The above title was arrived at after much difficult contemplation and prayer. But it is fitting in many respects.

The Jury has regrettably failed here in two respects - one a technical point, the other much more serious. First the technical point: logical subject organization would demand that their reply to McDowell's chapter 6, which focuses on Jesus' claims to divinity, should have been composed and released before (or at the same time as) Chapter 7, where the matter of whether or not Jesus claimed divinity is key. But it was not; Ch. 6 appeared later than 7. This we deem improper, but will not harp on, since it may have occurred due to circumstances beyond their control. (However, it an effort to manage our data more cohesively, the reader will note that MUCH of our previous Chapter 6 material in now ensconced in Chapter 7, or else displaced to Tekton 1-2-1. Chapter 6 will retain material that is unique to Price, and does not overlap or bear significant similarities to material offered by Jim Perry in Chapter 7.)

The second miscue of Jury is much more serious: And that is, continuing to allow a forum for the venomous and vitriolic essays of Robert Price. We have said enough about this subject in our Chapter 8 reply, so we shall allow the issue to rest as it does there; but for those new to our neighborhood, here is a sample of what to expect from Mr. Price, as presented in his introductory paragraph, Jury Chapter 6:

The entire first half of Price's essay is filled with dramatic poetry like this - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; and further flagged with polemical designs such as the decidedly unsubtle references to Khomeini and kangaroo courts. (BTW - I have had neither church upbringing nor emotional crisis; where, pray tell, do I fit into your generalizing scheme, Mr. Price?) And it gets worse, descending even into childishness, as with this:

Thank you, Mr. Price, for that advisory from the eminent logician, Sigmund Freud. This, sadly, is the sort of childishness that we find throughout Price's essays; but it gets even worse: Price goes as far as misrepresenting specific Christian positions; to wit:

And skeptics don't EVER duck difficult questions? Let's face it, friends: Most people in this world aren't intellectually prepared to defend their views on ANY subject - religion, politics, ethics, law, whether to have Tuna Helper for supper, you name it! Most people in this world, on any given topic, have closed their minds because they are convinced that they are right and need no further instruction. It's a human failing, a sin of pride, and a result of ignorance. By the same token, not everyone can be a Rhodes scholar and know immediately the answer to every conceivable question, and it is the height of arrogance to make a blanket accusation of intellectual dishonesty in this regard as Price does. Certainly it is no offense to admit ignorance; and certainly, if one's eternal life is indeed at stake, there is no harm in accepting the free gift of salvation before 100% of your questions have been satisfactorily settled! After all, you can always do as Price has apparently done, and as Dan Barker and others have certainly done - give it back and go your own way!

(By the way again, Mr. Price - what page does Little give this advice on? I've gone over the book twice and found nothing that even remotely resembles it.)

A few things we may note here -

1. As far as the "mind already made up" issue - that is absolutely correct! Hopefully, the whole reason the non-professional evangelist is wanting to witness is because he KNOWS JESUS CHRIST personally. Their mind IS made up - and why else would you witness?!? The personal experience of Christ is so much more convincing than academic and intellectual discussions! [Now, if the evangelist is doing it out of "duty" WITHOUT the richness of personal experience of the living God - as it appears Price did, as evidenced in his discussion in his book Beyond Born Again, about witnessing in the restaurant and having nothing to say(!), then this would obviously be a problem!] Evangelism is NOT the same thing as "dialogue" or "debate" but an issue of one beggar telling another beggar where to find free bread! The "duck the questions" coaching is in evangelism coaching - NOT apologetics coaching, and that is a BIG difference!

2. Surely Price remembers the "indoctrination" he should have received about the reality of spiritual warfare! The issue of the blindness of the heart, about eyes that refuse to see, about loving darkness rather than light - this issue requires that the central life-giving message of the Cross be held in focus: just as a lifeguard would be foolish to get into petty debates with a drowning man about the background history and political alignments of the manufacturer of a life-preserver(!), so too those who hold forth the "message of this life" must look to the interests of the person and not just their curiosities. There are, of course, those situations in which the questions are not mere diversionary tactics but are rather issues of deep psychological bondage. In those situations MOST evangelists suggest special treatment and use of others more skilled.

Quite simply, Price here has mixed up two different activities -evangelism and apologetics - and his attack simply does not find a mark.

At only one point, however, does Price's first-half diatribe get interesting enough to take note of. After endless paragraphs of harping about Christian apologists being like used-car salesmen, and about how the facts will always force apologists to abandon their beliefs, he says of any faith that they do have remaining:

!!!! - Price spends over half of his essay spent exuding venom like the above, then he admits that he isn't claiming to have proved anything???? That it is only what he PERSONALLY has been through???? What place does all of this personal venting have in a scholarly reply to Josh McDowell? I ask in all sincerity - are we supposed to take this vitriol as an answer to McDowell's Chapter 6 on the claims of Jesus? But as we have seen, this is not atypical - anywhere from ten to fifty percent of Price's Secular Web essays are composed of such venting and personal psychological analysis. Does this perhaps tell us something about his capability to actually address the issues at hand?

At any rate, this accusation is again amiss. A person can have a very sincere and genuine faith, without knowing the answers to the difficulties that plague ANY system of intellectual worldview. This slander is simply not honest - it ignores the obvious realities of the dynamics of belief systems (e.g. growth in strength of belief, suspension of judgment on minor dissonance in the system, progressive integration of propositions, etc.). A sincere believer has no prima facie ethical requirement to allow another person to dominate or dictate the discussion topics in an evangelism session, especially if he or she is sharing out of care and concern for the other person - "speaking the truth in love." Price feels some sense of moral obligation to correct the evangelical, obviously - but we would certainly not consider him to be "insincere or hypocritical." (He may be wrong or be malicious or be devious, but these other adjectives are not immediately obvious!)

