Posted by: Nick Norelli | August 18, 2006

Denial is More than a River in Egypt

So I just got done talking to an Orthodox Jewish guy that I speak to regularly. I hesitate to call him a “friend” because I know how he feels about Gentiles in general and more specifically Christians. Nevertheless, we have had some interesting conversations in the past.

Having said that, I would define this as perhaps one of the most fruitless exchanges we have had to date. Let me lay the foundation for you before speaking about this particular conversation. A few weeks ago this guy made a claim to the effect that the New Testament was false and contradicted itself, blah, blah, blah… Same stuff I always hear from Jewish anti-missionaries. So of course in turn I replied that the NT was historically accurate and a reliable doctrine. I told him that if he held the Tanach (Hebrew scriptures) to the same standard that he held the NT to, then he would have to conclude the Tanach was false as well.

This sparked a lengthy email exchange where he made points like he knew the Tanach was true because of the eyewitness testimony of the 5 million+ Jews who were there. When I pointed out that no such testimony exists he claimed that it had been passed to him via tradition from his father, and his father before him, etc… So of course I stated that the NT is based on eyewitness testimony, Matthew, John, James, Peter, Jude and Paul all having been eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ, as well as Luke interviewing eyewitnesses and researching their claims along with traveling alongside Paul. Mark was a companion of Peter so he had direct access to an Apostolic eyewitness.

Well this was not good enough for him because there are people who contradict their testimonies and the testimonies themselves contradict each other. When I pointed out that there are people who contradict his “eyewitness” testimony and that his “eyewitness” testimony contradicts itself (via the Talmud) he simply wrote that off as false. In fact he went so far as to play the ad populum game. Because he allegedly had 5 million eyewitnesses, that trumps my 5 (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul *an error I pointed out in that there were more than 5 eyewitnesses who wrote*). I then pointed out that he really only had 1 eyewitness of the exodus and Sinai in Moses, maybe 2 if we include Joshua. He wrote that off as well.

Certainly he cannot claim eyewitness testimony for the creation, fall of Adam, flood of Noah, birth of Esau and Jacob, etc… seeing as how the nation of Israel that he claims as his 5 million eyewitnesses were not even in existence yet. But he had no problems with this.

Then came the claim that I could not use the textual accuracy and reliability of the NT as a proof that the NT is reliable and true because a text cannot verify itself, (now get this) EXCEPT in RARE CASES! Guess what one of these “rare cases” just happened to be? You got it… the Tanach! He then cites a verse from Leviticus 25 about a man receiving enough grain for three years if he asks in the Sabbatical year what they will eat in the 7th year. He claims that the Torah backs itself into a corner here and proves itself to be true because anyone who asks this question would have been provided for and if they were not then we know the Torah was lying. He then cites an example from the NT about having faith and moving mountains saying that there is no real verification in this because if a person doesn’t move a mountain he can always claim to have not had enough faith, therefore there is an “out” as he put it. The problem with this argument which I pointed out to him is that there IS an “out” to the Leviticus passage and that is the condidtion set forth in the verses preceding it (Lev. 25:17-19). Basically obedience was required for God to provide during the Sabbatical year. So if one asks the question and is not provided for than we can always say they were disobedient. Of course he rejected this as well.

Then there were the annoying claims that secular historians didn’t agree with the NT. I provided numerous sources that corroborated people and events from the NT. He dismissed these because there are other accounts that disagree with them. I pointed out that there is no secular history to corroborate anything that Moses wrote, none! He dismissed this and said he had eyewitness testimony.

He cited ridiculous mythical claims about Jesus being the son of a Roman soldier and when pointed to Jewish sources that said this was not true he dismissed them as being written by people who didn’t know about Judaism. I directed him to the writings of Dr. Michael Brown in his 3 (soon to be 5) volume work, “Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus.” He claims to own all three but only had read the first 81 pages of the first book before deciding that Dr. Brown was an “idiot” who “knew nothing about Judaism.” This is what was a main topic of conversation today although he kept attempting to change the subject.

