A Response to Bill OāReillyās Book āKilling Jesusā ā Part 1 ā Program 2
| October 23, 2013 |
By: Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Darrell Bock; ©2013 |
Why did the Romans crucify Jesus? Of what did Pilate judge him to be guilty? Why do historians believe the facts show Jesus really claimed to be the Son of God? |
Did Jesus Claim to Be the Son of God?
- Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. Weāve got a great one for you today. Weāre talking about Bill OāReillyās new book, Killing Jesus. What do you think about it? Weāve got two of the leading New Testament scholars in the world here today that are going to talk about this topic. And Bill OāReilly himself recommends that we should read their books. And so weāre going to listen to the folks that he thinks are his advisors.
- And the question weāre going to look at is: Do scholars think that when Jesus lived, He Himself claimed to be the unique Son of God? Bill OāReilly says straight out, yes. He says, āJesus claimed to be the Son of God from the time He was 12; claimed to be the promised Messiah; also the Son of Man whoāll sit at the right hand of God and come riding in the clouds of glory, who will judge the whole world.ā Alright, what do you make of these statements?
- Dr. Darrell Bock: Well, the statements are important. They also are actually few and far between in the Gospels. They just appear here and there like little cameo appearances. Far more important in understanding who Jesus is are the types of things that Jesus does in the midst of some of the things that He says. So there are a wide variety of things. For example, He claims authority over the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the day that God is responsible for. He claims the right to forgive sins. Weāre going to come back to this, because this is a very important claim. He claims the idea of being able to cleanse the temple. He works with holy space. He claims to be able and shows that He can calm the wind and the waves, so much so that the disciples at the end can say, āWho can command the winds and the waves and they obey Him?ā Itās a good question.
- Ankerberg: And I like that passage, because if we had been standing there in the boat when the waves are coming ināand I see Hawaii Five-OāI see those waves coming in. And the guys are saying, āWhereās Jesus?ā Heās sacked out at the back here, and they say, āWeāre going down. Tell Him to grab a bucket. Letās get going!ā
- Bock: Yeah, āDonāt You care?ā
- Ankerberg: Yeah. But what He does is, after He says, you know, āPeace, be still,ā you know, Peter said, āHey, come on. Letās forget that. Letās get a bucket.ā But when it happens and when the wind stops and when the waves start calming down and they lick up against the boat, if we had been standing there in the boat with those guys and had seen that, I think we would have said the same thing thatās recorded about those guys. You know, Peter, or whoever said it, says, āWho is this guy?ā
- Bock: Yeah, and I think that as it happened or afterwards, they probably would have said, āThat was pretty impressive,ā you know. So youāve got this array of things that Jesus is doing. And His actions really show who He is. When John the Baptist asks, āAre You the One to come or should we expect another?ā and Iād say John the Baptist didnāt watch enough television. If he had asked that question properly he would have said, āAre You the One to come or should we expect another? Yes or no. Will You help me out here by giving me a simple answer?ā Instead Jesus used the open-ended answer and He says, āGo and tell John what you see and hear.ā And so, you know, lepers are cleansed and the lame walk; the blind see, you know. Weāre getting miracles that we donāt even get in the Old Testament. Weāre using passages out of Isaiah that say when the time of salvation comes this is what Iām going to be doing. And so Jesus is the One who does them. And so what He shows tells you who He is.
- Ankerberg: Letās take another one, and that is this story in an early account, Mark, which all the scholars say is probably the first one that was written. So you have an early account. And in that early account, in chapter 2 we find one of these stories, one of these actions of Jesus. He comes to Capernaum, comes into a house. He starts to teach. The religious leaders are there. The place is jammed out. Four guys come, bringing a paralytic on a bed. They get there. All the tickets are sold out.
- Bock: Yeah.
- Ankerberg: And they canāt get in.
- Bock: No way weāre getting in here.
- Ankerberg: Yeah.
- Bock: So just imagine it. I mean, this is one of the most visual events I think in the Scripture, and so weāve got visualize whatās going on. Youāre sitting in there listening to Jesus; the next thing you hear (wumpa, wumpa, wumpa). The next thing you see are snowflakes, only snowflakes of dirt, coming down on your head. The next thing that you see is the paralytic being lowered down (squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak). Plunk! Now, I know there werenāt hydraulic lifts in the first century, but ropes donāt make sound, so give me a break. I want you to visualize this.
