¶1because there's a case for saying that he's the most influential human being who's ever lived from [music] the Christmas story through to the passion and the resurrection. I mean, it's it's a banger. First person we know in history [music] ever to say, "Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Do unto others what [music] you have them do to you.
¶2Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. The truth will set you free." Historical Jesus versus the Jesus of faith has come up time and again. I I I kept kind of bumping up against how incredibly [music] close in time to the life and death of Jesus Paul was writing. >> They know the geography. They know what [music] people are called.
¶3They know the sort of jobs people do. They know where the tax collectors should be and these sort of things. >> In Luke, you get the story of Caesar Augustus decreeing that all the world should be taxed. >> The biggest problem historically in the New Testament that particular >> my feeling about the the attempts to explain it is that people are only doing it because they want it to be true. [music] We have really good evidence that Jesus really did die by Roman crucifixion.
¶4Of course, all four gospels also claim he rose again. They clearly believe that something extraordinary had happened. And I think to doubt that makes a nonsense of the emergence and spread of Christianity. My gut assumptions are Christian. I am interested in dare I say sacrileging.
¶5It's either the Nietian abyss or the experience [music] of Mary and visitations. Hello, I'm Justin Bryley. Welcome to today's show, a live audience conversation I hosted between historian Tom Holland and Cambridge Bible scholar Dr. Peter J. Williams.
¶6It's a fantastic debate in which Tom Holland, co-host of the hugely popular Rest is History podcast, explains where he stands on the historical and miraculous claims about Jesus Christ. If you enjoy it, please do give it a like and subscribe to this channel for more Thinking Faith content. And look out for the audience Q&A towards the end of the show. Things get really interesting. I'd love to know what you make of it, too.
¶7Drop your thoughts in the comments to let me know. So enjoy this show with Tom Holland and Peter J. Williams recorded live for Pillar and Step at All Souls Church London. >> Tom, um, tell me how you got interested in this subject of the historical Jesus to begin with. >> Well, I I I think it's very difficult to be interested in history and not be interested in the figure of Jesus.
¶8Um, because there's a case for saying that he's the most influential human being who's ever lived. Um I mean my interest my interest in Jesus I mean it's it it has many roots. Um I went to to church and to Sunday school as a child. Um and I had a godmother who gave me you know Bible stories and the the the story of Jesus is a brilliant one. Um you know from the Christmas story through to the passion and the resurrection.
¶9I mean it's it's a banger. Um, and although I sometimes as a child got a bit muddled, you know, in in between those two book ends, you have these incredible parables. And I think whoever else he may have been, Jesus, um, if we assume that the parables that we get from him in the New Testament, you know, are authentic. He has every claim to be the greatest short story teller who's ever lived. I mean, they are so memorable and powerful.
¶10So, I I kind of grew up with them. I I was familiar with them. Um, as a child, I was much more interested in the Romans than I was in the disciples or indeed Jesus himself. So, I love the fact that the Romans were a kind of um, usually offstage but sometimes very onstage presence. um and my interest in Rome, you know, I've carried it through my entire life and I've I've written a book um dynasty uh that um covers the period in which Jesus lived.
¶11So looking at looking at the the Roman Empire and I've recently done a translation of Sutonius who may or may not have mentioned Jesus >> but is is is a biographer in in the kind of way I suppose that the the four gospel writers are. And then I think what really sharpened it for me was I I'd always had a vague sense that the evidence for Jesus was kind of weak. Um I I'd read, you know, as a as a kind of um precocious atheist, casting off my Sunday school learning. Um lots of books debunking um the Old Testament and and the historicity of Jesus. Um, but then about 15 years ago, I wrote a book about the origins of Islam.
¶12And my sense had always been that the life of Muhammad was much better attested than the life of Jesus. And I was kind of basically writing that was a process of discovering that that wasn't the case at all. That actually um the seeming depth and detail that we have in the the canonical lives of Muhammad is illusory. That um these are much much later that you know they're kind of almost 200 years after Muhammad lived. And that then when I came to write Dominion and I was I had a chapter on Paul, um I I I kept kind of bumping up against how incredibly close in time to the life and death of Jesus Paul was writing and compared to the sources that you have for the life of Muhammad.
¶13I mean, it was astonishingly close. Um and and so that then I guess kind of I I it respsparked an interest in um who Jesus might have been um how reliable the gospels and indeed Paul's testimony might be. Um, and I I think I find because of all the other work that I've done, I find it a a topic of of of great fascination. However, having said that, um, I I I am not in any way an expert on it. And when I came to write Dominion, I I pointedly did not write about Jesus because I I just felt unqualified to appine on who Jesus might have been and what his relationship to the Gospels might have been.
¶14>> Yeah. >> Um I mean it is it's a huge topic and a complex topic and there are as many different opinions on it I think as there are scholars. >> Indeed. And and whenever you make any opinion public someone's going to be there saying something alternative to it. Um but I'm glad that you're here even as a sort of interested historian who for whom this isn't your core field obviously Tom but to to kind of give us your reflections on it.
¶15Um Peter you you really have dedicated your life to studying the Bible the historicity of the new and old testaments. Tell us sort of what led you to that and why this particular field of the historicity of Jesus matters. So I had the privilege of growing up in a Christian family and then going to school, Ripen Grammar School, state grammar school where uh you could learn Greek and Latin and having a wonderfully uh strict and inspiring uh teacher and another teacher who was very inspiring and not strict. And the com combination was great. And so I actually uh wanted to go to university to study the languages that would help me become a Bible translator.
¶16Did Hebrew and Aramaic as well. And then uh it was on the path to that uh I was did a PhD in old testament six years post-doal in old testament and came to the end of um I I I felt a a call to biblical scholarship at that time but came to the end of uh a contract and the only job that was going was one in New Testament uh up in Abodine. It was a temporary job and uh uh that's uh the one I took and then they made it permanent shortly afterwards. And so that's how I switched estimates. >> There you go.
¶17wasn't flat. Um, so the this the issue of the historicity, the historical Jesus versus the Jesus of faith has come up time and again over the centuries. Um, it's something that obviously more recently you've sort of been grappling with at some level, Tom. I wonder if you could describe what some of those sources are, perhaps beginning with extra biblical sources that you discovered actually bear some witness at least to the person of Jesus. Um, there are an astonishing number considering this is a [laughter] a a guy who gets crucified, who gets put to death by the Roman authorities in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire.
¶18Um, Jesus is one of many odd people, if you're looking at it from the Roman perspective, who pop up in the region um over the course of of the first century AD. But presumably he is also one of a large number of such figures who appear across the Roman Empire. And occasionally you might you might come across a mention of one you know of such figures. So there's one for instance in in Tacitus he's describing the era of the four emperors. There's the emp the vitalius commander of the armies on the rine.
¶19He's marching down towards Rome. He goes through Ldonum what's now Leon. And while he's there, there is this Gaul called I think Maricus who has been going around saying that he is he is a a god. He's he's um preaching the end of the ro of of Roman rule. Um and the people believe in him and the local GIC authorities have sent out soldiers to seize him.
¶20He's brought before the Roman authorities. the Roman authorities condemn him to death. He's put into the arena um to be devoured by by wild beasts and the wild beasts refuse to eat him and so he is hailed, you know, this is the proof that he's a god. And then Tustinus tells us he's removed and silently executed. But you can see there's the outline there in Gore of a story that is not entirely dissimilar to the story that you get in in um in in the New Testament.
