Is the Bible True? (White vs Crossan)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2005 Alpha Omega Ministries Debate and Conference. I would like to just make a little announcement here before we start anything formal. If you could do this with me, if you can take out your cell phones or pagers, please, and just in the little corner there, put it on either buzz or silent with me.

We'll all do that together. And please make sure that either they are on buzz, silent, or they are off, please. If your phone does vibrate, please do not jump up in the middle of our debate and head to an exit.

Please wait until we get to a break and then make your way out quietly, please. Also, I'd like to announce we've had several folks that have asked us about the availability of the debate. The debate will be available at the Alpha Omega table.

If you just sign out one of the forms there, you'll be able to receive that within the next couple of months. You'll get it first right hot off the press, edited and so forth. So that'll be available to you right away.

Also, in the back corner over here at the Sovereign Cruise Table, we have information on next year's conference and debate, which will be in Tampa, Florida, with the title of that debate and conference being Pulpit Crimes.

So make sure that you pick that up as well. Well, tonight we are here to discuss and to debate, is the Orthodox biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth authentic and historically accurate? And on the affirmative side of that, I'd like to introduce the director of Alpha Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization in Phoenix, Arizona.

He is a professor. He's taught Greek systematic theology and various topics in the field of apologetics. Well-known author of many titles, including the King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The God Who Justifies, and The Potter's Freedom.

Would you please welcome Dr. James White. Our guest debater this evening is the former co-chairman of the Internationally Known Jesus Seminar. He recently appeared on NBC's Dateline, Peter Jennings' specials on Jesus and Paul, and NPR's Fresh Air.

He is sought after by the media for his opinion on religious issues of the day, and is the author of numerous books, including his most recent, Excavating Jesus Behind the Stones, Behind the Texts, and In Search of Paul, How Jesus' Apostles Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom.

Would you please welcome with me Dr. John Dominic Crossan. I'd also like to publicly thank Dr. Crossan. We've done many of these debates for many years. He's been incredibly easy to work with, and I really do appreciate that.

I also want to just go ahead and let's take a look at our debate conference schedule that we have here at the bottom of your sheet on the inside flap. I have a few changes to make here. We would like to get you out of here before midnight.

So I have a couple of changes. First of all, the two 30-minute opening statements will remain the same. The rebuttal times will be reduced to 15 minutes. Cross-examination times will be reduced to 15 minutes across the board, and the closing statements will be lessened to 10 minutes.

And that being said, the audience questions are going to be raised by 10 minutes to 30 minutes. A note about the audience questions. When it takes, when it is time for us to have our audience questions, I would like for those who would like to have a question for Dr. White, please line up on this side.

This is at the very end of the debate. Those who have a question for Dr. Crossen, line up on this side over here. I will then call you one each at a time, alternating in between, to come and stand with me just behind where I will be seated to moderate.

I will hold your microphone, but let me explain this to you very clearly. This is not a time for you to preach. This is not a time for you to engage in debate. This is the time that you ask a question.

And please, if you can, keep it under 30 seconds and not a rhetorical question, please. So during that time, a direct question, please tell us which debater you are making that question to, and then they will have the opportunity to respond to you.

The Historical Authenticity of the Gospels

Okay? So without further ado, let me introduce for the first 30-minute opening statement, Dr. James White. Well, good evening. It is indeed a pleasure to be with you this evening, an excellent crowd here, and I really do hope that the Lord will bless our time together.

I do, I've been looking forward to this experience for quite some time, and I ask that the Lord will bless our time together. For nearly 2 ,000 years, the Christian faith has proclaimed to the world the most amazing and astounding message, that God, the creator of all things, the one who spoke by the prophets, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had in fact, in the person of his son, entered into his own creation, had lived and walked amongst us, had taught, had healed, and had given his life voluntarily upon the cross of Calvary, and then, three days later, had risen from the dead, triumphant over death, and was coming again to judge the living and the dead.

It is indeed an amazing claim, something the New Testament writers all acknowledge. As the apostle Paul said, the preaching of a crucified Messiah upon the cross of Calvary is a stumbling block to Jews, and simply foolishness to Greeks.

