Lydia McGrew Answered! On Paraphrase

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Lydia McGrew Answered! On Paraphrase

June 13, 2024

In this episode, Dr. Licona gives attention to Lydia McGrew's contentions that historians in antiquity would not have employed the literary exercises taught in the compositional textbooks by Theon, Quintilian, and others. This is part 3 in a series of 8. These audio clips are taken from Dr. Licona’s YouTube channel, originally published in 2020.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Risen Jesus podcast with Dr. Mike Licona. Dr. Licona is professor of New Testament studies at Houston Christian University. And he is the president of Risen Jesus, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.

In this episode, Dr. Licona gives attention to Lydia McGrew's contentions that historians in antiquity would not have employed the literary exercises. taught in the compositional textbooks by Theon, Quintilian, and others. This is part 3 in a series of 8. Only a small percentage of people in antiquity could read.

Scholars offered different estimates, but perhaps 10% could read, and only half of those could read and write. There was also a difference between those who could write, and those who could write well. In antiquity, by the time children of well-to-do families reached their mid teens, they had already learned how to write.

And would proceed to the next level where they would be taught to write well. It's here that they were exposed to compositional textbooks containing writing exercises called Projim-Nasmata. The earliest of these that has survived was composed in Greek by Theon in the first century.

Quintilian provided similar exercises in Latin in the first century. However, there were others who preceded Theon and Quintilian. In my book, I focused on exercises provided by Theon in his chapter titled, Paraphrasing Theon Described for Techniques.

Paraphrase consists of changing the form of expression while keeping the thoughts. There are four main kinds, variation in syntax, by addition, by subtraction, and by substitution, plus combinations of these. In other words, to paraphrase, one can change the grammatical structure.

One can add to or subtract from the thoughts expressed, or substitute some words for synonyms, or synonymous phrases. Here's a quick example of substitution. In 66 BC, Cato Uticensis, also referred to as Cato Minor, he was approaching the city of Antioch when he saw a crowd waiting to welcome him enthusiastically at the city's gate.

Not to be haughty, he dismounted from his horse, proceeded on foot, and ordered those accompanying him to do the same. However, when they arrived at the gate, a leader of the welcoming committee asked him where Pompey's Friedman Demetrius was. They were looking for someone of much lower status than Cato and were disappointed when it was not him while failing to recognize that they were speaking to a much greater person.

The men who accompanied Cato broke out in laughter, and Cato responded curtly with, oh, cursed city. That's how Plutarch reports what he said in his life of Cato Minor. However, in his life of Pompey, he substitutes cursed with miserable, oh miserable city.

Theon goes on to say there are even more techniques. There are other ways of varying the content along the lines discussed in the chapter on narration. For example, recasting an assertion as a question, a question as a potentiality, and similarly other forms of expression that we mentioned.

Here's a quick example of Plutarch changing a statement to a question. A Caesar continued to increase in power after becoming dictator, some were warning him of Brutus, to which Caesar replied, Brutus will wait for this shriveled skin. That's what Plutarch reports in his life of Caesar.

However, in his life of Brutus, Plutarch recasts Caesar's reply as a question. What? Does it not occur to you that Brutus intends to wait for this flesh? How important was it to learn how to paraphrase? Here's Theon's answer. Training and exercises is absolutely useful, not only for those who are going to be orators, but also if anyone wants to be a poet or historian, or if he wants to acquire a facility with some other form of writing.

These things are, in effect, the foundation of every form of writing. Theon says that these exercises in paraphrasing and writing narrative are absolutely useful to those aspiring to be historians, because they are the foundation of every form of writing. Let's look at a few examples of these techniques being used by the Gospel authors.

I'll assume that Mark was the first Gospel written, as do a very large majority of scholars. Those interested in why the majority think Mark was written first may find Season 2 of my Risen Jesus podcast helpful. Jesus' parable The Mustard Seed is reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Mark reports Jesus saying, How can we compare the Kingdom of God, or with what parable may we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard. Luke reports Jesus saying, What is the Kingdom of God like, and to what will I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard. And here's Matthew.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard. Matthew does two things here when editing Mark. First, he conflates the question and statement, and presents the two as a single statement.

Second, instead of saying Kingdom of God, he substitutes Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, Matthew has a habit of changing Kingdom of God to Kingdom of Heaven. When speaking to Jews, Jesus may very well have used Kingdom of Heaven instead of Kingdom of God.

Regardless of the reason, Matthew edits Mark. Let's look at another example. Jesus' parable of the vineyard and wicked tenets.

This parable is also reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke with all three located in it after Jesus' triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. The parable is most similar in Mark and Luke, where the vineyard owner sends three servants, one at a time. The tenants wound or kill each one.

