'Tis the Season

Ah, Christmas. A time to give celebrate friends and family, love and generosity... and uh... something else. What was it again? Oh, I know! It's the perfect time to reflect upon the birth of Jesus—specifically, the remarkable number of problems with his birth narratives. In fact, there are so many that I'll only be giving a brief overview rather than going through them in detail.

The Contradictions
To any unbiased observer reading Matthew 1:18-2:23 and Luke 1:26-2:40, it's patently obvious that they're two completely different, incompatible stories of Jesus' birth. Here's a summary of the two versions:

Leaving aside the fact that the stories differ on almost every point, there are basically two direct contradictions. First, Matthew strongly implies that Mary and Joseph's hometown was Bethlehem, while Luke states that it was Nazareth. I went into this problem in more detail in a previous post. Second, Luke has them going directly from Bethlehem to Nazareth, while Matthew has Jesus' family fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt. Errancy.org has more on this.

The Prophecies
The birth narratives deal with quite a few alleged prophecies of Jesus. The first is Micah 5:2, which predicts that a savior would come from Bethlehem. Since Jesus was thought to have grown up in Nazareth, Matthew and Luke came up with different, conflicting ways to resolve this difficulty. But Micah 5:2 is referring to a tribe, not a town, and said savior was also supposed to defeat the Assyrians.

The birth narratives feature a virgin birth due to a misinterpretation of Isaiah 7:14, which appears to say someone will be born of a virgin. But the word translated "virgin" is more likely to mean "young woman," and the prophecy was already supposed to be fulfilled by Isaiah 8:3-4. The same verse also prophesies that "they shall call his name Immanuel," but there's no indication that Jesus was ever actually called by that name.

The gospel of Matthew is particularly big on attempting to fulfill prophecies. Matthew 2:23 says that Jesus' upbringing in Nazareth fulfills a prophecy saying "he shall be called a Nazarene," but no such prophecy appears anywhere in the Old Testament. Matthew 2:15 explains the flight to Egypt as a fulfillment of Hosea 11, which says, "Out of Egypt I called my Son." Yet looking at the original context, we instead see...

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my Son. As they called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images."

Not only is it not a prophecy of Jesus, but it's not a prophecy at all.

Culture and History
I want to quickly cover a few more points. First, some argue that Herod's massacre of the Bethlehem newborns didn't happen because it wasn't recorded by the meticulous historian Josephus, who recorded myriad other atrocities of Herod. Apologists reply that Bethlehem was so small that this would have been a minor event that Josephus may not have felt was significant enough to write about. I don't have enough information to conclude who's right one way or the other.

Then there's the Census of Quirinius, which is a massive problem for inerrantists. Here's a summary from Richard Carrier:

The Gospel of Luke claims (2:1-2) that Jesus was born during a census that we know from the historian Josephus took place after Herod the Great died, and after his successor, Archelaus, was deposed. But Matthew claims (2:1-3) that Jesus was born when Herod the Great was still alive--possibly two years before he died (2:7-16). Other elements of their stories also contradict each other. Since Josephus precisely dates the census to 6 A.D. and Herod's death to 4 B.C., and the sequence is indisputable, Luke and Matthew contradict each other.

Finally, there's the Star of Bethlehem, which the Magi follow to Bethlehem. It's described as a real astronomical event—a star that rises in the east just as any star would—yet astronomers have not identified any event that matches its description, and it's unclear how a star could be situated directly above a particular building in a particular town. More importantly, the Magi's interpretation of the star is a form of astrology, which as Adam Lee points out is harshly condemned by the Bible. In fact, the very word "magos" literally means "astrologer." When the author of Matthew has a supposedly demonic power directing the Magi to worship Jesus, it's pretty clear that he's not on the same page as the rest of Christianity.

Conclusion
The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are completely different and contain at least two major direct contradictions. At least four alleged prophecies either are not prophecies at all or are not fulfilled by Jesus. And there are multiple details that conflict with history or even Christianity itself. The birth narratives alone are more than enough to show that the Bible cannot be the inerrant word of God.

The Suffering Servant

One of the most popular Old Testament passages that supposedly predicts the life and death of Jesus is the story of the suffering servant, found in Isaiah 52:13–53:12. Although Christians try to equate this servant with Jesus, this view holds no water upon closer inspection.

As it happens, this passage is actually the fourth of four "servant songs" that are found in the book of Isaiah. Most Jewish scholars believe that the servant referred to in each of the four songs represents the nation of Israel. This makes sense, because the Bible refers to Israel as God's servant numerous times, both in Isaiah and elsewhere. In fact, just a few chapters earlier in the third servant song, God explicitly says that the servant in question is Israel:

"And He said to me, 'You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.' " (Isaiah 49:3)

As far as I'm concerned, that should really be the end of the discussion. This article describes in detail how Isaiah 53 applies to Israel—I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but it's certainly worth a look. However, Christians insist on making things more complicated than they are. Here's a summary of the main parallels that Christians see between the fourth servant song and Jesus' situation:

• "He is despised and rejected by men" (v. 3)
• "He was wounded for our transgressions" (v. 5)
• "He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth" (v. 7)
• "He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth" (v. 9)
• "They made his grave with the wicked—but with the rich at his death" (v. 9)

This passage seems fairly impressive at first glance, but let's look at it more carefully. First, does the Bible really say that Jesus was "despised and rejected by men"? Quite the contrary: the gospels repeatedly make reference to Jesus' immense popularity; it's only a small group of Jewish leaders that plots to kill him. This verse would have applied to Jesus far better had it said, "He is loved and admired by men."

