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Why Cry?
A Survey of the Temper Tantrums of Hector Avalos: Historical Jesus
James Patrick Holding
Though portended to be on the historical Jesus, Avalos rants much in this chapter rather on the Resurrection. He also rants over the Jesus Seminar for a while. They can defend themselves from his squealing if they so desire; as bad as it has been so far, it's hard to imagine Avalos being right about anything at all, even his own shoe size.
186 -- The theme here is that no one in scholarship has produced any "verifiable knowledge about Jesus..." What Avalos means by "verifiable" is not explained. It is not clear to what extent he regards any history as "verified," much less does he lay out any sort of epistemology of historical knowing. He does noe correctly that there is a tendency to reconstruct a Jesus in one's own image, but this is old news and does not by itself rebut any particular reconstruction.
187-190 -- Avalos offers an extended rant on William Lane Craig and his method to prove the resurrection. Since Craig's method is not my own, I have few comments, though I will remind the reader that this does not mean Avalos' retorts are necessarily sound. I would make the point that the distinction between natural and supernatural made by McCullagh [188] is completely contrived. I would also note that Avalos offers a very poor reading of Craig when he claims that Craig argues that the resurrection of Jesus is "a credible event because Jesus made 'radical' and unique claims." Craig says no such thing; he says:
In summary, there are good historical grounds for affirming that Jesus rose from the dead in confirmation of his radical personal claims.
The claims are not referred to in any sort of causative way. Maybe Avalos needs to stop asking his squirrels to write his critiques, so they sound less nutty.
191-194 -- Avalos tries to defuse Craig's arguments with parallels to Marian apparitions. Since again this has to do with Craig's method and not mine, I have little comment, but a few points come to mind. First, though Avalos says that the children of Medjuhgorge "affirm that they saw Mary as a fully physical and real person" [191], it is far from clear from what Avalos quotes that they would affirm that what they saw was Mary's resurrected body as opposed to some other physical manifestation. Indeed, he only quotes one of the people as saying she was so close that "I can touch her." [214n] Indeed, the fuller quote impllies nothing of the sort:
I see Our Lady the same way that I see you, I talk to Her the same way that I talk to you. I can touch Her. The beauty of Our Lady is very hard to describe in words. I can say that She wears a gray dress, white veil, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. She has black hair. She always floats on a cloud. And She has a crown of stars. And this painting you see behind me, maybe this is the closest one to the way Our Lady looks like. But I am repeating (that) the human dictionary is too poor to describe the beauty of Our Lady. During one apparition, we asked Our Lady, "Mother, how come that you are so beautiful?" She said, "I am beautiful because I love. My dear children, you must love, then all of you will be beautiful." (Silence) Try. Let us try. Please pray with me.
And he also said:
CW: You say you can touch Our Lady?
ID: I say I can touch her if I want to, but I haven't. My children have. This was at Christmas time, when I lifted my children up and just looking at the reaction in my children's eyes when they were touching her is difficult to put into words.
My children - one is seven, one is three, and one is 16 months old - and you could see on their face the experience they had, that they lived. I didn't ask them about it because they are still young to describe this and how they felt. My children will be able to carry that gift and appreciate it.
Avalos, however, proceeds as if this were the case, attempting to defuse Craig's argument with an alleged parallel, such as that Mary's tomb has never been found, etc. The parallel would never work in any event, because by the time of the Medjugorge apparitions, Mary's body would have rotted anyway; and no one has been looking for her tomb for this purpose in the first place. The bottom line is that Avalos is defending a proposition no one is claiming -- that Mary was resurrected as Jesus was. It's not even clear what "rival explanations" [192] Avalos thinks exist for the Medjugorge appearances. Clearly he did not think his way through this parallel at all.
But now to his replies to some of Craig's arguments for the Resurrection [192-4]. Needless to say, we'd expect one-paragraph responses to be inadequate, and these Avalos offers darned well are that. Italics represent Craig's arguments.
We cannot otherwise explain the empty tomb.
The disciples were willing to die for their testimony.
I put these two together because Avalos' answers are ridiculous, and show a lamentable ignorance of the social world of the NT. His comparison to stories of Elvis' tomb being empty, and his wave-off that we "do not actually know whether the disciples were willing to die for anything," is simply foolishness; perhaps he'd like to try his hand at making "The Impossible Elvis Faith" for us to match this. (Note to Hector: We answered Price's reply in there, too.)
There was no preexisting resurrection tradition. Avalos goofily repeats the canard that Herod thought John the Baptist had been resurrected (not so -- we do not know what Herod perceived the mechanism for John's return from the dead to be). It is also a more complex matter than can be answered by saying that "all trasitions are, by definition, not preexisting traditions at their inception" -- see point 3 in the above link.
