It's hard for me not to have a soft spot for Randel Helms. After all, he is a professor of English and literature (my undergrad study area), and he has written us a nice note in times past. Nevertheless, his mode of operation, and critical study of matters Biblical, remains decidedly subpar. He had invited us to look at his latest effort, entitled Who Wrote the Gospels? (Millennium Press, 1997), and I recently obtained a copy...and I regret to report that it:

1. Contains no new arguments, and therefore contributes nothing, to the study of Gospel origins;
2. Falls prey throughout to the same errors of thought, method, and background data that we found in Helms' previous book (reviewed briefly here);
3. Consists mainly of compilations of, and uncritical acceptance of, some of the strangest and/or most wacky arguments available from liberal/Jesus Seminar Biblical scholarship, with no consideration of opposing views (the only evangelical in the bibliography is Robert Gundry, and he is referred to only once, on a point Helms happens to agree with); the bibliography itself consists of about 70 sources, hardly a worthy collection for such a broad and important topic that has been the subject of discussions and scholarship for decades.

Thus it is that this evaluation will consist largely of references to other places where we (or someone else) has already answered the arguments at issue. Little else is needed. Helms has done nothing original here, unless one counts combining the ideas of others as original.

In the Introduction to this work, Helms lays out his key premise that the Gosepls are "deliberately, even playfully, anonymous" and naturally argues that all four of the traditional attributions are wrong, and the product of "wishful thinking." He finds this "relatively easy" to prove; we respond with material already provided here, with special attention to the notice of Hengel that the gospels must have received their attributions very early. Here also Helms declares allegiance to the standard Bultmaniann thesis of a Sitz im Leben as a determining factor for the content of the Gospels; here we refer the reader to Bauckham's The Gospels for All Christians, which we have reviewed here; makes much of the alleged bias and (therefore) untrustworthiness of the Gospel authors, a concept refuted by Glenn Miller here; and declares uncritical allegiance to the theses of Q and Markan priority, said to be a thesis held by all but "fundamentalists" hiding their heads in the sand: for our refutation of these ideas in process, and proof that opposition to it is not merely the province of "fundamentalists," see here.

Chapter 1 of Helms' book makes use of some of the same erroneous arguments used in Helms' first book, Gospel Fictions; accuses the author of Mark of error and confusion in attributing to Isaiah a text conflated from Isaiah, the LXX of Exodus, and Malachi (actually, a normal practice; see Glenn Miller's item on Christian use of the OT); makes much of the "thematic" arrangement of Mark's Gospel as supposed evidence of lack of care over, or guesswork involved in, chronology (though non-chronological arrangement is actually standard practice for ancient biography, as we show here); also, the usual citations of alleged error in Mark 11:1, 10:1, and 7:31; the usual late-date arguments about the destruction of the Temple, which we have shown in an article linked above, about Gospel dates, to be irrelevant, as well as a great deal of arguing based upon the mistaken notion that Mark expected the world to end soon: See our series here. Helms also claims that Mark 13:1-2 (the promise of false Messiahs) refers to two "messianic pretenders" named Menahem and Simon that Josephus refers to; we remind the reader (again!) that there is no evidence of anyone laying claim to the title, other than Jesus, until possibly Bar Kochba in 125 AD -- simply because they were religious leaders or political rebels is not enough to say that they were "messianic" in mission. Mark 7:24 is declared to be in error about Jewish customs based on the Talmud, which we have noted is far too late a source to be of relevance to the first century. Finally, while we commend Helms for recognizing Mark's use of the "Messianic secret" motif, we find him guilty of the same error made by Robert Price, for while Helms makes much of the number of times Jesus tells people to keep things secret, he fails to note that Mark records that those so admonished didn't keep the secret, but went out and spread the word! (For more on this motif see here.)

