Those texts are genuinely problematic, because they occur in gospels that otherwise say Jesus romped around the countryside wowing people with his genuinely supernatural miracles...leaving modern people of common sense to wonder why so many strangers found Jesus believable, but Jesus' own family not only didn't believe him, they maintained that unbelief all the way up to some point past the crucifixion. Here's a screenshot of the reply I posted to Dr. Long's blog, the full of text of which follows:
Full text:
Hello, I'm a skeptic, and here's my take on the problems raised by Mark 3:21 and John 7:5:First, numerous Christian scholars and apologists concede that Jesus' brothers did not believe in him throughout the entire duration of his pre-crucifixion ministry. Licona is representative of Geisler, Habermas and others in saying
"The preponderance of the evidence favors the conclusion that the brothers of Jesus were not counted among his followers through the time of Jesus’ execution. By all accounts, they appear to have maintained a distance from their brother’s ministry (Licona, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach”, IVP Academic, 2010, p. 455).So which is more likely: Jesus' brothers didn't believe in him because they were so blinded by jealousy and/or a desire for a military messiah that they refused to apply common sense toward miracles they saw Jesus was doing, like feeding 5,000 and raising the dead?Or Jesus' brothers don't believe in him during the pre-crucifixion period because they saw a few of his "miracles" and, like skeptics at a Benny Hinn crusade, decided those miracles were fake?I take the latter since a) the brotherly-unbelief passages pass the criterion of embarrassment while the passages saying Jesus did miracles do not, so the brotherly-unbelief passages are more historically reliable than the passages saying Jesus did miracles, andb) it violates common sense to say that Jesus' family could be so shockingly dense toward their own brother who is allegedly doing these miracles ("Yes, we know that Jesus has raised back to life people who were obviously dead....but....we just want a military messiah...can't you just leemee alone!?!") LOL,b) Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead, so that when the brothers exude unbelief toward Jesus, they are also denying the ministries of other people where such miracles are supposed to be repeated and corroborated. So the unbelief of the brothers is so shocking that it screams for something other than jealousy of Jesus' popularity, or some unreasonable biased expectation for Jesus to be a military messiah.Second, most responsible Christian scholars of today acknowledge that Benny HInn has thousands of devoted followers, yet they also insist that Hinn has never employed supernatural power, or at least cannot demonstrate it so when directly challenged to produce evidence of such. So there's nothing about the gospel passages saying large crowds followed Jesus, that mitigates the skeptical position I take, supra. We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.Third, If we allow the protestants' mostly symbolic interpretation of Jesus cannibalistic sounding statements in John 6:57, then the many disciples of his who stopped following him because of that saying (6:66) can only imply that Jesus had not done much more to ground his messiahship claims beyond "teaching" stuff. In other words, the "miracles" Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those "miracles" successfully corroborated any of his teachings.Fourth, most apologists trifle that there's no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus' miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying "John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe", supra. So apparently, when skeptics like me who argue that in the collectivist honor/shame culture, Jesus' family would surely have heard back from others about such miracles, even if his family didn't start out monitoring Jesus from the beginning, we skeptics are justifying our naturalistic interpretation from the cultural realities of the day.Fifth, if we assume Jesus was god since before he was born into humanity, then we must also assume that never during his childhood, or ever in the entire 30 years that his family knew him, did Jesus ever sin. His parents and brothers during his childhood would have found this disconcerting in the least (and I seriously doubt anybody will trifle that Jesus sinned in his human nature but not his divine nature, just so they can get rid of this bit of skeptical common sense).So if Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 are true, it would appear that Jesus' family did not see anything about Jesus in their 30 years of knowing him which gave them probable cause to believe he was anything other than a normal if perhaps extroverted person.I have much more to argue, but for right now, the question is whether skeptics can be reasonable to interpret Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 the way I do, supra. I say we skeptics can indeed be reasonable that way. It isn't like my skeptical interpretation is failing to take into account any rule of historiography, hermeneutics or common sense. Yes, I deny the rule "scripture interprets scripture", as that merely presumes the truth of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, a doctrine which I along with most Christian scholars deny, a doctrine that even inerrantists cannot come to agreement on despite decades of trying within the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
------------------------------
Once again, I only care to reply to fundamentalist Christians and "apologists" who say skepticism toward Jesus' resurrection is always unreasonable for those who know the gospel and have seen the evidence. I obviously use Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to argue that Jesus could not do genuinely supernatural miracles...and it's a very short walk from "Jesus couldn't do genuinely supernatural miracles" over to "God probably wouldn't ground his Second Covenant upon the words and works of a deceiver".
So the question this blog piece will be limited to is: What is it about my above-posted skeptical interpretation of Mark 3:21 and/or John 7:5, which violates any standard canon of historiography, hermeneutics, or common sense? If I am "unreasonable" to interpret those texts the way I do, why?
-------------------------------------------------------
Update June 27, 2021: Dr. Long responded to me, and I replied to his response, as follows:
Phillip J. Long
June 23, 2021
Thanks for your detailed response…
“First, numerous Christian scholars and apologists concede that Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him throughout the entire duration of his pre-crucifixion ministry”
Agreed, this is uncontroversial.
