One of the strongest arguments for Christianity comes from the martyrdom of the apostles. It doesn't prove the "whole case", but it does establish a very important link in the chain. The basic premise is this:
Christian tradition holds that eleven out of the twelve apostles (Judas Iscariot killed himself, but he was replaced by Matthias, bringing the number back up to twelve) died a martyr's death for their faith. John is the one exception. We all know of people who have died for things that turned out to be a lie. Any number of cult followers die because they sincerely believe some piece of propaganda that their leader has fed them. But the position of the original Christian apostles is critically different. These apostles claimed that they personally saw the risen Jesus. They were not told this and just gullibly believed it. They claimed to be eye witnesses.
The claim that is sometimes lodged against Christianity is quite simply that these early church leaders made it up. In order to form this new church, they came up with a joint story and started spreading it around the world. Christians, though, respond that this is nonsense. What motive did these men have for making this story up? Would they get power? Honor? Prestige?
No. Instead they were ostracized, shunned from society, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. All these men had to do to avoid this fate would be to fess up; admit that the story wasn't true and renounce this new religion they were attempting to found. But in spite of the horrible fate that awaited them, they never changed their story. At a minimum, we can conclude that these men honestly believed that they had seen Jesus die, then come back to life three days later.
One objection lodged against this Christian argument is that there is supposedly no evidence that the early Christian fathers ever actually died for their faith. There is supposedly no evidence of anyone who ever claims to have seen the risen Christ who was then executed for preaching their beliefs.
So is there any evidence to support the Christian martyrdom claims? That is the point of this post. I will admit for starters that we do not have contemporaneous documentary evidence of the martyrdom of all the apostles. But I will argue that the evidence we do have makes it truly ridiculous to claim that these men did not suffer greatly and in all likelihood die for their beliefs.
Let's start with James, the brother of John. James was one of the first apostles to join Jesus. The two brothers were fishing with their father Zebedee when Jesus called to them and they followed Him (Matthew 4:21-22). It certainly appears that James was with the rest of the disciples when Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection because the only disciple mentioned who was not there was Thomas (John 20:19-31). Plus, the Bible references many other appearances to the disciples as a group.
Acts 12:1-2 records the following:
"It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword."
Keep in mind that the Bible is a collection of books written during the same generation when these events took place. You can't exactly go around spreading rumors that James was executed by Herod when there are still people around to say, "No, he didn't, he fell off a cliff." Or worse yet, "He's not dead, I just had lunch with him last week!"
So there's one of the early church fathers. How about others?
What about James, the brother of Jesus? He was not one of the twelve. In fact, when Jesus was alive James did not believe He was the Christ. But he became a believer after Jesus was resurrected and was soon the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. In 1 Corinthians 15:7, Paul records that Jesus "appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also." Because Paul records that Jesus appeared to James in addition to "all the apostles", he cannot be referring to either James the brother of John or James son of Alphaeus, as both of these men were among the apostles. The only other James intricately involved in the early church who would be worth mentioning was James, the brother of Jesus. So he clearly saw the resurrected Christ.
Did he die for his faith? Yes he did. And this time his death is recorded by someone who was no friend to Christianity.
Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived from 37-101 A.D. He was not a Christian. But he was writing during the time that Christianity was first spreading around the Roman Empire.
In his work "Antiquities", Book XX, Chapter 9, Part 1, Josephus made the following entry:
"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned."
This isn't the only record of James' martyrdom. Hegesippus was a Christian historian who lived from 110-180 A.D., within a generation of the church fathers (some estimates have John the apostle living until approximately 90 A.D.). Hegesippus' works are unfortunately lost, but they were not lost yet at the time another Christian historian was writing. Eusebius lived from 275 - 339 A.D., and he quoted several passages from Hegesippus in his works. One quote comes from the fifth book of Hegesippus' "Memoirs", and it says:
"12. The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him and said: 'You just one, in whom we ought all to have confidence, forasmuch as the people are led astray after Jesus, the crucified one, declare to us, what is the gate of Jesus.'
13. And he answered with a loud voice, 'Why do you ask me concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? He himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of heaven.'
14. And when many were fully convinced and gloried in the testimony of James, and said, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' these same Scribes and Pharisees said again to one another, 'We have done badly in supplying such testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, in order that they may be afraid to believe him.'
15. And they cried out, saying, 'Oh! oh! the just man is also in error.' And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, 'Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.'
16. So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, 'Let us stone James the Just.' And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, 'I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"
Eusebius, Book II, Chapter 23, Parts 12-16.
There is certainly more detail in Hegesippus' version, but both end up with James being stoned.
So contrary to some assertions, we do have documentary evidence of the martyrdom of both James the brother of John and James the brother of Jesus. And understand that this treatment of Christian leaders was perfectly consistent with what we know about how Christians as a whole were being treated at the time.
Take, for example, this passage from Tacitus, a Roman (non-Christian) historian who lived from 55 - 117 A.D.:
"But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace."
The "conflagration" Tacitus is referring to is the burning of Rome, for which Emperor Nero blamed the Christians and inflicted "the most exquisite tortures" upon them.
Nero was Emperor from 54-68 A.D., the same time period when the early church fathers were spreading the Christian gospel. So it is during the lives of the early apostles that these "exquisite tortures" are taking place.
Considering the violent hatred that was spreading against Christianity, it defies reason to believe that the early apostles were not, at a minimum, heavily persecuted for their beliefs, and in all likelihood killed just like church tradition says they were (For all the persecutions that Paul faced even before he was martyred see 2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
The point of the argument holds true. Even if these apostles somehow escaped personal execution (a proposition that seems extremely unlikely considering the evidence), they clearly saw Christians being tortured and killed all around them. They must have lived every single day of their lives in fear that they would be next. They had every incentive to recant this "lie" if that is really what it was. But they didn't. All records we have show them continuing to preaching the gospel without even one record of any of them backing down.
People sometimes die for something that is untrue. But it is extremely unlikely that such a large group of people would be willing to be imprisoned, tortured, and killed over something they KNEW to be a lie. That's because they didn't make it up. After Jesus' death, these men clearly saw someone who, at a mimimum, we can conclude they believed to be the same man they had followed around and learned from for three years during Jesus' earthly ministry.
God bless.
67 comments:
Ten Minas Ministries,
You mention what people of that time would or would not have done. May I recommend Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels by Bruce Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh?
And if my recommendation is not enough, I would note both Richard Carrier AND J.P. Holding strongly recommend this book. Anyone familiar with the polar opposites of these two individuals and seeing they both all but mandate the book as required reading should cause us to rush out and do the same.
I have written at a little length on the subject, entitling it Die for a Lie won’t Fly.
Basically our problem is two-fold: 1) we don’t know how the disciples died and 2) we don’t know why. The tales regarding the disciples’ death are very late (more than 100 years) legend and myth. A good resource showing the various accounts and when these accounts appear is here.
Worse, other writers who wrote regarding martyrdom between the time of the disciples and the late tradition do not record their deaths. 1 Clement is particularly troubling—only mentioning Peter and Paul. Secondly, the traditions contradict each other.
You use Acts, yet we would first need to establish when it was written and secondly whether it is historically accurate. The more I dig in Acts, the more inaccuracies I find. It being wrong on things we can confirm does not instill confidence it is correct on things we cannot.
Secondly, even using Acts, we are unable to establish the reason James, son of Zebedee died, or whether recanting would have changed his circumstances. It is curious the author, while spending some length on Stephen’s martyrdom, only makes passing mention of James when introducing a story about Peter.
(Note: If you read my article, you will see the difference between a person being a Martyr and “die for a lie.” The “die for a lie” only applies to those who would have seen a physically resurrected Jesus. We have Christian martyrs (and Muslim martyrs) today, yet they do not establish any truth by their death. In the same way, a person who died in the first century, and even was a martyr, but was not given a chance to recant AND save their life is not helpful to this argument.)
James the Just is even more problematic. According to Josephus, he was killed as a political patsy. Nothing whatsoever to do with his beliefs. Also curious – Josephus speaks favorably of James the Just, indicating he was a pious Jew, supported by the Pharisees. Does that sound like a Christian dying for their belief.
Ten Minas Ministries: This isn't the only record of James' martyrdom. Hegesippus was a Christian historian who lived from 110-180 A.D., within a generation of the church fathers (some estimates have John the apostle living until approximately 90 A.D.).
Please don’t do that. If you are going to use Hegesippus, at least be accurate as to the date. While it is technically true Hegessippus would have been born within 40 years of the possible death of a Disciple, this gives the impression his writing was close to the events recorded.
James the Just’s death was 64 C.E. Hegesippus wrote some time between 165-175 C.E. His writing was at least one hundred years later.
Further, I…er…cannot help but note you did not complete the quote of Hegesippus. If one is interested, the entire quote is here. Hegesippus seems to be copying from the Gnostic Apocalypse of James in which James is thrown down from a height, lives, is stones, lives, has a rock put on his stomach, lives, is stood upon by the priests, lives and finally is stoned and killed.
Hegesippus, if one continues reading the quote, sees that James the Just is killed by a fuller’s club. Not stoning.
Do you accept the Apocalypse of James as canonical? No? But you accept a Christian historian quoting from the Apocalypse as accurate? When that historian contradicts both Josephus and the Apocalypse?
Tacitus actually hurts this argument because the Christians were not being killed for their beliefs, but rather as scapegoats regardless of what they believed or would have recanted. I cover that in my article as well.
I have met a fellow on-line who this was the turning point in his deconversion. When he discovered how mythical and little information this claim was based upon, he started to dig through more of Christianity.
Time only permits a few brief comments.
First of all, I agree that the "die for a lie" argument requires people who actually saw the resurrected Christ. That's why I was careful to establish that for both of the examples I gave.
No, I don't accept the Apocalypse of James as canonical. That means I am open to it containing errors. Of course, I don't accept any non-scriptural historical document as canonical. So following your logic, does that mean that I am not allowed to take anything from them? Ok then, so much for history. I guess the burning of Rome never happened because, after all, we cannot trust that everything said in these historic documents is accurate.
I don't care so much about every specific detail. The point (for James, brother of Jesus), is that we have two different documents both claiming James was killed along with Christian tradition. You say Josephus labels him as a pious Jew. So now is Josephus canonical for you? I know you will disagree with me on this, but the Bible has a book written by James himself that shows pretty clearly he was a Christian.
"Tacitus actually hurts this argument because the Christians were not being killed for their beliefs, but rather as scapegoats regardless of what they believed or would have recanted."
Um, and what exactly do you think determines whether or not someone is a "Christian"? Last I checked it was their beliefs. So Nero is persecuting "Christians", a category that is defined by their beliefs, and you don't think belief had anything to do with it? Tacitus doesn't say Nero called out specific Christians. It says he blamed Christians as a whole (i.e., see this group of people trying to stir up trouble and burnign the city). Seems to me that the easiest way out of this would be to say, "I'm not one of them."
It all boils down to this:
True or false. The early Christian church, at least until the time of Constantine was HEAVILY persecuted, including imprisonment, torture and death.
If you say true, then it seems non-sensical to me for you to try to argue that while Christians as a whole were persecuted, somehow the original apostles escaped this, and didn't even live in fear for their lives.
If you say false, then you might as well throw out everything we learn about history from ancient documents, because you are applying a double standard. Even most secular historians agree that the early history of Christianity was marked by heavy persecution.
Ken
Ten Minas Ministries,
Sometimes this medium is frustrating. There is so much to talk about on this subject and typing takes so long. A face-to-face conversation would be more fulfilling. But it is what we have, so enough of my whining…
What I so commonly see with the non-canonical Christian writings within the first centuries is when the Christian wants something within to be true—they assume it to be true. When they don’t—they dismiss it as Gnostic, or non-Orthodoxy, or too late, or non-canonical, or whatever they desire.
When questioned as to how they determine what is true within the writings, it boils down to “If I like it—I accept it as true. If I don’t—I reject it as false.” This is obviously both a biased and horrid method. I wish I could show you this is so, SO contrary to what you do within your professional life—why do it to determine truth within your private life?
Imagine a client came to you and showed you letters from the opposing party. Your client shows you a letter that is favorable to your position. Yet in looking at other letters, you find some that are not favorable to your position.
You: What about those letters?
Client: Oh, he’s lying in them.
You: How do we demonstrate that?
Client: Because I said so.
You: So every letter which favors our position, you are going to say is true, and every letter which does not favor our position, you are going to say he is lying?
Client: Yep.
You: Don’t you think the jury would find you a bit biased?
Client: Maybe…
You: So all we have is your mere say-so it just happens, coincidently, when it favors you it is true, when it does not, it is a lie?
What method are you using to accept the factual claims in the 2nd Apocalypse of James, but not the factual claims in the Protevangelium of James? Or the 1st Apocalypse of James? Or the Infancy Gospel of Thomas? Or the Gospel of Peter?
You are quite correct you take “anything” from whatever writings you desire. Yet what I see (and I am trying to be straightforward, without being too harsh) is when you like it—you accept it. When you don’t—you reject it.
Isn’t that way too much bias in determining history?
I suspect (but perhaps am wrong) until I provided a response you did not know Hegesippus obtained his “history” from the combination of a Gnostic Gospel and the Gospel of Matthew. How reliable do you consider that? What method do you use to accept the historical claims of the 2nd Apocalypse of James, but not the Protevangelium of James?
Further, this is a great demonstration of how myths develop—especially surrounding the death of the Apostles. Look how the story of James’ death grows over 100 years.
Josephus: Stoned.
2nd Apocalypse: Thrown from height, then stoned.
Hegesippus: Thrown from height, then stoned, then struck with a club.
I didn’t bother to go into the problems of whether the passage from Josephus refers to the actual brother of Jesus, or whether that was a later Christian addition. But it IS important when looking at this claim “die for a lie.” James, according to Josephus, was an active practicing Jew. Not a Christian. (Did the persecution of Christians by Jews as alleged by Christians cease by 64 C.E.?) There is nothing within the account that would indicate any Christian belief whatsoever. Worse, the Pharisees supported James—would they support Christians?
I am sorry, but I cannot remotely imagine in your practice you would ever say, “I don't care so much about every specific detail.” You and I know better—it is the details that trip up stories. It is those small cracks of stories that do not quite align that can end up breaking the story wide open. “If the glove doesn’t fit…” A minor detail in a long, drawn out case—yet that minor detail caused the prosecutor’s case fall down.
Further, how can you stay consistent in this? Again—do you agree with the factual claims of the Protevangelium? Or would you start to look at “specific detail”? What of the Gospel of Thomas? Or the Gospel of Judas? Or the Didache? Or 1 Clement? Or Epistle of Barnabas?
Ten Minas Ministries: Of course, I don't accept any non-scriptural historical document as canonical. So following your logic, does that mean that I am not allowed to take anything from them? Ok then, so much for history. I guess the burning of Rome never happened because, after all, we cannot trust that everything said in these historic documents is accurate.
