MARK PAID PETER THE UTMOST RESPECT
Mark also seemed to respect Peter more than any other gospel writer did; he repeatedly painted Peter in the kindest possible way, even when Peter made a fool of himself. Matthew’s gospel, for example, describes Jesus walking on water and Peter’s failed attempt to do the same (Matt. 14:22–33). In Matthew’s account, Peter began to sink into the sea; Jesus described him as a doubter and a man “of little faith.” Interestingly, Mark respectfully omitted Peter’s involvement altogether (Mark 6:45–52). In a similar way, Luke’s gospel includes a description of the “miraculous catch” of fish in which Peter was heard to doubt Jesus’s wisdom in trying to catch fish when Peter had been unsuccessful all day. After catching more fish than his nets could hold, Peter said, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:1–11). Mark’s parallel account omits this episode completely (Mark 1:16–20). While other gospels mention Peter directly as the source of some embarrassing statement or question, Mark’s gospel omits Peter’s name specifically and attributes the question or statement to “the disciples” or some other similarly unnamed member of the group. When Peter made a rash statement (like saying that Jesus’s death would never occur in Matthew 16:21–23), the most edited and least embarrassing version can be found in Mark’s account (Mark 8:31–33). Over and over again, Mark offered a version of the story that is kinder to Peter.
MARK INCLUDED DETAILS THAT CAN BEST BE ATTRIBUTED TO PETER
Mark alone included a number of seemingly unimportant details that point to Peter’s involvement in the shaping of the text. Mark alone told us that “Simon and his companions” were the ones who went looking for Jesus when He was praying in a solitary place (Mark 1:35–37). Mark is also the only gospel to tell us that it was Peter who first drew Jesus’s attention to the withered fig tree (compare Matt. 21:18–19 with Mark 11:20–21). Mark alone seemed to be able to identify the specific disciples (including Peter) who asked Jesus about the timing of the destruction of the temple (compare Matt. 24:1–3 with Mark 13:1–4). While Matthew told us (in Matt. 4:13–16) that Jesus returned to Galilee and “came and settled in Capernaum,” Mark said that Jesus entered Capernaum and that the people heard that He had “come home” (see Mark 2:1). Mark said this in spite of the fact that Jesus wasn’t born or raised there. Why would Mark call it “home,” given that Jesus appears to have stayed there for a very short time and traveled throughout the region far more than He ever stayed in Capernaum? Mark alone told us that Capernaum was actually Peter’s hometown (Mark 1:21, 29–31) and that Peter’s mother lived there. Peter could most reasonably refer to Capernaum as “home.”
MARK USED PETER’S ROUGH OUTLINE
Many scholars have also noticed that Peter’s preaching style (Acts 1:21–22 and Acts 10:37–41, for example) consistently seems to omit details of Jesus’s private life. When Peter talked about Jesus, he limited his descriptions to Jesus’s public life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Mark also followed this rough outline, omitting the birth narrative and other details of Jesus’s private life that are found in Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels.
Mark used specific titles to describe Peter, gave him priority in the narrative, uniquely included information related to Peter, and copied Peter’s preaching outline when structuring his own gospel. These circumstantial facts support the claims of the early church fathers who identified Peter as the source of Mark’s information.
By hanging on every word, we were able to construct a reasonable circumstantial case for the gospel of Mark as an eyewitness account. When combined with the testimony of the early church, this evidence becomes even more powerful.
A TOOL FOR THE CALLOUT BAG, A TIP FOR THE CHECKLIST
Keep this principle in mind as you gather the tools in your callout bag and make your own investigative checklist. By paying close attention to the words witnesses use, we can learn a lot about the reliability and legitimacy of their statements. It’s been fashionable recently to question the authenticity of the Gospels and the claims of the early church fathers related to their authorship. Were the Gospels intentionally misattributed to the apostles or their associates? Was there a conspiracy of some sort to make the Gospels seem authoritative? The forensic internal evidence of language can help us verify the claims of the early church related to these texts. The specific words used by the authors can teach us more than you might previously have thought possible. While it’s been popular in the twenty-first century to try to cast doubt on what was so certain to those in the first and second centuries, thoughtful consideration of the words themselves will verify many of the claims of the early church leaders. We need to do our best not to trust others (including me) for this careful analysis. Instead, read the Gospels for yourself and examine every word. We each have the obligation to do the heavy lifting for ourselves.