Eyewitnesses listed in 1 Cor. 15 guarantee that such appearance occurred. Avalos offers two retorts. One is to appeal to group hallucinations; he has a lot of work to do before he can use that (see here) and appeal to the Marian visions (again) is also a begged question on his part. Otherwise he rants of the Corinthians being 700 miles away from Jerusalem and not being able to verify the claims -- I guess there were no such things as Diaspora Jews who returned to Jerusalem for festivals. Of course they could verify the claims -- they had the means, and as the linked article shows, the motive.
The time between the claimed event and the stories is too short for legendary development. Avalos appeals to the Elvis stories again, but he misses the point just as Price did here.
The biblical sources have otherwise been proven reliable. Avalos rather foolishly tries to rebut this by appeal to Acts 7:15-16, which is just as well Luke accurately reporting an error in Stephen's speech. But it isn't even that -- see here. He also claims that Acts 13:27-29 wrongly pegs "the residents of Jerusalem" for putting Jesus in his tomb when it was his disciples who did it, per Matthew 28. Why Avalos doesn't also note that Luke (the author of Acts) also reports this is hard to see -- but Price failed on this one also. Moreover, minor slips like these are alleged to be occur even in Tacitus, regarded as the most reliable ancient historian, but no one throws out his work in entirety because of it.
The social disregard for women's testimony renders it unlikely that biblical authors would have chosen women as witnesses, and so we can presume the women's testimony to be an authentic tradition. Avalos' answer here is comdeic in its inanity: He creates a "persistent literary device" of "supposedly unreliable witnesses" out of whole cloth with but two examples -- one from an Indian peasant in the 1500s (!) and another, unbelievably, from the movie Independence Day (!!) in which a drunk was a "prime initial witnes to the arrival of extraterrestrial aliens." Not only is it pathetic that Avalos resorts to a mere TWO citations to create a "persistent literary device"; it is worse that one of them is from a fictional movie -- even worse, as anyone who say ID will remember, the drunk was considered unreliable, but his testimony about the aliens was actually true according to the movie! The "device" in that case actually disproves Avalos!
Secular historians don't apply the same critical standards to non-Christian figures. Avalos retorts that secular historians also don't accept historicity of supernatural events by other figures, but all that would be is an admission of greater bias than the argument makes. Avalos also hints at a Christ-myth thesis, as he calls references by Josephus and Tacitus "supposed references" (!) and dismisses their value because the manuscripts are all of "medieval date...so one cannot be sure what has been added." [215] Yes, folks, Avalos is that desperate.
197 -- The next few pages can only be defended personally by Craig, by the Jesus Seminar, and by Stanley Porter, in turn. It is worth note that Avalos props here for Robert Price (whose wacky-sack temper tantrum Deconstructing Jesus is described as "a devastating critique of historical Jesus studies"), Earl Doherty (whose myth thesis is called "plausible"), Burton Mack, and Gerd Ludemann. On page 203 Avalos repeats a canard answered here.
206-7 -- In the "I'm still a fundy at heart" department, Avalos tries to demonstrate the "vacuity" of getting back to historical statements by quoting two versions of a sentence spoken to a man named Casca who attacked Caesar. Both were written by Plutarch, and while one has Caesar saying, "Accursed Casca, what doest thou?", the other has him say, "Impious Casca, what doest thou?" Avalos posts these and postures, "Trying to find which words Caesar actually spoke is beyond our ability, as Plutarch himself could have invented and varied these words for his own purposes."
What this mainly demonstrates, however, is Avalos' desperate need for powerful psychiatric medication; for only someone with a mind bent by fundamentalism would be worried about such a thing and make an issue of it. The words were no doubt originally spoken in Latin, and Avalos quotes Greek versions. Whatever Caesar said in Latin was likely suitably transmitted by either word. Either way, the question doesn't resolve to Caesar saying something like, "Gimme a kiss, Casca!" Avalos is creating reason for worry out his own imagination.
In addition, he hauls out the spectre of conflicts in the Medjugorge accounts; I say it's an anachronism and irrelevant, as demonstrated by the factors we discuss here. Avalos says that the stories from Medjugorge "should be a very fixed tradition" but fails to explain why, or what tradition-fixing procedures were used or available, much less how these parallel techniques of oral memorization and transmission used in the first century. (That is not to say that the Medjugorge accounts cannot be readily harmonized with some of the same principles; but it remains that Avalos substantially fails to demonstrate a parallel.)