Mark adds that the owner sent many others. Mark and Luke then say the owner sent his son, whom the tenants kill. Instead of sending three servants one at a time, Matthew says the vineyard owner sends three servants at the same time whom the tenants wound and kill.

Then he sends more the second time than the first. Finally, he sends a son whom the tenants kill. Mark and Luke then report that Jesus asks and answers his own question, pertaining to what the vineyard owners will do.

But Matthew seems to create a short dialogue in which Jesus asks the question and the chief priest in Pharisees answer him, and they do so with even more vigor. Theon refers to this technique as creating a dialogue and elaboration. I provide an abundance of examples like this in my book.

Here's how Lydia McGrew answers the claim that historians employed these compositional devices in editing. She writes, Lacona and Craig Evans are claiming both that the gospel authors were trained according to the pedagogical methods they have in mind and also at the methods involved teaching students to alter history. Making factual alterations, teaching students to alter history is not at all how Craig Evans and I, Craig Keener, Richard Burridge, and many others interpret what Theon taught.

But McGrew is caught in black and white thinking. If peripheral details we just observed were altered intentionally in her mind, that's altering history and fictionalizing, and McGrew will have none of it. How then does McGrew explain the differences in Matthew's version of the parable of the vineyard in wicked tenants? She proposes the following harmonizations.

One possibility is that Jesus paused for a moment and that some in the crowd spoke up at approximately the same time that Jesus decided to go ahead and answer his own question. Another possibility is that someone in the crowd spoke up and answered the question approximately as given in Matthew and that Jesus affirmed, that's right, he'll come and destroy those tenets, or words to that effect, remembered and recorded by Peter as told to Mark. This sort of natural harmonization hardly stretches the bounds of credibility.

In fact, it describes quite a common interactive teaching situation. McGrew posits two alternative scenarios she judges as being possible. However, granting that something is possible is not equivalent to saying it's probable.

I'm willing to grant that both of her invented scenarios are impossible, even perhaps plausible. However, I believe the solution I provided is likewise possible and plausible. The remaining question is, which is the more probable solution? In order to refute the claim that Theon meant for aspiring historians to apply the rhetorical techniques for paraphrasing and composing narrative prescribed in the compositional textbooks, McGrew provides a few hypothetical examples of what a modern high school student may be asked to do, such as write a speech that George Washington could have given to encourage his men at Valley Forge and to write a dialogue between two soldiers just before the Battle of Gettysburg.

She then says, Just as there is no reason to think that students who were taught to write from a curriculum, like the hypothetical modern one just described, will get the idea that creative alteration and invention of fact are welcome in serious historical writing, there is no reason to think that Theon's exercises were taken to be instructing students in that way either. The literary device theorists are therefore completely misinterpreting and misapplying these exercises when they imply that they provided historiographical models that instructed students to change historical facts. The Greek exercise books do recommend paraphrasing as an exercise, but make no statement whatsoever about the degree of freedom allowed or encouraged in reporting of the spoken word in history, that is simply not the point of the exercises.

The authors of the exercise books are writing curricula in rhetoric, and those curricula are not teaching the ethics of truthfulness and reporting history one way or another. Even if Theon did not explicitly state that historians are to handle their sources this way when writing history, it's a very small step to surmise that they would later when engaged in historiography. And remember Theon's statement that training in these exercises is necessary for those aspiring to be historians.

McGrew attempts to downplay this. She says, Theon is pointing out that while future rhetoricians are the most obvious consumers of his curriculum, all future writers can profit, including poets and historians. But this again does not mean that he is giving advice or opinions concerning the degree of factuality that an historical narrative should have.

Theon is advertising the broad usefulness of his writing curriculum. That is all. No, that's not all.

A few minutes ago, I quoted Theon on his techniques for paraphrasing. In one instance, he says there are additional techniques for paraphrasing that he provides in his chapter on narrative. In that chapter, Theon writes, Since we are accustomed to setting out the facts, sometimes is making a straightforward statement, and sometimes is doing something more than making a factual statement, and sometimes in the form of questions, and sometimes as things we seek to learn about, and sometimes as things about which we are in doubt, and sometimes is making a command, sometimes expressing a wish, and sometimes swearing to something, sometimes addressing the participants, sometimes advancing suppositions, sometimes using dialogue.

It is possible to produce varied narrations in all these ways. The last sentence in Greek is clear. It is allowed, according to all of these ways, to vary the narrative.

The term for vary here is poikilantas, which carries the meaning of bringing forth in various colors, to embellish, to adorn, to tell with art and elegance to change. Theon is saying all of these techniques are permitted for varying the narrative artfully. He is not talking about different manners by which historians report different facts.

For example, fact A is reported as a question, while fact B is reported as a statement. Contrary to McGrew, these techniques taught in the compositional textbooks are not only for the classroom. They are for historians to use when writing their narratives.

