Attacking the Historical Reliability of John's gospel: the Christian scholars who help the cause

Agnostic New Testament scholar and historian Bart Ehrman caused a storm of controversy in publishing How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee (HarperCollins, 2014).  Therein he essentially argues that the higher Christology in the gospels did not exist in the earliest strata, citing John, which all acknowledge to be the latest of the 4, as having the highest Christology.

Conservatives were not slow to provide scholarly response, see How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature-A Response to Bart Ehrman, Michael F. Bird, Dr. Craig A. Evans, Simon Gathercole, Charles E. Hill, Chris Tilling (Zondervan Academic; 2014).

Michael Bird's chapter includes a revealing admission, given that he is trying to defend the historical reliability of the gospel of John from scholarly attack:  From pp. 67-68

Bird is admitting that what we get in John's gospel are traditions that have been "truly interpreted through a pronounced theological lens".  Notice the underlined portion too.

Bird makes a similar but slightly more revealing claim at Patheos:

The Johannine Gospel yields a creative blend of memory, mystery, and midrash.

See here.

Exactly where does the skeptic become "unreasonable" in arguing that conservative Christian scholars, while in the process of defending John's historical reliability from scholarly attack, would never made such admissions about John unless they felt the typical fundamentalist "gospels = videotape" viewpoint was false?

What did we skeptics miss?  Maybe Michael Bird doesn't know what he's talking about, or is just a liberal wolf among conservative sheep?  No, you can get his bio and more from the video wherein he debates Bart Ehrman on the subject "How Jesus Became God". See here.  Wikipedia refers to Eternity Magazine calling him a "heavy-hitter" and says Bird is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, Society of Biblical Literature, and Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.  Clearly he has no other interest except to serve the devil.

This post does not pretend to delve into the myriad scholarly justifications for tossing John's resurrection testimony in the trash, it is simply to correct a profound misunderstanding that most Christians have, namely, that you can never be "reasonable" to believe position X merely because your opponent admits it is true.

In a court of law, this is called "admission of party opponent" and is particularly devastating where admissible, as common sense says your opponent would never admit to any truth-claim you also believe in, unless they seriously thought the claim had a lot of merit.

I'm not saying Bird admitted Jesus didn't rise from the dead.  I'm merely saying Bird's admissions about the non-historical elements in John justify the skeptic to conclude that not even "accepting Jesus" , becoming "born again", and obtaining one's Ph.d in a gospel-related field, will do anything to help keep alive the simpleminded fundie view that Jesus actually spoke every statement placed in his mouth by John.

If a skeptic is an amateur, they are reasonable to simply accept such concessions from the likes of Bird, Evans, etc, and conclude personally that John's gospel offers nearly nothing of serious historical value to help in the problem of Jesus' resurrection.

That would not be sufficient for the skeptic who knows their bible very well and goes around making scholarly claims in opposition to Christianity...like me.  We know about the more detailed arguments conservatives make in the effort to make John's gospel appear as much like a verbatim transcript of a video as possible.  Skeptics like us would a greater duty than the amateur skeptic to answer such arguments.  I have, but I haven't posted most online because I disagree with other authors who make their book content available for free in various posts online.

You would figure that if the historical reliability of John and his Christ-sayings were such an obvious fact of reality, we wouldn't be finding conservative evangelical Christian scholars making the opposite claim as they go about defending John's historical reliability from Ehman's attacks.

Sorry, Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes: Isaiah 7:14 is not a prediction about Jesus

This is my reply to the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 as found in Geisler & Rhodes, "Conviction Without Compromise" (Harvest House Publishers, 2008).

(Triablogue published its own defense of the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 7:14, and my reply to that is here)

Geisler and Rhodes argue:



See here.

First, none of this matters: Paul says the resurrection of Jesus is the Achilles' Heel of Christianity:

 12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;
 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.
 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.
 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;
 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:12-19 NAU)

I have extensively rebutted the arguments of Licona, Habermas and W.C. Craig for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.  So under Paul's logic, keeping Jesus in the ground after death would override whatever benefit you thought you could obtain by "proving" that Isaiah 7:14 was a prediction of Jesus.

Apologists will say Isaiah's ability to predict Jesus 700 years in advance still proves god's existence so atheism is still wrong.  But even supposing atheism to be wrong, Paul warns that Christians would be false witnesses of God if Jesus didn't rise from the dead.  If the atheist rebuttal to the resurrection arguments are solid, there is a corresponding rise in the likelihood that any "god" that is still there, will be more pissed off at the Christians for false witness, than he would be at those who simply deny his basic existence.  See Deut. 13.  If Galatians 1:8-9 is true, then apparently MISrepresenting God is far worse than simply refusing to believe he exists.  What the apologist never bothers with is why the alleged wrongness of atheism should be of any concern.  Being wrong cannot be a rational basis for concern to correct oneself, unless the wrong can be shown to increase the  probability that one will endure disaster.

Second, the late Geisler's promoters admit elsewhere that fulfillment of this prophecy "may be" two-fold (i.e., double-fulfillment, the last desperate exegetical acrobatic left to the fundie when you prove the immediate context isn't talking about Jesus). See here.

Third, Evangelical Christian scholars disagree about what is happening in Isaiah 7:14, which would hardly be the case if the "predictive" view espoused by Geisler and Rhodes, supra, was the only "reasonable" one. Apparently, some genuine Christian scholars don't think we should read the bible as if it was yesterday's headline in the New York Times. They are fearful that there are subtleties that will be easily missed by the childish fundamentalist method. The Christian scholars who see Isaiah 7:14 as not predictive, but merely typological are found contrasted with the fundamentalist views in David L. Turner's Matthew, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2008), pp. 69-73.

The apologists at "Triablogue" offer a bit more about this tendency among Christian scholars to doubt whether Isaiah 7:14 refers to the virgin conception of Jesus:

Wegner states, "There is little doubt that Isa. 7:14 and its reuse in Matt. 1:23 is one of the most difficult problems for modern scholars."⁶⁷ This stems from a growing amount of evangelicals who question whether Isaiah 7:14 prophesies about a virgin birth. To be clear, these scholars acknowledges that Jesus was certainly born of a virgin as Matthew states (1:23). However, did Isaiah intend for that idea originally? Is there any movement from Old Testament to New Testament in this case?

See here.  Christian scholars who are "evangelical" and thus have a higher view of the bible than "liberals" therefore have strong predisposition to just blindly insist that Matthew's use of Isaiah 7:14 is correct.  So when "evangelical" Christian scholars become disenchanted with this fundamentalist view, its probably because they sense serious scholarly reasons for doing so, not because they are being used by Satan as wolves among the sheep...or any other scare-analogy to keep the blindly ignorant fearful of God's wrath upon heretics.

How probable is it that the simple-minded fundamentalist "read-the-bible-like-a-newspaper" interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 is the only "reasonable" one?