Beyond the polemic, the truly saddest part of Price's of essay, however, is its notable lack of content, his plainly superficial scholarship - and the fact that he has the wherewithal to have known better. First, allow me to note, however, a peculiar criticism of me found on James Still's personal pages:

In the sad manner typical of skeptics, this critic has failed to even read what I have written carefully. While I have informally ranked SOME Jury writers as non-scholarly either in their qualifications or their approach, I have done so WITH EVIDENCE - and if this critic wishes to explain why any of these rankings are incorrect, let them write me and do so. At the same time, I have always freely acknowledged in this essay that Price is a qualified NT scholar. He has a Ph.D. in New Testament and a Ph. D. in Systematic Theology, as well as other degrees; and is a member of the Jesus Seminar - this, I did not doubt. He is also, in the same vein as Dan Barker, a professed ex-Christian. However, the fact remains that Price's qualifications are NOT reflected in the quality of Price's essays. His style, content, choice of vocabulary, sufficiency and cogency of argumentation, and use of sources, indicates (and continues to indicate) someone far less educated, and his continuing efforts for the Secular Web show no sign of being any better. I can only conclude that Price himself is so bitter that he has thrown scholarship to the wind, and does not care what he writes as long as it accomplishes his purposes - and that he is therefore as culpable as the believers he accuses of fudging on difficult questions in order to simply get souls saved, in spite of their inability to answer questions from unbelievers. But again, we do not make this accusation lightly. The proof shall be in the offing.

Stale apologetics? Skeptics are using many of the same arguments used by Celsus in the second century (see Tekton section 4), and Price appeals regularly to scholars whose bodies (and ideas!) expired and turned in the grave decades ago! Fact: There is nothing new under the sun, on either side of the aisle. Fact two: Price does nothing to significantly answer the argument that Jesus claimed divinity anyway - even the most simple forms of the "argument" as presented by McDowell! (And how does Mr. Price presume to speak for everyone but "died-in-the-wool fundamentalists and biblical inerrantists" regarding what arguments do or do not make sense? Is this not exceedingly presumptuous? It is interesting, though, that the most original "innovation" in skeptical thought since Celsus has been the "Jesus myth" position - a SURE sign of "staleness" and "grasping at straws" if there ever was one!)

Oh, yes - one more technical point from Price -

Question: If Price considers something as simple as Josh's outline system to be confusing, how does he have the wherewithal to handle important arguments about Christianity? As for skipping "minor" points, the fact is that Price skips many MAJOR points - including the issue of the major divine title used by Jesus, "Son of Man."

So here we are, at the meat of Price's essay. It's time to debark from the monorail at the Disney World gate and enter Fantasyland. Buckle your seat belts, and do not enter this ride if your faith is less than 36 inches tall.

• One might as well argue that Jesus was a glutton and an alcoholic (Matthew 11:19) - This was NOT a response to Jesus' words, of course (which would be required for its use by Price in this fashion), but a judgment on Jesus' celebratory lifestyle. As such, it provides us important data about his life--when seen through the semantic content of the polemic!
• and that he was in league with Beelzebul (Mark 3:22) - This was not a response to His claims either, but this teaches us that His power over spirits was undisputed!
• was a Samaritan and demon-possessed (John 8:48) - This only shows us that the Jewish response was vitriolic--they knew very well that He was Galilean; this was merely the worst put-down they could think of! After being called "children of the devil..." (!) Not much content here about Jesus, but some about Jewish views of Samaritans!
• out of his mind (Mark 3:21) - This was not a response to his claims, but we learn that his popularity was unprecedented, and later, that even skeptics can fall in love with Jesus! ;>)
• that he proposed offering himself as the main course at a feast for cannibals (John 6:52) - THIS is an interesting passage, for it looks like it supports Price's view: Jesus made a claim, the crowd at large (including some labeled as "disciples") misunderstood it, and He did NOT correct them--but let them remain befuddled, he did NOT correct the misunderstanding at all (except later to his remaining disciples), AND allowed the crowd to respond that way in unbelief. So, this bears a little more scrutiny: (1) This looks so much more like the parable-genre than does the passage under discussion in McDowell -- entailing the different treatment of DELIBERATE "misleading" of the parables as judgment on the Nation. This would argue that the two cases are different enough not to inform one another. (2) Jesus simply restates the claim over and over; he does NOT defend it as he does in the John passage--again a huge difference; (3) in the 10.39 passage Jesus explains the 'am one' concept with other images: God's son ; set apart in pre-existence; sent into the world, "I-in-Him-and-Him-in-Me" -- the alternate images would make misunderstanding MUCH MORE difficult to maintain, and the nature of the 'debate' between parties makes it clear that Jesus was attempting to confront them with this fact. He could have dropped the issue after the technical qal wahomer argument, but he kept pressing the issue. (4) In the "cannibal" passage, Jesus uses 'code words' (like in the parables) and DIFFERENT words with the disciples later. In John 10.35ff His words are the SAME KIND that he uses with His disciples in the Upper Room discourse--where understanding WAS the clear objective. The same patterns of language argues for similarity of intent. So I think the case does NOT fit the usage in the John 10 passage at all.
• that he thought he was physically older than Abraham (John 8:57) -- Jesus confirms this, of course, with one of the "I am" sayings!! He corrects them and points to the spiritual side. This actually argues against Price's position.
• that he proposed to rebuild Herod's temple in three days (John 2:20) - This looks like another parabolic statement, in which he ALLOWED misunderstanding -- although it is hugely typological in content!
• or that like Superman he had descended bodily from the sky (John 6:42) -- Price is merely adding the bodily and DC Comics images for "special effects." Jesus, in the same passage also used by Price (cannibalism) makes this rather clear statement of heavenly origin--this time to the larger group of disciples (some who leave at this point). This statement does not look parabolic, nor intended for the wider crowd. I don t see any reason to believe the disciples misunderstood this reference.
• all examples of what the enemies of Jesus think of him or think he is claiming. -- SO, each of these examples do not fit the same pattern as 10.39 et. al. They either (1) focus on Jewish slander of Jesus behavior; or (2) fit the parabolic-genre with its deliberate 'misunderstanding' side-intent. Price apparently notices this, for his final clause recognizes a difference between what they "think of him" or what they "think he is claiming"--their reflective thoughts about Jesus, OR their linguistic interaction with the Master.