Sigh. I enjoy our discussions—I really do. But is this called for? Is life a dichotomy? We either accept ALL ancient documents or NONE of them? Come on! We do what historians do—gauge the document by who created it, who it was written to, when it was written, the purpose, the preservation, etc.
You can take whatever you want from any document you choose—I would just love to see a method in which you explain how you determine historical detail from the non-canonical works which happens…just happens…to align perfectly with your predetermination of what happened.
Let me explain what I meant by Tacitus for a moment.
Imagine tomorrow I flip my lid. I decide to kill all Christians whose name starts with “G.” And I go on a rampage killing George’s and Greg’s and Gary’s, and Geraldine’s. All Christians. All martyrs—they were killed for their belief.
But what does that say about their belief? Nothing! They were not given any chance to recant. I didn’t enquire, telling them I would kill them if they stay a Christian and if they denounce Christ I would not. I simply went on a killing spree.
Absolutely (assuming Tacitus is true [issues there, too.]) the Christians in Rome were killed for their belief—but the question of recanting or not to avoid their death is not present. They were dead once the decree went out.
My article addresses this issue. A study of the Salem Witch Trials would be enlightening. Once you start a mob mentality, there is no stopping it regardless of what a person says or does not say. If Nero declared they were to die as scapegoats, it would do NO GOOD to recant, since they were already under a death sentence.
Further, it would have little effect on other Christians—they weren’t in Rome. Why would Nero go after them?
Finally, I should note Pliny the Younger DID indicate Christians who recanted. Something unrecorded in Christian literature.
Ten Minas Ministries: It all boils down to this:
True or false. The early Christian church, at least until the time of Constantine was HEAVILY persecuted, including imprisonment, torture and death.
Again with the dichotomy. The short answer is: “True AND False.” (Odd you went up to 300 C.E. For this argument we generally focus on First Century only.) At certain times and locales the Christian church was persecuted. At certain times and locales the Christian Church was not. At certain times and locales the Christian church was HEAVILY persecuted.
The problem is finding persecution within the very early Church. Yes, I know Acts claims there was persecution by the Jews, but we don’t find that in any other history. Only the Christians claim they were being persecuted. Again, I question the historical viability of Acts. For example, in this regard, why did the author modify Paul’s claim the local authorities were chasing him in Damascus to claiming it was the Jews? In fact, if you read through Acts, over and over the author blames the Jews, whereas the Romans are the “good guys.” They are the ones protecting the Christians!
It comes across as a polemic against the Jews.
And I should note “secular historians” are starting to veer away from claims about the Early Christian Church. There is too much we do not know.
There is so much more to discuss—Pliny the Younger’s complete lack of knowledge of Christianity seems bizarre in light of how much the Christians claim they were being persecuted. No other historian discussing Jewish persecution of Christianity. 1 Clement calling Peter and Paul martyrs, yet indicating Paul went to Spain. No mention of either dying in Rome, nor of any other Apostle being martyred.
"When questioned as to how they determine what is true within the writings, it boils down to 'If I like it—I accept it as true. If I don’t—I reject it as false.' This is obviously both a biased and horrid method. I wish I could show you this is so, SO contrary to what you do within your professional life—why do it to determine truth within your private life?"
I agree that this method would be biased, and also contrary to what I do in my legal practice. Unfortunately for your argument, it is also not what I am doing with the historical documents. Your simple declaration that this is so doesn't make it so.
If you really think that every single detail needs to match up perfectly in order to win a case, I think some juries are going to give you a surprise. Juries look for a common denominator. You may have three witnesses testify to the same event. They will all agree on the central theme, although the peripheral details may differ. In fact, if they all agree in every gory detail, it may very well appear like collusion. I can tell you that I win jury trials all the time even when every single detail does not match up.
So look at the three stories you gave of James:
"Josephus: Stoned.
2nd Apocalypse: Thrown from height, then stoned.
Hegesippus: Thrown from height, then stoned, then struck with a club."
Notice anything they all share? He was stoned. That's the central detail. That's what I look for in these historical documents, and its the same thing I (and juries) look for in the legal system: a common denominator.
So it is not a matter of simply accepting what we like and denying what we don't. I find that is often an unfair stereotype that is made against Christians all the time and it is simply without basis. Look back at what I originally said about James:
"There is certainly more detail in Hegesippus' version, but both end up with James being stoned."
Did I say anything about him being thrown down from the temple? Did I say anything about him being beaten with a club? No. Those facts certainly would have been favorable to my position. All I advocated is that there was a common theme of stoning. But you won't even accept that one basic fact. That is my point about setting a double standard. In any other context, if you had three different historical records that all shared one common detail, you would accept that this detail probably happened, even if they disagreed in other respects. But still you deny that James was stoned, grasping at straws that historians do not grasp for in other contexts.
"Yes, I know Acts claims there was persecution by the Jews, but we don’t find that in any other history. Only the Christians claim they were being persecuted."
First of all, this is a false statement. Do I have to recite the quote from Josephus again?
But let's assume for the moment that this is true.
So much for victim testimony in criminal trials. If we are just going to automatically discount anything said by someone claiming they were the victim of some negative action, a lot of defense attorneys will be very happy.
Are we rejecting these authors because their claims of persecution could be interpreted as favorable to Christianity? I guess we would have to throw out huge portions of Josephus whenever he wrote anything that could be considered favorable to the Jews.
Besides, claiming that your fellow adherents are regularly beaten, imprisoned and killed is not exactly an effective evangelism tool for a new blossoming church if it isn't true. You want us to believe that even though life in many respects and in many places was hunky-dory, early Christians were making up stories of martyrdom ... why? Because they thought people would be saying, "Wait, you mean if I become a Christian I get the chance to be boiled alive in a giant pot? Yippee! I've always wanted a hot tub."
Also, I might point out that this standard would allow you to automatically reject anything unfavorable to your position even while you argue that I cannot do the same.
You also shifted the focus of your comment. You started out by saying that the "author of Acts" recorded persecution and said that the persecution is not recorded in "any other history." This statement, by itself is blatantly false, because it would be contrasting the book of Acts with every other historical document. You would, of course, be ignoring the histories we get from Paul and Peter, just to name two. You then go on to say only "Christians" claim they were persecuted, thus including Paul and Peter, even though your original statement appeared to be claiming that Acts was the only record anywhere, Christian or otherwise, of early persecution. Now you are contrasting Christian writings with non-Christian writings. Of course, you have to reject all the Christian writings, because the moment you include them your entire argument falls apart.
So you think the author of Acts (who I will say is Luke, but I know you will probably disagree with me) is a liar?
How about Paul? He claimed to be imprisoned, beaten and stoned?
And let's not forget Peter, who wrote to the Christian "diaspora" encouraging them against persecution.
We may even want to include James, would encouraged his readers to persevere under trial in order to receive “the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
So in order for your position to hold any weight, all these documents have to be forgeries (bearing in mind that 1/3 of the New Testament was written by Paul, not just one letter; and he discusses his persecution in several) or else all these men have to be liars.
In reality, you have to reject everything written by a Christian author in order to make it appear that you even have a leg to stand on. Because if we include those authors, the evidence is overwhelming that this persecution was taking place.
Keep in mind that I am not claiming to have concrete written accounts of the martyrdom of all the apostles. All I am saying is that if the persecution of the Christian church was in fact happening (whether by the Jews, the Roman Empire, or both), it is extremely unlikely that the apostles escaped it. You only get around this point by claiming the persecution didn't happen (or in your case by trying to argue that it both did and didn't happen).
Your recantation argument doesn't hold up when there is an environment of persecution. You use the examples of a sudden serial rampage or the Salem Witch trials.
What is missing from your first example? An environment of persecution that would have put the victims on notice that they were at risk. But can you honestly say, if we believe that the letters of Paul and Peter are genuine, that they were not aware of the risk they put themselves in each and every day by continuing to preach? And yet you want to claim they did not have an opportunity to recant? They had plenty of opportunity. You don't need to be asked a question "at the hangman's noose" in order to be afraid for your life and back down. Under your argument, I could move to Saudi Arabia right now, where gathering as a Christian church is punishable by death, and put up flyers announcing a Sunday morning Bible study, but not realize that I could be killed by doing so and it might not be in my best interests. As long as they did not ask me to recant while I am facing the firing squad, I did not have the opportunity?
What is missing from your second example? The victims of the Salem Witch trials were not going around telling everyone openly that they were witches. How exactly would they have recanted when they weren't making any declarations in the first place that they could recant?
I'm sorry, but this "no opportunity to recant" argument strikes me as preposterous. Again, you simply HAVE to fall back on the position that the persecution wasn't happening, because if it was, they had plenty of opportunity to recant, or at least to stop doing what they were doing and go find a comfortable place to hole up somewhere. These men were not blind to what was going on around them.
You can argue details all you want, but in all likelihood a jury is still going to decide against you if all the witnesses share a common theme. Was the early Christian church heavily persecuted? If you want to make it geographical, fine. Was the early Christian church heavily persecuted in places where the apostles were located, such that they were at risk?
I believe the evidence clearly answers these questions "yes". Given that, the martyrdom of the apostles, or at least the very heavy and dangerous persecution of the apostles, seems extremely likely.
Ten Minas Ministries,
I started to write out a lengthy response, but it was too acerbic. I tried again, and found flames flying from my fingers.
I don’t think it will help any. So I will simply say there are numerous misstatements about my position.
I can only suggest the lurker actually read the accounts for themselves, and do their own research in the development of the myths surrounding the Apostles’ supposed martyrdom.
My sincere apologies if any of my comments came across as acerbic. The unfortunate reality of this type of forum is that tone of voice gets lost. It was certainly not my intention to offend, only to squarely address the issues.
To the extent I may have inadvertently caused any offense, I apologize.
Ken
Jesus 1 : dagoods 0
What happened to Judas, John, Simon the Zealot & Philip? Did these desciples die for their faith, as the other eight desciples did?
Robert
midntministries@aol.com
First, keep in mind that any possible specifics I can give are based upon Christian tradition. These traditions are not as definitively attested to as the deaths of James the brother of John and James the brother of Jesus that I discussed in my original post. But as I argued before, there is plenty of evidence for us to conclude that (leaving the specifics aside) at least the general fact of the martyrdoms is likely to be true.
Now to the specific people you asked about:
I assume by "Judas" you are referring to the one commonly translated "Jude", sometimes believed to also be named "Thaddeus". This would be in contrast to Judas Iscariot. The most common belief is that both he and Simon the Zealot (someone else you asked about) were killed in Beirut, Lebanon. One possibility for Jude is that he was killed by arrows when he refused to recant his faith. There are a few less common versions of Simon's death, including being crucified in Samaria, sawn in half in Persia or killed during a Jewish revolt in Rome.
As for John, most Christian historians believe he was the only of the 12 apostles who was not martyred. There is some question about him being boiled alive, although some people concede that this happened but believe that John lived through it.
Finally, Philip is generally believed to have been crucified in Hieropolis, Greece (although there is some confusion as to whether this was Philip the apostle or Philip the deacon).
I hope that answers your questions. Thank you and God bless.
Ken
Praise God!
Brother Ken, Dagood and other friends who are reading:
If it might be of any use, let me just quickly state a 'Hindu tradition' for a difference (so atleast you will have 1 independent tradition testifying to the martyrdom of one of the apostles).
According to Indian history / tradition, we record that Apostle Thomas (who first brought the message of my sweet saviour to gentiles like me in India) was mercilessly killed by my fellow countrymen in the metropolitan limits of Chennai / Madras. If you are there in Chennai, please look for a place called 'Saint. Thomas Mount', where tradition says he was chased up, speared and killed - because he wouldn't stop telling people that he saw a dead man alive after three days and that he went up to heaven.
Let me also quickly state that in India, there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to my Hindu friends, in claiming something that never happened in History esp when it comes to vindicating Christian gospel.
Thank you ServantOfChrist.
Actually, I was aware of the Saint Thomas Mount and it is someplace I would love to visit someday. For skeptics like Dagoods, it is not likely to hold much weight because it is based upon "tradition" and we do not have contemporaneous documentation of Thomas' martyrdom. But I was aware that the traditional location is marked in India.
Would you mind too much if I asked you to explain your final comment in a bit more detail; i.e., "there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to my Hindu friends, in claiming something that never happened in History esp when it comes to vindicating Christian gospel."
I'd love to get some insights from an "insider", so to speak. Woould there be no benefit simply because they have a view of history that allows for contradiction, they don't accept history in general, or for some other reason?
Thank you. God bless.
Ken
Ken,
Sorry - I think my statement was wrong, thanks to my poor English.
What I really meant was -- "There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to my Hindu friends, in claiming Apostle Thomas' martyrdom as part of Indian History especially because it vindicates Christian gospel, and goes against the Hindu Pantheism. _YET_ they do claim that it is true - and that only tells any honest person one TRUTH and that is - Thomas WAS REALLY a martyr for the gospel that he claimed to have seen".
I'm not really sure if I can divert the attention of this specific discussion by typing in one specific HINDU VEDA content which emphatically points to - the Indian sages waiting for our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ; but if Ken allows I'm more than glad to share that here.
God bless.
A bond servant of Christ and the gospel.
Thank you for your comments. I would love if you would share the passage from the Vedas that you are referring to! I think this is a unique opportunity for myself and anyone else who reads this to learn from someone who is far more familiar with the culture in India than we are here in the west. I wouldn't dream of passing up that chance! Thank you very much. God bless.
Ken
Thank you Ken - for giving me this opportunity.
The following is a called a 'Naamavali' (Naamavali is basically a list of names given to the glorious God, whom sages over the years tried to seek and find):
Transliteration (from Sanskrit):
Oum! Brahma putraya namaha!
Oum! Kanni Suththaya namaha!
Oum! Pancha kayaya namaha!
Oum! Viruchcha soola arundhaya namaha!
Oum! Mirudham jayaya namaha!
Oum! Namachivaya namaha!
Oum! Sadha sivaya namaha!
Translation:
(1) Oum! Brahma putraya namaha!
Praises! Son of the Father, I praise You!
(2) Oum! Kanni Suththaya namaha!
Praises! The Virgin born, I praise You!
(3) Oum! Pancha kayaya namaha!
Praises! The One who bore five wounds, I praise You!
(4) Oum! Viruchcha soola arundhaya namaha!
Praises! The One who hung on a tree, I praise You!
(5) Oum! Mirudham jayaya namaha!
Praises! The One who reigned victorious over death, I praise You!
(6) Oum! Namachivaya namaha!
Praises! The Loving One, I praise You!
(7) Oum! Sadha sivaya namaha!
Praises! The Everloving One, I praise You!
My Comments:
(2), (3), (4) and (5) are very candid descriptions which none of the Millions of Hindu Gods match. Only Christ Jesus emphatically fits in the description. That doesn't surprise me, as I understand that Hindu practices over the years had taken in both mythology and verifiable history into its folds (and through this particular Naamavali, I see that it has also taken in, the Christian Gospel into its fold).
It is important to note that this Naamavali is recited by Hindu priests often in Hindu temples. Unfortunately, many priests being ignorant of Sanskrit, don't really know the meaning of many things they recite :)
Thanks again Ken, for giving me an opportunity to quote this.
