Lydia McGrew Answered! On Plutarch

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Lydia McGrew Answered! On Plutarch

June 19, 2024

In this episode, part 5 in an 8 part series, Dr. Licona patiently deconstructs Lydia McGrew’s contrived flow chart for determining when it is safe to consider if a compositional device has been employed. He also shows how she approaches ancient historical sources with her own pre-conceived views, and how this results in erroneous conclusions. 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 non-profit organization. In this episode, part 5 in an 8 part series, Dr. Licona patiently deconstructs Lydia McGrew's contrived flow chart for determining when it is safe to consider.

If a compositional device has been employed. He also shows how she approaches ancient historical sources with her own pre-conceived views, and how this results in erroneous conclusions. Many classicists regard Plutarch as being the greatest of all ancient biographers.

Of the more than 60 biographies Plutarch wrote, 48 have survived. Nine of them have main characters who knew one another, and several then participated in the same events. There are 36 stories that appear in two or more of those nine biographies.

For example, the assassination of Julius Caesar is mentioned in Plutarch's lives of Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, and Antony. So, we can compare how Plutarch reports the same story in all four accounts. This differs from comparing how the story of Caesar's assassination is told by several different authors.

By focusing on Plutarch, we can assess how the same author, very often using the same sources and writing at the same time, reported the same stories. What I discovered surprised me, Plutarch never copies and pastes. We do not find the very close verbal similarities between the parallel accounts in Plutarch's lives that we observe in the synoptic gospels.

Since we can be quite confident that Plutarch had been exposed to the compositional textbooks, we now have the unique opportunity of observing how the exercises in those textbooks played out in his writing, and they frequently do. Moreover, classicists have proposed that there are additional compositional devices not mentioned in the textbooks, but are practically universal in ancient historiography. These include compression, conflation, displacement, transferral, and others.

I observe Plutarch employing these quite often. Lydia McGrew, however, disagrees in a manner that stuns, she writes. If we go so far as to conclude, as I shall argue, that there is no case for the objective existence of the defined devices such as displacement, transferral, etc.

Even in the Greco-Roman literature itself, we have no reason to think that they exist in the gospels either. Now, that's an audacious claim. Classes is to have spent decades immersed in the classical literature, reading it in its original languages, carefully researching the cultural and historical milieu in which the literature was written, and who have identified various compositional devices that they say are practically universal in ancient historical literature, well, they're all wrong according to Lydia McGrew.

New Testament scholars who have likewise spent decades immersed in the biblical literature, reading it in Greek, and carefully researching the cultural and historical milieu in which it was written, and have identified various compositional devices, they're all wrong too. Of course, we cannot dismiss an audacious claim on the grounds that it challenges a majority view. McGrew's arguments will need to be assessed.

However, since she's operating outside of her fields of English literature and philosophy, we can anticipate that she may occasionally misconstrue some items and errors a result. That happens with all scholars, myself included, when researching in their own fields. How much more than when one comments on matters in a field that's entirely unrelated to one's own? Perhaps the compositional device I observed more than any other is literary spotlighting.

Think of a theatrical performance. During an act in which several are simultaneously on the stage, the lights go out and the spotlight shines on a particular actor. Others are present but are unseen.

In literary spotlighting, the author only mentions one of the people present but is aware that others were present. Let's look at a couple of examples of literary spotlighting in Plutarch's lives. The following year, Caroline sought the consulship a second time and lost again.

Since the people would not have Caroline lead Rome as a consul, he planned to attack the city and take it by force. As his fellow conspirators began to come together, Crassus received some letters at his house informing him of the conspiracy. He joined Marcus Marcellus and Mattelis Scipio and went to Cicero's house on the night of October 20 and had him awakened in order to bring the letters to his attention.

This is the manner Plutarch reports the event in his life of Cicero. However, in his life of Crassus, Plutarch only mentions Crassus coming to Cicero at night. Plutarch shines his literary spotlight on his main character Crassus, but he's aware of the others who had accompanied him.

Let's fast forward six weeks. Cicero once again learns of others who are plotting to overthrow the city. He secures the evidence and calls another meeting of the Senate.

