I agree with Josh that Mars Hill church, broadly speaking, is probably not a cult.  It’s most likely like a lot of evangelical megachurches.  If I were to go to Seattle and to visit the services, I seriously doubt that I would be pressured to do anything—-or that people there would notice me at all.  Consequently, I should not judge people who go to Mars Hill—-and I won’t, as long as they don’t get in my face telling me what I should do.

Moreover, perhaps not every small group at Mars Hill is bad.  People can probably have rewarding experiences at Mars Hill’s small groups.  And yet, even though Josh is correct that we have only read Andrew’s side of the story (for background, see the links here), and that there’s a likelihood that a miscommunication was going on (and I’d say what tips me off to that is that Andrew feels that he repented, whereas the church officials get the impression that he has not), the controlling tone of the repentance contract and the notice to the church’s social community that Andrew is being disciplined turn me off from wanting to be a part of a church like Mars Hill, or any evangelical church that stresses small groups and accountability.  Sure, I do not have to judge the entire movement.  But I can decide for myself where I want to go when it comes to church.

Josh had good advice, both for those who are anti-Driscoll, and also for those who are pro-Driscoll (perhaps because they go to his church).  The post is worth the read.

In a recent post, Why Our Definition of “Successful Ministry” Is Problematic, Leslie takes aim at some remarks that Mark Driscoll made in an interview with Justin Brierley. Here are some excerpts from her post:

“At one point in the interview with Bierley, Driscoll berates the UK church for being cowards. As proof of this cowardice, Driscoll demands that the Brierley ‘name one, good Bible teacher that is know across Britain. You don’t have one, that is the problem.’ Then, later in the interview when Brierley revealed that his wife pastors a church, Driscoll responds by asking about the size of the church ‘You look at your results,’ he says ‘and you look at my results and look at the variable that is the most obvious.’

I quoted conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who was talking about Romney’s 1994 run against Ted Kennedy for the U.S. Senate, when Romney was attempting to convince Massachusetts voters that he was pro-choice.  Coulter said the following:

“Nearly two decades ago, when Romney was trying to defeat champion desecrator of life Sen. Teddy Kennedy, he sought to remove abortion as a campaign issue by declaring that he, too, supported Roe v. Wade. (Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?)”

When I first read this, I was puzzled.  Would Ted Kennedy and the liberals in Massachusetts really criticize Mitt Romney for encouraging a woman to have her baby and to give the child up for adoption rather than having an abortion?  I suppose that there are some liberals who would be appalled by a woman not choosing abortion.  They may see the fetus as a mere blob of tissue and think that the woman is holding herself back and giving in to religious extremists by having the child, and so they’d encourage her to have the abortion.  But my impression (based upon the liberals I know and have read or seen on TV) is that many liberals would not be rooting for the woman to have the abortion.  They’d want for her to make her own choice, based on what she thinks.  And, while they most likely would not want for Mitt Romney or the government to pressure the woman to have the baby, I doubt that they’d see Romney as evil for doing so as a private citizen.  But that’s my impression, and I could be wrong.

It turns out that there may be more to the issue, though.  This article by Charles Johnson on Romney and abortion is worth reading.  Johnson says: “In 2007, Judy Dushku recalled a published anonymous article in her feminist Mormon magazine, Exponents II, by a Mormon woman who wanted to have an abortion in 1990 when Mitt Romney was a stake president. (The article did not mention Mitt Romney by name, but Dushku later identified him.) The woman, Carrel Hilton Sheldon, has since come forward. Sheldon claims that Romney worked very hard to prevent her from having an abortion, even though her doctor (also a Mormon and past stake president) said her pregnancy might take her life. The woman ultimately had the abortion.”

The article to which Johnson links says the following, quoting from a New York Times article:

“In 1990, Exponent II, a Mormon feminist magazine that Ms. Dushku, the Suffolk University professor, helped found, published an article by a married mother of four who recounted her own experience after doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy when she was being treated for a potentially dangerous blood clot.  Her bishop got wind of the situation, she wrote, and showed up unannounced at the hospital, warning her sternly not to go forward. The article did not identify Mr. Romney as the bishop, but Ms. Dushku later did.  Now the woman has come forward, identifying herself in Mr. Scott’s book as Carrel Hilton Sheldon. (Through Ms. Dushku, she declined to be interviewed.) ‘Mitt has many, many winning qualities,” she is quoted as saying, “but at the time he was blind to me as a human being.’”

See here and here.

