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The Smell of Europe?
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, July 12, 2007
Part 3 of series: European Reflections 2006
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I’ve been to Europe three times, and every time I feel the same sense of shock when I first step off the airplane and walk into the airport. Europe has a distinct smell. It’s a smell I once associated with Denny’s restaurants and the bad kids who hung out at “the bridge” near my junior high school. It’s a smell that once permeated Greyhound buses and lingered in cheap motel rooms. It’s a smell that’s mostly been abolished in my home state of California, at least in public. It is, as you’ve no doubt guessed, the smell of cigarettes.
What begins in the airport continues elsewhere, in hotel lobbies, fine restaurants, and thousands of sidewalk cafés. Europeans love to eat, drink, talk, and smoke. They smoke in the morning and at night and in between. They smoke when they’re young and they smoke when they’re old and in between. (Photo to the right: A couple of Sicilian men doing what Sicilian men do so well.)
Now I’m sure there are millions of Europeans who don’t smoke. Yet I can’t believe how many of them do. Of course I know millions of Americans smoke too, but I’ll bet that Europeans outsmoke us by a wide margin, at least. If this is true, I wonder why.
I did a little Net surfing to see if it’s true that Europeans smoke more than Americans. In general, this relationship holds firm, with the exception of Sweden. Though there is some variation in the data depending on which study one reads, the basic stats have just under 20% of Americans smoking, and just over 30% of Europeans smoking.
In actuality, European smoking habits vary considerably according to several factors. More European men smoke than European women, 37% to 27%. The heaviest smokers are in the 25-39 age bracket, with the 15-24 year-olds close behind. Just over half of all 19-year-olds in Europe smoke (51%). There is also plenty of variation according to country. According to the World Health Organization, Greeks and Germans lead the pack with a smoking population of about 35%. The Finns and the Swedes fall in a healthier 20% range. (Ironically, what got me thinking about “the smell of Europe” were my first days in Europe, which happened to be in Germany and Greece, the two heaviest smoking countries.)
In general, three Europeans smoke for every two Americans. But, given the tendency for Europeans to smoke in public places, it seems as if the ratio is far greater in favor of European smoking. Once again I did a bit of web surfing to see why there aren’t laws in Europe that limit smoking in restaurants and other public spaces. It turns out that these laws are often on the books, but are simply not followed by the people or enforced by the authorities. As one European anti-smoking activist said, “The culture in Europe regards smoking as a victimless, inalienable right.”
Why, I wonder, do Europeans tend to smoke more than Americans, especially given the tendency for Europeans to be more health conscious than Americans? I’ll suggest a few answers to this question in my next post.
Topics: European Reflections | 2 Comments »
A Classy Experience
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Part 2 of series: European Reflections 2006
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I realize that there are different classes of people in this world. I’m talking about socio-economic classes, you know, upper class, middle class, lower class, etc. But, in most of my life, I don’t experience class distinctions. I live in a community of middle and upper-middle class people and, for the most part, class distinctions aren’t terribly obvious.
Yes, there are some upper class folk in our area. They live in lavish homes and drive expensive cars. But they don’t rub my face in their opulence. In fact, I’m rarely in their homes or cars. Similarly, there are folk from lower classes in my community, mostly doing manual labor jobs in town. But I don’t often see how they live when at home. In Irvine, California, class distinctions are mostly invisible. (I expect this is not the case for those who ride buses from lower income communities in order to work in my city, however.)
In normal life, just about the only time I experience class distinctions is when I take my wife out to a fancy restaurant for some special occasion. I’ve noticed that some of the patrons seem to be regulars, familiar with the waiters and even with each other. They seem to think nothing of plunking down a hundred bucks for dinner. I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to have that kind of money, but mostly I forget about it and enjoy a romantic evening with my wife. (Usually, I’m grateful for the chance to indulge myself even for one night.)
So, in most of my life, class doesn’t matter much. But then there’s air travel. Talk about class distinctions! It begins when you check in. Most people have queued up in slow moving lines, waiting to check their baggage and get their boarding passes. But business and first class travelers have special counters with short or non-existent lines. They zip through in minutes.
Then there’s the security screening. Once again, higher class travelers often slip through without much delay while ordinary folk have to poke along until it’s their turn prove that they don’t have bombs in their purses or weapons in their shoes.
Once inside the terminal waiting area, the humble masses struggle to find comfortable seats, or they wait in yet another long line to purchase a cup of Starbucks. The upper crust folk disappear as if by magic, passing through secured doors that lead into the wonderland of airport lounges. Here, seemingly miles away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary terminal life, people find free food and drinks, comfortable chairs, free Internet access, and glorious quiet. (Photo to the right: The calm quiet of the British Airways business class lounge at LAX)
I know something about these airport sanctuaries because, I must confess, my wife and I flew business class in our last trip. It was part of our tour package, I hasten to add, nothing that we ever would have purchased on our own. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I’ve experienced the paradise of the business class lounge. It was great at the moment, that’s for sure. But in the future, when I’m back in my normal place with the teeming masses, I’ll know what I’m missing. I may have been better off living in blessed ignorance. Now I run the risk of breaking the tenth commandment of air travel: “Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s airport lounge.”
When it’s finally time to board your aircraft, once again class distinctions take center stage. Who are the first to board the plane, after those with physical handicaps or howling babies? The first and business class travelers. Then those who have code names like “Gold Star Travelers” and “Premium Hot Shots” go next. In fact, these latter folk are the poor souls who have to fly all the time but can’t afford first class. I don’t resent their priority treatment, since they’ve earned it through the hard knocks of endless air travel. For pity’s sake, let them on the airplane first so they can try to stow their oversized carry-on items in the all-too-small overhead bins. Wheels in first, please.
