David Marshall: "Jesus and the Religions of Man"

Today, I’ll blog about Chapter 13 of David Marshall’s Jesus and the Religions of Man, which is entitled (like the book itself) “Jesus and the Religions of Man”. I have four items:

1. On pages 295-296, Marshall attempts to refute the argument that the Gospels were written long after the time about which they’re writing and thus are unreliable. Marshall states that the Gospels date only decades, not centuries, after Jesus’ death. Based on my reading and experience in academia, I attest that even the vast majority of liberal scholars would agree with that. That means that many eyewitnesses to Jesus were alive when the Gospels were written. Marshall says on page 296 that “the Gospels enjoyed a considerable advantage in this respect over all other ancient literature” (page 296), which may mean that the Gospels are closer in date to the events that they narrate than is other ancient literature to the events that they narrate.

I interacted some with this argument of Marshall in my post here. A question that I have is this: Does the existence of eyewitnesses to Jesus while the Gospels were being written mean that the Gospels are infallible or historically-reliable? Paul in Galatians and II Corinthians refers to people in his day who were proclaiming another Jesus, or another Gospel, and they were getting followers. Apparently, people could get things wrong about Jesus and successfully propagate their claims even when there were eyewitnesses to Jesus who were still alive, and those eyewitnesses were not able to stop those alternative Gospels. So why should we assume that the canonical Gospels are reliable on the basis of eyewitnesses to Jesus being around when they were written?

I remember Marshall asking in The Truth Behind the New Atheism why new atheists are so dogmatic about the Gospel authors never having met Jesus, for they were most likely alive when Jesus was. Who knows? Marshall may be right. This issue has been debated. But if eternal hell is the penalty for not accepting the Gospel authors’ message, then you’d hope that God would give us more than a “maybe” to support the Gospels’ status as eyewitness testimony.

On whether Marshall is correct on how the Gospels compare with ancient literature, my guess would be “yes” and “no”. There are histories that were written long after the events that they narrate, but there are also some histories that are quite close to the events. I think of Josephus’ account of first century Judaism. Josephus is not accepted carte blanche by historians just because he wrote close to the time of the events that he narrates, however, for Josephus had a bias and an agenda in writing his history (i.e., to convince the Romans that not all Jews were rebels and that the Pharisees should rule). Josephus has to be sifted for what we can safely say is historical, as do the Gospels.

I realize that Marshall tackles these issues in more depth in this and other books, which I will read. But I’m just raising some informal questions.

2. On page 306, Marshall addresses the issue of contradictions within the Gospels. He says that there were contradictory accounts about the 1999 shooting at Littleton, Colorado, for, while eyewitnesses agreed that a young lady was shot for saying that she believed in God, there were differences about where, and some did not even hear her say that. Marshall quotes Jefferson County investigator Gary Muse, who said, “Any time you have a traumatic situation, even if only one person is killed, every testimony is different.” Marshall also quotes scholar Paul Maier, who affirms that differences in the resurrection accounts tend to demonstrate their authenticity, for that shows that there is more than one account to the event, and that the early church was “too honest to iron the story out” (Marshall’s words).

How much contradiction can we tolerate before we conclude that the Gospels are not eyewitness testimony? This is a huge question. I agree with Marshall that differences among the Gospels by themselves do not disprove that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts, or perhaps contain eyewitness accounts. But some things should be taken into consideration, such as the ideologies of the authors. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John present different images of Jesus. The Jesus of Matthew and Luke is more Torah observant than the Jesus of Mark. And the Jesus of John is quite different from the Jesus of the synoptics, for John’s Jesus is quite open about who he is, whereas the synoptic Jesus is more secretive. Whether or not the Gospels contain eyewitness testimony, that testimony comes to us through ideologies and subjectivity. And the question that many have asked is: Can all of these different pictures of Jesus be simultaneously true? Historical Jesus scholars seek to get behind the ideologies of the Gospels to determine what might be historical.

Does the existence of ideologies within the early church show that it was dishonest or uncommitted to truth? No. I don’t think that our only options are (A.) to believe that the Gospels are practically transcripts of what really happened (or at least generally true, which is probably what Marshall thinks), and (B.) to see a conspiracy in the early church to suppress the truth and to promote its own agenda. The early church was honest to preserve the Gospels, with all of their contradictions. Perhaps they couldn’t do otherwise, since the Gospels were so popular among Christians! But the early church had an ideology and an agenda, as did the rabbis, who also tolerated (even encouraged) a degree of variety and contradiction. That should be taken into consideration when determining what may be historical, and what we cannot necessarily trust as historical.