And yet, Christians proclaim this message, confident that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Given that today, men and women profess faith in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord, trusting him as savior on every continent, from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, there is good reason to continue believing in that message.

We come here this evening to ask the question, is the Orthodox biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth authentic and historically accurate? Since the task falls to me to defend the thesis, it also falls to me to begin the difficult job of definition.

When I refer to the Orthodox biblical account, I am referring to the fact that until comparatively recent years, Christianity as a whole has believed the gospel accounts to be accurately reflecting events which took place between about 4 B .C. and A .D. 30 or so.

The task was always to harmonize these accounts as one would naturally harmonize multiple accounts of the same historical events found in the testimony of different witnesses. But the historicity of the accounts has been a given.

The main outlines of the events narrated in the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are reflected not only in the great creedal statements of the faith, but in the warp and woof of the traditions of the faith as well.

When we ask if these accounts are authentic, we are asking if we can trust the statements made by the authors of the canonical gospels. Immediately, we recognize the fact that these authors were not the equivalent of ancient journalists pretending the detachment of dispassionate observation, neutrally chronicling events seeking to be fair and balanced.

It is well known and accepted that the gospel writers had a purpose in their writing, indeed each either openly, as in Luke and John, or in other ways, in Matthew and Mark, tell us that they have an agenda, a goal they wish to accomplish in their writing.

Luke tells us that he has compiled, evidently from multiple sources, an account of the events that birthed the Christian movement. He claims to have followed these events closely for some time and he is using sources that include eyewitnesses and that the result of his work is an orderly account.

And yet, it has a purpose, that Theophilus may have certainty concerning the things that he had been taught. This would define for us authentic, for surely one does not impart certainty concerning what one has been taught by rewriting history, changing historical events, and engaging in unfounded myth-making.

But immediately, I must assert that it is one of the major errors of many in our modern day to assume that if you write an account for a theological or spiritual purpose, you must, by definition, engage in historical revisionism.

One can firmly believe that the facts of history point to a particular conclusion without having to alter and change those facts. To say that the gospel accounts are historically accurate is a mouthful indeed.

This is not a claim that they were written to be mere history. This is not a claim that they are written by modern Western standards of journalism. It is a claim, however, that when they narrate for us the events of that awesome and unique event known as the incarnation, life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they do so without having to fabricate the historical nature of these events.

It is a denial that when the gospel writers place the saving events of God's work in history, that those who lived at the time, should they have heard the apostles preaching or read their works, would have said, no way, I was there, that never happened.

The God of the Christian faith is the Lord of time and history, and just as he arranged events in the Exodus to have meaning for the following generations, so, too, he was active in the events of Jesus's life and ministry as well, as the primitive Christians prayed so shortly after the Lord's crucifixion and resurrection in Acts 4, 27 through 28.

For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, excuse me, whom you had anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

Now, surely, if God is sovereign in this world, if he is active, desires of revealing his truth and is accomplishing his eternal decree, the idea of historically accurate, authentic records of his mighty work in the ministry of God is hardly a stretch, but it is just here we run full on into the main issues that we must take up the majority of our attention this evening.

If we can grant, possibly, I hope, that both of us tonight are reasonably intelligent individuals looking at the same texts, how is it that we come to completely different conclusions? I am assuming our audience is fairly well aware of the vast chasm of difference that exists between Dr. Crossan and myself on who Jesus was, what he did, what he taught, and what all of that means today.

I believe Jesus Christ was God incarnate, the unique son of God, the creator, preexistent, the God-man who was born of the Virgin Mary, ministered and taught with twelve disciples in Galilee and Judea, healing and even raising the dead, performing signs, miracles, pointing to his person, that he then went purposely to Jerusalem, having taught his disciples that he was going to die and rise again, and he did that very thing, going to the cross of Calvary, dying, buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and then on that glorious Sunday morning coming forth, physically rising from the dead, existing in the words of N .T. Wright, in a transformed physicality, so that he met with his disciples and up to five hundred others before ascending back to the presence of his father.