The bigger planes often have entry doors between the upper classes and coach so ordinary folk don’t have to see what they’re missing. But smaller planes, the kind I usually take, ensure that coach passengers feel the pain of classist airline society. When you board the plane, you get to walk through first class, looking with envy on those who are already seated in their large seats, extending their legs comfortably, and sipping some sort of complementary adult beverage. (Of course it’s not really complementary. That champagne they’re drinking actually cost a few hundred dollars.) Whilst first class travelers look upon the hoi polloi with a mix of scorn and pity, we humble folk get our first glance at the coach cabin, which always looks to me like a combination of a Los Angeles traffic jam and an open sardine can.
By the time I’ve wedged myself into my tiny little coach seat, I’ve forgotten about the folk in first class. They live in splendor behind the curtain, while my unassuming coach-mates and I eat pretzels and sip orange juice. On the arrival side of plane travel class distinctions still exist, but aren’t as obvious. The first and business class travelers still have to grab their luggage from the same conveyer belts as the rest of us, though their bags sometimes come out first. (Photo to the right: clouds over England)
I’m not really complaining about my aeronautical experience of class distinctions. Mostly, I’m just noting it with curiosity. I find it especially interesting to gauge my own reactions, to feel the sense of envy, or being left out. I want to be a person who feels grateful for his own blessings without getting stuck the emotional swamp of covetousness. I hope to be someone who can enjoy even a few pretzels and a Coke while I peer out of the plane window and look down upon the clouds. As far as I know, the view from first class isn’t any better.
Topics: European Reflections | 1 Comment »
A Different Way to Fly
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Part 1 of series: European Reflections 2007
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I don’t do a lot of flying. As a pastor, mostly I stay put and shepherd my own congregation, with only an occasional sojourn to speak at a conference or preach at another church. I consider it a blessing that my line of work doesn’t require much plane travel because, quite frankly, I’m a fairly cranky flyer. Teeming crowds, long waits, and jam-packed coach sections are just not my cup of tea. (Picture to the right: Greenland from our plane.)
Even though I’m not an experienced flyer, it did strike me that Europeans have different values when it comes to air travel. At least this was true of the European airlines we flew on this trip: Luftansa, Aegean, and British Airways. I began thinking about this when, as we were getting ready to leave Los Angeles, I heard almost nothing about turning off my cell phone. On American flights, seemingly endless announcements prevail upon us to turn off our electronic equipment, especially our cell phones. There must be at least a half dozen such pleas each time a plane gets ready to take off. But on Luftansa, I was reminded about this only once. I mentioned this to a more experienced traveler, and he agreed, admitting that he accidentally left his cell phone on for most of the flight. I wonder: Why don’t the European airlines make a bigger deal about turning off your cell phone? Are they less worried that harried executives will try to sneak in a call? Or do they simply figure that people are smart enough to turn off their equipment without being prodded?
The next obvious difference between European and American airlines is the matter of food and drink. These days, of course, our airlines flying within the U.S. don’t even provide much by way of food and drink, unless you consider a sip of soda and five small pretzels a meal. (I’m not counting the lavish service in first class.) Now I suppose we Americans do better with longer flights, but I’ll bet we don’t reach the standard of cuisine found on European airlines. Even in coach, the food is tasty and plentiful. Wine is served gratis, not in tiny bottles for which one must pay five dollars, preferably in exact change.
This is not to say, however, that I necessarily liked (or even tried) all of the food that was offered to me by my polyglot flight attendants. On our Aegean Airways flight from Frankfurt to Athens, the main dish was a tasty beef stew. But the salad – I suppose you call it a salad, since it came with a package of salad dressing – was a strange concoction of unidentifiable vegetable stuff. My wife, being a more courageous person than I, both tried some of this stuff and asked the flight attendant what it was. At this point the young woman’s language skills faltered, but, with considerable prompting from my wife, she identified our edible plant life as a mushroom.
Before I sign off on this blog post, let me put out a request to my readers for your input. I expect many of you are more experienced air travelers than I am. So tell me: Am I right about the cell phone announcements? And the food? Are there other differences between American and European (or international) airlines? Yes, I know I didn’t mention the multi-lingual announcements, but this seemed too obvious.
Speaking of such announcements, let me close with a funny but slightly off-color story. Some years ago, friend of mine was flying on Swissair. As the plane touched down at an airport, the captain came on to thank the passengers for flying with their airline. In English spoken through a heavy German accent, he gave the usual spiel: “I hope you had a nice flight. Thank you for flying Swissair. Etc. etc.” Then he came to the last line, in which he wanted to say, “Please consider us for your next trip.” But at this point the captain’s English faltered. He couldn’t remember the English word for “trip.” So, instead, he substituted the German word, and said the following. You figure out how it actually sounded in English. “Please consider us for your next . . uh . . . Fahrt.”
Topics: European Reflections | 2 Comments »
European Reflections 2007
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, July 9, 2007
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I often put up various reflections after my summer vacation. Mostly these are lighthearted bits that offer me a chance to mull over what I have experienced while away from my usual routine. (And, yes, by the way, one of the reasons I was posting passages from my latest book was that it allowed me to have a break from blogging while I was on vacation.)
I recently returned from a trip to Europe. My wife and I hitchhiked on a cruise sponsored by Hugh Hewitt, a radio talk show host. In exchange for giving a lecture and being part of the cruise-hosting team, my wife and I were able to join this week-long trip from Athens to Monte Carlo. We’d never be able to afford such a trip on our own, so I’m grateful to Hugh for inviting me to come along. (Perhaps a little later I’ll share with you some of the content of my cruise lecture, which focused on the New Testament and Ephesus, a site visited by the cruise.)