3. On page 307, Marshall offers his own view on the star of Bethlehem, which appears to be based on Paul Maier’s work. For Marshall, the phenomenon was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. Jupiter represented the highest god, Saturn was seen as the defender of Palestine, and Pisces was associated with Syria and Palestine. In The Truth Behind the New Atheism, Marshall dates this to 6 B.C. This interested me because Rick Larson dates the star to 3-2 B.C.E. and says that it was Jupiter gliding past Regulus (which means king) within the constellation of Leo, a lion, the animal that is a symbol for Judah. (UPDATE: That's not entirely accurate, for Larson actually thinks that the star occurred later and was Venus coming into conjunction with Jupiter. But he believes that the events of 3-2 B.C.E. caught the magis' attention and alerted them to the birth of a king of Israel. See my post here.) My impression from this (unless you want to say that the Star of Bethlehem appeared in both 6 B.C.E. and some years later) is that people can make a good story out of all sorts of phenomena, depending on where and when they choose to look.

4. On page 301, Marshall says that people he knows (or knows of) who make the sorts of claims Jesus made usually have serious issues (i.e., womanizing, being troubled, etc.), whereas people like Jesus generally do not make grandiose claims about themselves. Marshall mentions Gandhi. Marshall’s point here may be a variation of C.S. Lewis’ Lord-Liar-Lunatic argument: that Jesus obviously is sane and of good character, and so we can trust his claim to be God.

I could then respond that Jesus did not claim to be God but that Gospel authors (particularly John) are putting their Christological beliefs into Jesus’ mouth. But then I’d have a question: Why did Paul and John believe that Jesus was divine? What influenced a few Jews to adopt this sort of belief, when their culture was staunchly monotheistic? Marshall states in The Truth Behind the New Atheism that C.S. Lewis asked this sort of question in response to the argument that Jesus’ claims are mere legend: Were the Gospel authors crazy to portray Jesus as divine? Do their writings display craziness? If not, then maybe they are true. Or so the argument (as I understand it) goes.

Did the early Christians get their belief in Jesus’ divinity from Jesus himself? Granted, not all sects in early Christianity believed that Jesus was divine. There were Jewish-Christian sects that did not, and, while they date to the second century, they claimed to have originated earlier than that. But Paul appears to portray Jesus as a divine sort of figure. So does John. Where did they get this belief? What led some early Christians with Jewish backgrounds to conclude that Jesus was more than just a good, pious man with a special connection to God, but was in some sense divine himself? People have tackled this question, appealing to possible analogies in Judaism (i.e., wisdom, Philo’s belief in the logos, how lesser beings could carry the name of YHWH) and Gentile culture (i.e., god-men, saviors). Different perspectives on this issue deserve study, in my opinion. The claims that Jesus makes for himself in the Gospels had to come from somewhere (either himself, or those who wrote the Gospels), and for some reason.

More on the Alleged 1544 Copy Error

I've been doing a series on the date of Herod the Great's death, which was inspired by lawyer Frederick Larson's Star of Bethlehem. In that documentary, Larson argues that Herod died in 1 B.C.E. rather than 4 B.C.E. This is a significant aspect of Larson's overall argument because Larson demonstrates that certain astronomical phenomena occurred in 2 B.C.E., and he identifies that phenomena with the star of Bethlehem. But the Gospel of Matthew says that the star appeared during the reign of Herod the Great. Consequently, Larson's thesis must coincide with Herod dying after 2 B.C.E., ruling out a 4 B.C.E. date for Herod's death.

This morning, I read an article that Larson cites on his web site: David W. Beyer's “Josephus Re-Examined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberias”, which was on pages 85-96 of Chronos, Kairos, Christos II, ed. E. Jerry Vardaman (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998). I may revisit this article in the future, since it expresses key points in a concise yet informative manner----on such issues as the eclipse during the year of Herod's death, numismatics, etc. Beyer also had interesting information about when the church fathers dated Jesus' birth, and he argues that most of the church fathers who commented on the subject dated it to 2 B.C.E. (though, of course, they did not call the year 2 B.C.E.).

But I was disappointed because I had a hard time understanding Beyer's main argument, which concerned the manuscripts and editions of Josephus. Larson appeals to Beyer's article to support the claim that editions of Josephus after 1544 are inconsistent with pre-1544 editions on an issue that pertains to the date of Herod's death: the date of the death of Herod Philip, the son of Herod. According to Larson and Beyer, most post-1544 editions of Josephus' Antiquities 18.106 say that Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius after reigning for thirty-seven years. For believers in a 4 B.C.E. date for Herod's death, that is consistent with Herod Philip succeeding Herod the Great in 4 B.C.E., meaning that Herod died in that year. But Larson says that pre-1544 editions say that Herod Philip died in the twenty-second year of Tiberius, and that is consistent with Herod the Great dying in 1 B.C.E.

