Cold-Case Christianity
Page 27
135. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
136. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
137. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 26.
138. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
139. Polycarp, “The Epistle of S. Polycarp,” quoted in Apostolic Fathers, eds. J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger), 95.
140. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
141. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 25.
142. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 24.
143. Polycarp, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians,” 24.
144. For more information about Irenaeus, see Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, The Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge, 1996).
145. For more information about Hippolytus, see Christopher Wordsworth, St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome in the earlier part of the third century. From the newly-discovered Philosophumena (Charleston: Nabu Press, 2010).
146. For more information about Linus and Clement, see George Edmundson, The Church in Rome in the First Century (Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2009).
147. For more information about Clement, refer to Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (London: Penguin, 1968), Kindle edition.
148. Clement of Rome, “Epistle to the Corinthians,” Documents of the Christian Church, eds. Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder (Oxford University Press, 2011), 67.
149. Clement of Rome, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger), 12.
150. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 10.
151. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 27.
152. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 11.
153. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 11.
154. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 11.
155. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 11.
156. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 16.
157. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 22.
158. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 16.
159. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 7.
160. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 15.
161. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 10.
162. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 22.
163. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 14.
164. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 22.
165. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 14.
166. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 22.
167. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 22.
168. Clement, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 27.
169. For more information about the first popes, see Thomas Meyrick, Lives of the Early Popes. St. Peter to St. Silvester (BiblioBazaar, 2009).
170. For more information about Justin Martyr, see The Writings of Justin Martyr, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Berkeley: Apocryphile Press, 2007).
171. For more information about Tatian, see Emily J. Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian, Routledge Early Church Monographs (London: Routledge, 2003).
172. For more information about the early popes in North Africa, see Stephen J. Davis, The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity, Popes of Egypt (The American University in Cairo Press, 2005).
173. For more information about Pantaenus, see Vincent J. O’Malley, Saints of Africa (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor 2001).
174. For more information about Clement of Alexandria, see Philip Schaff, Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria, Kindle edition.
175. For more information about Origen, see Joseph W. Trigg, Origen, The Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge, 1998).
176. For more information about Pamphilus, see History of the Martyrs in Palestine: Discovered in a Very Ancient Syriac Manuscript (Charleston: Nabu Press, 2010).
177. For more information about Eusebius of Caesarea, see Robert Van De Weyer, Eusebius: The First Christian Historian, Early Christian Writings (Berkhamsted, UK: Arthur James Ltd, 1997).
178. For more information about the role of the Masoretes in the transmission of the Bible, see Norman Geisler and William Nix, General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1986).
179. Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 2011), Kindle edition, Kindle locations 473–75.
Chapter 14
WERE THEY BIASED?
The one thing we know about the Christians after the death of Jesus is that they turned to their scriptures to try and make sense of it.… How could Jesus, the Messiah, have been killed as a common criminal? Christians turned to their scriptures to try and understand it, and they found passages that refer to the Righteous One of God’s suffering death. But in these passages, such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and Psalm 61, the one who is punished or who is killed is also vindicated by God. Christians came to believe their scriptures that Jesus was the Righteous One and that God must have vindicated him. And so Christians came to think of Jesus as one who, even though he had been crucified, came to be exalted to heaven, much as Elijah and Enoch had in the Hebrew scriptures.… But if Jesus is exalted, he is no longer dead, and so Christians started circulating the story of his resurrection.180
—Bart Ehrman, New Testament scholar, professor of religious studies, and author of Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
THREE MOTIVES
Everyone has a motive. We tend to think of criminals when we hear the word, but jurors must also consider motive when examining and evaluating eyewitnesses who have testified in a trial. Jurors learn that they must think about whether or not a witness was “influenced by a factor such as bias or prejudice, a personal relationship with someone involved in the case, or a personal interest in how the case is decided.” There are two factors at work in a question like this: bias and motive. Were the disciples lying about the resurrection, as Bart Ehrman claims? Were their claims based on religious expectation or bias? If so, what was it that they were hoping to gain from this elaborate lie? If the apostles wanted Jesus to be God, an elaborate lie wouldn’t actually accomplish this, at least for the apostles. Lies might fool those who weren’t there, but they wouldn’t fool those who knew better. What did the disciples hope to gain if their stories were false? Let’s study the issue of motive and finish our journey with an examination of Christian eyewitness bias.