Because I’m still jet-lagged, and therefore pretty groggy, I’m going to begin these European reflections with some literal reflections . . . pictures of water. Tomorrow, Lord willing, my mind will be in a place to generate some reasonable verbiage.
Sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea, just offshore from Monte Carlo, with Italy in the background.
A fountain in the Italian village of Tuscania
London: Big Ben and Parliament behind the Thames River
A pond in a park belonging to the University of Oxford, in England
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My Agenda-Driven Story
By Mark D. Roberts | Sunday, July 8, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
My theological agenda also motivates me to be truthful when I’m telling a story from my own life. Here’s an example of a story I’ve used in a sermon:
When I was a sophomore in college, I wanted to share my Christian faith with others. But, as an introverted person, I wasn’t likely to walk up to a stranger or even a friend and get into a conversation about God. So I decided to pray and ask the Lord to help me.
One brisk Saturday evening in October, I decided to go down to Harvard Square and see if I could share my faith with somebody. The Square was filled with students from all over the Boston area, and it seemed a likely place for God to drop a seeker into my lap. I prayed earnestly for God to guide me to someone with whom I could talk openly about Christianity. “Lord,” I prayed, “you know I’m pretty shy about this. So it would be great if you would work a little miracle here, and find me somebody with whom I could share. And if you could make it obvious, that would be really helpful.” With this prayer in my heart, I set off for the Square.
I wandered around for a while, wondering where “my person” was. “Lord,” I kept on praying, “please bring me somebody who wants to learn about you.” Still nothing happened. After a half hour or so I began to feel both discouraged and silly.
Just then, two young women approached me. “We’re going to a party at Dunster House,” they explained, “but we don’t know how to get there. Could you help us?”
“Sure,” I said. “Glad to.” Meanwhile I thought to myself, “This is great. Not only has God brought these people into my life so I can talk to them about my faith, but they happen to be two attractive women. God, you’ve outdone yourself this time!” Dunster House was about a ten-minute walk from Harvard Square, so I figured this would be plenty of time to engage these women in a conversation about God.
On the walk down to Dunster, I kept bringing up subjects that I felt sure would lead to a conversation about God. “I’m majoring in philosophy,” I said, “Are you interested in philosophy?”
They weren’t.
“Sometimes I wonder why we’re here on this earth. Do you ever think about this?”
They didn’t.
Basically, they wanted to party at Dunster House, not reflect on the meaning of life with their overly earnest tour guide. For ten minutes I tried everything I could think of to get the women to talk about God. Nothing doing. Of the thousands of students in Cambridge that night, they were the least interested in God. (Picture to the right: Dunster House at night)
When we got to Dunster House, I walked them to the door. They thanked me and left. I felt like a complete idiot. “Okay, God,” I prayed, “I get the point. You’ve probably had a good chuckle over my silliness. Well, that’s enough. I’m going home. This was a stupid idea.” I left the entrance to Dunster House and headed back to my dorm.
Just then I passed a student I recognized as being a friend of a friend. He said “Hi” so I returned the greeting as we went off in opposite directions. All of a sudden he stopped, turned around, and called to me, “Hey, are you Mark Roberts?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised that he knew my name.
“Well, I’m Matt. I’m a friend of your roommate Bob.”
“Oh, yeah. Hello, Matt,” I said.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Matt said.
“Me?” I asked incredulously. “Why me?”
“Because I hear you’re a Christian. I need to talk to you about God.”
And so began a conversation that lasted well into the night. That conversation turned into a weekly Bible study, as Matt and I looked into the Gospels to find out about Jesus. When we finished, Matt wasn’t ready to give his life to Christ. But he was closer than he had been on that strange night when we met on the walk outside of Dunster House. End of story.
To the best of my forty-nine-year-old memory, I have faithfully related the essence of this story: my desire to share my faith and my prayer for divine help; my meeting with the two women; our Dunster House destination; my “chance” meeting with Mike and his words to me. When I used this story in a sermon, my theological “agenda” motivated me to get the basic facts right. But it also helped me shape the telling of the story, choosing which facts were important and which were not. I did not, for example, say anything about how the women I escorted were dressed (in preppy sweaters) or where they went to school (Wellesley College), because these tidbits didn’t contribute to the point of the story.
Now, I must confess, I did include a few “facts” that I’m not completely sure of. I said this happened on a “brisk Saturday evening in October.” In truth, I don’t remember if it was a Friday or a Saturday, and I’m not sure if it was in October or November. It was quite cool, this I remember, and I’m positive it was in the fall.
I also supplied a fair amount of dialogue in this story. Honestly, I don’t remember the exact words (ipsissima verba) with which I prayed, or the exact questions I asked the women as I escorted them to Dunster House. I’ve truly captured the basic sense of those conversations (ipsissima vox), but most of the words have long since escaped my memory. On the contrary, what Matt said to me is burned into my memory. I can still hear him say, “I need to talk to you about God.” This was, as you can imagine, one of the most surprising and wonderful things I had ever heard. It was like a dream come true, as God answered my prayer so specifically and obviously.
I should add that “Matt” is not the name of the student I ran into outside of Dunster. I remember his real name, but when I tell stories like this, I often change names to protect the confidentiality of those involved. In this particular case I could safely have used “Matt’s” real name, of course, but usually I need to be careful. My congregation understands that I change names sometimes.