In my last post in this series, I noted Andrew Steinmann's statement that "the twenty-second year of Tiberius" reading is not based on an extant Greek manuscript of Josephus. I wondered what pre-1544 Greek manuscripts had for Antiquities 18.106, since there are Greek manuscripts of Josephus that predate 1544. I was curious about whether or not Beyer addresses this issue. To be honest, after reading his article, I do not know. Beyer has a chart about early manuscripts (not published editions, in this case, but manuscripts) that say that Herod Philip died in the twenty-second year of Tiberius after a reign of thirty-five (rather than thirty-seven) years. These manuscripts pre-date 1544. But Beyer does not identify the language of these manuscripts, as he mentions the languages of the post-1544 editions. I concluded from a Google search that one of those pre-1544 manuscripts is in Latin. I'm not saying that Latin manuscripts are necessarily inferior to Greek ones, for the Latin ones may be based on Greek ones. But I'm racking my brain trying to answer the question: When do pre-1544 Greek manuscripts say that Herod Philip died? And Beyer does not address this question in a clear manner. (Beyer does say, however, that the 1544 edition was in Greek, and that he could not find a previous Greek published edition at the British Library, making the 1544 edition "the first printed edition of the Antiquities in Greek." There were Greek manuscripts that were earlier than 1544, but, for Beyer, 1544 marked the first published edition of the Antiquities in Greek.)

Moreover, I read a good critique of Beyer by Richard Carrier, who believes that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E. (Whereas Larson goes with a 1 B.C.E. date to uphold the historicity of Scripture, Carrier, an atheist, does the opposite: he argues for a 4 B.C.E. date in an article that seeks to undermine biblical inerrancy.) Carriers' entire critique of Beyer is worth the read, but I will just quote two arguments that Carrier makes:

"...Beyer examined only manuscripts in the British Museum and the Library of Congress--yet the best manuscripts are in France and Italy--one of which is the oldest, Codex Ambrosianae F 128, inscribed in the 11th century (the oldest manuscript Beyer examined was 12th century); and another is the most reliable: Codex Vaticanus Graecus 984, transcribed in 1354; both confirming a reading of 'twentieth,' and thus invalidating all his conclusions from the start. [A]ll scholarly editions agree: the word for 'twentieth' (eikostô) exists in all extant Greek manuscripts worth considering. Where does the reading 'twenty-second' come from? A single manuscript tradition of a Latin translation (which reads vicesimo secundo). Beyer's case completely falls apart here. The Latin translations of Josephus are notoriously inferior, and are never held to be more accurate than extant Greek manuscripts, much less all of them. Indeed, this is well proven here: whereas the Latin has 22 for the year of Tiberius, it also has 32, or even in some editions 35, as the year of Philip, not the 37 that Finegan's argument requires. Thus, clearly the Latin translator has botched all the numbers in this passage. Any manuscripts that Beyer examined were no doubt either from these inferior Latin manuscripts, or Greek translations from these Latin manuscripts. Therefore, there is no basis whatever for adopting 'twenty second' as the correct reading. "

Carrier does say that Beyer looked at Greek manuscripts, which I am inferring were pre-1544 ones. But, in the end, Carrier invalidates the significance of 1544 in Beyer's argument, for Carrier notes that there are pre-1544 manuscripts saying that Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, not the twenty-second. (Carrier argues, however, that the quantity and date of manuscripts do not really matter, for there may be numerous manuscripts that are based on a faulty manuscript, and a later manuscript may be based on "older and more reliable archetypes".)

Carrier also does well to note the variants on the length of Herod Philip's reign. To my surprise, Beyer actually comments at length about this issue. Beyer says, for example, that the thirty-seven year reign for Herod Philip was not used before 1544----that instead we find thirty-two years, or thirty-five years. That would place the beginning of Herod Philip's reign in the C.E. realm., after 4 B.C.E. and 1 B.C.E. But does this not undermine Beyer's argument that pre-1544 manuscripts show that Herod the Great died in 1 B.C.E.? Beyer says that political instability may have been the reason that Herod Philip assumed "full administrative authority" some time after Herod's death, but, if we're going to concede that Herod Philip did not take authority immediately after Herod passed away, why should we assume that Antiquities 18.106 is even relevant to the issue of when Herod the Great died?