A bond servant of Christ and the glorious Gospel,
Arul.
Ten Minas Ministries: For skeptics like Dagoods, it is not likely to hold much weight because it is based upon "tradition" and we do not have contemporaneous documentation of Thomas' martyrdom.
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*shrug* Has nothing to do with “skeptics like” me. It is accepted methodology among historians (when all things are equal) to grant greater weight to documentation contemporary to the event as compared to later legendary development. Traditions have proven notoriously biased.
In fact, when discussing with Christians—it is the same historical method they employ as well. As long as we are talking about Gettysburg, or the industrial revolution, or the history of Chinese vases. Only when we begin to discuss Christian claims, the Christian abandons the traditional historical method and embraces confirmation bias: First come to conclusion and then look for proof.
Because I see this switch in methodology when it comes to Christian claims, it only appears I am skeptical. Actually, I haven’t changed positions—the Christian has simply decided to believe anything supporting what they want to hear and then complains when I maintain the same critique I would of any other historical claim.
Luke 10:21
[ Jesus Rejoices in the Spirit ] In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.
DagoodS,
I did not mean by my comments to suggest that refusing to accept "traditions" as authoritative was a methodology limited to "skeptics." I was only trying to point out, as I believe to be correct, that appealing solely to tradition as an apologetic would not appeal to a skeptic like yourself for many of the same reasons you cite.
As for your comment that "Only when we begin to discuss Christian claims, the Christian abandons the traditional historical method and embraces confirmation bias," I think that is a false statement. I will leave it to any of our readers to go back through our discussion in this thread and ask if I appealed to "tradition" as the evidence for any of my arguments or whether I appealed to contemporary documentation (oftentimes multiply attested, precisely the method that historians will use).
I also would refer people to William Lane Craig and his argument for the historical resurrection of Jesus (you can find a decent summary of his argument in his book "Reasonable Faith"). Again, you may agree or disagree with his conclusions. That's not the point here. The question I pose is, "Does Dr. Craig simply cite 'tradition' to support his arguments or does he cite contemporary documentation?" Saying a tradition is well supported by documentary evidence is not the same as simply relying upon a tradition as your sole means of evidence. You seemto be accusing Christians of the latter whereas my argument was geared toward the former.
As a side note, I acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church may rely upon its "Tradition" for some of its theological positions, but even they do not typically use it as an apologetic. Besides, non-Catholic Christians do not hold tradition as authoritative whatsoever.
ServantOfChrist,
Thank you for the quotation. It seems to me that this may be an example of what happens quite often in my understanding of Hinduism; borrowing from multiple belief systems without worrying about whether there is any logical contradiction. Do you know where I can find the Naamavali you quoted?
Thank you both and God bless.
Ken
Ten Minas Ministries: As for your comment that "Only when we begin to discuss Christian claims, the Christian abandons the traditional historical method and embraces confirmation bias," I think that is a false statement. I will leave it to any of our readers to go back through our discussion in this thread and ask if I appealed to "tradition" as the evidence for any of my arguments or whether I appealed to contemporary documentation (oftentimes multiply attested, precisely the method that historians will use).
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Well…in case the readers are too lazy…perchance I will help them out.
Regarding disciples other than James (brother of John) and James (brother of Jesus) you stated:
Ten Minas Ministries: First, keep in mind that any possible specifics I can give are based upon Christian tradition. Here
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It would seem when you claim to not appeal to tradition, you were referring to only the two Jameses. Right, then.
As to James, the brother of John, the only writing you appeal to is Acts of Apostles. The only record of Jewish persecution of the church. (Please note, in your long diatribe you kept alleging I said there was no other record of “persecution of Christians” which is NOT what I said. Rather, what I said is that there is no other record of “JEWISH persecution of Christians.”)
We have no other writing indicating the death of this James; no other writing indicating Jewish persecution of Christianity (a fact that actually collides and contradicts the situation claimed with James, the brother of Christ, who was free to wander the temple) so that leaves us with the question of whether Acts is “contemporary” or “tradition.” This partly falls on one’s dating of Acts.
While I understand you probably would date it prior to 64 CE, the trend I am seeing in historical Biblical studies is to date it past 94 C.E. Primarily because of portions that appear to rely upon Josephus. We also have Acts utilizing other traditions, such as Euripedes, as well as modification of Paul’s conversation. Scholars have long struggled with the difference between the Paul of Acts and the Paul in his writing.
By simple virtue that there IS a struggle indicates the author of Acts is modifying history. I would probably grant your claim Acts is contemporary rather than tradition (even though I don’t believe it myself, I try to grant charity to the other’s position); this would be an example of reliance upon contemporary rather than tradition. Unfortunately, Acts is not very forthcoming for why James was killed, which should be troubling considering it is a Christian document.
Now let’s talk about James, the brother of Christ.
You use two (2) sources: Josephus and Hegesippus. So we must look to see whether these two sources are “contemporary” or “tradition.”
Starting with Josephus. He wrote Antiquities some time after 94 CE, and putting James’ death at 64 CE, this would be roughly within 30 – 40 years. However, Josephus is a double-edged sword that is quite sharp. First, Josephus never records any persecution by the Jews of Christians. Josephus may not have even recorded anything at all about Christians. (If the Testimonium Flavianum is entirely interpolated.) This undercuts Acts severely, as well as putting a question mark on the first James—the brother of John.
Josephus’ sword gets sharper--the passage on James:
“AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. (24) Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest. From Here
What “Christian” thing did James do, resulting in his death? What “Christian” thing did he say? What, and where, is there anything about anything about being a Christian? Even more importantly, the “most equitable of citizens” (Josephus-speak for Pharisees) considered this action a breach of Jewish law.
This raises another question—if one wants to claim James was a Christian, and was killed for being a Christian—are the Pharisees saying it is a breach of Jewish law for Christians to be killed? If we go that route, we lose Acts’ claim of historicity entirely, and we are back to “tradition” for the basis of James (the brother of John) death! If we are saying it is NOT a breach of Jewish law, then we lose reliability of Josephus!
One way or the other, Josephus claiming it was a breach of Jewish law to kill James creates a problem. Unless, of course, it had nothing to do with James being a Christian. The sole “contemporary” source you use for James’ death has nothing—absolutely positively nothing—about his being a Christian. Let alone being killed for being a Christian. And opens Pandora’s box as to why Pharisees would defend the wrongful death of James as a breach of Jewish law, when Acts indicates it was perfectly acceptable, under Jewish law, to kill Christians for being Christians.
I would grant high reliability to Josephus as a contemporary source. Nothing there helps you as to a Christian martyr. (To speculate it was due to James being a Christian is exactly the confirmation bias I meant.)
The other source you use is Hegesippus. Now, you try to make it contemporary by saying:
Ten Minas Ministries: Hegesippus was a Christian historian who lived from 110-180 A.D., within a generation of the church fathers (some estimates have John the apostle living until approximately 90 A.D.).
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A person skimming that could easily come to the conclusion Hegesippus was writing within a few years of John. Yes, I know you didn’t explicitly state that, but I wonder why you didn’t indicate the specific years he wrote? Why write when he lived as compared to when he wrote?
As I pointed out, he wrote at least 100 years after the death of James, after 165 CE. How “contemporary” is 100 years? How much tradition can build up in 100 years? In fact, there was a secondary story developed in the Gnostic Apocalypse of James where we see the addition of Gnostic Christianity (NOT classical Christianity) to the death of James, and a greater expounding upon his death. We go from:
Josephus: No Christianity. Stoning.
Apocalypse of James: Gnostic Christianity. Thrown from height, then stoning.
We can’t specifically date the Apocalypse, but is generally thought to be around 150 CE. Prior to Hegesippus.
Then we come to Hegesippus. Who writes of a Jewish James, but launches into classical Christian prose. In fact, Hegesippus has James use Stephen’s words from Acts and quotes from Matthew! Hegesippus is relying upon the Apocalypse of James, Matthew and Acts to create his account of James’ death. He adds to the killing itself--we now have:
Josephus: No Christianity. Stoning.
Apocalypse of James: Gnostic Christianity. Thrown from height, then stoning.
Hegesippus: Classical Christianity. Thrown from a height, then stoned, then hit with a club.
This is exactly what I meant by historians giving greater weight to contemporary writing than subsequent tradition (especially when it utilizes and expounds upon the previous writing!). In this present situation, historians would rely upon Josephus due to 1) time, 2) locale and 3) interest and give great weight to his account on James. (Another side note, I never said James wasn’t stoned. Again, that was a misquoting of what I said. I never know how I am coming across so unclear.)
The Apocalypse of James, less so because of its greater time lapse, development of details, and apparent reliance upon other documents—namely Josephus. And Hegesippus even less so, because of even greater time lapse, different and more details and reliance upon other documents—namely Apocalypse of James, Matthew and Acts. (And the Apocalypse relies upon Joseph and Matthew relies upon Mark, so Hegesippus relies upon documents that rely upon documents!)
Historians would not give great weight—hardly any at all—to Hegesippus.
I almost feel guilty doing this, Ten Minas Ministries…
Looking back at my claim: That Christians abandon historical method and engage in confirmation bias. You respond this is false…yet…uh…this is exactly what you have done here. Read back the original blog entry. You are looking to demonstrate James (the brother of Jesus) is a Christian martyr. This is your conclusion. You then look for any document that supports your conclusion, without engaging the whole record.
You want James dead, so you grab Josephus. Yet you fail to note Josephus says nothing about Christianity, and causes conflict with the claim Jews were persecuting Christians. Instead, because you now want to establish James’ Christianity in death, you leap to Hegesippus. Why jump over the Apocalypse of James? Because it is Gnostic, and you ascribe to classical Christianity? You quote long sections out of Hegesippus to establish James’ Christianity, yet fail to note this was written 100 years after James death. (In fact, you attempt to make it “contemporary” by saying Hegesippus was a baby within a decade of one of the disciples dying.)
You use Josephus to kill James, abandon Josephus when he is inconvenient, and pick up Hegesippus’ tradition to make James’ Christianity come into play in his death.
This is what I mean.
(And this isn’t even going into the Greek problem of whether James really was the brother of Jesus according to Paul, or whether THAT was a later tradition, or the other contemporary writing of 1 Clement that fails to list either James as a martyr, or that these legends developed after the Martyrdom of Polycarp—a fascinating tale of how martyring is done right. There are other problems that time doesn’t permit fleshing out.)
Ten Minas Ministries: The question I pose is, "Does Dr. Craig simply cite 'tradition' to support his arguments or does he cite contemporary documentation?"
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Since you asked, I will briefly answer. Dr. Craig uses tradition, but attempts to bolster it by claiming it is contemporary. Matthew uses (and adds legendary aspects) to Mark. Luke uses Matthew and Mark (cleaning up Matthew, and improving Mark.) Both Matthew and Luke are one-step away from “contemporary documentation” because they utilize something more contemporary—Mark.
The earliest possible date for 1 Cor. 15 is 44 CE (assuming Jesus’ death of 30 CE) and possibly later. It says nothing of an empty tomb, gives a vastly different order and account of post-resurrection appearances as compared to Matthew, Luke and John and, if true, eliminates all four gospels as being less contemporary, and therefore more based upon tradition and legend.
John is a minefield for anyone touching it, when comparing to they Synoptic Gospels. If one wants that to be a contemporary document, we have conflicting tales!
Really, the only hope for a contemporary document is Mark, and then the question must be asked whether Mark is writing history. Dr. Craig presumes the author was, and leaps from there.
Not only do I disagree with his conclusions; I disagree with his assumptions and his question-begging (using the stories within the Gospels to prove the Gospel stories are true.)
Since you asked…*grin*
DagoodS, be fair. Are you really using my comment that "any possible specifics I can give are based on Christian tradition" to claim I was using tradition to support my argument? The quote you cite was not even in my original post, nor was it contained anywhere in our back and forth exchange. It was in direct response to a question that was posed to me by Robert Harris about what happened to the other disciples. I was pointing out to him that the specifics surrounding the deaths of the other apostles were NOT as well attested as those I cited previously. My full quotation was:
"First, keep in mind that any possible specifics I can give are based upon Christian tradition. These traditions are not as definitively attested to as the deaths of James the brother of John and James the brother of Jesus that I discussed in my original post. But as I argued before, there is plenty of evidence for us to conclude that (leaving the specifics aside) at least the general fact of the martyrdoms is likely to be true."
I prefaced my comments by saying that my answers were based on tradition precisely to point out that these specifics are NOT as well attested as the deaths of the two James and should be taken with somewhat of a "grain of salt."
DagoodS, this comment greatly disappointed me. Now you and I have done this long enough that I certainly don't believe that you would ever intentionally misrepresent me. But you excluded from your quote the surrounding comments that clearly showed I was using the fact of tradition to REDUCE the reliability of these stories (not defending the veracity of the stories based upon that tradition), and you failed to mention that my comments weren't even made in the course of our martyrdom debate to begin with! The full context of my comments shows that I was actually saying the exact opposite of what you accuse me of.
As for the rest of your comments, I'll get to them when I have the time. But for now I wanted to address at least that one preliminary matter.
God bless.
Ken
Ten Minas Ministries:
Read what I wrote. I quoted only a portion of your statement for brevity (a transgression I am now paying for by writing more than if I had just included the entire quote.)
Tell me where I am wrong in my synopsis of this blog entry:
1. You discuss martyrdom of apostles, with specific focus on James (the brother of John) and James (the brother of Jesus.) You also mention a general aura of persecution, referring to Tacitus.
2. I respond.
3. We go back and forth a bit.
4. I leave in a huff because I am tired of being misunderstood. (Well…”huff” may be a bit strong, but you get the point.)
5. Robert Harris asks about other disciples.
6. You respond saying specifics on those other disciples would be based more on tradition, but the case for James and James are more definitively attested.
7. Jesus 1: dagoods 0 [O.K. that was out of order, but I LOVED the comment and have to include it. *grin*]
8. I whine about Christians changing their historical methodology.
9. You say this is false, and ask readers to go through and see if you appealed to tradition as “the evidence for any of my arguments.”
10. I look back and see (to my amusement) you actually HAD appealed to tradition as evidence, but only in the case of the other disciples.
11. I say, “Regarding disciples other than James and James…” and then gave the abbreviated quote. Followed by, “It would seem when you claim to not appeal to tradition, you were referring to only the two Jameses. Right, then. “
12. I then spend an unnecessary amount of time responding to only the two cited examples of your blog—James and James.
Honestly, Ten Minas Ministries, I saw you as making a distinct difference between the cases of James and James and the other disciples listed. I saw it as:
1) James and James = contemporary documentary evidence
2) Other disciples listed = Christian tradition.
I attempted a bit of light banter as to how you HAD used tradition, in the distinct case of the OTHER DISCIPLES, but that you were NOT using tradition in the case of James and James.
Again, I then spent the remainder of my comments (and quite a number of ‘em) on your blog entry. On James and James. NOT on tradition or the other disciples.