I recognize that many of us, as Christians, are hesitant to treat God’s Word as though it were a suspect or eyewitness statement that needs to be picked apart forensically. It almost seems to disrespect the holy nature of the text. I’ve even known brothers and sisters in the faith who were hesitant to write on the pages of their Bibles out of love and respect for the Word. I certainly understand this kind of reverence, and I also understand that it’s easy for us to leave this kind of analysis to experts in the field. But you’ll be amazed at how rich and deep your faith will become as a result of careful analysis and study. Some of us don’t think we have enough training or experience to be able to examine the language of Scripture. But imagine for a minute that one of your sons wrote you a long letter describing something important to him. As an interested reader, you would find yourself intuitively measuring his choice of words. You would inevitably “read between the lines” and find yourself gleaning far more from the letter than the simple content intended. We all have enough expertise to begin to question the use of specific words and develop a richer understanding of the biblical text if only we will become interested readers of Scripture. There are a number of reliable experts in the field who can help us sort out the language. We simply need to raise the bar on our approach to the biblical text. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s our duty as ambassadors for Christ and as defenders of the faith.
CASE NOTES
21. Papias, quoted in Eusebius, “Church History,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wallace (New York: Cosimo, 2007), 172.
22. Irenaeus, quoted in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers—Justin Martyr—Irenaeus (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885), 414.
23. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (Wyatt North, 2012), Kindle edition, Kindle locations 2349–2351.
24. Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Eusebius, “Ecclesiastical History,” The Fathers of the Church: Eusebius Pamphili, Ecclesiastical History Books 1–5, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1953), 110.
25. Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Palestine 330 Bce – 200 Ce (Philadelphia: Coronet Books, 2002), 91.
26. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), Kindle edition, Kindle location 1938.
Chapter 6
Principle #6:
SEPARATE ARTIFACTS FROM EVIDENCE
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the most important piece of forensic evidence the prosecution has in this case demonstrates the fact that the defendant had nothing to do with this murder.” The defense attorney paused as his projector splashed an image of a cigarette butt on the courtroom screen. The jurors sat quietly with their eyes fixed on the photograph. Several jurors were taking notes.
I knew that this cigarette butt was going to be a problem for our case from the moment I first saw it in the collection of evidence.
The victim in this crime had been murdered in his front yard in 1990. The murder occurred early in the morning, long before sunrise. When officers were called to the scene, they correctly taped off the area to preserve it for the criminalists. They were careful to overestimate the possible crime scene, capturing a large area within the tape, just to be sure that they didn’t miss anything. While it is always wise to tape off the biggest possible area, it often results in an excessive collection of items. Some of these items are related to the crime and can be correctly identified as evidence; some of these items are simply uninvolved artifacts that get caught up incidentally. The jury will eventually have to decide which is which.
“The prosecution failed to perform a DNA test on this cigarette butt, even though they knew it was important to the case. They collected it, after all. Why would they do that unless they thought it was a piece of evidence?” The defendant’s attorney paused with his hands on the podium, waiting for the jury members to turn their eyes back toward him. “As you know, our team conducted the appropriate tests and learned that there was, in fact, DNA on the cigarette, and this DNA, although it remains unidentified, does not belong to my client. The DNA belongs to the true killer. The police never even examined the DNA and missed the chance to find the real murderer.”
It was true that we never tested the cigarette for DNA. It was also true that the partial DNA found by the defendant’s team did not belong to the defendant and remained unidentified. But it was not true that the cigarette butt was a piece of evidence. Yes, we collected it because it was inside the tapeline at the crime scene. But that yellow tape captured both evidence and artifacts.
The cigarette butt was discovered in a neighbor’s side yard, approximately fifty feet from the point of the murder. It was at the outmost edge of the taped area. If the officers had taped an area that was just six inches smaller in radius, this butt would not even be part of our case. The defense argued that the suspect was hiding in this location, fifty feet from the victim’s front door, and must have smoked a cigarette while he was waiting for the victim to exit his house. They wanted the jury to view the cigarette butt as evidence of the killer’s identity.
I knew better. The location of the cigarette was directly visible from the street and the front porch. If the suspect had been standing there, he would have been exposed and visible to anyone driving by (and to the victim as soon as he exited the front door). If the killer was relying on the darkness to hide his presence, the glowing ember of the cigarette and the smell of the smoke would be a sure giveaway. More importantly, I knew from the victim’s family that this area was used by his daughter’s friends to smoke cigarettes while they were visiting and working on their cars in the driveway. We never tested the cigarette as evidence in this case because we never viewed it as evidence in the first place. It was simply an artifact at the scene.
Like all our cases, this investigation was built on circumstantial evidence. I had no direct evidence, and the defense knew it. The defendant had been very careful and had gotten away without leaving a trace of his presence at the scene. While over thirty other pieces of circumstantial evidence pointed to the defendant as the killer, the only physical item collected at the scene happened to be an unrelated cigarette butt. The jury would now have to consider the circumstantial case surrounding the cigarette before it could consider the circumstantial case surrounding the defendant.