In conclusion, did my theological agenda lead me to tell this story in a sermon? Yes. Did my agenda help me choose what to include and what to exclude from this story? Yes. Did my agenda preclude me from being a good historian? Decidedly not. I’m quite certain that this event happened in more or less the way I’ve narrated it (with the exceptions I’ve mentioned above). In fact, my agenda as a preacher motivated me to tell this story, to tell it in a certain way, and to make sure that the essential elements were absolutely truthful. My theology led me to be a trustworthy historian.
If you were to discover that, in fact, my story of the miraculous encounter with Matt was just a nice little piece of religious fiction, then the power of the story would vanish. After all, what makes it so compelling is the fact that, after I had prayed to share my faith with someone, a virtual stranger said to me, “I need to talk with you about God.” This is either a fabrication, an incredible coincidence, or a miracle of God. I vote for miracle.
Topics: Can We Trust the Gospels? | 5 Comments »
Truthful History Motivated by Theology
By Mark D. Roberts | Saturday, July 7, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Sometimes I find it odd that certain scholars have so much trouble seeing how history and theology are intertwined, and how one with a theological agenda can, in fact, labor faithfully to pass on reliable history. This is hard for me to fathom because, frankly, I am motivated all the time by a theological passion that calls me to be a faithful historian.
Virtually every weekend I preach a sermon in the four worship services at Irvine Presbyterian Church. I freely admit that my sermons reflect my theological agenda. I want my congregants to grow in their faith. And, at the same time, I’m seeking to encourage non-Christians to put their faith in Christ. So I have a clear, open, and passionate theological agenda. No question about it. Agenda-less preaching would be drivel.
My agenda leads me to tell stories because I believe stories communicate powerfully in today’s world. Most of my stories concern events that really happened, either in my own life or in the lives of people I know, though sometimes I use items that have appeared in the news or other sources. When I tell a true story, I make every effort to get the crucial facts right. This also reflects my “agenda,” because I believe that my congregation will trust me if I am a reliable historian. Moreover, my theology tells me that truth matters.
My commitment to telling the truth means that when I hear some wonderful story from a friend or from the Internet, I work hard to verify its truthfulness before I use it in a sermon. Sometimes the most heartrending stories turn out to be fictitious. A notable example is the tale of little Teddy Stallard (or Stoddard), the disadvantaged student who became a success because of the love of a teacher, Miss Thompson. This saga has been used in hundreds of sermons, sometimes by pastors who talk as if they know Teddy personally. But, alas, Teddy is a fictional character, made up in a short story by Elizabeth Ballard. See my blog entry on little Teddy.
Topics: Can We Trust the Gospels? | 15 Comments »
The Gospel Writers: No Hidden Agenda
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, July 6, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
If there’s one thing that all New Testament scholars agree on, it’s the fact that the Gospels were not written merely for reasons of historical curiosity. The most liberal critic and the most conservative commentator, and everyone in between, would surely agree that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not writing simply out of antiquarian interest. They weren’t scholars who found Jesus fascinating and decided to write about his life to further their careers. Rather, they were faithful believers in Jesus who composed narratives of his ministry for theological reasons. In the language of our contentious world, the Gospel writers had an agenda. They were writing theology, not raw history (as if there were such a thing).
None of the evangelists had a hidden agenda, however. Each writer revealed quite plainly his theological inclination as well as his personal faith in Jesus. Matthew begins his narrative by referring to Jesus as “the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (1:1). Not exactly the vocabulary of a neutral observer! Similarly, Mark starts his Gospel in this way: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). Mark is telling a story he believes to be “good news,” and it concerns Jesus, whom Mark believes to be the “Christ” and “the Son of God.” (By the way, Mark speaks of the beginning of the “good news,” which in Greek is euangelion, or “Gospel.” This is probably the origin of the use of “Gospel” as the genre for the four biblical biographies of Jesus. Mark himself probably didn’t use “Gospel” in this way, however, but rather as a summary of the content of his biographical narrative. English translations that use “Gospel” in Mark 1:1 run the risk of missing Mark’s meaning.)
Luke is even clearer about the purpose of his narrative. In an introduction reminiscent of the secular historians who may have inspired Luke, he begins:
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed (Luke 1:1–4).
Luke is writing an orderly account of the events concerning Jesus so that Luke’s reader might “know the truth” about faith in Christ. More literally, Luke is claiming to help his reader have “certainty” about the one in whom he believes. This is not academic history so much as intentional discipleship. It is teaching meant to help a believer grow in his faith.
The purpose of the fourth Gospel is also plainly stated, though near the end of the book rather than at its beginning:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30–31).
According to this translation (NRSV), John’s primary purpose is evangelistic. He wrote “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” The Gospel of John may in fact be the first evangelistic tract in human history. The fourth Gospel, like the Synoptics, has an openly stated theological agenda.
What I’ve said about the intentions of the Gospel writers is confirmed by the Gospels themselves. In the way they are structured, in the emphases of the stories, in the presentation of miracles, and in the stunning conclusion on Easter and thereafter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John show their theological purposes. The Gospels are, without a doubt, theologically motivated writings, composed for pastoral, evangelistic, or apologetic purposes, or some combination of the three.
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“All Truth Is God’s Truth”
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, July 5, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
When I was a freshman in college and was struggling with my first New Testament class, I wondered if faith and reason simply didn’t fit together. I feared that if I wanted to be a confident Christian, I would have to avoid thinking carefully and critically about my faith, especially the Bible. Discovering the variations among the Gospels unsettled my confidence in their reliability. I couldn’t deny the facts of these differences among the Gospels; but I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile them with what I had previously believed about their trustworthiness. For this reason, and others like it, I entered an extended season of doubting the veracity of the Gospels. I described this in more detail in chapter 1.