Finally, notice that in John 10:39, the would-be stoners don't accept the "explanation" as a backpedal, but as an affirmation - they try to seize Jesus again! Again, we discuss this issue further in our Ch. 7 reply, where Jim Perry also refers to John 10:30.

We should recall, in addition, that it was not only the opponents, but also His followers that misunderstood -- indeed, so much of Jesus' ministry was aimed at crafting a correct view of the Kingdom and King! But this argues against Price. If someone describes themselves as earlier being confused about Jesus, then there is an implicit assumption that they are now better-informed! (And on the other hand, the landscape is not quite that bleak -- we have notable confessions by normal folk--Nathaniel, John the Baptist, Peter, Mary, the Samaritan woman, various healed people and worshippers-that show that His claims were not THAT unintelligible!)

Price then jumps into an excessive exposition allegedly demonstrating a dramatically increasing tendency for Jesus to call God 'Father' as we move from earlier to later gospel source documents. He writes that In Mark we find but 3 instances, 4 in Q, 4 in the material peculiar to Luke. In the uniquely Matthean material we suddenly jump to 31, and John is practically off the scale at 100! This analysis, however, rests on the dubious form-critical presumptions that Q existed as an actual document; that Mark was the first Gospel, and that John was written much later than the others. Moreover:

• EVEN IF these layers and statistics could be substantiated, it would not mean anything, especially as the alleged documents get smaller and smaller in volume! As they get smaller, the probability that the statistical percentage of historical usages of the word "Father" by Jesus is PERFECTLY MAINTAINED pro-rata(!) in the textual base DECREASES! In other words, if Jesus used the word "Father" to refer to God exactly 5,000 out of 50,000 times in referring to God (10%) then WHY would we require Mark or Q or Luke or ANYONE to makes sure the "Jesus" in the narrative stories used the exact SAME ratio of 10%? Given their literary selectivity of what stories, what detail, when to summarize, etc., it would be irrational to argue that since Jesus used Father X number of times in Mark, that He used Father THE SAME RATIO OVER HIS ENTIRE EARTHLY LIFESPAN! Percentages within a document only tip us off to the writers intentions--NOT actual statistical usages in larger chunks of history!
• Even on that account, however, the method of counting here rather skews things! If we count the number of pericopes in which Jesus calls God "Father," we get a rather different impression! For example, of those 100 times in John, approximately forty-five of those appear in the extended prayer/discourse of Jesus from John 14:1-17:26; at least 14 of those "Father" cites are found in John 5:16-47, and 10 of them in 6:25-71, each of which is an independent unit - so that, by the time you do this kind of compression, you find about 14-15 instances each in Matthew and John (as a whole) where Jesus used the term! The data, then, only appears as formidable as it does because of the way it was counted! (I would also add that whatever "problems" there may be here will drop in Price's lap if John is the earliest and most primitive Gospel, as some have suggested.)
• All increasing usages of "father" could possibly tell us, then, was (1) of the increasingly larger number of verses (!) or (2) selective reporting and emphasis to highlight an aspect of Jesus life and/or the evangelist's intention, which essentially mutes the entire objection. Lexical data like this is really a weak argument generally, especially when dealing with hypothetical documents that are sometimes arrived at by the same lexical data (i.e., early versions of JEDP, or Q!).
• Finally, even Price's source for this data, Joachim Jeremias [JJ.CMNT, 22-3] does not take this data to mean that Jesus did not use the term to refer to God, just that He used it only when speaking to His disciples - which means that Price's source for this information radically disagrees with his own conclusion that:

In a word: No. Form criticism, in its most radical incarnations, is pebbled with weasel-reasoning, special pleading, and arbitrary criteria, and is, again, based on the presumed existence of documents like Q for which we have no direct evidence, and violates sensible rules of literature in a way that would have English and literature professors around the world collapsing in fits of laughter. This is not to say that it is ALL bad; nor is it meant to impugn those who use it with the best of motives, like Jeremias did - I am primarily condemning Amazing Ginsu Form Criticism Applicators like Burton Mack. The various types of Biblical criticism offer us many useful insights, but all too often treat the Bible like an animal being subject to vivisection, allowing speculation and numbers of sources to grow to the point of absurdity as ever-newer and more radical theories are propounded, and treating books of the Bible in ways that no one would dare treat any other work of literature. This idea by Price is virtually absurd, and exemplary of the worst incarnations of form criticism! Higher incidences of specific word choices in allegedly "later" literature does not "make the nature of it clear" at all! It is much more natural to read the evidence (if we grant it) that its later popularity was due to its truthfulness, usefulness, or ability to explicate the mystery of Jesus better than "rival" terms -- present popularity does NOT imply anachronistic efforts by editors at all! But in fact, the most "natural way to read the evidence" is AS IT STANDS IN THE GOSPELS! The weird, contorted, and non-consensus vivisection of the virtually "seamless robe" of the gospel texts (increasingly authenticated as whole literary units by redaction and literary criticism nowadays) is as unnatural as you can get. Again, we have NO textual data to support division; we have no examples of Sayings-sources; we have NO evidence of early textual modifications; no original or later copies of Q to pass around the academic community! It is only when a critic tries to "get out of a tight spot" that wild theories of sources and warring factions, etc. -- rivaling the elegant theories of epi-cycles(!) -- get created, to avoid the natural reading of the gospels that confront us with a category-busting God-man! By the simple law of parsimony--what Price is trying to use here--the gospels should be taken as they occur first in the manuscript history: as the holistic literary products that they are!

Price continues with some attacks on modern Bible translations that allegedly attribute more claims to divinity by Jesus than are found in the original texts:

Since many scholars, including some non-Christians (such as David Flusser), believe that "Son of Man" and "Messiah" ARE the same, and would merely be equivalent to "Man from Heaven," the LIV at that point is merely mirroring one branch of critical scholarship - a non-fundie, non-Christian branch, we would add! - as is its right and prerogative. As for John 4:26, I don't have the NASB handy, but let's look at the NRSV:

This is not an explicit self-identification? Let's rework this a bit:

So is the man in question saying that he is the plumber, or isn't he? It certainly seems explicit enough that he is! True enough, as we indicate elsewhere, to have outright said, "I am the Christ/God/Messiah" would (according to some theorists) have been unacceptable within the socio-historical constraints of first-century Judaism, not to mention confusing; but a subtly explicit proclamation as in John 4 would certainly have held water, and also would have fit in nicely with the theological motif of God confirming others' witness to Him. God is rather interested in us "SAYING IT OURSELVES" instead of us somehow simply "nodding" when He says it! (Some have also pointed out that in Samaria, where expectations of the Messiah were not so politically-oriented and were more teacher-oriented, Jesus could afford to be a little less "coy" about His proclamations!)

Why? Because there were discussions of WHEN and HOW Jesus and the Father were one, and numerous (and inevitable) attempts to syncretize favorite, cherished, yet obviously incompatible views with the Christian belief system! This is simply another false dichotomy and stereotypical argument of Price. Evangelicals KNOW all about theological development in BOTH Testaments(!); we do NOT have a problem with this! We use biblical theology to "unpack" a text, and we watch the developmental revelation and refinement in the biblical text--as we are given historical markers therein. We do not have to postulate a history of "invisible" textual development; we have enough data from the text itself to date transitional and formative events/disclosures (e.g. the New Covenant in Jeremiah; the Forerunner in Malachi). Anyone who argues dogmatically that the substrate or elements of Chalcedonian theology CANNOT IN ANY WAY be present in the words of Jesus is simply barking an assertion without demonstrating its worth or warrant! Besides, the classic (and perfectly "Jewish") argument by Jesus in Matt. 22:41 is a perfect example of an argument TOO CLEVER for the later church to have invented(!), yet it survives as a perfectly indigenous Jewish theological problem in the OT!

I am about to willfully ignore, for now, a substantial portion of Price's essay that harps on and on about possible interpretations and various heresies throughout church history. Since many of these heresies were late inventions, and so obviously play games of "cross out the verses you don't like," it seems ridiculous to ask (as Price does implicitly, though perhaps unwittingly) why they cannot be proper interpretations of the claims of Jesus. It is painfully obvious that they cannot be. (For more on this, see Tekton 2-1-1 on canonicity.)

We refer to this argument in our Ch. 7 reply. At this point, I will also bypass all claims to divinity in the Gospel of John - simply for the sake of argument - as I have done in the Ch. 7 reply. We will also ignore (for now) Price's simplistic and uninformed claim that the Gospel of John contains radical stylistic and theological differences from the Synoptics - especially as he refuses to name even one such difference and show its significance and lack of compatibility! However, we plan to look at that issue in more detail in the future.

Before one parrots the ludicrous dictum of C.S. Lewis that the Johannine discourses bear no resemblance to ancient, non-historical genres, one owes it to oneself to read the Gnostic and Mandaean revelation soliloquies abundantly quoted in Bultmann's commentary on John, something I rather doubt any apologists take the trouble to do.

Allow me to allay your doubts, Mr. Price. I have indeed read said soliloquies - and that fact that you perceive these as casting doubt on Lewis's analysis merely demonstrates why it was so necessary for Lewis to "pull rank" as a literary critic (as you complain in Beyond Born Again) - like Bultmann, Price has no literary sense whatsoever; and like Lewis, we are obliged to wonder how much mythical material Bultmann himself read before coming to his outrageous conclusions, and whether Price has the literary wherewithal to draw his own conclusions. Judging from his poor attempts in BBA to compare various Gospel texts to those drawn from mythology, Mr. Price is severely lacking in the talent of literary analysis. This is the subject of an appendix attached to this chapter; suffice to say for now, that the closest literary parallels in the Bible to the Gnostic and Mandean revelation soliloquies is found in the Psalter - not in the Gospel of John. The highly mystical character of the soliloquies, the patterning, and tone, are quite unlike the historical genres - just as Lewis surmised.