No student of the Old Testament need apologize for a treatment of Isaiah 7:14 in relation to the doctrine of the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. From earliest times to the present the discussions which have centered about this theme have been both interesting, varied, and at times even heated. Lindblom characterizes Isaiah 7:14 as “the endlessly discussed passage of the Immanuel sign.” Rawlinson maintains: “Few prophecies have been the subject of so much controversy, or called forth such a variety of exegesis, as this prophecy of Immanuel. Rosenmueller gives a list of twenty-eight authors who have written dissertations on it, and himself adds a twenty-ninth. Yet the subject is far from being exhausted.” Barnes emphasizes the obscurity of the passage: “Who this virgin was, and what is the precise meaning of this prediction, has given, perhaps, more perplexity to commentators than almost any other portion of the Bible.” Again, he insists, “Perhaps there is no prophecy in the Old Testament on which more has been written, and which has produced more perplexity among commentators than this. And after all, it still remains, in many respects, very obscure.” Skinner seeks in a general way to pinpoint the source of the difficulties. He states: “Probably no single passage of the Old Testament has been so variously interpreted or has given rise to so much controversy as the prophecy contained in these verses.

Charles Lee Feinberg, The Virgin Birth in the Old Testament and Isaiah 7:14,

BSac—V119 #475—Jul 62—251

One Evangelical Christian scholar, J.D.W. Watts, explains Matthew's use of Isaiah 7:14 as the result of taking OT passages out of context, a disaster-prone hermeneutic that nevertheless enjoyed wide popularity in 1st century Judaism:

A second factor facilitated the use of Isa 7:14 in Matthew. A hermeneutical method was in general use which allowed verses to be separated from their contexts. Verses or individual words were understood to have esoteric meanings whose significance could be revealed to an inspired teacher or writer. Thus the entire Scripture was viewed as a prophecy intended to interpret the moment in which the reader lived. Verses were abstracted from both the historical and literary setting in which they originally appeared. They were then identified with an event or a doctrine which was altogether extraneous to the original context or intention. This kind of interpretation presumes a view of inspiration and of history in which God moves in all ages mysteriously to plant his secrets so that later ages may put the puzzle together and thus reveal his purposes and the direction of his intention....This kind of interpretation is subject to the criticism that it ignores the rightful demands of contextual and historical exegesis which call for a meaning related to the end of the Syro-Ephraimite War in terms of v 16.

Watts, J. D. W. (2002). Vol. 24: Word Biblical Commentary : Isaiah 1-33. 

Word Biblical Commentary (pp.103-104). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

So, just in case you might have thought that Isaiah 7:14 causes any atheist bible critic to lose any sleep at night, think again.  Your own Christian evangelical scholars refuse to push that verse as much as the fundies do when in fact by being "evangelical" and "Christian" those scholars know they stand much to gain by pretending that this verse is straight up predictive prophecy.  Seems reasonable to infer that the scholars are aware there's a hell of lot more complexity going on here than what we get with Geisler's "read the bible like a newspaper" crap.

Fourth, Giesler admits in his "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" (Baker Books, 1999)

"Single Reference to a Natural Birth. Liberal scholars and some conservatives view Isaiah
7:14 as having reference only to the natural conception and birth of the son of the prophetess." (entry for "Virgin Birth in Isaiah 7:14").

We would not expect any "conservative" bible scholars to limit Isaiah 7:14 to an unknown boy born naturally in 700 b.c., unless what the text really means is far less clear than Geisler pretends.

Fifth, the "sign" is not the fact that the woman who conceives is a "virgin". The "sign" is the timing between when the boy learns to distinguish good and evil, and the fall of the two other kingdoms which Ahaz feared. This is clear from the immediate context, for which the following quote is longer than normal:

3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field,
4 and say to him, 'Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.
5 'Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying,
6 "Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,"
7 thus says the Lord GOD: "It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.
8 "For the head of Aram is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people),
9 and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you surely shall not last."'"
10 Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying,
11 "Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven."
12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!"
13 Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?
14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
15 "He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.
16 "For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.
17 "The LORD will bring on you, on your people, and on your father's house such days as have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria."
18 In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. (Isa. 7:3-18 NAU)

As is clear from the preceding context, the subject is King Ahaz's fear of other kingdoms, so we would only expect that the "sign" for him would consist of something to do with his safety or the defeat of those other kingdoms. "Look at that woman over there, her hymen is still intact, but she is pregnant anyway, what a miracle!" wouldn't fit the context as part of the "sign".

Sixth, the context makes clear that the words of encouragement are for Ahaz to find relief in. He lived in 700 b.c. He could hardly find relief in a prediction that some virgin would get pregnant 700 years after he died. That would be like some dipshit saying "don't worry about the gang-members plotting to kill you next year, because 700 years from now a woman will get pregnant from god in a way that doesn't rupture her hymen..." (!?). Evangelical Christian scholars agree:

14–16 The “sign” is revealed anyway. A young woman who is apparently present or contemporary, but not yet married (i.e., a virgin) will in due course bear a child and call his name Immanuel meaning God-(is)-With-Us. By the time the child is old enough to make decisions, the land of the two opposing kings will be devastated. The sign is simple. It has to do with a period by which time the present crisis will no longer be acute or relevant. This is parallel to the statement in v 8b but indicates a much shorter period. The shorter period accords with history. Tiglath-Pileser’s reactions to Rezin and the son of Remaliah came in 733 b.c. when he reduced most of Israel to the status of an Assyrian province.

Watts, J. D. W. (2002). Vol. 24: Word Biblical Commentary : Isaiah 1-33. 

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 97). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

Seventh, the conception/birth of Jesus have precisely nothing to do with the fall of the two kingdoms Isaiah predicts in 7:16.

Eighth, there is no historical evidence that the Jews, expectant as they were of a coming messiah, ever thought Isaiah 7:14 was a prediction of any such messiah.

Giesler and Rhodes continue:




The argument is that the woman is described as still having her hymen intact, despite the fact that she is pregnant, hence, a conception-miracle that could only have been caused by God.  There are numerous powerful objections:

a)  Once again, the born child in question must have something to do with giving King Ahaz relief from his fear of other kingdoms.  Telling him to take courage because a virgin will give birth to a son 700 years later doesn't exactly make "sense".  You don't change this contextual constraint by pointing out that almah in Hebrew always means woman with hymen intact.

b) The context does not support the premise that the "sign" is the pregnant woman still being a virgin, rather, again, the "sign" is the timing of the child's learning good/evil, and the fall of the other kingdoms Ahaz feared.  You don't change this contextual constraint by pointing out that almah in Hebrew always means woman with hymen intact.

c) According to the NRS, Isaiah uses the present tense (i.e., the young woman IS pregnant), which translation, if accurate, is a rather forceful proof that the child in question would be born in 700 b.c. and thus could not possibly be Jesus.  This is probably why die-hard fundamentalists blindly insist in "double-fulfillment" (i.e., when they cannot overcome the contextual constraints that show the child in question cannot possibly be Jesus, they suddenly discover that there can be a "primary" fulfillment and a "secondary" fulfillment...but such double-fulfillment fancy runs contrary to the standard rule of context, which says the subject IS about what the context says.

d) "But what is the precise meaning of ’almah? There are numerous scholars who are noncommittal as to whether the term signifies a virgin or a married woman. Rogers states his position clearly: “First of all, it must be said that the Hebrew word almah may mean ‘virgin,’ but does not necessarily mean anything more than a young woman of marriageable age. Had the prophet intended specifically and precisely to say ‘virgin,’ he must have used the word bethulah, though even then there would be a faint shade of uncertainty.” From BSac—V119 #475—Jul 62—255, supra.

e) "If one looks to Isaiah 7 and reads this passage in its context, he will see that the prophet was not primarily speaking of the birth of Christ…There is really no way that one can make this prophecy apply exclusively to the birth of Christ without totally disregarding the context of Isaiah 7…Nothing in the context of Isaiah 7 would demand a virgin birth."  Biblical Interpretation, Principles and Practice: Studies in Honor of Jack Pearl Lewis. Kearly, Myers, Hadley, editors, Baker Books, third printing, 1987, p. 279

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

Joel 1:8 doesn't say the girl is married.