Chapter 2 offers more material on Mark, but is mainly devoted to arguments about the inauthenticity of Daniel, all of which we have refuted here. It also contains a rather bigoted description of apocalyptic literature as the product of "delusional" and "amoral" minds (amoral, because they foresee judgment on others who disagree!), and question-beggingly makes "always wrong" (!) a "typical" characteristic of such literature! Only three items are in any sense unique:

1. Helms late-dates Daniel because of the reference to Jeremiah's work as "scripture" (Dan. 9:2), saying that "the prophetic books were not canonized until about 200 B.C.E.," so that no one would call Jerry "scripture" until after that date, in line with a 167 BC date for Daniel. Helms simply shows his lack of knowledge of Hebrew here: the word used in 9:2 is cepher, and simply means books, scrolls, or any written document. It does not connote a sacred or canonized book per se.
2. Helms regards what happens in Daniel 9:2-24 as a case of Gabriel re-interpreting an "incorrect" prophecy in Jeremiah. This is simply assumptive error; there is no indication that Gabriel is offering a "new" interpretation of Jerry; rather he is offering a new revelation that has nothing to do with Jerry. (For a refutation of the idea that Jerry was wrong in his prediction, see here.)
3. Helms argues that Daniel 11:44-5 is in error, for as a prophecy of Antiochus, it says that he will "plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him." Helms takes the "between the seas" reference as being to Jerusalem, but says, since Antiochus died in Persia, Daniel has him dying in the wrong place. But this does not say Antiochus will die (come to his end) in this location "between the seas..."; it only says he will plant the tabernacles of his palace (as Helms' version says, "pitch his royal pavilion") in that place. Where Anty meets his end is NOT specified at all. What it does mean may not be clear to us (the word for "pavilion" appears only here in the OT), but it does not mean that this is the place Antiochus died; more likely it simply indicates where he will have headquarters. (Some also claim v. 44 was not fulfilled, but it actually fits well with Antiochus responding to the Parthian threat from the east and north, and killing Jews, as was his custom, while on the way. Most also doubt that Antiochus stalked Egypt again as in v. 43, but I'd rather take the word of Porphyry, who admitted that this did happen in trying to argue for Daniel as a late invention, than the silence used by the critics to claim that it didn't happen.)

   We may now also add another observation from a friend of this ministry:

   But the other hypothesis to which I referred is that "the king" of Daniel 11:36-39 is Herod the Great (notice that he is simply called "the king," the first time in the chapter in which the designation "of the south" or "of the north" is absent). Daniel 11:40-44 then turns back to the king of the north, who is now Caesar Augustus, since Rome had already defeated and absorbed the Seleucid empire, and the king of the south, who is actually a queen, none other than Cleopatra, heir to the Ptolemies and as yet unabsorbed by Rome. (The details in these verses match Augustus' campaign against Anthony, culminating in Actium and the sack of Egypt's treasuries, almost perfectly.) Somewhat awkwardly, I admit, 11:45 turns back again to Herod (the pronoun skipping back a few verses for its antecedent).

   There are several advantages to this scenario, and the only disadvantage is that the pronouns are unclear, 11:40-44 being effectively a parenthesis. First, "the king" almost certainly has to be a Jew, since 11:38 has him honoring a god of fortresses which his fathers did not know. The seer, a devout Jew, surely would not care that a pagan king like Antiochus abandoned his pagan religious heritage for another pagan religion. Also, "the desire of women," I think, is best understood as a periphrastic phrase for the messiah (the one that every woman desired to birth), and it makes more sense for a messianic offense to be charged against a Jewish king than against a pagan king who could not care less about any messiah in the first place. Second, there is hardly a better euphemism for the cult of the Caesars, which Herod supported avidly throughout Palestine, than "a god of fortresses." Third, the notorious absence of infantry (very unusual for ancient wars; recall that even Salamis needed a land battle to truly finish off the Persian invasion) in 11:40 fits Actium and the taking of Egypt to a tee. Fourth, Antiochus has already been described as "doing as he pleases" in 11:16, just like Alexander in 11:3. It makes more sense if a third "willful" king is in view in 11:36. Fifth, Herod, an Idumean Jew, liked to refer to "our fathers" in speeches to Jews. If 11:37-38 were written by a contemporary, no scholar would doubt the allusion to that fact in those verses. Sixth, Herod is much nearer "the end" (11:35, 40) than is Antiochus, and, in fact, his Herodian dynasty does in fact last right up until "the end" (70 A. D.); in other words, he "prospers until the indignation is finished" (11:36).