When the Senate met, Caesar suggested that the property of the conspirators should be confiscated and the conspirators should remain under arrest until Caroline had been defeated, and then they would be tried. Caesar's speech persuaded most of the senators. However, Catula supposed Caesar's proposal and was followed by Cato.

Both argued so passionately against the conspirators that they turned the Senate's opinion. The conspirators were condemned and put to death. There are numerous differences in this story, but I'm going to focus on one.

In Plutarch's life of Caesar, Cato and Catula supposed Caesar's proposal. In Plutarch's life of Cicero, Catula was the first to oppose Caesar followed by Cato. However, in his life of Cato Minor, Plutarch shines his spotlight on his main character, Cato, choosing not to mention Catula's and leaving the reader with the impression that Cato alone opposed Caesar.

Here's another example. Pompey delivers an illegal and comium. In 52 BC, Rome was in chaos and Caesar was becoming a threat to the Republic.

So, a drastic measure was taken by the Senate, electing Pompey as sole consul for that year and giving him virtually absolute power. Pompey proceeded to establish a number of new laws to bring about order. One of those laws stated that an comiums could not be read a trial on behalf of a defendant.

Plutarch reports that Pompey then broke the very law he had established when he wrote an incomium and had it read at the trial of his friend Plankus. In Plutarch's life of Cato Minor, Pompey writes the incomium and has an emissary read it at the trial. But Pompey is not present.

This scenario is confirmed by Dio and Valerius. However, in his life of Pompey, Plutarch reports that Pompey himself appeared in court and read his incomium. Plutarch simplifies the narrative by brushing out the emissary from the story and transferring the reading of the incomium to Pompey since he had composed it.

I'll return to this story in a moment where I will assess McGrew's explanation of what she thinks is going on here. So, we've just observed the few examples where Plutarch uses compositional devices, and I provide many more in my book. Now, let's examine McGrew's reasons for rejecting the position that ancient authors of historical literature often made use of compositional devices.

McGrew created a flowchart providing a step-by-step method for determining if a compositional device is present. I use the term compositional device because this is the term used by classicists. However, McGrew uses the loaded term fictionalizing literary device.

When differences between accounts are present, McGrew's first step is to determine if a difference rises to the level of an apparent discrepancy. If so, step two seeks to determine if the difference can be reasonably harmonized. If it cannot, step three assesses whether the author included the item in question while knowing it was false.

If one answers yes, step four asks if the author was engaging in propaganda, deception, or fabrication. If one answers no, the fifth and final step is to determine if the original readers would have considered the author's alteration to have been allowable. If one answers in the affirmative, only at this point when all the other options have been ruled out may be affirmed that the author used a compositional device.

It's important to observe not only each step in McGrew's flowchart, but also her contention that each step must be passed before those like myself are justified to conclude that a compositional device is responsible for the difference. In fact, at minimum, the first step must be passed prior to considering the others, she writes. The first question we should ask is whether these differences even amount to an apparent discrepancy.

It is particularly poor reasoning to leap from the mere presence of differences between accounts to the theory that an author has deliberately changed history. The other questions make no sense until we answer this first question. If there is no apparent discrepancy to harmonize, it makes no sense to ask whether it can be harmonized without undue strain.

McGrew accuses me of having extremely poor methodology because I prefer to ask whether a compositional device is responsible for a difference prior to seeking to harmonize differing texts. She also refers to her five steps as hurdles which classicists and New Testament scholars must jump over successfully before they would be justified in concluding that a compositional device is present. Otherwise, she says one is guilty of jumping the line.

Now, it seems to me that McGrew's flowchart is problematic on several accounts, and the problems begin at the first step. This step asserts that one cannot conclude that a difference resulted from the author employing a compositional device if the difference does not rise to the level of an apparent discrepancy. However, it is unclear to me why this must be, so let's put it to the test.

We will consider a story from Plutarch and a story from the Gospels. On pages 104 to 108 of my book, I assessed the story of the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by Octavian and Antony at Philippi. I draw attention to numerous differences between the manner Plutarch tells the story in his lives of Brutus, Caesar, and Antony, most of which are insignificant.