At this point it's important to understand who Jewish scholars understand to be speaking in this passage: the rulers of nations rivaling Israel. Now in verse 5, the NET Bible says that the Hebrew word min would be better translated as "because of" rather than "for," as it carries a connotation of causality. This subtly changes the meaning: instead of suffering on behalf of others' sin like the vicarious atonement attributed to Jesus, the servant is merely suffering as a result of that sin. In other words, Israel is suffering as a result of the sins of rival nations.

What about verse 7? Did Jesus really not say anything while being accused and punished? If one looks only at, say, Matthew 27:12-14, one might think so. But several other verses show that this is clearly incorrect: not only did Jesus supposedly say seven different things while on the cross, but he also talks extensively with his accusers. If the goal of Isaiah 53 was to predict the circumstances of Jesus' life, it's an undeniable failure. And speaking of inaccuracies, Isaiah 53:10 says the servant "shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days"—Jesus had no children and lived to the ripe old age of 33. Apologists respond by interpreting this metaphorically, but why do so here and not for the other verses, unless one is starting with the assumption that the passage refers to Jesus?

What about verse 9? Did Jesus really never lie or do anything violent? Actually, the gospel accounts have Jesus killing a fig tree, as well as overturning the money changers' tables and driving them out with a whip. Sure, he didn't exactly murder anyone, but these were still violent acts. As for lying, look at John 7:1-10: Jesus tells his brothers he isn't going to a feast, then secretly goes anyway. (While Jesus ostensibly says "I am not yet going up to this feast," the NU-Text comprising the oldest and most reliable manuscripts omits the "yet," suggesting that some scribe likely realized Jesus' lie and tried to cover it up.) And in John 18:19-21 Jesus tells the high priest that he always spoke openly about his doctrines and said nothing in secret, yet throughout the gospels Jesus repeatedly keeps his exalted status, his imminent death, his miracles and the meanings of his parables a secret from the public.

And does Jesus' burial in the tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea fulfill the latter half of verse 9? First we should note that Jesus wasn't buried with other rich people; he was buried in a tomb provided by a rich man. All too often people excitedly overlook such details when they think they've found a fulfillment. More importantly, I've been assuming that the gospels provide accurate historical accounts of Jesus. But we already know that they altered details of Jesus' life to fulfill prophecy: I've written previously about a contradiction that resulted when the writers of Matthew and Luke concocted different birth narratives to fit a prophecy in Micah 5:2. Since the New Testament writers believed Isaiah 53 to be a messianic prophecy (based on their repeated references to it), it's quite likely that Joseph of Arimathea is a character invented for the express purpose of fulfilling that prophecy.

Finally, there are a few other relevant mistranslations in Isaiah 53 which demonstrate that Israel is the servant and not Jesus. In verse 8, which includes, "for the transgressions of my people he was stricken," the Hebrew word lamo is actually a plural pronoun. So the verse should read, "for the transgressions of my [the Gentile kings'] people they [the Israelites] were stricken." And in verse 9, the word translated "death" is a plural noun. The servant has multiple deaths, indicating that he represents multiple people (i.e. the Israelites).

At this point it should be clear not only that the fourth servant song doesn't refer to Jesus, but that it couldn't possibly do so. The servant is explicitly said to be Israel in the third servant song, the plural is used in reference to him multiple times, and several details run completely counter to the gospel accounts of Jesus' life. It's not too surprising that this passage seems to refer to Jesus at first glance; given a sufficient amount of ambiguous text, bits and pieces can be found and twisted to support virtually any view. But after nearly 2,000 years of feeble argument, it's high time for Christians to concede that this is not a prediction of the life and death of Jesus.

Born from Above

Born-again Christians generally insist that the Bible is completely accurate, including its accounts of Jesus' life. But as Bart Ehrman explains in his book Jesus, Interrupted, the origin of the very term "born again" shows this belief to be false.

This term originates from a passage in John 3, where Jesus tells a Pharisee named Nicodemus that people can't enter heaven without first being born anothen—that is, born from above. However, in addition to "from above," the Greek word anothen can also mean "again," and this is the sense in which Nicodemus understands Jesus' words. The fact that Nicodemus mistakenly thinks that Jesus means "born again" explains his response:

"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Had Nicodemus realized that Jesus meant people must be "born from above," he wouldn't have responded this way. He would have understood that Jesus meant a spiritual rebirth rather than a physical one. So what's the problem? Why is this misunderstanding such a big deal? Simple: anothen is a Greek word, but Jesus and Nicodemus would have been speaking Aramaic. The "again/from above" double meaning doesn't exist in Aramaic, so the sequence of events described in John simply would not have happened.