¶21And it suggests that the life of Jesus is recognizably, I think, a product of tensions within the Roman Empire that presumably are not exclusive to Judea. >> I mean, it's it's often cast as being exclusive to Judea. I don't I think these are tensions that you find across the empire. So, so in that context where there are figures presumably like this basically everywhere the fact that we have mentions of Jesus in a large number of classical texts relatively speaking. So he Jesus is is is attested to by Plenny the younger um by Tacitus, possibly by Suatonius um and possibly by Josephus um who is a crucial source for this period.
¶22He is a Judeian who takes up arms against Rome as part of the revolt against Roman rule. Um he then uh switches sides. He visit he meets Vespasian who's leading the uh Roman repression of the revolt. Um tells Vespasian he's going to become emperor. Vespasian then does become emperor.
¶23And so Josephus um you know he's quits in and he becomes a Roman citizen, goes back to Rome and he writes this history of the Judeian revolt and of the buildup to it. And in that there is a possible mention of Jesus. And it is highly contested whether this is a a complete fake, whether it's an adaptation of something that Josephus wrote, whether uh exactly what it is. Uh I'm sure people have a much more informed view on that than I do. But essentially, it's often said we we know very little about Jesus.
¶24This is therefore evidence that may he may not even have existed. It's absolutely not the case. Okay? considering who he is relative to and relative to the the the range and variety of sources that we have for the entire history of the empire the number of illusions to him I think are are really considerable >> right that's that's a a helpful way of framing it because in a sense Peter as I understand it the very fact we have any evidence for someone who was essentially a wandering preacher teacher miracle worker from a backwater of the Roman Empire is somewhat remarkable given that most people who you ever have captured in history are the great powerful ones who leave behind statues and coins and and so on. >> Sure.
¶25So, so, so normally biographies are written of people who've been either long dead or are upper class in some way. And Jesus isn't any any of those. And and so having these four uh let's call them biographers, the gospels, maybe get on to that uh later is interesting. I'll get to the non-Christian sources, but just really quickly with the Christian sources, if you got 27 books, say in the New Testament, they all at least presuppose that Jesus has some ongoing existence and is alive in some way, most of them will also talk about um the resurrection. Um that's quite an interesting thing if they're all within a hundred years uh of of of the events.
¶26Um the sources Tom's mentioned, Tastas, Plenny, Josephus, those are the big ones I would go for as well. I would observe with Tastas that he is a uh very highly regarded historian. Um and he he's talking about the great fire in Rome. He calls Jesus Christ. So he doesn't use the word Jesus but the word Christ and talks about a large number of uh of his followers in Rome at the time.
¶27He connects his death with Judea and the time of Pontius Pilate. He gets Pilot's title wrong, but that's a that's a relatively minor thing. So that confirms some of the basic outline. Pliny doesn't talk about Christ directly but about Christians which presupposes Christ. But the title Christ is interesting because it's like by the time it's in in Plinian Tastasis a Latin word transcribing a Greek word which is transcribing a sort of Hebrew idea which is the Messiah the anointed one has come.
¶28So if if people are calling themselves um in a sense messianic that's that that presupposes some ideas behind that. And what I like it in Plin's account is he is talking about he's writing to the emperor. He's saying uh dear emperor you you know everything. Um how would you advise that I deal with the the these locals? this of what I've been doing and um talking about very large numbers of people becoming Christians in that the area of northern Turkey he's been uh handling and um actually describing what goes on in in in one of their meetings which is them singing to to Christ as to a god and the interesting thing there is one of the tests he's using that people aren't Christians is they're not prepared to worship the Roman emperor they're not prepared to worship Roman gods so it seems that they've sort of kept on the Jewish idea of there's only one God and they're identifying Christ as that God and that's happening within let's say 80 years of the start of Christianity.
¶29So that's to me a really interesting thing. Quickly on Josephus, there are a couple of different passages where he mentions Jesus. I mention the less well-known one in my book Can't Trust the Gospels. It's it's about the death of Jesus's brother in some way. Um but um there's this longer passage which seems to say too much about Jesus.
¶30It seems to say he is the Messiah and so on. Well, there's been a recent study of it out free online with Oxford University Press by Tom Schmidt um arguing it really does throughout have the stylistic traits of Josephus. And that's a really interesting um argument that I found somewhat persuasive. extiny a year out in terms of getting uh feedback there, but he he feels that you can read it in a more um Josephus isn't fully on on board. He he he accepts that this Jesus does some wondrous things and that he has a number of people who believe that he appeared to them.
¶31Um but he's a Christ in the sense that there are other Christs as well. that that's I'm I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I I think um at least we can establish clearly he he he existed and had lots of followers uh within a relatively brief time. >> Yeah, I mean that that's a helpful sketch of some of the source material that exists outside of the four gospels and the New Testament documents themselves, but perhaps maybe just to turn very quickly to a brief description. You've you've already described them as biographies and that was a sort of genre if you like that existed in the ancient world wasn't it? >> Yes.
¶32Uh so people and and Tom knows more about this write lots of um I mean Plutarch someone who writes lots and lots of lives of of of people Cornelius Nepos Suatonius the lives of the Caesars in a wonderful uh new translation that Tom's produced. >> Thank you very much quick. Uh so um yes that that's something that's going on. The gospels are a bit different but they they seem to be broadly in in in that category. That's something uh that's been argued.
¶33Um and that seems to work. Obviously the gospels focus between a quarter and a third of their length on events around the passion of Jesus typically. So um there's definitely a um selectivity there. There's a lot of stress on his teaching. Um, but yes, I think I'm happy with that category.
¶34>> I think also another big difference, I don't don't know whether you'd agree with this, but it's something that really strikes me when I compare the gospels say to the lives of the Caesars or to Plutarch's lives in which there's lots of contextualization. So, you'll have um I don't know Julius Caesar or Alexander in Plutarch's lives and you'll have all the details of the wars and he'll tell you stuff about the Gauls or about the Persians or whatever. Um, the gospels are completely focused on Jesus. Essentially, people do not exist in the Gospels unless they're talking to Jesus or Jesus is addressing them. And really, the only exception is the John the Baptist narrative.
¶35And even that, you know, the role of John the Baptist is to um prefigure Christ and his fate. But but that absolute mono focus on the figure of Jesus I think is something that you don't t get in any other ancient biography that I can think of. A lot of people would probably assume well the gospels they're in the Bible therefore they're a sort of inspirational faith kind of thing for people. Now obviously they they have that function but do you also what do you make of the historical relevance as it were to really finding out about that time era and in particular Jesus when it >> I mean Peter was the >> talk I'd be interested >> just just where you you stand on it first. Well, I you know, I came back to them from looking at the lives of Muhammad.
¶36>> And the lives of Muhammad, as I said, you know, the the earliest one that we have in in the form that we receive it now is around 800 AD. And Muhammad is supposed to have died in in 622 AD. So, that's a massive massive gap. Um, and in terms of of of Christianity, that would be like relying on a gospel written around the year, you know, 200. Um, and and those gospels are are clearly nonsense.