I do not know if that was the case that Kennedy was talking about (for Romney encouraged women not to abort more than once), but it would make sense to me if it was.  I doubt that Massachusetts liberals would see Romney as evil for thinking that abortion was wrong and for gently seeking to persuade a woman to have her baby and to put the child up for adoption rather than choosing abortion.  But they would have serious problems with Romney doing so in an arrogant manner that callously disregarded the life and health of the woman, especially when giving birth could cost her life.  (And I say this while remembering that the Mormon church allows abortion to save the life of the mother, and that Romney’s current pro-life position contains a “life of the mother” exception.  Perhaps Romney the elder did not feel that the woman’s life was at risk.)

But I not only give Massachusetts liberals the benefit of a doubt (as opposed to seeing them as monstrous fanatics rooting for women to have abortions).  I do the same for Republicans, too.  For example, I read an article yesterday on a liberal site, New Hampshire GOP Introduce Bills To Roll Back Domestic Violence Laws.  These bills may very well undermine domestic violence laws (and there is discussion in the comments section about whether they will do so).  But I seriously doubt that the Republicans introducing these bills actually support domestic violence.  Why?  Because I don’t think that people are thoroughly evil.  Proud?  Yes.  Selfish?  Yes.  Greedy?  Yes.  But actively rooting for people to be hurt?  I don’t think so. 

To the chief Musician upon Neginah, [A Psalm] of David.

¹Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.

 ²From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

According to Marvin Tate, the end of the earth refers to a distant place (Psalm 19:5; 46:10; 135:7; Deuteronomy 13:7; 28:49, 64; Isaiah 5:26; etc.).  What is the setting for the Psalmist crying out to God from a distant place?  One view is that Psalm 61 is about David’s flight from Absalom: David (as king) is away from his home and from God’s sanctuary in Jerusalem because he is fleeing from Absalom, and so David cries out to God from where he is—-a distant place—-with the hope that God will lead him back to Mount Zion, the rock that is higher than David.  A second view is that Psalm 61 is about a king who is at war, away from his home.  The king either is sacrificing at Jerusalem in anticipation of his time away from home, or he is crying to God at the battle site.  Tate notes that the Egyptian king Rameses II prayed to a god while he was on a distant campaign in Kadesh, and Sigmund Mowinckel appeals to I Samuel 14:33ff.—-in which Saul builds an altar during a battle—-to demonstrate that a king could call out to God in a cultic fashion even when he was far away from the official sanctuary.  A third view is that Psalm 61 is by Jewish exiles, who are distant from their homeland and who want for God to restore them to the land of Israel as well as re-establish the Davidic monarchy.  A fourth view is that the “end of the earth” is metaphorical for distance from God: the Psalmist cries out to God even when he feels far away from God.  And a fifth view is that the “end of the earth” relates to the netherworld, and that the Psalmist is crying out to God while he is on the brink of death.  Mitchell Dahood holds to the netherworld interpretation.

What is the “rock that is higher than I”?  One view is that the Psalmist is asking for God to help him to overcome obstacles that are impossible for him to surmount by himself, which means that the higher rock is an obstacle.  Another view is that the higher rock refers to God, who is called a rock throughout the Psalms (Psalm 18; 28:1; 42:9; etc.), and that the Psalmist here is expressing his faith that God is higher and stronger than he is, which is why the Psalmist is depending on God.  A third view is that the Psalmist is saying that he is drowning and that he needs a rock that is higher than he is—-since a higher rock is where he can be safe from the waters.  The Septuagint has something different: in the rock you did lift me up.  According to Tate, the Septuagint’s understanding of that verse lacks mimmenni (“than I”).

 ³For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.

 ⁴I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah.

 ⁵For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name.

 ⁶Thou wilt prolong the king’s life: and his years as many generations.

The Hebrew that the KJV translates as “as many generations” is kemo dor va-dor, which literally means “as generation and generation”.  As Tate notes, dor va-dor often means “a succession of generations with no defined end” (Psalm 10:6; 45:18; Joel 2:2; 4:20).  So is the Psalmist asking God that the king might live forever?  But the Davidic king was a mere mortal, so how could he live forever?  Different explanations have been proposed.  One explanation is that the ancient Near East used larger-than-life language about kings.  Kings were told to live forever (I Kings 1:31; Nehemiah 2:3; etc.), for example.  Marc Brettler in the Jewish Study Bible states that the description of the king’s life as perpetual may reflect the notion that the king was close to being divine (Psalm 45:7).  A second explanation is that the king is hoping that his dynasty might last forever, meaning that v 6 is about the king’s dynasty rather than the king himself.  The fourth century Christian exegete Theodore of Mopsuestia goes with this solution, and he relates this verse to the hope of the Jewish exiles that God will re-establish the Davidic dynasty such that it is perpetual, so that they would no longer have to fear or experience captivity.  A third explanation is that David is conflating himself with his descendant, Jesus Christ, who lives eternally. A fourth explanation is that David is asking that his example might be known for many generations, even after he dies.  And a fifth explanation is that v 6 concerns David’s hope for an afterlife.