Could it be that Jesus actually said "born again" in Aramaic, and the writer of John just happened to use a word that also meant "from above"? Nope. The other three times he uses anothen—including once just a few verses later—the "from above" meaning is unambiguous. And Thayer's Lexicon says the word is "often used of things which come from heaven, or from God as dwelling in heaven," which suits this context too perfectly to be a coincidence. So if this conversation took place, Jesus would have used an Aramaic equivalent of "born from above."

So how did Nicodemus manage to misinterpret his words so spectacularly? Well, he didn't. The author of John fabricated the story, not realizing that the double meaning would be impossible in Jesus' native tongue. According to the NET Bible, "the author uses the technique of the 'misunderstood question' often to bring out a particularly important point: Jesus says something which is misunderstood by...someone else, which then gives Jesus the opportunity to explain more fully and in more detail what he really meant."

To resolve this problem, apologists must argue not only that this well-educated Pharisee was an idiot who couldn't understand that being "born from above" would be a spiritual birth and not a physical reemergence from the womb, but that the translation into Greek created the "again/from above" double meaning purely by chance. I have an alternative for them: stop struggling. Relax. Let it go. Realize that your mental acrobatics are futile, and accept that the Bible is not a reliable record of Jesus' life—or of most other things, for that matter. It may be upsetting at first, but once you've unchained yourself from this ancient book for a while, you'll probably feel a lot better. At least, I do.

A Tale of Three Centurions

Or maybe it's just one.
Or is it two?

In the previous post I reimagined the tale of Jesus healing the centurion's servant. However, before I set out to write my own version I had to think carefully about which gospel account I wanted to use as my reference. Why? Because the accounts contain details that are outright contradictory.

Reading Matthew 8:5-13, one finds that the events are fairly straightforward: the centurion walks up to Jesus and begs him to heal the servant, and Jesus, impressed with the man's faith, happily complies. There's absolutely no suggestion that things might have been any different. But the same story in Luke has some very noticeable changes:

"So when he [the centurion] heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant. ...Then Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, 'Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof.' " (v. 3, 5)

Whatever happened to the centurion? He doesn't interact with Jesus at any point, instead choosing to send not one but two waves of intermediaries: first "elders of the Jews" and later "friends." It should be plain to anyone that these two stories cannot be accurately describing one set of events.

As always, the apologists make some creative attempts to rescue these irreconcilable passages. In this case, the reply is that in ancient times, subordinates were considered to be mere extensions of those in power, so sending a representative was virtually the same as being there. I don't buy it: the centurion sends his own friends rather than some lowly underlings, and I doubt that people of any era would so casually misattribute a series of interactions this extended and complex. But it's moot even if the apologists are right, because they completely ignore the other big inconsistency: Matthew has Jesus healing the servant on the spot, while in Luke he first walks almost all the way to the centurion's house.

By the way, I have to touch on this priceless remark from Jim Estabrook at Apologetics Press:

"One must also admit that it is possible Matthew and Luke wrote about two separate accounts."

After indignantly arguing for two lengthy paragraphs that the two accounts are absolutely consistent, he spins on a dime and insists that it's possible that they refer to completely different events. Sure, Jim. It's possible that there were two faith-filled centurions who desperately wanted Jesus to heal their sick servants, and who were too humble to let Jesus enter their houses, and who used the exact same metaphor about the commanding of soldiers. It's possible. But to actually use this as a serious argument merely underscores how crude, how intellectually desolate, how pitifully detached from reality your apologetics truly are.

Speaking of separate accounts, I still haven't addressed the third version of the centurion story: John's. This time, though, there are some radical differences between the accounts: Jesus is in Cana instead of Capernaum, the centurion is instead called a nobleman, the servant has become a son, and the "nobleman" doesn't display the impressive faith that he does in the other versions. So why call them the same story at all? Well, look at the similarities:

• A powerful man approaches Jesus begging for help.
• Someone this man cares about is at home with a grave illness.
• The ill person and/or the encounter with Jesus is in Capernaum.
• Jesus heals just by saying the word rather than visiting the home.
• The ill person is specifically said to be cured "that same hour."

This is far too big a coincidence for John's account to be separate, but it's also far too different to even try to reconcile with the others. Anyone who isn't consumed with religious bias can see what's going on here. Stories about Jesus were passed along through oral tradition, changing dramatically along the way. The author of John had heard a substantially different version of the centurion story than the authors of Matthew and Luke, and each author may have tweaked the details to suit their own purposes. The takeaway point is that the gospel accounts of Jesus' deeds are not consistent, they are not factual, and they certainly bear no mark of divine guidance.

Jesus in an Alternate Universe

A few months ago I wrote an alternate version of the story of Abraham nearly sacrificing Isaac, one that values reasonable skepticism over faith. Below is the story of the healing of the centurion's servant, which I've reimagined in a similar way.