209 -- Here again we find a rather stunning example of Avalos' inability to escape his fundamentalist mindset -- as well as an example of his gullibility. He cites the example of the Belgian surrealist painter Magritte, who is supposed to have had "an acute insight into the nature of reality and its representation." Magritte did a painting called "The Treachery of Images" which consisted of a pipe, and a caption that said, "This is not a pipe." Avalos is enamored of Magritte's wit at befuddling viewers, so: "To anyone familair with the history of philosophy, Magritte was simply stating what is otherwise obvious; you are not looking at a pipe, but at a 'picture of a pipe.'" Well, isn't that just so special. Actually, Magritte was simply being a wiseacre, and Avalos is simply trying to manipulate semantics to make himself look clever. No one would deny that the painting was a picture of a pipe, but semantically, we have arrived at shortcuts to refer to such representations. If Magritte's alleged "warning" was "not to confuse reality with representation," then it seems clear that he was as much diseased by a form of fundamentalism as Avalos is.
Avalos' point is apparently to try to erect doubts by pointing out that we only have "representations" of Jesus, David, the Iron Age, etc. through texts. Only a fool does not know this, but at the same time, only a fool uses this as a point to raise doubts or to say that any portraits made are "doomed to interminable speculation." [210] Avalos once again can't think outside his black and white fundamentalist box. It remains that some "speculations" are better grounded and more informed than others. Avalos simply wishes to dismiss all of them en masse, and it is not hard to see why: To do otherwise would compel him to admit evidence that he doesn't want to hear.
210-1 -- A brief section about non-canonical Gospels here, in which Avalos even manages to declare that the Gospel of Judas (!) is no less or more verifiable than the canonical Gospels. On that I repeat prior writings:
In the past week I have received numerous inquiries about what appears to be the latest literary darling of the media, the "Gospel of Judas" (hereafter GoJ). The demand is such that a word or two now seems in order.
For a thorough look at the "hard data" about this Judas document, I recommend Roger Pearse's treatment here. For our purposes the most important summary facts are that this document is:
- Definitively the product of persons with a "Gnostic" orientation. A few lines (as provided by Pearse) should be of interest:
Jesus said to them, “How do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people that are among you will know me.”
But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away. Judas [said] to him, “I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”
Judas said, “Master, as you have listened to all of them, now also listen to me. For I have seen a great vision.”
When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to him, “You thirteenth spirit, why do you try so hard? But speak up, and I shall bear with you.”
“The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each [50] [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments …]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.
- It was written no earlier than the second century. The manuscript itself is a 3rd or 4th century Coptic translation. Irenaeus (c. 180 AD) mentions a gospel with Judas as the star, that was written by heretics, and this is probably it as it matches what he describes.
Now here are some observations about how this Judas gospel is being presented and received.
- It is being used by the "politically correct" crowd to promulgate the idea of "diversity" in early Christianity. The underlying theme seems to be that this document presents another "point of view" that deserves a hearing. What never seems to be discussed is whether it does deserve such a hearing; it is merely assumed, that by existing at all, it warrants attention. The credibility of the source is never called into question.
The absurdity of this sort of view is manifest once the evidence is considered. The Jesus of GoJ, with his airy pontificating over aeons and luminaries, is teaching the sort of thing that would never come from the mouth of a hardtack peasant teacher in first century Jewish Palestine. This Jesus is an elitist who mocks the disciples for not being as informed as he is about things that they never would have cared about, historically speaking. If the historical Jesus had pulled this sort of thing on a Peter, chances are he and the other disciples would have beat Jesus up, not held him in high regard. At the very least this sort of Jesus would have been a rogue and a deviant who would have been totally ignored by his Jewish contemporaries, or regarded as a madman. This is the sort of thing Gnostics cared about, having the leisure, as they did, to contemplate such things, which a peasant farmer, artisan, or fisherman did not.
The simple fact is that either one or the other view about Jesus (the canonical Gospels, or GoJ) is right while the other is wrong, or else both are wrong. The Jesus of the canonical Gospels nestles comfortably in his setting: that of rural Palestine of the first century. The Jesus of GoJ is one that comes from the urban leisure class, at best. Which view is more likely to be wrong? That's not hard to decide. While GoJ should certainly have interest for those tracing deviant views of Jesus at a later date, to regard it as something from which an authentic memory of the Jesus of the first century can be gleaned is to suggest something that requires a tremendous burden of proof to fulfill.
