CADRE Comments

See here for Part 1 of this Round, where I discuss some principles of legendary accretion as a preparation for analyzing whether the Iscariot material shows blatantly clear signs of unhistorical legendary development in a procession from GosMark to GosJohn (through GosMatt, GosLuke and Acts in sequence.) In this part, I'll be looking at the Iscariot textual data from the first two texts in that list. GosMark: The chief priests and scribes want to kill Jesus, but are afraid to move against Him due to the crowds whom they worry might riot at Passover if they try. Iscariot at some point (possibly but not necessarily after the anointing of Jesus by the woman in the house of Simon the leper--the grammar isn’t clear) goes to the chief priests in order to give Jesus up to them. They’re glad to hear this, and promise to give him money. Judas begins seeking how to betray Him at an opportune time. Judas is present at the Last Supper, where Jesus knows that one (or the one) of the Twelve wh...

In effect, Bishop Spong’s strategy so far has been, first, to appeal to a set of evidence that when examined with even moderate closeness runs totally against the thrust of his position; and then, second, to launch an increasingly speculative set of arguments from silence as positive evidence for his case. But, for what it’s worth, in hindsight I think I can fairly say that the tail end of his second round (already covered) and the beginning of his third round of evidence and argumentation, are the high points of his attempt. Relative to the rest of his attempt. One of the most popular sceptical theories of Gospel composition involves the folk anthropological phenomenon known as legendary accretion. This is a process of directed evolution (mixed with some accidental mutation, so to speak) where the shape and content of an original event is changed by people during numerous retellings for any of many various reasons. A common example would be someone telling a story as accurately as ...

In their defense of the historical reliability of the Gospel traditions evangelical scholars often appeal to the controlling influence of the eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry: the twelve apostles, other followers of Jesus such as the Seventy, the women who ministered to him, who were present at his crucifixion and who discovered the empty tomb, sympathizers among the Jewish (such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea) and Roman (the centurion whose servant Jesus healed) authorities, Simon of Cyrene and many others. The argument is that these witnesses would not have allowed false rumors and legends to become embedded within the traditions, and they ensured that these traditions were handed down accurately in missionary, catechetical and liturgical contexts. To many skeptics this argument seems unconvincing. Leaving aside the question of whether the eyewitnesses themselves were involved in fabricating stories about Jesus, how could they possibly quelch all false rumors about Jesus whe...