The Targum for Psalm 61 maintains that v 6 is asking God to give a king a life that lasts for many generations.  Because it does not believe that God is redundant in repeating the word “generation” in the phrase “as generation and generation”, it maintains that the two generations are referring to different things.  According to the Targum, the Psalmist is saying that the Messiah’s years will be like the generations of this age and the generations of the age to come, meaning (it seems) that the Messiah will live for a very long time.  The Jewish exegete Rashi, however, goes a different route, for Rashi says that David is hoping that his years will be as long as a generation, seventy years, meaning that Rashi believes that David is asking here, not for an unrealistically long life, but rather for God to rescue him from pre-mature death so that he can live a full life—-a life that is as long as a generation.  At the same time, in his interpretation of v 4 (“I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever”), Rashi says that David is hoping to praise God in this world and in the World to Come, meaning that Rashi is bringing the afterlife into his discussion of v 4.

I’ll discuss briefly a relevant point: Did Judaism believe that the Messiah would live forever?  The Targum appears to say so, and, in John 12:34, some Jews tell Christ that the law says that the Christ abides forever, which is why they are baffled by Jesus’ statement that he will be lifted up.  The Book of Jeremiah, however, does not seem to envision a single Davidic monarch who will live forever, but rather it envisions the restoration of the dynasty itself, which will have more than one king (Jeremiah 33:26).  At some point, a belief in a restored and perpetual Davidic dynasty was replaced by a belief in a restored and perpetual Davidic individual.  (Or things may have been more complex than that, since perhaps different people had different ideas.)

Because the king is referred to in the third person in Psalm 61:6, interpreters have wondered if the king is saying this Psalm about himself, or if other Israelites are speaking about the king.  Tate says that the king could speak about himself in the third person, for we see that in Jeremiah 38:5 and in fifth century B.C.E. Phoenician inscriptions.  But Tate is open to the possibility that other Judahites are asking God to prolong the king’s life.  A possible setting for that would be the events right before the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., when people of Judah asked God to protect their king—-Zedekiah, and Jehoiachin, the king in exile.

 ⁷He shall abide before God for ever: O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him.

The Septuagint has something different for the second clause, namely, “Who will seek out his mercy and truth?” (Brenton’s translation).  According to Tate, the Septuagint is taking the word translated in the KJV as “prepare” (man, from m-n-h) as the Aramaic particle man, which can mean “who?” or “what?”.  My guess is that the Septuagint may be understanding the word that the KJV translates as “may preserve him” (which is from the root n-ts-r) to refer to seeking out because n-ts-r can mean watching, or observing.  According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, the Psalmist is asking who will seek out God’s mercy and truth that the Israelites might be restored to their land.  The MT, however, may be saying that mercy and truth uphold the king’s throne, either because God’s mercy and solidity keep the king reigning, or because the king’s reign is rooted in upholding goodness and truth, or perhaps both.

 ⁸So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform my vows.

In Charles Spurgeon’s Treasury of David, William Gurnall says that prayers without vows are blank, for we should praise God for his mercy that he shows us, or serve God (in some manner) with what he grants us.  I personally do not make vows before God, for I hope that he will help me out of his love and pity for me, not because I make promises.  Moreover, I would not tell God to (say) give me an academic position in religion and offer in return to defend God’s truth of conservative Christianity because I don’t believe that conservative Christianity is the full truth—-or, more accurately, I prefer for scholarship to be open rather than forced into a conservative Christian mold.  But I can see Gurnall’s point that we should somehow honor God in our prayers—-that we should do more than ask God for stuff.

