Such a mind is that of Richard Carrier.
Here he has a post concerned with a well-known problem, the mention Luke makes of a census:
1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. (Luke 2:1-2)
The problem being that this reference to Quirinius is anachronistic; the census when Quirinius was governor is known to have taken place in 6AD. There are various suggestions about solutions to this problem--frankly none very satisfying, but the problem, as I say, is well-known. It is not a "gotcha."
If you read Carrier's post you will see he characterizes this problem as "Matthew versus Luke." That is, he says Matthew places Jesus' birth at ~4BC and Luke around 6AD. That would indeed be a problem if it could be demonstrated.
That is where my exchange with Carrier begins. My first comment was:
You really are a dishonest piece of work. Or else just plain dumb.
Yes, convenient of you to couch the problem this way:
Haha! Matthew says one thing; OMG, Luke says something entirely different!
When in fact, Luke says exactly the same thing as Matthew. In Matthew we read:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king (Matt 2:1)
Luke write[s], in agreement with Matthew,
In the days of Herod, king of Judea (Luke 1:5)
Luke also writes, as you [Carrier] point out:
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-2)
And furthermore Luke also refers to the despised ca. 6AD census:
After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. (Acts 5:37)
Just in case this is too complicated for you, let me summarize. An honest person would not pit Matthew v. Luke. An honest person would have at least pointed out that Luke wrote:
1) The birth of Jesus was during the reign of Herod (consistent with Matthew.)
2) Luke also talks about the census of ~6AD in Acts.
3) Luke mysteriously talks about a census at the time of Christ’s birth
Why would an honest person do that? Because all the information from Luke paints a more complicated picture. Luke, like Matthew, had Jesus born in the time of Herod. Luke also mentions the hated ~6AD census. But Luke also puts a census at Jesus’ birth. Perhaps Luke is completely nuts and he refers to the same census twice—once placing it at its correct time and once placing it ~14 years earlier. Or maybe he was referring to two different events, at least in his mind. Who knows? It is still a problem, for which no satisfying solution is known, but it is not the trivial “Matthew says one thing Luke says another” problem that you stupidly portray. It is more nuanced than you explained. Or perhaps can handle.
Then you also (I can hardly believe it but why should I be surprised?) invoke the tiresome canard of playing “gotcha” with Christians with this problem of the early census and leaving them dumfounded. Why atheists, especially of the pseudo-intellectually variety, fantasize that they surprise us with their awesome biblical knowledge, is a great mystery. This problem is in the notes of any study bible of the kind most Christians own. It is discussed in Sunday schools and mentioned in sermons whenever these passages are discussed. We know the problem. You are not surprising us. Get over yourself.
Carrier responded with:
Heddle: Your argument makes no logical sense. Luke mentions the same census twice; how do you get out of that that he meant two different censuses? Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was. And Herod the Great was not the only king named Herod. Judea was ruled after Herod the Great’s death by Herod Archelaus, whom even Josephus designates a king. Luke does not tell us which Herod John the Baptist was born under. In fact, as he never mentions this Herod dying and being replaced by another before Quirinius arrives (whereas Matthew does), we should assume Luke means Archelaus. Luke also contradicts Matthew on numerous other points: e.g. the family of Jesus never goes to Egypt and even goes to Jerusalem every year in Luke; but they flee to Egypt and then never go to Judea at all until decades later in Matthew; Jesus’ family comes from Nazareth in Luke, but does not come from Nazareth in Matthew, they only settle there years later; etc. If we saw this in any other pair of histories, we would conclude they are contradicting each other and that one of them is surely wrong (if not both). But the contradiction as to the date is worst of all, because Luke places the birth in the 6 A.D. census, and Matthew places it before the 4 B.C. death of Herod the Great. Every attempt to argue Luke meant a different census is based on ludicrous arguments and embarrassingly incompetent historical claims, as I have extensively proved.
If you cannot think of anything new that I haven’t already refuted, please don’t waste people’s time here.
Well alllllrighty then. He has "extensively proved." He has "already refuted."
The debt the world owes to an intellect such as Carrier's--well if it weren't too silly to contemplate, we'd be tempted to thank god for a blessing of such incalculable worth!
And then I commented, which at the time I posted is still in moderation (the real purpose of this post is to preserve my second comment in case it never gets out of moderation) this:
heddle says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 13, 2012 at 10:41 am
Luke mentions the same census twice; how do you get out of that that he meant two different censuses?
I never said that. I said he mentions the census in a way that is a well-known problem, not sprung upon us by the enlightened Richard Carrier. I did not offer any solution to that problem, because I don’t have one. You are being dishonest again, claiming that I offered a discredited solution, when in fact the gist of my post was that you, with malice aforethought or plain ignorance, mischaracterized the situation as a trivial Matthew v. Luke problem.
Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was.
Oh my gosh. In Luke 1:39 Luke places Jesus in Mary’s womb at the same time John is in Elizabeth’s womb. So if John was born in Herod’s time, so was Jesus. Can you not put two and two together?
Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod the king, but that John the Baptist was. And Herod the Great was not the only king named Herod. Judea was ruled after Herod the Great’s death by Herod Archelaus, whom even Josephus designates a king. Luke does not tell us which Herod John the Baptist was born under.
Well if is not even Herod the great, then why did you make the feeble argument that Luke doesn’t say Jesus was born under Herod, but only that John was? That makes that point not just dumb (which it is, since they were born within months of one another) but also irrelevant.