That's all I have on this issue for today. I have some links for you to read, if you are interested in going deeper on the topic of the date of Herod's death. I linked to Carrier's article above, and I will be revisiting that, for it is the best response to those who propose a 1 B.C.E. date that I have encountered thus far. But I also found Ernest Martin's book, which Larson strongly recommended (see here). And here is a list of the manuscripts of Josephus, which I didn't find user-friendly in helping me to evaluate Beyer's charts, but there is useful information there.

The Alleged 1544 Copy Error

I’m continuing my series on the date of Herod the Great’s death. Frederick Larson argues in The Star of Bethlehem that Herod the Great died in 1 B.C.E., not in 4 B.C.E., and he attributes the widespread scholarly belief in a 4 B.C.E. date for Herod’s death to a 1544 copy error that was made in Josephus’ works. To support this argument, Larson appeals to a “recent study [that] was made of the earliest manuscripts of Josephus’ writings held by the British Library in London, and the American Library of Congress” (from Larson’s web site). In this post, I will provide some specifics about this: what the study was, and what the alleged copy-error was. I will draw from a 2009 article that Larson cites on his web site: Andrew Steinmann’s “When Did Herod the Great Reign?”, which appeared in Novum Testamentum Volume 51, Number 1, pages 1-29.

Yesterday, I quoted Steinmann’s summary of a reason that many scholars date Herod the Great’s death to 4 B.C.E.—-the lengths of the reigns of Herod’s sons, who succeeded Herod. Here is the quote:
“…the reigns of Herod’s sons and successors also appear to indicate that he died in 4 BCE. Archelaus was banished in 6 CE after a reign often years over Judea, Samaria and Idumea (Antiquities 17.342). Herod Antipas lost the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea in the second year of Gaius (38/39 CE) after a reign of forty-three years according to numismatic evidence (Antiquities 18.252). Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius (33/34 CE) after a reign of thirty-seven years over Gaulanitis (Antiquities 18.106). All of these point to their taking office in 4 BCE.”
But Steinmann does not believe that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E., but rather in 1 B.C.E. So how does Steinmann address the lengths of the reigns of Herod’s sons? As I said yesterday, Steinmann argues that Archelaus and Herod Antipas ruled (in some fashion) while Herod the Great was still alive.
In this post, I will talk about Herod’s third son, Herod Philip. This is where the alleged copy-error comes into play. Steinmann quotes Jack Finnegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology:
“…in 1995 David W. Beyer reported to the Society of Biblical Literature his personal examination in the British Museum of forty-six editions of Josephus’ Antiquities published before 1700 among which twenty-seven texts, all but three published before 1544 read ‘twenty-second year of Tiberius,’ while not a single edition published prior to 1544 read ‘twentieth year of Tiberius.’ Likewise in the Library of Congress five more editions read the ‘twenty-second year,’ while none prior to 1544 records the ‘twentieth year.’ It was also found that the oldest versions of the text give variant lengths of the reign for Philip of 32 and 36 years. But if we allow for a full thirty-seven-year reign, then ‘the twenty-second year of Tiberius’ (35/36 CE) points to 1 BCE (1 year BCE + 36 years CE = 37 years) as the year of the death of Herod.”
Steinmann provides the bibliographical information for Beyer’s report (as does Larson on his web site): David W. Beyer, “Josephus Reexamined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberius” (Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 19, 1995). Steinmann also adds: “Moreover, the Niese edition of Josephus lists ‘twenty-second year’ as the reading in the Latin version of Josephus (produced in the fourth to sixth centuries), and notes that as early as the sixteenth century Joseph Scaliger had proposed this as the correct reading…Niese’s edition is the only widely available critical text of Josephus. Unfortunately, it is based on only a few manuscripts (five in this part of Antiquities). The Latin version is usually characterized as following the Greek original very closely.”
Beyer’s point was that no edition of Josephus (specifically, Antiquities 18.106) prior to 1544 said that Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius after a reign of thirty-seven years. Rather, all but three of the pre-1544 editions said that Herod Philip died in the twenty-second year of Tiberius (and I do not know what those three editions said, only that they did not claim that Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius). How does this relate to the date of Herod’s death? The twentieth year of Tiberius was 33/34 C.E. Herod Philip reigned for thirty-seven years. Thirty-seven years earlier than 33 B.C.E. was 4 B.C.E. If Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius (assumed to be 33 C.E.) and ruled for thirty-seven years, then his reign began in 4 B.C.E., and the assumption is that Herod Philip began his reign right after Herod the Great died, meaning that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E. But suppose that Herod Philip died in the twenty-second year of Tiberius? In that case, Herod Philip began his reign two years later than 4 B.C.E., in 1 B.C.E. (assuming that the twenty-second year of Tiberius was 36 C.E.). In the 1 B.C.E. scenario, as in the 4 B.C.E. scenario, the assumption is that Herod Philip began his reign after the death of Herod the Great. (As far as the variants on the length of Philip’s reign are concerned—-that Philip reigned for thirty-two years or thirty-six years—-those place the beginning of Philip’s reign even later than 4 B.C.E. and 1 B.C.E., in the C.E. range.)
Steinmann notes, however, that the “twenty-second year of Tiberius” reading “is not based on any reading in any Greek manuscript of Josephus.” I interpret that to mean that no Greek manuscript that we have for Antiquities 18.106 supports a 1 B.C.E. date for Herod’s death. And, if the Flavius Josephus Home Page is correct, we have Greek manuscripts that pre-date 1544:
“The oldest manuscripts of the works of Josephus in their original language of Greek date to the tenth and eleventh centuries…The Jewish Antiquities, because of its length, was transmitted in two parts; the best texts for the first half (Antiquities Books 1 to 10) are Codex Regius Parisinus (fourteenth century) and Codex Oxoniensis (fifteenth century); the best texts for the second half (Antiquities Books 11 to 20) are Codex Palatinus (ninth or tenth century) and Codex Ambrosianus…”
So I think that more work needs to be done before we attribute a 4 B.C.E. date for Herod’s death to a copy error made in 1544. What do the Greek manuscripts have for Antiquities 18.106, and what is the date of those manuscripts? I wonder if Beyer interacts with that issue. I know that the Greek text for Josephus on my BibleWorks is based on the 1890 Niese edition, and it had the twentieth year of Tiberius (the 4 B.C.E. date). I’m curious: On what manuscripts was the Niese edition basing this?
I am not dogmatic that Antiquities 18.106 absolutely has to say that Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius, as opposed to the twenty-second year. I’m just leery about how Larson conveyed the issue. And, interestingly, Steinmann ultimately argues that Herod Philip could have begun his reign in 4 B.C.E. rather than 1 B.C.E., the same way that Steinmann says that Archelaus and Antipas began their reigns—-while Herod the Great was still alive.
UPDATE: I found Beyer's article online (see here). I'll read it and blog about it soon. 