¶37So in that perspective um the canonical gospels seem to me to palpably reflect the circumstances that would have prevailed in the first century the early 1st century AD. um the apparatus of Roman rule, the tensions in Judeian society, um the daily life, it all seems to correspond to what we know. >> There are it seems to me certainly the macro the the the the kind of overall detail seems pretty accurate. I think there are issues around, you know, when you go up close, >> uh, but again, I'm sure Peter will have views on this, but I think there are issues, for instance, with the nativity narratives. >> I mean, they seem to me there's a slight mess up there.
¶38And I think and also um the uh that there are details in the passion which I think are difficult to explain in the context of what we know about Judeian and specifically Roman law of which pilot releasing Barabus um would be I guess the obvious one. So there are there are kind of areas where I feel that perhaps um the that the the life is the lives of Jesus in those gospels is that there are passages that are being determined by considerations other than a concern with documentary accuracy. But I don't think documentary accuracy is really what the the gospels are about. I mean they they they kind of do reflect I think there is a kind of documentary quality to them. But that's not what the gospel writers are setting out to do.
¶39They're not setting out like Boswell writing the life of Johnson to make it the accuracy is not the the prime consideration in terms of that the concern is to demonstrate that Jesus is what the gospel writers say he is. >> That's that's helpful. I mean you you wrote a book can we trust the gospels Peter and uh well the clue is in in the name but you you come to the conclusion that actually these are a pretty historically trustworthy set of documents. Could you do you want to sketch out some of the specifics of of why you think you can find real historical value in them? >> Yes.
¶40I mean, I probably take it in two steps, which is I think at the big level, they they have this familiarity that that Tom's talking about culturally. I mean, they know the geography. They know what people are called. They know the sort of jobs people do. They know where the tax collectors should be and these sort of things.
¶41And >> and also the very complicated political setup in that area where it's all fragmented up into different kind of re Roman areas of control and client kings and things. >> Yeah. So they basically know that and so I don't think they're written by people living on some remote island just sort of uh >> so this isn't sort of something that was written a long time and in a different place from from the events as far as you >> but there's a further element from my studies which which is I think that they are actually quite accurate in granularity particularly when it comes to reporting what Christ said because you can look at sort of speech patterns that were occurring across the different gospels um that don't all come from each other and they seem to come from one creative mind and so uh and also I mean the way that Jesus calls himself the son of man which no one else seems to call him uh the people in the narrative call him Jesus plus something else because Jesus is a pretty common name the sixth most common name as far as we can tell at the time so they have to add something extra and then narrator calls him something different and so it's those sort of layers which are happening across um different bits of the gospels that are interesting and with so much speech in the gospels, so much focus on Jesus, you actually have uh the ability to analyze patterns of speech that I don't think we're really getting for lots of other um people the same variety that we have uh with Christ. So I think there are lots of ways of analyzing the data and it it turns out quite good. But I'd love to you know talk talk to Tom about some of the exceptions he's he's >> find.
¶42I mean, I think there's a broad agreement here that that the gospel writers seem to get a pretty good job of the general detail of the time, the place, the people, the customs, the language, and so on. Um, but then as you say, Tom, you've got some concerns about, you know, bits where you feel there's been obviously some sort of >> well fabrication or exaggeration. >> Well, I mean, first of first of all, just to say these kind of of snafuss are absolutely common in ancient literature. I mean, I say I'm preparing a series um for the rest of history at the moment on Hannibal. Um and we have a very detailed account of of the wars that Hannibal fought against the Romans from this guy Palibius who was writing maybe uh 40 50 years afterwards.
¶43So that's maybe the distance between Jesus and and the the gospel writers. And he gets quite a lot of things right, but he clearly gets things wrong as well. And that's what you'd expect. I mean, journalists have been known to get things wrong and they're reporting things on the day. So, I think it's it's it's it's not unusual.
¶44Well, >> for historians in antiquity, >> let's talk about get things right. >> The specific um one you mentioned, which is the birth narratives, the the Christmas story, which you find in >> I feel such a grinch. >> I know. I remember I remember listening to the episode you did with Dominic three years ago on the life of Jesus and specifically you said I feel like the Grinch and Scrooge rolled up into one as Christmas approaches ho >> throwing cold water on on whether these were historical these so just just explain if you would sort of some of the concerns you have as to why these don't seem to have the kind of historical integrity that other parts of the the gospels do. So the the the the story that you get in a nativity play is is stitched together from the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
¶45Um John and uh Mark don't have a nativity narrative in the same way. Um so you get the um in Luke you get the story of uh Caesar Augustus um decreeing that all the world should be taxed. And I remember as a Romeob obsessed little boy, that was always my favorite moment of the nativity service when Caesar Augustus got a mention and the cruel apparatus of the Roman tax system kicked in. Um, and he says that all the world must be taxed and he says that uh therefore Joseph um must go to he in Nazareth, but he must go to Bethlehem uh because that's where his ancestors came from. And so they go and you know they have the baby in the inn or stable or whatever it is.
¶46um translation of that always seems to be changing. Um whereas in Matthew it seems that um Joseph is kind it's presumed it's as far as I can tell that Joseph is is from Bethlehem. Is that I mean it doesn't it it doesn't mention him that he's come from Nazareth. >> And then you have the uh the the magi the wise men and you have the mask of the innocents and you have uh the holy family going to Egypt. Um there there is a kind of a a a dating detail between the two that that is problematic which is that Herod dies in 4 BC around then.
¶47though the master of the innocent if it happened and it's not mentioned by Josephus um should I mean must must must have happened before that >> and Corinius the governor of Syria who um is administering this tax it's in AD8 I think so there's basically a decade gap and it seems to me very difficult to square that there's also the additional issue that if Jose if Joseph is coming from Galilee Galilee is not ruled by Rome he's you know he's a subject of of um Herod antipass and therefore he's not going to be taxed by the Romans and there is no evidence that there is a universal tax. There is no evidence that um even if there was a tax that they would have had to go to uh the place that their forefathers came from. Um and Joseph is going there because he's descended from David. I mean David lived a thousand years before. The whole thing seems highly implausible.
¶48>> Okay. >> Um and as I say no evidence for the the mask of the innocents. You'd think Joseph >> Why do you think that it is there then? Do you think someone has decided we need a backstory? What's what's the the kind of motivation, do you think?
¶49>> I think that um as I say, I don't think that um getting the the the granular documentary detail 100% accurate is the prime concern of either Matthew or Luke. Their prime concern is to demonstrate that Jesus is what Christians say he is. and occasionally um their attempt to convey that leads them into thinking in terms of poetry. I think and I think that there is a poetry about the angel appearing to the shepherds or the the the wise men coming or even the massacre of the innocents in all its horror. that is um for the for for for for the writ for for the writers of the gospels profounder.
¶50I think also specifically with Luke he's I suspect he's he's read Josephus because Josephus is very interested in this tax that Corinius inspires um and Josephus associates it with a rebellion that then appears in Acts of the Apostles. So, I mean, it's it's odd that that that tax and and the the rebellion that happened that's mentioned in Acts of the Apostles inspired by this tax. It suggests to me that um Luke is working from Josephus and his chronology may not be entirely accurate. On top of that, I think that particularly in Luke's gospel, there is a sense of the cult of Augustus and that there is a degree to which the life of Jesus is a counterpoint to the life of Augustus. And that's what Augustus is, you know, Augustus is there at the beginning.