Anyway, today he claimed that Dr. Brown was an idiot who knew nothing about Judaism. I pointed out that this is demonstrably false seeing that Dr. Brown is a credentialed scholar who holds a PhD from New York University in Near Eastern Languages and Semitics. He is recognized by both his peers and anti-missionaries as a scholar. He is a Jew by birth and well versed in the Rabbinic literature of Orthodox Judaism. This was dismissed and he kept incessantly asking which orthodox rabbi accredited Dr. Brown. I explained to him that scholarship is not determined by orthodox rabbis, but rather by credentialed institutions. His claim was that to be a scholar of Judaism you had to be accredited by a rabbi and those guys at NYU probably didn’t know enough about Judaism to accredit him either. So now you see the mentality I was dealing with. To draw an analogy, asking an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi to accredit (and by the way as far as scholarship goes they have no right in and of themselves to give such accredidation) a Messianic Jewish believer is like asking an atheistic science journal to publish an article written by a scientist who holds to a literal 6 day creation. It would never happen! I wonder if he would object if I claimed that unless and Islamic Imam accredited Rabbi Moses Maimonides then he was no scholar of Judaism. Of course he would, but we see the double standard that is being applied here.

He kept insisting that Dr. Brown’s arguments were stupid and easily diffused, yet when asked to refute them he could not. In fact he showed no knowledge of any of Dr. Brown’s arguments to even hold an opinion about them. He kept insisting that no orthodox rabbi would call Dr. Brown a scholar. I then listed 4 who not only will, but have in the past done so, those being: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Rabbi Tovia Singer, Rabbi Dr. David Blumofe, and finally Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Schochet. All four men have debated Dr. Brown in the past and although they disagree with him, they never questioned his credentials. So then because he saw that he was wrong he demanded the locations of these rabbis so he could contact them. Of course I don’t know the men personally nor do I have any clue as to where they live. Such a request is ridiculous, but it was made in an attempt to say that if I couldn’t provide this info then these men were not real rabbis. Once again, you see the mentality I was dealing with.

The red herrings started and he began asking me what the first commandment in the Bible is claiming that any 6 year Jewish child knows this. I pointed out that it was irrelevant and a red herring so I didn’t answer. He then says I don’t have enough knowledge about Judaism to know anything about it or challenge him on any issue. Once again ridiculous and illogical. I then asked him if he felt he knew enough about Christianity to challenge me and his reply was that he didn’t have to know about Christianity to know that Jesus was a false prophet and not the Messiah. Once again we see the double standard in action…

This is just a small sampling of the illogical and irrational arguments that I had to deal with. There is so much more that I can’t cram into a little blog, but I would love to address it all. The bottom line is this… If the Tanach and Talmud were held to the same standard as the NT was then they would be rejected by Jewish anti-missionaries as well.

To be continued…

Posted in Apologetics, New Testament, Old Testament

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Repulsive! »

Responses

I am an Orthodox Jew and the author of a new book entitled: “Twenty-Six Reasons Why Jews Don’t Believe In Jesus.” It is available at http://www.26reasons.com.

Based upon your blog, I offer my REASON SEVENTEEN for you review:

THE EPISTLES AND THE GOSPELS WERE NOT WRITTEN BY ACTUAL WITNESSES TO THE EVENTS THEY DESCRIBED

INTRODUCTION: The first century Epistles do not describe an historical Jesus and therefore did not purport to witness historical events. The second century Gospels purport to witness historical events, but their putative authors could not have been alive in the second century when they were written. Therefore, the Gospels lack credibility as historical accounts.

THE FIRST CENTURY EPISTLES WERE NOT AWARE OF JESUS’ EARTHLY HISTORY: The Epistles are letters written to the early churches and Christian communities carrying the pen names of Paul, James, Peter and others. The Epistles were the earliest Christian documents, which were written in the first century approximately 20 to 70 years after the death of Jesus, which allegedly occurred between 28-36 C.E. The Epistles never mention a Gospel, which strongly implies that the Gospels did not exist until after the Epistles were written. Although written much closer to the alleged lifetime of Jesus than the Gospels, the Epistles use a divine Jesus (the christ) as their starting point and virtually never identify this “christ” as an historical person.