Steinmann on Archelaus, Antipas, and Herod's Death

I said earlier this month that I would do a little research project on the date of Herod the Great's death (see here). I became interested in this topic because I watched a documentary entitled The Star of Bethlehem, in which a lawyer named Frederick Larson argued that the star of Bethlehem was an astronomical phenomenon that appeared in 2 B.C.E. The apparent problem with this date is that the Gospel of Matthew says that the star of Bethlehem appeared during the reign of Herod the Great, and many scholars maintain that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E. Larson contends, however, that Herod died in 1 B.C.E., and that the belief that Herod died in 4 B.C.E. is due to a copy error that was made in Josephus' work in 1544.

While some of Larson's critics contend that Larson bases this insight on an un-named scholar, making the insight (in their eyes) quite tenuous, Larson on his web site offers scholarly documentation for his claim. Today, I read a 2009 article that Larson cited: Andrew Steinmann's “When Did Herod the Great Reign?”, which appeared in Novum Testamentum Volume 51, Number 1, pages 1-29. Steinmann addresses such issues as the basis that scholars had for dating Herod's death to 4 B.C.E., the problems with that date, and the copy-error that was made in 1544.

To be honest, I do not want to do a full-fledged study of this issue, for it does not interest me that much. I will, however, do a series about Steinmann's article, and I would like to note that some of Steinmann's points overlapped with what I read elsewhere. I will not cover every single point that Steinmann made, for there was a lot of mathematical calculation in his article, and I don't want to get bogged down in that (though I do think that Steinmann's calculations are important in terms of this issue). Rather, I will blog about Steinmann's points that interested me. I also cannot promise that my posts for this series will appear every single day until the series is completed, but I will write on this topic when I have the time and the energy.