I then focus on how Plutarch reports the first battle. In Plutarch's life of Brutus, Octavian is not present at the first battle because, one, he did not expect Antony's men to attack, and two, he was sick. He left camp after a friend informed him of a dream he had, in which Octavian was ordered to rise from his bed and leave camp.

He barely escaped. Plutarch goes on in the next chapter to say that neither Antony nor Octavian were with their men, for Antony had withdrawn into a march while Octavian had left camp. However, in Plutarch's life of Antony, Antony is everywhere victorious and successful.

Octavian suffered a crushing defeat from Brutus, his camp was taken, and he barely managed to escape, although he makes out in his memoirs that he withdrew before the battle because of a dream which one of his friends experienced. Antony, on the other hand, overcame Cassius's army, though some writers have said that Antony was not present at the battle, but only joined in when his men were already in pursuit of the enemy. The Guru observes that Plutarch states in his life of Antony that sources exist saying Octavian and Antony were not present during the battle and that Plutarch does not reject their claims.

Therefore, no discrepancy is present. I don't view it that way. Although in the life of Antony, Plutarch does not reject the claims that Antony and Octavian were not present on the battlefield, he prefers to report that they were present, merely adding the note that some other sources report that they were absent.

But in his life of Brutus, Plutarch prefers to report that they were absent and does so without any mentioning of reports to the contrary. In my opinion, Plutarch chose to use the reports that best suited his purpose in the relevant biography. I'm not obligated to prove that a discrepancy exists, McGrew's first step, and that harmonization is unlikely McGrew's second step before positing this.

If we are seeking for what truly happened, we consider what appears to be most probable. Now let's consider a story from the Gospels and compare how Matthew, Mark, and Luke report Jesus' answer when the High Priest commands him to tell the Council whether he's Messiah, the Son of God. In Mark, I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

In Matthew, you have said so, only I say to you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. In Luke, if I told you, you would never believe, and if I asked you, you would never answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be sitting at the right hand of the power of God.

And they all said, are you therefore the Son of God? And he answered, you say that I am. Assuming Mark in priority and that Matthew and Luke are very likely using Mark as their source here, we can observe the editorial hands of Matthew and Luke at work. Jesus' simple I am answer in Mark becomes you have said so in Matthew and two different sentences in Luke.

It's likewise interesting to observe how Luke's version differs in another way. Matthew and Mark report Jesus saying, they will see him sitting at the right hand of power. The word power is here used as a synonym for God.

But Luke's patron, theophilus, may not grasp this so easily. So Luke adds, of God, for clarity, in other words, power of God. Furthermore, when Jesus says they will see him sitting at the right hand of power, Matthew and Luke report the high priest tearing his clothes, charging Jesus with blasphemy and the council condemning Jesus to death.

However, in Luke's version, there is no tearing of clothes. There is no charge of blasphemy and there is no condemnation of death at this time. Instead, the council follows up with the question, are you therefore the Son of God? When Jesus answers in the affirmative, the council is satisfied that they now have enough to bring him before Pilate.

Luke's reader Theophilus was Greek, and likely unfamiliar with the divine Son of Man figure Jesus had claimed to be, and why that claim would have elicited the emotion-filled, clothes-ripping charge of blasphemy. So Luke appears to have provided a cultural translation, much like Philo and Josephus do on occasion, and elaborated by having the council follow up by asking Jesus if he is the Son of God, a concept of the divine with which Theophilus would have been familiar. This looks very much like the technique in the compositional textbooks we observed earlier called elaboration.

These are differences, but do they rise to the level of apparent discrepancies? Even if you think that Luke's cultural translation rises to that level, one must strain to get a discrepancy out of Luke's paraphrase right hand of the power of God, for Mark's right hand of power. So contrary to McGrew, it's not necessary to recognize that a difference rises to the level of an apparent discrepancy before judging that the difference resulted from the use of a compositional device. McGrew would charge me here of jumping the line.

But this example nicely illustrates why compositional devices can be considered simultaneously with other options. This brings us to McGrew's second step, which says that if the differences can be reasonably harmonized, there is no reason to think that a compositional device was involved. This does not seem quite right.