But really, are you out of your mind? In v3:1 Luke mentions, at the time John the Baptist is about to start his adult ministry,
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis
Here Luke demonstrates the practice that when Herod is not “the” Herod, one must give specifics. Yet you claim Luke referred to Archelaus simply as “King Herod”—even though he was never awarded that title—without distinguishing him from Herod the Great. But why would he not refer to Herod Antipas simply as King Herod, especially when, given the other references, such as to Pilate, there is no chance of confusion? Why the specificity for one and not the other. Why the incorrect title, causing more confusion due to the temporal proximity of their reigns? That is your argument? Seriously?
So let me recap your “argument.”
1) Luke doesn’t claim that Jesus was born under Herod, but only that John the Baptist was—and we’ll ignore the fact that he also claims that they were in the womb at the same time.
2) But that doesn’t matter anyway, because Plain “King Herod” in Luke 1 actually means Herod Archelaus. Who was never officially king.
Is that a fair representation?
But the contradiction as to the date is worst of all, because Luke places the birth in the 6 A.D. census,
No he doesn’t, you are full of crap. He places it at the same time. Because your argument that “King Herod” in Luke 1:5 is Archelaus cannot be supported. A fair criticism, which you seem to be incapable of making, is that Luke also, inexplicably, refers to a census at the time of Jesus’ birth. But your claim that he places Jesus’ birth at 6 AD is asinine.
If you cannot think of anything new that I haven’t already refuted, please don’t waste people’s time here.
You haven’t refuted anything, except in your own mind.
His writing style is just awful. It's really painful to read.
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteI respect many of your posts, which are more rational than most on average, but this one is a loser, I'm afraid. Whatever Carrier's flaws, he has conducted a more detailed study of this exact issue than anything else I've ever seen. When one has done such a study, it is hard to say so without sounding arrogant. Your post is certainly no model of Christian scholarship and dialogue, by the way.
Re: John and Jesus being in the womb at the same time -- I just re-read the entire passage in the NRSV, and while I too learned they were in the womb at the same time in Sunday School, as far as I can tell, all the passage actually says is that Mary visited Elizabeth in Elizabeth's sixth month. I suppose that my amateur, "gestalt" sense of the text is that it is implying that John and Jesus were in the womb at the same time -- particularly because putting a 12-year gap between Mary's visit to Elizabeth and the birth of Jesus to the 12-years-later-still-a-virgin-Mary seems like a stretch, but this depends upon reading words like "and now" and "in those days" in a literalist way like they sound in English, and my general understanding is that the meaning of such words in the original language is often debatable, and that sometimes they are more or less literary throat-clearing.
But, anyway, it doesn't solve the problem for inerrancy -- if Jesus & John are birthed at about the same time, then either (a) the Herod reference in Luke 1 is to the original Herod, and John and Jesus were born in ~5 BC, in which case the Quirinius census reference in Luke 2 is wrong, or (b) the Herod reference is to the later Herod, and John and Jesus were born in ~6 AD, in which case Luke contradicts Matthew.
Either way inerrancy is flat-out doomed, which is an important point considering how many churches, careers, rhetoric, peoples' lives, political fights etc. rely upon it. Inerrancy ought to be very well-evidenced, without huge gaping empirical problems, if it is going to asserted to the world at large as a key fact for our worldviews, politics, theologies, etc.
Now, I think it is perfectly possible to remain a Christian, even a conservative Christian, and admit that someone made a mistake somewhere in the birth narratives. (If not Luke or Matthew then one of their sources, which after all probably went through 60+ years of oral transmission from the birth to the writing, if the accounts are true at all.*
But it is not possible to both maintain inerrancy and intellectual honesty at the same time, in the light of this evidence.
* (To me it looks most plausible that these birth accounts are stitched-together bits of stories/legends told about Jesus and John, and then as now it was hard to keep things like the different Herods straight as stories are told and re-told.)
Nick, you've missed the point. Entirely.
ReplyDeleteCarrier thinks he's finally done it. He thinks he's finally found the Biblical and historical evidence to prove Christianity and the Bible to be complete shams.
All this while not having come up with a single original idea or thought. He seems to think the points he's "discovered" have been just overlooked by millions of people over the past 2000 years.
That is the point.
Nick M,
ReplyDeleteNo, that is not all the passage says. In Luke 1:26-38 we are told of Jesus' coming birth. There is no indication that it will be years down the road, and some indication that the impregnation had already occurred. V36 tells us that Elizabeth has also conceived a son.
V39 indicates that Mary, soon after, went to visit Elizabeth. The baby (John) we are told, leapt in the womb. I have studied RC doctrine--even they do not teach that John's prenatal Joy was due to the Mother of God's proximity, but Jesus'. And Elizabeth says: "blessed is the fruit of your womb" the plain reading meaning that said womb was currently occupied.
You would have to do great exegetical gymnastics to conclude that the passage teaches anything other than John, in Elizabeth's womb, was overcome by the presence of Jesus, in Mary's
As for the inerrancy problem--you seem to have read my post so I am confused--I readily admitted there is a problem. I don't have a solution to Luke's reference to the census. That is only a minor irritation to me--there is a misconception that we have to have an explanation for everything or we must jettison inerrancy. That is not true. There has to be a critical mass of problems. A few (this is not the only one) don't bother me all that much. So it is possible, in my view, to admit that a handful of passages are troubling without sacrificing inerrancy. And keep searching for explanations for those few problem passages. I do not consider that intellectual dishonesty. It is of course your right to disagree.
There is a great deal of scholarship on this issue. I think you are way to generous (to say the least) to Carrier in suggesting that he is on the forefront. But to each his own.