This chapter opens with the narrative of a conviction that had to rely on science and hard evidence to sentence a killer to death. Strobel wants us to believe that he is going to follow a hard scientific method to determine if there truly is a case for Christ. In this case, he’s going to rely on the scientific discipline of archaeology.
This chapter is an interview with Dr. John McRay. Like the others, Strobel spends a large amount of time ensuring we are awed with credentials and books that have been written. An important fact mentioned by Dr. McRay, which Strobel should have paid attention to, is “[Dr. McRay:] Spiritual truths cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 102). Strobel appears to ignore that sentiment throughout this chapter and the rest of the book though, so why did he leave it in the book?
Digging for the Truth
Strobel spends an inordinate amount of time explaining why having facts line up is important in order to sell us on the idea that archaeology may provide some evidence here. While Dr. McRay is certain the “[Dr. McRay:] …credibility of the New Testament is enhanced” (Strobel, CFC, P. 104) due to archaeological evidence, he does not provide any examples just yet.
Luke’s Accuracy as a Historian
I just want to mention here that, based on the arguments presented in Chapter 1 and 2, it’s very likely that Luke did not author the gospel of Luke OR the book of Acts. Check the problems with chapters 1 and 2 to see why. Rather, someone published works anonymously claiming to be Luke. Strobel has already begun to parrot Luke’s authorship as a fact.
Strobel leads Dr. McRay with a few easy questions to get things started. The sorts of things that Dr. McRay mentions here are mostly trivialities such as roman titles of officials. One piece that bears examining is Dr. McRay trying to resolve a contradiction between Mark and Luke where Mark claims Jesus was leaving Jerico while Luke claims Jesus entered Jericho.
Putting aside the fact that this contradiction is very minor, Dr. McRay says”[Dr. McRay:] The city was destroyed and resettled… …The point is, you can be coming out of one site where Jericho existed and be going into another one” (Strobel, CFC, P. 105-106). While this could be an explanation, it does not explain why, without warning, one gospel would refer to what I’ll call the “contemporary” site while another would refer to an older one.
The Reliability of Mark and John
Strobel makes the claim that some incidental archaeological evidence “[Strobel:] …challenges the allegation that the gospel of John was written so long after Jesus that it can’t possibly be accurate” (Strobel, CFC, P. 107). This appears to be based on the fallacious belief that early writing must be free from legendary development.
Evidence points to the gospel of John being written sometime around 90-110CE. In terms of geography and archaeology, not much would have changed in the 60-80 years since Jesus is held to have died. Just because we find archaeological evidence that some buildings mentioned in the text do exist does not prove that the writer was accurate on other matters. It could simply be that these buildings were commonly known at the time and the writer drew on his own knowledge of these locations when writing or went to visit them.
Even if we grant the new testament the benefit of the doubt for all archaeological and geographical statements in it, it still does not bolster any supernatural claims. Just because someone goes to great lengths to keep their geography straight does not mean they can be relied upon for other claims. For example, I know several locations in my hometown well and can reliably tell my friends and family about these locations. If I tell my friends that I developed magic powers overnight and these parts in town have huge spiritual significance, should my friends believe me? The answer is clearly no. My past track record of keeping facts about locations straight should not lead my friends to believe me for sudden supernatural claims.
Strobel repeats the dating of a scrap from the gospel of John here. See the problems with chapter 3 for the discussion on that.
Examine minor issue from mark
Puzzle 1: The Census
Strobel brings up the questions of “[Strobel] How could the government possibly force all of it’s citizens to return to their birthplace?” (Strobel, CFC, P. 108). The document cited by Dr. McRay says “…it is necessary to compel all those who for any cause whatsoever are living outside their provinces to return to their own homes.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 108). This does not provide any evidence for returning to the homes of your ancestors. To paraphrase the quote, it merely makes the statement that “If you’re not at home, please go home. It’s time for a census”.
Additionally, returning to your “ancestral home” would present great problems. How does one define their ancestral home? How far back would one go? If, as according to Genesis, Abram is the father of the Jews, shouldn’t the Jews go to the ancestral lands of Canaan, which were given to Abram? Or how about to the lands where Noah first landed his fairy tale ark? Or all the way back to wherever Adam and Eve first stepped out of the magic garden?
The story of the census has other problems with it as well. To get the story happening as according to Luke, you would have to
- Go to the ancestral home as shown in Luke
- In order to fulfill a misinterpreted prophecy from Micah
- Done by torturing poor genealogies and creating an artificial need to travel to the location some guy supposedly lived thousands of years prior.
- Shut down the economy for weeks to months to have thousands of people travelling the roads causing delays as people inevitably deal with other people
- Coordinate with everyone to have a census taker in different towns for months to ensure everyone is counted
- Get a Census that is in no way accurate to how many people live in which city
- Throw out the results and take a census a second time to figure out who lives in what city.
Dr. McRay references Jerry Vardman in an attempt to reconcile problems with Herod dying in 4BCE while Quirnius wasn’t governor until 6CE. “[McRay:] He has found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, or what we call ‘micrographic’ letters. This Places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 B.C. until after the death of Herod.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 109). There are, however, problems with Jerry Vardman’s work.
First and foremost, Jerry did not submit his work to the scientific community for peer review, which leaves cross examination of his claims mostly uncontested. Because he did not submit his findings, nor bring forth any evidence for his findings, it seems more likely that his religious convictions as a Baptist influenced him to find results that are not there.
Some “micrographic letters” that Jerry “found” on the coin show the name “Jesus” very prominently. Unfortunately, the letter “J” was not added into the Greek or Latin alphabet until 1524 by an Italian man named Gian Giorgio Trissino who wanted to reform the Italian alphabet[1] (Trissino, Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana, 1524).