In all my years working homicides, I’ve come to discover that only three broad motives lie at the heart of any murder. As it turns out, these three motives are also the same driving forces behind other types of misbehavior; they are the reasons why we sometimes think what we shouldn’t think, say what we shouldn’t say, or do what we shouldn’t do.
FINANCIAL GREED
This is often the driving force behind the crimes that I investigate. Some murders, for example, result from a botche
d robbery. Other murders take place simply because they give the suspect a financial advantage. As an example, I once worked a homicide committed by a husband who didn’t want his wife to receive a portion of his retirement.
SEXUAL OR RELATIONAL DESIRE
I’ve also investigated a number of murders that were sexually (or relationally) motivated. Some sexual attackers murder their victims so they can’t testify later. Some murders occur simply because a jealous boyfriend couldn’t bear to see his girlfriend dating another man.
PURSUIT OF POWER
Finally, some people commit murders to achieve or maintain a position of power or authority. It might be a rivalry between two people who are trying to get the same promotion. Others have killed simply because the victim dishonored or “disrespected” them in front of a group of peers.
Sex, money, and power are the motives for all the crimes detectives investigate. In fact, these three motives are also behind lesser sins as well. Think about the last time you did something you shouldn’t have. If you examine the motivation carefully, you’ll probably see that it fits broadly into one of these three categories.
The presence of motive doesn’t always mean that a suspect actually committed the crime. Someone might have the motive to do something criminal, yet be able to resist the temptation to act. On the flip side, however, defense attorneys often cite the lack of motive when they are making a case for their client’s innocence. “Why would my client have done such a thing when it would not benefit him in any way?” That’s a fair question and one that we need to ask as we examine the claims of the apostles.
APOSTOLIC MOTIVATION
Did the alleged eyewitnesses of Jesus’s life and ministry have an ulterior motive when writing the Gospels? Do we have any good reason to believe that the apostles were driven to lie by one of the three motives we have described? No. There is nothing in history (neither Christian history nor secular history) to suggest that the disciples had anything to gain from their testimony related to Jesus:
THE APOSTLES WERE NOT DRIVEN BY FINANCIAL GAIN
Motive
Judges advise juries that they may consider motive as they assess the guilt of defendants:
“The People are not required to prove that the defendant had a motive to commit (any of the crimes/the crime) charged. In reaching your verdict you may, however, consider whether the defendant had a motive.”
“Having a motive may be a factor tending to show that the defendant is guilty. Not having a motive may be a factor tending to show the defendant is not guilty” (Section 370, Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions, 2006).
There are many ancient accounts describing the lives of the apostles following the period of time recorded in the book of Acts. Local believers in a variety of ancient communities wrote about the activities of the individual disciples as they preached the gospel across the region. None of these texts describe any of the disciples as men who possessed material wealth. The disciples repeatedly appear as men who were chased from location to location, continually abandoning whatever property they owned and vacating whatever homes they were borrowing. The disciples were accustomed to living in this manner; they decided to leave their homes and families when they first began to follow Jesus. Peter acknowledged as much when he told Jesus, “Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You” (Luke 18:28). The disciples rejected all material wealth, believing that the truth of the gospel provided eternal life, something that was vastly more valuable. Paul described their impoverished financial condition many times, reminding his listeners that the apostles were “both hungry and thirsty, and [were] poorly clothed, and [were] roughly treated, and [were] homeless” (1 Cor. 4:11). The apostles lived “as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:9–10). If the disciples and apostles were lying for financial gain, their lies didn’t seem to be working. Those who watched Paul closely knew that he was dedicated to spiritual life rather than material gain; he “coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothes” (Acts 20:33).