Chapter 2 closes with a declaration that Matthew and Luke were "unsuccessful efforts to outgrow Mark's failed eschatology." We have shown previously that Mark's eschatology did not fail. With that we move to Chapter 3, which deals with Matthew. Our intrepid professor of English once again anachronizes by saying that we can imagine Matthew sitting at his "writing desk" with a copy of Mark open, and a copy of the LXX open, together. Indeed: He ought to try that with scrolls on what passed as a "desk" in those days: Your own leg, usually, or the floor. There is the usual dismissal of Papias' testimony about Matthew we have covered here. Then there is a rather amusing chart setting out "levels of remove" from the historical Jesus (and presumably, according to Helms, levels of reliability):

1. Personal associates of Jesus.
2. Oral traditions about Jesus.
3. Written documents based on #2.
4. Mark.
5. Matthew.

Of course those in classes 1-3 are virtually the same: Who does Helms think started and first received the oral traditions? Who does he think wrote it down first? (Hint: Matthew was a scribe!) There is no proof in this list, nor in anything Helms argues, that 1-5 are not anything but part of a tightly-knit community, supplemented by the reliable nature of ancient/Jewish oral transmission processes (a point we have faulted Helms for not addressing previously).

Returning to the Q/Markan priority hypothesis, Helms advances as his most detailed "proof" the differences between the accounts of Jesus' baptism in Mark, Matthew, and Luke -- which we have addressed here. Helms only adds the idea that Mark 1:10-11 ("And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.") "looks like a private revelation to Jesus of information he did not have before," which Matthew, having a birth narrative full of signs whereby Jesus would be informed early of his own divinity, covered by having the voice be general and heard by all. Such psychoanalysis may be easily disposed of in the dustbin where it belongs; Helms must simply presume such ignorance by Jesus based on an argument from silence; and at any rate, Luke certainly had no problem using the "direct address" mode in spite of an early life full of signs!

Another supposed "proof" is the difference between Mark 4:10-12 and Matthew 13:10-15. We are told that Matthew "corrects" Mark, who has supposedly thought that parables were meant to obfuscate, and has only erroneously quoted part of a passage of Isaiah (6:9-10) that would seem to say so; we are told that Matthew "corrected" this deficiency by adding the full quote from Isaiah which makes it clear that parables are for elucidation. To say that Mark would not know that parables were for elucidation is like saying that someone today would not know that spaceships are in sci-fi movies. Does Helms think Matthew was the only one who slapped his forehead and recognized this "mistake" in Mark? It is amazing how often these wacky theses such as Helms propounds requires convenient and alternating episodes of incredible stupidity on the one hand and unique intelligence on the other to stay on their feet. Mark's allusion to Isaiah 6 covers the whole of the passage; anyone recognizing it would know (just as Helms supposes Matthew would!) that the entire passage is being alluded to. Mark knows well enough that parables are for elucidation; what Helms has missed here is a literary device that allows Mark to lead into the explanation for the parable. (For more, on the authenticity of this explanation, see here.)

And on it goes, with more psychoanalysis: Matthew changes Mark's "carpenter" to "carpenter's son" because of his snobbery (?! - how does this make it any more "snobbish"? Is "garbageman" any more or less snobbish than "son of a garbageman"? In fact wouldn't the latter be more snobbish, since one could read unemployment into it? Not that it matters: The father/son relationship in Judaism was such that the association is exactly the same in terms of social status; this is nothing more than we would expect from the normal variations within oral tradition.) This is not to say that such theorizing is always wrong: One may suppose that Matthew omitted the comment by Jesus' family suggesting Christ's insanity because he disliked the implications. But really, so what? Helms is also right to see Mark using a motif of ignorance (not as part of a "Messianic secret" motif, really, but as part of his effort to imitate Greco-Roman dramatic styles); and he is perhaps also right in supposing that Matthew 24:30, which contains a Greek play on words, shows Matthew's editorial hand. (I say maybe -- it is not altogether impossible that Jesus spoke Greek; but even if he didn't, this is hardly to be blasted away as "fiction" unless it can be shown that Jesus did not offer words that were virtually the same message in Aramaic. Editorial freedom does not equate with fictionalizing, especially not in this literary-social context!) What Helms does is take the matter too far and see every shift of verbiage as part of some vast theological-manipulative conspiracy of hate between the gospel authors or the characters, to the point of reading emotions and intent into words and pretending to be able to read minds (as we and Glenn Miller have pointed out, James Still is very adept at doing). But of course, this is exactly the excessiveness that is needed to keep the Q/M thesis afloat.