Tonight's debate is a clash of fundamentally different worldviews. I believe firmly that only the Christian faith provides the necessary prerequisites to explain reality as we experience it, from the depths of man's depravity and sinfulness to his appreciation of the beauty of a sunset or a thunderstorm, to the incredible complexity of life at the molecular level, to the very laws of logic and rationality by which we undertake our debate this evening.

Without the Christian God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ and the Christian scriptures, all bets are off, so to speak, and we are doomed to subjectivism and mere opinion. Only because God has chosen to enter into his own creation redemptively in the divine second person of the Trinity can we escape the circle of personal opinion and uncertainty that leaves us wondering if God has truly acted in this world and if we can indeed have peace with the God we know is there.

Now, while our debate this evening is not necessarily focused upon the existence of the Christian God, to ask if the New Testament documents are authentic and historical does, in fact, depend very much upon one's worldview and whether it is consistent with the world God himself has created.

Only the Christian God can produce the Christian scriptures. If one assumes God either cannot or has not spoken with clarity or acted in history with power and might and holiness and justice, then surely one's answer to the question is already determined and nothing I can say is going to change that.

You cannot prove the divine nature of the scriptures to someone who does not believe in a God big enough or caring enough or powerful enough to produce them. Of course, I might add in passing, I believe every person here this evening knows that God exists, whether you are suppressing that knowledge or by God's grace have embraced it.

And so surely there is nothing inconsistent with my worldview and believing in the divine inspiration and historical accuracy of the gospel accounts of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel writers believed him, the very son of God, and gave their lives as witnesses to him.

And surely if God is going to enter into his own creation redemptively, he is going to be more than capable of producing divinely inspired and accurate documents. Every sort of denial of the accuracy and divine nature of the gospels has been put forth over the centuries, and it is a little odd upon reflection that I would be going first in defending the historical accuracy and authenticity of the gospels.

Since, of course, we have to know which of the many, many such denials I am supposed to respond to this evening. I will allow Dr. Croson to define his own position, but for the sake of contrast and so as to provide the context of the conflict this evening, I must at least quickly summarize his own position as enunciated in his works.

Through many hours of reading and listening to Dr. Croson present his viewpoints, I have been unable to attach a meaningful name to Dr. Croson's view of God. I do not see any evidence that he believes God is active in the world, has a divine decree that he is working out to his own glory, has revealed himself with clarity, engages in miracles, et cetera, et cetera.

As best as I can determine, he holds to some form of deistic concept. He refers to Trinitarian terms, but does not seemingly confess the meaning of those terms in their historical or creedal forms. Surely, when he says he confesses Jesus to be divine, he likewise informs us that other people who could do amazing things if they had lived in the first century would have also been considered divine as well.

That is not quite the same thing as confessing Jesus to be the eternal preexistent second person of the Trinity. Dr. Croson believes in what he calls divine consistency applied to something miraculous like rising from the dead.

Dr. Croson has said, quote, I also presume divine consistency. What God does now is what God always did. God intervened no more and no less in the world of the early first century than that of the late 20th century.

These are presuppositions, or if you prefer, prejudices. But so, of course, are the opposite opinions. End quote. It is my firm belief, which I intend to defend and illustrate this evening, that the conclusions presented by the Jesus seminar in general and by Dr. Croson specifically flow inevitably from the presuppositions brought to the text.

I have my own presuppositions. I presuppose a God who can create man in his image and that he is fully capable of communication with man, that the God who could design such a wondrous thing as the DNA molecule and the attendant mechanisms whereby that molecule can store vast amounts of data that is then available to living organisms through the complex process of transcription and protein synthesis is likewise fully capable of guiding and guarding his own revelation of his truth in the scriptures.

I fully own and confess my presuppositions, for I believe them to be presuppositions that the Lord Jesus and his apostles bequeathed to me. Surely approaching these texts with a starting presupposition that the beliefs of their authors were wrong will impact greatly one's reading of them.

But Dr. Croson is open about his presuppositions as well as we just saw. The problem is, if we start with the idea that if God isn't doing it today, then he has never done it in the past. Are we not beginning with the negation of the Christian view of its own scriptures as a starting point?