¶51It has to be Augustus. That's why it's a global tax because it's the global sweep of Caesar. And the birth of Jesus in poverty and obscurity is a deliberate counterpoint to the birth narratives of Augustus which have an eerie parallel to those of Jesus. So there is a kind of proposed master of the innocence for instance in Satonius's life of Augustus. So I think there are kind of all kinds of complicated things going on there.
¶52>> Hi there. I hope you're enjoying the show. If you'd like a free chapter from my book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, and also from my latest book, Why I'm Still a Christian, then subscribe to my newsletter, and I'll send you those chapters along with updates on my work. I won't spam you, just encourage you with thinking faith articles, events, videos, and resources. The newsletter link is with the info.
¶53Enjoy the rest of the show. >> Quite quite a lot to potentially respond to there. Yeah. And I won't try and respond to it all because I don't think time will allow, but there's so much um I could say. I suppose I would start from saying say with Luke, I I I'm finding it to be accurate in a granular way in Luke 15, which I've studied a lot, this story of of the two sons and various things where it really seems that almost every word has to come from Jesus because of the artistic hole and the way it patterns with other things that across his teaching.
¶54So I'm also thinking Luke seems to say in the first four verses of his gospel, I've taken a lot of care over things and he's writing for people who know about Roman tax from their own personal experience. And he's got to sound, I think, plausible to them. So I think those would be some sort of things I would frame. And I suppose when we do history, how how do you put everything together? And I would say I'd want the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, to stand at along with Josephus as things that we use to try and work out what happened.
¶55Going to Matthew, there's a a little detail in the end of Matthew 2, which is really interesting, which is that um the Holy Family's gone down into Egypt, escaping um Herod, who who does have a reputation for killing quite a few people. And I'm not sure it Joseph has necessarily has to mention let's say 20 children or more you know uh killed in Bethlehem area. I mean he tells you generally that um >> that that would have not necessarily made the news given his general credential >> in he had enough children to kill and quite busy with that. Um but the of his own children, sorry what I meant is is that um the what you do get though is that an angel appears to Joseph say you can go back now and he goes back and then he says then he learned that Archelaus was um governor and so he went up to Nazareth and that's really interesting uh um because was tetra because he um the way Herod kept on changing his will towards the the end of his life meant they all had to go off and be decided by Caesar. And everyone didn't know at the point when he died who was going to take over from from Herod the Great.
¶56And so there's just that piece of historical knowledge there at the end of of chapter 2 that there was that surprise knowledge that came out after Herod's death. And that to me is an interesting sort of feature to have um in the narrative. Um both Matthew and Luke place Jesus's birth in the time of Herod who's normally thought to die in 4 BC. There's then this uh issue in Luke 2:2 where it says um this census this uh census first took place or this first census took place um uh when Corinius was governor Caesar and uh governor of Syria, sorry. And uh the um interesting thing there is it doesn't just say this census took place.
¶57It says this census first took place. And he seems that um Luke's pointing to something more complicated than you'd necessarily um know. So I think there are various possibilities and once you allow Luke to stand there along with Josephus who is absolutely our main source uh for what's going on with with the census then um you can have a more fruitful dialogue. Luke uh Joseph feels has a compelling account because he um has the rebellion that goes on at the time when this bit uh of Judea uh gets transferred from independence as a kingdom to act on Roman rule. That is a very compelling story and I I I I I I want to keep the integrity of that, not mess around uh with the dates, but I think that Luke uh is not um denying that.
¶58He's pointing to something more complicated and there are various possibilities. >> I mean, it sounds I mean, we've obviously got into the weeds of the very specifics of this this issue of the dating of death versus the when this census took place under Quirius, but the general thing I suppose I'm hearing from you, Peter, here is Luke does a pretty good job elsewhere. we can are you kind of willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as it were that something may be going on here that we don't fully understand from us. So although it is there are problem problems get fitting all the sources together a top Roman historian let's say in a 19th century like Theodore Mson can say I think I've got a solution a current Swiss professor Sabina Hnner can think she's got a solution whether she does or not um you know it's not that this is an insolvable um uh problem even though it would be I would say the biggest problem historically in the New Testament that particular >> um any cluster your thoughts, com? >> Well, my my feeling about the the attempts to explain it, which involve kind of um you know, looking into into the Greek at the most granular level and jigging around dates and finessing this or that is that people are only doing it because they want it to be true, right?
¶59They kind of need Luke to be true. There are lots of passages in ancient history where you have similar, you know, bits where people have got things wrong. You know, people fighting who have died six years previously or something like that. And it's it's obvious that they, you know, writing in antiquity, you don't have the internet. You know, you've often maybe you don't have access to the the text that you need.
¶60It's very easy to get things wrong. Um and I do think that there is a kind of a sense of special pleading in this case that that believers want it to be true and therefore they are going to try and um >> I can understand that but I mean how do you take that particular >> let's say we had a draw let's say there was a contradiction between Luke and Josephus which I'm not necessarily feeling there has to be but let's say there is then it's a 50/50 50 as uh admitting Josephus has got a compelling narrative which has got so much more about the census in it. I'm I'm bad to say that. Um but I think to me it's one of those things that one could easily imagine a short article by a paid up Roman historian in in a real Roman history journal saying, you know, we've got some new information. The piece will fit together.
¶61So I don't feel I have to like embrace one particular solution because so many of the things that we deal with are facts may have been slightly upgraded from a 90% confident conclusion or 99 to a fact and and that there is that difference and what we're really dealing with ancient history is is trying to piece things together and do that in a charitable way. And I'm very happy with the fact that there are isolated things in the gospels which if they were taken u in isolation you might say that looks improbable that that's fine. >> I mean I think also it's clear that in all all the gospels and in Paul's letters as well there is a sense that um Jesus's life and death and resurrection are fulfillments of scripture. Um, and I mean I think I think it's it's evident that Paul, who we know didn't believe, you know, thought Jesus was a scoundrel and a scam, then has this incredible um, literally blinding moment of revelation. And I think he clearly goes away and he reads through the scriptures and he ah this, you know, it's like um, in a Christian novel, you suddenly get the solution and everything that you've seen in one way, suddenly you're seeing it in a different way.
¶62Um, and I think that there's an element in which that is clearly true of the gospel writers as well. And there is a sense that, you know, it's great if Jesus is a descendant of David. Um, it's great if it's a fulfillment of a prophecy in Micah. um and all kinds of uh clues that the that that that um people who believe that that Jesus is is the risen Messiah, they are obviously going through scripture trying to find evidence for this >> and in their their their lives, their proclamations of good news, their their their um their gospels um understandably they are working that in and they don't see this as fraudulent. I mean, they see this as being conclusive proof of what they believe, but it it maybe gives rise to um to traditions that may not be entirely historically accurate.
