Is Genesis 3 just a fable?

Alisa Childers correctly points out how disastrous it would be to Christianity, if Genesis 3 was mere fable.

So let's start with the obvious:

When I was a kid, and read about ancient tales in other cultures that made reference to talking animals, I automatically assumed that because we never see animals talking that this today, these tales are surely mere fictions.

Was I unreasonable to draw such a conclusion upon such basis?

Answering Alisa Childers on the Muratorian Fragment

Sometimes, Christians forget that consequences have actions.

For example, all conservative Christians love to date the Muratorian Fragment ("MF") to the early 2nd century, since that means its list of canonical works, mostly matching the modern Protestant canon, is so early that it can be said to have apostolic roots.

I don't know if Alisa Childers "forgot" any such thing as she blogged in support of an early date for the MF, perhaps not, but most Christians don't realize that before the MF author moves from John to Acts, he gives a version of how John's gospel was composed, a version that most conservatives would rather see struck from history. Here it is, in context, from Metzger's translation:

. . . at which nevertheless he was present, and so he placed [them in his narrative]. [1] (2) The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. (3) Luke, the well-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, (4-5) when Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, [2] (6) composed it in his own name, according to [the general] belief. [3] Yet he himself had not (7) seen the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, (8) so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. (9) The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples. (10) To his fellow disciples and bishops, who had been urging him [to write], (11) he said, 'Fast with me from today to three days, and what (12) will be revealed to each one (13) let us tell it to one another.' In the same night it was revealed (14) to Andrew, [one] of the apostles, (15-16) that John should write down all things in his own name while all of them should review it. And so, though various (17) elements [3a] may be taught in the individual books of the Gospels, (18) nevertheless this makes no difference to the faith (19) of believers, since by the one sovereign [3b] Spirit all things (20) have been declared in all [the Gospels]:

Notice what else you are early-dating when you early-date the MF:

1. you are early-dating the tradition that apostle John wanted his gospel to be the result of him and the other apostles discussing visions they'd have after fasting for three days.
2. you are early dating the tradition that before John's gospel was published, it was "reviewed" by the other apostles.

The consequences that follow from both of these traditions make it more difficult for today's conservative apologists to argue that the material in John's gospel is simple authentic eyewitness recollection:

Under tradition # 1, the fact that John first thought his gospel should be the result of him and the apostles discussing visions with each other, raises problematic questions about John's intent in writing a gospel:  He was willing to present visionary material as if it was simply eyewitness testimony in written form (and given this, it may very well be that this is exactly what happened, see John's exclusive statement in 16:7, 14 about how further information about Jesus will be disclosed by the Holy Spirit after Jesus goes away).  So if theory # 2 is true, and John wrote it, well, the guy who wrote it was the kind of guy who saw no problems in characterizing vision-based information as eyewitness-based information.  How's that for a solid boost in apologetic potential?

Under tradition # 2, the fact that the apostles "reviewed" it would not make sense unless they were given the right to modify or correct it.  But this raises several concerns:  Why would any of the apostles believe God wanted them to modify John's composition, assuming as true the conservative view that these apostles would have thought John to have written inerrantly under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

Or maybe the historical facts given here in the MF falsify the modern conservative notion that John was incapable of error while he was composing his gospel?  What fool "reviews" a composition that is already guaranteed to be without error?  Maybe the apostles were reviewing in the sense of their learning from John, things about Jesus which they never previously knew?  How can "review" make coherent sense here without doing violence to the doctrine of inerrancy?

Donald Guthrie's "New Testament introduction" is standard fare in conservative seminaries and bible colleges, yet notice his pessimism toward getting any useful results from analyzing 2nd-century sources speaking to authorship of John's gospel:

The problem of the authorship of this gospel has been so widely and so thoroughly discussed that it is not easy to express with any conciseness all the ramifications of the different hypotheses which have been proposed.

…It is always difficult to assess the evidence of the second-century Church Fathers on the New Testament books, for a critic’s estimate will be invariably influenced by his general presuppositions. Thus some will place more emphasis than others on negative evidence, rather than positive, and others will be inclined to give credence only to the first of a sequence of witnesses, dismissing the rest as mere echoes of the first and therefore weakening the whole cumulative testimony. Although a completely unprejudiced approach is probably not possible, an attempt will be made here to give a brief survey of the facts.3

Guthrie, D. (1996, c1990). New Testament introduction.

