Readers Reply

004

Beautiful Covers

The covers of BR are always the most beautiful of the 40-some journals that come into our home each month, and the picture of Eve on the December 1997 cover (see BR 13:06) is the best ever. BR’s art and design directors are to be commended for their increasingly excellent work.

Eve, by the way, is my favorite personage of the Bible. She was eager to learn, unwilling to be limited in what she was allowed to know, and brave in the face of potential punishment. God, in his response to her yen for knowledge, shows his true colors for the first (but certainly not the last) time in the Bible. Eve possessed the best of human qualities; she was curious, courageous and irrepressible. God, on the other hand, was arbitrary, fearful (Genesis 3:22), cruel and vaguely unhinged.

How Did the Gospels Get Their Names?

I was somewhat amused and yet shocked to find that in your December issue you had an ad for Randel Helms’s Who Wrote the Gospels? I realize that it can be difficult for a magazine to make financial ends meet without accepting the revenues that ads bring, and that one wouldn’t want to engage in any sort of prior censorship. However, I also believe that the spirit of fair play (not to neglect sound, thorough and reasonable scholarship) should also have come into play.

The ad for Helms’s book claims that “The names we associate with the Gospel writers are all 2nd-century guesses. Nearly a century after the four Gospels were finished, Christians in the late second century, eager to give names to the anonymous manuscripts they possessed, selected traditional figures that they supposed should have written them—the Apostles Matthew and John, Luke the ‘beloved physician’ of Paul, and John Mark of Jerusalem, the ‘son’ of Peter.”

Since I didn’t know what the real facts were, I conducted a short study on this matter. Imagine my surprise when I found that serious scholars have studied this explanation and found that it was pure nonsense.

For instance: Martin Hengel studied the distribution of books in the ancient world and his findings are given in his Studies in the Gospel of Mark (Fortress, 1985). Does it really make sense that early Christians would deliberately choose relatively unknown characters to be the authors of the canonical gospels, while the apocryphal gospels, “the majority of which came into being as early as the first half of the second century” (p. 70), chose well-known names such as Peter, Philip, Mary and Thomas—because they had “looked for a significant name from the past” (p. 73)?

Hengel’s study was also reported in Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona, Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence About the Origin of the Gospels (Doubleday, 1996). They point out, much better than I could, that even “in the eighties, no one could have blatantly invented author’s names contrary to the factual recollection of the apostles and other first-generation Christians…It is unthinkable that anyone would have dared to invent such unlikely, less prominent candidates as Mark and Matthew (or Luke for that matter) if they had not indeed been the correct author’s names—or had not been in some way directly associated with the books” (pp. 15–16).

Hengel concluded that it was “extremely improbable that the Gospels were circulated in the communities…without titles” (p. 81). He found that titles were necessary to identify a work from others of a similar nature/topic so as to avoid confusion (ibid.). He also argued that it would be inconceivable “that the gospels could circulate anonymously for up to sixty years, and then in the second century suddenly display unanimous attribution to certain authors.” D. Carson also stated that the “unanimity of the attributions in the second century cannot be explained by anything other than the assumption 006that the titles were part of the works from the beginning” (D. Carson, Douglas Moo and Leon Morris, Introduction to the New Testament [Zondervan, 1992], p. 66). Hengel also noted that it was “improbable that the unity of the titles of the gospels” came “through an authoritative pronouncement within the church” because at that time “there was no authority which could have carried through such unification with such far-reaching success in all communities” (p. 82).

Stephen J. Patterson, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and contributing editor of BR responds:

I have not read Randel Helms’s book, nor do I know his work as a scholar. Nor can I be sure that the publisher’s blurb accurately communicates the contents of his book. Perhaps the old adage about judging a book by its cover is apropos here. That said, it is not at all out of step with biblical scholarship to assert that the Gospels did not originally circulate under the titles we have come to associate with them. This is because in those early instances where authors quote material from these Gospels (early second century) they cite them anonymously, using such formulas as, “our Lord says in the gospel…” Later in the second century authors do begin to refer to Gospels by name. Thus, it is often said that the earliest evidence for these traditional attributions is in the mid-second century, when there was a tendency to ground tradition in apostolic authority. Most scholars infer from this circumstantial evidence that our Gospels did not receive their names until that time.

Martin Hengel, a very highly respected scholar, does argue that the titles we associate with Matthew and Mark go back to the end of the first century. This may be correct. However, as careful as his treatment of the evidence is, his arguments have not swayed many and he is quite aware that his is “a view which runs counter to prevailing opinion” (Studies in the Gospel of Mark, p. 70). By his own admission, Hengel should not be appealed to as a barometer of scholarly consensus on the matter.

Neither should Thiede and D’Ancona. Even Hengel does not go so far as to argue for the historical accuracy of the titles of our Gospels, as does Thiede. His theories have been discredited by Graham Stanton in his book Gospel Truth? (Trinity, 1995) and, in briefer form, in BR (see “A Gospel Among the Scrolls?” BR 11:06).