As Jesus entered the town of Capernaum, a centurion came up to him and pleaded, "Lord, my servant is lying at home in bed with a grave illness."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not a doctor. What do you want me to do about it?" asked Jesus.

"Ahahah! A holy prophet of God and a comedian!" the centurion exclaimed. "Well, I suppose I could ask you to come to my house and heal him, but to be honest I don't think I'm even worthy of you entering under my roof. But I believe in you, Lord. I know your power is so great that all you have to do is give the word, and my servant will be healed. I have a bit of authority myself—all I have to do is bark an order to my soldiers and they'll carry it out immediately. I'm sure that you can do the same."

Jesus was shocked. "My good sir! I have to tell you, I've never seen faith like yours before in my life! Not in Israel or anywhere else."

"Oh, thank you! What a great honor it is to hear you say that."

"Er... what? Why on earth would that be an honor?"

"Why, Lord!" the centurion exclaimed. "Just last week the local potter told me that his niece said, that her neighbor said, that you said that just having faith the size of a mustard seed would let one move mountains! I may not have that much faith, but I hope I have enough to ask you this one favor."

Jesus sighed. "I see people have been twisting my words again. What I said was that it makes no difference whether your faith is the size of a mustard seed or a mountain: what matters is your actions. Honestly, why would anyone think that believing something really hard is enough to accomplish anything? And without any good reason to believe it, no less?"

"Oh, but I do have good reasons! I've heard all the stories about you. Why, just the other day my wife told me that her brother told her that—"

"Wait just a minute!" Jesus interrupted. "You think I can do miracles just because someone told you they heard that I could? What kind of reason is that?"

"So... you can't do miracles?"

"That's beside the point. What I'm saying is that you can't just believe everything you hear, especially about something as amazing as healing the sick or turning water into wine."

"You can water into wine?" said the centurion excitedly.

"Oh for goodness' sake. Stop yammering and pay attention! Even if I seemed to turn water into wine right in front of you, that still shouldn't be enough to convince you that I actually did it. There are men who make good money profiting from gullibility like yours, men who can make things appear to happen when they really didn't."

The centurion stared, eyes wide with a mixture of solemnity and confusion. "They must be very powerful sorcerers indeed."

"Are you even listening to me? All right, forget it. Sir, please go find a doctor for your servant as quickly as possible. I have to go now."

With that, Jesus continued to walk towards the center of Capernaum. The centurion, stunned for a moment, blinked and followed after him, shouting, "Lord, wait! If you won't heal my servant, could you at least direct me to those sorcerers you mentioned?"

Men Like Trees Walking

Read the following little-known story about one of Jesus' miracles and see if you notice anything odd:

"Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything.

And he looked up and said, 'I see men like trees, walking.'

Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. Then He sent him away to his house, saying, 'Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.' " (Mark 8:22-26)

Jesus spits on the man's eyes, which only partially restores his sight, and then he lays hands on him again, which finally heals him completely. Jesus heals dozens of people in the gospels, but this is the only case where he fails on the first try. Why should the perfect Son of God need two tries to heal a man? I have no idea—and as it turns out, I'm not the only one.

A useful visualization.

Matthew, Mark and Luke are collectively called the "synoptic gospels," and they contain much of the same material, sometimes even word for word. This is because the writers of Matthew and Luke both used material from Mark. In fact, only 3% of the content in the gospel of Mark is not used in either Matthew or Luke—and this passage is part of that tiny percentage.

For the few passages in Mark that contain completely unique content, the reason for their omission from Matthew and Luke is often quite evident. In one, Mark 3:20-21, those around Jesus think he's out of his mind—a rather embarrassing detail that the later authors would be eager to get rid of. The reason for removing the Parable of the Growing Seed is less clear; perhaps they thought its message was more muddled than that of the similar yet better-crafted Parable of the Sower. Finally there's the "Long Ending" of Mark, which is widely thought to be a forgery that was added later.

So it's no big surprise, then, that both of the later synoptic authors made a deliberate decision to remove the "blind man of Bethsaida" story from their gospels, while using all of the material surrounding it. They realized that this passage is totally inconsistent with the power that Jesus displays in the other gospel tales. Jesus making mistakes wasn't a big deal for the earliest Christians, who saw him merely as a messianic prophet. But as Jesus became increasingly exalted in Christianity (see my Jesus, Interrupted posts for more on that), the gospel writers were compelled to modify their stories accordingly. So went the very human process of editing a very human book.

JI: How Christianity Evolved (Part 2)

Yesterday I summarized how Jesus came to be viewed as the Messiah, and how early Christians became increasingly anti-Jewish despite Jesus' Jewish heritage and beliefs. Below I'll follow along with Ehrman as he explains the origins of Jesus' divinity, the triune nature of God, and the afterlife.

While it's now one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith, Jesus was not originally considered to be God. As evidenced by verses like Acts 2:22, 2:36 and 13:32-33, the earliest Christians thought he was a mere man whom God granted the status of Messiah at the resurrection. Later Jesus was thought to gain this title at his baptism (Mark 1:9-11), and then at his birth (Luke 1:30-35). Finally in John we see the fully developed view of Jesus' eternal existence as God himself (John 1:1-14).