 6 For a nation has invaded my land, Mighty and without number; Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness.
 7 It has made my vine a waste And my fig tree splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast them away; Their branches have become white.
 8 Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth For the bridegroom of her youth.
 9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off From the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, The ministers of the LORD. (Joel 1:6-9 NAU)

The NET and NIV reflect this subtlety, thus proving such understanding is not "unreasonable":

NET  Joel 1:8 Wail like a young virgin clothed in sackcloth, lamenting the death of her husband-to-be.

NIV  Joel 1:8 Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.

Geisler and Rhodes  continue:

"The upshot of all of this is the conclusion that there is no defensible linguistic logic for suggesting the meaning “virgin” for the Hebrew almâ. Exegetical methods lead us to the meaning “youth” or adolescent.” It is only hermeneutical considerations, or should we say theological considerations, that would demand that the issue be pushed further than linguistic analysis could support."

John H. Walton, Isa 7:14: What’s In A Name? JETS 30/3 (September 1987) 293

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

But I don't believe the NT is inspired by God, since there is no way to "show" such a thing except by demanding that the historical happenstance that ended up giving us a NT was something guided by "god", which is not going to sound persuasive to anybody except those who already believe.

I also have no reason to think Matthew himself was inspired by God since nothing in the book now bearing his name indicates he claimed any such thing.  When your witness refuses to admit something that you need to help your argument, that means you lose.  What else are you going to say about Matthew that you don't know the first fucking thing about?  That he liked pizza more than cake?  he didn't say shit about that either, but don't let a lack of factual detail prevent your brain from conjuring up whatever you need to make you feel better.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

Doesn't matter if the woman in question was a virgin at the time of the statement, saying she would conceive a child isn't the same as saying she would conceive a child without sexual union.   Especially if Isaiah is speaking prophetically, he could just as easily be referring to the fact that a woman who is now a virgin, will in the future conceive a child.  That doesn't necessarily mean her hymen will remain intact during conception.

And this interpretation violates the rule of context, since as demonstrated earlier, the idea that Isaiah might think King Ahaz could take comfort in the "fact" that a miraculous birth would occur 700 years after he dies, is just stupid, but set forth aggressively by apologists anyway in their inerrant quest to messianic prophecy while not being too forthright about what it means to let the immediate context determine meaning.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

No, Isaiah in chapter 8 explains what he means by Immanuel, and it isn't a child born 700 years into the future, and the "god with us" ironically means that Ahaz shall not see political deliverance but only defeat and battle, because he rejected the message of Isaiah, whom the Lord was with:

5 Again the LORD spoke to me further, saying,
 6 "Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah And rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah;
 7 "Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates, Even the king of Assyria and all his glory; And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks.
 8 "Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, It will reach even to the neck; And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel. 9 "Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered; And give ear, all remote places of the earth. Gird yourselves, yet be shattered; Gird yourselves, yet be shattered.
 10 "Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; State a proposal, but it will not stand, For God is with us." 11 For thus the LORD spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, (Isa. 8:5-11 NAU)

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

That's just stupidity gone to seed:   The natural interpretation is that the speaker now wants all other Jews to hear his message, not merely Ahaz.  So all that is implied is an expansion of the message to other contemporaries of Ahaz.  The burden is on the apologist to show that "house of David" is meant to elicit the attention of future Jews, and despite Isaiah's ability to speak about future people, he indicates no such thing here.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

The extraordinary nature of the sign is simply Isaiah's alleged ability to predict that before the boy in question learns to distinguish good from evil, the land of the two kings Ahaz feared would be abandoned.  Once again, there is no contextual justification for pretending that the pregnancy of the virgin was itself the "sign".  The sign had to be relevant to Ahaz.  Jesus being born to the virgin Mary 700 years after Ahaz and all his generation died off wold hardly qualify, except in the eyes of desperate apologists who will abandon the constraints of context anytime they feel the interests of apologetics would be served in doing so.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

No, as explained above, Isaiah 8 shows that the "Immanual" refers to God being with those who are on Isaiah's side of the debate, a contextual clue that forces the child who is called by this name, to be a boy born in the days of Isaiah.  There is no fucking way any apologist is going to apply the events in Isaiah 8:8 to Jesus' day, except by the wild esoteric bullshit that favors mysticism over well-settled principles of interpretation.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

Irrelevant, we've shown that applying Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus is to take Isaiah 7 out of context.

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

What do you mean the same verse cannot refer to opposing things?  I'm not an inerrantist, I don't automatically assume an ancient religious author was consistent in everything he said, especially in the case of Isaiah where it is likely there were at least 3 different authors and what we now have also went through textual modification for centuries before it came to us. 1QIsa only gets you back to about 100  b.c., when in fact Isaiah himself lived 600 years earlier.  Then you are going to tell me 500 years of textual darkness means nothing?

Geisler and Rhodes continue:

Jesus was never called "Immanuel" in the NT, and the fact that the angel of the Lord can speak as god without being god means in OT Judaism there was a doctrine that suffered from cognitive dissonance...the person doing the speaking wasn't himself god, but it was still appropriate to react toward him as if he was.

 11 The angel of the LORD said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
 12 "He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone's hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers."
 13 Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees"; for she said, "Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?" (Gen. 16:11-13 NAU)
 11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
 12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." (Gen. 22:11-12 NAU) 

 2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.
 3 So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."
 4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."
 5 Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
 6 He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Exod. 3:2-6 NAU) 

 19 The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. (Exod. 14:19 NAU) 

20 "Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
 21 "Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him.
 (Exod. 23:20-21 NAU) 

 31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground.
 32 The angel of the LORD said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me. (Num. 22:31-32 NAU) 

 1 Now the angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, 'I will never break My covenant with you, (Jdg. 2:1 NAU) 

 12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior."
 13 Then Gideon said to him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian."
 14 The LORD looked at him and said, "Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?" (Jdg. 6:12-14 NAU) 

Better is Judges 6, where seeing the angel of the Lord face to face is considered equally as deadly as seeing the Lord face to face:
 21 Then the angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight.
 22 When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD, he said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face."
 23 The LORD said to him, "Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die." (Jdg. 6:21-23 NAU) 

 9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, And the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old. (Isa. 63:9 NAU) 

 6 And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying,
 7 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here. (Zech. 3:6-7 NAU)

The issue is not "can Christians be reasonable to view Isaiah 7:14 as a prediction of Jesus?".

The issue is "can a person be reasonable to deny that Isaiah 7:14 is a prediction of Jesus?"

Yes, obviously.

Demolishing Triablogue: it's still reasonable to balk at Matthew's writing in the third-person

This is my reply to an article by Jason Engwer of Triablogue entitled

Writing About Yourself In The Third Person

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Critics of the Bible are often ignorant of ancient (and sometimes modern) literary practices that undermine their analysis of the Bible.