In the midst of my intellectual turmoil, John R. W. Stott visited the Harvard campus. A highly respected Christian thinker and expert in the New Testament, Dr. Stott attended an informal dessert gathering hosted by a friend of mine. Here was my chance to talk with someone who might understand my dilemma, I thought. Maybe I can get some help from him. When another student finished a conversation, I seized my chance. “Dr. Stott,” I said, “I’m taking a New Testament class. Much of what I’m being taught contradicts what I believe about the Bible. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s unwise to study Scripture in an academic way. I’d like to take more classes in New Testament, yet I’m afraid that what I learn will undermine my faith. What should I do?”
“I can understand your conflict and your fear,” Dr. Stott began, “because I’ve felt them myself. Many of the popular theories in New Testament scholarship do challenge orthodox Christianity.”
“But,” he continued, “you don’t have to be afraid. Let me tell you something that will give you confidence as you study: All truth is God’s truth. There isn’t anything true about the Bible that God doesn’t already know. You don’t have to fear that if you dig too deeply you’ll undermine genuine Christian faith. You may indeed discover that some of your beliefs aren’t correct. In fact, I hope you do make this discovery, many times over. That’s what happens when you live under biblical authority. But you never have to be afraid of seeking the genuine truth because all truth is God’s truth.”
This was a watershed moment in my life. On the one hand, it pointed me in the direction of biblical scholarship, a path I have followed for the last thirty years and which has enabled me to write this book. On the other hand, though Dr. Stott didn’t have time to deal with my specific struggles, the fact that he knew what I was going through and had managed to maintain a solid faith in biblical authority encouraged me to keep on seeking the truth about the Bible.
I expect that some readers of my book will be unsettled by part of what I’m saying about the Gospels. So far I’ve questioned whether or not John wrote the fourth Gospel and I’ve noted that Matthew and Mark use slightly different words for God’s proclamation when Jesus was baptized. This may be unsettling for some folks, maybe even for you. My encouragement is to keep on pressing for what is true. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t settle for believing things about the Gospels that are not true. And don’t fear that some undiscovered truth out there will overturn your trust in the Gospels. John Stott was right: “There isn’t anything true about the Bible that God doesn’t already know.” Indeed, “all truth is God’s truth.”
Before I leave this story, I want to make another point. I have told you about my encounter with Dr. Stott to the very best of my memory. I’m quite sure that I have the main facts correct. It was Dr. Stott with whom I spoke, not C. S. Lewis. The conversation did happen during the spring semester of my freshman year. And Dr. Stott did encourage me to keep on looking for truth. I’m almost positive he said, “All truth is God’s truth.” (I found out later that Dr. Stott was quoting from the Christian theologian St. Augustine.) But I don’t have a tape recording of that conversation. And I didn’t rush back to my dorm to write down exactly what Dr. Stott had said. In telling this story, I have made up words and put them in Dr. Stott’s mouth. Though I’m confident I have his ipsissima vox, I don’t have his ipsissima verba, except for “All truth is God’s truth.” Moreover, I’ve told this story before in print—in my book Dare to Be True—using slightly different words. Therefore, what I’ve done in telling this story is similar in many ways to what Hellenistic historians and biographers—including the evangelists—used to do.
Does my admission surprise you? I doubt it. Though you may not have considered this as you read, I expect you sensed that I was telling the story from memory, using my own words, even as I “quoted” Dr. Stott. You knew from the kind of narrative I was offering that I was not using a tape or transcript. Moreover, now that you have my confession, do you doubt the truthfulness of my story? I doubt this too. You probably believe that, though I may not have gotten every jot and tittle absolutely right, I have related my conversation with Dr. Stott in a trustworthy manner. (At least I hope you believe this! And if you don’t believe that I’m usually a truthful person, you probably shouldn’t bother reading this book!)
Is it possible to trust a biographical or historical writing that offers the ipsissima vox rather than the ipsissima verba? I believe it is. Of course this depends on your evaluation of the overall trustworthiness of the writer and the sources at his or her disposal. I’ve already talked about the sources used by the evangelists and how they contribute to the historicity of the Gospels. I’ll have much more to say about their general trustworthiness in the rest of this book.
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The Gospels as Hellenistic Biographies
By Mark D. Roberts | Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Not long ago it was common for New Testament scholars to give up trying to fit the Gospels into existing genres, such as biography or history. The Gospels are unique, it was claimed. No other kind of literature narrates a small number of stories and sayings of a particular individual and then spends a disproportionate amount of space describing his death. What is the genre of the Gospels? They are Gospels, plain and simple.
This was the party line when I began my academic studies in New Testament. The Gospels were said to be like ancient biographies, histories, romances, and “aretologies” (accounts of a famous person’s great deeds). But, given their peculiar form and their focus on the death of Jesus, the Gospels were said to be a unique genre. There is still a measure of truth in this perspective, because the biblical Gospels are unique in some ways. And, I might add, they are quite different in form from the noncanonical so-called Gospels, few of which relate stories of Jesus’ life or focus on his death. Nevertheless, recent scholarship on the New Testament Gospels has tended to recognize how much they are a kind of biography, not modern biography so much as Hellenistic biography.
By and large, Greco-Roman biographies were not the mammoth tomes we find in our bookstores today but shorter and more focused works. It was common for a biography to skip over major parts of a character’s life, limiting discussion to key events or speeches. These deeds and words were chosen and organized, not out of antiquarian curiosity but rather to make a moral statement for the readers. The subject of the biography exemplified certain virtues. Emphasizing these encouraged readers to emulate the virtuous life of the biographical subject.