- And heās sitting there in front of Jesus; heās come to be healed, and Jesus says to him, āYour sins are forgiven.ā Now, this is not in the text, but itās important. If youāre the paralytic sitting there in front of Jesus, and Jesus says, āYour sins are forgiven,ā what are you thinking? Well, youāre sitting there saying, āThatās not why I crashed this party.ā But then Jesus is trying to make a point; because you cannot see sins being forgiven. I donāt care how you think about it, I canāt show you that sins have been forgiven. I mean, just imagine that. āOh, bye, sin. I hope you had a good time. Hope you stay away a very long time. Hope I never see you again.ā You donāt see it. But you can see a paralytic walk, be healed.
- And so Jesus says, āWhatās easier: to say your sins are forgiven? Or to say take up your mat and walk?ā And so He shows something that you cannot see by something that you can see. When He says take up that mat and walk, itās show time. Heās got to deliver. And so when that paralytic gets up and walks, his walk talks. Because the text says, āIn order that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, take up your mat and walk.ā And as he walks, his walk talks and says, āThe Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.ā
- Meanwhile the theologians are thinking, āNo one can forgive sins but God alone.ā But then theyāve got the problem, then how did that guy walk? If God doesnāt help someone whoās a sinner and who false teaches, then how did that guy get healed, and how could the linking that Jesus made between sin and healing have taken place? And thatās the dilemma that Mark 2ās action shows you. And thatās why sometimes Jesusā actions spoke far louder than His words.
- Ankerberg: Alright, but letās step back, Darrell, and letās say the critic says to you, āThatās a neat story and, yeah, thatās what Jesus is saying, but I donāt believe that He actually healed this guy that was paralyzed.ā
- Bock: Now, the best we can do is to talk about the nature of Jesusā miracles and the reputation that He developed. And for this we have a unique attestation outside the Bible. Josephus says that Jesus did works, unusual works. The Greek word is paradoxon. It means unusual works or wonderful works, depending on how positive you want to translate it. And so thereās a reputation that Jesus did miracles outside the biblical materials. Not only that, the Jewish materials also come along and say He was a magician or a sorcerer. Now, note what the concedes: Jesus did unusual things; weāre just going to debate the power that generated it. So in either case weāve got outside testimony that Jesus did unusual things. And this is one of the unusual things that He did. And we know they were upset with the kinds of claims that He made. Thatās why they eventually brought Him to trial. So all those things come together to make the case that something like the healing of the paralytic is the kind of event that Jesus would have done.
- Ankerberg: What would you add to that, Gary, about this fact that weāve got these miracle claims in here, something really happened? How do you persuade people that are skeptical about the miraculous that something really did happen?
- Dr. Gary Habermas: Earlier we introduced the so-called criteria in the New Testament. Hereās some signs: multiple attestation, multiple form, dissimilarity, embarrassment, enemy attestation, and so on. By the way, this is enemy attestation, because itās the critics standing right there who say, āWow, this guy really is doing something; exorcising demons and healing.ā And they say, āAh, well, Youāre just doing this by the power of Satan.ā Theyāve already conceded that Heās really doing it.
- But when you apply those same rules to the miracle passages in major studies like John Meierās Marginal Jew, Volume 2, and Graham Twelftreeās Jesus, the Miracle Worker, both spend almost 500 pages going through the approximately 30 miracle pericopies, accounts, there. And they both decide that in a fair number of casesāGraham Twelftreeās is the 70ās percentileāin a fair number of these cases there is good evidence, using these criteria, for each. Now, let me just give one example. Critics, when they look at the Gospels, they often see five sourcesāto be real simple: Mark, the special material in Luke, the special material in Matthew, āQā, and Johnāmiracles are attested in five out of five. By the way, weāve already discussed Son of Man. Son of Man is attested of five out of five. When the Jesus Seminar is asking for two, two independent sources, you only have fiveāfive out of fiveāfor miracles; you only have fiveāfive out of fiveāfor the Son of Man; now itās more apparent why people have a hard time hiding from this stuff. We have to let the text speak for itself.
- Ankerberg: And I would say, Darrell, I mean, thereās a shift in critical scholarship that Jesus is considered to be a miracle worker in the sense of exorcisms, of healings. And probably the place where they hold up is on the nature miracles, right.
- Bock: Thatās right.
- Ankerberg: How do you put that together?
- Bock: Well, again, once we start walking down this road, the question is how far are you going to walk? So once you establish that Jesus did miracles and He does unusual things, He certainly had that reputation. Everyone who writes on historical Jesusāexcept for the people who think that Jesus never existed, which is really out here on a fringeāeveryone else says He has a reputation as a miracle worker. And then everyone has explanations for how they think that works, depending on how they apply the criteria in some cases, or what their worldview will permit. And so that really is what impacts the judgments that are made in this area.