Series taken from jacket. (4th rev. ed.). [The master reference collection].

Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press.

Guthrie's NT Introduction does not discuss the MF's testimony to John's gospel.

The Word Biblical Commentary draws a conclusion from the MF that makes reasonably confident assessment of the eyewitness value of John's gospel impossible:

John’s Gospel is thus represented as a joint production of a number of the apostles, with John as their spokesman.

Beasley-Murray, G. R. (2002). Vol. 36: Word Biblical Commentary :

John. Word Biblical Commentary (Page lxvii). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

If the content of the gospel of John draws from more apostles than John, then how are we to figure out which sections of John drew from which apostles, so that we can do proper historiography and evaluate the credibility of the individual contributors?  As most Christians know, most of the original apostles are disregarded by the NT after the time Jesus is alleged to have risen from the dead.  Therefore, if the MF is correct and, say, Bartholomew contributed in any way when "reviewing" John's gospel, what part did he review, how do we know, and what historical evidence about Bartholomew would assist us in ascertaining his ability or willingness to stick to just the facts?

Or could it be argued that because the MF says John wanted his gospel to be based on visions, this esoteric attitude was likely shared by the other apostles, so that when they "review", they are just as willing to make additions on the basis of divine revelation, as they are on the basis of their own eyewitness memories?  How does this historical possibility change the "reliable gospels" calculus?

The Word Biblical Commentary asserts that this part of the MF is legendary:

The Muratorian Canon has reproduced sheer legend in suggesting that a group of the original Apostles, with Andrew in particular, shared with the apostle John in the writing of the Fourth Gospel; the motive for this is clearly to reinforce the authority of the Gospel by adducing joint apostolic production of it—an early example of the tendency to confuse apostolic authority with apostolic authorship.

Beasley-Murray, G. R. (2002). Vol. 36: Word Biblical Commentary: John.

Word Biblical Commentary (Page lxvii). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

I find the "reinforce the authority of the gospel by adducing joint apostolic production of it" excuse to be unpersuasive, since the early patristic testimony to Matthew and Mark does no such thing.  Then again, nobody said that the early church could only err in a uniformly consistent way.

Consequences flow from the conservatives who say the MF's story of John's origin is legendary.  Inerrantists often forbid the bible to have even a single error because they think if they admit one genuine error, the floodgates will open and they will have to admit they can't be sure there aren't other errors too.  If that reasoning is valid, then why doesn't the legendary "how it happened" stuff in the MF justify suspicion toward the allegedly factual "list of canonical books" stuff?  If there's one error, then all is lost, amen?

Could it be that the MF author got the canonical list right, but not the history of the canonical books?  Yes, technically that could be the case, but how does that benefit us more than 1500 years after the fact, who are limited to just the MF and our historical methods, and our need to judge credibility by known acts and statements?

The WBC rehabilitates this "legend" by offering the following as a possibly correct explanation for the "we" in John 21:24:

 (iii) The writer and others closely linked to him. So, e.g., Schlatter: “The speaker stands in this ‘we’ in the first place, but he knows that he is not alone, but sees himself in a greater circle of such as share his knowledge with him” (376). This accords with the famous passage in the Muratorian Canon, which states that John wrote the Fourth Gospel at the entreaties of his fellow disciples and bishops, but not until he had asked them to pray with him concerning the matter; then “it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John should write down all things in his own name with the recognition of all.”

For kicks, the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to John's gospel says John dictated and Papias wrote.
Eusebius said Papias did not live early enough to be a contemporary of the apostles:

" But Papias himself in the preface to his discourses by no means declares that he was himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy apostles, but he shows by the words which he uses that he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their friends^."

Did Eusebius say this merely because he didn't like Papias' chiliasm?  If so, how many other early church fathers likewise allowed their theological prejudices to cause them to make false statements about Christian history?  Was Eusebius' prejudice here typical, or exceptional?
 
In my opinion, the attempt of conservatives to harvest wheat from the MF while rejecting the chaff, is fraught with peril on every side,. and the more objective procedure would be to leave the MF alone as nothing more than a historical curiosity.  

But the consequence of avoiding the use the MF is, one less ancient historical source in favor of apostolic authorship of John's gospel.