Here we go! According to Steinmann, many scholars believe that Josephus' information on the reigns of Herod's sons indicate that they took office in 4 B.C.E., which (for them) means that Herod died in that year, since the sons could only succeed Herod after his death. Steinmann states the following, and, in my quotation, I have taken the liberty of inserting Steinmann's citations of Josephus (which, in the article, are in footnotes) into the text of Steinmann's article:

"...the reigns of Herod's sons and successors also appear to indicate that he died in 4 BCE. Archelaus was banished in 6 CE after a reign often years over Judea, Samaria and Idumea (Antiquities 17.342). Herod Antipas lost the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea in the second year of Gaius (38/39 CE) after a reign of forty-three years according to numismatic evidence (Antiquities 18.252). Herod Philip died in the twentieth year of Tiberius (33/34 CE) after a reign of thirty-seven years over Gaulanitis (Antiquities 18.106). All of these point to their taking office in 4 BCE."

Steinmann (like Larson) believes that Jesus was born in 2 B.C.E., and that Herod the Great died in 1 B.C.E. So how does Steinmann deal with the reigns of Herod's sons? Essentially, Steinmann argues that Herod's sons reigned (in some form) while Herod was still alive. Steinmann cites Josephus' Jewish War 1.625, 631-632 and Antiquities 16-17 to argue that Herod made his son Antipater a de facto co-regent, and, indeed, Herod in War 1.625 does yield royal authority to Antipater while he (Herod) is still alive. But, a little more than two years before the death of Herod, Antipater got in trouble because he murdered his uncle Pheroras, the tetrarch of Galilee. Herod then appointed Archelaus as his successor, and, according to War 2.26, there was a claim that Archelaus had reigned for some time before he went to Rome for Augustus to confirm his authority. According to Steinmann, this may imply that Archelaus was a co-regent before the death of Herod, and Steinmann proposes that Archelaus chose to date the beginning of his reign to the time when Herod appointed him----in 4 B.C.E., a little over two years before Herod died.

Meanwhile, Galilee lacked a tetrarch, since Antipater killed him a little over two years before Herod's death. According to Steinmann, Herod may have moved to fill that vacuum by appointing his son Herod Antipas the tetrarch of Galilee. Or Antipas could have reckoned the beginning of his reign to the time that the previous tetrarch was killed, in an attempt to bolster his own (Antipas') legitimacy. In any case, Steinmann argues, Antipas could have reckoned his rulership over Galilee as commencing in 4 B.C.E., even with Herod the Great being alive at the time.

Then there is the reign of Herod Philip over Gaulanitis. This is where the copy-error enters the picture. But I will discuss that in my next post for this series.

A Possible Project on the Date of Herod's Death

I talked here about The Star of Bethlehem, a documentary in which lawyer Frederick A. Larson argues that the star of Bethlehem occurred in 2 B.C.E. I wrote:

” But is this not problematic, since Josephus documents that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E., and Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great? Larson says that this is due to a copy error that was made in Josephus’ works in 1544, and Larson cites scholarly articles on his web site to document this.”

I admitted later on in the post that I have not done a lot of research on the date of Herod the Great’s death. I have simply assumed that he died in 4 B.C.E., for that has been what I have seen in the scholarly works that I have read. But, as I continue to read up on the Internet about this topic, I’m developing a desire to do a little bit of not-too-time-consuming research on it, as well as to blog about what I read—-for the benefit both of myself and also people who are interested in this issue.

What has sparked my interest in this topic is a critique of Larson that I read on Hugh Ross’ Reasons to Believe web site (see here). There, astrophysicist Dr. Jeffrey Zweerink states the following concern:

“Most historians place Herod’s death in 4 BC, yet Larson argues for a date of 1 BC (based on research from an unidentified scholar who claims that a ‘printing or copying error’ around AD 1544 ‘propagated widely’ the 4 BC date). Larson’s model rests crucially on the later date for Herod’s death, placing the model on questionable footing at best.” Later on, Zweerink says: “This date is based on research from an unnamed scholar, possibly Dr. Craig Chester. Most historians, however, place Herod’s death in 4 BC.”

On the DVD itself, Larson does not refer to specific scholars to support his claim about the date of Herod’s death, but (if my memory is correct) he did appeal to a study of Josephus’ earliest manuscripts that are held by the British Library in London and the American Library of Congress (as he does on his web site). Larson does provide specific documentation on his web site, however. He refers to an article by Andrew Steinmann, “When Did Herod the Great Reign?”, which appeared in Novum Testamentum Volume 51, Number 1, pages 1-29. He also cited (and strongly recommended) Ernest L. Martin’s The Star That Astonished the World. Another work that he cited was David W. Beyer’s “Josephus Re-Examined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberias”, which was in Chronos, Kairos, Christos II, ed. E. Jerry Vardaman (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998). But my question is this: Do these sources say what Larson says that they say? I don’t plan to track down the works by Martin and Beyer, for I’d have to request the books from my school’s library, and there are other books that I would like to request from there—-books that relate to my more pressing projects. But I do have immediate access to Steinmann’s Novum Testamentum article, and I may take a look at that.