I am not certain how that could be misunderstood. Where did I talk about the other disciples, other than my introductory statement? Where did I talk about anything OTHER than James and James? O.K. 1 Clement is on other martyrs, and James and James not being listed, but still and all….
DagoodS,
I don't know if we are going to get anywhere based upon your latest comment. You very clearly and unambiguously attempted to use the quote of what I said earlier as evidence that I was relying upon tradition. There is no other possible interpretation of what you said. That representation is clearly and demonstrably false. If you don't want to admit this, fine. Can you kindly point me to where in my comments to Robert Harris I EVER said, "This is how these apostles actually died." Where did I ever say that I was accepting this tradition as verified historical fact? It's not there. I even talk about "possibilities." I give no less than 4 different versions of Jude's death, two possible outcomes for John, and even concede that it is unclear whether the tradition about Philip is even referring to the apostle. How can you possibly contend that I was arguing for the historicity of these stories based on tradition? If that is what I was doing, precisely which story out of the many do you think I was advocating?
You took a statement out of context and tried to use it to create a completely false impression. I am sorry to have to call you on this so clearly, but you did it. Maybe this was in error. Maybe you mistakenly believed the comment was made in the course of our discussion. But if so, I would hope that you would own up to that error now. If we are going to have a valuable conversation, we must try our best to address the arguments that are actually being made, not to set up straw men then knock them down.
Getting to the remainder of your comments, your attempts to clarify your position are only serving to dig a deeper hole. OK. So you aren't claiming that there is no evidence of the persecution of Christians. You are only arguing that there is no evidence of Jewish persecution of Christians. But now your argument has died the death of too many qualifications and you have rendered the whole thing irrelevant.
My sub-argument that you are trying to attack could be expressed as follows:
P1: Outspoken 1st century Christians faced life-threatening persecution for their faith.
P2: The original apostles were outspoken 1st century Christians.
C: The original apostles faced life-threatening persecution for their faith.
To prove this argument is unsound you must either attack the truthfulness of the premises or its validity. You can't attack the validity because this is a classic categorical syllogism:
P1: All A are B
P2: All B are C
C: All A are C
The logic underlying the argument is pretty basic. So you are left to attack the premises. What was your response? You claimed that there is no evidence that the persecution was carried out by Jews. Exactly which of the above premises does your response attack? Neither.
My argument does not care WHO was carrying out the deadly persecution. I don't care if the Christians were having their lives threatened by Jews, Romans or someone else entirely. If they were dying for their faith (or at least knew that they were endangering their lives by continuing to propagate that faith), who cares if the threats were coming from the Jews, Romans or space aliens? Dead is dead, no matter who kills you.
So do you concede premise 1, whether that persecution was from Jews or anyone else? If so, my argument holds true. If not, you have to explain why a group of people who are trying to gain followers would go around spreading lies like, "Hey, join our ranks and get killed!" One of the tests historians apply to determine the validity of information in historical documents is whether or not that information is embarrassing or counter-productive to the author. This seems to fit pretty well with the Christians' claims that they were being persecuted.
Leaving aside for the moment that your entire argument about the lack of evidence for Jewish persecution is irrelevant, it is also false. Again, I point you to the very Josephus passage you quote so extensively. According to Josephus, who killed James the brother of Jesus? Was it the Romans? No, it was the high priest and the Sanhedrin; i.e., Jews.
You object by claiming that this passage does not show that James was killed for his faith as a Christian. But that is a different point (which I will address shortly). IF Josephus supports that James was killed for his faith in Christ, then clearly it provides support for persecution by Jews. Ananus, the man who "delivered them to be stoned" was a Jew. The Sanhedrin were Jews. Do you deny either of these?
So when we examine your points we see that your objection really is just to whether or not the Josephus passage supports the proposition that James was killed for his faith. So why did Ananus have James stoned? "[H]e had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law." What law was this? Roman law? Clearly not. The high priest and the Sanhedrin did not have the authority to enforce Roman law. That would have been left to Albinus as procurator. The only law the Sanhedrin was concerned with was Jewish law. So clearly we see that James was killed for allegedly violating Jewish law.
What was the nature of this violation? You are correct that Josephus does not explicitly say. But obviously if it was for a violation of Jewish law it must have had SOMETHING to do with his religious practices! Again, this was a violation of Jewish RELIGIOUS law, not the Roman CIVIL law.
So what were James' religious practices? In short, he was a Christian, and one highly placed in the Jerusalem church:
"Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles." 1 Corinthians 15:7
"Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles - only James, the Lord's brother." Galatians 1:19
"When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present." Acts 21:17-18.
"James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me." Galatians 2:9
"Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. 'Tell James and the brothers about this,' he said, and then he left for another place." Acts 12:10
By his own hand (something I'm guessing you'll challenge), this same James described himself as "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." James 1:1
We also have examples from Jesus' time all the way through the present of Jews considering the practice of Christianity to be a violation of Jewish law:
"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, 'Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.'" Matthew 12:1-2
"'We are not stoning you for any of these,' replied the Jews, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'" John 10:33
We find similar sentiments in the Babylonian Talmud, in 43a-b of the Tractate Sanhedrin, which describes a story where Jesus' disciples are summarily executed by the Sanhedrin for nothing greater than being one of Jesus' disciples, with one of them being referred to as an "abhorred offshoot."
To this day many Jews accuse their fellow Jews of breaking the law if they dare to accept Jesus as their Messiah.
"Worship of any three-part god by a Jew is nothing less than a form of idolatry." "When a Jew Becomes a Christian" by Aryeh Kaplan, in "The Real Messiah? A Jewish Response to Missionaries", p. 7.
"Christianity negates the fundamentals of Jewish faith, and one who accepts it rejects the very essence of Judaism. Even if he continues to keep all the rituals, it is the same as if he has abandoned Judaism completely. The Talmud teaches us, 'Whoever accepts idolatry, denied the entire Torah. ... Conversion to another faith is an act of religious treason. It is one of the worst possible sins that a Jew can commit." Id. at 11.
And just to be clear, I am not relying upon these modern quotations to prove my case. I merely include them to illustrate that this belief has not changed over the years.
So what violation of the law do you think James was accused of breaking? Keep in mind that James did not stand alone. A large group of people were all accused of the same violation. So whatever this accusation was, Ananus believed he could bring the same accusation against all of them. This couldn't have been an individual act like a man uttering a blasphemous phrase or working on the Sabbath. Whatever these men were accused of, they supposedly all did it together. Collectively advocating that Jesus is God and He came incarnate to Earth seems to be the most plausible explanation to me, and it makes the most sense of the historical data. After all, we have the following:
(1) James was stoned and killed for an alleged violation of Jewish law;
(2) Advocating Christianity was considered to be a violation of Jewish law;
(3) James advocated Christianity.
Does this prove to 100% certainty that James was executed for advocating Christianity? No. But it makes it pretty darn probable absent an alternative explanation that makes sense of these three facts.
I also think there is a pretty big clue as to the nature of the "violation" in Josephus' text. The custom in Jewish tradition at that time was that if you were going to identify someone by his familial relationship you would do so by identifying his father. For example, I would be "Ken, son of Peter." But Josephus does not identify James as "James, son of Joseph." Instead he identifies him by his relationship to his brother, Jesus. Now admittedly this may have been for any number of reasons. Perhaps Josephus didn't know who James' father was. Or perhaps he simply decided to name the brother because the brother was more famous. This is just, after all, one piece of the puzzle.
But then Josephus goes on to point out that this man who stood accused was the brother of the man "who was called Christ" (i.e., Messiah). He didn't say, "...who was Christ." He said, "...who was CALLED Christ." So obviously Josephus was no believer in Christianity. So right before Josephus mentions that these men (including James) were accused of breaking Jewish law, he makes a point of mentioning that this James was the brother of he who was CALLED Christ, a claim that the Jews would consider blasphemous. Does this prove my case? No. But it is food for thought.
My last comment on your first comment will be to point out that in your closing remarks on James the brother of Jesus you still do not closely examine the meaning of the word "law" (or "lawful"). When Ananus brought James and the others before the Sanhedrin and accused them of violating "the law," this must be a reference to Jewish law because that is all the Sanhedrin was concerned with. But when the "most equitable of citizens" complained that the executions were "not lawful," they were referring to the Roman civil law. This becomes pretty obvious by looking at the context.
First, they claimed that, "it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble the Sanhedrin without [Albinus the procurator's] consent." Since when does Jewish law require the high priest to get a Roman governor's consent before assembling the Jewish court? This was a Roman rule, not a Jewish one. Also, to whom did these men go running in order to complain about the unlawfulness of Ananus' actions? Again, it was the Roman procurator, a civil authority, not a religious one. Albinus doesn't care about Jewish religious law. He cares about Roman law. These men were complaining that Ananus' actions violated the Roman civil law, not the Jewish religious law. Josephus even says this explicitly when he outlines that the nature of their complaint was Ananus assembling the Sanhedrin without the procurator's consent (I would also note that the Sanhedrin did not have the authority to execute anyone without Rome's consent, John 18:31, so Ananus actually violated Roman law in at least two different ways).
The two alternatives you posed to me at the end of your first comment both assumed that the men Josephus referred to believed executing James was a violation of Jewish law. I believe I have now demonstrated that this is not true. Therefore, you have set up a false dichotomy. The Pharisees did not defend the wrongful death of James as a violation of Jewish law. Josephus explicitly says that they thought it was a wrongful violation of Roman law.
There is actually very little to respond to in your second comment that we haven't already gone over. In fact, you seem to concede my point (and the only real reason to cite Hegesippus) when you stated, "I never said James wasn't stoned." Good. That was the whole point. Your entire argument about the growth of tradition is irrelevant to the fact of the stoning because that fact is attested long before false tradition could realistically take hold. Yes, we see the possible growth of tradition in the addition of new facts over time. But all of the versions have the common theme of James being stoned. That was my point. I've already talked about the reasons for believing it was because of his faith, so I won't rehash those again. There's no point in even discussing Hegesippus anymore because you have conceded the point I was trying to make; i.e., James was stoned.
Your third comment doesn't add anything new. It is basically just a summary of your position and completely falls apart once we realize that Josephus DID attribute James' stoning to the Jews, it was because of James religious practices and Jospehus was NOT referring to Pharisees believing that the execution was a violation of Jewish law, but rather a violation of Roman law. So I do not abandon Josephus when he is inconvenient because he is never inconvenient. I do not skip over the Apocalypse of James because it is gnostic and therefore not authoritative. I do not find Hegesippus to be authoritative either but this does not mean we cannot use him to demonstrate the historical reliability of the basic fact that James was stoned (a fact you now concede) if it is attested elsewhere as well. Forgive me if I failed to explicitly note the date of Hegesippus' writing, but I assumed most of my readers would have the wherewithal to realize that he did not write when he was fresh out of the womb. For the record, I do not dispute your dating of Hegesippus. I hope that clears that up.
In an effort to keep us "on track" I'm not going to go any further down the William Lane Craig path other than inviting people to read him and pointing out that you appear to have grossly misunderstood him. "Using the Gospels to prove the Gospel stories are true"? If by this you mean that Craig uses the Gospels to prove the inerrancy of the Gospels, Craig has clearly argued that the Gospels do not need to be inerrant for his argument to hold true. They can be filled with falsehoods, but that does not mean we cannot use historical methodology to unearth any seeds of truth. If you mean that he cannot use the Gospel documents as evidence that any of the events they convey are true, have you really thought that statement through? I guess Josephus cannot be used to support the inference that any of the historical information he discusses is true, nor can any historical document be used to verify any of the information contained therein. That is what historical research is all about! That is precisely how we arrive at historical conclusions. We can discuss the weight to be assigned to any particular fact based upon multiple factors including those I have discussed above (i.e., is it multiply attested, is the fact embarrassing or counter-productive for the author, etc.). But to claim that you cannot even use a historical document as evidence that any event it describes is historical is clearly contrary to everything we know about historical research.
I think this post has gone on long enough. Besides, it is late and I have to get to bed. Thank you for your comments. God bless.
Ken
Ten Minas Ministries,
These will be my last responses unless something shocking springs out. I was hoping for a scholarly intellectual discussion, which we had for a majority of the time, and for that I thank you. I am genuinely puzzled by this bizarre cat-fight we seem to be engaged regarding your response to Robert Harris. (Honestly, Ten Minas Ministries. Think about it. If I was trying to take you out of context, or give a false impression, would I link to your comment? Part of the reason I give links is to allow the reader to quickly discover where I obtain my material.)
I thought you were saying (in response to Robert Harris) that some of the claims regarding some of the other disciples were based upon tradition. It is why I said,”Regarding disciples OTHER THAN James…and James…” [emphasis added.]
I thought you were making a distinction of (at least) two groups:
a) Apostles we have only tradition.
b) Apostles we have contemporary evidence.
I thought you were placing Judas (not Iscariot), Simon the Zealot, John and Philip in the first group—group “a.” I thought you were placing James and James in the latter group—group “b.” Since the latter group was far more interesting, and relevant to the points I was making, it was the sole focus of my response.
I thought any intelligent person would read this blog entry and understand you were making the distinction, and using tradition for the first group, and contemporary evidence for the second. I thought any intelligent person reading this blog entry and realize I appreciated the distinction, and I addressed the James and James situation, rather than Judas (not Iscariot), Simon the Zealot, John and Philip.
Apparently I was in complete error.
Ten Minas Ministries, I apologize for creating any false impression in any reader’s mind as to your arguments regarding tradition. It was not my intention, but if I wrote confusingly, or inadvertently gave such an impression, I would hope the reader understood that was never, EVER my intention.
I do not, and have never thought, you believe your argument regarding James and James is based upon tradition. (Obviously I think it is, but I do not think YOU think it is. Does that make sense?)
I would hope that ends this insane discussion where I keep scratching my head wondering where it went sideways.
Jewish persecution
There are a number of issues regarding this. (I see why I don’t write blogs anymore. To fully address each topic, one has to flesh out issues, sub-issues and sub-sub-issues!)
When did persecution of Christianity start? If there was no Jewish persecution, then the first recorded instance we have is Tacitus in 64 C.E. (Although we would have to address Paul’s claim of persecuting Christians. See how issues have sub-issues?)
And there they were not being persecuted for their belief, rather as a scapegoat for Nero’s fire. This gives Christianity 30 years to grow, without persecution. See, part of the argument of martyr’s death proving belief, is the claim they were persecuted right away. And the only persecution listed is this Jewish persecution.
I hate these speculative theories, but I will engage it for a moment to hopefully clarify the difference. Imagine Peter starts proclaiming immediately in 30 C.E. that Jesus rose from the dead. Further, imagine immediate persecution for making such a claim. This would tend to give support to a strong belief to continue in the face of such persecution.