But even beyond literary grounds, Price's position has a number of problems. Research since about 1940 has had a new and broader base through the texts published by Lady Drower, and as a result of the beginnings of differentiation of strata within the Mandean texts, scholarship has reached the common opinion that the Mandaean religion, or at least its roots, belongs in spatial and temporal proximity to primitive Christianity and either developed out of gnosticizing Judaism or at any rate engaged in polemical exchange with a syncretistic Judaism. Simply put, John could not have been influenced by the preserved Mandaean writings, so that there is no question of John's ties with Mandaean or even proto-Mandaean circles. But the often-observed similarity cited by Price of John to the Mandaean concepts actually points to the conclusion that the Mandaean writings are late, deformed witnesses for a Jewish Gnosticism which was formed on the edge of Judaism and which is assumed to be the intellectual background of John. A careful interpretation of John shows that he utilized, in an emphatically anti-Gnostic way, the Gnostic language take over by him (cf. 1.14; 3.16; 17.15; 20.20).

Or, as one set of authors puts it:

Words such as light, darkness, life, death, spirit, word, love, believing, water, bread, clean, birth, and children of God can be found in almost any religion. Frequently they have very different referents as one moves from religion to religion, but the vocabulary is a popular as religion itself. Nowhere, perhaps, has the importance of this phenomenon been more clearly set forth than in a little-known essay by Kysar. He compares the studies of Dodd and Bultmann on the prologue (John 1:1-18), noting in particular the list of possible parallels each of the two scholars draws up to every conceivable phrase in those verses. Dodd and Bultmann each advance over three hundred parallels, but the overlap in the lists is only 7 percent. The dangers of what Sandmel calls parallelomania become depressingly obvious. [INT.CMM, 159-60]

Finally, I would like to add that it is an interesting commentary on how seemingly oddly out of touch Price is with modern scholarship, if he is still using Bultmann on this topic!

Continuing with Price:

How about a cite from Paul, there, Mr. Price? Presumably you mean the "Christ-in-you, you-in-Christ" passages, but I would hate to be presumptuous. :) In any event, let's talk about Patripassianism for a moment. It is also called monarchianism, and Sabellianism. This heresy first appeared in 190 AD and was advocated by Theodore of Byzantium; it was later taken up in the 3rd century by Sabellius - hence the latter name. This heresy rejected the idea of the Trinity, and regarded Jesus as a mere man endowed with the Holy Spirit.

Patripassianism is actually rather easily countermanded. First, it is so late (190 AD!) that it obviously cannot reflect the teaching of Jesus or the Apostles. Second, it cites the verses cited above - John 14:10-11, by the way - as though they existed alone, and ignores John 10:30. And this is how heresies get their start: somebody emphasizes one part of the Bible and excludes another in order to get the desired, often predetermined result. By themselves, verses 14:10-11 could support either the Athanasian or the Sabellian creed. In the total context of John, indeed the whole of the Bible itself, the latter application is impossible.

We now come to a place where a large block of material has been moved to Chapter 7; here are the remnants of that discussion which remain relevant to Chapter 6:

I pause here for a moment in order to consider the disturbing nature of this particular polemic - and will assume first person for a moment.

Mr. Price, unless you are able to produce a direct quote from McDowell, viz. "Joachiam Jeremias is roasting in Gehenna because of his opinions," along with a catalog of the opinions in question, then quite frankly, you have no business whatsoever making such an irrational, and truthfully, idiotic, statement such as the above. You know well enough, first of all, having those degrees in New Testament and Systematic Theology, that by Christian belief, "piety" earns no one a place in heaven; salvation is achieved by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not by works.

As it is, having read the Jeremias book under discussion here [JJ.CMNT], and others, I see no reason to say one way or the other where Jeremias is presently spending eternity. If he believes what he taught in the books I have seen, then I expect I shall see him again as a brother in Christ. That he held to unjustifiable opinions re: form criticism and the like would be quite beside the point; he took extremists on both sides equally to task.

It must be said here, in complete honesty and with a heavy heart (as we show now in Ch. 7), that Mr. Price does not accurately report Jeremias' information, but rather twists Jeremias' data for his own purposes. This is part of a continuing process where Price has shown a lack of in-depth knowledge of the apologetic position, of the exegetical options about the key texts, and about the changes in NT scholarship over the past 20 years. This lack of understanding of Jeremias in particular fits into a disturbing pattern of lack of attention to detail, or even an inability to understand the issues of the discussion. We would have hoped that he has merely been careless in his use of his sources; but his continuing practices in this regard make the only other alternative, that he has been deceptive and dishonest, even more likely. Either way, this, along with his evident bitterness, tells us volumes about his level of scholarship and integrity.

Read the Gospels carefully: Jesus is said to have gone...

"a little farther" (Mark 14:35; Matt. 26:39)

"about a stone's throw beyond them" (Luke 22:41)

...before praying. Now unless we have an Olympic champion stone-thrower to deal with, none of these implies that Jesus went beyond hearing distance. Nor do any of the Gospels report hearing and observation of anything that the disciples could not have seen and heard before falling asleep. The "one hour" comment certainly allows for a ton of room for listening/watching disciples, and it is ridiculous to assume that in the first MINUTE of that hour after the command of Jesus the disciples went straight to sleep! They would have struggled to stay awake--but would have eventually fallen asleep due to sadness; and in each of the three incidences of prayer, there would have been period of alertness/attention prior to be yet again overcome with fatigue, allowing time for observation and overhearing. And indeed, if Mark is being the "omniscient narrator" here, why didn't he invent something more useful for apologetics purposes, like a long speech by Jesus against His would-be tormentors? Why make Jesus look so "weak"? (The doubt and plea-to-evade are precious to Christians, but they are not the stuff of legends!) Truthfully, the fact that we are not given an extended account of Jesus' prayers in the Garden is in and of itself an indication that we have been given a valid, eyewitness account of what the disciples did see and hear that painful night. Finally, Luke 22:44 seems to indicate that Jesus' prayer might have been quite LOUD! Price has once again leveled the richness of history onto a two-dimensional surface!