Did any of the biblical writers themselves believe that? Surely not. I have to point out that there is no logical reason to believe that God is not free to act in human history. There is no reason to believe that if God does action X in history for his own purposes, say, despoiling the gods of Egypt as a display of his power, that he must keep despoiling the gods of Egypt in each generation the same way forevermore.

The presupposition of divine consistency, as proposed by Dr. Croson, is nothing more, as far as I can see, than an insistence that God is not free to act in his own creation as he sees fit when he sees fit for his own purposes.

Another presupposition is found in Dr. Croson's insistence that the story of Jesus is found in the Gospels could not fall into either the category of uniqueness nor impossibility. And yet the uniqueness of Christ, his birth, his teachings, his ministry, his purpose in coming, his sacrifice, his resurrection, all these are part and parcel of any fair reading of the New Testament documents themselves.

Christianity has always proclaimed Christ to be unique. So by insisting that Jesus had to be a Mediterranean Jewish peasant with all that means demands a complete mythologizing of major portions of the text itself.

But again, without any reason outside of the demands of the presupposition brought to the text. Why is it impossible that Jesus was as unique as history has always presented him? Dr. Croson does quote a second century Christian apologist, Justin Martyr, in defense of his assertion here.

But Justin was far more influenced by Greek philosophy than he was by the Christian scriptures. And you can go earlier than Justin to Ignatius or Clement or only a few decades after Justin to Melito of Sardis for all the evidence you could ever want of the already accepted uniqueness of Jesus in the patristic sources.

I would also like to point out quickly in passing that while savior figures may have been very common with first century pagan religions, the idea of incarnation, death and resurrection in the firmly monotheistic framework of the Christian faith is a completely different matter.

Just look at the inveterate opposition offered by Muslim scholars and apologists to the very idea of incarnation. And you can see just how unique the Christian view of Jesus really is. The fact of the matter is, there is no reason to read the New Testament documents as revealing anything other than a very unique person in Jesus Christ.

And to start, as Dr. Croson seems to do, with the idea that Jesus could not have been unique as the son of God is to determine the outcome of your study long before it has actually begun. Dr. Croson uses the analogy of three searchlights that cross in the sky to represent his methodology.

Excuse me. And as he has reminded us often, and this is very important, catch this one's methodology is determined by one's materials and the decisions one has made about their nature. These three sources, these searchlights are cross-cultural study, historical study and textual study.

And in my study of his viewpoints, I feel the first to pretty much determine the outcome of the third functionally anyway. For example, we are told that a Mediterranean Jewish peasant would in those days most likely be illiterate based upon cross-cultural and historical study.

So since Jesus had to be a normal Jewish peasant, he too was illiterate. So when we encounter him writing in the sand or reading the scriptures in the synagogue, these cannot be historically accurate, but must be religious fiction, allegory and myth.

And we are then free within the parameters of the presuppositions we have already brought to the text to go searching for some other meaning to these texts. The vast majority of Jesus's words and actions in the Gospels are subjective.

This a priori treatment based not upon what these ancient sources say, but upon preconceived views of what Jesus could and could not be. We will note the results of this kind of presuppositional overriding of the text of the Gospels many times this evening.

Next, we will hear this evening about what a gospel by nature is. That is, the gospel is a message that embodies the work of Christ is a timeless, unchanging revelation because of its nature as a divine work transcends cultural and geographical boundaries.

It is for all peoples at all times. But when referring to a gospel such as the Gospel of Mark, we are talking about the recording of the events of the ministry of Christ by one of those early followers chosen in God's providence to provide us with one of those quadri visual perspectives upon the rich divine work.

That is, God chose to provide us with more than one gospel, not because the gospel had to be amended, updated or revised, but instead because the subject was so rich and full. The gospel writers do indeed pick and choose what they will relate and what they will not in a relatively brief space.

And it is quite true that each has his own emphasis, his own audience, his own purpose in writing. And this lies at the foot of the vast majority of differences that exist between the gospel accounts.

This will, I trust, be illustrated a number of times this evening, time allowing. But Dr. Crossan's definition of gospel is quite striking and unusual and, in fact, is so basic to his repeated application thereof that we need to note it now, though I am sure he will explain it fully in his time.