“Jesus’ brothers don’t believe in him during the pre-crucifixion period because they saw a few of his “miracles” and, like skeptics at a Benny Hinn crusade, decided those miracles were fake?”
This is more or less the gist of the original post, which was about the people in Nazareth questioning the source of his authority to teach and perform miracles. I suspect (although could never prove) that they were convinced by the Pharisees that he was doing miracles by the power of Beelzebul.
“Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead”
I do not see any raising the dead in Matthew 10. Matthew 10:1, he gave the authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness. But otherwise the point stands.
“We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.”
This is a great analogy (I am stealing it). I personally would play the role of a Pharisee with respect to Hinn and others and say the source of that power is not God.
“In other words, the “miracles” Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those “miracles” successfully corroborated any of his teachings.”
Here is where we will disagree, since in the Second Temple Period a messiah who does not do miracles does not make sense. Jewish messianic expectations drawn from Isaiah 35:5-6 or Isaiah 61:1-2 (for example) connect healing with the coming eschatological age (blind see, deaf hear, lame, leap). Jews at the time of Jesus did not allegorize those texts, they really did expect signs from heaven. Pharisees asked Jesus for signs, and explained his power of demons as a sign he too was in league with Beelzebul.
“most apologists trifle that there’s no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus’ miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying “John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe”
Well, I did not know you when I wrote that, so you might agree with me . I cannot imagine the brothers not being aware of what Jesus was doing if the villagers in Nazareth knew he was doing miracles; I have no idea what would motivates an “apologist” to say such a thing.
Barry Jones
June 27, 2021
barry: “Matthew 10 tells us that the disciples themselves also went around performing miracles including raising the dead”
Phil: I do not see any raising the dead in Matthew 10. Matthew 10:1, he gave the authority to drive out impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness. But otherwise the point stands.
barry: see Matthew 10:8…”Heal the sick, raise the dead, (Matt. 10:8 NAU)
barry: “We learn from the health-and-wealth gospel that large crowds can indeed be duped into thinking a miracle happened when it in fact did not.”
Phil: This is a great analogy (I am stealing it). I personally would play the role of a Pharisee with respect to Hinn and others and say the source of that power is not God.
——Why? I see no reason to think there is anything supernatural whatsoever in Hinn’s “miracles”. He always fails when challenged to document his “healings”, and several investigative reports established that a few who got “healed” were not only never healed, but sometimes got worse.
barry: “In other words, the “miracles” Jesus was allegedly doing, if any, were not genuinely supernatural, and many of his disciples did not believe those “miracles” successfully corroborated any of his teachings.”
Phil: Here is where we will disagree, since in the Second Temple Period a messiah who does not do miracles does not make sense. Jewish messianic expectations drawn from Isaiah 35:5-6 or Isaiah 61:1-2 (for example) connect healing with the coming eschatological age (blind see, deaf hear, lame, leap). Jews at the time of Jesus did not allegorize those texts, they really did expect signs from heaven. Pharisees asked Jesus for signs, and explained his power of demons as a sign he too was in league with Beelzebul.
barry: I’m not seeing your point. Even assuming the Jews of the 1st century expected the messiah to do miracles, that doesn’t render unreasonable a theory that one such messiah was only doing fake miracles. But your point would make my argument stronger. Supposing Jesus’ brothers were also caught up in the miracle-working-messiah craze of the first century, then they were even more likely to carefully analyze Jesus’ miracles, so that their persisting in unbelief toward him reasonably implies they discovered those miracles to be fakes.
barry: “most apologists trifle that there’s no evidence the brothers ever actually saw any of Jesus’ miracles, but then you disagree with such notion by saying “John 7 implies they have seen some of his signs yet still do not believe”
Phil: Well, I did not know you when I wrote that, so you might agree with me . I cannot imagine the brothers not being aware of what Jesus was doing if the villagers in Nazareth knew he was doing miracles; I have no idea what would motivates an “apologist” to say such a thing.
barry: They say it because the further they can distance Jesus from his brothers, the less likely the brothers ever saw the miracles, and therefore, the less likely they would ever have concluded Jesus’ miracles were fake, and therefore, surely some other explanation, which doesn’t require denying the miraculous nature of his miracles, can explain that unbelief….such as the brothers being too crazed with a military-messiah expectation to use their common sense when hearing numerous reliable reports of Jesus doing miracles. I reply that this was an honor-shame society where if Jesus were doing anything that could result in shaming the family name, the family would have great interest in checking out the scandal for themselves to decide whether the actions in question were honorable or dishonorable.
But for now, what do you believe is unreasonable in using a theory of Jesus’ fake miracles to explain the unbelief of Jesus brothers? But if there’s nothing unreasonable about it, well, being reasonable to say Jesus’ brothers concluded his miracles were fake, would in turn make it reasonable to conclude that ALL of Jesus’ miracles were fake (who would trifle that only some of his miracles were fake?). And if it be reasonable to say all of Jesus’ miracles were merely naturalistic tricks of the sort that we know televangelists use to deceive thousands of people, then it cannot be unreasonable to say God would be very unlikely to premise his second covenant upon the words and works of a deceiver (i.e., the skeptical interpretation of Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 makes it reasonable to deny that Jesus rose from the dead).