¶63I I mean coming to the person of Jesus himself, I think I've heard you say Tom in that again in that podcast you did on the rest is history a few years ago that regardless of whether you have a dog in the fight as as regards the faith aspect of this, Jesus is a pretty extraordinary person in terms of the sayings, the lives, the deeds uh that we still draw on today and have obviously shaped our culture in so many ways. Um I mean Peter has written a book called the surprising genius of Jesus. What do you think there was a there is something unique in that sense about Jesus as as it comes through in the gospels? So suppose that the gospels bear no relationship to the historical Jesus or suppose that Jesus didn't exist you know which are I guess kind of fringe positions now but are held. Um, I mean, I think the the desire to prove that Jesus didn't exist is the kind of atheist equivalent of trying to prove that there's no contradiction between Herod dying in 4 BC and Corinthius having his tax in in AD is, you know, you you have a a faith position and you're trying to prove it.
¶64But it seems to me that the the the story the gospel writers tell is so extraordinary and the sayings are so extraordinary. The stories are so extraordinary. the arc of of the the um of the passion is so extraordinary that it seems improbable that four people not all of whom are great literary artists by any means could have made it up. I mean where is this stuff coming from if it is? Because if you're saying Jesus you know these are not these are not drawing on authentic traditions in a sense you're just kicking the the the can down the road.
¶65It seems much more plausible on the principle of Okam's razor that the gospels tell you extraordinary things about this man and all the extraordinary things that he said and the extraordinary way that he behaved um in the buildup to his his death because that's that's what he he was. And he was so extraordinary that the details of his life and of things that he said were remembered and that they were passed down. And we know that they're being passed down long before the gospels are being written because for instance there are there are um there are echoes of the sermon on the mount in Paul's letters. Um and then they they appear in the gospels which are later than Paul's letters. So that seems to me the likeliest explanation for why the gospels are such extraordinary works of literature.
¶66is that they are accurate accounts of an extraordinary man >> rather than him just you know they're just making him up. >> This is very much in line with where you go in. >> Yeah, absolutely. I'd agree with that and I suppose I want to build on that and just sort of state how extraordinary. So leaving aside what you call the most memorable stories ever told uh just they'll take longer to analyze.
¶67Just looking at his sayings, uh, first person we know in history ever to say, "Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Do unto others what you'd have them do to you. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. The truth will set you free." And you just go on, "Render to Caesar things Caesars's.
¶68Um, judge not you, be not judged." It's like a bonanza. And particularly Matthew 5 through7, the sermon on the mount, you just get these, it's 12 minutes long. And you get so many of these things one after the other, but you also get this in different gospels. The truth will set you free is only in in in John. So who comes up with all of these really insightful sayings on life?
¶69A prophet is not without honor except in his own country. You know, there it is in Mark and and it's so this is extraordinary, but you have more than that with Jesus because he also um it's perfectly true. One could imagine that they're writing bits of the gospel details to fit with the Old Testament, but some bits that won't work with. He does die near Jerusalem on the eve of Passover. That's in the Jewish sources as well in in the in the Talmud of all the times in the year to sweep up symbolism.
¶70That's pretty good. He does have a name that is to do with saving uh unlike those who are called his brothers. Um, and then you've got this Old Testament which is just dripping with material ready to be applied to the sort of message that comes out of his life. perhaps uh most obviously is your first sort of sad scene in the Old Testament is in in the third chapter of Genesis where you've got people a couple of humans at a tree and death coming along and then your climactic scene in the New Testament is Jesus on a tree according to the narrative dying and and and you know thereby bringing life. He shortly before he's had a meal with his disciples saying take eat which is a bit of a reference to uh what went on in Genesis 3.
¶71It's there's all sorts of ways in which the Old Testament um is just really really ready >> to fit onto his life. Some of that will you can you can say yes the gospel writers backineer it but that won't quite explain the way it's all just ready for him. And I think also you can see in Paul's letters, you can see and feel Paul wrestling with the implications of this and the excitement that he feels in it. So the the the the the echo of the tree in the Garden of Eden and the tree on which Jesus is crucified and Paul is kind of riffing on about it like he's just discovered it and it's the most exciting thing in the world that he's discovered it. He's clearly not, you know, fabricating that.
¶72The sense of excitement that he has gone through the scriptures and he has discovered all these parallels and and um correspondences I think is is there in Paul who is writing what two, three, four decades before the gospel writers. Um and you you know and you're getting the story of the um of the last supper in Paul and you were you were getting echoes of material that predates Paul. >> So maybe within you know single figure years since the death of Jesus. I mean I suppose the question that it raises for me Tom is given all of that you know this extraordinary character these extraordinary sayings the way in which history seems to almost you know center on him in so many extraordinary ways is is there enough evidence even historically to say this was not just a regular human being perhaps there was something divine about this this man or can a historian not make those kinds of uh conclusions from from >> I mean I think it's it's clear from Paul's letters and from the gospels that the evidence is not conclusive because otherwise there wouldn't need to be faith. I mean Paul is is is endless is he's all about faith and he is staring down the barrel of the possibility that he might be wrong.
¶73>> What about because if if if Christ wasn't crucified and rose from the dead then everything he's preaching is is wrong and he can see through the eyes of of you know the Judeans. Um, and he can see through the eyes of the Greeks and the Romans. And you can see that to them it must be folly. And in famously in um in the gospels you have my namesake refusing to believe that the that Christ has risen until he's actually put his fingers in the holes and Jesus saying, "Well, not everyone is going to have this opportunity." And so that the whole point of that story is that doubt is as possible as faith. But in that context of of the whole question of of doubt, I suppose as a as a historian, you can say actually we have really good evidence that Jesus really did die by Roman crucifixion.
¶74It's something that's that's attested to in all four gospels. But of course, all four gospels also claim he rose again. So is that the point at which you say I you don't know what to do with those historical claims or we just have to put them to one side? I think you say um it's clear that they believed that he had risen from the dead and that it took them time to work out what that meant. In fact, I mean, as far as I can tell from theologians, they're still trying to work out what that meant.
¶75Um, and they clearly believe that something extraordinary had happened. And I think to doubt that makes a nonsense of the emergence and spread of Christianity. But you know the the um the gospels are not the only texts describing someone who lived in the early 1st century AD for instance who who who goes on to become a god. So in his life of Augustus Suatonius goes into great details about you know the food he liked and the kind of his sexual tastes and the kind of hat he wore and all this kind of thing. And then he says, um, yeah, then he rose up.
¶76He, you know, he went to heaven, uh, and he, you know, he's seated at the right hand of his divine father. Um, you know, Augustus's divine father, of course, is Julius Caesar, who's also a god. Um, and you go, "Yeah, whatever." I mean, just because just because you have you have the life of an extraordinary person who the person is writing that life says becomes a god, I don't think serves as evidence that that person did become a god. >> Okay. Shouldn't we make a distinction between uh say a Roman or a Greek context in which you don't have a bound set of numbers of gods and a Jewish context in which there's only one God and it seems that Christians kept on the monotheism of Judaism and then identified Jesus as that God and that's the really extraordinary thing to be having something like in Philippians where a bit of Isaiah is quoted where it says you know every new bow that he'd be given a name above every name where it it's quoting the Old Testament where God says to me every knee will bow and and I think it's it's that sort of thing which is going on which is so different and I think you you've talked about this thing where isn't it extraordinary that that Jesus um tells stories in which he is the king and he is the judge of the world and that's a a really weird thing he's he's not just someone who comes out with really amazing things he also has this >> I think you call it a high view of himself.
¶77[laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I suppose you could say he's not in he's not a modest man. Um although in many ways, of course, he is the humblest. He is the, you know, the servant of servants.
