Tag Archives: legend

How Is Ancient Myth-Making Tested? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 1 we introduced A. N. Sherwin-White’s analysis of myth-making in the ancient near east in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. Sherwin-White uses the Greek historian Herotodus to test the tempo of myth-making. He concludes:

Herodotus enables us to test the tempo of myth-making, and the tests suggest that even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of the oral tradition.

So, what is his evidence?

A revealing example is provided by the story of the murder of the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus at the hands of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who became the pattern of all tyrannicides. The true story was that they assassinated Hipparchus in 514 B.C., but the tyranny lasted another four years before the establishment of the Athenian democracy. Popular opinion created a myth to the effect that Harmodius and Aristogeiton destroyed the tyranny and freed Athens. This was current in the mid-fifth century.

The assassination happened in 514 B.C., but by about 450 B.C. there was a story going around that the assassination occurred in 514 B.C. and the tyranny ended in 514 B.C. The second part of the story was false, as the tyranny did not end for four more years. Sherwin-White continues:

Yet Herodotus, writing at that time, and generally taking the popular view of the establishment of the democracy, gives the true version and not the myth about the death of Hipparchus. A generation later the more critical Thucydides was able to uncover a detailed account of exactly what happened on the fatal day in 514 B.C. It would have been natural and easy for Herodotus to give the mythical version. He does not do so because he had a particular interest in a greater figure than Harmodius or Aristogeiton, that is, Cleisthenes, the central person in the establishment of the democracy.

What are we to make of Herodotus and Thucydides accurate re-telling of the events of 514 B.C.?

All this suggests that, however strong the myth-forming tendency, the falsification does not automatically and absolutely prevail even with a writer like Herodotus, who was naturally predisposed in favour of certain political myths, and whose ethical and literary interests were stronger than his critical faculty. The Thucydidean version is a salutary warning that even a century after a major event it is possible in a relatively small or closed community for a determined inquirer to establish a remarkably detailed account of a major event, by inquiry within the inner circle of the descendants of those concerned with the event itself.

How can we relate this to the Gospel authors?

Not that one imagines that the authors of the Gospels set to work precisely like either Herodotus or Thucydides. But it can be maintained that those who had a passionate interest in the story of Christ, even if their interest in events was parabolical and didactic rather than historical, would not be led by that very fact to pervert and utterly destroy the historical kernel of their material. It can also be suggested that it would be no harder for the Disciples and their immediate successors to uncover detailed narratives of the actions and sayings of Christ within their closed community, than it was for Herodotus and Thucydides to establish the story of the great events of 520-480 B.C.

Notice that Sherwin-White’s conclusion is extremely cautious. He is not saying that it can be shown that every event recorded in the Gospels can be historically corroborated. He is saying, however, that the authors of the Gospels can reasonably be expected to get the historical kernels of Jesus’s life correct.

In my view, since the resurrection is reported in all the Gospels, as well as other books in the New Testament, it is quite fair to say that the resurrection is part of the historical kernel that would not be distorted. If the resurrection is not part of the historical kernel, then nothing is. Therefore, to say that the resurrection narratives are mythical flies directly in the face of Sherwin-White’s analysis.

How Is Ancient Myth-Making Tested? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

The stories about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, as reported in the 27 New Testament documents, were all written down within 70 years of Jesus’s death. In fact, most of the documents were written within 50 years of his death. Given that average life expectancy in first century Palestine was around 30 years, this means that, conservatively, most of these documents were written within two generations of Jesus’s death.

Many skeptics of Christianity claim that even 50 years is enough time for myths and legends to completely obscure the central facts around the life of Jesus. Skepticism runs the gamut from “Jesus never existed” to “we know only a few trivial facts about Jesus and nothing more.”

Can we test the rate of myth-making in the ancient near east? Maybe we can. The famous historian A. N. Sherwin-White addressed the issue of whether the central facts around a historical event could be obscured by myth-making in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. Sherwin-White identifies the work of ancient Greek historian Herodotus as a means to test myth-making. Why Herotodus? Sherwin-White explains:

In his history, written in mid-fifth century B.C., we have a fund of comparable material in the tales of the period of the Persian Wars and the preceding generation. These are retold by Herodotus from forty to seventy years later, after they had been remodeled by at least one generation of oral transmission.

Is if fair to compare Herotodus to the Gospel writers?

The parallel with the authors of the Gospels is by no means so far-fetched as it might seem. Both regard their material with enthusiasm rather than detached criticism. Both are the first to produce a written narrative of great events which they regard as a mighty saga, national or ecclesiastical and esoterical as the case may be. For both their story is the vehicle of a moral or a religious idea which shapes the narrative.

Can modern historians extract accurate historical facts from Herotodus?

The material of Herodotus presents no intractable difficulty to a critical historian. The material has not been transformed out of all recognition under the influence of moral and patriotic fervour, in a period of time as long, if not longer, than can be allowed for the gestation of the form-myths of the synoptic gospels.

How, then, can we use Herotodus to test the tempo of myth-making? We’ll cover that in part 2.

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 3

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In the previous post, we started arguing for early dates for several NT books, but we didn’t finish the discussion.  So this post picks up where we left off!