The Epistles simply do not seem to be aware of a human Jesus. The writers of the Epistles:

1. begin with the “divine christ” but do not associate this being with any man in the recent past,
2. did not mention any of Jesus’ sayings, his parables, or any details about his history,
3. never mention his alleged “miracles,”
4. mentioned the “last supper” story, but it is never placed in an historical, earthly setting,
5. made references to the death and rising of “the christ,” but they are not necessarily references to physical events on earth or in history,
6. never mention the crucifixion at Calvary,
7. never mention the empty tomb, nor Jesus’ allegedly rising from his tomb near Jerusalem,
8. apparently knew nothing about Jesus’ recent career on earth.

The Epistles refer to a supernatural being that died and was resurrected “according to the scriptures,” who was “known” only through visions by apostles. The phrase, “according to the scriptures” seems to mean based on stories in the Jewish Bible, not based on historical events. Paul, the earliest writer of a canonized text and the purported author of most of the Epistles, seemed to regard Jesus as a mythical divine figure like the pagan savior gods. The prior pagan salvation cults each had their own savior god/man who was killed and resurrected from death in the world of myth. Paul begins with the “christ” in his Epistles, not with an historical Jesus. His “christ” appears to be part of the myth of the “son” in the supernatural realm.

THE SECOND CENTURY GOSPELS DO NOT PRESENT A CREDIBLE HISTORY OF JESUS: The Gospels of Mark, Mathew, and Luke are called “synoptic” Gospels because they speak with one voice. The Gospel of John is dissimilar from the synoptic Gospels in many significant respects including the order of historical events in Jesus’ life. Their most serious difference concerns the date of Jesus’ crucifixion. John’s Gospel reports that the “last supper” and Jesus’ crucifixion occurred on the preparation day, the day before Passover, which is the fourteenth day of the Jewish month of Nissan. As a result, there is no Passover Seder in John’s version of events. The three synoptic Gospels claim that the “last supper” was the Passover Seder itself and that Jesus was crucified on the first day of Passover, which is the fifteenth day of Nissan. This monumental discrepancy cannot be reconciled.

In addition, John’s Gospel reported that Jesus recruited his first disciples from among John the Baptist’s disciples outside Jerusalem, contradicting the synoptic Gospels, which reported that he recruited his first disciples while they were fishing in the Galilee, in the north of Israel. John’s Jesus openly proclaimed his mission from the beginning of his career, directly contradicting Mark’s Jesus, who often told his disciples not to tell anyone about his mission.

Although Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the putative authors of their respective Gospels, only Matthew and John are mentioned as disciples and witnesses to events in the life of Jesus. Mark and Luke did not claim to be eyewitnesses in their respective Gospels nor were they described as Jesus’ disciples. Rather, they arrived on the scene after Jesus had been killed. Mark was Peter’s disciple and Luke was Paul’s disciple. Strangely, even though Mark did not claim to be a disciple or a witness to events in Jesus life, the Gospels of Mark (and John) appear to be the only independent Gospel accounts of the story of Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark was the first synoptic Gospel. This is demonstrated by the fact that Matthew copied about 90% of the Gospel of Mark (600 out of 660 verses) and Luke copied over 50% of the Gospel of Mark. If Matthew really was a disciple of Jesus and an independent witness to events, he would not have needed to copy Mark and rely so completely on his version of events. It is therefore highly unlikely that Matthew was really Jesus’ disciple or the author of the Gospel of Matthew. This is also implied from a verse in Matthew’s Gospel wherein the author of Matthew remarked, “he [Jesus] saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom.” If Matthew really wrote the Gospel that bears his name, linguistically Matthew should have said, “he [Jesus] saw me sitting at the receipt of custom.” Since Mark and Luke were not disciples or witnesses to events during Jesus’ lifetime, and the author of Matthew probably was not a disciple and clearly did not write an independent account, only John could really have been an actual witness. Significantly, John’s Gospel contains material not found in Mark and contradicts events reported in Matthew and Luke. But John has none of the infancy, childhood or other “historical” material found only in Matthew and Luke. These problems imply that none of the Gospels are really accounts by credible witnesses to actual events.

Further, although Matthew and Luke obviously relied on Mark’s Gospel account, whenever they reported “historical” material not found in Mark (such as Jesus’ birth and infancy narratives, Jesus’ genealogy, the story of his betrayal by Judas, and the resurrection accounts) they tell contradictory stories. This raises serious problems. If Matthew and Luke relied upon Mark’s Gospel to know what happened because they were not independent witnesses, why did they contradict each other and make alterations and additions to Mark’s Jesus story, including the wording of Jesus’ sayings?