Luke 2:52, either Jesus isn't God, or God can increase in wisdom

Luke 2:52 makes a controversial statement about Jesus, which I say logically forbids the possibility that he could have been both human and God at the same time.

46 Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

 47 And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.

 48 When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, "Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You."

 49 And He said to them, "Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father's house?"

 50 But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them.

 51 And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

 52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Lk. 2:46-52 NAU)

How could Jesus, who IS God (supposedly), "increase" in wisdom?


Apologists will say v. 52 is only referring to Jesus' human nature, not his divine nature.

But "nature" is what a thing really is, it's essential properties, as opposed to what it merely appears to be.  From the Oxford dictionary:

The basic or inherent features, character, or qualities of something.

So if Jesus had two natures, BOTH of them would have to be implicated in anything the bible asserts him to have been, said or done.  There is no logical possibility for a person to act in a way that doesn't implicate their nature.

So the only way to rescue Luke from denying Jesus' divinity here is to insist, contrary to all reason, that Luke ascribed to the erroneous belief that Jesus could do things contrary to one of his natures (like acting in his earlier years in a way that involved less wisdom than he'd have acted with in his later years, when his nature as God during his early years would require that he always spoke/acted during said early years with the fullest amount of wisdom logically possible for God.)

Yes, the bible elsewhere teaches that Jesus is God, but using a teaching in one part of the bible to dictate what interpretative options are and aren't available for some other bible verse, presupposes the truth of the doctrine of full biblical inerrancy.  But since bible inerrancy has nowhere near the universal acclaim that other interpretation-tools such as "grammar" and "context" have (inerrancy is denied by most Christian scholars too, not just skeptics), I have reasonable justification to refuse to exalt inerrancy in my mind to the status of "interpretation-tool".

Since I have reasonable justification to reject inerrancy as a governing heremeneutic, I have reasonable justification to not be worried about my interpretation of Luke 2:52 causing it to contradict something else in the bible.  Something more than this must be shown before I will be morally or intellectually obligated to renounce my interpretation.  If such is not shown, then the fact that my interpretation contradicts something else in the bible, will only be interesting to inerrantist-Christians, thus showing the subjective nature of such a rebuttal.

For all these reasons, Luke's statement that Jesus increased in wisdom can only mean either a) Jesus wasn't God since God cannot increase in wisdom, or b) the divine nature of Jesus increased in wisdom. 

However, Christians who interpret Genesis 6:6-7 literally (i.e, God really does sometimes regret one of his own decisions), can safely assert that Jesus, as God, can increase in wisdom.  Their interpretation of Genesis 6 is probably correct, there is no grammatical or contextual justification for the "anthropomorphic" interpretation, only a worry that it needs to be rendered non-literal so it won't contradict other bible verses asserting God being all-knowing.  Take a look at Exodus 32:9-14  for another example of God being imperfect and needing the wisdom of humans.

Matthew as Resurrection Witness: Can skepticism of Papias' testimony be justified?

The question for you is at the end of this post :)

Among the bits of external evidence for Matthew's authorship of the gospel now attributed to him, are the comment of 2nd century Bishop Papias, that Matthew authored a gospel.  Papias made that comment in a work entitled "Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord", now lost to us except as bits of it are quoted in surviving works by later church fathers.  One father who quoted Papias was Eusebius of Caesarea, 4th century author of the monumental "Church History", that is required reading in all seminaries and bible colleges.


The following quote from Papias draws from "Church History" and the immediate context is included:

15 “This also the presbyter said: Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely." These things are related by Papias concerning Mark.

16But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: “So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.” And the same writer uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise. And he relates another story of a woman, who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. These things we have thought it necessary to observe in addition to what has been already stated.  

Eusebius, Church History, Book 3, chapter 39

Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series

Vol. I. Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

Inerrantist Christian scholar Craig Blomberg admits in the inerrantist-driven "New American Commentary" that most scholars dismiss Papias' remarks:

Largely because canonical Matthew does not betray very much evidence of having been translated literally from a Semitic tongue, most modern scholarship is inclined to discount the value of Papias’s testimony however it is interpreted.

“Matthew, Sources”, Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 40).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

So while the majority opinion of scholars doesn't automatically make said opinion true, the fact that a majority of scholars hold the opinion makes it very difficult to accuse those who hold said opinion of being irrational or unreasonable.

