Martin Hengel & The Gospel Titles

 “Almost all books which were duplicated by copying, disseminated in the book trade and collected in libraries, also had a title which had similarly been structured by the model of the inclusion of the book…works without the titles easily got double or multiple titles when names were given to them in different libraries… this is also evident from individual pseudepigrapha of the old and New Testament‘s, for example... The strange uniformity and early attestation of the titles of the Gospels excludes the possibility that for a long time they had been circulating anonymously in the communities...Works without titles no longer had a chance of establishing themselves in the mainstream church. At best they reached esoteric circles as in the case of the Nag Hammadi texts. Where the name of the author was removed, as in the case of Hebrews and the letter to Diognetus, at least the name of those to whom it was addressed (whether fictitious or authentic) was preserved. By their striking consistency in the manuscript tradition for Matthew to the book of revelation, in particular the writings which later formed the “New Testament” generally show that from the beginning, i.e. from the time they were produced or disseminated and circulated, they were associated with their original titles. In practice, therefore, these could no longer be changed. The few exceptions prove the rule. In contrast to this, both the titles and the textual traditions of the “apocryphal“ writings of the second century are often unstable. Essentially greater arbitrariness is predominate here. If the titles of the Gospels, the letters of the apocalypses have been changed or expanded, this would have left a record in the textual tradition, which is uniquely well tested for antiquity…Where there were uncertainties, for example with the letter to the Ephesians, discrepancies in the textual attestation indicate the fact. most of the inspired “holy Scriptures“ of the prophets of the Old Testament already bore the names of their authors from Moses to Malachi and were sometimes also coded with these names. In the New Testament, Moses is mentioned 79 times, Isaiah 22 times Jeremiah three times; Daniel once; Hosea once; Amos three times; Joel once; psalms (of David) or David as Psalmist around 10 times.” Hengel (2000:48, 54, 105, 125n. 502)

References

Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel of Jesus Christ. Trinity Press International 2000.

Proselytize or Apostatize Resurrection Debate Review

My friend Caleb Jackson and Aaron Aquinas did a debate on the resurrection against village atheists David Johnson & Matthew Taylor. Caleb has a good, accessible book defending the resurrection you can purchase here. 

Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KllcQ77QgE&t=2170s

1: Caleb defends an NT Wright style of argumentation which I am sympathetic to. I wish he had time to defend the Gospels, but time constraints made that impossible. He gave a good, albeit brief over view of the concept of resurrection and afterlife in Antiquity. 

2: He (Caleb) mentioned independent traditions in the empty tomb narratives. To bolster his case here, I'll quote some material from Jake O'Connell (2016:130f). "Matthew included the information about the guards at the tomb (28:8-10). Luke changes the list of women at the tomb even though he would have no conceivable reason to do this and he also includes the fact that Peter ran to the tomb (24:12), another event not found in Mark. John has Peter and the beloved disciple running to the tomb (20:4) and an appearance to Mary Magdalene by the tomb (20:11-18), both events which are not found in Mark. Thus, since the Gospel writers had independent information about the empty tomb, they do not all drive their account from Mark, and so we have four independent sources."

3: Caleb rightly points out that they would have had the language to describe a mere ascension or exaltation into heaven, drawing on Acts 12.

4: Caleb points out David Johnson can't make the elementary distinction between a resurrection and resuscitation. If Johnson bothered to do the bare minimum amount of research, he'd see there isn't a dearth of material on just this subject. Take Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003).

5: Aaron is sharp, but spends too much time getting unnecessary preliminaries out of the way. A lot of those are already known and agreed on

6: Johnson brings up the virgin birth for some odd reason. Every non Christian scholar denies the virgin birth, but still believe quite a number of episodes in the Gospels are historical. Nothing but weasel words.

7: Johnson channels Chris Hallquist in bringing up alien abductions. He neglected to mention old hag syndrome as an explanation.

a) Let's assume alien abductions happen. That does nothing with the resurrection evidence. One giant red herring.

8:He says we have more evidence for alien abductions than the resurrection, but never puts his money where his mouth is. His assertions are only as good as their supporting arguments.

9: He brings up reputational martyrdom for aliens, but has no clue how this line of argument works. The whole point is that the apostles sincerely believed what they saw and preached.

10: He says "We most certainly have evidence for the resurrection, but it pales in comparison to the evidence for alien abductions". He has yet to back this up in anyway. He cites 0 sources.

11: He brings up Trump and his supporters saying that he actually won. Well, maybe because there is evidence of voter fraud, or, at the very least, they suggest there is evidence of voter fraud?

(I will not give my opinions on that matter here.) 

12: You don't get to compare 1c Christians with 21c Christians. This is laughable at best. To boot, there are non-Christian Trump supporters. Ironically, it is David Johnson who can not parse the facts. 

13: Taylor brings up the fact that his grandfather had lied to him about his birth. Notice, he fact checked him, in the same way the early Christians could have verified the claims going around. 

a) Not all testimony is the same, we must take it on a case by case basis. 

14: Taylor needs to give some examples of ancient historians making things up. No doubt they did, but examples would be useful, so that we could compare them with the Gospels. 

15: Sure, we should put the Gospels up to the test! Happy to oblige.

16: He brings up the ending of Mark. Does he not realize that works against him? We are able to distinguish between out right fabrications and historical memory. 

17: He brings up progressions of Jesus in each Gospel account. This is beyond an exercise in misdirection. Matthew and Luke include a virgin birth, whereas the earliest and latest Gospel do not. Does John contain exorcisms? Compare the number of miracle accounts in the Gospels. See if John has the most in comparison with the earlier accounts. 

18: Mark doesn't narrate the resurrection, but it is anticipated (8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:32-34; 14:28).

19: The Gospels are remarkably accurate when compared to non-biblical sources. There are standard books and commentaries on this, which Taylor & Johnson obviously haven't bothered to consult. They want their opposition to do all the leg work.