Lydia McGrew Answered! On Gospel Differences

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Lydia McGrew Answered! On Gospel Differences

June 26, 2024

In this episode, part 7 in an 8 part series, Dr. Licona reviews several events in the Gospels to demonstrate how compositional devices are more plausible explanations than the explanations embraced by Lydia Mcgrew: forced harmonizations, or worse, that errors had occurred. 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, part 7 in an 8 part series, Dr. Licona reviews several events in the Gospels to demonstrate how compositional devices are more plausible explanations.

In previous videos in this series, and especially in my book, I argue that ancient authors of historical literature employ techniques they had learned in the compositional textbooks for paraphrasing and composing narrative. They also used compositional devices identified by classicists, such as compression, conflation, displacement, transformation, and so forth. I have provided numerous examples in Plutarch's lives, where he likely employs these techniques and devices.

Since the Gospels share much in common with ancient biography, we should expect that their authors wrote within the parameters of that genre. In fact, we should be surprised if they had not. In this video, we will be examining a number of differences in the Gospels, and a series of examples in the Gospels.

We will be assessing whether the solutions McGrew offers are worth embracing. I'll be focusing on three stories, and here's the first. Jesus raises Jairus' daughter from the dead.

Mark and Luke report that Jairus came to Jesus and said, My daughter is about to die. Please come heal her. Jesus agrees, and while on their way, some servants from Jairus' house come and tell him that his daughter has just died.

Jesus tells Jairus to have faith. They then go to Jairus' house, and Jesus raises his daughter from the dead. When Matthew reports the same story, Jairus comes to Jesus and says, My daughter has just died.

Please come heal her. Jesus agrees, they go to Jairus' home, and Jesus raises the girl from the dead. Matthew doesn't mention the servants who come to tell Jairus that his daughter had died, because there was no need, since in Matthew's version of the story, she was already dead when Jairus approached Jesus.

Matthew simplified the story. But McGrew insists on harmonizing. She writes the following.

If the girl's breathing were slowly and she scarcely seemed to be breathing at all when he left, Jairus may have left his house in a great hurry, hoping to catch Jesus before her death. As Augustine suggests, he may have been mentally despairing, or he may have been wavering between believing that she was dead and believing that she was not dead yet. This is, after all, a world without stethoscopes or other ways to check vital signs.

It is not especially implausible given the two accounts that in his mentally agitated state, he may have actually said something like this. My daughter is dying. She's probably just now died.

But if you come and lay your hands on her, she will live. In that case, both Matthew's and Mark's versions of his words would fall well within the range of normal paraphrase, and the differences can easily be attributed to the variations of truthful witness memory. It is interesting that both versions say that the girl will live if Jesus lays his hands on her.

A harmonization of this kind takes account of this. If Jesus comes and touches her, she will live, whether she has died already, as Jairus in his fear and grief is inclined to believe, or is alive, as he still partly hopes. This harmonization is one that Lacona does not consider, whether or not Matthew knew, either from witnessing the scene and or from Mark's account, that the servants came later and told Jairus that his daughter was dead, simply not including that part of the story is not the same thing as deliberately suppressing it to try to make it look like she was dead before Jairus left the house.

Omitting that part of the story could be a matter of benign compression, merely telling the story more briefly without altering facts. I regard McGrew's harmonization as possible, however I think it's much less probable than the one proposed by myself and others. I think Matthew's omission of the servants who informed Jairus of his daughter's death carries more weight than McGrew is willing to acknowledge, that Matthew simplifies his account elsewhere.

For example, Jesus healing the centurion's servant, Jesus cursing a fig tree, Jesus is parable of the vineyard and wicked tenants, suggests Matthew's tendency to abbreviate, a tendency acknowledged by most gospel scholars. Moreover, classicists and gospel scholars alike have long acknowledged that compression is a compositional device employed by ancient writers. The following evangelical commentators interpret Matthew as representing Jairus's daughter as being already dead when he approached Jesus.

Darryl Bach, DA Carson, Craig Evans, RT France, Donald Hagner, Robert Hahn, Craig Keener, John Nolan, Grant Osborne, and Stuart Weber. Carson, who can hardly be accused of having a low view of scripture, flat out rejects the view for which McGrew contends. He writes, his daughter has just died, attempts to make RT et al.

Utesen mean is now dying, stem not from Greek syntax, but from two simplistic a desire to harmonize this account with Mark and Luke. Better to recognize that Matthew, having eliminated the messengers as extraneous to his purposes, condenses so as to be present at the outset what was actually true before Jesus reached the house. Such as Matthew's condensed style elsewhere.

Now let's move to our second story. Jesus cleanses the temple and curses a fig tree. In my previous video, I discussed three ways of expressing chronology, floating, explicit, and implicit.