That’s exactly what they did. The jury came back in less than three hours. They were able to distinguish between the evidence and the artifacts, and they properly kept the cigarette butt in its place as an artifact of the crime scene. They convicted the defendant of murder.
The Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery
The famous story of the woman caught in adultery (known as Pericope de Adultera) is found today in John 7:53–8:11. It was not present in the earliest known manuscripts of John’s gospel, however, including Papyri 66 (ca. AD 200), Papyri 75 (early third century), Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century), and Codex Vaticanus (fourth century). It first appears in its entirety in the fifth century in Codex Bezae, but there are several other codices from that time in history that do not contain the story (e.g., Codices Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, Washingtonianus, and Borgianus). It appears in a different location (after John 21:25) in many ancient copies of the text, including a set of ancient gospels written in Greek known as “Family 1” that date from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The story appears in the gospel of Luke (after Luke 24:53) in a group of Greek manuscripts known as “Family 13” that date from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.
THE TEXTUAL ARTIFACTS OF THE BIBLE
Like crime scenes, historical scenes can be reconstructed with the evidence we have at our disposal. We have to be careful, however, to distinguish between evidence and artifacts. The testimony of an eyewitness can be properly viewed as evidence, but anything added to the account after the fact should be viewed with caution as a possible artifact (something that exists in the text when it shouldn’t). The Gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts, but you may be surprised to find that there are a few added textual artifacts nestled in with the evidential statements. It appears that scribes, in copying the texts over the years, added lines to the narrative that were not there at the time of the original writing. Let me give you an example.
Most of us are familiar with the biblical story in the gospel of John in which Jesus was presented with a woman who had been accused of committing adultery (John 8:1–11). The Jewish men who brought the woman to Jesus wanted her to be stoned, but Jesus refused to condemn her and told the men, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” When the men leave, Jesus tells the woman, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” This story is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. Too bad that it appears to be an artifact.
While the story may, in fact, be absolutely true, the earliest copies of John’s gospel recovered over the centuries fail to contain any part of it. The last verse of chapter 7 and the first eleven verses of chapter 8 are missing in the oldest manuscripts available to us. The story doesn’t appear until it is discovered in later copies of John’s gospel, centuries after the life of Jesus on earth. In fact, some ancient biblical manuscripts place it in a different location in John’s gospel. Some ancient copies of the Bible even place it in the gospel of Luke. While there is much about the story that seems consistent with Jesus’s character and teaching, most scholars do not believe it was part of John’s original account. It is a biblical artifact, and it is identified as such in nearly every modern translation of the Bible (where it is typically noted in the margin or bracketed to separate it from the reliable account).
Should the existence of this textual artifact concern us? Do late additions to the biblical record disqualify the New Testament as a reliable manuscript? How can we call the Bible inerrant or infallible if it contains a late addition such as this? This passage is not the only textual artifact in the Bible. There are a number of additional verses that are considered to be artifacts by scholars and biblical experts. Let’s take a look at a few of them to determine if their existence should cause us any alarm:
LUKE 22:43–44
“And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (KJV).
These two verses do not appear in early manuscripts of Luke’s gospel, and for this reason they have been omitted from some modern Bible translations (like the RSV). While the KJV does not isolate them as late additions, other translations (like the NIV, NASB, and NKJV) identify them as such in footnotes or special brackets.
JOHN 5:4
“For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever
disease he had” (KJV).
Once again, this verse (along with the last few words of v. 3) does not appear in the best ancient manuscripts. Several modern translations have simply removed the verse (e.g., the NIV, RSV, and NRSV), while others have identified it in the footnotes (e.g., the NKJV and ESV).
1 JOHN 5:7
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (KJV).
The second half of this verse (“the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”) does not appear in any manuscript of the Bible until the sixteenth century (and it appears in only two manuscripts at this point in history). It has been omitted from modern translations like the NASB and NIV and identified with a footnote in the NKJV.
ACTS 15:34
“Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still” (KJV).
The earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not contain this verse. Modern translations like the NIV, RSV, and NRSV have removed it, while the NASB, NKJV, and ESV have identified it with brackets or a footnote.
Skeptics have pointed to passages like these in an effort to demonstrate the unreliability of the biblical text as an eyewitness account. If these lines are fiction, how many more verses are also false? When I was an atheist, this was one of my prime complaints about the Bible, and I discovered that very few Christians were aware of the fact that these additions exist. I shook the faith of many of my Christian friends by simply demonstrating that these passages were not in the original biblical text.
Cold-Case Christianity Page 10