Ehrman says that this increasingly deified view of Jesus developed independently in different places. Based on details like the "we" in John 21:24-25, John may have been written by a Jewish community, who rationalized the rejection of friends and relatives by assuming they had special access to the truth of Jesus' divinity. Others began believing that Jesus was divine based on his "cosmic judge" position as the Son of Man, while still more drew this conclusion from the fact that both Jesus and the OT God used the title of "Lord." And among former pagans, who were used to demigods born of a god and a human (e.g. Heracles), perceiving Jesus as God would have been easy.

The Trinity doctrine developed to solve the problem of how Christianity could continue as a monotheistic religion. The Ebionites decided that Jesus was not God, the Marcionites concluded that the OT God and the God of Jesus were two distinct entities, and the Gnostics thought Jesus was one of many divine beings. However, the two most popular doctrines were modalism, where God is one being who expresses himself in three roles, and Arianism, where God is one "substance" with three distinct persons. Even after Arianism won out, some insisted that the Son's position must be inferior to the Father's. But in 325, the modern view of Father, Son and Spirit as equal persons of the divine substance (problematic as it may be) was established.

Neither Jews nor the earliest Christians believed in immortal souls, heaven or hell. The OT prophets simply believed that God would inflict earthly punishment on those who sinned against him. The apocalypticists, such as Daniel, Jesus and Paul, believed God would come to judge the world and set up a new kingdom on earth, in which those who were dead would be physically resurrected. But when Jesus didn't come back as expected, people had to resolve their cognitive dissonance by reinterpreting this view. This is especially evident in 2 Peter, whose author desperately tries to explain that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years." Eventually the judgment was reworked so that it came, as Ehrman puts it, "not at the end of the age but at the end of one's life," when one is sent to either heaven or hell.

The fact that Christian doctrines changed significantly over time does not in itself mean that they're false. But I agree with Ehrman when he says that their formation process looks distinctly human: it's full of fierce disagreements, political struggles and flimsy rationalizations. I would never expect such chaos and illogic if God, the perfect communicator, were truly in control.

JI: Our Sources for Jesus

In the fifth chapter of JI, Ehrman explains what we can and can't know about Jesus, based on mainstream biblical scholarship's interpretation of our ancient sources about him. He lists the criteria that would be ideal for understanding such a historical figure. The sources should be:

• Many in number
• Contemporary with the described events
• Independent from each other
• Written by people free from ulterior motives
• Consistent with one another

The sources for Jesus fail on four of these five criteria. It's true that we have multiple accounts of Jesus' life. But, Ehrman writes:

"They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus' death by people who did not know him, did not see anything he did or hear anything that he taught, people who spoke a different language from his and lived in a different country from him. The accounts they produced are not disinterested; they are narratives produced by Christians who actually believed in Jesus, and therefore were not immune from slanting their stories in light of their biases. They are not completely free of collaboration, since Mark was used as a source for Matthew and Luke. And rather than being fully consistent with one another, they...[contain] both contradictions in details and divergent large-scale understandings of who Jesus was." (emphasis mine)

To summarize: our sources are late, biased, codependent and contradictory. The task of biblical scholars is to piece together the truth using these flawed bits of evidence. Ehrman describes the gospels as a product of several decades of oral tradition—passing from stranger to stranger, from language to language, from culture to culture—and changing significantly over that time.

What do secular, extrabiblical sources say about Jesus? As Ehrman says, "the answer is breathtaking." No Greek or Roman sources mention Jesus until about 80 years after his death. The first ones we find are from Pliny the Younger in 112 CE and the historian Tacitus in 115 CE, and even those offer very few details. The first Jewish source is Flavius Josephus writing in 90 CE, but scholars generally agree that much of this brief account was inserted later by Christian scribes.

And so, flawed though they are, the gospels are the best resources available for evaluating the historical Jesus. Ehrman presents four criteria that biblical scholars use for finding the information within the sources that is most likely to be reliable:

• The earlier the better – He identifies the gospel of Mark along with the hypothesized sources Q, M and L as the earliest sources.
• The more the better – Example: Matthew, Luke and John independently state that Jesus was born in Nazareth, so it's more likely to be true.
• Better to cut against the grain – Details that are contrary to the Christian agenda (e.g. Jesus' baptism) are less likely to have been made up.
• It has to fit the context – Anything that is unlikely to have taken place within the Jesus' cultural environment probably isn't authentic.

There are many other such criteria that aren't discussed. It's also worth mentioning that the minority of scholars who believe Jesus never existed at all would disagree with the validity of most of these criteria. In any case, next time I'll take a look at what Ehrman says we can learn about the real Jesus using guidelines such as these.

JI: John Versus the Synoptics

The third chapter of JI focuses not on specific contradictions, but on deep-seated, large-scale conflicts in viewpoint among New Testament writers. Ehrman dedicates 15 pages just to disparities between John and the synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke. (Scholars think Matthew and Luke used Mark and an unknown "Q document" as sources, hence their similarity.) He points out differences in content, differences in emphasis, and differences in Jesus' teachings and miracles.