Now imagine Peter starts proclaiming it in 30 C.E. And no one cares. Or a few people say, “No he didn’t, get out of my town” but nothing else. And the church starts to grow. Starts to become known. No one is persecuting it; one can declare Christianity without adverse effects. All of a sudden, in 64 C.E., Caesar says, “Round up all the Christians. Now!” See, they are already established. Already known. At this point, persecution becomes irrelevant to belief—whether they believed it or not; they are going to prison.
I am NOT saying, “There was no Jewish persecution, but there was Roman persecution.” I am saying the only statements we have regarding persecution of Christians in the first 30 years is legend. Then we have one statement of Tacitus that (in my opinion) hurts the idea of “dying for belief” as they were scapegoats, not being killed for belief, in 64 C.E. Yes, by the end of the First Century there was more Roman persecution (although I should note even that has been questioned), but this is one or two generations too late. These aren’t people who claim a post-resurrection appearance. These are people who heard of one.
Secondly, it undercuts Acts’ historicity, as the book (yet again) engages in Christian polemics rather than recording actual historical events.
James killed for being a Christian
Thank you for noting Josephus says nothing about James being a Christian. Your argument that it was most likely for a Christian act is not persuasive. For this, I have to give some background.
I must first caution a practice I see far too often—Christians obtaining their idea of what “Judaism” was in the First Century solely through Christian sources. For example, the Johannine claim the Jews could not issue death penalties is false. Yet Christians want to claim this, relying ONLY on Christian documents.
This is like my claiming what the Russians did in the Cold war by only looking at American History books, and not the Russians’. We would never accept that in historical method, why should we accept it here? I notice you only cite Christian sources (with one remark regarding the Talmud I will address in a bit) to tell us what Judaism believed! Amazing.
Secondly, I see this concept of a homogenous group known as the “Jews” alongside an infiltrating group known as “Christians.” As if the only two possibilities were that you were a “Jew” or a “Christian.”
Palestine was divided into three areas—Judea, Galilee and Perea. The Semitic group we call “Jews” were actually called three different names at the time—“Judeans,” “Galileans” and “Pereans.” There wasn’t actually a term “Jew.” (That is a term developed over time, derived from “Judean.”) The sign on Jesus’ cross, for example, said, “King of the Judeans.” (I know your Bible probably uses the term “Jews,” but this is really a translation choice. The Greek is “Judean.”) Which would be different than “King of the Galileans” or “King of the Pereans.” A Galilean would not have considered the King of the Judeans his king.
To Christians, this would explain the relationship between King Herod (of the Galileans) and Pontias Pilate (Roman governor of Judea) and why Luke records Pilate sending Jesus the Galilean to the King of the Galileans—Herod. Pilate was passing off on jurisdiction. Pilate was NOT governor of “the Jews.” He was governor of Judea.
Besides the jurisdiction difference, we had Sadducees and Pharisees. The Sadducees had the actual power, but the Pharisees had the support of the people. Josephus records Sadducees often enlisted the help of Pharisees to retain popular support. The Sadducess and Pharisees disagreed as to the interpretation of Mosaic Law. What one thought was “lawful”—the other did not.
There were Essenes who thought BOTH the Sadducees and Pharisees had it wrong, when it came to Mosaic Law, and practiced their own law. They held Passover on a different day, for example. We also have the Samaritans, with a slightly different Torah, and their own religious practices. They, too, disagree with the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes. Who disagreed with them.
We only recently discovered the Qumran community that clearly differed with the Sadducees and Pharisees. Richard Carrier reports in The Empty Tomb over thirty different factions within the Palestine community that we are aware.
If a Sadducee accused another of transgressing the law, that could include a Pharisee, an Essene, a Judean, a Galilean, a Quran, a Herodian, and yes…even this new faction Christian. But to immediately default to “If it was a violation of Jewish Law, it must be a Christian act” is to not understand First Century Palestine.
There are four (4) reasons to conclude it was not an accusation for Christianity.
1. Josephus does not say it was for being a Christian. If you hold the Testimonium Flavianum is at least partially genuine, then Josephus would have been familiar with the term “Christian.” He does not indicate James as a Christian, despite using James’ famous brother as an indicator of who this individual was.
We must be careful to start “reading in” to Josephus, something Josephus doesn’t say.
2. The passage says Ananus “formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law.” Was this a false charge or an actual charge? I do not have access to the Greek of Josephus, and would like to see what the Greek says to see if it is helpful.
3. The Pharisees spring to James’ defense. Notice Josephus (also a Pharisee) is uneasy at what was done. Are they concerned by the brash display of power of Ananus? Are they defensive of James, because this was unjust? I appreciate this becomes speculative, but no more speculative than to claim it must be a Christian act causing James’ death. That is, in fact, the point. We can speculate all day as to they when, where, and why. The Christian must still explain why a Pharisee would defend a Christian.
4. For the fourth point, I will use your three points claiming an accusation of Christianity is “the most plausible explanation” to you:
Ten Minas Ministries: (1) James was stoned and killed for an alleged violation of Jewish law;
(2) Advocating Christianity was considered to be a violation of Jewish law;
(3) James advocated Christianity.
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As to (1): I agree. (Whether the “alleged” violation was an actual violation was previously discussed—we don’t know.)
As to (2): Prove it. You cite Christian sources for claiming it was a violation (except the Talmud…I’ll get to it!), what Jewish sources do you use? In fact, the Markan tale of Jesus picking grain is hopelessly cobbled. What were Pharisees doing in a field in Galilee on the Sabbath? How did they conveniently “pop up” like characters in a play? More importantly, what was it the disciples were doing that was in violation of the law?
Worse, even Christian sources conflict as to whether advocating Christianity was in violation of Jewish law. Acts 4:21 states the Sadducees couldn’t find a way to punish the disciples even though the disciples were teaching in the name of Jesus. What happened between Acts 4:21 and 64 CE that all of a sudden made it a violation of Jewish law?
As to (3) [James advocating Christianity]—this is not quite so clear cut. While James may have advocated Christianity, and even been a leader of the Christian Church, he may also have continued to practice Mosaic Law.
Unfortunately, here I have to step outside the contemporary documents of Josephus, and look to the tradition building of Christian sources. However, as these are the same traditions you utilize, I think it is within bounds.
Notice the apostolic counsel of Acts 15. The complaint was that some Judeans were imposing Mosaic law (circumcision) on new Christians. (Note especially 15:5 that indicated one could be a Pharisee AND a Christian!) Within the Acts account, Peter, Paul and Barnabas contend with the leaders of the Church, imploring they not impose Mosaic Law on gentile believers.
Who stands up for the leaders of the Church? I.e.—the ones opposed to Peter, Paul and Barnabas? Why, none other than James. And they declare that the gentiles do not need to follow Mosaic law, but apparently leave in place the current practice of the Judean Christians practicing Mosaic law. See also Acts 21, where again James (and the elders) request Paul to keep the law. And further, Paul is accused of asking Jews to forsake Mosaic law, but James is not!
In Galatians 2, Paul contends with Peter, because when “men from James” came, Peter would withdraw from the Gentiles and only eat with the circumcised Jews.
While we can claim James was advocating Christianity, we equally see that James was practicing Mosaic Law as well. He would appear to be the strongest proponent of it amongst the named apostles!
I must point out the confirmation bias here. If one wants James to be a Christian, you cite portions of verses referring to his Christian belief. But when we look at the actual passages, a different picture emerges—a Christian, but one who religiously practices Judaism as well.
In conclusion, Josephus says nothing about James being accused of “Christian things.” We have no demonstration that advocating Christianity was a violation of Jewish law (and actually points to the contrary!) And even in Christian sources, James appears a practicing Jew, in addition to his Christianity.
I will happily concede it was a breach of ROMAN law for Ananus to assemble the Sanhedrin prior to being confirmed as High Priest by Albinus. My point of it being a violation of Jewish law was incorrect.
(See, unlike Christian apologists, I can recognize being incorrect and move on. Natural part of being human. When is the last time we see a Christian apologist do so? Huh…)
Hegesippus
In fear of repeating our cat-fight, I will state your WHOLE quote:
Ten Minas Ministries: There is actually very little to respond to in your second comment that we haven't already gone over. In fact, you seem to concede my point (and the only real reason to cite Hegesippus) when you stated, "I never said James wasn't stoned." Good. That was the whole point. Your entire argument about the growth of tradition is irrelevant to the fact of the stoning because that fact is attested long before false tradition could realistically take hold. Yes, we see the possible growth of tradition in the addition of new facts over time. But all of the versions have the common theme of James being stoned. That was my point. I've already talked about the reasons for believing it was because of his faith, so I won't rehash those again. There's no point in even discussing Hegesippus anymore because you have conceded the point I was trying to make; i.e., James was stoned.
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O.K., now I don’t want to get in trouble again, so I think you are saying the only reason you cited Hegesippus was to support the singular claim that James was stoned. Am I right? Nothing about why James was stoned or what led up to his stoning, or where he was stoned or anything else—solely that he was stoned?
This raises four questions:
1. Er…then why do you need it? Josephus says James was stoned. If the only thing we want Hegesippus for is to say the same thing (only 60+ years later than Josephus and 100 years after the event) he is unnecessary and duplicative. Heck, I can write, in 2009, “James was stoned.” Are you going to quote that in support of Josephus?
2. You used Hegesippus in your original blog entry. Long before I came along. Long before you thought I would say anything about James or stoning. Are you saying, as you were writing this blog entry, “Hmmm…that rascal DagoodS is probably going to contest that James was stoned. Best add a quote from Hegesippus to shore it up.” Really?
3. If you were looking for confirmation of James being stoned, why not use the Apocalypse of James? It is earlier than Hegesippus (if we are looking for more contemporary sources) and if One (1) additional source bolsters Josephus, why not Two (2)?
4. Look at your blog entry. Look at what you wrote on Hegesippus, (again the whole quote):
Ten Minas Ministries: This isn't the only record of James' martyrdom. Hegesippus was a Christian historian who lived from 110-180 A.D., within a generation of the church fathers (some estimates have John the apostle living until approximately 90 A.D.). Hegesippus' works are unfortunately lost, but they were not lost yet at the time another Christian historian was writing. Eusebius lived from 275 - 339 A.D., and he quoted several passages from Hegesippus in his works. One quote comes from the fifth book of Hegesippus' "Memoirs", and it says:
"12. The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him and said: 'You just one, in whom we ought all to have confidence, forasmuch as the people are led astray after Jesus, the crucified one, declare to us, what is the gate of Jesus.'
13. And he answered with a loud voice, 'Why do you ask me concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? He himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of heaven.'
14. And when many were fully convinced and gloried in the testimony of James, and said, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' these same Scribes and Pharisees said again to one another, 'We have done badly in supplying such testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, in order that they may be afraid to believe him.'
15. And they cried out, saying, 'Oh! oh! the just man is also in error.' And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, 'Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.'
16. So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, 'Let us stone James the Just.' And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, 'I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"
Eusebius, Book II, Chapter 23, Parts 12-16.
There is certainly more detail in Hegesippus' version, but both end up with James being stoned.
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If all you wanted to do was take about James’ stoning, why did you include the long lead-in? Why not just say “Hegesippus says it, too?” Do you want us to believe we were to ignore any part of the passage regarding James’ Christianity? Ignore the interchange? Ignore James talk about Jesus? All we were supposed to take away from that was, “Gee, Hegesippus says James was stoned, too.”?
To be fair with you—I don’t believe it. I think you included Hegesippus to bolster the Christianity of James, not solely for the stoning. And, I also don’t think you even knew of the Apocalypse of James, nor that Hegesippus was based upon it, and not Josephus.
But what they hey—I could be wrong. And you will never admit it if you were, eh? *wink*
Ten Minas Ministries: So I do not abandon Josephus when he is inconvenient because he is never inconvenient. I do not skip over the Apocalypse of James because it is gnostic and therefore not authoritative. I do not find Hegesippus to be authoritative either but this does not mean we cannot use him to demonstrate the historical reliability of the basic fact that James was stoned (a fact you now concede) if it is attested elsewhere as well.
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But if Josephus has mentioned that James was killed for an actual violation of Jewish law—wouldn’t that be convenient? If Josephus had called James a Christian—wouldn’t that be convenient? If Josephus had listed a singular Christian act on the part of James—wouldn’t that be convenient?
So..er..why DID you skip over the Apocalypse of James? Seriously—did you even know it existed prior to this blog entry? Did you know Hegesippus relied upon it?
If Hegesisppus is not authoritative, and only used (unnecessarily, in my opinion) to demonstrate a non-disputed historical fact attested early by a more contemporary source…er…again—why did we include such a long quote from him in the blog entry? Odd to skip over the quote from Josephus—the pertinent, contemporary writing, to make a long quote from a non-authoritative source only used to state a fact not in dispute!
Talmud referrals to disciples
Because I promised.
Ten Minas Ministries: We find similar sentiments in the Babylonian Talmud, in 43a-b of the Tractate Sanhedrin, which describes a story where Jesus' disciples are summarily executed by the Sanhedrin for nothing greater than being one of Jesus' disciples, with one of them being referred to as an "abhorred offshoot."
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The tractate Sanhedrin is dated toward the end of the Second Century C.E. If Hegsippus (at mid-Second Century B.C.) is not a contemporary document, this is even later.
Humorously, the Tractate Sanhedrin is a Jewish document, indicating the Sanhedrin DID have the right to execute capital punishment.
The portion being referred to is atTractate Sanhedrin 43a: Our Rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah. When Matthai was brought [before the court] he said to them [the judges], Shall Matthai be executed? Is it not written, Matthai [when] shall I come and appear before God? Thereupon they retorted; Yes, Matthai shall be executed, since it is written, When Matthai [when] shall [he] die and his name perish When Nakai was brought in he said to them; Shall Nakai be executed? It is not written, Naki [the innocent] and the righteous slay thou not? Yes, was the answer, Nakai shall be executed, since it is written, in secret places does Naki [the innocent] slay. When Nezer was brought in, he said; Shall Nezer be executed? Is it not written, And Nezer [a twig] shall grow forth out of his roots Yes, they said, Nezer shall be executed, since it is written, But thou art cast forth away from thy grave like Nezer [an abhorred offshoot]. When Buni was brought in, he said: Shall Buni be executed? Is it not written, Beni [my son], my first born? Yes, they said, Buni shall be executed, since it is written, Behold I will slay Bine-ka [thy son] thy first born. And when Todah was brought in, he said to them; Shall Todah be executed? Is it not written, A psalm for Todah [thanksgiving]? Yes, they answered, Todah shall be executed, since it is written, Whoso offereth the sacrifice of Todah [thanksgiving] honoured me.
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I’m sorry…which of Jesus’ disciples were named, “Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah”?
Look, this is what confirmation bias is—looking for proof after reaching a conclusion. Say you are looking for “A, B, and C.” You find a document that has “B” and proudly proclaim, “See? This supports ‘B.’”? But what is NOT mentioned is the document has “B,” “G,” “H,” “I” and “J” which would need to be addressed in light of your original claim.