“Romney’s one great ‘flip-flop’ is on abortion. (I thought the reason we argued with people about abortion was to try to get them to ‘flip-flop’ on this issue. Sometimes it works!)  Nearly two decades ago, when Romney was trying to defeat champion desecrator of life Sen. Teddy Kennedy, he sought to remove abortion as a campaign issue by declaring that he, too, supported Roe v. Wade.  (Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?)  Romney changed his mind on abortion — not when it was politically advantageous, but when it mattered. As governor of liberal, pro-choice Massachusetts, he vetoed an embryonic stem cell bill and ‘worked closely’ with Massachusetts Citizens for Life. The president of MCL recently issued a statement saying that, ‘since being elected governor, Mitt Romney has had a consistent commitment to the culture of life.’”

Coulter appears to be saying two things, which may be contradictory.  On the one hand, she is saying that Romney went from being pro-choice to being pro-life when he was Governor of Massachusetts, which is basically Romney’s story.  On the other hand, she seems to be implying that Romney only pretended to be pro-choice when he was running against Ted Kennedy because Romney sought to “remove abortion as a campaign issue” in a state that was rabidly liberal.

If the latter is the case, then I have serious issues with Mitt Romney.  Here’s why:  According to an article in Salon by Justin Elliott, a close relative of Romney died in an illegal abortion in 1963, which was prior to Roe vs. Wade.  This lady was the sister of Romney’s brother-in-law.  When Ted Kennedy in 1994 was attacking Romney for being “multiple-choice” on abortion, since Romney opposed abortion yet said that he wanted it to be legal, Romney sought to buttress his pro-choice credentials by talking about how the death of his relative shaped his views on abortion.  Romney fired back to Kennedy:

“On the idea of ‘multiple-choice,’ I have to respond. I have my own beliefs, and those beliefs are very dear to me. One of them is that I do not impose my beliefs on other people. Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.”

I hope that Romney was sincere when he was speaking those words, and wasn’t just using his relative’s death to score political points.  I would be disgusted at an insincere use of such a tragedy for political gain.  But I would understand Romney appealing to that tragedy to explain how he became pro-choice.

1.  For this first item, my understanding may be flawed, but, for the purpose of interaction with this book (however imperfect that interaction may be), I’ll still say how I am understanding Segal’s argument.  Segal says at one point that instantaneous conversions were looked down upon in the ancient world, since many people preferred for conversions to occur after a period of education.  Paul’s conversion was instantaneous, even though it was followed by a degree of education within the Christian community, for Paul does quote Christian teaching that was handed down to him.  At the same time, although Paul’s instantaneous conversion was unusual compared to how conversions back then often took place, there are (according to Segal) a few places in ancient Judaism in which conversion is accompanied by some sort of ecstatic experience, which is what Paul undergoes.

This item is about conversion, so I will highlight another point that Segal makes about that topic.  Segal does not believe that Paul was simply a Jew who was embracing and proclaiming the one whom he believed was the Jewish Messiah.  Segal acknowledges that there were Jewish-Christians who fit this description, which means that they were technically not converts, for they were remaining within Judaism, on some level.  (My understanding here may be flawed, however, for Segal does argue that joining a new religious community with its own set of values is an element of conversion, and it is the case that Jews who became Jewish-Christians joined the Christian community, even though they also remained part of the larger body of Israel, by worshiping at the temple, etc.)  Paul, however, was a convert from one system of thought to another.  He went from being a Pharisaic Jew to being one who viewed the Torah as temporary and did not think that Gentiles (or, presumably, he himself) had to observe its ritual requirements to be part of Israel (but, according to Segal, Paul did regard the moral requirements of the Torah, the Noachide Commandments, to be binding on Gentiles).  Paul was a convert, not a Jewish-Christian.  (Paul was a Jew and also a Christian, but not a Jewish-Christian, the way that Jewish-Christians were.)

2.  I turn now to the Noachide Commandments, the laws that many rabbis believed were binding on Gentiles, whom they did not think had to observe the entire Torah.  Segal argues that this belief emerged because conversion to Judaism was stigmatized in the first century C.E.  Josephus’ story about Izates (see here) shows that Gentiles did not like for their Gentile rulers to become circumcised, and so there were Jews who held that Gentiles could please God and honor the Torah without circumcision.  And, in the late first century, in the aftermath of Jewish revolts, there were Roman imperial attacks on proselytism.  On page 112, Segal says that some Jews thought Gentiles should obey the entire Torah, whereas others held that Gentiles could observe the Noachide Commandments to please God, since conversion would result in a blacklash from Gentiles—-against the converts and also against the Jews.