Here are just some of the important events never mentioned in John:

• Jesus' birth of a virgin in Bethlehem
• His baptism and wilderness temptation
• Preaching that God's kingdom is at hand
• Telling parables of any kind
• Casting out demons
• The Transfiguration
• The Last Supper and crucifixion trial

Instead, we have things like:

• Jesus as the Word of God in human form
• Seven "signs" meant to demonstrate his power
• The washing of the disciples' feet
• Constant statements about himself (e.g. "I am the bread of life")
• Long speeches instead of wise proverbs

Ehrman argues that when Christians lump together various doctrines, they obscure the views of the individual authors. He says:

"The idea that Jesus preexisted his birth and that he was a divine being who became human is found only in the Gospel of John; the idea that he was born of a virgin is found only in Matthew and Luke. ...Mark doesn't say anything about either. The story starts with Jesus as an adult, and Mark gives no indication of the circumstances of his birth. If your only Gospel was Mark—and in the early church, for some Christians it was the only Gospel—you would have no idea that Jesus' birth was unusual in any way, that his mother was a virgin, or that he existed before appearing on earth."

Not only that, but Matthew just says Jesus was a virgin and leaves it at that, mistakenly calling it a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. Luke, however, specifically says that Jesus was born of a virgin because he was the Son of God.

Jesus' teachings in Mark also contrast starkly with his teachings as portrayed in John. In Mark, he teaches little about himself, and he never claims to be divine in any way—he's mentioned as the "son of God," but the term had several meanings. Instead Jesus emphasizes a coming apocalypse, and that people should quickly repent before he returns to judge the world. However, in John he says nothing about the kingdom of God approaching, but rather preaches about himself, saying that "I and the Father are one" and "I am the way, the truth and the life." Why this sudden shift in tone? Ehrman explains:

"For many historical critics it makes sense that John, the Gospel that was written last, no longer speaks about the imminent appearance on earth of the Son of Man to sit in judgment on the earth, to usher in the utopian kingdom. In Mark Jesus predicts that the end will come right away, during his own generation, while his disciples are still alive (Mark 9:1; 13:30). By the time John was written, probably from 90 to 95 CE, that earlier generation had died out and most if not all the disciples were already dead. ... What does one do with the teaching about an eternal kingdom here on earth if it never comes? One reinterprets the teaching. The way John reinterprets it is by altering the basic conceptualization."

This is accomplished by reimagining the "kingdom of God" as a rebirth "from above" (see John 3:3–6; I'll cover this in a later post) rather than something that will descend to earth.

Finally, we have the miracles of Jesus. In the synoptics, their purpose was to show Jesus' compassion and the arrival of God's kingdom to those who already believed. However, he refuses to do them to make people accept his God-given authority, and he even tells those who have been healed not to spread the word. In fact, the reason Satan tempts Jesus to throw himself off the Temple is because when the angels caught him, his power would be revealed to the many Jews in the vicinity. But in John, revealing his authority is the whole reason Jesus does his signs:

"In John's Gospel, Jesus' spectacular deeds are called signs, not miracles. And they are performed precisely to prove who Jesus is, to convince people to believe in him. Claiming to be the 'Bread of Life,' he performs the sign of the loaves to feed the crowds (John 6); claiming to be the 'Light of the World,' he does the sign of healing the man born blind (John 9); claiming to be the 'Resurrection and the Life,' he does the sign of raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11)."

John's version of Jesus' miracles is summarized perfectly in John 4:48 when he says, "Unless you see signs and miracles, you will not believe," and later John himself states this as his purpose in recording Jesus' signs.

The disparity in outlooks between John and the synoptics could hardly be more obvious. What's remarkable is that a lot of Christians don't even realize that John is particularly different from the other gospels. It just goes to show how much people can miss when they aren't really looking.

JI: The Gospel of Nobody

This topic doesn't appear at any one point in JI, but it's something Ehrman references multiple times in the early chapters. Many Bible contradictions involve stories where source A says event X happened, while source B says event Y happened. Apologists often try to resolve these conflicts by combining the details of the conflicting stories and saying that both events happened. After all, they argue, source A doesn't say event Y didn't happen, nor does source B deny the possibility of event X.

But at times there are major problems with this tactic. First of all, of course each source isn't going to go out of its way to talk about events that didn't happen – that would require the Bible to be written in some bizarre form of legalese. But there are many cases where source A doesn't mention event Y even though it's an integral part of the story. It often seems very strange that A doesn't mention Y... until you consider the possibility that the author of A disagrees with the author of B and doesn't think Y happened at all.*

And second, when apologists try to make the events fit by mashing them together, they often create an entirely new story that none of the original stories agree with. In the case of the four gospels, where this happens quite often, I've dubbed this messy amalgam of fragmented details the "Gospel of Nobody."