Helms' next two chapters are on Luke, and it is here where he offers his only really original thesis, namely that the author of Luke was a woman. Shoving aside the standard arguments for Lucan authorship with merely a wave of the hand, and no critical analysis (as we will see), Helms argues, in essence, that Luke's portraits of women are so sympathetic, and his portraits of men often so dumb, that only a woman could have written Luke's gospel. Well, as Helms has continued to prove, men are often quite dense; but this can be found in every gospel, so perhaps what we see there is more a reflection of the unsubtle nature of men than anything else. But what of that only a woman could write so highly of women? Why not also a male physician, a person highly sympathetic to human suffering, much of which was (and still is) inflicted upon women by men? Could not Luke have been a male physician who attended childbirths, addressed plagues, saw the loving care that women bestowed upon others, and came to empathize with them? Is Helms such a bigot that he cannot conceive of such a soul prior to the 20th century? Nor is there a complete escape from androcentric prejudices, for as Byrskog notes (Story as History, 75) even in Luke's Gospel there is a tendency to "pair women with men, enhancing and legitimizing the female characters, as it appears, by reference to the existence and action of males." Perhaps most amusing in this mess is Helms' dip into feminist Biblical scholarship, some of which reads Luke as pro-woman, some as anti-woman. Helms remarks that this is "a sign of real complexity, of richly nuanced presentation, in the works of this great writer." On the contrary: It is the sign of addle-headed scholars mirror-reading the political concerns of the 20th century into a 1st century text, and half of them missing the boat as a result. Helms is perhaps far too polite to recognize the relentless pursuit of ideological confirmation, or else, being too possessed of it, cannot see it in others.

Hard data as proof of this thesis is rather thin. In favor Helms quotes a feminist historian as noting that a slight change in one letter would turn "Theophilus" into a female name, thus making Luke's patron a woman; but they admit that no textual evidence exists for this idea. In a negative sense, Helms tries to disassociate Luke from Paul by hauling up a number of the standard "Acts vs. Epistles" arguments we have refuted here; the only new one is an idea that 1 Cor. 7:1 ("It is good for a man not to touch a woman," which Helms reads as "have nothing to do with a woman") as "misogny" that the female Luke would not stand for; not surprisingly Helms fails to comprehend the context of this remark, which has to do with maintaining behavioral purity and is thus a polar opposite of "misogyny."

Other than that, there is the usual overreading of Luke's preface as indicating a large number of gospels in circulation (as we have noted here, this is actually a literary device, one that cannot be pressed too far, and certainly not for the sake of yet another weak-reed thesis like Q/M); there is an amusing overreading of Luke 17:11-16, in which Helms asks why a Samaritan would go to a Jewish priest. (Not that Jesus says specifically to the Samaritan, "go to a Jewish priest" -- does Helms think that the Samaritans didn't have religious authorities of their own to go to? -- but then, how would Jesus know until later that any of the ten lepers was a Samaritan? Special revelation didn't just pop up anytime.) Finally there is more of Helms' usual "gospel fictions" thesis material which we have addressed, conceptually, in our previous article.

Chapter 6 contains Helms' nod to the gods of the age, that is, a promotion of the standard lines promoting the Gospel of Thomas, and that document as proof of the existence of Q (see here), the "Secret Gospel of Mark" (see Glenn Miller's essay here), and a Christianity of incredible diversity, of which, it is "not for us to decide" which was the true one (see here). There is little new here, other than an allegation that the relative rarity of Markan manuscripts suggests that the church was covertly trying to ignore or get rid of it: Helms tells us that while there is only one mss. of Mark as early as the third century, there are 8 of Matthew from the second and third century, and 4 of Luke. Now does this mean that the church also was inclined to get rid of Luke, but not so much as Mark? Actually, the sparsity of data here is such that no sane conclusion can be drawn; but rather than envisioning a vast conspiracy to exterminate Mark, isn't is just as likely that Matthew's more extensive preservation is due to that Gospel's useful structure as a teaching tool, while Luke would be more useful to those of more intellectual interest (and thus less preserved, but still preserved more than Mark, because it has a great deal of unique material), while Mark, being smaller (and as Helms is fond of pointing out, containing little that is not in Matthew!), and also being less sophisticated in its writing style, was simply less used? Why do we need some vast conspiracy to explain this data when something far more prosaic will suffice?