“One reason I count Lars von Trier’s 2003 film Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettany, as one of my favorite films, one I’m constantly recommending, is because I see a part of myself in the character played by Bettany, someone more interested in hypothetical situations and ideas than in how they affect the real flesh-and-blood people surrounding him, with the tragic consequences playing out on the stage over the three hours von Trier takes to tell the story.  It is one of my biggest regrets today, when I look back at the years I was a fundamentalist, that when my mother was struggling with the idea of divorce from my father – an action she had been counseled to take by multiple sources for legal purposes, partly so that his inevitable future financial troubles would not destroy the new life she was trying to piece together – that I was for a long time strongly opposed to it, because, I was sure, ‘the Bible is clear.’ It didn’t matter that this course of action was only considered after God, my father said, had told him to kill her and us kids, or that a judge had already issued a permanent restraining order. The Bible was still clear. Sin was still sin. Divorce was wrong.  I was, it should be noted, being faithful to the ideas I had learned growing up in church, convinced that principles are always more important than people, that everything is always black and white, ambiguity be damned.”

Second, Segal talks about the belief in Second Temple and subsequent Judaism (albeit not rabbinic Judaism) that God has exalted certain human beings (i.e., Enoch, Moses) to a status of heavenly ruler, and sometimes has even given them his own name.  I’ve asked before why the early Christians believed that Jesus had a divine sort of status.  Did Jesus claim that for himself?  Maybe Jesus did not, but his followers believed that he was a special and a righteous man and applied to him what others applied to Enoch and others: they said that God exalted Jesus to become a heavenly ruler.  I don’t know.

Matthew Paul Turner, Mark Driscoll’s Church Discipline Contract: Looking For True Repentance at Mars Hill Church? Sign on the Dotted Line.

Matthew Paul Turner, Mark Driscoll’s ‘Gospel Shame’: The Truth About Discipline, Excommunication, and Cult-like Control at Mars Hill.

Dr. Robert Cargill, how much more evidence do you need?  mark driscoll’s mars hill church is a cult.

Sarah Moon, Mark Driscoll, spiritual abuse, and fluffy bunnies…

This is why I am very reluctant to get involved in conservative Christianity.  This church has a right to run itself as it sees fit, but I don’t have to be a part of it.  And I do not believe for a moment that I will go to hell on account of that!  I’ll stick with mainline Protestantism, or attending Catholic churches.  As a Catholic told me in response to all of this, the Catholic church dealt with the issue of sin and repentance years ago by setting up the confessional.  You sin, you confess to a priest, and you go out of the booth and try to live the right way.  There doesn’t have to be meeting after meeting with church officials, who are eager to exercise their “authority” and to show how spiritually superior they think they are.  There doesn’t have to be a threat hanging over the person’s head (even if it is merely implied) that those officials will go public with what the person did wrong if the person doesn’t play ball.  Heck, even the so-called evil “world” knows better how to restore people than Mark Driscoll’s church!  If I wanted healing and restoration, I’d pay for a therapist rather than listen to Mark Driscoll make an ass out of himself every week or experience “discipline” at the hands of his cultish church.

Some will tell me that I’ve only read one side of the issue.  In a sense, that is true.  But Turner in his posts above links to Mars Hill’s discipline contract as well as the church’s letter to church members about Andrew.  I can tell from the self-righteous, controlling tone of those documents that this is not a church with which I’d like to associate.

“But Mark Driscoll is being biblical”, some will tell me.  Many actually care about this.  Personally, I would not subject myself to spiritual abuse, even if it technically were “biblical”.  But, for those who care about whether something is “biblical”, I wonder if there is a reasonable way to apply Matthew 18.  I mean, not all evangelical churches are this cultish.  Mark Driscoll’s church is applying Matthew 18 and other passages about church discipline in a specific manner, but are there other legitimate ways to apply those passages?

My advice for people reading this: If you attend a conservative Christian church that practices this kind of discipline, don’t limit your social circle to that church.  That way, it won’t hurt as much if you are kicked out or disciplined, for you will have other friends.

My hope is that people will call Mark Driscoll out on this.  I like it when people stand up to bullies, especially bullies who pompously think that they have some divine mandate.  Rachel Held Evans called out Mark Driscoll a couple of times, and that got his attention (whether or not he knew he was responding to her specifically)—-as he responded with a degree of humility one time, and with defensiveness another time.  As Dr. Cargill says in one of the comments, it would be nice if this could get on the national news!