- The PC crowd is giving GoJ credence that it would never give the canonical Gospels. It is odd indeed to see how this works: Here we have in GoJ a single copy, written 300 or more years after the period it is alleged to be describing, and with no external attestation earlier than Irenaus some 150 years after the time of Jesus. On the other hand, we have the canonical Gospels, with much more and greater textual and external attestion, and they are treated as second class. One wonders what would happen if, say, Luke had been unknown until now, and then a single copy from the 4th century were discovered. Would the PC crowd suggest that this new document contained authentic memories?
The story is virtually the same each time on of these "new" documents is uncovered: The much better attested canonical Gospels are treated as the bad guys and ignored, while the new kid on the block who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time is asked to all the parties.
That said, there are few (if any) bold statements being made by what I would call the Pagels-Ehrman Axis to suggest that GoJ offers some sort of authentic witness to history. Craig Evans is quoted as saying: "It is possible that the Gospel of Judas preserves an old memory that Jesus had actually instructed Judas in private, and the other disciples did not know about it..." Evans is more sober in his studies, ordinarily, than this statement would suggest; we would hope that by "possible" he means merely in theory rather than in actuality. If this can be taken as actual proof of an old memory preserved, all objections to the full authenticity of the canonical Gospels just flew out the window. The Pagels-Ehrman Axis cannot have its cake and eat it too.
- The desire for diversity. Pagels is on about how GoJ is "exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity." Diversity is the buzzword of the day, but my response as usual is, "Who cares about diversity of error?" Perhaps the media would get happy if some of us provided some "diversity" by suggesting that Richard Nixon did nothing wrong with Watergate but was in fact framed by Bob Woodward. Or maybe the Pagels-Ehrman Axis would appreciate some "diversity" in our understanding of the lives of those two scholars by writing a "biography" portraying those two as having a torrid love affair. Then, when they object, we can accuse them of trying to suppress something, or of being afraid of diversity, and simply say we are "exploding the myth" of their personal lives being so clear of wrongdoing.
Once again: In the end, there can only be ONE story of history that is correct; the rest must be wrong, or all stories are wrong. The GoJ and the canonical Gospels offer mutually exclusive portraits of Jesus. Diversity of views is irrelevant to what actually happened. It is also illicit to define every deviance from Christianity as "Christianity". The word has meaning, and it is not whatever meaning the Pagels-Ehrman Axis assigns to it today (which seems to be, now, "these are people who passed by a document that had the word 'Jesus' on it"). Witherington's assessment as reported by Goodstein is far closer to reality:
"The manuscript tells us nothing about the historical Jesus or the historical Judas," said Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. "It tells us a lot about a group that were labeled heretics in their own day...."
He said that unlike the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which were written in Christianity's first century, Gnostic works were produced in the second century and afterward. To say that the Gospel of Judas reveals anything factual about Judas, Dr. Witherington said, "is like saying a document written 150 years after George Washington died tells us the inside truth about George Washington."
- The big hype tripe. The media is making the biggest deal of this secondhand Gospel, with such wild statements as GoJ being one of the "most important archaeological discoveries of the century". Huh? Not hardly, guys, unless you add the caveat which says, "...to those doing research into late heretical sects that used Christian characters." All this gives us is some insight into an obscure, deviant group of people 150 years too late to have history on their side. As Philip Jenkins has noted in Hidden Gospels, these guys in the media have a "powerful if undiscriminating hunger" for this kind of thing [178]. The media people lack the critical capacity needed to distinguish between good and bad research, so they treat fringe and mainstream scholarship with equal weight.
Here is a typical comment from the media that represent the sort of uncritical nature Jenkins refers to: "In 1959, when the Gospel of Thomas was first published in English, many Christians were shocked to learn that any gospels existed other than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." -- Laurie Goodstein, NY Times. Let me just say again, Who cares? Goodstein's comment reflects a naivete' that "other Gospels" merely existing means anything. I can type up a "Gospel of Sam the Barber from Nazareth" right now; should anyone be "shocked" about that? Of course not. But this is typical hype from a media maven with no discernment where the relative value of texts is concerned.
Avalos' own discernment is no better than that of Goodstein, and he also clearly knows that the data as it stands is against him. However, his desperation is such that he will contrive any excuse: For example, the scrap of John called P52 is taken as evidence that John's Gospel existed as early as 125 AD, but Avalos, not needing evidence to say so, declares that it "cannot tell us if the unpreserved part of that manuscript bears a Gospel of John much like ours." For someone who derides "interminable speculation" this is quite an ironic statement.
212 -- Avalos closes the chapter with yet another rant-whine deriding scholars for wasting time on the Bible and accuses them yet again of just trying to keep themseles employed. Nothing new to say here.7
Discuss this article here.
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