You want the disciples to be killed. So you find the Tractate Sanhedrin that says,
“Yeshua had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah.” In confirmation bias, this translates to:
“Yeshua had…disciples: Matthai…...” You carve out the problem of only five, and the different names. The tractate Sanhedrin also says the Sanhedrin can administer capital punishment. Because that conflicts with the Gospel of John, it gets cut, too.
This may convince your Sunday School class. Sorry, it is not convincing to historians.
William Lane Craig
Ten Minas Ministries: In an effort to keep us "on track" I'm not going to go any further down the William Lane Craig path other than inviting people to read him and pointing out that you appear to have grossly misunderstood him. "Using the Gospels to prove the Gospel stories are true"? If by this you mean that Craig uses the Gospels to prove the inerrancy of the Gospels, Craig has clearly argued that the Gospels do not need to be inerrant for his argument to hold true.
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Hmm…apparently I misunderstood you… I misunderstood Dr. Craig…either I am as dumb as a box of hammers or you guys are the most misunderstood apologists since time began.
Do you understand the difference between inerrancy and begging the question? As far as I knew, Dr. Craig is notoriously difficult to pin down regarding inerrancy. If you know of a quote where he states his position regarding inerrancy, I would dearly love to see it.
As it stands, I don’t know his position on inerrancy.
Inerrancy is the claim the Bible’s original autograph are without error—that the books conform to what actually happened. It has become a field where people attempt to provide resolutions to apparent inconsistencies between the various books of the Bible and between the books and other non-canonical sources.
Begging the question is assuming the thing you are trying to prove.
What I mean by stating Dr. Craig is begging the question, is that he attempts to prove the event of the Resurrection is historical. Yet the earliest sources we have for the resurrection are the books of the Bible. The very things Dr. Craig uses to prove they are correct.
Let me use one of Dr. Craig’s points as an example to demonstrate the difference. Dr. Craig claims one of the first non-Christian polemics against the resurrection assumes the empty tomb. In other words, enemies of Christianity, in attempting to counter Christianity, felt they were stuck with the fact of an empty tomb.
For this point, he uses Matthew 28:11-15. The Priests paid the guards to claim the disciples stole the body. What Dr. Craig doesn’t say, is the source of this story.
It is not “The Priests say the disciples stole the body.” Rather, it is “The author of Matthew claims the Priests say the disciples stole the body.” Dr. Craig is using Matthew to prove Matthew is correct, without explicitly stating as such. This is NOT a “non-Christian polemic.” It is a Christian polemic.
That is begging the question (using Christian source to claim Christian story, without indicating it is a Christian source.)
Inerrancy, while related, is different. That would be comparing the story of the soldiers at the tomb with the other gospels, and how the soldier story contradicts Mark, Luke and John.
I'll get to the specifics later (I haven't even had a chance to read your posts yet). But when did Blogspot start limiting the number of characters you can include in responses? You and I used to go back and forth with comments that seemed more like treatises. Having to break things up into a bunch of little comments is really a pain! Do you know if this is a feature I can turn off?
Cannot turn it off. Perhaps I should learn to write shorter comments? *smile*
Tell you what. From now on all responses to any of my posts will be limited to, "Ken, you're right." That will keep it short! :)
Ken,
Sorry about the late reply. I had connection issues yesterday.
Re: "It seems to me that this may be an example of what happens quite often in my understanding of Hinduism; borrowing from multiple belief systems without worrying about whether there is any logical contradiction"
I wouldn't recommend you / anybody else to look for logical coherency in Hinduism. It is a complex maze of 'evolved' beliefs. Infact, ability to 'evolve' is portrayed as the important positive attribute of Hinduism, by its proponents. Knowlege-able Hindus don't look for consistency; the other Hindus don't know about the inconsistency.
So yes - they have picked up the Christian Gospel and through ignorance added that to their belief system. Interestingly they didn't pick up the gospel through hearsay from outside of India/Persia; rather there were sages who were Christian evangelists - who lived and taught people, from being in India. One of the most notable sage is Agathiyar (Agathiyar means - the ancient).
Re: "Do you know where I can find the Naamavali you quoted?"
For documentary evidence - I can hunt for a book, for you next time I'm in India, if you prefer that. For short term reference (rough content), you can go to
either http://www.oration.com/~mm9n/articles/hinduism/chapter_eight.htm
or http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/shakti-sadhana/439780-sahasranamavali-vivekanandas-claim-jesus-christ.html
God bless you richly.
In Christ,
Arul.
Arul,
Thank you for the information. I assure you that I would never look for logical coherency in Hinduism. I gave that quest up long ago. I have found your insights, however, to be very illuminating. God bless.
Ken
DagoodS,
I would like to begin with an apology. I believe some of my comments in this thread have gone outside the boundaries that I normally set for myself. It hasn’t so much been the content as the tone. As you know, I often preach that we can disagree without being disagreeable. After much prayer and reflection, I believe that on occasion I have stepped over the line to disagreeable. For that I apologize. I will try to do better.
“TRADITION” ISSUE
My original “challenge”, so to speak, was: “I will leave it to any of our readers to go back through our discussion in this thread and ask if I appealed to 'tradition' as the evidence for any of my arguments or whether I appealed to contemporary documentation.”
Your response: “Well…in case the readers are too lazy…perchance I will help them out. Regarding disciples other than James (brother of John) and James (brother of Jesus) you stated: Ten Minas Ministries: First, keep in mind that any possible specifics I can give are based upon Christian tradition. Here It would seem when you claim to not appeal to tradition, you were referring to only the two Jameses. Right, then.”
I asked if I ever used tradition as “evidence” for my arguments. My argument, as we’ve been over quite a bit now, is for the historicity of the martyrdom of the apostles. You cited my statement to suggest that I was using tradition as evidence in support of that argument (that was the point of the “challenge” to which you responded). Therefore, you cited that comment to claim that I used tradition to bolster my argument for the historicity of the apostles.
I believe that when you look at my entire comment it is clear that I was using the fact that these stories were solely based on tradition to diminish their potential historicity, not bolster it as the “challenge” required. In other words, in the passage you cited I was doing the exact opposite of what would have been required to answer the “challenge.”
That being said, I will again leave it to any of our readers to decide whether or not you actually met the “challenge” I posed. Lest any doubt remain, I do not rely upon these “traditional” accounts whatsoever in support of the martyrdom of ANY of the apostles. In fact, I believe that the fact that these accounts are based solely on tradition actually diminishes the probability that the events they describe occurred as the describe them. I was merely responding to Mr. Harris' question as to how certain other apostles died by reciting for him various traditions while at the same time trying to caution him to take these stories with a "grain of salt" precisely because they are based solely in tradition and tradition is not particularly reliable.
JEWISH PERSECUTION
“If there was no Jewish persecution, then the first recorded instance we have is Tacitus in 64 C.E.”
“See, part of the argument of martyr’s death proving belief, is the claim they were persecuted right away.”
“The only persecution listed is this Jewish persecution.”
I believe these three statements need to be addressed together.
First, I disagree that the martyrdom argument requires that the persecution begins “right away.” In fact, most of the Christians I come into contact with about this issue (myself included) believe that there were likely isolated incidents of severe persecution early on (such as the stoning of Stephen), but as a general principle the level of persecution started more subtly and grew over time. All that is required for the martyrdom argument to hold weight is for the persecution to grow to a life-threatening level during the apostles’ lifetimes. If they continue to preach from that point forward, they do so knowing that they are putting their lives in danger (much as I would know in my earlier example of setting up a Bible study today in Saudi Arabia).
With that understanding, I believe there are examples of persecution prior to Nero in 64 A.D., and these examples involve persecution both by Jews and non-Jews.
Starting most recently and working our way backwards, the book of 1 Peter is generally dated in the early 60s A.D. This is (in part) because it lists Bithynia and Pontus separately in a list of territories in 1:1 (and not even next to each other in the list). However, Bithynia and Pontus became one province when they were conquered by Caesar in 65 A.D. I will concede that it is possible that this book is contemporary with Nero’s persecution in 64, but considering the major theme of the book is endurance through suffering, it seems odd that Peter makes no reference to Nero’s actions if in fact they had already occurred at the time the letter was written. Thus, this letter was likely written before 64 A.D.
Consider some of Peter’s comments in that letter:
2:12 “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
4:3-4 “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.”
4:12-16 “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
This raises another problem with your position. Why even write this letter if all this persecution is fictitious? Why write to believers encouraging them to stand firm in the face of suffering if they are not undergoing suffering in the first place? Why would the leaders of a blossoming religious movement that is trying to recruit new members falsely claim (either to their potential “new recruits” or to people within the church whose faith may be wavering) that they will undergo persecution as a direct result of their faith (persecution that they could avoid if they returned to their old ways) if it was not true? This could hardly be an effective evangelism technique.
In my past experience debating with you, you often seem to reject any Christian writing outright because it is Christian in origin. But this is the same kind of “confirmation bias” that you often claim of Christians. The fact that these are Christian documents is irrelevant. You must look to the content itself and ask if it has any indicia of reliability. One such test for reliability is if the content is embarrassing to the author or somehow against his interests. If so, the author would not be inclined to fabricate it. The only reason he would mention a fact that is counterproductive to him would be if it was true. That is the point I was illustrating above with Peter. The fact that these statements appear in a Christian document actually bolsters their credibility because this is not the type of information a Christian would want to spread if it was untrue.
Continuing on our journey back in time, the next book would be Hebrews. Hebrews generally dates to about 60 A.D. Based upon the content of Hebrews it certainly appears to have been written before Nero’s actions in 64 A.D. The author of Hebrews also outlines persecution against Christians:
10:32-34 “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.”
12:4 “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
Notice that the “suffering” discussed in the first passage occurred in “those earlier days”; i.e., a period some time before the book of Hebrews was actually written. The author is recalling a past time, so the suffering referred to here occurred even earlier than the book itself.
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians is generally dated around 55 A.D (in part based upon the date of 1 Corinthians and the amount of time that must have elapsed in order for the events described in 2 Corinthians to take place). In it Paul states the following:
6:4-10 “Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
11:23-27 “Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.”
Then, of course we have the suggestion of Paul himself persecuting Christians at an earlier stage of his life before his conversion:
Galatians 1:13 (Paul’s own letter) “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”
Acts 9:1-2 “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”
What is interesting about these passages is that Peter mentions that “pagans” were “heaping abuse” on Christians. Likewise, Paul says he was in danger from “Gentiles.” Contrary to your position, Christians did not claim that the persecution was exclusively from the Jews. They said they were persecuted by Jew and Gentile alike, and these references are prior to Tacitus’ record of Nero’s actions in 64 A.D.
You may reject these sources because they have a Christian origin, but I have already explained above why this is not an adequate reason for rejecting them. You may also launch into a criticism of the proper dating of these letters or questions about their authorship. But before you do please allow me to point something out.
Have you thought about the sheer number of things that must “come together” in order for your position to be correct? Just thinking of our discussion alone, all of the below letters must be either incorrectly dated or the conclusion as to their authorship must be incorrect. This last point is no small matter because many of these documents are "signed" by the alleged author (e.g., Paul’s and Peter’s writings). If these "signatures" are not genuine, you are accusing the "actual" authors of flat out lies:
Acts
Galatians
2 Corinthians
Hebrews (date only; the author is unknown, although obviously a Christian)
1 Peter
1 Corinthians
James
Matthew
John
You simply must argue that these documents either were not written by their claimed authors or else that they are improperly dated. It is insufficient to concede, for example, that Peter wrote 1 Peter and that he wrote it in the early 60s A.D., but then claim that he made up the stories of persecution. That begs the question of motive I raised above. What possible reason would Peter have for fabricating stories of persecution if it wasn’t happening? That would be counter-productive. So your only real argument is that Peter did not really write this letter, and that it was made up some time later by a Christian of a future generation.
But remember that even though all of these documents are compiled into one volume for us today, they were originally separate books, and you need them ALL to be fraudulent. Your position starts to sound like modern day conspiracy theories. EVERYBODY is lying. ALL the documents are forgeries. Even if you are right about 1 or 2 of the letters, your position implies forgeries for ALL of them. People are right to look upon modern conspiracy theories with a skeptical eye. The fact that the alleged conspiracy occurred 2,000 years ago is no different.
Incidentally, I am aware that you do not trust the historicity of the Acts of the Apostles. But rather than going down that path again, I will simply refer readers to our earlier discussion on that subject here.
The same conspiracy problem surfaces with your tradition claims as well. Someone who reads only this discussion may think that your claim that the martyrdom of the apostles was merely a mythical tradition that developed over time may be reasonable enough. But again, your overall atheistic position holds far more. In fact atheists hold that ALL of the following are due to the development of a mythical tradition:
Virgin birth
Jesus' birth in Bethlehem
Jesus' family fleeing to Egypt
Herod's execution of the children in Bethlehem
Jesus' miracles
Jesus' claims of divinity (possibly)
Resurrection
Burial by Joseph of Arimathea
Empty tomb
Post-resurrection appearances
Apostles' miracles
Apostles' martyrdom
And this is a very general list. I could, for example, break down each and every one of Jesus' miracles and make this list even longer.
JAMES KILLED FOR BEING A CHRISTIAN
“I must first caution a practice I see far too often - Christians obtaining their idea of what ‘Judaism’ was in the First Century solely through Christian sources.”
This is an easy accusation to make, but of course impossible to back up. If your evidence to support this statement is your long explanation about the different sects of Judaism, please let me assure you that Christians are very much aware of these distinctions.
“…the Johannine claim the Jews could not issue death penalties is false.”
I will discuss this more later when we get to the passage from the Babylonian Talmud, but suffice it to say that you certainly have not offered any evidence to back up this statement. I will only mention briefly here that your position would require us to believe that the Jews could not even convene the Sanhedrin without the Roman procurator’s consent (i.e., the passage from Josephus which you now appear to concede), but they were allowed to execute people without Rome’s OK. I find that highly implausible, especially considering the lack of any evidence offered by you thus far.
As to your explanation of the various sects, the discussion of Judea, Galilee and Perea is irrelevant. This was a simple matter of geography and governmental structure. These were political divides, not religious ones. It is like saying two people cannot both be Presbyterian because one lives in Montana while the other lives in Wyoming. It gets back to a discussion I have had many times in the past about relevant differences. Simply pointing out a distinction does not mean it is a relevant distinction. While there were distinctions between Judea, Galilee and Perea, these distinctions were not relevant to our discussion.
Your comments about Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and the Kumran community are more on point because these distinctions were religious in nature.
The key here is in your admission that what one sect thought was lawful another would not. We have more information about James' execution than your comment seems to acknowledge. Yes, Josephus says he was accused of violating Jewish law. You claim that based upon this alone we cannot conclude that the violation was based upon James’ Christian beliefs. You cite examples of other “Jewish” beliefs that equally could have been found by the Sadducee-dominated Sanhedrin to be violations of Jewish law. How do we know the accusation against James was not based in some Phariseic, Essene or Kumran-type belief or practice?
The simple answer to this question is, “Because James was Christian.” He was not a Pharisee, Essene or Kumran. What we have here is an accusation of law breaking made against a Christian.