The final three chapters are concerned with the Gospel of John, and here Helms simply accepts uncritically the dictum of Fortna (and a few others) that John is an edited compilation of three sources: a "signs gospel," another editor's work, and a redactor's work. He also seems oblivious to advances in Johnanine scholarship related to the Dead Sea Scrolls, although he does pin authorship for the original document on an Alexandrian community of primitive Jewish Christians. Actual evidence cited for the divisions in John is fairly thin: Presumably Fortna offers more details, but Helms only alludes to supposed evidence of literary "seams" and alleged contradictions as proof, and offers specifically only two proofs. First, it is noted that our present John 21 has the decided look of something added after the fact. Actually, this is generally accepted as true, but that in and of itself does not prove more than one author; if a writer today can write a "Preface to the 3rd edition" and years later a "Preface to the 7th edition" then why on earth can an original author not have appended his own Gospel?

In terms of the same old "gospel fictions" arguments, Helms offers one of the old usuals, including the story (again, as in the first book) that the Cana water-to-wine miracle was stolen from Dionysus (again, as we noted, the literary evidence could only point to theft the other way around), and also claims that the raising of Lazarus was a story stolen from a myth of the Egyptian Osiris. Glenn Miller tells us that: "The reference to this resurrection I cannot find ANYWHERE in the scholarly literature. I have looked under all forms of the name to no avail. The fact that something so striking is not even mentioned in modern works of Egyptology indicates its questionable status." Helms cites the work of Budge, but the parallels he draws are quite questionable ("Bethany" is the same as "House of Anu," because house = "beth" in Hebrew? Might be worth a look if there weren't an actual Bethany in existence, and it means "house of dates," whereas the Egyptian Anu was one of their gods. "Lazarus" related to "El-Osiris"? Please, spare me...). The only real argument for a late date for John is the old "synagogue expulsion" argument we have covered here.

There are a number of other amusing notes that make these chapters a fine, thematically-appropriate set for the book as a whole. Great attention is devoted to the Secret Gospel of Mark, as Morton Smith is practically layered with Indiana Jones hat and whip -- too bad (see link above) the rest of the world of Biblical scholarship doesn't share the same opinion. Helms bases an argument on the thesis that after 70, Christianity was "rapidly becoming a gentile religion," but he should first consult and refute Rodney's Stark's findings inThe Rise of Christianity which strongly indicate that the Jewish mission carried on with some strength even into the time of Bar Kochba (130s AD). Acts 18:24, which mentions offhand that Apollos was from Alexandria, is magnified into a spectacular proof that Alexandria was the home of a primitive community of Christians who were not saddled with things like baptism and speaking in tongues, and Acts 18 is a slam against them, while the original signs gospel was a slam against the other church. (There were other clever slams, too, so subtle we hardly noticed them. John's gospel was written as a slam against Peter. Yes! For example, the fact that only in John is Judas Iscariot referred to as a "son of Simon" is a slam against "Simon Peter." So is the scene where John outruns Peter to the tomb -- yet Pete is allowed in first?; boy, this is subtle -- and where John is allowed into the house of the high priest while Pete waits outside. Aren't you glad Helms did all of this psychoanalysis on the text?) Finally, to tell you just how well Helms knows the field of Johnanine scholarship, he describes Raymond Brown as a "conservative" scholar!

Our conclusion: Helms with this book has shown once again why he has no business poking his nose into the realm of Biblical scholarship. He clearly lacks the discipline, knowledge, or fortitude to write on this subject with authority; the same would be said of any writer who thinks a mere 170 pages and 70 sources is enough to address such a complex issue. Helms closes by comparing works like his and that of other critics to the need to clean windows now and then. Aye, indeed so, and Helms has done a job as masterful as those two other famous window-washers...Wallace and Gromit!