One can surely acknowledge that occasions may exist when it seems more plausible that the difference resulted from the author using a compositional device than from the best harmonization positive. For example, many New Testament scholars acknowledge that there could have been two temple cleansings, but for a number of reasons most regarded as being more plausible that John has dislocated Jesus' temple cleansing from its actual setting on the final week of his life and transplanted it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. One can reasonably harmonize and claim that there were two temple cleansings.

However, chronological displacement may be the more plausible explanation. McGrew appeals to harmonizing by recognizing normal differences and discrepancies among eyewitness testimonies. For her, this provides a simple explanation and therefore is to be preferred over what she regards as the highly complex and unusual proposal that compositional devices are in play.

She says one should be guided by the principle when you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras. McGrew reiterates this principle several times throughout her book. In my third video, I described what she posits as plausible harmonizations related to the parable of the vineyard and wicked tenants.

Specifically, whether Jesus asked and answered his own question and whether he asked a question that describes in Pharisees answered. But it's worth repeating. She writes, 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 is 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. Now, we may ask why McGrew's entirely invented scenarios must be regarded as a hurdle one must jump, that is, demonstrate to be improbable prior to considering the possibility that Matthew employed the rhetorical techniques of creating a dialogue and elaboration techniques that either Matthew or the secretary he used had learned in the compositional textbooks. Such a requirement by McGrew is the product of faulty reasoning.

Of course there are innocent differences among eyewitness accounts that can and should be harmonized. There are many occasions in my book on gospel differences where this could be the best solution. But since my focus is on identifying compositional devices, when the presence of one seems unlikely, I often note the difference and leave it at that without speculating why the difference is there.

Also, the 19 stories in the gospels I provide in my book are those in which I think the presence of compositional devices are most likely. There are many more differences in the gospels I did not mention because I think that either it's not as clear that a compositional device is present or I think there may be a better explanation for those differences than compositional devices. So McGrew's warning is overstated when she writes, indeed, if we were to apply consistently the methods used by Lacona and some classicists, we would virtually erase normal variation and discrepancy due to human limitations, varied interests, and error.

Furthermore, the observation that normal variation and discrepancies exist in eyewitness testimony is limited in its relevance when assessing Plutarch and the gospels. Keep in mind that Matthew and Luke are very often using Mark as their primary source. Moreover, either Luke is also using Matthew as a source or Matthew is also using Luke as a source or both are also using a common source we no longer have and that has been nicknamed as Q. Many times Matthew and Luke quote their written sources verbatim.

Other times they edit them and we can observe how they do it. That's quite a different scenario than the normal variation and discrepancy between how multiple eyewitnesses describe the same item. Let's play this out in a hypothetical scenario.

You're in a restaurant having lunch with a few colleagues. You over here a couple seated at the table next to you having an argument which becomes progressively heated over a five minute period. Finally, the woman picks up a wine bottle on the table and strikes the man's face creating a large gashiness cheat.

EMTs arrive and dress the man's wound while a police officer arrests the woman. Another police officer comes to your table and asks each of you to write down your recollections of the event and summarizing what was spoken by the couple. Imagine how each of those accounts would differ and how they're worded.

20 minutes later the police officer collects your testimonies. What do you think the police officer would be thinking if all of you had summarized the precise wording of that five minute conversation in a manner that's almost verbatim? Would she recognize that the striking similarities are akin to those normally present when two or more eyewitnesses provide testimony or would she suspect you had all collaborated on what had been said? Oh, but there's another detail that must be considered. The couple was arguing in Spanish.

Fortunately, you and your colleagues are all fluent in Spanish, but the officer is not. So all of you are to recall the event and summarize the conversation in English. Now, anyone who has even a basic knowledge of a second language understands that translation is not precise.

How I translate a paragraph today will likely be a little different than how I translate it tomorrow. Now, what if the police officer found that all of your translated accounts of the quarreling couple's conversation were almost verbatim? The police officer would be quite justified, including that you had collaborated to a large extent. This is precisely what we often have when we compare how Matthew Mark and Luke narrate the same story.

Three authors narrating the same events and words, the large majority of those words being originally spoken in Aramaic, but recalled in Greek, and often virtually verbatim with one another. And we must add that they're recalling these events and words not within 20 minutes of their occurrence, but a few decades later. Now you can understand just some of the reasons why New Testament scholars recognize that a relationship exists between Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And this was often a literary relationship. Consider the following. In his Olivet Discourse, Jesus is discussing the signs of when the temple will be destroyed.

At one point, Mark reports Jesus saying, when you see the abomination of desolation staring where he ought not to be, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Now notice how Matthew reports the same part of the Olivet Discourse. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Of particular interest is the parenthetical statement, let the reader understand. This was either a note Mark included for the reader of his gospel, perhaps to suggest that the reader could hear expound on the relevant text in Daniel when reading to a group of others, or it was Jesus telling his disciples to read the text in Daniel for understanding. I lean toward the former reading, since the latter would not have made much sense if most of the disciples were illiterate as most scholars think.

Moreover, the same awkward location of the parenthetical clause in both Matthew and Mark is a much cleaner fit with there being a literary relationship between Matthew and Mark than with McGrew's appeal to normal variation in eyewitness reporting. Nevertheless, McGrew downplays the literary relationship between the gospels and goes straight to harmonization efforts. It's very difficult to dispute that a literary relationship exists between the synoptic gospels.

And this is why I place a priority on identifying how Matthew and Luke use Mark over harmonizing the differences by viewing them as normal variations when multiple eyewitnesses are testifying. Such normal variations are even less relevant when we have one author, Plutarch, who's reporting the same stories composing several of them simultaneously, perhaps within only a few months and likely using the same sources, perhaps even only a few. So, the role of step two in McGrew's flowchart is misguided.

Although one is free to consider whether differing accounts are possible to harmonize reasonably, one is under no obligation to do so prior to considering whether the author's use of a compositional device produced the difference. McGrew's third step asks whether the author included the item in question while having no reason to believe it's true. If so, step four asks if the author was engaging in propaganda deception or fabrication.

It's undeniable that people sometimes lie. They will also reframe a story to serve as propaganda. It's done all the time in politics.

We can also ask whether a difference resulted from information in another source, with which the author is familiar, or if there was a difference in the oral tradition, or whether the author desired to make it political or theological point more clearly or if the author had an intent to deceive. All of these options may be considered simultaneously and done so alongside harmonization efforts. But what if we knew in advance that two accounts written by the same author differed because one of the accounts was written as propaganda? In that case, we would be wasting our time if we attempted to come up with a reasonable harmonization of the differences or if we attempted to account for the difference by appealing to the author's use of a compositional device.

There's no good reason for why steps three and four could not be considered simultaneously with steps one and two or with the consideration that the author made use of a compositional device. So when McGrew's flowchart, it's not logically necessary to place one option prior to another despite her warnings that one should not jump the line. Now let's suppose that McGrew were to agree that it's not necessary for steps three and four to be considered prior to step two, but she adds that the main point of her flowchart is to demonstrate that steps one through four must all be answered in a favorable manner before one is justified, including that the author used a compositional device which produced the difference.

That still would not work from McGrew, since I've already shown several times in this video why none of the steps in her flowchart must be followed prior to considering that the author's use of a compositional device produced the difference. I demonstrated this related to Jesus' confession before the Sanhedrin, step one, the timing of his temple cleansing, step two, and the parable of the vineyard and wicked tenants, step two. I also showed how steps three and four could be considered simultaneously with steps one and two.

In fact, the only step discussed thus far for which McGrew is correct is that step two must follow step one. One can attempt to harmonize only when an apparent discrepancy is present. This brings us to McGrew's fifth and final step, which is to determine if the original readers would have considered the author's alteration to have been allowable.

But is even this a reasonable step? We saw in the third video that such practices for altering details were actually prescribed in the compositional textbooks, and that historians were to use the techniques for paraphrasing and composing narrative when writing historical accounts. So those possessing a reasonable degree of literacy would have considered many of the compositional devices eschewed by McGrew to have been acceptable. Now McGrew might cite Augustine's obsession with harmonizing differences, thus contending that he would not have recognized or approved of an author's use of compositional devices.