When seen in this light, the New Testament Gospels fit quite nicely within the genre of Hellenistic biography. The Gospels are distinctive in some ways, including their theological emphases and their focus on the death of Jesus, but they fit the general category of Hellenistic biography.
Luke is unique among the Gospels in having a companion volume that narrates the events of the early church. If one thinks of Luke/Acts together, biography isn’t the most appropriate genre, although Acts focuses mainly on the activities of Peter and Paul and thus has biographical touches. It would be better to see Luke/Acts as fitting within the genre of Hellenistic history. In fact, it also bears resemblance to the Old Testament histories (1 and 2 Samuel, etc.), which focus primarily on major individuals as they unfold the story of God’s saving work in the world.
Hellenistic biography and history share in common an ordered narrative of the past. Yet these were not academic treatises. Writings in these genres sought primarily to derive moral lessons from the people and events of the past. They were written to teach, to exhort, and to improve their readers.
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What are the New Testament Gospels?
By Mark D. Roberts | Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
What are the New Testament Gospels? Are they histories? Biographies? Novels? Or . . . ? To which genre should they be assigned? And why does this matter when we’re considering the trustworthiness of the Gospels?
To answer the last question first, if we know the genre of the Gospels, this will help us interpret them appropriately. If it turns out, for example, that the Gospels are short novels, then we ought not to fret too much about their historicity. If they are biographies or histories, however, then we would be wise to evaluate them as to whether they are valid sources of information about their main character, Jesus of Nazareth.
One of the greatest problems when it comes to the genre of the Gospels is the natural tendency to compare them to contemporary examples. This problem manifests itself in a variety of ways. For example, if we think of the Gospels in terms of modern biographies, then they are woefully inadequate. They lack much of what we have come to expect in a biography: background on the person’s family; insight into contemporary social events; stories of the person’s childhood; and so forth and so on. Plus, the Gospels are way too short. So, if we’re thinking in modern terms, then the Gospels are not biographies, or else they’re poor ones.
And yet they are biographical in a sense. They focus on one person. They narrate events from his life. They include some of his sayings. They have much to say, relatively speaking, about his death. We expect such things from biographies.
We’re in a similar quandary if we think of the Gospels in terms of modern historical writing. They are far too short to be displayed in the “History” section of your local bookstore. This is true in comparison not only to recent historiography but also to classics of ancient history. The Gospels are not nearly as long as the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, or the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. So it would seem strange to label the Gospels as histories.
And yet they seem to be historical in a sense. They purport to relate what happened in a certain period of time. They connect those events to important personages, like King Herod or Pontius Pilate. Luke, in particular, looks rather like some sort of history. I have previously mentioned how much the prologue to the third Gospel resembles the sort of thing we would find in the history writing of Luke’s day. Moreover, the third Gospel is the first part of a longer work that includes Acts. Luke/Acts has the kind of breadth we associate with a work of history.�
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Closing Thoughts on Oral Tradition
By Mark D. Roberts | Monday, July 2, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
When my daughter, Kara, was four years old, I decided to teach her the Lord’s Prayer. Did I simplify the language so she might understand it? Of course not. I wanted my daughter to learn the “real words” of the Lord’s Prayer. So I taught Kara the old-fashioned words that my parents had once taught me (except I used my Presbyterian “debts” instead of their Methodist “trespasses”).
Kara didn’t understand what many of the words meant. Fancy that! But she tried her best to imitate my sounds. Some of her efforts were delightful. When I said, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” she said, “Our Father who art in heaven, Hollywood be my name.” Or when I prayed, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” she said, “Forgive us our dents, as we forgive our dentist.” How logical! Yet because I cared that Kara learn the real words, I gently corrected her and helped her get both the sounds and the meaning right. Today, my eleven-year-old daughter says the Lord’s Prayer flawlessly. I expect that someday she’ll pass it on to her children.
Similarly, the early Christians, and especially the teachers, made sure that the words of Jesus were carefully though not slavishly preserved. They had their transitions from “trespasses” to “debts,” or from the Aramaic abba to the Greek pater. But the community made sure that innovations like “Hollywood be my name” never made it into the authoritative tradition! Rather, they remembered what Jesus said and made sure this was passed down accurately.
The idea of early Christians memorizing substantial traditions about Jesus may seem unrealistic, even given what I’ve said about the context, people, content, community, and process of the oral tradition about Jesus. But consider the following contemporary analogy.
All Muslims are expected to memorize portions of the Qur’an. But many go on to memorize the entire book, which contains more than 80,000 Arabic words. The one who does this is called a Hafiz and is highly regarded among other Muslims. Muslims claim that millions of the faithful have achieved this status, even today.
What enables a Muslim to memorize the entire Qur’an? Context helps, in that even though most Muslims can read, their religious life is inundated by the recitation of the Qur’an. This repetition is reinforced by the poetic nature of the Qur’an itself, and by the way it is chanted. Of course the respect given to the Hafiz encourages Muslims who are trying to memorize the whole book. But the greatest motivation of all for a pious Muslim is the belief that the Qur’an contains Allah’s own words. To memorize the Qur’an is to internalize the very words of God.