On page 7 of JI, Ehrman uses the following contradiction as an example:

"In Mark's Gospel, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times 'before the cock crows twice.' In Matthew's Gospel, he tells him that it will be 'before the cock crows.' Well, which is it—before the cock crows once or twice? ... [Here's one apologist's] solution: Peter actually denied Jesus six times, three times before the cock crowed and three more times before it crowed twice. ... [But] to resolve the tension between the Gospels the interpreter has to write his own Gospel, which is unlike any of the Gospels found in the New Testament. And isn't it a bit absurd to say that, in effect, only "my" Gospel—the one I create from parts of the four in the New Testament—is the right one, and that the others are only partially right?"

There's no one on earth who would think Peter denied Jesus six times after reading Mark or Matthew individually, since neither gospel indicates that he made more than three denials. And if Peter had made six denials, it would surely be important enough to note, so the most likely reason that neither gospel noted six is that neither gospel intends six.

Here's another example. Which women visited the tomb on the morning of the resurrection? Was it:

• Matt.: Mary Magdelene, the other Mary
• Mark: Mary Magdelene, Mary mother of James, Salome
• Luke: Mary Magdelene, Mary mother of James, Joanna, others
• John: Mary Magdelene

Now, based on this an apologist could claim that Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James, the other Mary, Salome, Joanna, and possibly others all went to visit Jesus' tomb. But now we have a veritable horde of people, and some of the gospels begin to look quite misleading. What reason did Matthew, Mark and John have for giving no indication that anyone other than those mentioned visited the tomb, when it would have been as simple as adding "and other women"? John is especially dishonest: he implies that Mary Magdelene is making a lone pilgrimage to the tomb. There's no obvious explanation for this phenomenon—except that Matthew, Mark and John don't intend for there to be others tagging along.

Let's look at one last example, which Ehrman describes on page 8. When the women (or woman) visited Jesus' tomb, who did they (or she) see?:

• Matt.: one angel
• Mark: one man
• Luke: two men
• John: two angels

Now admittedly, the men in Mark and Luke are dressed in white robes, so one could plausibly argue that they are meant to be angels. But why would Matthew and Mark both mention only one person when Luke and John say there were two? What possible motive could they have for not having the accurate number? The simplest and best explanation is that Matthew and Mark don't mean for there to be two of them at all.

There are many other examples like this, both in the Gospels and elsewhere. In examining such cases, I think these are the crucial questions to ask:

1. Is the omitted detail integral to the story?
2. Does a "reconstructed" version of the story make the original stories look misleading?
3. Could the omitted detail have been easily added?

I would argue that we should consider cases where the answers to two or all of these questions are "yes" to be contradictions – minor compared to others we can find in the Bible, but contradictions nonetheless.

*Apologists often try to spin such accounts as "complementary." They apparently forget that "the Bible" did not exist in the early church. If a congregation had one gospel and not others, they would not get a "complementary" account, but instead a highly flawed one that ignored crucial events.

JI: What was Mary & Joseph's Hometown?

Ehrman spends pages 29–35 of JI covering the Jesus' contradiction-riddled birth narratives (Matthew 1:18-2:23 and Luke 1:5-2:40). One that I think is particularly obvious when the texts are carefully compared is the location of Mary and Joseph's hometown. Here's what Ehrman says about it:

"According to Matthew, what is Joseph and Mary's hometown? Your natural reaction is to say 'Nazareth.' But only Luke says this. Matthew sats nothing of the sort. He first mentions Joseph and Mary not in connection with Nazareth but in connection with Bethlehem. [2:1-2] The wise men, who are following a star (presumably it took some time), come to worship Jesus in his house in Bethlehem. [2:11] Joseph and Mary evidently live there. There is nothing about an inn and a manger in Matthew. Moreover, when Herod slaughters the children, he instructs his soldiers to kill every male two years and under. [2:16] This must indicate that Jesus had been born some time before the wise men show up. Otherwise the instruction does not make much sense: surely even Roman soldiers could recognize that a toddler walking around the playground was not an infant born some time last week. So Joseph and Mary are still living in Bethlehem months or even a year after the birth of Jesus. So how can Luke be right when he says that they are from Nazareth and returned there just a month or so after Jesus' birth? Moreover, according to Matthew, after the family flees to Egypt and then returns upon the death of Herod, they initially plan to return to Judea, where Bethlehem is located. [2:22] They cannot do so, however, because now Archelaus is the ruler, so they relocate to Nazareth. In Matthew's account they are not originally from Nazareth but from Bethlehem."

Ehrman summarizes everything well, but I want to expand just a bit on that last part. Here's Matthew 2:22-23:

"But when [Joseph] heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"

I'm going to break down the language in this passage to make it entirely clear why it shows that, according to Matthew, Mary and Joseph did not originally live in Nazareth.

1. "he was afraid to go there" – Joseph had planned to return to Bethlehem in Judea.
2. "he turned aside" – Joseph did not originally intend to go into Galilee.
3. "he came and dwelt in" – This perfectly describes moving to a new town. Had Matthew wanted to describe arriving home, he would have said "came back to" or "returned to."
4. "a city called Nazareth" – Matthew introduces Nazareth as a completely novel location, as though nothing relevant has previously occurred there.
5. "that it might be fulfilled" – The purpose is not to return home, but to fulfill a prophecy.