The ride is nearly ended. Here, shockingly, is Price's conclusion to the matter:

And that Price can dismiss so abruptly what remains in the sixth chapter of McDowell's is a sad commentary indeed. The rest of the chapter INCLUDES the Son of Man title, and Jesus' presumption to forgive sins - elements of Jesus self-understanding, not expressions of beliefs by others! These, we will cover elsewhere. "Virtually all.."?

I have said in a few places that many Bible critics - mostly of the liberal and skeptical stripe, but conservatives are not immune - make statements about the Bible that would cause them to be laughed out of court if judged on their literary merits. The JEDP theory, many "Q"-related theorems, and so on, are examples of the type of speculation that non-literary sorts engage in, hardly realizing that from a literary standpoint, their ideas are outrageous. Robert Price, regrettably, is one of those sorts of critics, and I shall herein demonstrate using selections from his mess-of-pottage manifesto, Beyond Born Again.

Let us begin with the examples. In his chapter on the Resurrection, Price appeals thusly, attempting to show that the gospels are legendary in character:

Stories of the physical reappearance of Jesus to comfort or command his followers would also fit into this pattern. Ovid records this appearance of Romulus, after he had ascended from the battlefield.

Proculus Julius was coming from the Alba Longa; the moon was shining, he was not using a torch. Suddenly the hedges on the left shook and moved. He shrank back and his hair stood on end. Beautiful and more than human and clothed in a sacred robe, Romulus was seen, standing in the middle of the road. He said, "Stop the (Romans) from their mourning; do not let them violate my divinity with their tears; order the pious crowd to bring incense and worship the new [god] Quirinus."... He gave the oder and he vanished into the upper world from before Julius' eyes."

There would be many problems with comparing this to the accounts of the appearances of Jesus: Single vs. many appearances; extremely short vs. extended duration; number of people appeared to; the lack of tactile contact (i.e., Jesus encouraging the disciples to touch His hands and side, etc.). But let us turn to the matter of purely literary comparison: It is only by colossal literary misapprehension that Price can assert that this text is "strikingly reminiscent of the gospel accounts." This account is pebbled with over-descriptions that drop hints that the author is not recounting an eyewitness event: The bits about the hair standing on end, the superlative description of Romulus. These are not the characteristics of "straight reporting," and are the sort of thing that is quite lacking in the Gospels.

Here is another attempt by Price, using material concerning Apollonius (see Tekton section 4):

This young boy would never agree to the immortality of the soul. "I, my friends, am completing the tenth month of praying to Apollonius to reveal to me the nature of the soul. But he is completely dead so as never to respond to my begging, nor will I believe he is not dead." Such were the things he said then, but on the fifth day after that they were busy with these things and he suddenly fell into a deep sleep right where he had been talking.... he, as if insane, suddenly leaped to his feet... and cried out, "I believe you!" When those present asked him what was wrong, he said "Do you not see Apollonius the sage, how he stands here among us, listening to the argument and singing wonderful verses concerning the soul?... He came to discuss with me alone concerning the things which I would not believe."

There are many problems with the comparison, too, not the least of which are the sort we have mentioned in Tekton. But on a strictly literary basis, we again see over-description: The intense emphasis on the boy's actions ("as if insane"); the boy's enthusiasm. This, again, is the character of fiction.

Price's next attempt is a little more detailed. He writes:

Montgomery, Stott, Lewis, and others point to the "vivd detail" in the narratives as proof of eyewitness authorship. A favorite text adduced in this regard is John 20:3-8, "[an] eyewitness account in a vivid, yet restrained, passage [which]... records the visit of Peter and John to the tomb"(Anderson). "The account [John] gives of this incident... bears unmistakable marks of first-hand experience."

To help out here, let's look at the passage (NIV), which Price does not offer in comparison:

John 20:3-8 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

Price then says, "I invite the reader to open his New Testament to this text and compare it to a passage from Chariton's Chaireas and Kalliroe, a fiction novel written probably in the first century B. C. It concerns a girl, mistakenly entombed alive, who has been removed by grave robbers." Very well: Let us do so -

Chaireas was guarding and toward dawn he approached the tomb.... When he came close, however, he found the stones moved away and the entrance open. He looked in and was shocked, seized by a great perplexity at what had happened. Rumor made an immediate report to the Syracusans about the miracles. All then ran to the tomb; no one dared to enter until Hermocrates ordered it. One was sent in and he reported everything accurately. It seemed incredible-- the dead girl was not there.... [When Chaireas] searched the tomb he was able to find nothing. Many came in after him, disbelieving. Amazement seized everyone, and some said as they stood there: "The shroud has been stripped off, this is the work of grave robbers; but where is the body?"

From this, Price concludes:

I am not suggesting that John or the other evangelists used this novel as a source. I mean only to show that vivid descriptions of empty tombs and abandoned graveclothes prove nothing about "eyewitness authorship" since we find them also in an admitted work of fiction.