It is generally agreed upon by scholars that the gospel of Luke was written before the book of Acts.  Dr. Luke wrote both of them and most historians believe that Acts was the sequel to Luke’s gospel (read the beginnings of Luke and Acts to see this).  If this is true, then the gospel of Luke was written before A.D. 62, just as Acts was, but probably a couple years earlier.

Many scholars believe that the gospel of Mark was written before the gospel of Luke because Luke seems to use the gospel of Mark as a source.  This fact would then place Mark even earlier, say, in the mid-50’s.  Keep in mind that both of these gospels record the miraculous life, and more importantly, the resurrection of Jesus.  These events are recorded as facts.

There’s more!  Not a single book in the NT mentions the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.  If, indeed, many of the books of the NT were written after A.D. 70 (as some liberal scholars claim), that would mean that nobody thought the destruction of the temple was important!  How could this be?  The temple was the single most important place in all Judaism.

When Jerusalem was sacked and the temple demolished, the Jews lost the geographical center of their religion.  Tens of thousands of Jews died in the war.  The books of the NT often refer to the temple and the on-going worship of God there (e.g., Heb. 5:1-3, Rev. 11:1-2), so it seems incredible that nobody would mention its demise, yet not one person does.

Can you imagine someone writing about the people of New York City and never mentioning the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?  Ridiculous, right?  The best explanation for the events of A.D. 70 never being mentioned in the NT is that most, if not all, of the NT was written prior to A.D. 70.

We now have evidence arguing powerfully for early dates for Mark, Luke, and Acts (before A.D. 62) and early dates for most, if not all the NT (before A.D. 70).  Remember the time it takes for legendary development: it takes more than 2 generations.  We aren’t even one generation removed from the events, so the possibility of legend creeping in is virtually zero.

Hang on, though.  There are parts of the NT that we can date even earlier.  One of the most interesting passages in the NT is 1 Cor. 15:3-7.  First, we should note that the First Corinthians letter is dated by most scholars to A.D. 55 or 56.  Now, in the verses mentioned above, scholars have noted some peculiarities that indicate Paul is repeating an oral creed about the resurrection of Jesus that had existed for some time.

In fact, many believe that Paul received the information in this creed from James and Peter in Jerusalem around A.D. 36-38 (Gal. 1:18-19).  This would mean that we have information about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus within just a few years of the events themselves.  Even scholars who are unfriendly to Christianity admit this could be true.  If so, there is no chance that this creed could be legendary.

Let’s sum all of these facts up.  Early dates are important to establishing the historical truth of a document.  If we can establish that the documents were written before 2 generations had passed, there is very little chance of legend or myth sneaking in.  The historical books contained in the NT more than meet this criterion.

We have good reason to believe that Mark, Luke, and Acts were written prior to A.D. 62, well within one generation; we have good reason to believe that First Corinthians contains an oral creed that dates to a few years after Jesus’ death; and we have good reason to believe that most, if not all, the NT was written prior to A.D. 70.

Even if we grant that some of the books of the NT were not written until the late 1st century, it is still too early for legend to corrupt the core facts.  Now that we know the documents of the NT are early, we need to ask whether the writers of the documents are trustworthy and reliable.  We will deal with that in the next post.

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In two previous posts, Darrell argued that the Greek New Testament (NT) that we have today is almost identical to the twenty-seven books that were originally written.  These two posts can be found here and here.  In this post and following posts, I want to establish an answer to the obvious next question.  If the NT we have today is almost identical to the one originally written, that’s nice, but how do we know that what was written originally wasn’t a bunch of lies?

In other words, did the NT authors record fact or fiction?  Were they trying to record real history or were they making up a story to convince people to follow them?  Maybe what was written was so far removed from the real events that myth and legend overtook the truth.  In order to get an answer to this question, we will use some of the same criteria that historians employ to determine whether a document is reliable – whether the authors can be trusted.

The first thing we want to know about a historical document is how close to the events it was written.  The NT authors were primarily writing about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, who died around the year A.D. 33 (this fact is well-attested by ancient non-Christian historians).  If we are to trust the accounts written about his life, then the closer the documents are to A.D. 33, the better we can trust them.

So dating the original NT books is extremely important.  Note that we are talking about dating the original writings, not the manuscript copies that exist today.  Even though we don’t have the originals, we can still use historical analysis to deduce roughly when they were written.

One additional reason that dating the books is important is due to the nature of legendary development.  We’re all probably familiar with the way legends can develop about an event, given enough time.  In fact, history is full of strange and outrageous stories of Jesus or the apostles doing bizarre things (e.g., Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and having a child).  The one thing these legends have in common is that they developed many generations and often hundreds of years removed from the time Jesus and the apostles lived.

For clarification, we are not talking about the development of lies or fabrications about an historical event, but the development of legend, which is defined as the outgrowth of a period of oral transmission of a tradition until the original facts have been lost.

In fact, historians have shown that it takes a minimum of three generations for legend to substantially corrupt core historical facts about an event.  Usually, more than 3 generations are required, but there are no examples of legend significantly crowding out truth in 1 or 2 generations.

Why is this?  As long as the eyewitnesses of an event are still alive, or their children, they will correct any legend that taints the true story.  When the eyewitnesses and their children start to die, there are fewer people left to correct falsehood, so legend can creep in.  This fact about history will prove useful in assessing the NT.

Next post, we will continue looking at this important question.