But as we will see in the next video, Augustine wasn't born until three centuries after Jesus, and there is no reason to believe that his thinking was representative of everyone's at that time much less those earlier. In fact, we will see that a church father much closer to the time of Jesus recognized that the authors of the Gospels altered minor details. In addition to all of these problems, McGrew's flowchart has the appearance of having been conveniently framed to render it virtually impossible to identify a compositional device since all other options must first be ruled out.

If it's possibly an error, a compositional device was not used. If it's possible that Plutarch found another source that changed his mind resulting in the difference than a compositional device was not used. If it's possible to harmonize a difference, a compositional device was not used.

This is not how historians operate. Historians look for the most probable explanation. And as I said earlier, I'm open to compositional devices, harmonization efforts, and other causes that resulted in differences.

I did not give attention to harmonizations in my book on gospel differences because I was focusing on identifying instances where a compositional device seems likely. This is a good time to return to the story of Pompey delivering an illegal incomium, which we looked at earlier in this video. Let's see how McGrew accounts for the difference.

Following her flowchart, she acknowledges that the difference rises to the level of an apparent discrepancy and admits that it's quite difficult to harmonize the accounts. So the difference passes her first two steps. Proceeding to step three, she asks whether Plutarch deliberately presented details he knew were false and says we have no reason to believe that he did.

She then charges me of leaping to conclusions without first considering other options such as those in her flowchart. Lucona does not offer an argument that Plutarch's change here between the two lives is a deliberate deviation for truth. Having claimed a discrepancy, he asserts a literary device, taking several stages of conjecture in one flying leap.

He does not argue, for example, that Plutarch must have known while writing Pompey that Pompey did not personally come into court. Indeed, it would be very difficult to argue any such strong thesis. So how does McGrew account for the difference? She writes, The difference can be quite readily and more simply explained by his remembering the story wrong on one occasion or gaining new information in between writing the two documents.

She then posits a few harmonizations. One conjecture that seems fairly plausible is that Plutarch heard or read something that was unclear on the matter, perhaps saying that Pompey gave an encomium for Plankas. Such a report would be ambiguous as between his delivering it personally and turning it in.

If Plutarch misinterpreted such a statement, he might have written as he did in Pompey in good faith and then might have obtained information that clarified the matter before he wrote Kato Minor. Even reading the same source more carefully and thoroughly could account for the difference. This theory cannot, of course, be proven, but it is the kind of understanding that happens quite commonly in daily life and therefore has more to commend it than the far more elaborate theory that Plutarch knowingly stated an explicit falsehood about Pompey's personal action in one of his lives.

If Plutarch did do so, of course, that still does not mean that he was engaging in a literary device for his fabricating such a detail need not mean that he believed that this was a societally accepted device and that his audience would not be misled. This is a nice example whereby we can observe McGrew applying her method as she proceeds through her flowchart step by step. Stated succinctly, the matter of who read the encomium rises to the level of an apparent discrepancy, but there are a number of harmonizing solutions that are possible, and Plutarch may plausibly be guilty of an innocent error.

Furthermore, even if he changed the story to have Pompey himself read the encomium, this does not suggest that Plutarch believed such was acceptable to others. McGrew insists that all of these possibilities are more likely than what she refers to as the elaborate theory that Pompey knowingly wrote an explicit falsehood. If we overlook McGrew's loaded terms, elaborate theory, and explicit falsehood, McGrew's conjectures are possible.

However, she fails to appreciate how ancient writers conducted their work. Christopher Pelling, the foremost authoritian Plutarch, and others have argued that Plutarch's lives that featured those of the late Roman Republic are largely based on the contemporary history of Rome written by Essenius Paulio. Pelling holds that Plutarch's wide reading of other sources is reflected in not more than 25% of his overall narrative.

He adds that this practice is not unique to Plutarch, nor to biography, but is shared by other historians such as Cassius Dio, Livy, Dionysus of Halicarnassus, and even Tacitus. This has implications for the Gospels. Given this practice by ancient historians, should we be surprised when we observed Matthew and Luke making such robust use of Mark and only supplementing him? Back to Plutarch.

Pelling argues that Plutarch composed six of the lives featuring those of the late Roman Republic as a set and did so simultaneously. So, the Palio source and a handful of other sources may very likely have been all that he was using during the composition phase of those lives. In that case, it's unlikely that Plutarch came across another source since writing Poppy or read his source more carefully at a later time.