Once again, however, Price's manifest inexperience in literary matters shines through. Vivid descriptions are one thing, and by themselves are indeed evidence of eyewitness testimony; but when paired with certain literary devices - which, again, are absent in the Gospels - they tell us something quite different! The over-emphasis on Chaireas' mood (not just "shocked," but also "seized by a great perplexity") is a literary device designed to build up suspense in the reader; so is the inserted phrase, "It seemed incredible," supplemented by the emphasis that nothing was found. In contrast, John offers no such words. If John had been reporting a fiction, here is what we would expect the passage to look like:

Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, running as the wind would blow; but the other disciple's exuberance was the greater, so he outran Peter, and it was he who reached the tomb first. He bent over, his heart pounding in his breast - what had happened? He looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but fear overtook him, and he did not go in. Finally Simon Peter, who had been behind him all this time, arrived and went into the tomb, pushing his bedeviled counterpart to the side. He, too, saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. "There is no body here!" Peter cried aloud; "What have they done? Or could this be that which our Master foretold, that He has been raised again on the third day?" At first his companion could not believe; but finally, he also went inside, and saw what Peter did. His eyes started from his head; and he found himself unable to deny it: "Yes, Peter, it has happened, just as the Teacher said. He has been raised from the dead!"

A final example will suffice, one in which Price takes the offensive for a bit. He writes:

Sometimes a biblical story may simply read like a legend. We feel we are no longer on terra firma. Of course this is subjective, but not completely so. In fact those who defend the complete historical veracity of the gospels often appeal to just such a subjective judgment by C. S. Lewis who "pulled rank" as a literary critic.

He then quotes Lewis:

If he [the biblical critic] tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour... I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, myths, all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this [i.e., like John 7:53-8:11].

This, I believe, is the "ludicrous dictum" that Price refers to earlier in this chapter - and while he may regard Lewis' judgment as "subjective," he does so as one who is obviously less than competent in literary matters, as is amply demonstrated by his next appeal:

But how about the gospel tale of the coin in the fish's mouth (Matthew 17:24-27)? Not only may it strike the palate as decidedly legendary in flavor, but one may even compare it to another of the same vintage...

Once again, Price fails to provide a copy of the NT quote in question, so let us look at it:

Matthew 17:24-7 After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" "Yes, he does," he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes--from their own sons or from others?" "From others," Peter answered. "Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him. "But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

If this strikes Price's palate as "legendary in flavor," then he needs to adjust his seasonings! A legend would have something outrageous, like Peter or Jesus striking the tax collectors blind (cf. - the infancy gospels!), or the fish spitting the coin at Peter. As it is, we aren't even given the punch line of Peter catching the fish! Aside from the providential miracle, there is nothing extraordinary or fictional here - either factually or in a literary view! (There are even types of fish that will swallow bright objects like coins.) On the other hand, let's look at this story, which Price regards as being of the same "vintage":

Joseph-who-honors-the-Sabbath had in his vicinity a certain Gentile who owned much property. Soothsayers told him, "Joseph-who-honors-the-Sabbath will consume all your property." So he went, sold all his property, and bought a precious stone with the proceeds, which he set in his turban. As he was crossing a bridge the wind blew it off and cast it into the water, and a fish swallowed it. [Subsequently] it [the fish] was hauled up and brought [to market] on the Sabbath eve towards sunset. "Who will buy now?" cried they. "Go and take them to Joseph-who-honors-the-Sabbath," they were told, "as he is accustomed to buy." So they took it to him. He bought it, opened it, found the jewel therein, and sold it for thirteen roomfuls of gold denarii. A certain old man met him and said, "He who lends to the Sabbath, the Sabbath repays him." (B. Shabbath, 119a)

More than any other passage used by Price so far, this one is loaded with clues that scream, "Fiction!" A character named "Joseph-who-honors-the-Sabbath;" an unnamed yet wealthy Gentile antagonist who is for no obvious reason afraid of Joe Sabbath, and gets what he deserves (hint: he is archetypal); a jewel worth 13 roomfuls of gold; an unnamed old man who just happens to come in out of nowhere and say the right thing at the right time...this, my friends, is the stuff of legends, and it is to Price's detriment that he is unable to recognize the difference!

But now let us look in the other direction - at Bible accounts that Price suggests have legendary elements, and why he suggests that they do. Again, from his book:

If when we compare two versions of a story, the second known to be a retelling of the first, and find that the second has more of a miraculous element, we may reasonably conclude we have legendary (or midrashic or whatever) embellishment. The tale has grown in the telling. This sort of comparison is common in extrabiblical research and no one holds that it cannot properly indicate legend formation there. [35]

Let me state, first of all, that the sources cited by Price in his footnote are NOT by literary scholars, and so are no more qualified to make such judgments than Price is. The judgment in question involves a host of assumptions: Which of the two stories is indeed later; the genre of the stories; internal clues (tone, style, etc.) - in short, it is rather more complicated than Price and his cohorts imagine. But now to the specific example used by Price:

...let us suppose that Mark's account of Jesus walking on the sea (Mark 6:45-51) is an accurate account of a real event. When we read Matthew's retelling of the incident (Matthew 14:22-23) suddenly it seems that Peter, too, walked on the waves. It is hard to imagine that if this really happened Mark could possibly have omitted it. On the other hand, Matthew's motivation for expanding the story is not far to seek: Peter functions as the prototype of all disciples. When he takes his eyes off Jesus, he begins to sink. Even so, let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

This crude sort of literary pscyhoanalysis is rather laughable, and grants Matthew a degree of literary sophistication that borders on the conspiratorial! And this is another matter: Skeptics must ascribe a level of literary, artistic, and theological genius to the evangelists that is incredible - they were not eyewitnesses, but were clever enough to design their accounts as though they were; they created theological motifs that were astounding to the most subtle degree (hello, Burton Mack?) - a veritable Passover Plot! But to the specific: What of Price's claim that, "It is hard to imagine that if this really happened Mark could possibly have omitted it."? Oh, really? If Peter was the mind behind Mark, then I think it is quite understandable why it was omitted - Peter did not want to draw attention to himself and away from his Lord! Imagine Peter preaching and telling the story as Matthew has it - what would happen? "Whoa, Peter! YOU walked on water??? Can you do it for us HERE?" To tell this story as Matthew has it would run against Peter's grain as a humble fisherman. But Matthew was under no such constraints.