Ditto for most Christians.

For example, people will sometimes object to a document like the gospel of Matthew or the gospel of John on the basis that those documents shouldn't speak of Matthew and John in the third person if those men wrote the documents.

Because the third-person shows personal detachment, whereas you expect others to believe Matthew was written by some guy who became "amazingly transformed" by seeing the resurrected Jesus.  Writing in the third person is not an issue unless the author is claimed to have been all happy and excited beyond reason to provide the world his own account of some great miraculous thing.

But as Richard Bauckham explains:
"All of these passages [in the gospel of John] refer to him, of course, in third-person language. This is in accordance with the best and regular historiographic practice. When ancient historians referred to themselves within their narratives as participating in or observing the events they recount, they commonly referred to themselves in the third person by name, as Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Julius Caesar, or Josephus." (Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], 393)

But

a) the fact that the gospels represent a new type of genre might justify the skeptic to say the authors didn't feel compelled to imitate standard practice, and

b) many 1st century historians use the first person, Philo, Josephus.  Bauckham doesn't say most 1st century authors used the third person, he merely says "best and regular historigraphic practice".

c) doesn't matter if you are correct: using the third-person is unexpected under your other Christian assumptions that Matthew was "amazingly transformed" by seeing the resurrected Christ and therefore all happy and giddy to go around giving his personal testimony.  You can avoid this criticism by denying you think that way about Matthew, but then you raise the probability that Matthew wasn't quite as happy about his own experience of Christ as some Christians are today.

d) Jesus expanded the need for two or three witnesses to important events beyond the judicial context of its first appearance in the OT, (Matthew 18:16), so did Paul (2nd Cor. 13:1, 1st Timothy 5:19), so we are reasonable to expect that if the testmony in Matthew's gospel actually was written out by Matthew, he would find it important to make clear to the reader that he is the one doing the testifying.

Years ago, a skeptic told me that the phrase "I, Paul" in some of the Pauline letters was clear evidence that the documents are forgeries. Paul wouldn't have written that way. (See my response to that skeptic here.)

Probably because known forgeries before and after Paul use the same phrase to make the alleged author unmistakably clear, when this is nothing but pseudepigrapha.  See Daniel 8:15, Revelation, 1st Enoch, Infancy gospel of Thomas, Holy Constitutions, etc.  It could also mean Paul was gullible and thought such self-designation was the style of legitimately divine authors, so he chose to imitate it.

But I wouldn't push the point since Jesus' resurrection is abundantly steamrolled by my own arguments, which often allow early dating and apostolic authorship of everything in the NT.  Such as rendering Jesus resurrection irrelevant given that the OT gives Gentiles nothing to fear from god but physical death, and the NT doctrine of eternal conscious torment directly contradicts the OT.  Always use the earlier standard to test the newer standard.  I already accept that I will endure "annihilation" at death, so I'm not seeing how attacking the gospel puts me in any "danger".  If I'm not in "danger", then whether Jesus rose from the dead need never be anything mroe important than a mere intellectually curiosity for people who just naturally like to debate matters of ancient history.

A lot of critics don't make much effort to consult Biblical commentaries or other relevant scholarship.

I do.  It's why the draft of my book on justifying denial of Matthew's resurrection testimony is more than 700 pages long, I've written at least 50,000 pages of book draft (lost in a recent computer malfunction) not including 20 years of posting arguments on the internet.  It's why I constantly answer Triablogue posts in point by point fashion.  Clearly Romans 1:20 is true and I just don't like the idea of being accountable to a sky-daddy.  Yeah, that's it.  Sort of like the idiot Mormon who pontificates that the Triablogue boys are without excuse for rejecting the Book of Mormon.  Empty pontification is quite easy to engage in, and Paul apparently developed it into a science.

They make judgments based largely on their own ignorant impressions and poor reasoning as they read the Bible or other sources without much assistance. The results are often disastrous.

You could just as easily have been talking about Christians.  Nothing in your article tips the probability scale the least bit in the direction of Matthean authorship of the gospel now bearing his name.

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve Hays wants divinely inspired eyewitnesses to desire to use hearsay sources. Matthew and Mark

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays of Triablogue entitled

Matthew and Mark

Saturday, April 16, 2016

i) A conventional objection to the traditional authorship of Matthew is that an apostle wouldn't make use of a secondhand source like Mark. There are several problems with that objection:

But none of them are very persuasive, therefore, we skeptics are well within the bounds of reasonableness to say that a person who not only had their own eyewitness memories but was promised by God himself to have special divine ability to recall the facts about Jesus to their own mind, would not very likely depend on a hearsay source to the great extent most Christian scholars believe Matthew depended on Mark:

 26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. (Jn. 14:26 NAU)

 However, we might expect somebody who has no divine inspiration, to do what most other authors do, and rely on prior sources to help create his story.

ii) According to Acts 12:12, Jerusalem was Mark's home town. So Mark may well have had firsthand knowledge of Jesus whenever Jesus came to Jerusalem.

"May"?  That's how you think you "win" a debate about what happened in history?  Positing mere possibilities?  I'm a really smart skeptic, I recognize that such a debate turns on which explanatory theory about historical events is most "probable".

You are also assuming that the "Mark" of Acts 12:12 is the exact Mark who authored the gospel, when in fact even conservative inerrantist Christian scholars admit Mark's name was very common:

A mediating position is that the book was written by someone named Mark, but not the John Mark of Acts. A major consideration in favor of this claim is that Mark was one of the most common Roman names.

Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic e.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 26). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

iii) Moreover, Mark hits many of the major points in the life of Christ. It's not as if Matthew is going to omit those events. Since these are key events in the life of Christ, we'd expect him to repeat them. And there's a rough chronology to the events, so why would Matthew make a special effort to change the plot?

Matthew could have relied on his own allegedly divinely inspired eyewitness memories to compose the gospel...without changing Mark's plot or relying on Mark at all.  The reliance is reasonably construed to mean the Matthew author did not have his own first hand memories of Jesus' life, which of course would necessarily imply the author wasn't one of the original 12 apostles.

iv) But here's another factor that's overlooked. Mark's mother hosted Christian gatherings in her home.

More objectively, the mother of a guy named Mark did that.  Whether that was the exact "Mark" who allegedly wrote a gospel is far from reasonably secure.

Peter knew the location of her home. Indeed, the slavegirl knew the sound of his voice (v13), so he must have been a frequent visitor.

Only if you are an anti-supernaturalist and deny that God could cause her to recognize Peter's voice.  Wow, I didn't know Steve Hays adopted the fallacy of naturalism.

But then, it must have been known to the other apostles. It stands to reason that Mark had many opportunities to befriend other apostles, as long as he and they were in Jerusalem.

As long as you can make the case for the Mark of Acts 12 being the Mark of the gospel, more reasonable than the other theory that says Mark was too common of a name to pretend that all NT references to it surely refer to one and the same man.

So what if Matthew was one of his informants? If Mark writes about some things he didn't personally observe, what was his source of information? Given his access to some of the apostles, they'd be a prime candidates.

Except that conservative Christian scholars refuse to blindly assume that because a church father said Mark followed Peter around, surely everything in Mark's gospel is rooted in Peter's preaching:

Petrine influence cannot be proved or disproved, but it should be acknowledged as a possibility. Even if that part of the tradition were false, the part about Mark being the author could still be correct.

Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic e.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 27). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers

At the same time, the evangelist had no inhibitions about employing traditional motifs, vocabulary, and style in his own redaction. Consequently, for the most part, one can only speak generally and tentatively when seeking to delineate between tradition and redaction. This conclusion does not dispute Mark’s use of traditional materials or the availability of multiple sources, but it does mean that one cannot precisely reconstruct or always identify the exact content of his source or sources.
...Without doubt a close examination of Mark’s material will show that the evangelist did not simply write his Gospel based on his notes or memory of Peter’s teachings. The amazing similarity in language, style, and form of the Synoptic tradition between the Markan and non-Markan materials of Matthew and Luke (cf. John’s Gospel) hardly suggests that Mark’s materials were shaped by one man, be he either Peter or Mark.

Guelich, R. A. (2002). Vol. 34A: Word Biblical Commentary : Mark 1-8:26. Word Biblical Commentary (Page xxxv, xxvii). Dallas: Word, Incorporated

Hays continues:

Indeed, he may have gotten information from several apostles, but if only two of them wrote Gospels, that's our only basis of comparison. We wouldn't recognize the input from other apostles who never penned Gospels.

 We also don't recognize anything distinctively 'Petrine' about Mark's gospel.  Indeed, one could argue, on the basis of Mark's shorter version of Peter's confession of Christ and Christ's bestowing him with special power (Mark 8:29, crf. Matthew 16:16-19) that the author of that portion of Mark didn't really like Peter.   See my blog piece on that specific synoptic parallel here.  See here for another blog piece on the problems of the early church associating Mark with Peter's preaching.

Suppose he questioned Matthew about Jesus, and incorporated that into his Gospel. Later, Matthew reads Mark and thinks to himself, "Well, as long as Mark is using my material, I might as well write up my own recollections to include additional material that I didn't mention to Mark." Or something like that.

Suppose he didn't. 

Would Matthew be using Mark?

under your hypothetical, yes, of course.  But unless you sacrifice your high view of Matthew's eyewitness status and divine ability to recall Jesus' words to his own mind, the mere fact that you can trifle about how an eyewitness could possibly want to use a hearsay source isn't going to disturb the reasonableness of the skeptical position that says such a person as Matthew likely would not use such a source.  At least not as extensively as most Christian scholars say Matthew used Mark. 

It might appear that way, given the order in which they were published. But the Apostle Matthew can one of Mark's sources even though his Gospel was published after Mark's Gospel.

Sure, and I believe Matthew very early wrote out sayings of Christ in Hebrew, Mark could possibly have used such a thing.  But you aren't going to persuasively argue that Matthew's Hebrew original was every bit as extensive as the canonical Greek version.

In that case, Matthew isn't using Mark; rather, Mark is using Matthew. It's just that Mark published some of Matthew's material before Matthew got around to publishing his own material. To some degree, it was Matthew's material all long.

But not to a large degree, so the eyewitness's using a hearsay source remains a significant problem refusing to be answered by the desperate trifles of those who cannot see anything but biblical inerrancy.

Mark borrowed from Matthew before wrote his own Gospel. Indeed, Mark's Gospel may have given Matthew the stimulus to do his own.

That doesn't get rid of the fact that under your own laudatory assumptions about Matthew, such a man simply is not likely to find sources less direct than his own divinely inspired memories as sufficient material to help him compose a gospel.  If Matthew came into the scene at 9:9, then he can rely on his own memories for everything that happens thereafter.  And when he doesn't, its probably because the author is not an eyewitness.

Incidentally, if Papias is right, it's possible that Mark made use of some catechetical material that Matthew originally produced in Aramaic.

That doesn't show the unreasonableness of saying a divinely inspired eyewitness normally doesn't desire to use sources less authoritative than his own brain.

v) If that sounds convoluted, here's a comparison. Wayne Grudem is one of John Frame's students. Grudem published a popular systematic theology.

Over 20 years ago, Frame mentioned in class that reading Grudem's Systematic Theology was a bit of a deja vu experience because he noticed that Grudem had incorporated some of Frame's lecture material into his systematic theology. Years later, Frame began turning more of his own classroom lectures into hefty books.

Now, a keen-eyed reader who compared the two, reading them horizontally, might be struck by parallels between Grudem and Frame. Since Grudem wrote before Frame, he might conclude that Frame borrowed from Grudem. But it's really the other way around. You can't infer the order of conceptual dependence from the order of publication. Grudem borrowed from Frame, not vice versa.

Once again, Matthew's Hebrew original was likely limited mostly to a few sayings of Christ.  So even if Mark used that Hebrew original, that is not the equal of Mark using the more extensive canonical Greek Matthew.  The problem of an eyewitness apostle relying on a hearsay source doesn't go away by merely showing a tiny bit of an apostle's testimony was the earliest source.

vi) Incidentally, this can be a cause of bitter feuds in the history of math and science. The question of priority. A scientist or mathematician may have been the first person to discover something or formulate a theory. And he scribbled it down. But he didn't publish it right away. Sometimes he's scooped by another scientist or mathematician who got it published first. Sometimes that's an independent development, but sometimes the published scientist or mathematician got it from the unpublished scientist or mathematician in private conversation or private correspondence. Watch the fur fly when he steals his thunder.

So I'm not making some outlandish proposal. This is a pretty commonplace distinction, both in principle and practice.

The skeptical theory that says a divinely inspired tax-collector capable of writing inerrantly on his own likely wouldn't think he needed any source beyond his own infallible memories for everything between Matthew 9:9 and 28:21, is, also, not an outlandish proposal.  You therefore fail to show that the skeptical theory (i.e., Matthew's author using a hearsay source makes it likely the author is not eyewitness Matthew) is improbable.

Demolishing Triablogue: Richard Bauckham is reasonable to deny Matthew's authorship

This is my reply to an article by Jason Engwer of Triablogue entitled

Richard Bauckham Is Wrong About Matthew's Authorship

Monday, May 29, 2017

 I deal with Engwer's trifles here since I believe Matthew and Levi were seperate persons only equated due to corruption in the earliest gospel traditions. Such a problem is part of my very extensive justification for denying Matthew's authorship of the gospel now bearing his name.

He's mostly right about gospel authorship issues. 

That would be enough for skeptics, if they chose, to view Bauckham's view as at least as reasonable as any other view. Reasonableness doesn't require post-graduate studies, nor does it require that one can defend one's views from skeptical attack, otherwise, most Christians would be unreasonable since they accepted Jesus at a time when they were horrifically ignorant of most biblical issues. would you ever counsel a biblically ignorant unbeliever from accepting Christ as their savior, if in fact they only confessed his bodily resurreciton and full diety, but had no clue how to defend such orthodoxy from the "heretical" arguments?  Probably not.  So even fanatical inerrantists are forced to agree one can possibly be reasonable to adopt viewpoint X, even if they cannot defend the view from attack.  Maybe you should hesitate before you label the ignorant skeptic "unreasonable".  Reasonableness doesn't require that she refute any attack.