Zweerink speculates that Larson got his idea about the date of Herod’s death from Dr. Craig Chester, an astronomer. I think that Larson did read Chester’s address to Hillsdale College on the star of Bethlehem (see here to read that), for the documentary showed him reading something that looked like Hillsdale’s publication, Imprimis, which I used to receive. But, echoing Ernest Martin, Chester does not talk about manuscript evidence for Josephus or a copying error in 1544, but rather he argues on other grounds that Herod died after 4 B.C.E.

Then there is what wikipedia says (see here): “The Gospel of Matthew clearly describes the birth of Jesus as taking place when Herod was king.^[64] According to Josephus, Herod died after a lunar eclipse.^[65] This is usually identified as the eclipse of March 13, 4 BC.^[66] The narrative implies that Jesus was born sometime between the first appearance of the star and the appearance of the Magi at Herod’s court. As the king is said to have ordered the execution of boys two years of age and younger, the star must have made its first appearance within the previous two years. Modern scholars usually date the birth of Jesus as 6–4 BC.^[67]“

Wikipedia cites Josephus’ Antiquities 17:7:4 and also scholarly articles for its claims: Timothy David Barnes, “The Date of Herod’s Death,” Journal of Theological Studies ns 19 (1968), 204–19; and P. M. Bernegger, “Affirmation of Herod’s Death in 4 B.C.,” Journal of Theological Studies ns 34 (1983), 526–31.

The lunar eclipse is obviously a significant issue in attempts to determine when Herod died, for Chester interacts with that issue at great length himself.

So here are some things that I may read and blog about. I don’t know when I’ll begin doing this, however, for I have some stuff on my plate over the next couple of days (i.e., my weekly quiet time on Psalms, etc.). But stay tuned!

The Star of Bethlehem

Last night at church, I watched The Star of Bethlehem. On this DVD, a lawyer named Frederick A. Larson talks about the star of Bethlehem in Matthew 2, seeking to account for it in light of astronomical phenomena.

For details and documentation about his argument, you can visit his overview on his web-site (see here). My summary will be general in some areas but specific in others, so visiting his web-site may be your best bet to get the true substance of his argument. Larson maintains that, using the laws of Johannes Kepler as well as computer software, we can determine the location of the stars and the planets throughout history. For Larson, something spectacular occurred in the heavens in 3-2 B.C.E., the time-frame in which Jesus was conceived and born, and also when the Magi visited him as a child. But is this not problematic, since Josephus documents that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.E., and Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great? Larson says that this is due to a copy error that was made in Josephus’ works in 1544, and Larson cites scholarly articles on his web site to document this.

So what occurred in the heavens in 3-2 B.C.E.? In September, 3 B.C.E., Jupiter (the largest planet in our solar system) had three conjunctions with the star of Regulus, which means “king” and was associated with kingship by the Babylonians and the Romans. According to Larson, Jupiter gliding past Regulus was not unusual, for it occurred every twelve years, but what occurred in September of 3 B.C.E. was unusual and caught the attention of the Magi because Jupiter had three such conjunctions. Larson notes that this was occurring within the constellation of Leo (a lion), which was closely followed by Virgo (a woman). Larson thinks that Leo is significant because Jesus is from the tribe of Judah, which is likened to a lion in Genesis 49:9. Larson interprets Virgo (a woman) in light of Revelation 12, where there is a woman standing on a moon when a child is endangered, and Larson connects Revelation 12 with Herod’s attempt to slaughter the child Jesus in Matthew 2. Larson states that these factors in the heavens led the Magi to conclude that a Jewish king would be born, and so they embarked on their journey to Jerusalem.

In June of 2 B.C.E., Larson narrates, Jupiter came into close conjunction with Venus, creating brightness. That, for Larson, was the star of Bethlehem. Matthew 2:9′s statement that the star stopped over where the child was is interpreted by Larson in light of the stop that Jupiter made in December 25, 2 B.C.E., as Jupiter entered into retrograde motion. At that time, Jesus was a child living in a house (Matthew 2:11).