Finally, Carson’s claims to the effect that manuscripts in the second century are unanimous in preserving these traditional attributions are puzzling. There are only a few gospel manuscripts from the second century, and they are extremely fragmentary. Our earliest manuscript, known as P52, for example, contains only fragments of John 18. We have not the slightest idea of whether this text carried a title, and if so, what it might have been. This is also true of the slightly more numerous manuscripts of the third century. Of these, only three—all dating to around 200—chance to preserve titles amongst the scraps: P66 (John); P75 (Luke and John in sequence) and P4 (Matthew). But one can hardly construe this as evidence for the historical accuracy of these titles.

The only thing misleading about the blurb for Helms’s book is its claim to represent the cutting edge on this matter. It is fair to say that the idea that our Gospels acquired their present titles in the second century is a scholarly commonplace today. Conservatives, for whom the inerrancy or historical accuracy of the Bible is still a matter of doctrine, typically dispute this consensus. That is how the issue stands today. Whether Helms will change matters significantly remains to be seen. He should not, however, be dismissed as a charlatan on the basis of a publisher’s blurb. If we begin holding authors responsible for what the publicist puts on the dust jacket, God help us all!

Was God or the Serpent the One Who Deceived?

Elie Wiesel (“The Serpent,” BR 13:06) ascribes to the serpent a talent to deceive. In Genesis 2:16–17, God tells Adam that if he eats of a certain tree he will surely die that day. In Genesis 3:4, the serpent tells the woman she will surely not die. The couple in Eden eat of the tree. According to the Bible, Adam lived for more than 800 years thereafter. For whatever reason, the author of Genesis presented God as the deceiver; the serpent merely told the truth.

That the serpent was jealous of Adam and Eve, that Adam and Eve were created to be immortal, that they had angels as servants, that the serpent pushed the woman into the forbidden tree—not one of these ideas is in Genesis.

The article admits that much of this is midrash (later rabbinic interpretation) and even admits that a free rein of fantasy is involved. But what’s the point? The Bible paints the serpent as telling the truth, even when the truth contradicts God. For this he is called a deceiver. Whatever value midrash may have, it cannot supersede the Bible.

007

Did Moses Exclude Women at Mt. Sinai?

Dr. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, in “Forgotten Heroines of the Exodus” BR 13:06, is correct in noting the Torah’s emphasis on the role that women play in the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. The Torah emphasizes that even before Moses became the savior of the Israelites, women courageously played this role.

However, Dr. Frymer-Kensky also claims that Moses became an “oppressive authority” because he excluded the women from the Sinai theophany when he told the men not to consort with women for three days (Exodus 19:15). In this claim, Dr. Frymer-Kensky does Moses an injustice. It is absurd to claim that Moses would have wanted to exclude all the women from the theophany.

Moses was not acting oppressively when he told the men to stay away from the women. Rather, he was trying to ensure the women’s ritual purity so that they could remain on Mt. Sinai for the theophany. According to the levitical code, sexual intercourse may render women ritually impure and prevent them from entering the Tabernacle. The holiness of Mt. Sinai at the time of the theophany was comparable to that of the Tabernacle, as shown by medieval and modern commentators. The ritual impurity resulting from sexual intercourse would have prevented women from participating in the theophany, as explained by Rashi, citing the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud, Sabbath 86b).

Moses was trying to ensure the participation of the women, not the exclusion of them.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky responds:

This wonderful letter gets to the very heart of the problem. Indeed, “oppressive authority” is a strong term. But it does not refer to Moses’ intentions. Sometimes, even when intentions are most benevolent, if people are not addressed as independent moral agents, the side effects may be ultimately oppressive. In this case, the desire behind the prohibition of sex may have been to include women (and men, for men are also rendered ritually impure by sex) in the event. But, by talking only to the men, Moses excluded the women from participating fully as actors (rather than objects). The rabbis of the Talmud are responding to Moses’ injunction against sexual activity. I am reacting to the formulation he used and the persons he addressed. Instead of saying “Do not have sexual relations with each other”—an injunction to all Israel—he said, “Do not approach women”—an injunction addressed to the men of Israel. However benevolent his intention, by talking only to men, he made the men the moral decision-makers, and the women the objects of their decision and their action.

Inappropriate Obituary Placement

However much I like the new Jots & Tittles department, I can’t bring myself around to thinking that an obituary—especially the obituary of an esteemed scholar—belongs therein. Although there is something quirkily intriguing about placing the notice of Marvin Pope’s death next to a picture of a Sun headline and a commentary on a Pig Latin version of the Bible (Jots & Tittles, BR 13:06), surely Professor Pope deserves to be as offset from these types of features in death as he was in life.