In a similar vein, the early followers of Jesus had both the ability and the motivation to pass on oral tradition with accuracy. The combination of context, people, content, community, and process helped them to faithfully recount what Jesus did and said. A study of the Gospels shows that the early Christians did this very thing with considerable success. Thus the first-century dating of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, combined with their use of earlier oral traditions, combined with early Christian faithfulness in passing on these oral traditions, add up to a convincing rationale for trusting the Gospels. What we find in these books accurately represents what Jesus himself actually did and said. We may not have the original Aramaic words of Jesus, except in a few cases, and we may not have the first Aramaic stories about him, but we have Greek translations that faithfully reproduce Jesus’ actual words and deeds.
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The Process of the Oral Tradition about Jesus
By Mark D. Roberts | Sunday, July 1, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The Telephone game assumes that the communication of the key sentence will be done secretly, with players whispering to each other.
Think of what would happen in Telephone if somebody changed the rules. Rather than whispering the sentence, the first player says it out loud to the person next in line. This person says the same sentence out loud to the next person, and so forth and so on. This would be a boring game, to say the least, because all players would hear what was being passed around.
That’s more or less what happened in the early Christian community when it came to passing down the teaching of Jesus. It was not done secretly, but openly. Remember that Luke got his information from eyewitnesses who were also “servants of the word” (Luke 1:2). They were teaching about Jesus in the public square and in the church. Their stories about Jesus and their accounts of his sayings were part of the public record, if you will, or at least the public church record.
When you think of how little material actually appears in the Gospels compared with all that Jesus would have done and said, it’s obvious that the “servants of the word” tended to repeat themselves a lot. The same stories about Jesus were told and retold. Given the variation we see in the Gospels, these stories and sayings weren’t delivered in exactly the same words every time. This would be especially true when the original Aramaic of Jesus was translated into Greek. Nevertheless, the members of the earliest churches would have heard the same stories and sayings again and again in much the same way they were first told by the eyewitnesses.
Repetition facilitates memory, even precise memory. I can say the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Pledge of Allegiance, and even my VISA card number because I have repeated them so often. I can sing more than a hundred hymns and songs, not because I’m so musical but because I’m in four worship services every weekend and I rarely miss church! The early Christians came to know a core of Jesus’ sayings and stories about him because they heard them and repeated them so frequently.
Curiously enough, there was one tradition in early Christianity that prized itself on having secret teachings from Jesus, ones that were not widely known among most Christians. This was a core feature of Christian Gnosticism. When orthodox Christians objected that Gnostic theology didn’t come from Jesus, the Gnostics claimed that the divine Christ had revealed secret information to a few select disciples. They were the only ones privy to the secret, and they passed it on only to the few elites who could receive the revelation. But this essential element of Gnostic tradition, its secrecy, counts strongly against the possibility that it truly represents the teachings of Jesus.
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The Community of the Oral Tradition about Jesus
By Mark D. Roberts | Saturday, June 30, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
My favorite high school teacher was Mr. Bottaro. He was my English teacher in tenth grade, and I was blessed to have him in twelfth grade as well. Mr. Bottaro was energetic, incisive, and passionate. I can still remember his ardent reading of Dylan Thomas’s poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” as he tried to get fifteen-year-old kids to think about their mortality. Mr. Bottaro was always talking about death and how taking it seriously helped us to live to the fullest.
One day during the spring of my senior year, my fellow students and I arrived in Mr. Bottaro’s class, but he wasn’t there. When the bell rang, we were still without a teacher. Then, about five minutes later, the school principal showed up. He informed us that Mr. Bottaro had died in his sleep the night before. We sat in stunned silence. Many students began to weep. It was one of the saddest days of my life.
During the days that followed, we reminisced plenty about Mr. Bottaro, in class, during the lunch hour, and after his memorial service. Apart from being a fine teacher, he was a character, and an eminently quotable one at that. In the telling of stories we shared our common grief over our loss and our common joy over having had such a wonderful teacher.
In those days of storytelling, the community of Mr. Bottaro’s students reinforced our corporate memory. By agreeing together about what our teacher had done and said, we celebrated his life and we fixed certain events and sayings in our minds. If, during that time, somebody had told a story about Mr. Bottaro that contradicted our common memory—if, for example, someone had accused him of playing favorites or of disliking “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” then we would have surely set that person right. Our community ensured the basic truthfulness of oral traditions about our beloved teacher.
And so it was with the community of Jesus in the first years after his death. Not only were there recognized leaders, those who had walked with Jesus and been inundated with his teachings, but also the whole community acted together to provide a place for the telling of stories about Jesus and for weighing those stories by community memory.
Sometimes you’ll hear skeptics talk about the oral period before the writing of the Gospels as if it were a free-for-all, a time when anybody could be inspired by the Spirit to put all sorts of words into Jesus’ mouth. But there is little evidence that this sort of thing actually happened, and plenty of evidence that it did not happen. After all, the early Christians believed Jesus was uniquely special as a teacher, and they believed his words were both authoritative and life-giving. Thus they had strong motivation to remember and accurately pass on what he had said, even when it was translated from Aramaic into Greek. The early Christian community helped to make sure this happened effectively. Here’s what Birger Gerhardsson concludes about the purported creativity of the oral tradition about Jesus:
My contention is thus that we have every reason to proceed on the assumption that Jesus’ closest disciples had an authoritative position in early Christianity as witnesses and bearers of the traditions of what Jesus had said and done. There is no reason to suppose that any believer in the early church could create traditions about Jesus and expect that his word would be accepted.
Gerhardsson’s observation is confirmed by the fact that so much in the oral tradition about Jesus does not reflect the needs of the early church. At some points it even appears to contradict those needs. If Christians were making up sayings of Jesus willy-nilly, and if these were being accepted uncritically by the church, then we should expect to have much more helpful instruction from Jesus concerning such contentious issues as Jewish-Christian relationships, the Sabbath, women in ministry, apostolic authority, and even his own messiahship. But this is not what we have in the Gospels. In fact, the community of Jesus’ followers carefully conserved what he had said, making sure the process of oral tradition was faithful to what Jesus really said and didn’t say.