¶78Um I I mean, I think you can sense in in in the gospels a very coherent sense of what Jesus thinks is going on and what his role is. And his role is to proclaim the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. And what the kingdom of God exactly is is kind of mysterious in the gospels. But clearly what it is is not is something that has any truck with the um the temple cult of the Judeans >> or the temple cult of the Romans. >> Mhm.
¶79Jesus is equally silent before the Sanadrin and before Pilate and he rejects the claim of both of them to be the representatives of a divine order that is manifest in earthly power. And I think it's that divi that that sense of a kind of division between the world of God, the world of Caesar, the world of the temple that is so radical and so full of potential for the future. Um, and I think that in that sense he is properly proclaiming a radical sea shift in the way that certainly people in the Christian world will come to conceptualize pretty much everything. And that is a really really profound sense that you don't have to believe that he's the son of God to recognize that he is preaching something that is seismic in its implications. But I mean just to go back to Augustus um Augustus also you know the idea of his divinity in the divinity of of of Caesar I mean that is also kind of quite radical in the context of the Roman world because it's making manifest in a way that people can perhaps instinctively understand the process of change from a republican system of government to an autocratic imperial system of government.
¶80And so again, you can see how at exactly the same time that the gospels and Paul's letters and so on are preaching a recalibration of how believers in Christ should understand society, humanity, and the relationship of the earthly to the divine. In the Roman imperial context, the stories of the divinization of Julius Caesar and of Augustus um and indeed of course of of Claudius um are likewise channeling profound changes in the way that the Roman world functions and how people understand the the you know the society in which Romans live. another Peter who asks this question. Doesn't this entire discussion hang upon whether or not there's a supernatural realm? Peter, how do you defend it?
¶81Tom, what's your view on it? I'll start with you, Peter. Well, obviously your your prior beliefs, what you believe about the world is going to have a big effect on what you believe is possible. So when you are open to the supernatural, particularly if you believe that God's already done uh amazing things, say in the Old Testament, the idea that he might raise his son from the dead in the New Testament isn't asking you to believe something qualitatively different. So I think yes, a lot depends on your overall uh view on things.
¶82I think it is possible to have your foot in two camps and to be comparing two very contrasting approaches to making sense of everything simultaneously and to look inside and out of them. >> Do you ever feel like you have a foot in both camps, Tom? >> Um I I feel like I have Well, I've only got two feet, but if I [laughter] I mean I feel I've got multiple feet in multiple camps. Um I the kind of the dream of writing history is to be objective and neutral I guess. I mean that's that's been the since the enlightenment that's been the the model.
¶83Um and when I came to write the the book I wrote about Islam which was also about um religion and montheism in late antiquity. It was also about Talmudic Judaism and Christianity and Zerastrianism and and all kinds of things as well. I did it as someone who was who didn't believe in God, who didn't think that um God for instance had spoken to Muhammad. Um didn't think the Quran came from God. And I felt that that made me therefore more objective than say Muslim scholars who who did think that that was an explanation for the Quran.
¶84But I realized of course while writing it just how arrogant a perspective that was that my um my my pre precept presuppositions and assumptions were um just as much a faith position as that of a believing Muslim. And I remember uh doing an event and there was a Muslim woman in the audience and she asked me about why have you why have you written this book about Islam which essentially you you know you're you're questioning all kinds of things that are incredibly important to me that's central to to to to my understanding of how the universe functions and my place within it. And you would never do this to your own belief system. And I really felt the sting and force of that. And actually I was at that process in the you know starting to question my own belief system which I I was coming to realize was essentially a kind of very milky tea form of Christianity that that what I had thought was a you know that I'd emancipated myself from superstition um and that I just had to look into my heart and I would know what was right that actually I was just doing what Paul was doing [laughter] and that's how I came to write Dominion was was to was a kind of acknowledgement of the fact that my soggy humanist agnosticism was itself contingent, was itself a faith position.
¶85Um, and I guess that the realization of that has made me worry that to cling too dogmatically to a kind of skepticism about the dimension of the supernatural is to cut yourself off as as a as as a you know materialist in the 21st century from how the vast majority of human beings across the world and through the sweep of time have thought because we are the ones in 21st cent you know the 21st century west who are unusual and so now whenever I look at different periods of time in different places I try and imagine that I I'm trying to imagine myself into not just believing in the supernatural because that makes it sound like the supernatural is something distinct from the material that the supernatural is kind of it's like the milk in the tea you can't separate it out so whether that's ancient Athens or whether it's 15th century France or whatever. That's that's what I'm trying I guess to to think myself into. And because I recognize that culturally in in all kinds of ways, my gut assumptions are Christian, I am interested in uh dare I say sacri them >> in um in kind of breathing the life of the supernatural back into them and seeing what happens. And it's it just makes things more interesting. Hi there, it's Justin again.
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¶87And yeah, I mean it's interesting because inevitably, you know, at the core of this conversation, I think there is this back and forth between the sort of objective historical inquiry with your historian hat on Tom and the fact that you've spoken openly about the fact you you do have, you know, an increasing draw towards faith in in some sense. >> It's it's either all or nothing for me. >> Okay. >> It's either the niche in abyss or the experience of Mary and visitations. >> Okay.
¶88I'm I I'm not interested in being a soggy centrist anymore. >> No. All or nothing. Um well, in in that vein, coming again to this question of history versus faith and so on, um someone asks, is there enough evidence to say Jesus rose from the dead? And there's other similar questions asking, you know, to what extent can we use historical methods to point towards an obviously supernatural event like that?
¶89Um I'll start with you, Peter. So I would say there there is evidence uh strong evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. I don't think it's coercive evidence a and uh we have even within um the gospel accounts the way things are often not coercive. I mean the story in Luke of Christ being on the cross two um criminals either side of him seeing exactly the same thing and having two different reactions. So I I think uh what I'd say is for me the fact that there are clearly lots of people believe they saw Jesus risen from the dead early on.
¶90Um 1 Corinthians 15, Galatians, other parts of Paul clearly show belief in the resurrection is an early thing. Then you have a missing body and it's not just a missing body of any old person. It's the fact that this same person also has the most genius sayings, the most genius stories, is believed to yeah comes from remarkable people group. Um, uh, dies at a remarkable time, has a remarkable day and and you just list all of these things. And so it's the fact that it just doesn't happen to someone random from Huddersfield if you excuse me anyone.
¶91>> Nothing against Huddersfield. >> No. So, so that's that's what I' I'd say. those things come together and and and they they make a a pattern. And so when I would argue for the resurrection, I'm not asking for people to believe in a weird paranormal thing.
¶92I'm asking for people to embrace the fact that as I see it, miracles around Jesus make a pattern. um there's actually a a new pattern emerging rather than it's just an anomaly to the normally uh pattern formed crystal of life. Um what's your perspective on this idea that history could be used at some sense to to at least suggest that something supernatural was actually at the core of that or do you feel that's just ruled out to some extent by the historical method? Well, it's it's I mean it's ruled out by the evidence of the gospels themselves which um clearly integrate within their narratives the possibility of disbelief and and miscomprehension. Um Mary sees the risen Christ and mistakes him for the gardener.
¶93Um the guards are there because um the possibility that people might come and steal the body is something that that um the authorities are worried about. So the explanations that um people subsequently have made to explain away what happened to the body or um who Jesus, the risen Jesus was um are there in the gospels. The possibility that you know Mary and the disciples mistook Jesus for someone else or the fact that perhaps the body was taken by interested parties is there in the gospels. Um and again it's part of this this um this message that in a sense there are dramatic in the opinion of the gospel writers and and of the early Christians you you will feel it in your heart. Um you know if you don't witness the risen Christ yourself maybe he'll appear to you on the road to Damascus.
¶94Um, but there are lots of people obviously who don't think that Jesus rose from the dead because otherwise the world would have become Christian within a year. >> Well, it's >> and it doesn't but you because there are all kinds of people who think it's nonsense and who continue to think it's nonsense but centuries and centuries right the way up to the present day. >> But nonetheless, you also said earlier that you do think that those first followers who did claim to have seen Christ were telling the truth. they really did believe they had >> seen but but Paul for instance is preaching the need you know you need to feel it in your heart >> right any thoughts on that yeah so I take it that Paul believes in a bodily resurrection because his argument in Romans is this has an effect for your mortal bodies and it's you're phys physically going to be resurrected so I I I take it that's he doesn't just believe in a sort of >> spiritual uh resurrection but Tom's quite right the the there's There's a lot of doubt going on in the resurrection narratives. Not just in John's gospel we got doubting Thomas but also in Luke where Jesus says don't doubt to the disciples and Matthew he's building up to his climax the great commission four verses from finishing his gospel and he says they saw him and when they saw some doubted and it's like dude that's not how you build up to a climax that's really anticlimactic.
¶95And so the fact that you've got this as part of uh the gospel narratives means there's there's no embarrassment there about the idea that there's doubt. But there is this constant theme in all of the early Christian writings and since of Christians using evidence, not necessarily saying we're doing the discipline of history, but using uh rational arguments that are related to how we evident evidentially approach the past and saying that is relevant and and it comes together and it does point to something remarkable going on that you can respond to. >> Well, this leads us nicely into another question here. Um, someone points out that Tom said earlier, if it were clear that Jesus was God or Jesus was raised from the dead, there wouldn't be any need for faith. And so they ask Peter, well, what is faith?
¶96Is it some sort of alternative to knowledge or historical evidence? >> So I I would say I like the word trust because I think that faith coming from Latin fed uh was more like that. So now faith in the last couple hundred years can be a belief without any evidence. And I don't think that's what's going on in the Bible when when in the early past years with Abraham uh um having faith in God, God is actually appearing to him at the time. So there's a sort of relational contact and then um God's asking for more.
¶97So I think it's this relational uh future trust uh in God. And I would just say that I think humans are built very relationally. Uh you know in our mother's womb we are getting fed nutrients and information simultaneously. And the idea that we can then at some later stage become a a a brain in a vat you know or disregard all the human relationships through which we receive information and testimony I don't think is right. So I think um faith is a um rational uh response uh uh to our maker.
¶98It it's future trust but based on uh things that already being shown to us. >> Does that make sense to you? I mean, I I think I would frame it slightly differently for what it's worth, which is that um seen from the most objective materialist um skeptical perspective, it is clear that there is something in our brain chemicals that make us as human beings experience a sense of the supernatural, kind of yearn for a sense of of of the divine. Um, and we as a society are are probably the first that has kind of conditioned ourselves not to do that and and perhaps to kind of feel to mistrust it and and and and to regard it with suspicion. But I think that it is um I it is clearly seen in the broad context of history um something that is instinctive to us as a species.
¶99And again to be kind of Darwinian about it. Um survivor of the fittest. I know he didn't coin that phrase but let's use that as shorthand. Um I mean of all the ways to to all the ways that have emerged um over the course of human history to satisfy that urge Christianity is the most successful. So it does suggest purely in base Darwinian terms that it has, you know, basically it's it's it's beaten the competitors, although obviously Islam may have something to say about that.
¶100It's, you know, that race isn't over by any means. um but studied purely objectively, Christianity is the most successful way that humans have devised to explain what their purpose is. >> Right? I suppose that then raises the question though naturally of of is it just really successful because it's evolutionarily useful um versus it being you know right I mean it's it's kind of like those drawings where it's either a rabbit or a duck you know it's difficult to hold them both in your in your head at the same time is is Christianity successful because it's true >> or is Christianity successful because it's >> you know it's hit on some some formula it does it gels there's a question here that basically reflects this so we can continue the conversation. It someone says, "Is it possible to separate the supernatural elements of Christianity from its cultural and moral influences?
¶101Does just being a cultural Christian make sense?" I don't know if you've got thoughts on that. >> Uh so the very very best thing about Christianity is Jesus. Okay. So if you're missing out on that, you're missing out on a lot. But obviously I think it would be far better to be a cultural Christian.
¶102um acknowledging that there's a lot of wisdom in the teachings of Christianity than uh not to be but the very best thing would be actually to uh partake of a relationship with Jesus. That is the best. >> Turn it on off. Well, I I mean I think basically that most of us in this country are cultural Christians just instinctively. Uh, and I think there is no one who's more culturally Christian than the atheist who says, "I don't need some, you know, bronze age sky fairy telling me how to behave because I just know how to behave.
¶103I'm a good person. I don't need the Bible to tell me to care for the weak and the poor and the refugee, manifesting the fact that they are the result of centuries worth of biblical weathering. So in a sense, in a sense to be a cultural Christian is still to believe stuff. >> It's still to believe stuff that to say a Roman, a pre-Christian Roman would have seemed mad and not at all self-evident. >> Okay, let's move to some specifically historical questions because a lot of those are here as well.
¶104Um, we've been talking about the Gospels a lot this evening. Um, someone asked, "Can Christians actually trust the people who decided which books should be in the Bible? And should Christians read books that were not chosen?" Um, Peter, do you want to start? >> Well, the second question is easy. Yeah, read loads of books.
¶105Um, but in terms of the four gospels are the four earliest and uh qualitatively best in terms of their knowledge base and so on. but also say that this idea that a group later decides on what one's to have in doesn't quite acknowledge what the gospels claim about themselves. So John's gospel begins in the beginning was the word. That opening has been used in the Bible before in the very first book in Genesis. In the beginning, God created.
¶106So it's sort of saying I'm the same sort of book as Genesis. Matthew's doing likewise when it begins with a whole load of begot, begott, begott like in in Genesis um five. And it it's the book of the um well actually book of Genesis the first two Greek words in in Matthew. Luke's beginning like 1 Samuel with a barren couple, a righteous couple, and there's going to be some poetry coming up soon. And Mark saying Elijah's back and last time Elijah was around the scriptures.
¶107I think that actually these the four gospels are presenting us early on with this binary choice of either they are um overclaiming in a bad way uh or um you know you should accept them. I I I don't think they offer you um the idea that John's gospel just gradually creeps up in authority when it's claiming that sort of authority uh up front. Now there's more that can be said about that but but but so I don't put a big emphasis on say what happened in the 4th century. I'd also say in the second century >> you get by the the second half of the second century you get across a fairly wide area the idea that there are four gospels uh um and that that I I think is in Egypt and and and France and uh Syria. So, you know, across different areas without a centralized Christian place, uh, power that those four are way out ahead of anything else.