Allow me to illustrate. You admit that what one sect believes is lawful another may not. So a Sadducee may accuse a Pharisee of breaking the law because of the Pharisee’s Phariseic beliefs. Similarly, a Pharisee may accuse a Sadducee of breaking the law based upon the Sadducee’s Sadduceic beliefs. So the Sadduceic Sanhedrin accused James of breaking the law because of his … Phariseic beliefs? Essene beliefs? Kumranic beliefs? These make no sense because James no longer belonged to any of these sects. If he was accused of breaking the law it was because of his Christian beliefs and practices.
You also cannot forget that whatever this alleged violation may have been, it was supposedly serious enough to warrant the death penalty. Most violations of Mosaic law did not require death. Sadducees and Pharisees had very different eschatological positions, but they didn’t kill each other over them. The differences of opinion you cite that differentiated Pharisee from Sadducee were not generally considered to be serious enough to warrant death, so they are not likely to be the basis for the accusation made against James and others. However, claiming that Jesus was God would have been considered blasphemy, an offense that very well could be punished by death. We do not know the specific offense. But we do know that the distinctions between the sects you mentioned generally were not considered so serious as to be blasphemous. The distinction between those sects and Christianity was.
As a side note, Samaritans were not truly a “sect” of Judaism. They could probably best be described as a parallel but different religion. They did not observe a strictly “Jewish” bloodline. As you correctly observed, their Torah was different. They also did not worship in Jerusalem and Jews did not consider them to be part of the same “religious community.”
Your comments also forget that whatever this accusation was, it was made against a group of people. If it was based upon some Phariseic belief, why weren’t Josephus’ “most equitable of citizens” dragged into it too? After all, they shared those beliefs. In the end, I don’t believe you have offered a more plausible explanation for this violation of the law, nor have you directly responded to any of the reasons I proffered to believe it was based in James’ Christian beliefs.
In regard to your four reasons, you are correct that Josephus does not identify James as a Christian. Then again, he didn’t even give us names for the “others” who stood accused, so it is hardly surprising that he did not provide every detail about James. We are lucky Josephus identified James by name at all. Josephus did tell us, however, that this James was the brother of the one called “Christ” and that he was accused of being a “breaker of the law.” As I have already covered, I believe those clues are adequate to make it probable that the accusation was based in James’ Christianity.
As to your second point (whether the charge was true or false), I guess that depends upon your interpretation of the law. I’m sure Ananus thought it was true, just like modern day Jews believe it is blasphemous to say that Jesus is God or that God is a Trinity. Obviously, as a Christian I have a different interpretation and I’m sure James did as well.
Your third point (that the Pharisees sprang to James’ defense) is simply not justified by Josephus’ text. Remember that you have already conceded that the violation of law for which they ran to Albinus was a violation of ROMAN law, not Jewish law. Specifically, these Pharisees did not believe that Ananus had the authority to convene the Sanhedrin without Albinus’ consent.
Look back at the text. Where does it ever say that the Pharisees came to James’ defense? Where does it ever say that they did not believe the accusations against James were perfectly legitimate? It is not there. Here is what Josephus said:
“… but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent.”
They were “uneasy at the breach of the laws.” What laws? As we’ve already covered, these were ROMAN laws. That is why they went to the king and Albinus about what was done. Their concern had nothing to do with whether or not James and his companions actually violated Jewish law. They were uneasy about the fact that Ananus convened the Sanhedrin without Rome’s consent. There is no evidence that anyone ever “sprang to James’ defense.” I am afraid that you are now reading things into the text that are not there. You say that some of the explanations you offer are “speculative.” But they are more than speculative. They are directly contradicted by what Josephus says.
This is more than what you allege against me. You argue that I am speculatively inserting explanations to fill a void in the text (an allegation which I have already refuted). But your comment that the Pharisees sprang to James’ defense is not merely inserting an explanation when the text is silent. It is inserting an explanation when the text explicitly says something completely different.
I would also note that Josephus never said that he personally was uneasy about what was done to James (as you allege). He simply reports the historical event that the “most equitable of citizens” were uneasy about it. Again, you read something into the text that is not there.
There are a couple of issues with your fourth point.
You ask, "what was it the disciples were doing that was in violation of the law?” They were "working" on the Sabbath, under an extreme interpretation of “working” that Jesus refuted elsewhere as well.
Also, according to you, “Acts 4:21” allegedly provides a conflicting story as to “whether advocating Christianity was in violation of Jewish law.”
Acts 4:21-22 states, “After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.”
This does not say, as you allege, that the Jews did not believe that preaching Christianity was not a violation of Jewish law. If anything, the fact that the Sanhedrin was so put off by the Christian message (see the verses preceding these) suggests that they DID believe it was contrary to Jewish law. What the passage actually says is that the Jews let Peter and John go, apparently because they were concerned about the reaction of the people if they punished them (because the people believed that the healing of the 40+ year old man was from God). In any case, this passage clearly does not say that they concluded that Peter and John did not violate the law and let them go for that reason. Again, you are reading something into the text that is not there (and which again actually appears to be contradicted by what is in the text).
Even if we ignore the comments about the reaction of “the people,” this passage still would not support your conclusion. Allow me to give an example that should appeal to you as a lawyer. The passage says that the Jews “could not decide how to punish them.” As an attorney I am sure you understand the difference between the guilt phase of a criminal trial and the penalty phase. During the guilt phase the court decides whether or not the defendant violated the law. During the penalty phase the court decides what punishment should be meted out. The court does not even get to the penalty phase unless it first finds the defendant guilty during the guilt phase. After all, we do not punish innocent people, so you first must find a defendant guilty before you even ask the question of how to punish him or her.
In the passage from Acts, the Jews did not say that “They could not decide whether Peter and John were guilty.” It said “They could not decide how to punish them.” Why are they even considering punishment unless they have already decided that Peter and John were guilty of violating the law? Punishment is completely irrelevant unless guilt has already been decided. So contrary to your proposition, this passage from Acts tends to show that the Jews did consider preaching the Christian gospel to be contrary to the law.
Moving to your position that James observed Mosaic law in addition to practicing his Christianity, I will preface my comments by pointing out that I have no problem accepting that James probably continued to follow many Jewish customs. The problem with your position is that following those customs would not get him charged with a capital offense by the Sanhedrin. Your position is that in James we see Mosaic law + Christianity. Which of those two could lead to a capital charge? Certainly not a dedication to observing Mosaic law (especially considering that the examples you give generally concern circumcision, dietary laws, etc., things that would only place him in higher esteem amongst either the Pharisees or the Sadducees). It is when he steps away from what the Jews considered to be Mosaic law and steps into his “Christian shoes” that could lead to trouble. As I said before, many Christian doctrines could be considered blasphemy to a devout Jew.
That being said, some of your points require clarification. First of all, I ask you to please re-read Acts 15, because it actually bears very little resemblance to what you described.
15:5 does not clearly say that someone can be a Christian and a Pharisee. It says, “Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’” “Belonged” could mean “were currently a member of,” as you suggest, or also “were formerly a member of,” as in they were Pharisees before they became Christians.
Peter, Paul and Barnabas did not “contend with the leaders of the church.” Verses 1 and 2 state, “Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’ This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.” The initial contention was with the men who “came down from Judea to Antioch,” not with the “apostles and elders” (i.e., the “leaders of the church”). Paul and Barnabas simply went to consult with those leaders in order to get their opinion on the dispute. Once they arrived in Jerusalem, verse 5 tells us that “some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’” Again, it is still not the “leaders of the church” speaking. It is those “believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees.” This was very much like the court cases you and I handle routinely. Paul and Barnabas were on one side. The former Pharisees were on the other side. The “leaders of the church” were acting as the judge or jury. At no point does Acts say that the “leaders of the church” were the other party with whom Paul and Barnabas were contending.
James also did not “stand up” for these former Pharisees. In fact, he specifically said, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (verse 19). You are correct that the heart of the dispute was circumcision and obedience to Mosaic law. But James only proposed four rules for the Gentiles: (1) that they avoid food polluted by idols (which would keep them away from their previous pagan practices), (2) avoid sexual immorality (part of the general moral law, but also common in pagan rituals), (3) do not eat the meat of strangled animals (probably to “keep the peace” because strangled animals still contained blood and consuming blood was particularly repulsive to Jewish believers), and (4) do not drink blood (for the same reason) (verse 20). James never said that the Gentiles should obey the Mosaic law nor did he say that they should be circumcised. He sided with Paul and Barnabas, not the former Pharisees.
In Acts 21, James and the elders did not really ask Paul to “keep the law.” They asked him to join in a purification rite with four other men and to pay those men’s expenses for the rite (vv. 23-24). Yes, this rite was part of the Mosaic law. I only mention this to offset the possible misinterpretation by any readers that James was telling Paul to keep ALL of the law, including, for example, the sin offering, grain offering, fellowship offering, etc. That is not the case.
“I will happily concede it was a breach of ROMAN law for Ananus to assemble the Sanhedrin prior to being confirmed as High Priest by Albinus.”
As described previously, this concession also undercuts your argument that the Pharisees sprang to James’ defense. That argument was based upon your position that the Pharisees objected to James’ death because it was contrary to Jewish law. But based upon this concession we now see that the heart of their objection was that it was a violation of Roman law to even convene the Sanhedrin in the first place, regardless of whether James violated Jewish law or not.
I would also ask where your stipulation "prior to being confirmed as High Priest by Albinus" comes from. That is not in the text. Josephus says that the king "bestowed" the high priesthood upon Ananus and that Ananus "took the high priesthood." It never says anything about needing to be "confirmed" by Albinus. Even if it did it never says that Ananus had not yet been "confirmed" (actually it seems to suggest that anything that was needed for him to be high priest was already done; after all he "took the high priesthood"). I am not sure if you have included this extra fact because you are trying to say that the only reason Ananus could not convene the Sanhedrin was because he was not confirmed yet (and hence once he was confirmed he could convene it without Roman consent). If so, I would note that this would also be completely absent from the text. Unless you can point me to some other authority, it appears that the requirement to obtain Roman approval prior to convening the Sanhedrin applied to all high priests, "confirmed" or not.
“See, unlike Christian apologists, I can recognize being incorrect and move on. … When is the last time we see a Christian apologist do so?”
Actually quite frequently. This is a classic example of the logical error of attacking the messenger instead of the message. It does not add anything to a discussion on the merits of a position.
HEGESIPPUS
I will concede that I forgot about the Apocalypse of James when writing the original blog entry. After all, this was a blog entry, not a research paper. I have the Apocalypse of James on my bookshelf in my office at home, but it had been several years since I read it.
I added the reference to Hegesippus because (1) I recalled his reference to James’ stoning and (2) because it provides multiple attestation. Granted, the Hegesippus reference is later in time than Josephus and allowed time for tradition to creep in. However, I believe (as I have said previously in these comments) that it is relatively simple to see this tradition in the growing number of details in Hegesippus’ version that were not present in Josephus. However, as was the punchline that I highlighted in my original post, both Josephus and Hegesippus “end up with James being stoned.”
As a side note, I would also point out that your comment that Hegesippus was based upon the Apocalypse of James and not based upon Josephus only serves to bolster my argument. While I admittedly did not think of this at the time of my original post (because I wasn’t even thinking of the Apocalypse of James), if Hegesippus was not based on Josephus, then we have not only multiple attestation of the stoning of James, but multiple INDEPENDENT attestation. In other words, we have two independent sources both describing the same event.
“To be fair with you – I don’t believe it. I think you included Hegesippus to bolster the Christianity of James, not solely for the stoning.”
I certainly cannot tell you what to believe, although you will have to explain why the conclusory statement in my original post highlighted only the stoning (i.e., “both end up with James being stoned”).
You criticize me because you apparently believe I quoted more from Hegesippus than was needed to make my point. Ironically, in one of your earliest posts in this thread you criticized me by saying, “Further, I…er…cannot help but note you did not complete the quote of Hegesippus.” So initially I was criticized for quoting too little of Hegesippus. Now I am criticized for quoting too much. It seems to be very difficult to satisfy your standards.
DagoodS, I really believe this comment illustrates your true problem with Christianity. It isn’t intellectual, although I am sure you firmly believe it is. You cannot bring yourself to believe that a Christian could be being genuine with you. If it is Christian in any way shape or form, you do not trust it. You do not trust my intentions. You do not trust any writings written by Christian authors to be giving you reliable information. If I was to hazard a guess, I would bet someone claiming to be a Christian hurt you in some way in the past (we see that in John Loftus’ story, for example, in the behavior of people at his former church). Sadly, this does happen. Christians do not always behave in a Christ-like manner, myself included (hence the apology at the beginning of this “treatise”). But please do not conclude from Christians’ many imperfections that we do not act out of genuine concern and love for you. I don’t expect that if you ever wanted to explore a personal commitment with Jesus that I would be the one you’d come to. The nature of our exchanges probably limits the role you would ever see me filling to “the apologist" (sheer geography would be a problem too; Michigan is not too close to Maryland). I just hope and pray that you have a friend or acquaintance who is a Christian to whom you could go. DagoodS, I’m not lying to you. I can’t make you believe it, but it’s true.
“But if Josephus has mentioned that James was killed for an actual violation of Jewish law – wouldn’t that be convenient? If Josephus had called James a Christian – wouldn’t that be convenient? If Josephus had listed a singular Christian act on the part of James – wouldn’t that be convenient?”
Those certainly would be MORE convenient. But your original position was that I found Josephus to be “inconvenient.” Something being less convenient than it could possibly be is not the same as it being “inconvenient.” Sure, Josephus could have helped my case even more. But that does not mean he hurts my case.
“Odd to skip over the quote from Josephus – the pertinent, contemporary writing, to make a long quote from a non-authoritative source only used to state a fact not in dispute!”
DagoodS, how am I supposed to know what will and will not be in dispute when I first post a blog entry, before anyone has commented on it whatsoever? In order to prove martyrdom, I need to show (1) the apostles were killed, and (2) the killings were as a result of their faith. I used Hegesippus for part (1). You say that is not in dispute. How was I to know beforehand what you (or anyone else) would find objectionable? Part (1) is just as much part of my “prima facie case” as part (2).
I am also not sure what you mean by “skip over the quote from Josephus.” My original post did quote from Josephus’ account of James’ death.
TALMUD REFERRALS TO DISCIPLES
“Humorously, the Tractate Sanhedrin is a Jewish document, indicating the Sanhedrin DID have the right to execute capital punishment.”
Where exactly do you contend that this passage says that Jews had the right to execute people without Roman consent? Please provide me with a specific quotation. Yes, it describes instances where the Sanhedrin DID perform executions. So did Josephus (and chapter 7 of Acts, for that matter, in regard to the stoning of Stephen). But saying that they DID execute people does not mean that they had the AUTHORITY to do so. They could do so in defiance of that authority. After all, isn’t that precisely what Ananus did in the Josephus passage? He executed James and others even though he wasn’t even supposed to convene the Sanhedrin without Rome’s consent. My children do things all the time that they are not supposed to do. That does not mean that they had my permission to do them. So I agree that this passage says that the Jews DID execute some of Jesus’ disciples, but where do you contend it says that they had the authority to do so?