He thinks Matthew may have had some sort of role in the origins of the gospel attributed to him, accepts the traditional authorship attributions of Mark and Luke, and attributes the fourth gospel to a close disciple of Jesus named John. But he doesn't think Matthew is responsible for the first gospel as we have it today, and he thinks the John who wrote the fourth gospel wasn't the son of Zebedee.

Which would be enough for a skeptic to conclude that Bauckham, a conservative, did not reach those conclusions lightly, but only reluctantly, since his obvious tendency, as a conservative and somebody interested in defending eyewitness authorship of the gospels, would be to make any plausible argument in favor of Matthew's authorship.  That is, a skeptic could be reasonable to say a guy like Bauckham would never have admitted the weakness of Matthew's authorship, unless he felt compelled by the evidence to do so.  You aren't going to demonstrate that any skeptic who accepts Bauckham's conclusions is "unreasonable". You may as well say sphere-earthers are unreasonable if they cannot "refute" flat-earther arguments.  The boys at triablogue couldn't really say exactly how much scholarly tit-for-tat the skeptic needs to research, before she can become "reasonable" to adopt a position on a biblical issue.  Instead, they blindly insist that as long as they can come up with some type of reply the skeptic hasn't quite answered yet, then presto, another vindication of the fool who wrote Romans 1:20. 

Now that the second edition of Bauckham's Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2017) is out, I want to revisit the issue of gospel authorship with a focus on his material on the subject in that book. This post will mostly be about the authorship of the first gospel. A later post, which I'll link here when it becomes available, will respond to Bauckham's view of the authorship of the fourth gospel.
You can search the archives for posts we've written over the years that cite some of Bauckham's comments on Mark and Luke. See, for example, here, here, and here.
Regarding Matthew, Bauckham argues (108-12) that it's highly unlikely that a first-century Jew living in Israel would have had two Semitic personal names as common as Matthew and Levi.

Inerrantist Craig Blomberg argued just the opposite:

Only Matthew uses the name “Matthew” here (but cf. Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Mark and Luke call this disciple Levi. It was common for first-century Jews to have two or three names. Sometimes more than one name was Jewish; more commonly one was Jewish and one Greek (cf. Saul-Paul).

Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 155). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 If we find that two respectable very conservative Christian scholars take opposite positions on how likely it was for a first century Jew to have two first names, it might make the skeptic reasonable to conclude the issue is not capable of reasonable resolution, and to therefore do what most Christian scholars do anyway and simply choose for himself the argument he personally finds the most compelling.

It's very unlikely, then, that Matthew is the Levi referred to in Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27. And if Levi were another name for one of the Twelve, Mark surely would have explained that in his list of the Twelve, where so many other details are included (108). Since the author of the gospel of Matthew uses a passage about another man to tell his readers about Matthew's calling (Matthew 9:9), the author must have been somebody other than Matthew.

I think Bauckham was only making a probability argument, I wouldn't expect a person as knowledgeable as he about historiography to mischaracterize the issue as who the Matthew-author "must" have been.

"Matthew himself could have described his own call without having to take over the way Mark described Levi's call." (112) Bauckham also thinks the replacement of "his house" (Mark 2:15) with "the house" (Matthew 9:10) suggests that the author of the gospel of Matthew was only applying Mark 2:14 to the apostle Matthew and didn't think the rest of the passage was applicable (111).
What about the unlikelihood of somebody being named both Matthew and Levi? There are extremely rare names and combinations of names, sometimes even unprecedented ones, in every culture. Why do we conclude that people with such names exist? Because the prior improbability that somebody would have such a name is just one factor among others that have to be taken into account as well, and those other factors can outweigh the prior improbability that somebody would have that name. How reliable is a source who reports that somebody had such a name? How likely is it that such a report would exist if the person under consideration didn't have the name in question? And so on. In his book, Bauckham often accepts a highly unusual name if there are ancient sources attesting it, even just one source. He does it in his section on Matthew's authorship, where he mentions some ancient Jews who are referred to with two names, including at least one that's "unusual" or "very unusual" (109-10). The many comments he makes elsewhere in his book about how popular or unpopular various names were assumes that some unpopular names existed, even ones attested only once. Even if naming somebody both Matthew and Levi would have been "virtually unparalleled", "very unlikely indeed", etc. (109-10), we should go on to look at the other evidence pertaining to Matthew's names and Matthean authorship of the first gospel. We should try to determine the significance of the improbability Bauckham is appealing to in light of the evidence as a whole.

The gospels never specify that Jesus gave Matthew another name, despite specifying that he gave new names to other apostles (John 1:42, Mark 3:17).

Origen thought "Lebes" (Levi) was a tax-gatherer but different from Matthew, and said the view that equates them as one single person is not supported in the NT except in one copy of Mark:

And after such statements, showing his ignorance even of the number of the apostles, he [Celsus] proceeds thus: “Jesus having gathered around him ten or eleven persons of notorious character, the very wickedest of tax-gatherers and sailors, fled in company with them from place to place, and obtained his living in a shameful and importunate manner.” Let us to the best of our power see what truth there is in such a statement. It is manifest to us all who possess the Gospel narratives, which Celsus does not appear even to have read, that Jesus selected twelve apostles, and that of these Matthew alone was a tax-gatherer; that when he calls them indiscriminately sailors, he probably means James and John, because they left their ship and their father Zebedee, and followed Jesus; for Peter and his brother Andrew, who employed a net to gain their necessary subsistence, must be classed not as sailors, but as the Scripture describes them, as fishermen. The Lebes also, who was a follower of Jesus, may have been a tax-gatherer; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to a statement in one of the copies of Mark’s Gospel. And we have not ascertained the employments of the remaining disciples, by which they earned their livelihood before becoming disciples of Jesus. I assert, therefore, in answer to such statements as the above, that it is clear to all who are able to institute an intelligent and candid examination into the history of the apostles of Jesus, that it was by help of a divine power that these men taught Christianity, and succeeded in leading others to embrace the word of God.

NPN, Origen: Against Celsus, book 1, ch. 62

Clement of Alexandria distinguished Matthew from Levi:

“And when they bring you before synagogues, and rulers, and powers, think not beforehand how ye shall make your defense, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Spirit shall teach you in the same hour what ye must say.” In explanation of this passage, Heracleon, the most distinguished of the school of Valentinians, says expressly, “that there is a confession by faith and conduct, and one with the voice. The confession that is made with the voice, and before the authorities, is what the most reckon the only confession. Not soundly: and hypocrites also can confess with this confession. But neither will this utterance be found to be spoken universally; for all the saved have confessed with the confession made by the voice, and departed. Of whom are Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many others. And confession by the lip is not universal, but partial.

NPN, Clement: “Stromata” book 4, ch. 9

Eusebius says a "Levi" was the "13th" Bishop of the church in His.Eccl. Book IV Chapter 5.

Skeptics have quite sufficient evidence to insist that Matthew and Levi were separate persons and that a corruption in the gospel tradition, or foul play on the part of a gospel author, is why the gospels attribute the same actions to each.