For Dr. Crossan, a gospel is two things. It is good news, good in someone's perspective. Anyways, it wasn't good for the Romans at the very least, and it must be news. Now, it is this second claim that it must be news that is quite problematic, for the idea is that it must be news in a sense of being updated, changed, altered by the current author in the current setting in which he finds himself.

That is, Dr. Crossan makes as part of the very definition the idea of a redactional alteration of the gospel stories so as to fit the message to various contexts. Mark writing to martyrs, for example, and then Luke altering Mark for his context, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, surely at this point, we must protest the presuppositional nature of this definition of gospel. By definition, the historicity of the gospels themselves is denied. There is nothing in the meaning of the word and its New Testament usage or understanding that demands the concept of historical alteration, redaction or amendation.

The good news that rejoiced the hearts of the disciples when Jesus appeared to them after his resurrection does not have to be altered or changed to rejoice the heart of believers this very day. It is the timelessness of the message of what God did in Christ that is fundamentally denied by this definition of gospel.

Finally, much will be said this evening about the dating of the gospels, when they were written, in what order, by whom and theories of their literary dependence. Other sources such as the theoretical Q gospel and second century Gnostic works, at least influenced by Gnosticism, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter are, I truly believe, given significantly more weight a priori in the work of the Jesus Seminar in general than the canonical gospels themselves.

At times, a certain order is assumed with the most primitive source being, in Dr. Crossman's opinion, the cross gospel, which is buried in the second century Gospel of Peter. My esteemed opponent has admitted, if I recall the quote correctly, that his theory at this point has received the equivalent of a scholarly chuckle from the rest of those working in the field.

It is hardly unfair to note that at this point, Dr. Crossman's view placing a portion of a fragment of an almost unknown source in the position of being earlier and more weighty than the canonical gospels themselves is quite rightly identified as idiosyncratic.

But with reference to the entirety of this portion of the subject, I appreciate N .T. Wright's comments in a discussion with Marcus Borg, where after pointing out that the theoretical Q gospel is not nearly as widely accepted outside of the United States, he said, quote,.

We don't know when any of the gospels were written. We don't know when the gospels were written. We should all repeat that before breakfast, just like we do not know whether there was a Q. Scholars will tell you that they know, but they don't.

It is a guess, a hypothesis. No, there isn't a consensus. A lot of scholars have said the fact that people repeat a mistake doesn't mean it isn't a mistake, end quote. And yet theories concerning the interrelationship and especially the dating of the hypothetical cross gospel in Q together with Mark, Luke, Matthew and finally with John are absolutely fundamental to Dr. Crossman's position, as he himself admits.

And yet it is those hypothetical conclusions based upon hypothetical reconstructions, based upon presupposed concepts of divine consistency and what could and could not happen in history and what Jesus could and could not be like that is at the very heart of the debate this evening.

When we examine these texts without those presuppositions, agreeing with their authors and at least allowing for the reality of divine activity, divine revelation, and at least leave open the possibility that the text we are examining might just partake of something outside of the ordinary.

We find a great deal of reason to view them in a completely different light, place them far closer to the events that they narrate. And we likewise find them to be far more amenable to harmonization as one would naturally expect from multiple sources recording for us the words and deeds of Jesus.

And so I assert that the presuppositions exercised by the Jesus seminar in general and in particular by Dr. Cross and begin by precluding the viewpoint of Jesus espoused by the authors of the Gospels themselves and believed by Christians down through the centuries.

If you accept his starting place, this debate is over because no possible evidence could be presented in defense of the thesis. There is truly no question on this of this and the part of the Jesus seminar, the co-founder, along with Dr. Cross and of the Jesus seminar, Robert Funk, has written as one of his theses, The Coming Reformation, that we need to give Jesus a demotion.

In the introduction of the five gospels, a publication of the Jesus seminar, we read, quote, The Christ of Creed and Dogma, who had been firmly in place in the Middle Ages, can no longer command the ascent of those who have seen the heavens through Galileo's telescope.