Christian scholars believe that Jesus died between 28 C.E. and 36 C.E. Jesus could not have died later than 36 C.E. because the historian Philo reported that 36 C.E. was the year that Roman procurator (Governor) Pontius Pilate (who sentenced Jesus to death) was removed from office by Rome for excessive cruelty against the Jews. Most New Testament scholars believe that the Gospels existed in some form in the late first century. This seems highly unlikely, since the first century Epistles never refer to them. Further, according to historian Earl Doherty, the first Christian reference to a written Gospel seems to have been by a Christian Bishop named Papias in Asia Minor who referred to the Gospel of Mark around 125 C.E. It was not until the Christian Irenauus of Lyons published Against Heresies around 175 C.E., (at least 139 years after Jesus died) that a Christian writer mentioned all four Gospels by name. This strongly implies that the Gospels did not exist in the first century during the lifetime of the disciples and the apostles because if they existed earlier in any form they would have been referred to constantly because of their importance. Mark, Luke, Matthew and John could not have been the authors of the Gospels that bear their names because they could not have been alive when the Gospels were written. If Mark was thirty years old in 36 C.E., he would have been 119 years old in 125 C.E. If the other disciples and apostles were thirty years old in 36 C.E. they would have been 169 years old in 175 C.E. Therefore, unknown individuals who were not disciples, apostles, or witness to events described, wrote the Gospels.

THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY ALTERED AND CORRECTED: Many scholars believe that the Gospels were originally anonymous works written in Greek, not the language of the Jews, not originally attributed to any particular author and further altered and added to over time. Therefore, there is no way of knowing or retrieving the original text. Christians and non-Christians from the earliest times have known about problems of authenticity with the Christian canon. For example, the pagan satirist Celsus, writing in the latter half of the second century, complained:

“Christians altered the original text three or four times, or even more, with the intention of thus being able to destroy the arguments of their critics.”

PERVERSE AUDACITY: The Christian theologian Origen, writing in the third century, admitted:

“It is an obvious fact today that there is much diversity among the [Gospel] manuscripts, due either to the carelessness of the scribes, or the perverse audacity of some people in correcting the text, or again to the fact that there are those who add or delete as they please, setting themselves up as correctors.”

PIOUS FRAUDS AND FABULOUS WONDERS: According to Ecclesiastical History:

“Not long after [Jesus’] ascension into heaven [after his crucifixion], several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions perhaps were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all; productions appeared which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, [such] as the writings of the holy apostles.”

THE GOSPELS WERE NOT WRITTEN BY JESUS’ APOSTLES: Christian clergymen were also well aware of this problem in the nineteen-century:

“It is certain that the New Testament was not written by [Jesus] himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the name of the apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their companions, asserting that what they had written themselves was written according to these persons to whom they ascribed it.”

WHICH VERSION OF THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE IS AUTHORITATIVE? There is a myriad of competing versions of the Christian Bible and there is no way of determining which version, if any, is the authoritative “word of God.” In 1979 a modern Christian apologist, Josh McDowel, published a famous book in defense of Christianity called Evidence That Demands a Verdict, which states:

“Although he was dealing with fewer manuscripts [of the Christian Bible] than we have today, Philip Shaff in Comparison to the Greek Testament and the English Version concluded that only 400 of the 150,000 variant readings [of the Christian Bible] caused doubt about the textual meaning, and only 50 of these were of great significance.”

SIGNIFICANT DOUBT: “Only” 50 variants of the Christian Bible are of “great significance.” The Christian Bible purports to be a Divine communication from God to man. It instructs about proper theology and proper conduct, yet it contains 50 instances where there is major doubt as to the meaning of the text. By analogy, how would the reader react if told that different versions of a medical textbook used to train their doctor had “only” 50 instances of doubt about textual meaning of “great significance” concerning the proper diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions? The fact that there are 400 variant readings of the Christian Bible causing doubt about textual meaning of which “only” 50 are of “great significance” should be of great significance to Jewish seekers of truth.