- Ankerberg: And youāre saying, which weāre going to get to, your area, that is that the biggest nature miracleā¦.
- Habermas: Exactly. John Dominic Crossan, a very well-known skeptic, says that the biggest miracle of all is the resurrection. And so, if you can get to a nature miracle like Jesusā return from the dead, why do weāif the resurrection happenedāwhy do we have a problem with a storm stopping? Now, a storm is wonderful. Calming the storm at your word is great. Rising from the dead when youāre dead as dead can be,ā¦? Thatās why we spend a lot of time on resurrection. So, yes, thatās the top one of Jesusā miracles if you want to judge in terms of, you know, how odd this is and how good the evidence is.
- Ankerberg: Let me say something about these two guys that are here. Dr. Habermas is tracking 3,400 different scholars in what they say about the resurrection. When I heard this I said, āGary, youāve got to get a life;ā 3,400 different guys, heās tracking what they say. So when heās giving these statistics, heās reading them; heās listening to them. And he can give you an accurate idea of what the critical world is saying about this. And Darrell is working with so many guys itās unbelievable.
- Now, when we come back, weāre going to talk further about, did Jesus actually say Himself that He was the unique Son of God? How can we tell from the sources that Jesus actually said those words, okay? Because thereās a lot of discussion about this; OāReillyās got it in his book. Weāll talk about it when we come right back.
- Ankerberg: Weāre back. Weāre talking with Dr. Darrell Bock and with Dr. Gary Habermas. And our topic is, did Jesus actually say that He was the unique son of God? How can we know that He said the words, alright? And, Dr. Habermas, weāve got three verses at least that scholars say, āJesus had to have said these words,ā and I want you to tell us why. Iām going to put them on the screen first of all. The first one is Matthew 11:27. Jesus says, āAll things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him.ā Now, why does that verse stand out with the scholars?
- Habermas: It stands out with the scholars because this is one of those texts that we identified earlier as a āQā text. So āQā stands along with Mark in scholarly, you know, research, as the two earliest sources for the Gospels. And Matthewās mentioning a very high Christology here. Thereās been a lot of comparison of Matthew and Luke to John at this point, and itās called a Johannine thunderbolt. Itās like, you know, like the moment of inspiration that comes from, you know, from God, because Jesus claims to be the only bridge. You know, we say Jesus says, āI am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me.ā And we go, well, thatās John. And scholars donāt really like John. But hereās something very similar in Matthew, where the āQā passage is saying, āNo one knows the Father but the Son and whomever I choose to reveal Him.ā So youāre only going to know the Father from the Son. So thereās another one of those uniqueā only begotten,ā you know, monogenes, kind of in the Greek kind of this sense of unique one of a kind. But because itās āQ,ā and because itās not in John, it gets a lot of attention.
- Ankerberg: The second one is Mark 14:36. Jesus said, āAbba! Father! All things are possible for You; take this cup away from Me; but not what I will, but what You will.ā Whatās the significance of āAbba, Fatherā to the scholars?
- Habermas: Well, itās usually believed that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but the Gospels are written in Greek. So one of the criteria that are often mentionedāDarrell said thereās other type of criteriaāone of them is Aramaic substrata. So when the Aramaic breaks through, so to speak, thatās probably the closest we get to hearing the exact words of Jesus. And whatās interesting is, we hear the exact words of Jesus, or something, you know, very close, at very, at very important times: when He raises the little girl from the dead; when He says, āMy God, My God, why have You forsake Me?ā But here Heās calling God a very familiar term, a familiar term for somebody that you know intimately; which, by the way, goes along with the text we just mentioned, Matthew 11:27. Jesus is claiming intimate knowledge once again. And His title, itās sort of like when everybody else is talking about the boss of the company, or the president of the university, about these lofty figures, and you call him Fred, and you call him that to his face. So everybody knows youāre really awesome, you know. Thatās what Jesus is doing here. So itās the Aramaic substrata here that gives it away.
- Ankerberg: What does āAbbaā actually mean?
- Habermas: Well, there used to be a lot of argument about this, that the word means ādaddy,ā so much so that one recent New Testament scholar who objected wrote a journal article called, āAbba Does Not Mean Daddy.ā So, I try not to say itās ādaddy,ā but, I mean, whatās the difference? Itās a familial in-house personal term for somebody you know very well on intimate grounds. And you may call them that to their face and theyāre not going to object.
- Ankerberg: Would the Jews use that term about God?
- Bock: Virtually never.