Engwer continues:

D.A. Carson refers to some problems with how Bauckham goes on to handle the remainder of the evidence:
"Yet whatever the onomastic improbability, the identification of Levi (Mark's gospel) with Matthew (here [in Matthew 9:9]) seems less implausible than Bauckham's explanation: the unknown evangelist knew that Matthew was a tax collector (like Levi), and knew he was one of the Twelve, and so simply transferred the story across (on the assumption that the conversion of one tax collector would be very much like the conversion of another?)." (The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Revised Edition, Vol. 9: Matthew & Mark [Gran Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010], 263)
What's mentioned in Matthew 9:9 isn't what we'd expect of the calling of every tax collector, most of them, or even one other tax collector. How many tax collectors would be in their booth at the time of the calling and would be sitting while Jesus walked by?

All of the ones who were on lunch break?

How many would immediately leave their work and follow Jesus upon being told "Follow me"?

I'm a skeptic:  I don't believe every last little details of everything reported in the gospels.  Jesus might have had disciples, but I don't think they "left everything" quite as quickly as the bible insists.

How many would experience all of those things? It's doubtful that the author of the gospel of Matthew would have thought that the story of the calling of this tax collector would be so applicable to another tax collector.

Or maybe the real Matthew only wrote out Jesus' sayings, and only the non-Matthian author responsible for canonical Greek Matthew thought, for unknown reasons, that Matthew and Levi were the same person.
Or that the authors of Matthew were not trying to harmonize anything, we are simply seeing disparate traditions about two people in Matthew and Mark/Luke, and the only people insisting Levi=Matthew are later readers who have mistaken biblical inerrancy for something that deserves anybody's attention.  Like the lunatics at Triablogue.

Bauckham is wrong in commenting that "The story, after all, is so brief and general it might well be thought appropriate to any tax collector called by Jesus to follow him as a disciple." (111), since the story isn't "so brief and general". The appropriate response to Bauckham's claim that "Matthew himself could have described his own call without having to take over the way Mark described Levi's call." (112) is that anybody could have. There wouldn't have been anybody, whether Matthew or somebody else, who would have needed to use Mark's account about the calling of another man to describe the calling of Matthew. And it's very unlikely that the author of the first gospel would have wanted to tell Matthew's story in that manner. Why give such a significant figure in early Christianity such secondhand treatment, especially if the author of the gospel was associating his work with Matthew as much as Bauckham thinks he was?

Maybe because the later author knew that Matthew was more prominent in early circles, but faded in popularity over a few decades.

The scenario Bauckham is proposing is highly improbable.But he makes a good point about Mark's list of the twelve apostles. You'd think Mark would mention that Matthew was also known as Levi, if Mark had held that view. Luke's list of the Twelve isn't as detailed as Mark's, so the lack of clarification in Luke's list is less important, but it's significant that Luke, like Mark, doesn't explain to his readers, inside his list of the apostles or elsewhere, that Matthew and Levi are different names for the same person.

Agreed.  So skeptics can be reasonable to assume Matthew and Levi are two different people.  The problem is created by the inerrantist who wants to harmonize the Matthew of Matthew with the Levi of Mark, but the historical evidence indicates the reason the accounts give different names is because they were different people.  It could also just as easily be that the Matthew-author invented the name, or wanted to change Levi's name.  Engwer is doing nothing to foist an intellectual obligation upon skeptics to accept the equation of the persons.

However, there's other evidence Bauckham doesn't discuss that suggests that Mark and Luke viewed Levi as one of the Twelve. It follows that though Mark and Luke don't tell us who among the Twelve had the alternate name of Levi, they thought somebody among the Twelve did. That weakens Bauckham's argument about what's "clear" from Mark's list of the Twelve and how Mark "surely" would have included the detail that Matthew had that other name if he'd known about it (108).

Feel free to reduce "surely" to "it is reasonable to conclude".  John and Mark reveal when apostles were given new or surnames, so we are reasonable to conclude that, had Mark known Levi was later named Matthew, he would have said so.  The belief of Origin and Clement that Matthew and Levi were separate men remains significant.

In Mark and Luke's passages about the calling of Levi, the language, themes, and placement of the text are reminiscent of the calling of other apostles, which suggests that whoever is being called in the passage is an apostle as well. Compare Mark 1:16-20 to 2:14-17. Compare Luke 5:1-11 and 5:27-32. In both gospels, the calling of Levi is narrated in close proximity to the calling of those other apostles, with similar language and themes, leading up to the nearby choosing of the Twelve by Jesus and the listing of them by the gospel authors (Mark 3:13-19, Luke 6:13-16). Jesus is walking by and looks at the individual(s) in question and says "Follow me" and is immediately followed, which involves leaving a profession (fishing or tax collecting), in both contexts in Mark (1:16-20, 2:14). That theme of leaving a profession makes sense for the calling of an apostle in the sense of being one of the Twelve, since that sort of apostleship would require so much devotion. Similarly, both of Luke's passages have the individuals in question "leaving everything" to follow Jesus (5:11, 5:28). That theme of the apostles leaving everything is repeated elsewhere (Mark 10:28, Luke 18:28). Their leaving the professions they were involved with was important, "so that they would be with him [Jesus] and that he could send them out" (Mark 3:14). So, the passages in Mark and Luke about Levi have a series of connections both backward to the call of Peter and his associates and forward to what's said of the Twelve. Even without reading Matthew, the accounts about the calling of Levi in Mark and Luke look like the calling of a member of the Twelve.

You aren't refuting anything I believe.  I don't see how pointing out that Matthew puts Matthew in the same position that Mark and Luke had placed Levi in, does anything to hurt my arguments. Yes, the gospels as we now have them in their final polished form, certainly appear to say identical things about Matthew and Levi.  So?  We can assume Origin and Clement would have seen the similarities between the calling of Matthew and Levi, if we assume their own copies of the gospels textually read the same as ours do today.  Were these church fathers simply blind?  Or might their copies of the gospels have made it reasonable to assume Matthew and Levi were different men?

Some passages in Mark and Luke about people other than apostles refer to themes like following Jesus and leaving possessions and making other sacrifices to follow him. But those other passages have less similar language and themes and less significant placement in the text of the gospels. Something like Jesus' call to discipleship in Mark 8:34-38 or his interactions with Zaccheus in Luke 19:1-10 is somewhat reminiscent of the calling of the apostles, but also significantly different. Jesus walks by Zaccheus and looks at him (verse 5), and Zaccheus gives up possessions to follow Jesus (verse 8), for example, but Jesus is only staying in Zaccheus' house briefly (verse 5), there's no reference to his leaving his profession, the passage is far removed from the appointing of the apostles earlier in the gospel, etc. Likewise, Jesus' exchange with the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30) involves a call to discipleship and to giving things up to follow Jesus, but the man doesn't follow Jesus, the passage is far removed from the context of the calling of the apostles, and so on. Both passages contrast the rich young ruler's rejection of Jesus' call and the apostles' acceptance of it (Mark 10:28-31, Luke 18:28-30). While the calling of individuals like Peter and Levi is similar to Jesus' interactions with other people elsewhere in Mark and Luke, there are substantial differences as well. The calling of Levi is significantly similar to the calling of Peter and his associates in a way in which other passages in these gospels aren't. So, independently from the gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke give us reason to place Levi among the Twelve.

Sure, but they also render skeptics reasonable to assume Jesus had more than 12 apostles, and the later redactors did a less than perfect job of reducing the historically true number of Jesus' closest disciples to the conveniently typological 12.