It's worth noting that there is no prophecy that "He shall be called a Nazarene" anywhere in the Old Testament. Apologists have tried to make sense of this in various ways, but the bottom line is that Matthew basically made it up. There's also a Bethlehem prophecy quoted in Matthew 2:6, a very rough paraphrase of Micah 5:2 (compare them here). Ehrman tells us why this is significant:

"[T]here is a prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah that a savior would come from Bethlehem. What were these gospel writers to do with the fact that it was widely known that Jesus came from Nazareth? ... To get Jesus born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth, Matthew and Luke independently came up with solutions that no doubt struck each of them as plausible."

So, to review: Matthew heavily implies that Mary and Joseph were from Bethlehem, he gives every indication that they were not from Nazareth, and he has a prophetic motive for constructing the narrative the way he did. If we provisionally assume Luke's narrative is correct that Nazareth was their hometown, then Matthew's account on this point is thoroughly deceptive at best and irreconcilably conflicting at worst.

JI: On What Day Was Jesus Crucified?

The first major Bible contradiction Ehrman covers in Jesus, Interrupted is on pages 23–28. He starts by reminding readers that for the Jews, each new day began at sundown, around 6pm. So here's the contradiction: The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) say the Last Supper was the Passover meal, and Jesus was crucified the next morning (still Passover). But John says the Last Supper was eaten the day before Passover, called the Day of Preparation, and Jesus was crucified the next afternoon (still the Day of Preparation).

Here's what Mark 14:12, 17-18 says:

"Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, 'Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?' ... In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me.' "

The disciples killed the lamb on the Day of Preparation. After the sun went down in the evening, it became Passover and they ate the Passover meal. Matthew 26:17-21 and Luke 22:7-16 confirm this view, but John is a different story altogether. First, here's Ehrman's commentary about what what John doesn't say:

"But it is striking that in John, at the beginning of the account, in contrast to [the synoptics], the disciples do not ask Jesus where they are 'to prepare the Passover.' Consequently, he gives them no instructions for preparing the meal."

So all three synoptic gospels have Jesus and the disciples explicitly stating that this is the Passover meal, while they do no such thing in John. Already something's a little fishy; John may have purposely left out this part, for reasons I'll cover later. Now let's look at the other evidence. John 13:1-2 is ambiguous: the phrase "before the Feast of the Passover" could easily refer to the "supper," but it's also plausible that it doesn't. But other verses show that in John's view, this is not the Passover meal and that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation:

"Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered into him [Judas]. Then Jesus said to him, 'What you do, do quickly.' But no one at the table knew for what reason He had said this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus said to him, 'Buy those things we need for the feast,' or that he should give something to the poor." (John 13:27-29)

Here the disciples have just finished the Last Supper, and some of them think Jesus is sending Judas to buy food for the Passover feast.

"Then they led Jesus from Caiaphus to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover." (John 18:28)

Here it is the next morning (in the same Jewish day), Jesus is being led to Pilate's residence to be judged, and the priests have not yet eaten the Passover.

"Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he [Pilate] said to the Jews, 'Behold your King!' " (John 19:14)

This verse makes the problem abundantly clear. Matthew, Mark and Luke say that Jesus had the Last Supper on Passover. It's now "the sixth hour" (i.e. noon) later in the same Jewish day, Jesus is being judged, and John is telling us that it's the Day of Preparation! However, there's still one more piece of evidence that I think seals the deal for this contradiction. Here's what Ehrman has to say about it:

"John is the only Gospel that indicates that Jesus is 'the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.' This is declared by John the Baptist [in John 1:29, 36]. Why, then did John—our latest Gospel—change the day and time when Jesus died? It may be because in John's Gospel, Jesus is the Passover Lamb, whose sacrifice brings salvation from sins. Exactly like the Passover Lamb, Jesus has to die on the day (the Day of Preparation) and time (sometime after noon) when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple.

"In other words, John has changed a historical datum in order to make a theological point: Jesus is the sacrificial lamb."

Is it just coincidence that John perfectly times Jesus' death to coincide with the slaughter of the Passover lambs? It's possible, but I think that's quite unlikely, especially in light of the other evidence. Speaking of which, let's review:

All three synoptics have Jesus and the disciples referring to the Last Supper as the Passover meal. John does not.
John has three passages after the Last Supper indicating that the Passover meal had not yet occurred.
John places Jesus' crucifixion at the same day and time as Passover lambs were being killed, implying he fudged the facts to create a metaphor.

Remarkably, Christians can't even agree among themselves on the right solution to this problem. Some claim the Last Supper and crucifixion fell on the Day of Preparation (as in John). Others claim the Last Supper was the Passover meal, and Jesus was crucified on Passover (as in the synoptics). Both sides believe they are obviously right. One would think the Holy Spirit that supposedly dwells in them would help them all interpret things the right way, but apparently not. In the end, their arguments largely cancel each other out, and I must conclude that this is a very real contradiction.