- Ankerberg: Never. The third one, Mark 13:32, very interesting. Jesus says, āBut of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.ā
- Habermas: This is another one of the criteria, so weāre going right down the line and weāre checking off the criteria in these programs. This is the criterion of embarrassment. If youāre going to say youāre the Son of God, then just say Youāre the Son of God. Why say, āIām the sonā āor in the context Heās āSon of the Fatherāābut why say, āIām the Son of God, oh, and by the way, I donāt know when somethingās going to happen.ā What?! How is that? I mean, Youāre the Son of God or Youāre not. How do You notā¦? But Jesus walked right in there and had no problem saying it. And so the thought is, as one British scholar says, āThat is so embarrassing for Jesus to say, āIām the Son of God if I donāt know something.āā He said, āThe church can figure out ways to do a much better job of saying āIām the Son of Godā than to say āIām the Son of God and let Me mess up your world a little bit by telling you I donāt know something.āā So that kind of embarrassment, trying to figure that out, indicates that Jesus really did say that.
- Ankerberg: Alright, is one of the thunderbolts you were talking about in John, that scholars reject because itās a single source, is Jesus is talking with the religious leaders in John 8:58 and says, āBefore Abraham was born Iām the I AM, boys.ā And they reach for the rocks to kill Him; because Heās saying, āHey, you know, the One who was speaking to Moses at the burning bush, and He said this is My name for all generations, My memorial name forever, you know, is the I AM.ā And Jesus says, āThatās Me.ā Is that one of the thunderbolts? How would you put John into these texts?
- Bock: Well, the trouble with using John simply is that most of what is said in John is not corroborated, and this is the corroborative standard. Eighty-eight percent of John isnāt anywhere else. So you lose most of the Gospel of John in these conversations. And thatās one of the things that people donāt appreciate about the historical Jesus discussion, because the church loves to run to John. John does all our heavy lifting for us. It tells the story of Jesus from heaven down. Jesus is God from the very first verse: āIn the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.ā This is CNN, the Christian News Network. And so youāve got this emphasis right at the start. The Synoptic Gospels tell the story of Jesus from birth up. They start with categories that weāre used to, and it dawns on people who Jesus is. And the church, generally speaking, struggles with that a little more. And so we have a harder time going there. And yet, if the church can get a handle on how to tell that story, theyād do a better job of communicating who Jesus is to people who are asking who Jesus is, because they donāt understand who He is.
- Ankerberg: You did 10 years of study on this one passage, Caesarea Philippi. Talk about it.
- Bock: Well, the main thing here is that if you look at the parallels in Matthew, Mark and Luke, what they all share is the confession that Jesus is the Messiah. And itās in contrast to the idea that the populace thinks Heās a prophet. Prophets are a dime a dozen; but thereās only one Messiah. And so off the confession that Peter makes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of GodāSon of God can just mean Messiahāoff that confession Jesus builds the kind of Messiah that Heās going to be: that Heās going to suffer, that Heās going to be exalted and taken to the right hand of God. So the core point of Caesarea Philippi really is the idea that if we look at Luke and at Mark and just read them, āYou are the Christ, You are the Christ of God,ā those are the answers in those two Gospels; in contrast to Matthew that says, āYou are the Christ, the Son of God.ā And so what we do in the church is we run to Son of God and say, āOh, see, Peterās confessing everything.ā But if you take Luke and Mark on their own, all that he confesses is that Heās the Christ. Thatās the point. And off of that He builds the picture of who He is. Now, eventually He associates Messiah and Son of God as āSon of God,ā but He builds His way there, because the Gospels tell the story of Jesus from the birth up.
- Ankerberg: What this conversation is doing is telling you how critical scholars should build a case. Bill OāReilly didnāt necessarily build the case with this kind of evidence. He just made the statement. Heās probably going to need your evidence coming up, okay. But youāre saying that the evidence, when he gets there, is going to support a lot of the stuff he said about Jesusā claim to be the Son of God and the Messiah.
- Bock: Well, I think what youāre seeing is that when he appeals to sources at the end of his book he says, āIām only giving you, you know, the core story line. Hereās the core story line of where this is going. This is what got Jesus into trouble. This is why they killed Jesus, etc. Here are the core things that happened.ā But if you want to know what happens when you get into a discussion and people doubt some of what that story is, then thereās this whole other layer of conversation that needs to come into the equation. And thatās what we hope to supply.
- Ankerberg: Alright, next week weāre going to continue this. Weāre going to look at another one of the big concepts in Bill OāReillyās book; he says Jesus flat out claimed to be the Messiah. What does the word āMessiahā mean? And why was that a word that was so dangerous in Jesusā day? I hope that youāll join us next week.
[ā¦] Read Part 2 [ā¦]