The "Word Biblical Commentary" admits the tantalizingly brief nature of the Papias-quotation has caused scholars no end of disagreement about what exactly Papias meant:

The tantalizing statement of Papias from the first quarter of the second century (Körtner and Schoedel accept a date of 110; Yarbrough even earlier) is at once the earliest, most important, and most bewildering piece of early information we have concerning the origin of material associated with the name of the Apostle Matthew.

Hagner, D. A. (2002). “The Papias Tradition concerning Matthew”,

Vol. 33A: Word Biblical Commentary: Matthew 1-13.

Word Biblical Commentary (Page xliii). Dallas: Word, Incorporated

"The text of Papias is open to many questions."

"Matthew", Brown, R. E., Fitzmyer, J. A., & Murphy, R. E. (1968];

Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996). 

The Jerome Biblical commentary (electronic ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Finally, Clifton Black, Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton, says

...Papias's testimony is undeniably one of the most important.  It is also one of the most problematic and tantalizing.  if not exasperating.  As we shall see. Eusebius' quotations from Papias are obscure extracts, almost every aspect of which is enveloped in an interpretive controversy that may ultimately prove beyond the capacity of scholars to resolve.  In the period from 1960 to 1981 alone, some three thousand five hundred monographs and two hundred scholarly articles were devoted, partially and sometimes wholly, to Papias, and the torrent of research shows no signs of abating.  For all of that, as noted by a respected patristic scholar who has contributed to this research, "the fragments of Papias still continue to be looked at for more than they can possibly give."

C.C Black,  “Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter”, page 82

Although scholars debate everything about this Papias-quote, the purpose of this blog post is limited to getting your reply to the simple question:  Do you believe Eusebius' quotation of Papias on Matthew's authorship, combined with the immediate context Eusebius surrounds the quote with, provide enough information there to enable us to determine, to any degree of reasonable certainty, what exactly Papias meant with his comments about Matthew?

I say no, and therefore, the theory that the author of Matthew was an eyewitness of Jesus' resurrection, takes a direct hit.

 Conservative Christian textual scholar Daniel Wallace agrees that gaining conclusive certainty on what Papias meant is impossible, and further holds that, regardless, Papias likely wasn't referring to a gospel:

Although it is quite impossible to decide conclusively what Papias meant since we are wholly dependent on Eusebius for any excerpts from this early second century writer, some general considerations are in order: (1) Papias probably was not referring to the Gospel, since we have no trace of it in Hebrew or Aramaic until the medieval ages (all of which are clearly translations of the Greek, at least as far as most scholars are concerned). This view, therefore, is shipwrecked on early textual evidence.

If you conservative Christians who are spiritually alive cannot even agree on what Papias meant, nor even whether it is possible to confidently determine what he meant, aren't you being a just a bit unreasonable in expecting spiritually dead people (who have even less ability to discern truth) to figure out which Christian view on Papias is correct?

I therefore conclude that atheists have plenty of rational warrant to dismiss Papias' comments about Matthew as creating more questions than answers.  Nothing about Papias' input can be pushed so far as to morally or intellectually obligate the non-Christian to think Papias constitutes reliable evidence.

Under what circumstances did you first conclude that Jesus rose from the dead?

There are two basic types of Christians in the world today:

a) the former atheist who didn't stop mocking Christians with intellectual arguments until they reluctantly had to admit the resurrection hypothesis better explained the data than any skeptical theory, and so by this were finally brought kicking and screaming over the line into faith, or

b) they went to church, heard the pastor rail against sin and how they were in serious trouble with god, accepted Jesus as their savior during an "altar call" sometime thereafter, and have been reading apologetics books on the historicity of Jesus' resurrection through those rose-colored glasses ever since.

Which one are you?

If you try to sound like "a", you sound reasonable and rational to modern audiences who prioritize evidence above all else, but you open yourself up to the possible attack that the basis for your faith was more secular than biblical.

If you try to sound like "b", then the way you came into faith certainly sounds "biblical", but then you open yourself up to the possible attack that says it was something other than evidence upon which you decided to believe the gospel, and therefore, your promotion of historical arguments for Jesus' resurrection is hiding the actual subjective basis that is the real reason you ever came to faith.