But they don't refer to any of the Twelve as Levi when they list the apostles, nor do they tell us elsewhere which apostle went by that name. They also leave out other information about apostolic names. Peter is referred to as Simon Barjona in Matthew 16:17, but not anywhere in Mark or Luke. Similarly, Luke doesn't tell us that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were referred to as Boanerges, a detail that Mark does include. And so on. Bauckham doesn't claim that Mark and Luke are exhaustive about apostolic names. More significantly, Bauckham thinks the identification of Thaddaeus (Mark 3:18) with Judas the son of James (Luke 6:16) is "very plausible" (108), but neither Mark nor Luke offers that identification, even though Bauckham thinks Luke used Mark as a source and appeals to such sources in the opening of his gospel.

Well maybe Bauckham is not a fanatic who thinks it cannot be true unless a gospel author specifically admits it.

That's an instance in which Luke knew about a potential confusion over apostolic names, but didn't offer a clarification. Still, Luke's failure to clarify something potentially seen as a discrepancy between what he wrote and what's in a source he used and that many of his readers would be familiar with (Mark) isn't the same as a failure to clarify something that people could misunderstand in his own writings (that Levi and Matthew are the same person). I'm just giving some examples of Mark and Luke's failure to provide details and clarifications they could have provided about apostolic names, even though the examples I've cited in this paragraph are less significant than not clarifying the relationship between Levi and Matthew.

The fact that Origen and Clement think Matthew and Levi are different, is quite sufficient to render reasonable the skeptic who says they are, and who says inerrantist attempts to converge them into a single person in the name of biblical inerrancy are not convincing.   But I'm sure you'll attribute stupidity to any church father whenever expediency dictates.  But that certainly doesn't impose an intellectual obligation upon the skeptic to back off from saying Origin's NT probably didn't make an equation between Matthew and Levi very clear.  Origen often defended the gospels from charges of historical unreliability and was a great textual scholar himself. If the gospel manuscripts in his day made it clear that Levi and Matthew were the same person, we would expect he would not view them as separate persons.

Chrysostom, Homily XXX,  says Mark and Luke intentionally "concealed" Matthew's identity under the name "Levi", so if he is correct, we'd only be honoring the intent of Mark and Luke to continue "falsely" believing the two names referred to two men:

And we have cause also to admire the self-denial of the evangelist, how he disguises not his own former life, but adds even his name, when the others had concealed him under another appellation.

Engwer continues:

What's most important to recognize in this context is that identifying Levi and Matthew as two different individuals still leaves you with a substantial lack of clarity in Mark and Luke.

That doesn't bother anybody except inerrantists.

If Levi isn't Matthew, then which member of the Twelve is he, given the evidence cited above that he's portrayed as a member of the Twelve in the two gospels under consideration?

Fallacy of loaded question, there is the equally reasonable option, in light of Clement and Origin, that Jesus had more than 12 official 'disciples'.  My view is that Jesus had probably about 100 "disciples" and was later said to be most close to 'twelve' because some such disciples would naturally be closer to him than others, and the gospel authors couldn't resist changing historical fact for purposes of typological correspondence with the OT.

Or if you deny that Mark and Luke meant to portray Levi as one of the Twelve, why did they use language, themes, and text placement that are so suggestive of Levi's identity as one of the Twelve?

I think they did an imperfect job of whittling down the number of "disciples" to "12".

I don't see how a significant lack of clarity in Mark and Luke is a problem only for those who consider Levi and Matthew the same person. There's a substantial clarity problem for Bauckham's position as well.

I don't argue that position the way he does.  Good luck.

What should we think of the change from "his house" in Mark 2:15 to "the house" in Matthew 9:10?

Maybe a desire on the part of the author to do something modern apologists don't want him to do, and taunt the reader with hints of his identity, but without wishing to make it explicit, thus testifying against any claim that he was "amazingly transformed" and justifying the skeptic to consider such an author unworthy of serious consideration.

It could easily be an attempt on Matthew's part to clarify the passage rather than an attempt to distance verses 10-13 from verse 9. As Bauckham notes (111), the "his" in Mark 2:15 is sometimes taken as a reference to Jesus rather than Levi, so Matthew may have changed "his" to "the" in order to avoid that confusion.

Sounds like Matthew thought Mark wrote in a way that facilitates confusion.  Not a happy day in inerrancy-land.

Luke makes the passage clearer by referring to how "Levi gave a big reception for him in his house" (5:29). Perhaps Matthew intended to provide clarification. Or he may have just chosen different terminology than Mark without any intention of clarifying anything and without intending to distance verses 10-13 from verse 9 in the way Bauckham suggests. Furthermore, how would changing "his house" to "the house" have the implications Bauckham claims? To the contrary, the lack of qualification for "the house" motivates the reader to look at the surrounding context for indications of what house is in view. Why would the author send his readers to the surrounding context if he wanted them to avoid the conclusion that verse 9 provides the context they're looking for? The most natural way to take "the house" in verse 10 is as a reference to Matthew's house, since Matthew's booth had just been mentioned, and the reference in verse 9 to Jesus' traveling makes it more likely that he'd be in somebody else's house rather than his own.

Sorry, the only significance I see in the change from "his house" to "the house" is mere stylistic preference.  You may as well write a 5,000 page article psychoanalyzing Matthew and asking why 13:52 doesn't include the "among his own relatives" phrase given that he was copying Mark 6:4 anyway.  I deny that inability to answer such trifling questions suddenly tilts the probability scale in favor of the apologist.

And since I already have good grounds for saying somebody other than Matthew is responsible for the canonical Greek version we have today, I'm not under any obligation to give a fuck why a later anonymous redactor would have wanted to change "his house" to "the house".  It could also be that the later redactor changed it because HE thought this was Matthew's own house.  The option of saying Matthew is the guy making the change and wanting the reader to notice that the house was owned by the author of that gospel, is not the only reasonable option.

If the author of the gospel of Matthew had wanted to distance verses 10-13 from verse 9 as much as Bauckham suggests, he could have put one or more other accounts between the content of verses 9 and 10 or changed or added language to verses 10-13 to distance those verses from verse 9 rather than keeping them together and so undistinguished (e.g., he could have referred to "the house of Levi, a tax collector").
Most of the evidence for Matthew's authorship of the gospel isn't addressed by Bauckham. See here for a collection of posts discussing a lot of that evidence.

I'm almost done answering all of your posts on that subject point by point. 

Notice the number, variety, and strength of the factors involved: the unlikelihood of fabricating attribution to such a minor apostle,

But such attribution can just as easily argue that he wasn't minor in the very early period, he merely faded from view and now you fallaciously view him as always having been minor.

the universal acceptance of Matthean authorship while the authorship attributions of other documents were being disputed,

the early church was also universal that Matthew was written first, which is now found highly unlikely by most Christian scholars who adopt Markan priority.  This particular skeptic doesn't feel the least bit moved by "universal acceptance".  Neither do desperate apologists who reject the majority scholarly acceptance of Markan priority view merely because they don't like how easy Markan priority makes it for skeptics to justify denying Jesus' resurrection.

hostile corroboration of Matthew's authorship,

You forgot Jerome's comment that "many" in his day viewed Gospel to the Hebrews as "authentic Matthew", as if they only came to such view after investigating two different gospels each claiming to be from Matthew.

how well Matthean authorship explains the early prominence of the gospel, etc.

Ditto for GoH.