Jerry was known to have regarded the scriptures as infallible, and the well known problem of Herod’s death and Quirnius’s governorship must not have sat well with him. In addition, he has shown himself to act in an unscholarly and deceptive manner that involved criminal behaviour to try push through an expedition that could have jeopardized relationships with Israel and Jordan[2].
In conclusion on the census problem, the fact that Luke states the census happened during Herod’s reign (up to 4BCE) but while Quirnius was the governer (6BCE) is still a problem. Strobel ends this section without offering additional challenges to to Dr. McRay.
Puzzle 2: The existence of Nazareth
Strobel seems to be building a narrative that tells us that we can trust the gospels as being historically accurate because they had accurate geography. That is roughly the same as saying the Iliad is a historically accurate document because it mentions cities that used to exist or that Spider Man is accurate because New York exists.
Whether or not Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus is not particularly important. If it didn’t, it would merely be one more piece of evidence that the gospel writers were not as accurate as biblical scholars would like us to believe. Strobel accepts the word of Dr. McRay without question to show us that Nazareth exists as stated in the bible. That said, here are some opposing reasons, mostly from the new testament, to suspect Nazareth as depicted in the new testament is more fiction more than fact.
- Matthew, Luke, and John all refer to Nazareth as a city
- According to John, the city of Nazareth is well known (John 1:45-46)
- It’s well known enough that Matthew invents a prophecy about it (Matthew 2:22-23)
- Matthew 2:23 claims people from there are called “Nazarenes”
- This is based on a misunderstanding of the word Nazarite.
- “Prophecy Fulfillment Matthew” misunderstood a “prophecy” from Judges 13:5
- Archaeologists (such as Jerry Vardman) with a pro-Christian bent have not only interpreted findings in accordance with their beliefs, but have also planted evidence to “prove” their beliefs.
- Christian historians have a history of adding to the bible and older written works.
Based on the points above, concluding that “[McRay:] Nazareth as being a very small place” (Strobel, CFC, P. 112) is wrong. Clearly, Nazareth was supposed to have been a large city that was known well enough that people from the city were identified by a particular name.
Puzzle 3: Slaughter at Bethlehem
To start off, the gospel of Matthew is the only gospel to mention this slaughter. If this slaughter was such a big deal, you would expect to see mention of it in the other gospels as well, Luke in particular. Also, Matthew states that the slaughter was far more widespread than just Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16) as Strobel claims (Strobel, CFC, P. 113). Something of that magnitude would have attracted the eye of scholars including Josephus.
Drawing the conclusion that this event happened requires the apriori assumption that the gospels are accurate. Without trying to map a foregone conclusion onto history, the lack of references anywhere draws it’s own conclusion of this event never having happened.
Amusingly enough, Dr. McRay claims that there is no reference to this event because it wasn’t very important. He tries to support that view saying “[Dr. McRay:] Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth” (Strobel, CFC, P. 114). This comes a section after Dr. McRay argues that we should expect to see nothing Nazareth precisely because it was so small. If Nazareth was so small that we should expect to find nothing in the historical record of it, and Bethlehem was “no bigger”, then why would we expect to find anything related to Bethlehem in the historical record?
Finally, Strobel does not mention the fact that similar stories of slaughtering babies to stave off a prophecy exist in other religions as well. For example, the story of Krishna from Hindu mythology starts off with a baby massacre as well. In fact, examining the account of Krishna’s birth shows additional similarities as well.
- Both scare a king because he thinks the baby will remove him from power
- Once born, both kings start a massacre of babies in the land
- A messenger appears telling someone to flee with the baby
- Everyone rejoices at the birth
- People bring gifts to the baby
We see one additional piece common to religious fiction in Krishna’s story as well, the prison doors opening up for the person leaving. That sounds very similar to Paul’s miraculous escape from prison.
Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The only argument made in this section is that the dead sea scrolls show that scribes didn’t copy things accurately throughout the ages. Something that was missing from modern texts for the book of Isiah was found in the dead sea scrolls. Because Jesus references it in the gospels, Strobel and Dr. McRay draw the conclusion that archaeology has “[Strobel:] …finally unlock[ed] the significance of a statement in which Jesus boldly asserted nearly two thousand years ago…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 116).
Unfortunately for Strobel, this section does nothing to do with build the case for christ or lend any credibility to him. Just because the gospels mention something that we had missing from texts today does not mean there is any special significance that should be added to finding out that the reference did exist.
A far more likely explanation is that the writer of the gospel of “Prophecy Fulfillment” Matthew knew the scriptures to a certain degree. When he wrote his gospel, the copies of Isiah available to him still had that phrase in it. It is not unreasonable to think that Matthew read Isiah, found the reference, and inserted it to lend credibility to his story. Some time later, a scribe accidentally omitted a small phrase from Isiah, and that phrase was found in the dead sea scrolls because the scribes who wrote them did not make the error.
A Remarkably Accurate Source Book
Strobel sets up another straw man and compares the bible to the book or mormon as a book that has no archaeological evidence for it. This is problematic because the accepted authors of the gospels DID live closer to the events that they write about. They lived in the area that they wrote about, and they even traveled through the areas they wrote about. Of course the bible would have some archaeological evidence for it.
It would be far more surprising for the book or mormon to be shown as accurate. The book of mormon was written by a farm lad in the 1800’s who was separated by thousands of years and miles from the place it purports to document.
Citations
- Trissino, Gian Giorgio, Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana, 1524
Read about Gian on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian_Giorgio_Trissino - Wright, Ernest G, Letter to Dean William E. Hull about Jerry Vardman, 1972
View online: https://web.archive.org/web/20200626145822/http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2013/08/25/vardaman-6/