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE TORAH: The first five books of the Jewish Bible are called the Torah, which contains Jewish law and theology. According to Jewish tradition, the Torah was dictated from God to Moses. The other books in the Jewish Bible were inspired (not dictated) by God. In sharp contrast to the Christian Bible, there are no “versions” of the Torah. Jewish law imposes the death penalty upon a scribe who intentionally changes a single letter of the Torah. The Torah is publicly read in the synagogue three days each week. If a single letter of the text is discovered by the reader to be damaged or illegible, the scroll is immediately closed and may not be used again until the letter is repaired. After the Jewish State was re-established in 1948 after over 2000 years of Jewish exile, thousands of Torah scrolls were brought back to Israel from all over the world. There were no textual differences in the scrolls, with the exception of several scrolls from the isolated Jewish community of Yemen. They had one single letter difference per scroll, which had no effect on textual meaning. These single letters were immediately corrected. This demonstrates the profound credibility of the Jewish Torah transmission process over 3200 years compared to the deplorable record of the Christian canon.

CONCLUSION: It is not possible to determine the true authors of the Christian Bible. The disciples and apostles could not have been the authors, because they were not alive when the text was written in the second century. There are thousands of versions of the Christian Bible. The writers and translators continually altered and corrected the text, using “perverse audacity” in making changes. Four hundred of these versions create doubt as to textual meaning. Of these, fifty are of great significance. The credibility of the Torah is unimpeachable.

By: asher on September 26, 2006
at 5:06 am

This type of response (especially in the conclusion) represents the point of my post well. The reliability of the New Testament is far superior to that of any part of the Old Testament (which I believe to be just as much the Word of God) including the Torah. No credible scholar would suggest otherwise.

A large portion of your polemic seeks to undermine the credibility of the NT based on dating the writings to the 2nd century–this is simply not the case. Dr. Greg Neal gives a representative list of scholars and their dates for the NT books here: http://www.errantskeptics.org/DatingNT.htm and you will find that aside from one or two of these scholars (one of which is a hyper-skeptic who is not a NT scholar but rather a scholar of the German language) no one dates any of the books in any part of the second century.

One wonders why you would hold the New Testament in contempt for having many versions when the Tanakh can be charged with the same thing.

We have the Masoretic Hebrew which didn’t come along until the at the earliest the 7th century A.D. (and of which we have no manuscript predating the 10th century) — Then there are the Aramaic Targumim which include Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, and others. There is also the Old Syriac versions of the Old Testament in addition to the Samaritan Pentateuch. Let’s not forget the Greek versions of the Hebrew Scriptures which include the Septuagint as well as the rival versions created by Symmachus, Theodotian, and Aquila. What about the various Jewish translations of the Tanakh into English such as the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917 Tanach or their updated version the NJPSV? How about the Stone Edition Tanach (or Chumash) produced by Mesorah Publishers? How about the Judaica Press Complete Tanach with Rashi available online at Chabad.org?

The list goes on and on…

As far as the textual integrity of the NT is concerned, it is unrivaled by any document of antiquity. I recommend the following sources (and trust me, there are many more stating the same thing):

Komoszewski, J. Ed, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace. Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2006).

Wallace, Daniel B. “The Gospel According to Bart: A Review of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed the Bible and Why” (Bible.org, 2006). (Online here: http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4000)

Draper, Charles W. “Textual Criticism, New Testament” in Holman illustrated Bible Dictionary. Chad Brand, Charles Draper, and Archie England, eds. (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible, 2003).

Bruce, F.F. The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003). (Online here: http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm)

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 2nd rev. ed. Trans. Erroll F. Rhodes.(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Kenyon, Frederick G., Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, 5th ed. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958).

Sitterly, Charles Fremont. “Text and Manuscripts of the New Testament” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. James Orr, ed. (E-Sword Bible Software, 1915). (Online here: http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T8698)

Warfield, B.B., An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 5th ed. (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1898).

I have only addressed your conclusion here because a refutation of the entire post would require more than I’m willing to devote to a response section of this BLOG, but I will be writing something in the future to be ‘published’ on my web site.

Be well.

By: nick70 on June 4, 2007
at 2:10 am

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