We agree and apologize to his widow, Ingrid Pope.—Ed.

Shaky Spear Citation

I agree with Professor Solomon W. Golomb (Readers Reply, BR 13:06) that the best-seller The Bible Code is a hoax. Having made that commendable evaluation, however, he then expresses incredulity over the venerable tradition that Shakespeare’s name is hidden in Psalm 46 of the King James Version. He summarizes the matter nicely: “The 46th word from the beginning is ‘shake.’ The 46th word from the end is ‘spear.’ And the King James translation was completed when Shakespeare was 46 years old.” He continues by asking us to choose one of four possible conclusions to be derived from these indisputable facts, all four of which are improbable (in varying degrees). So far, so good.

But Golomb’s next sentence is puzzling, to say the least: “Now, would it affect your choice to learn that the Wycliffe Bible, the first English translation, some 225 years earlier than the King James, already contained the Psalm 46 shake-spear phenomenon?” When I checked that statement for myself, I discovered that the only two Wycliffe versions of the Psalms known to me do not contain the shake-spear phenomenon. 008Indeed, they do not include either the word “shake” or “spear” anywhere in Psalm 46 (which, by the way, is Psalm 45 in Wycliffe’s Bible, since it was translated from the Latin Vulgate). Nor was I able to find the phenomenon in any of several other pre-KJV versions I examined.

I would therefore like to know where Golomb got his information about Wycliffe’s Psalm 46. I would also appreciate hearing from any other BR readers who know of any pre-KJV versions containing the shake-spear phenomenon.

As to its appearance in the KJV, a fifth conclusion—also a part of the tradition described so well by Golomb—may turn out to be not only plausible but also correct: The translators decided to honor Shakespeare and/or celebrate his 46th birthday by embedding the elements of his name in Psalm 46. If they did, we would simply credit human ingenuity rather than divine inspiration.

Professor Solomon W. Golomb, of the University of Southern California, responds:

In using the construction “Would it affect your choice to learn that…,” I was not necessarily introducing a fact, but merely a hypothesis. This is clearer from such examples as “Would it affect your answer to learn that the moon is made of green cheese?”

Sophistry aside, Professor Youngblood is correct in asserting that the shake-spear phenomenon is not in Wycliffe, and is to be commended for this piece of scholarship. However, he is mistaken if he believes that it first appeared in the KJV, or even in Shakespeare’s own lifetime. According to “A Myth About the Bard,” by J. Karl Franson (in Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics 27:3, [August 1994], p. 154), the 1539 translation of Richard Taverner already has shake and spear as the 46th words from the beginning and end, respectively, of Psalm 46. In the Bishop’s Bible of 1568, Psalm 46 has shake and spear as 46th word from the beginning and 48th word from the end. Other early English Bibles have both words in similar positions. It would be interesting to ascertain the earliest date for the shake-spear coincidence. A final admonition, however: When counting words in Psalm 46 in your King James Bible, ignore the 13 italicized words in small type, “To the chief Musician, for the sons of Korah. A song upon Alamoth,” at the beginning, and the word “Selah” at the end.

009

Was Caiaphas Really That Dumb?

Pheme Perkins’s review of William Klassen’s recent book on Judas (see “Bible Books,” BR 13:06) suggests that this work deserves careful attention. Meanwhile, one thing is clear: The gospel stories of Judas do not hold up for the simple reason that they imply that the high priest Caiaphas was a complete nincompoop.

He and other chief priests are portrayed as (a) desiring to arrest Jesus, but (b) not knowing how to do so quietly and (c) being rescued from their predicament only by the unexpected appearance of Judas. However, there was something obvious Caiaphas could have done: He could have had Jesus and the disciples discreetly followed when they left the city in the evening; and once they settled in somewhere, the Temple guard could have been brought there to arrest him.

This is so obvious that Caiaphas, who served as the Romans’ “eyes and Jerusalem, would not have kept his position six months if he had not been able to think of it. (Josephus tells us that, serving at the good pleasure of the Roman governor, he kept his position for 18 years, starting in 18 C.E.)

This is so obvious, in fact, that we may suspect that this is just what happened. The historical nucleus of the gospel tradition concerning Judas would then be reduced to the fact that after Easter he was a broken man who took his own life. Hence the tradition that it was he, and not some agent, who “betrayed” Jesus’ whereabouts to the chief priests. Perhaps this tradition was invented to cover up another sort of “betrayal,” which no one wanted to remember—the fact that his faith in Jesus was permanently destroyed by the crucifixion.

Heresy-of-the-Month Club

Anthony Saldarini’s column in the December 1997 issue of BR prompted me to think that future issues might include articles or columns specifically devoted to some of the major heresies throughout history that were primarily related to scripture (see “The Uses and Abuses of Heresy,” BR 13:06).

Specific details on how some of those heresies were resolved (if they were resolved) would, at least to me, be of interest. What do you think?