The old deities and demons were swept away from the skies by that remarkable glass. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo have dismantled the mythological abode of the gods and Satan and bequeathed to us secular heavens.

The same source speaks of the search for the Jesus behind the Christian facade of the Christ, and they likewise atomized the New Testament, dividing its witness and setting its authors at odds with one another and themselves by stating, and quite incorrectly for Paul, the Christ was to be understood as a dying, rising Lord, symbolized in baptism of the type he knew from the Hellenistic mystery religions.

In Paul's theological scheme, Jesus, the man, played no essential role, end quote. However, might Dr. Crossan escape the clear bias and starting prejudices of Funk and the rest of the Jesus seminar? Evidently not, although thankfully, I must say, Dr. Crossan evinces a much gentler approach than does Dr. Funk.

Yet his conclusions are strikingly similar. But still, Dr. Crossan well knows the implications of his method in his conclusion. He has said, quote, I'm absolutely aware that to talk about the historical Jesus is to do open heart surgery on Christianity.

I am absolutely aware of the implications of faith when I'm talking completely about history. And it's time to distinguish between Prozac and religion, between baptism and lobotomy, end quote. I will leave the Dr. Crossan to explain to you what he means by the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, his theories concerning revelation and reason, et cetera.

Suffice it to say from my opening statement that I very much disagree with the sharp distinction he presents in the unbreachable wall he erects between history and faith. I believe faith is rooted and grounded in God's actions in history and in particular in his revelation in Jesus Christ.

This may come up in our conclusion and our discussions and interaction. It's hard to say. Fundamentally, the question I must ask of Dr. Crossan and of all of us tonight is just this. Given the fact that the text of the New Testament documents is unparalleled in its ancient attestation, what reason can be offered for asserting the errancy and historical inaccuracy of the text?

In my experience, those who argue against the authenticity of the gospel accounts always do so in defense of a preexisting commitment to a particular religious or anti-religious viewpoint. Let's face it.

The Jesus of the Gospels is a challenge to each and every person, for he calls each of us to see ourselves as sinners alienated from God under wrath. And he commands us to look to him and to him alone for life.

Many do not wish to submit to that call. The Gospels speak to us of a savior who lays down his life for his sheep, a sacrifice for sin. Dr. Crossan has said, moreover, an atonement theology that says God sacrifices his own son in place of humans who need to be punished for their sins might make some Christians love Jesus.

But it is an obscene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse and many infect our and may infect our imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us, quote unquote.

How does this presupposition on Dr. Crossan's part influence his reading of the canonical gospels? Likewise, when each of those gospels clearly tells us that the writers believe Jesus to be the fulfillment of ancient prophecy and we know that Dr. Crossan does not believe in divine inspiration.

So as to allow for such a thing as prophetic knowledge of future events, he is forced to conclude, quote,. Traditionally, Christians have said, see how Christ's passion was foretold by the prophets. Actually, it was the other way around.

The Hebrew prophets did not predict the events of Jesus last week. Rather, many of those Christian stories were created to fit the ancient prophecies in order to show that Jesus, despite his execution, was still and always held in the hands of God.

And quote,. In this, the result of close. Is this the result of the close examination of the text in the light of the intention of their original authors? Or is this the result of an overriding presupposition, a bias against the divine nature of the Christian scriptures?

And finally, when Jesus is seen raising the dead in the gospels and then himself being raised from the dead as well, this requires a God who is active in space and time and is able to exercise divine power.

Dr. Crossman does not accept this possibility. So we read, quote,. In terms of divine consistency, I do not think that anyone anywhere at any time, including Jesus, brings dead people back to life. End quote.

And so I close by noting that not only by taking the text as they stand without gutting them through presupposed rejections of a supernatural worldview, without muting their testimony by enforcement of a preconceived view of their relationship to one another, can we see the unique divine person of Jesus Christ who is pictured in the gospel accounts?

Once their full orb testimony is diminished to a single stream of redacted, errant human remembrance, we are left with no Jesus at all. For one thing is certain, the search for the allegedly historical Jesus, which has always begun with the rejection of the Christ of faith as if that Christ is but a mirage, a sham, has only led us to mirror images of the researchers engaged in the fruitless task.