I provided the example of Jesus cleansing the temple and cursing a fig tree to reflect an implicit chronology that's so strong as to be virtually explicit. To recap that story, Mark narrates that after making his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, Jesus goes into the temple, looks around, then leaves. He and his disciples then go to Bethany where they spend the night.

On Monday morning, Jesus and his disciples return to Jerusalem. While on their way, Jesus curses a fig tree. When they arrive in Jerusalem, he goes into the temple a second time, this time observing some activities of which he disapproves.

So he cleanses the temple, overturning tables, and driving away the merchants and money changers. Later that day, Jesus and his disciples return to Bethany where they spend another night. On Tuesday morning, they're returning again to Jerusalem, and they notice that the fig tree Jesus had cursed on the previous day had withered and died.

Matthew narrates the events differently. He also has Jesus going into the temple after his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. However, Matthew moves the temple cleansing from Monday to Sunday and conflates it with the first temple visit reported by Mark.

On the next morning, Jesus and his disciples are returning to Jerusalem when he curses the fig tree and it withers before their very eyes. Magrud disagrees with this assessment, asserting that Matthew was narrating either a chronologically or discronologically. If he was narrating discronologically, then he falsely narrated that the tree had withered before their eyes.

If a chronologically, there is no discrepancy. Although Magrud does not offer her opinion related to why the difference is there, we are exposed once again to her black and white concept of truthful reporting. For her, it's either one or the other, ochronological or discronological.

There's no room for literary sensitivity whereby something might be implied. I agree that Matthew does not explicitly state that the temple cleansing was on the same day as the triumphal entry, or that he explicitly states that the fig tree withered before their eyes. However, as stated previously, in my opinion, the chronology in both instances is so strongly implied that Magrud bears a much greater burden of proof to show otherwise than she appears willing to acknowledge.

If you have any doubts about the truth of what I'm saying, I encourage you to pause this video and read the text in Matthew. Then assess for yourself whether it's strongly implied that the temple cleansing occurred on the same day as Jesus' triumphal entry and that Jesus cursed the fig tree on the following day. Here's the reference.

The chronology in Matthew is implied so strongly that even Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe were willing to acknowledge that Matthew moved the day on which Jesus cleansed the temple from Monday to Sunday. Why, then, do some regard it as being anathema to suggest that John may have moved the temple cleansing to the beginning of Jesus' ministry, or that he moved the day and time of Jesus' crucifixion, or that either John or Mark moved the day that Mary anointed Jesus. Yet McGrew insists that John's placement of the temple cleansing at the beginning of Jesus' ministry requires that there were two temple cleansings, and that either Mark or John has simply made a minor good faith chronological error and one that would be quite easy to make in relation to when the woman anointed to Jesus.

Now let's move along to our third and final example. Jesus heals a centurion's servant. Remember the story of Poppy giving an illegal ancomium? The main difference in Plutarch's account pertains to whether Poppy sent his ancomium via an emissary who read it at a trial, or Poppy himself had gone to the trial and read it in person.

Well, the story of Jesus healing a centurion's servant is a very nice parallel and can be understood in a similar fashion. A centurion wanted to ask Jesus to heal his servant who was very sick. Luke tells us the centurion sent some Jewish elders to make the request on his behalf.

They come to Jesus and say, there's a centurion who's been kind to our people. He has a servant who's sick, please heal him. Jesus agrees, and they head toward the centurion's house.

But when the centurion gets word that Jesus is on his way, he crafts a message and sends some friends to relay it to Jesus. The centurion says he's not worthy for you to enter his house, but he knows you have authority, so he says, just give the command and his servant will be healed. Jesus praises the faith of the centurion and heals his servant without ever having seen the centurion.

That's Luke's version of the story. In Matthew's version, the centurion himself goes to Jesus and makes the request in person. When Jesus agrees to see the servant, the centurion tells him, I'm unworthy for you to enter my house, but you have authority, so just give the command and my servant will be healed.

Jesus praises the centurion for his faith and heals his servant. Matthew has simplified the story by airbrushing out the Jewish elders and friends the centurion had sent, and instead has the centurion go to Jesus in person. If you consult the commentaries, you'll see that what I have proposed is also the majority view taken by Evangelical New Testament scholars, among whom are Darryl Bach, F. Bruce, D.A. Carson, R.T. France, Donald Hagner, Walter Lee Felt, Howard Marshall, D. Leon Morris, Mark Strauss, Robert Stein, and Michael Wilkins.

However, there are three other approaches a minority of scholars take for dealing with the differences in this story. A very small number appeal to creative harmonization. These suggest that the centurion sent the Jewish elders, then his friends, then later decided to go see Jesus.

Chrysostom took this approach in the 4th century. A more recent interpreter was Gleason Archer. Although this scenario is possible, it's pure speculation.

It's also wrong, it's sense, according to Luke, the men who had been sent by the centurion returned to the house. Luke doesn't include the centurion who had sent them because, according to Luke, he didn't go to see Jesus. Moreover, Matthew tends to simplify throughout his gospel.