Furthermore, as I stated in my book, the trial at which Poppy's speech would have been read occurred between December 10, 52 BC and the end of January 51 BC. Poppy may have decided to break his own law and read the Encomium a trial only after he learned that the trial was not going as well for his friend Plankus as he had hoped. This would likely place Poppy's illegal act in January.

As I explain in my book, Poppy would most likely have left the city by the time the Encomium would have been needed. All of this increases the likelihood that Plutarch deliberately simplified his account in his life of Poppy and narrated Poppy appearing in person to read a speech at the trial of his friend Plankus. Contrary to McGrew, this is not very difficult to argue, and it's not even close to being an elaborate theory.

Finally, it's very unlikely that those not prone to black and white thinking would regard Plutarch's simplification to be an explicit falsehood. Therefore, an answer to the question, who read Poppy's illegal Encomium, Poppy, or an emissary? McGrew's method, articulated by her flowchart, leads her to embracing a solution that's less probable than the very simple explanation that Plutarch simplified the story in his life of Poppy and transferred the action to Poppy who had composed the Encomium. Now, let's return to McGrew's claim that I mentioned at the beginning of this video.

She contends that there is no case for the objective existence of the defined devices, such as displacement, transferral, et cetera, even in the Greco-Roman literature itself. She also asserts that the steps articulated in her flowchart result in the inability of classicists and many New Testament scholars to establish that a compositional device was used in a specific instance. Therefore, she contends that we are justified in strongly suspecting that those literary devices are a figment of the imaginations of modern professors.

In other words, we may justly doubt whether these devices were real things at all. As I said at the beginning of this segment, this is an audacious claim, and it's a game changer if true. However, we observe clouded reasoning in McGrew's flowchart at multiple steps and levels.

I also provided a few examples where Plutarch quite probably employs the use of compositional devices. Therefore, McGrew's assertion is demonstrably false that there is no case for the objective existence of the defined devices, such as displacement, transferral, et cetera, even in the Greco-Roman literature itself. McGrew asserts that the claim that an author has made use of a compositional device has a heavy burden of proof since the claim is highly complex and unusual.

She continues, when confronted with differences in two reports, we should think horses, not zebras. We should try to use a simpler, more common explanation rather than an elaborate, uncommon explanation for which we have no independent evidence. Compositional devices are far from being highly complex, unusual, elaborate, and uncommon.

In fact, they are devices we often use even today in our everyday communications. They are so common that we often use them without ever thinking about them. We sometimes describe an event as though occurring over a shorter period of time than it had actually occurred.

We sometimes conflate events, mention only one person saying or doing something while having knowledge of others who were involved. We do these things to abbreviate, to make a point more clearly or merely because we're not concerned with precision. We don't regard these as errors or deceit or fictional.

Perhaps you may not even want to call them compositional devices because they are so common. Whatever you may call them, when we do them with thought and written communication, they are deliberate. This does not make us unreliable or deceitful.

That said, this analogy to modern usage goes only so far. Although it makes clear that such compositional rhetorical devices are harmless, simple, and common today, we also understand that the degree of flexibility acceptable and recalling events in an email is much greater than that allowed in a legal deposition. It's also the case that ancient historians did not have the same aims and conventions as those embraced by modern historians.

We have observed in the compositional textbooks that historians were expected to paraphrase and elaborate using the techniques discussed in those textbooks. We have also observed that Plutarch and at least some of the Gospel authors appeared to have employed some of these techniques and others. These were acceptable in ancient historical writing, even if not all of them would be acceptable in modern historical writing.

That classicist who have spent their entire careers immersed in the ancient literature and have the impression that compositional devices are practically universal in ancient historiography suggests that a strong possibility exists that McGrew may be reading ancient literature through the wrong lens. She insists that when we hear hoofbeats, we should think horse, not zebra. But she overlooks the fact that as South Africa is a foreign land to North America, antiquity is a foreign land to us moderns.

We need to be sensitive to this so that when we hear hoofbeats and see that the animal has stripes, we should think zebra, not horse. 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.

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