The Bible: Myth or Mystery

Pocket Handbook of Christian ApologeticsChapter 10

Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli

The Bible, miracles and all the resurrection stand close together - if one falls they all fall.For example people might say their reasons for not believing in the resurrection:1. Miracles don’t happen2. The Bible is myth, not historyThe logic of arguing against miracles, resurrection and the bible must be in the right order - otherwise the reasoning is backward

To argue against miracles and the resurrection because the Bible is myth is not the right way to reason.Instead the argument should go like this:If the resurrection really did happen then miracles are possible and therefore the miracle stories in the Bible can be [are?] history, not myth.

To argue against miracles and the resurrection because the Bible is myth is not the right way to reason.Instead the argument should go like this:If the resurrection really did happen then miracles are possible and therefore the miracle stories in the Bible can be [are?] history, not myth.

If an unbeliever suggests that the Bible is a myth because it contains unbelievable miracle stories like the resurrection. This is circular reasoning. It is arguing that the resurrection is a myth because the Bible is a myth, and the Bible is a myth because it contains mythical stories like the resurrection.

The role of Scripture in Apologetics

There are 2 extremes - the fundamentalist extreme and the modernist extreme.The fundamentalist extreme[ position]Most who are fundamentalist (and also many who are called evangelicals) will only start their apologetics from Scripture - the authors argue against this on 3 grounds:

1. They think it is necessary to start by convincing you of the authority of Scripture because they think that natural human reason alone, apart from Scripture, is not strong enough or good enough to direct unbelievers to belief.2. Therefore, they think the only right order in apologetics is to first prove the authority of Scripture - then you can move onto other apologetic issues with this weapon in hand

3. Special standards must be used to understand and interpret Scripture, since, unlike all other books it is not just man’s words about God but God’s words about man.Kreeft also notes the first Christians for many centuries did their apologetics without the NT being defined (no canon was formed until ??). Added to which belief in a Creator God (and the possibility salvation) have come through rational arguments.

One might say it is hard to start by proving the authority of Scripture - it is easier to start with the existence of God, the divinity of Christ etc. The arguments are often put in a different order. So it is not,1. Scripture is infallible2. Therefore Christ is infallible3. Therefore Christ is divine

A more convincing order is,1. Scripture is reliable as historical record, as data2. Christ’s claims to divinity are found in Scripture3. Then comes the argument for the truth of these claims - as we studied previously.We can confront someone with the claims of Christ before talking to them about Scripture.

We might also ask if a nonbeliever would feel they should automatically give Scripture special treatment or assumptions - probably they would want to be convinced that it deserves special treatment as the WOG without this being presupposed.

The modernist extreme - if fundamentalists worship Scripture then modernists trash it. However both sides use the same special standards in judging the Bible, standards they do not apply to other books.

Fundamentalists interpret everything they possibly can as literally as possible and insist on a believing attitude from the start. Modernists interpret as much as possible (esp. Miracles and morally unpopular ideas) non-literally and start with an unbelieving skeptical attitude to the Bible.

Kreeft says that modernists tend towards eisegesis - reading things into the text - cf exegesis, reading things out of it. This means it has a worldview of naturalism, denying miracles and the supernatural - all of this is then read into the text - in this they impose something alien upon the text.Fundamentalists read into the text their own version of supernaturalism, something which it already contains.

Kreeft says unbelievers say:1. Christianity is what the NT teaches2. Christianity is false

Christians say,1. Christianity is what the NT teaches2. Christianity is true

Modernist theologians want peace with both sides of the argument - so they say,1. Christianity is not what the NT teaches at face value but what has been selected by modernists - the love ethic with out miracles2. This refined version of Christianity is true

Kreeft reminds us of Gal 1:8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!The Bible, WOG on paper - should lead us to Christ, WOG in flesh.If we look again at Christ we said we had a choice - Lord, liar, lunatic - this was based on what we said the Bible claimed Christ said - but what if Christ did not claim this, if the Bible (NT texts) is lying?

Kreeft suggests theologians who have tried to make the Bible out to e a myth, have caused more people to lose their faith than any atheistic arguments of the 20th century - this has taken place by the historical-critical method and higher criticism. In effect they have changed wine to water and faith to myth. Kreeft says the data makes such a change impossible:

1. If a neutral, scientific approach is used on NT texts (as with other historical documents) then the texts prove remarkably reliable. Repeatedly the Bible has been attacked, debunked, demythologised and demeaned - yet it remains living and powerful!