Even McGrew, who virtually always prefers harmonization, thinks this harmonization proposal is going too far. Another approach also appeals to harmonizing. We will call it metonymy.

Metonymy is a rhetorical device, a figure of speech whereby one thing is substituted for another with which it's closely related. For example, the Gospels report that Pilate scourged Jesus. Most readers understand that Pilate had ordered the scourging rather than being the one holding the whip.

Likewise, when the Jewish elders informed Jesus that the centurion had built the synagogue for them, readers naturally understand that the centurion had either funded or had overseen the project rather than having completed all of the work single-handedly. With metonymy, Matthew was doing something similar when saying that the centurion went to Jesus. The centurion sent others to Jesus to deliver a message on his behalf.

But Matthew is not saying the centurion appeared before Jesus in person. This approach was proposed by Augustine and Calvin and is held today by Vern Poitras. The suggestion that metonymy is being used here by Matthew is also problematic.

While one can easily see how saying the centurion had built a synagogue would have been understood by others to mean that the centurion had funded or delegated the task, I think it's a bit of a stretch to claim this is what Matthew was doing pertaining to the centurion's communications with Jesus. Consider the following statement. President Trump attempted to negotiate North Korea's nuclear disarmament with Kim Jong-un.

This statement could easily be understood to mean that he sent a secretary of state Mike Pompeo to do the work on his behalf. However, it would be a quite different matter if the statement were President Trump went to Singapore in order to negotiate North Korea's nuclear disarmament with Kim Jong-un. In this case, we would think that President Trump himself had gone.

Vern Poitras understands that Matthew is not reporting the event precisely as it had occurred and appears somewhat uncomfortable with that observation. So he claims that Matthew does not specify exactly how the centurion's request reads Jesus. However, there are several clues in Matthew that suggest he indeed specifies how the centurion's request reads Jesus.

Matthew first tells us that a centurion went to Jesus and made the request. He then writes, And Jesus said to the centurion, Go, singular verb. Let it be done for you, singular pronoun, as you have believed, singular verb.

Matthew narrates Jesus speaking directly to the centurion who's appeared before him. Moreover, Matthew does not mention emissaries. So everything in Matthew's report suggests that Matthew intended to communicate that the centurion came to Jesus in person and Jesus spoke with him directly.

McGrew takes a different approach, and I'm not aware of any New Testament scholar who shares her view, conservative, atheist, or anywhere in between. McGrew appeals to an error on Matthew's part. She thinks Matthew erroneously believed the centurion had gone to Jesus in person and that no emissaries were involved.

She regards this as an innocent mistake on Matthew's part, but it's an error no less. She goes on to assert that had Matthew known that the centurion had sent emissaries and decided to simplify his account, streamlining it by omitting mention of the emissaries and narrating the centurion going to Jesus in person, Matthew would have been guilty of falsifying the narrative, deceiving his readers and fictionalizing his account. Once again, McGrew exhibits black and white thinking that's out of touch with how people wrote in antiquity and even how we communicate today.

But problems with McGrew's position do not stop here. She's also being inconsistent. Let's put a bookmark here and go to the story of Jesus' baptism, where we observe a difference in the manner God's voice at Jesus' baptism is recalled in the synoptics.

Mark and Luke report God saying, God is speaking directly to Jesus. However, Matthew reports God saying, This is my beloved son. With him I am well pleased.

God is speaking directly to the crowd. Given Mark and priority, it appears that Matthew has transferred the recipient of the message from Jesus to the crowd. Why? One can only guess.

Perhaps Matthew desired to make God's message more personal to his readers. However, McGrew describes this explanation as An unnecessarily complicated hypothesis and an odd idea. Really? I don't mean to appear retributive here, but her responses exaggerated yet again and sounds like an attempt to add emphasis in order to bolster a very weak point.

So how does McGrew explain the difference? She describes it as ordinary paraphrase that's merely telling a story in slightly different words. But observe for double standard. If Matthew had taken a message from a centurion and delivered through emissaries and transferred it to having been delivered by the centurion who authored it, McGrew says that's deceit and fictionalization.

But if the same author takes a message from God that's spoken directly to Jesus and transfers it to have been spoken directly to the crowd about Jesus, she says that's ordinary paraphrase and merely telling a story in slightly different words. Is this not a double standard? In contrast, recognizing that the gospel authors used compositional devices allows us to understand why the differences are there. It assists us in avoiding appeals to creative harmonizations which made themselves be fictional.

And it provides a more plausible reason than error for many of the differences. In summary, we have witnessed even more examples of McGrew's black and white concept of truthful reporting. We have also seen that she's inconsistent in the application of her method.

And we have observed another example of her offering an exaggerated response. Thanks for joining us today. For more information, 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.