Indeed, it has been very well said by Luke Timothy Johnson. Quote,. This brings us to the question why so many scholars using the same methodology on the same materials have ended with such wildly divergent portraits of Jesus to list only a few that have emerged.

Jesus as romantic visionary Renan, as an eschatological prophet, Schweitzer and Wright, as wicked priest from Qumran, Tiring, as husband of Mary Magdalene Spong, as revolutionary zealot, SFG, Brandon, as agrarian reformer, Yoder, as revitalization movement founder and charismatic Borg, as gay magician Smith, as cynic sage Downing, as peasant Thalmater, Crossan, as peasant poet Bailey, as a guru of oceanic bliss, Mitchell.

The common element seems still to be the ideal self image of the researcher. It is this tendency that led T .W. Manson to note sardonically by their lives of Jesus. You shall know them, end quote. I do not offer you a Jesus who is the mirror image of my idealized viewpoint of myself.

The Jesus I present to you is the Jesus portrayed in the historic authentic gospel accounts, accounts written and preserved for us by a God who is accomplishing his purpose in this world. The God who is free to act in this world as he sees fit in his way and in his time.

I thank you for your attention and God bless. Thank you, Dr. White. Thank you, Dr. White. Dr. Crossan now has 30 minutes for his opening statement.

One Gospel, Four Versions

A good debate should be absolute, I suppose. Opposition is the orthodox biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth, authentic and historically accurate. I should be able to say no to that because debate should be black and white and we have just heard Dr. White, so I should be Dr. Black.

I may disappoint you and myself by being a little Dr. Gray, I'm afraid. First of all, there does not exist an orthodox biblical account, singular, an orthodox biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth. It just doesn't exist, which is another way of saying it is not the will of God or the inspiration of God in Christian terms.

And therefore, the question of its authenticity or historicity is not valid. That is, such an orthodox biblical account, singular, is neither historically nor inspirationally valid, but then does exist and is what exists authentic and historical.

My first part, gospel and versions, and this touches on something that Dr. White also mentioned. We sometimes speak sloppily and incorrectly, I do it myself lots of times, about the four orthodox biblical or canonical gospels.

But for earliest Christianity, and I think for all Christianity, there is only one gospel, capital G, though you could enunciate it certainly in different languages, different ways. You could say Jesus is the Christ, or you could say Jesus Christ is Savior, or you could say above all, not Caesar, but Christ is Lord and Savior of the world.

One gospel, one God, one everything else, and one gospel. What we have in the New Testament are four versions, and I think actually this is more constitutive for me than anything even of my presuppositions, but that may be what a psychiatrist would have to work on.

There are four versions, four narrative interpretations, four according to's. Do the math. The gospel according to Matthew, the gospel according to Mark, the gospel according to Luke, gospel according to John.

Early Christians would not have said four gospels, I suspect even sloppily. They might have said the gospel according to Paul as well. The principle that I understand in reading those gospels, I honestly don't think this is a presupposition.

There's no reason I can think of that these four gospels wouldn't be four independent witnesses doing their level best to tell you exactly what happened, like four witnesses maybe in a court of law who've seen something and they're all trying at least to tell you exactly what happened.

I see no reason why they shouldn't be like that. And in fact, if I were inspiring the gospels, that's the way I would have done it. But you know how God is, can never get it right. What's the principle then?

When I read these gospels, what's the difference between them? In the second century already, some Christians were getting nervous about the fact that there were four according to's. Shouldn't there just be one story?

Because they were also noticing there were differences. The two main possibilities of solving it are the Marcion's solution. One gospel, he chose Luke and of course he got rid of the Old Testament as well, so he was declared a heretic.

But that's one of the classic solutions. If you have four, eliminate three and keep one. The other one of course is to harmonize them. Praise Dr. Whitehuse. To collate them all into one continuous whole.

That's the Tatian solution. Marcion and Tatian. These are the classic solutions whom we don't like the fact that we have four. There's only one Jesus. One Christ. One God. Why do we have four? My point of course is not four.