“You want the disciples to be killed. So you find the Tractate Sanhedrin…”
Look back at my comment when I used the Tractate Sanhedrin. Did I cite it in support of the proposition that the disciples were killed?
Me – “We also have examples from Jesus' time all the way through the present of Jews considering the practice of Christianity to be a violation of Jewish law … We find similar sentiments in the Babylonian Talmud, in 43a-b of the Tractate Sanhedrin …”
I did not use this passage to defend the historicity of the events it describes. I used it to provide one example of Jews “considering the practice of Christianity to be a violation of Jewish law.” This was in direct response to your argument that preaching Christianity was not necessarily considered to be a violation of Jewish law. I then provided a number of examples in which Jews did consider it to be a violation of their law. This was one of them. I never claimed that the actual events described occurred. The point was that whoever wrote the Tractate Sanhedrin obviously believed that preaching Christianity was a violation of Jewish law.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
"Do you understand the difference between inerrancy and begging the question?"
Yes. That was the point of my question to you.
In response to your other question, no, I do not know Dr. Craig's position on inerrancy. I was referring to his comment that the books of the Bible do not need to be inerrant or even generally reliable in order to support his argument for the resurrection. In the Preface to the third edition of "Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics," Dr. Craig speaks of "the misimpression, all too common among evangelicals, that a historical case for Jesus' radical self-understanding and resurrection depends upon showing that the Gospels are generally reliable historical documents. The overriding lesson of two centuries of biblical criticism is that such an assumption is false. Even documents which are generally unreliable may contain valuable historical nuggets, and it will be the historian's task to mine these documents in order to discover them. The Christian apologist seeking to establish, for example, the historicity of Jesus' empty tomb need not and should not be saddled with the task of first showing that the Gospels are, in general, historically reliable documents."
If they don't need to be "historically reliable" then they certainly don't need to be inerrant. So I don't know whether Dr. Craig believes the Bible is inerrant. However, he does seem to believe that it does not NEED to be inerrant for the resurrection argument to be made.
"What I mean by stating Dr. Craig is begging the question, is that he attempts to prove the event of the Resurrection is historical. Yet the earliest sources we have for the resurrection are the books of the Bible. The very things Dr. Craig uses to prove they are correct."
In this comment you change the meaning of your terms. In your first sentence, what is it that Dr. Craig is trying to prove? "The event of the Resurrection is historical." In the second sentence what do you say he is trying to prove? "The books of the Bible ... are correct." Those are not the same thing. As Dr. Craig explained in the passage I quoted above, he does not believe that you need to show that the books are generally reliable in order to demonstrate the historicity of the Resurrection. Really your last sentence should read, "The very things he uses to prove the Resurrection is historical." In the end, all you are saying is that Dr. Craig uses the gospels to prove the Resurrection is historical. What is wrong with that? You try to make something appear circular that really is not. Allow me to illustrate by using the same logical structure but substituting different terms:
DagoodS attempts to prove the event of Nero using Christians as scapegoats is historical. Yet the earliest source we have for Nero using them as scapegoats is Tacitus in about 117 A.D. (the date he wrote "the Annals"). The very thing DagoodS uses to prove this event happened.
Where is the question begging? Ultimately I am only saying that DagoodS relies upon Tacitus in his argument that the event of Nero using Christians as scapegoats occurred. And ultimately all you have stated is that Dr. Craig relies upon the books of the Bible in his argument that the event of the Resurrection occurred.
The only other possible interpretation I can see of your comments is that you are claiming it is question begging because Dr. Craig seeks to use a Christian document to prove a Christian claim. Of course, I would point out that anyone who witnessed the risen Christ would have a pretty strong reason to become a Christian, so if we eliminate all Christian authors from consideration we may also as a practical matter be eliminating all witnesses to the resurrection. That is "stacking the deck" to ensure a desired outcome. I have also pointed out previously why the fact that a document is Christian in origin is no reason to dismiss it out of right.
Finally, you use Dr. Craig's example of the alleged early Jewish polemic against the resurrection to support your case for question begging. If Dr. Craig had simply said, "It was a Jewish polemic because the early Christians said it was," I would agree with you. But he didn't. He first tried to demonstrate why we can conclude it really was a Jewish polemic despite the fact that it has been handed down to us by a Christian source.
First, so that people know what we are talking about, the Biblical passage at issue comes from Matthew 28:11-15:
"While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, 'You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."
Now please allow me a relatively extensive quote from pages 369-70 of "Reasonable Faith" in order to illustrate how Dr. Craig attempts to show that the notion that this was the earliest Jewish polemic "is not a Matthean creation":
"Behind the story evidently lies a developing pattern of assertion and counter-assertion:
"Christian: 'The Lord is risen!'
Jew: 'No, his disciples stole away his body.'
Christian: 'The guard at the tomb would have prevented any such theft.'
Jew: 'No, the guard fell asleep.'
Christian: 'The chief priests bribed the guard to say this.'
"This pattern probably goes right back to controversies in Jerusalem following the disciples' proclamation of the resurrection. In response to the Christian proclamation of Jesus' resurrection, the Jewish reaction was simply to assert that the disciples had stolen the body. The idea of guard could only have been a Christian, not a Jewish, development. At the next stage there is no need for Christians to invent the bribing of the guard; it was sufficient to claim that the tomb was guarded. The bribe arises only in response to the second stage of the polemic, the Jewish allegation that the guard fell asleep. This part of the story could only have been a Jewish development, since it serves no purpose in the Christian polemic. At the final stage, the time of Matthew's writing, the Christian answer that the guards were bribed is given.
"Thus, the Jewish polemic itself shows that the tomb was empty."
In other words, there is far more included in Matthew's account than would be necessary if this was all a figment of Christian imagination. Why not simply stop at saying Jesus is risen? Why even add the accusation that the body was stolen? Once that is added (and the Christian response), why add yet another level that the guard fell asleep? The fact that all of these factors weigh into Matthew's account seems to suggest a genuine exchange that developed over time between the Christian and Jewish communities.
So the mere fact that a statement is uttered by a Christian does not automatically make it question begging to rely upon that statement in arguing for Christianity. The Christian could be accurately conveying what the Jews actually said. Why do you automatically assume Matthew is lying? Dr. Craig does not simply take Matthew at his word. He tries to decide if the statement has any indicia of reliability. If so, it may be deemed reliable in spite of the source. You, however, seem to be asking us to automatically disregard the source without even looking at the statement critically to decide whether it should be believed. I have already discussed this tendency of yours.
You may agree or disagree with whether or not Dr. Craig has succeeded in demonstrating the reliability of Matthew's assertion that this was an early Jewish polemic. That is not the point. The point is that he does not engage in question begging as you claim. He does try to prove that Matthew's statement is reliable in spite of its source.
My prayer for you DagoodS is that one day soon you will see how you have engaged in confirmation bias, how you repeatedly read things into texts that you want to be there but which in reality are absent, how you change the meaning of terms in your logical arguments, and how you automatically discard any information that comes from a Christian source for no reason other than the fact that it is Christian. I know you probably don't see this now, but I will continue to pray for you.
God bless.
Ken
Two quick areas--I will (with Blogger’s help) limit myself to two comments. The rest I may cover in my own blog.
Thank you for the apology; it wasn’t necessary. As lawyers we develop pretty thick skin, and I will confess to letting my hair down a bit and slipping into the comfortable shoes of hyperbolic sarcasm we love to employ at times. I attempt to restrain myself, and have even walked away from this blog entry once in order to avoid it.
Nothing you have said has offended me, but I appreciate the sentiment behind the words.
With wry amusement I read your comment about my deconverting because “someone claiming to be a Christian has hurt” me. Amused because just yesterday another Internet Psychiatrist accused me of becoming an atheist so I could watch porn and play video games. And the day before (I kid you not) another Int. Psych. accused me of becoming an atheist because I was too proud.
I have been accused by Int. Psychs. of dictating to God, not having enough faith, relying too much on faith, not having enough knowledge, having too much knowledge, wanting to sin (an oldie, but a goodie), because I was an inerrantist, because I was a conservative, because of the churches I attended, because of the Christians I associated with and, of course, because I was “hurt” by Christianity.
I don’t mind the Internet Psychiatry as much as the multiple diagnoses. Could all my Int.Psyhcs. hold a conference or something and agree as to why I deconverted so I could address the problem?
Having encountered this in the past, I asked my sole remaining Christian friend his thoughts—why does he think I deconverted? (This is my best friend of 24 years.) He indicated, after doing some study of his own, he understood why non-theism is persuasive. He thinks I deconverted because I am no longer convinced, for a variety of evidences and arguments, that Christianity is true.
Hey—but what could he possibly know, right?
I have considered whether I fall into the trap of rejecting a claim, simply because it is “Christian.” And I do see the strong possibility I am “pendulum-swinging”—in order to counter the Christian position that everything Christian is correct, I would be taking the most opposite position that everything Christian is incorrect.
But then I look at my sources. My position is bolstered by scholars--Christian scholars. The first comment I gave on this blog recommends a book where I get many of my ideas. Including the myth-making of Jesus’ life. It is written by Christians. It isn’t atheists who claim the virgin tale is made up—this is the predominance of scholars. Including Christian scholars! No, we (Christian and non-Christian scholars) are NOT claiming it makes it a forgery. Because we have studied the culture of the time, and other writings.
The authors were not intending to write actual histories, the audiences were not expecting actual histories.
Another example: you claim the dating of 1 Peter to 60’s C.E. I look up Udo Schnelle—a Christian scholar—who places the dating in the 90’s C.E. for listed reasons. Peter Kirby, a former non-theist and now a Christian, puts the dating at 80 – 1100 C.E. My rejection of the 60’s date is not because a Christian is making it—on the contrary, many other Christians reject the date!—it is due to the evidence against the date.
Hegesippus The only other issue important enough for its own comment. The rest I may deal with on my blog.
You indicate you were not using tradition in your argument for the martyrdom of James, but after this last flurry of comments, I am left scratching my head: “Why DID you use Hegesippus then?”
Ten Minas Ministries: I added the reference to Hegesippus because (1) I recalled his reference to James’ stoning and (2) because it provides multiple attestation.
How is Hegesippus “multiple attestation”? I was puzzled by your claim Hegesippus was “independent.” Yes, Hegesippus relied upon the Apocalypse of James as its source—not Josephus. But the Apocalypse of James relied upon Josephus! It goes Josephus --> Apocalypse --> Hegesippus. How is that either “independent” or “multiple”? It is one and ONLY one source: Josephus.
And the “stoning” was partly what raised my antenna as to confirmation bias. Set aside the events leading up to James’ death, or the different reasons claimed for James’ death in the accounts—look at the cause of James’ death:
Josephus: Execution by stoning.
Apocalypse [relying upon Josephus]: Enraged, the priests toss James off the roof, then struck him, placed a stone upon him and then stoned him.
Hegesippus [relying upon Apocalypse]: Pre-meditated tossing of James off the roof, then stoning him, then killed by a fuller’s club.
My complaint about your quoting Hegesippus was that in your original blog entry, you quoted extensively the portion establishing him as a Christian, but then failed to quote the relevant part of his death being caused by a club—not stoning. You (assumably, because you wrote it) picked and choose what parts of Hegesippus your audience would read. When I first complained you wrote too little—it was because you failed to include the manner of James’ death. When I complained you wrote too much—it was because the vast majority of what you quoted was the tradition you now claim you weren’t using as part of your argument!
I wonder—did you even read Hegesippus before you wrote this entry? If so, why quote parts—“tradition”—you now indicate you were not using in your argument, and why avoid parts—James’ actual death—to point out the only commonality of stones being thrown?
What does Hegesippus add to this blog entry in any way, shape or form? It is not independent. It is not multiple. [O.K., and this is a bit snarky, but it fits. Do you believe the events of Apocalypse are actual? Or was the author lying? A forgery? Do you believe Hegesippus’ events were actual? Or was the author lying? A forgery? See, there are more possibilities than just “Actual History OR Lying Forgery.”]
Are you saying you wanted us to read your blog entry and say, “Wow—the story of James must be true because we have two (2) accounts (the second relying upon an unlisted account that relied upon the first account) and in each of them Jews throw rocks at ‘im”?
You were concentrating on the fact rocks were thrown by Judean leaders—not that Hegesippus was portraying James as a Christian, oh no!—not on how James was actually killed, but rather the all-important key detail in both accounts that rocks were thrown?
Not sure how, but it must be those “past so-called Christians who hurt me” that make me read your blog entry and not…quite…get the impression all you wanted us to believe is Hegesippus was reiterating Josephus’ account that rocks were thrown at James.
DagoodS,
(1) I am glad to hear you have a friend of 24 years who is a Christian. I don't claim to know you nearly as well as he does. Then again, he doesn't know you clearly as well as you do. We all have stories of when someone close to us does something we never would have seen coming. So ultimately, you are the best judge of what is in your own heart. Too may of us, though, myself included, sometimes live in denial of what is in our hearts.
(2) Simply because an author claims to be a Christian, of course, doesn't mean their views represent the majority of Christianity. There are always "outliers." So simply quoting Christian authors is not necessarily going to garner acceptance by Christian apologists. Perhaps I should modify my earlier comments to say that it appears to me that you have a tendency to reject anything that comes from a conservative / traditional (attach whatever label you deem appropriate here) Christian source for no reason other than that it comes from that source.
(3) I agree that the extra details in Hegesippus were the result of growing tradition. The point was that despite all this growing tradition, the one key fact of stoning survived. That is why I included it, and the rest was just for context. I tried to balance the scales enough to give enough context but not too much. You obviously think I failed in that respect. I guess the old axiom holds true that you cannot please everyone. Again, I think the original blog entry was pretty clear that I included Hegesippus because he also included stoning (and yes, I had read Hegesippus before; he is also on my bookshelf).
(4) Hegesippus is "multiple" attestation. "Multiple" means "more than one." Clearly more than one document mentioned the stoning. The point was that the stoning story survived. I did not actually claim it was "independent" attestation. I said that your statement that Hegessipus did not rely upon Josephus would MAKE Hegesippus independent. Your latest comment clears that up in that you believe Hegesippus relied upon the Apocalypse of James which in turn relied upon Hegessipus. I agree that, if true, this would mean that Hegesippus was not independent from Josephus.
(5) Finally, you are free to believe whatever you want about my motivations for including the passage from Hegessipus. I can't make you believe anything, and obviously you refuse to change your mind no matter how many times I tell you what my motivation was. I would simply point out that in holding to your position you are: (1) reading something into the text that is not there, an accusation that you have repeatedly advanced against me (after all, my post never said I was relying upon the extra/traditional details and in fact the only time they were even mentioned was to point out that in spite of them, the story of the stoning remained); and (2) again committing the logical error of attacking the messenger and not the message; after all, my motivation has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not my message is true.
Thank you again for your time and consideration.
Ken
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