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Luke and His Sources
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, June 29, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Good sources are treasure for historians. Even when writing about an event they experienced personally, careful historians will consult sources beyond their personal knowledge. They’ll interview other witnesses. They’ll comb through published accounts. This is what responsible historiography always entails.
As I explained in chapter 3, at least two of the Gospel writers were not eyewitnesses of Jesus. The other two, Matthew and John, may well have been among Jesus’ inner circle, but we can’t be positive about this. What we do know for sure is that at least one of the evangelists made up for his lack of direct knowledge of Jesus by carefully collecting and utilizing historical sources. We know this because Luke tells us right up front.
The Gospel of Luke begins with a prologue similar to something an ancient historian would have written:
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed (Luke 1:1–4).
We don’t know who Theophilus was, though apparently he knew Luke and was willing to receive instruction from him. Theophilus may have been Luke’s patron (financial supporter), perhaps a newer Christian who looked up to Luke. Our interest lies chiefly in the sources Luke identifies. Notice carefully what he claims:
1. “Many” have already “set down an orderly account” of the events concerning Jesus. The phrase “set down an orderly account” refers to writing a narrative. Luke consciously drew upon more than one or two written sources.
2. The events concerning Jesus “were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” “Handed on” is the language of oral tradition. It conveys the intentional passing on of stories and sayings. “Eyewitnesses” are those who actually saw and heard Jesus in the flesh. “Servants of the word” are those who preached and taught. So Luke attests to a thriving oral tradition about Jesus which was passed on by preachers and teachers. Yet these were not just any old servants of the word. Luke paid particular attention to those who based their preaching and teaching on their own eyewitness experience of Jesus.
3. Luke decided to write his Gospel “after investigating everything carefully.” In other words, he read the “many” written accounts of Jesus studiously, and made an effort to sift through the relevant oral traditions. Luke claims to be a thorough historian who has done his scholarly homework.
4. What is the point of Luke’s effort? He writes so that Theophilus “may know the truth” concerning Jesus. The ESV translates a bit more literally, “so that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:4). Luke has written his Gospel, paying close attention to the sources at his disposal, so that the reader might have confidence concerning who Jesus was, what he did, and why he matters. The “why he matters” part is expanded in Luke’s second volume, which we call the Acts of the Apostles.
I’ll have more to say about the prologue to Luke’s Gospel later. For our present purposes, I am most interested in Luke’s identification of two sorts of sources for his writing: oral sources and written sources. Both of these, according to Luke, derive from eyewitnesses who were also teachers in the church.
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Do the Gospel Manuscripts Misquote Jesus?
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, June 28, 2007
Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
At this point I should say a few words about Bart Ehrman’s currently popular book Misquoting Jesus. Even when this book has fallen from the best-seller lists, its ideas will still be floating around in the cultural stream like bits of post-hurricane flotsam in the sea
Ehrman’s book is a popular introduction to textual criticism. When he sticks to objective descriptions, Ehrman’s insights are both helpful and readable. For a scholar, he’s an unusually effective popular communicator. Unfortunately, however, this book was not written merely to introduce people to textual criticism but also to undermine their confidence in the New Testament itself. I’m not reading between the lines here. Ehrman is very clear about his intentions from the beginning.
One of the ironies of Ehrman’s book is the title, Misquoting Jesus. You would expect to find a book full of instances in which the sayings of Jesus found in the Gospels were corrupted by the scribes. In fact, however, very little of the book is actually about misquoting Jesus. As Craig L. Blomberg says in his trenchant review, “the title appears designed to attract attention and sell copies of the book rather than to represent its contents accurately.”
Another irony comes when Ehrman talks about the number of variants among the New Testament manuscripts. As just noted, he says, “there are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.” This startling sound bite appears to undermine the reliability of the manuscripts. But Ehrman also qualifies this observation. He writes:
To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, and of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.
The changes [the scribes] made—at least the intentional ones— were no doubt seen as improvements of the text, possibly made because the scribes were convinced that the copyists before them had themselves mistakenly altered the words of the text. For the most part, their intention was to conserve the tradition, not to change it.
One would expect to find these claims in a book touting the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts. Ehrman, in spite of his bias, is too good a scholar not to tell the truth here.
The greatest irony in Misquoting Jesus lies at the heart of Ehrman’s argument against the trustworthiness of the manuscripts. The main point of his book is to undermine confidence in the New Testament on the ground that copyists changed the manuscripts, both intentionally and accidentally. One would expect Ehrman to put forth dozens of examples where we simply don’t have any idea what the autographs actually said. Such repeated uncertainty would lead to the conclusion that we can’t know with assurance what the New Testament writers, including the Gospel authors, actually wrote.
But, in fact, Ehrman’s book is filled with examples that prove the opposite point. He does indeed offer many cases of textual variants. In virtually every case, Ehrman confidently explains what the change was, what the earlier manuscript actually said, and what motivated the copyist. In other words, Ehrman’s book, though intending to weaken our certainty about the New Testament text, actually demonstrates how the abundance of manuscripts and the antiquity of manuscripts, when run through the mill of text-critical methodology, allow us to know with a very high level of probability what the evangelists and other New Testament authors wrote. This might explain why there are many textual critics who are committed Christians with an evangelical view of Scripture.
For a thorough critique of Ehrman’s view, see the fine new book, Miquoting Truth, by Timothy Paul Jones.
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