The other apostles were in a very similar financial situation. When Peter and John were in Jerusalem in the first half of the first century, they were approached by a poor disabled man who asked them for money. Peter told the man, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” (Acts 3:6). The disciples were consistently described as having chosen a life of material poverty in pursuit of spiritual truth. When James described the rich (as in James 5:1–5), he always did so in the second person. He didn’t include himself in their numbers. The apostles never described themselves as wealthy; instead, they warned those who were rich that their wealth could indeed threaten their perspective on eternal matters. Like the other apostolic writers, James described his fellow believers as joyfully impoverished: “Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” (James 2:5).
The apostles gained nothing financially from their testimony of Jesus’s life and ministry. The New Testament letters of Paul were written very early in history to people who knew Paul personally. If he was lying about his financial situation, his readers would have known it. All the nonbiblical accounts related to the lives of the apostles, whether legitimate or legendary, affirm the poverty of the disciples as they traveled the world to proclaim their testimony. The most reasonable inference from the early record of the New Testament documents and the agreement of the nonbiblical record is that the writers of the New Testament were as contentedly penniless as they proclaimed. It is reasonable to conclude that financial greed was not the motive that drove these men to make the claims they made in the Gospels. In fact, they remained impoverished primarily because of their dedication to their testimony.
THE APOSTLES WERE NOT DRIVEN BY SEX OR RELATIONSHIPS
It’s equally unreasonable to suggest that the apostles were motivated by lust or relationships. While the New Testament documents say little about the “love lives” of the apostolic eyewitnesses, we do know that Peter was married and had a mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14). Paul confirmed this and suggested that Peter wasn’t the only one who was married when, in his letter to the Corinthians, he asked, “Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas [Peter]?” (1 Cor. 9:5). The early church fathers also suggested that all of the apostles were married, with the possible exception of the youngest apostle, John. Clement of Alexandria wrote that Peter and Philip had children181 and that Paul, although married, did not take his wife with him when testifying as an apostle:
The only reason why he did not take her about with him was that it would have been an inconvenience for his ministry.… [The apostles], in accordance with their particular ministry, devoted themselves to preaching without any distraction, and took their wives with them not as women with whom they had marriage relations, but as sisters, that they might be their fellow-ministers in dealing with housewives.182
Clement suggested here that the apostles were not only married, but also denied themselves sexual contact with their wives after the ascension in order to better minister to those they sought to reach with their testimony. Ignatius also referred to the apostles as married men:
For I pray that, being found worthy of God, I may be found at their feet in the kingdom, as at the feet of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; as of Joseph, and Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets; as of Peter, and Paul, and the rest of the apostles, that were married men. For they entered into these marriages not for the sake of appetite, but out of regard for the propagation of mankind.183
Like Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius also reported that the apostles held a view of sexuality that placed their testi
mony ahead of their personal desire. This was affirmed by another early Christian author named Tertullian, who wrote in the early third century:
[The] Apostles, withal, had a “licence” to marry, and lead wives about (with them). They had a “licence,” too, to “live by the Gospel.”184
The apostles had a right to bring their wives with them on their journeys, and some may have done so. In any case, it is clear from both the biblical record and the nonbiblical history that the apostles were careful to live their sexual lives in a manner that was beyond reproach. In fact, while other men within the culture often had more than one wife, the apostles allowed men to rise to leadership only if they limited themselves to one wife (1 Tim. 3:2).
The twelve apostles were not twelve single men in search of a good time. They weren’t using their position or testimony to woo the local eligible women. If the apostles were motivated by sexual desire, there is certainly no record of it in the ancient writings of the time and no hint of it in their own texts. They were married men (most likely) who held chastity and sexual purity in high regard. The most reasonable inference, given what we know about the lives of the apostles, is that sexual or relational desire was not the motive that drove these men to make the claims they made in the Gospels.
THE APOSTLES WERE NOT DRIVEN BY THE PURSUIT OF POWER
Some skeptics have argued that the apostles were motivated by a desire to be powerful within their individual religious communities. They will often point to the power that Christian leaders eventually had in Rome when Christianity became the state-sponsored religion in the fourth century. There is no doubt that the popes of the Roman Catholic Church eventually became incredibly powerful both religiously and politically. But when we examine the lives of the first-century apostles, they bear little resemblance to the lives of the Roman Catholic popes.