¶108>> What What's your sense of why these four gospels made it in versus the many other contenders? Well, I mean, when I was a teenager and reading the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, uh, which is inspiration for the Da Vinci Code, I was all over the idea that, you know, the boring stiffs who' frozen out all the groovy gospels with, you know, Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and >> taking mushrooms, >> taking mushrooms and all that kind of stuff. And and obviously the reason that they've been frozen out is because the boring squares had organized it. Um but I I feel that's not an entirely accurate perspective on what happened. Um so essentially the reason that we have the four canonical gospels is because it was a response to um a guy called Marian who was a shipping magnate from the Black Sea who felt something that I'm sure lots of people who are who are Christians have have often felt.
¶109I mean, it seems to me that um the contemporary church is quite Marcianite in that it doesn't really know what to do with the the Old Testament. And Marian's feeling was that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were clearly so different that they couldn't be the same God. Um and so he was it he Luke's gospel, Acts of the Apostles, and three of his letters or something. >> He has some of Paul >> some of Paul's letters and he says this is basically all we need. Everything else is rubbish.
¶110And this is a massive challenge because nobody had thought to cons because a cannon is means a measuring stick in Greek. Um so you you know you measure out which are the the correct things to have and no one had really thought of compiling a cannon before. But there's a sense of of panic on the part of what I think you can call what the the great church, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church. I mean the sense that though there there are there is a mass body of Christians who feel the challenge that Marcian is presenting to them and who essentially get together and say well what are we going to do about this and the crucial the first crucial decision they take is that there is an old testament and there is a new testament and that's where the idea you know that you you pair the two they're not jettisoning the idea that the god of the old testament is somehow different from the god of the new testament which is obviously fundamental to the development of Christian orthodoxy but they also say, okay, um, what are the earliest, the best, the most authenticated gospels? And in a sense, biblical, you know, New Testament scholarship is beginning with this.
¶111They are they're deliberately stress testing which are the most authentic accounts. And all these kind of, you know, all the Gnostic gospels that then start to emerge, they're basically very snobbish. They're intellectually snobbish. They're essentially saying, you know, you have to you have to have, you know, you have to have a equivalent of a PhD to understand what God's purpose is, which is why intellectuals love them so much. Um, but the key thing about the the the four gospels is that they contain all these potential theological riches.
¶112I mean, you know, they been the great motor for for Christian theology as it's evolved, but it is also incredibly comprehensible. That's the power of the parables. It's the power of the nativity. And you get it in in Oregon, this, you know, this great Christian scholar in Alexandria in the early 3rd century who um is steeped in Greek philosophy. He speaks Hebrew.
¶113Uh he, you know, he he's incredibly intellectual. Um, but he he says occas, you know, sometimes I contemplate, you know, the the Christ child drinking his mother's milk. And I I fall down and I'm struck dumb with wonder that this could be such a thing. And he's feeling wonder at exactly something that, you know, an illiterate scullery made or a peasant out in the fields might also feel wonder at. And that I think is is the genius of those gospels is that they make sense in terms of story.
¶114M >> and again to say that is to realize how culturally determined our sense of the sacred is because there are Muslim scholars very few of them because most Muslim scholars regard the Gospels as as kind they've been tampered with by Christians who want to disguise the fact that Jesus was actually a Muslim and wasn't crucified. But those who who do read it, they say, "What is going on here?" >> You know, it's just a load of stories. You don't get that in in the Quran. The Quran has kind of almost banished narrative from its fabric and then they're reading all this stuff about, you know, people being mugged on roads and virgins who are misbehaving and, you know, what the hell's going on here? But but but in in in in terms of how the gospels have have manifested themselves over the course of 2,000 years, it's the fact that those narratives are so potent and powerful that does so much to explain the power of Christianity, I think.
¶115Whereas in the Gnostic Gospels, it's all >> one one more question on the gospels um before we have to start wrapping this up. Um one person says this was a popular question. uh 40 years after Jesus's death is still kind of a long time. Why didn't the authors write the gospels five years after his death? >> So, I'd say the gospels are close enough to the events to be right and far enough away to be wrong.
¶116You know, on on timing, at Tom's point, you know, people can say the wrong thing about what happened uh to today. Um I don't give dates in the Gospels, but they've got names on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. and and because Mark and Luke are not said to be eyewitnesses, no. And wouldn't be famous if it weren't for the Gospels, there's no reason anyone to put those names on if they're not by them. Now if Luke is someone who is a companion of Paul in the 50s of the first century um having been a doctor then uh the time in which he may be writing even if he lives quite a long time is not a very long time away from um uh the the events.
¶117Um if Matthew is a tax collector uh in Capernium around the time of Jesus's ministry again uh it can be a few decades later but not uh that much. Obviously people can live a long time. My granny is 105. It's amazing and you get you know uh I still get old information from that. But what what I would say is that um for me the key thing is when you look at the quality of information particularly when it comes to the um words of Jesus's teaching it seems that there is a consistent pattern of care in transmitting these I I I I don't know but I mean two possibilities perhaps I'd be interested to know whether Peter just dismisses him completely.
¶118One might be the thing you get in Paul is a definite apocalyptic sense that Jesus might be returning at any minute. >> There's a mood of incredible apocalyptic excitement. And if that's the case, then you don't really need to, you know, write these lives. And the other, the gospels are all written in Greek. Uh we haven't discussed the question of whether Jesus uh might have spoken Greek, which I I know is is a big theme of of your scholarship.
¶119Um but as as Christianity spreads across the Roman Empire, you know, as as churches are planted in um Corinth and Rome and so on, um there is probably a need for this very Judeian, Galilean story to be put down in a way that someone who's never been there um can comprehend in a language that he or she can readily Um, and that might be a process that takes several days some time. >> Let's finish with this question because I think it's it's an interesting way of perhaps bringing our conversation to a to a close. Someone asks, "If the Christian God exists, why should we need to rely on historical evidence? Why not just reveal himself to us directly right now?" Um, who wants to start on this one? I mean what I'd say is that uh as a Christian I think there are many different arguments you can make for uh Christianity.
¶120Some of them are about the ethics and and so much uh in in Tom's dominion say you know this is a good thing for the world. I think you can make an argument from prophecy from the person of Jesus uh all these different things or from personal transformation you know there are people who've lived life particular way they believe they've encountered Jesus and their life has changed for the better. I think there were all all these things can come together. Um the thing about should why shouldn't God chose uh show himself? Well, the argument of Christians is that he did in the person of Jesus.
¶121Uh God came and manifested himself. Of course, if God is infinite, then he cannot uh reveal everything of himself to us to our senses because we're not able to um uh take that in. the very best way to communicate with a human is through a human. Uh and so that's what I'd say is is God's done that, but he also wants us to respond to him. Uh and uh we are all live our lives trusting other humans.
¶122And so God comes to us in that way and invites us to trust him. >> Do you want to have a final word, Tom? >> I I am not going to um try and explain the motives of God. I feel that is a task that has defeated much mightier minds than mine and I feel it is way beyond my pay grade. >> Well, I appreciate you coming in at your pay grade um tonight for for this brilliant conversation on [music] the history on the way in which faith intersects with all of these issues.
¶123Um, [music] but for now, would you give a huge round of applause to our guests Convoland and Killian [music]