Price also applies this analysis elsewhere:

• "...to Matthew's detachment of guards at the tomb." Why should only Matthew mention the guards? Because he is writing to his fellow Jews, and addressing a peculiarly Jewish rumor on the subject. There is no need for the other evangelists to address the matter. Their apologetic for the resurrection is based on seeing the resurrected Jesus and the empty tomb - not against rumors of grave robbery. Indeed, if the other evangelists mentioned it to their audiences, who were previously unaware of it, it might just raise the suspicion that they WERE trying to cover up something!
• "...Luke's story of Jesus restoring Malchus's severed ear in the garden both unknown in Mark's earlier version, the source of Matthew and Luke." We have here, of course, the assumption that Mark is indeed the source of the story, but this is by no means a certainty. I frankly cannot see, though, why Price thinks that Matthew and Mark should have made light of this particular healing, and he does not explain why.

On to Price's next sample:

...though we believe miracles can and do happen, we might find certain conceptual or chronological problems in a particular story that would lead us to classify It as a legend. One example might be the feeding of the four thousand with seven loaves (Mark 8:1-9). Let us assume that the previously told miraculous feeding of the five thousand with five loaves (Mark 6:35-44)actually occurred. This makes it not less difficult but more to believe that it happened again as recorded in chapter 8, because each time the disciples are said to be equally astonished when Jesus announces his intention to feed the vast crowd. One can understand the disciples astonishment the first time, but the second? How dense can they have been? The suggestion is attractive that one of these stories is simply a second version of the other, with a few details and numbers altered.

One wonders why, if Price thinks that Mark was dense enough to do something like THIS, why he can not think that the disciples would have been too dense too realize immediately that Jesus could pull off the same sort of miracle twice! But there is no need to even go that far. The disciples' astonishment is indeed apparent in the first story, where they are said to remark (collectively) on the prohibitive cost of feeding the crowd (6:37). But there is little sense of astonishment in the second story, where they only remark (again, collectively) on the remoteness of the location (8:4) - an understandable initial reaction, even if you have seen it done before! But truly, there is much more happening here. In both cases, we have an intentional literary device designed to let Jesus move the story. The disciples are not individuals, but a collective, a dumb block that plays straight man to Jesus. Their replies are not to be taken as ipsissima verba, nor even necessarily as vox.

Price then steps backwards in time for a look at the OT:

An Old Testament example of a miracle story whose conceptual difficulties imply its legendary character is that of Samson's killing of the thousand Philistine soldiers with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:14-17). Are we to imagine the thousand Philistines lining up to be killed one by one? No one, no matter how supernaturally strong, could resist and overcome the simultaneous onslaught of a thousand men. The same difficulty occurs in the case of the seventy men of Bethshemesh who dared peer inside the Ark of the Covenant and died (1 Samuel 6:19-21): how many could have looked inside at once? Did the rest clear away their fellows corpses and then take their turn to look, knowing the same fate must await them? In the case of the Samson story, there is even more reason to believe we have a legend. It concludes with the note "and that place was called Ramath-lehi," that is "the Hill of the Jawbone," a name easily understood as originally deriving from the topography of the place, but here reinterpreted with the aid of an exciting etymological legend. No one is saying that God could not miraculously endow someone with superhuman power (or that he could not miraculously destroy those who look at forbidden things) but the difficulties of the stories as stories properly lead us to doubt that God did these things as reported in Judges and II Samuel.

In a few words: No, they do not. Price is, like many of his colleagues, creating a cardboard-cutout of history which does not do justice to the stories being told. Where are we told that "the thousand Philistines lined up to be killed one by one" or that Samson "overcame the simultaneous onslaught of a thousand men"? This is not what we are told happened in either case. We are told that a thousand men were killed - period. Now aside from the possibility that there is a scribal error of the sort we often find in the OT where numbers are concerned that increased the number form 100 to 1000 (some manuscripts say that 50,070 were killed in the Ark incident!), how does Price know that no amount of strength would suffice? Has he been through something like this before? Who says that the Philistines attacked all at once? How could they? No more than 5 or 6 could get licks in at a time, for you can only fit so many people in so much space! Where does it even say that all 1,000 were there at the first instant? Where does it say that they were soldiers? There is simply not enough data to dismiss this story out of hand.

Price shows no more evidence of critical thinking with the second example. No one thinks that all 70 men looked inside at the same time, or that they lined up to take their lumps! No, the 70 were more likely to have been a like-minded group of people who decided to get together and look inside the ark in turn, ONCE it was opened - and so they gathered around like any curious crowd, maybe drawing lots to see who would go first, while the ringleaders opened the Ark. And then - well, we know the rest of the story. Peeking in the Ark of the Covenant is bad news, as even smart Nazis know!

The net of this is: