels with an opera or review of how oral tradition works I didn't start story studying oral tradition into about five or six years ago and I knew years before that that they were problems in the Gospels because when you compare two accounts with each other they're at odds in ways they can't be reconciled and so the only reason to look at oral tradition for me was to see what why is that and so I didn't didn't approach it with any kind of AA priori sense sense of it I I just started reading the scholarship and if if anyone thinks that the stories about Jesus were preserved intact without change over forty fifty years then I would say two things one is how do you demonstrate that from the fact that you've got Gospels that have differences in them that are irreconcilable secondly what do you say about all this scholarship I might listed a bunch of names earlier of scholars who who aren't they're not interested in showing whether Jesus existed or whether they're just trying to figure out how oral tradition works and every one of them comes to the same conclusion so if you if you don't agree with that scholarship I would like to know what are the what are the flaws in that scholarship because it's it's not just one methodology it's it's literary scholars and anthropologist and I mean and they all come to the same conclusion so yeah okay but I don't know about the other because the other bit was even more important question if the naturalist what may be responding I'm not saying that the studies of all tradition are not correct I'm just saying they may not be very germane we have the four Gospels and you start with the text and say you know we don't know that this comes through a long line of oral tradition we simply don't know that you have the text of the Gospels the Gospels don't come with dates on the question is when we look at the text itself are there signs of reliability and what I'd want to say is because of the consistent pattern of getting Palestinian culture geography religion and so on right it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that what we have in these Gospels is coming through a very long you would say so are you saying then that you don't think there's a sort of as you say telephone game here where is that's what I'm saying so it's not a question of particularly about time I'm agnostic on the question time it's about the quality of the actual text when you look at it are you saying that Luke is not correct that he got these things from oral sources but when when he depends what you mean by all sorts of course yes he spoke to people there yeah exactly but then you can't apply a whole load of about oral traditions to a question of when Luke has gone round and potentially interviewed several people about the same offense you know what Nobby doesn't say doesn't and again I'm saying start with the material it was in the text I think you start with the test that's why I start with the text you look at these two texts and you compare them to one another and you don't seem to be wanting to do that because you want to go gone give me an example I mean the death of Judas we already did yeah but but I'm saying I don't see any reason why these can't have come from it people having detailed conversations of oral tradition let me just say if these Gospels are written 40 or 50 years later unless and Luke tells you that not only that he that he's basing this on things that he's heard and read and that this is how it happens in the book of Acts that it's not a stretch to think that people are telling stories for 40 or 50 years this is not this is what we know and but it's not what you know because the date the Gospels don't come with dates saying written 40 or 50 years all right when do you think Luke was written I don't have it I mean is your English life is it your view that Luke did interview people who were eyewitnesses of yeah the event so in that sense you don't see that there's this 40 or 50 years even talking to people who obviously ha some something yeah I mean the events but it has to be during the lifetime if someone who can be in a 50s and 60s okay so when would it be written sometime in the lifetime of someone who can be 60s at the earliest let's say okay 60s okay at the earlier 3035 years but then when's he doing the interviews he's talking to people well you know I'm saying he says that he has as talked to know oh it doesn't say that what does he say he say the new connects as we received them from those ears he says that many before him wrote an account of these things now and that have come down to us by eyewitnesses and ministers of the word but when he says that he's fully about the other words the other people were basing on I'm and then and so he doesn't say he made of interview people but you know interviewing people but okay I'm not gonna go there but he may have interviewed people he doesn't say he did but even if he did interview people how does that make an accurately yeah well so if he says he followed closely they must be getting it right why don't you see whether he contradicts another source or not why don't you do that sure I'm very happy to do that but I mean as as you know then you just reconcile them by saying I haven't I'm just saying the burden of proof is on you to show that they you know that's exactly why I use the Judas example and as you know I could come up with a hundred other examples you can come up with other examples but but you don't ever deal with these in your book well it's a short book you have a chapter on contradictions 86 pages we don't deal with a single card what I do show is that Jesus deliberately used formal contradictions as part of his teaching device but nobody denies that and I think sometimes somehow people think that because they find this text in this text that they are you know in tension with each other somehow they've falsified I don't think you that the texts are trustworthy but that's not that's not my view at all nobody argues that Jesus couldn't argue paradox so I don't know who you're against but I mean what's interesting to me is is going back to the Judas example you know you're not saying Judas didn't kill himself potentially you're not saying he didn't fundamentalist view reliable there's no mistakes of any kind I am NOT arguing against Christianity I'm not arguing against believers I'm not arguing against people who want to think the Bible has a lot of historical information and I'm saying that if you have a fundamentalist view of the Bible there can be no mistake I just think you do do you have a fundamentalist view of the Bible Peter that seems self-designation I want to use because I would want to say I'm I'm doing the sort of thing that Augustine wouldn't talk about and others you know with a long tradition and cultural knowledge Jerome would do the same and so I see myself as in a tradition of you know Catholic with a small C scholarship you know I wouldn't call Peter a fundamentalist okay I think you Jeff but the reality is a fundamentalist is always the guy who's to the right of you okay fundament are hardcore fundamentalist very rarely admit that their fundamentalist because it's become a bad word courses used to be a positive word yeah when when I was in college in the 1970s we saw positive we were fundamentalist because I meant we've subscribed to the fundamentals one of which was the Bible has no mistakes of any kind whatsoever obviously that's that you you came to shed that view and indeed your faith all together obviously Peter feels that there's enough there and I see feel like secular historical standard that gives him cause to trust it let me just say live the faith beliefs are yes can I just say about that I mean the point he keeps coming back to is the one we talk about around people need to pay attention to that is if somebody gets the geography right does that mean the stories are true but the second thing I'll say is that I don't know if we're finishing up we are finishing up why not use this as your as your final thoughts as we start to wrap this all right so I think there are different reasons that people engage in this kind of scholarship on the Bible most very firm believers are interested in this subject because they want to be confirmed in their beliefs they think something they're just convinced it's true and they want to hear somebody who gives them some reason to think well they may have run into about em and he's closed them to doubt somebody they might and but they want to know why he's wrong and why they're right so that's called confirmation bias and we all have it we agree with the people that agree with us even we don't care whether the it's a plausible argument you just want to agree with somebody who's like smart and he says this my god that guy's smart I'm gonna believe it too so that's how I was for my early life absolutely I studied apologetics I studied the Bible the reason I went in his first place was to confirm what I believe so I could convince other people and convert convert them to faith in Jesus that's why I was doing it the other reason to do this kind of study is to decide what you think is right rather than simply confirm that you're already right and that means having an open mind to possibly changing it is very difficult and emotionally stressful to change what you believe about something as fundamental as who Jesus is and what the Bible is it is highly traumatic most people who approach scholarship of the Bible simply aren't willing to do it because they don't they don't want to be proved wrong and they are gonna believe someone else but they might believe themselves when they find out actually I was wrong about this when I went through this I just at one point in my life I finally just said look I'm just gonna go wherever I think the truth leads me because a Gustin said that paraphrase all truth is God's truth if it's true it comes from God and so you shouldn't be afraid of it it may cause emotional trouble but you shouldn't be afraid of the truth and I was willing to change my mind if it went that way and I just think people ought to do that I think it's better to see what the evidence is rather than simply find things that confirm what you've thought since you were 14 years old okay final thoughts Lisa well enjoyed our conversation I suppose what I would say is in my own experience you know were working in scholarship not as long as Bart buffer still ver yeah few decades is that I have found that you know I'm at a stage where perhaps I'm just very very guilty of confirmation bias but I think I'm finding more and more reasons to believe and I see a convergence of things on the person of Jesus we haven't talked a lot about the miraculous but you know this guy who just happens to to die in the capital of this you know by the capital of this remarkable people with the Jews in ways that seem to fit with books that have been written beforehand in prophecy and that you know happens to die around Passover time only sort of things come together plus happens to be the first guy credited with the Golden Rule Plus happens to you know Q said he's not the the positive golden rule sorry no no in your footnote you said he's not you pointed to a Chinese scholar 200 years negative you know there are all these things that are just remarkable in terms of stories credit to Jesus so I think there's a pattern of of convergence of things that tell you yes this is a a person who can be trusted and books about him that can be trusted so you know I'm very positive but you know I'm very delighted to have this engagement thank you both okay thanks being great to have you both should we shake hands great thank you both but and Peter for being with me on the show today thank you for more debates updates and bonus content sign up at the big conversation dot show

Channel: Unbelievable?

Views: 263,380

Rating: 4.8043256 out of 5

Keywords: unbelievable, justin brierley, premier christian radio, christianity, atheism, philosophy, faith, theology, God, apologetics, Jesus, debate, Bart Ehrman, Peter J Williams, Bible, Theology, history, new testament, Gospels, resurrection

Id: ZuZPPGvF_2I

Length: 89min 0sec (5340 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019