2. The state of the manuscripts is good - we have 500 copies earlier than 500AD, for the Iliad we have only 50 copies produced within 500 years of its origin. For Tacitus writing the annals f Rome there is only 1 copy written within 500 years of the original.One could question if it is the recording of miracles which makes people question the NT documents, not their historical validity - not science but prejudice.

“The manuscripts that we have, in addition to being old, are also mutually reinforcing and consistent. There are very few discrepancies and no really important ones. And all later discoveries of manuscripts, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, have confirmed rather than refuted previously existing manuscripts in every important case. There is simply no other ancient text in nearly as good a shape.”

3. If Jesus' divinity is a myth invented by later generations("the early Christian community," = "the inventors of the myth"), then there must have been at least 2-3 generations between the original eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus and the universal belief in the new, mythic, divinized Jesus; otherwise, the myth could never have been believed as fact because it would have been refuted by eyewitnesses of the real Jesus. Both disciples and enemies would have had reasons to oppose this new myth.

There is no evidence of anyone opposing the so-called myth of the divine Jesus in the name of an earlier merely human Jesus. The early "demythologizers" explicitly claimed that the New Testament texts had to have been written after A.D. 150 for the myth to have taken hold. But no competent scholar today denies the first-century dating of virtually all of the NT-certainly Paul's letters, which clearly affirm and presuppose Jesus' divinity and the fact that this doctrine was already universal Christian orthodoxy.

4. If a mythic "layer" had been added later onto an originally merely human Jesus, we should find some evidence, at least indirectly and second-hand, of this earlier layer. We find instead an absolute and total absence of any such evidence anywhere, either internal (in the NT texts themselves) or external, anywhere else, in Christian, anti-Christian, or non-Christian sources.

5. The Gospel style is not the style of myth, but of real, though unscientific, eyewitness description. Anyone sensitive to literary styles can compare the Gospels to any of the mythic religious literature of the time, and the differences will appear remarkable and unmistakable- e.g., intertestamental apocalyptic literature of Jews and Gentiles, pagan mythic fantasies like Ovid's Metamorphoses or Flavius Philostratus's story of the wonder-worker Apollonius of Tyana (AD220).

If the events in the Gospels did not really happen, then the authors invented modern realistic fantasy 19 centuries ago. The Gospels are full of little details, both of external observation and internal feelings, that are found only in eyewitness descriptions or modern realistic fiction. They also include many little details of life in first-century Israel that could not have been known by someone not living in that time and place (e.g. Jn 12:3). And there are no second-century anachronisms, either in language or content.

6. The claim of Jesus to be God makes sense of his trial and crucifixion. The Jewish sensitivity to blasphemy was unique; no one else would so fanatically insist on death as punishment for claiming divinity. In the Roman world, the attitude toward the gods was "the more, the merrier." Jesus had no political ambitions. - politics cannot explain his crucifixion. He disappointed the political expectations of friends and enemies.

The main reason why most Jews rejected his claim to be the Messiah was that he did not liberate them from Roman political oppression.Why then was he crucified? The political excuse that he was Caesar's rival was a lie trumped up to justify his execution, since Roman law did not recognize blasphemy as grounds for execution and the Jews had no legal power to enforce their own religious laws of capital punishment under Roman rule.

Why then was he crucified? The political excuse that he was Caesar's rival was a lie trumped up to justify his execution, since Roman law did not recognize blasphemy as grounds for execution and the Jews had no legal power to enforce their own religious laws of capital punishment under Roman rule.

7. There are 4 Gospels, not just one - written by 4 different writers, at 4 different times, probably for 4 different audiences and for 4 somewhat different purposes and emphases. So a lot of cross-checking is possible. By a textual triangulation, we can fix the facts with far greater assurance here than with any other ancient personage or series of events. The only inconsistencies are in chronology (only Luke's Gospel claims to be in order) and accidentals like numbers (e.g. did the women see one angel or two at the empty tomb?).

8. If the divine Jesus of the Gospels is a myth, who invented it? Whether it was his first disciples or some later generation, no possible motive can account for this invention. For until the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313, Christians were subject to persecution, often tortured and martyred, and hated and oppressed for their beliefs. No one invents an elaborate practical joke in order to be crucified, stoned or beheaded.

9. First-century Jews and Christians were not prone to believe in myths. They were already more "demythologized" than any other people. The orthodox were adamantly, even cantankerously and intolerantly, opposed to the polytheistic myths of paganism and to any ecumenical syncretism. Nor would anyone be less likely to confuse myth and fact than a Jew. Peter declares that the Gospel story is historical fact, not "cleverly devised myths" 2 Pet 1:16

10. Finally, if you read the Gospels with an open mind and heart, you may well conclude, along with Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard, that no mere man could possibly have invented this story.