1.  Are the Gospels fiction, or are they historical?  Witherington says on page 154:

“I have argued elsewhere that the ancient popular biography provides us with our closest analogies for the genre of the Gospels…There are certainly many other options besides pure fiction and photographic recall.  For instance, it is possible the Gospel writers have used material of some historical substance and a broad historical outline of the life of Jesus, coupled with their selection, editing, and arrangement of various pericopes according to their various theological purposes.”

On the TV program, Faith Under Fire, Witherington said that the Gospels contain eyewitness testimony, and that the testimony is reliable (even though the Gospels were written about forty years after the events that they clam to narrate) because the Mishnah states that disciples were able to remember vast amounts of material that their teacher taught them.  Witherington notes that Luke claims to draw from the testimony of eyewitnesses, and that both Matthew and Luke carefully use the sources that they have, such as Mark, showing that they were responsible historians.  For Witherington, there is a good chance that Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark and that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, even though these Gospels are formally anonymous, for the second century church would not attribute Gospels to non-eyewitnesses or to non-apostles unless those figures actually wrote them (and Mark and Luke were not apostles).  Regarding Matthew, Witherington does not claim that Matthew the apostle was responsible for the Gospel of Matthew’s final form, but he does suggest that the Gospel contains traditions going back to Matthew the apostle.  And, if my impression is correct, Witherington appears to believe that John wrote the Gospel of John, and he notes that the end of the Gospel says that it represents eyewitness testimony.  You can watch or listen to Witherington making his points here and here.

Is this consistent with what Witherington argues in Jesus the Sage?  I’d say yes and no.  In both, Witherington maintains that the Gospel authors used sources, and he is confident that these sources, on some level, reflect the historical Jesus.  At the same time, I think that Witherington in Jesus the Sage is more sensitive to the fact the the Gospel authors had ideological and theological agendas and were not simply recalling what actually happened.  He criticizes scholars for unjustifiably (at times) preferring Luke’s forms of sayings over how other Gospels’ present them, and he attributes that to the scholars’ attraction to Luke being less Jewish and apocalyptic in his presentation of the sayings (page 215).  Witherington also proposes to uncover what is authentically Q by peeling back the layers that obviously reflect Matthew and Luke (and one can see the characteristics of Matthean and Lukan interaction with sources by looking at their use of Mark).  Witherington affirms that Matthew softens Mark’s portrayal of the disciples as dense in their failure to understand Jesus, and he also discusses differences between the synoptic Gospels and James.  For example, Witherington notes that James does not really talk about the inbreaking Kingdom of God through Christ.

Regarding John, Witherington does not believe in Jesus the Sage that the Gospel of John goes back to John the Galilean son of Zebedee, for there is not much in that Gospel about Jesus’ Galilean ministry or the sons of Zebedee.  But Witherington does acknowledge that the Beloved Disciple could have been a Judean eyewitness to Jesus as well as the source of traditions that made their way into the Gospel of John (whose present form came from someone other than the Beloved Disciple, according to Witherington).  This is similar to what Witherington said about Matthew on Faith Under Fire.  Another point: In Jesus the Sage, Witherington says that Peter in the Gospel of Matthew is given a scribal authority to bind and to loose.  Does this imply that there were written sources going back to the original disciples of Jesus, according to Witherington?

I think that the passage with which I opened this item, the one from page 154, is a reasonable way to see the Gospels: they are not a photographic recall of events, but rather they are the result of a process of using sources and composing a work that accords with the ideologies of the Gospels’ writers.  Some, or even many, of these sources may go back to eyewitness testimony.  But a significant part of uncovering the historical Jesus is sifting what is ideological in the Gospels from what is historical—-though it is possible that the ideological can overlap with the historical, as Witherington seems to believe when he regards the Gospels of Matthew and John to be accurately depicting Jesus as one who claimed to be wisdom itself.

2.  On page 353, Witherington says: “Kings were often said to have miraculous births in antiquity, and Jesus is no different.”  In my opinion, this differs from Witherington’s defense of the historicity of the virgin birth in his blog post, The Virginal Conception—-Miracle on Nazareth Street, where he argues that the virgin birth is historical because (1.) Matthew and Luke had to get the idea from somewhere, and there were no true parallels in the ancient world, and (2.) the story was embarrassing within that honor and shame culture, so it was most likely not made-up.  Based on what Witherington says on page 353 of Jesus the Sage, I can argue that early Christians could have attributed to Jesus a miraculous birth to show that he was like other kings (even if other kings were not said to be the products of a virginal conception).