Theon says, historical writing is nothing other than a combination of narratives. If this is not clear enough, Theon is even clearer elsewhere in his preface. He writes, thought is not moved by anyone in only one way so as to express the idea that has occurred to it in a similar form.

But it is stirred in a number of different ways, and sometimes we are making a declaration, sometimes asking a question, sometimes making an inquiry, sometimes beseeching, and sometimes expressing our thought in some other way. There is nothing to prevent what is imagined from being expressed equally well in all these ways. There is evidence of this in paraphrased by a poet of his own thoughts elsewhere, or paraphrased by another poet and in the orators and historians, and in brief, all ancient writers seem to have used paraphrase in the best possible way, rephrasing not only their own writings, but those of each other.

Theon is clear. Evidence of these techniques for paraphrasing may be observed when we compare how a poet states his similar thoughts in more than one place. It may be observed in similar comparisons with orators and historians.

The matter concerns how an author states the same thought in a different form. Therefore, I was actually mistaken in my book when I wrote, and these exercises students improved their skills by altering the wording of their sources. Although the textbooks do not specifically state this was the manner in which they handled their sources when writing professionally, it is a very small step of faith to surmise they would employ such alterations.

Theon says that all ancient writers use these techniques by rephrasing their own writings and the writings of others, and in my book I provide many examples that show how Plutarch paraphrases his own writings and how Matthew and Luke paraphrased Mark. And there's even more. Theon has a chapter on elaboration in which he writes, elaboration is language that adds what is lacking in thought and expression.

What is lacking can be supplied by making clear what is obscure, by filling gaps in the language or content, by saying some things more strongly, or more believably, or more vividly, or more truly, or more wordily, each word repeating the same thing, or more legally, or more beautifully, or more appropriately, or more opportunity, or making the subject pleasanter, or making a better arrangement, or a style, more ornate. We often observe elaboration when ancient historians improved or wrote speeches. Indeed, Lucian prescribed that historians should do this when recounting a speech, and couldn't this be what we observe Matthew doing with the reply of the chief priest in Pharisees when Jesus asked them what the vineyard owner will do to those who killed a son? What of McGrew's contention that Theon is not touching on the ethics of truthfulness in historical reporting? It's McGrew's black and white concept of truthful reporting that leads her to think ethics is involved.

Since Theon and other rhetoricians are teaching aspiring historians that when writing narrative, they are to paraphrase their sources using the techniques they are practicing, it's clear that these rhetoricians did not regard it as unethical to bring about these minor alterations. Moreover, we observe some of the finest ancient historians using many of the forms of the rhetorical devices learned in the compositional textbooks. Clossist Ronald Miller writes of Tacitus, his historical training informs every page of his histories, but it is most obvious in his reliance on speeches to shape the historical narrative.

Even Rome's enemies are granted an opportunity to speak and to speak more effectively than they ever actually did on the battlefields of Britain or Germany. Now, where did Tacitus learn to improve or invent speeches from the exercises in the compositional textbooks? Moreover, when we observe Plutarch writing of the same events, we see him doing these things. He never copies and pastes.

So, we must observe what historians of that period are doing. Do they invent speeches? Yes. Do they paraphrase and elaborate in order to improve the quality of a speech or even a narrative? Yes.

Do they change a statement to a question and express a thought in any number of different ways? Do we see them doing this with their own writings? Yes. Do we see them doing this with the writings of others? Yes. Do we observe Matthew and Luke often paraphrasing Mark in these ways? Yes.

When I identify the differences in how Matthew and Luke report material for which Mark is their likely source and read the relevant Gospel text through the lens of the prescribed exercises in the compositional textbooks, what I observe aligns perfectly with what is prescribed in the compositional textbooks, referring to the exercises that are commonly found in the compositional textbooks by Theon and others, Gerald Downing comments, the procedures are always so similar that it would be absurd to suppose without massive supporting evidence that the New Testament evangelist could have learned to write Greek and cope with written source material at all while remaining outside the pervasive influence of these common steps toward literacy. In summary, McGrew's wooden concept of truthful reporting results in her misconstruing Theon. In my fifth video, we will observe how additional problems with McGrew's thesis are even more egregious, for they're not due to having an inadequate grasp of the ancient literature.

Instead, they result from clouded reasoning. But before we go there, we'll take a look at one of the more profound weaknesses in McGrew's book, Her Black and White Concept of Truth Will Reporting. Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to learn more about the work and ministry of Dr. Mike Lacona, visit RisenJesus.com, where you can find authentic answers to genuine questions about the reliability of the Gospels and the resurrection of Jesus. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast, visit Dr. Lacona's YouTube channel, or consider becoming a monthly supporter. This has been the Risen Jesus Podcast, a ministry of Dr. Mike Lacona.