But Larson does not stop there, for he goes on to argue that there were also significant signs in the heavens at the time of Jesus’ death. Larson dates Jesus’ death to April 3, 33 C.E., for that was when the Passover fell on a Friday, the Day of Preparation, and the Gospels say that Jesus died on what was a Passover and also a Day of Preparation for a Sabbath (which Larson interprets as the weekly Sabbath, or Saturday). On his web-site, Larson also brings into the discussion things that weren’t covered as extensively on the DVD, such as why 33 C.E. would be a better date for Jesus’ death on account of Pilate’s behavior in the Gospels and the political situation at that specific time. Larson goes into this because April 7, 30 C.E. was another time when the Passover fell on a Friday, and Larson’s belief is that April 3, 33 C.E. works much better.

What heavenly signs occurred on the day of Jesus’ death, according to Larson? Larson interprets Acts 2:14-22 to mean that people saw the sun become darkened and the moon become blood-red on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. The synoptic Gospels say that there was darkness when Jesus was being crucified (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44), and Larson believes that there is extra-biblical confirmation of this in the second-century C.E. work, Olympiades, in which Plegon talks about darkness and earthquakes in the fourth year of the two-hundred-and-second Olympiad (which, according to Larson, dates to 33-32 B.C.E.). While the Olympiades is largely lost to us, Larson refers to ancient historians who refer to the part of Phlegon’s work about the darkness and the earthquake. (The vast majority of them were Christians, but I am not sure about Maximus and Malelus, for there was more than one Maximus who turned up in my search, and I could not find Malelus.) On his web-site, Larson also discusses Julius Africanus’ (third century C.E.) interactions with the now lost work of the first century historian Thallus, who attributed the darkness to a solar eclipse. Larson agrees with Julius Africanus that a solar eclipse cannot occur when the moon is full, which was the case during the Passover, and so Larson attributes the darkness to volcanism. (See my post on this topic here.)

Larson believes that the moon was blood-red when Jesus was being crucified, and Larson affirms that this was due to a lunar eclipse, for, during a lunar eclipse, part of the moon appears to be red. Using Kepler’s calculations, Larson claims that there was a lunar eclipse on April 3, 33 C.E., the day of Jesus’ death. But there was one more heavenly sign during Jesus’ death, according to Larson, and here I’m relying solely on my memory, for I cannot find anything about it on the Internet right now. In one of the Special Features of the DVD, Larson says that, during the death of Jesus, people saw the stars in the shape of a slain goat, and Larson related this to Jesus being the Passover lamb who would die for the sins of the world. For Larson, God communicated through the heavens that Jesus was the Messiah, and that is what Paul means when he says in Romans 10 that Israel should have known that Jesus was the Messiah, for the word of God has gone forth throughout the world.

That’s my summary of Larson’s argument, and my summary turned out to be more detailed than I anticipated (though there is still stuff that I left out, which you can find on his web-site or the DVD itself). The DVD was enjoyable to watch, for Larson comes across as a likable and well-informed guy who is able to take his research and package it into something that’s understandable and entertaining. I could not find any decent atheist or secular critique of Larson’s argument, for most of the critiques that I read either faulted the DVD’s style, noted that Larson places a great deal of weight on certain dates for Jesus’ birth and death, or proposed an alternative explanation for the star of Bethlehem, without even interacting with Larson’s specific arguments. Indeed, Larson does place a lot of weight on certain dates, but I think that he offers fairly plausible reasons for those dates being the correct ones—-at least possibly (but I have to confess that I have not done a thorough study on Josephus and Herod’s death).

If I have questions or criticisms, it is that Larson does not really address biblical contradictions—-on Jesus’ birth, on Jesus’ death, etc.—-but Larson would probably go on a harmonistic route for these issues. At least that’s my guess. It’s interesting how a conservative Christian like Larson could present a tight, neat presentation for his scenario, and yet many conservative Christians appear to be reaching and stretching when they try to reconcile biblical contradictions. Moreover, I wonder if Larson is looking at the heavens and selecting the details that he can fit into the story of Jesus, doing with the heavens what many Christians do with the Hebrew Bible.

A final point: I called Larson a conservative Christian, and he does appear to be that. But his interaction with the Bible is not exactly literal. For example, his argument is that the star of Bethlehem was Jupiter and Venus coming close together. But that’s not a star. That’s two planets coming together. Larson would probably respond that the Bible is simply saying what the people thought they saw, and there are plenty of conservative Christians who give the Bible that kind of leeway—-for example, when the Bible says in the Book of Joshua that the sun stood still, many conservative Christians say that actually the earth stood still, but that the Bible was saying that the sun stood still because that’s what it looked like to the people who experienced the event. Are there any parameters for determining what would constitute a biblical error?