Pete's Blog

The other day I was listening to an informal debate between a nonchristian and a Christian over alleged contradictions in the Bible. In it, the atheist said that if Matthew really was an eyewitness of Jesus, he wouldn't have needed Mark's account of Christ in order to write his own.

This assumes Markan priority, that is that Mark's was the first of the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) written, and that Matthew and Luke base their gospels on Mark.

Suppose it's true (and it might be, see below). Put yourself in Matthew's shoes. He has Mark's gospel, which was written for Gentiles in Rome, in his hands, and he wants to write something to tell the Jews in Palestine about Jesus. They probably haven't read Mark's gospel (otherwise he wouldn't have needed to write his own), so he starts with the first gospel and adds to it. Matthew was an eye witness of Jesus so he knew that the material in Mark was authentic. Why re-invent the wheel?

Indulge yourself in an illustration. Suppose you are a student in a campus ministry. You've been on a summer project before, and you think you'll go again. You know, though, that one of your friends already sends his supporters a somewhat regular update email.

Much to your excitement, you and he just saw someone come to faith and get baptized. In your excitement, you really want to tell everyone. And you see that your friend's already sent out and update email relating the story to his network. You ask his permission to share it with your network, and he has no problem with it. So you keep his part, and add how you felt throughout the entire event of explaining the Gospel to this new Christian, maybe leaving out of few of the personal details your friend put in his update email. You're more observant than your friend, so you actually add 70% percent more content to the email than what your friend had originally included. You then send it out.

This is pretty similar to what I think happened with Matthew and Mark.

A valid question the skeptic could have asked would be why God included so much redundant material by including three synoptic gospels instead of just one. Why did God inspire His Word this way? It's an interesting question, that's for sure, but it has zero impact on the credibility of either Matthew or Luke.

I don't have any hypotheses as to why God inspired the gospel accounts in this way. But I also don't know why He ordained history in the way it is currently unfolding, and I think He has just as much authorship over the history of the world as He does in the Bible. The point is that there is indeed mystery in the Christian faith, but mystery doesn't invalidate the authenticity of the faith.

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I hold to Markan priority as well. There was a time when I desired for Matthew to be the first synoptic gospel (i.e., Matthean priority), but that was when I was uncomfortable with the Q-hypothesis.

It's been a few years since I abandoned this view, so I don't completely remember how I came to be uncomfortable with the Q-hypothesis. I'll explain what I can remember soon enough, but I'll first explain the Q-hypothesis.

Once you start with Markan priority you need to explain why there is so much overlap in Matthew and Luke that is absent in Mark. You can't really explain this by saying Matthew used Luke or vice versa because they're too dissimilar and there's too much in Matthew that's not in Luke, and there's too much in Luke that's not in Matthew. So you introduce the possibility that there was another source that the two of them relied upon. Called it Q, short for Quelle, German for source. Q can contain more than the overlap in Matthew and Luke that's not in Mark, but it contains at least that much.

So, in summary, Mark wrote a gospel. And someone wrote a document that was a collection of sayings that today we call Q. Matthew and Luke, each writing independently of one another, used both Mark and Q to write their gospels.

I once found this unappealing because I thought that any reliance on an outside document weakened the authenticity of the gospels we have. I don't know where I came up with this thought. It was certainly unjustified.

So, rejecting the Q-hypothesis (again, irrationally), I thought that it was a nifty idea to say that Mark relied on Matthew, and then Luke had access to both. However (not to imply I know Greek), scholars say that Mark has the poorest Greek of the three (maybe of the New Testament) so it's not likely that he relied on either of the others.

Like I said, though, I don't know Greek. So I would need to hear that argument from a scholar.

A friend once told me that he thought it seemed implausible to hold to Matthean priority because you'd expect someone to add to an account, not reduce the account. That made me seriously begin to question whether I could legitimately hold to it.

Then I came across Dan Wallace's work. I'd already been reading his blog (he's an occasional contributor to Parchment and Pen), and I came to respect him because he took a strong stand on the unscriptural nature of John 7:53-8:11, where it seemed like some were giving stances, without defending them, and others weren't talking about it. Since then, he's been super helpful in me forming my views about what the Bible is and how it came into existence. Specifically, his article on the Synoptic Problem was what made me finally decide that I was okay with the existence of Q. I highly recommend the article.

The following are the first ten terms of a sequence:

1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 12, 22, 37, 58, . . .

Same idea as the other sequences. Describe the pattern of the sequence. If you use a search engine, please don't submit it in the comments.

If it hasn't been solved by Thursday I'll give a hint. Also, if you ask a polar question (i.e., a yes/no question), I will probably answer it if it relates to this sequence.

I'll post the solution on next week's sequence.

Last week's sequence (5, 7, 13, 19, 31, 43, 61, 73, 103, 109, . . .) was the greater of a pair of consecutive odd numbers that are both prime. E.g., 101 and 103 are consecutive odd numbers, and they're both prime. The latter, 103, is the greater, so it is in the sequence. E.g., 5 and 7 are consecutive odd numbers, and they're both prime. The greater, 7, is in the sequence. (The lesser, 5, is also in the sequence because it and 3 are consecutive odd numbers that are both prime, and 3 is less than 5.)

Greg Gilbert on the 9Marks (Mark Dever's ministry) blog recently wrote an article about the trend of the absence of penal substitutionary atonement in modern Christian books. He would know. As he describes in the introduction of the article, he is one of the main book critics for 9Marks.

Here's part of the conclusion:

At the end of the day, and really in the face of all the comments to the contrary, Scripture makes it clear that the cross—that is, the death of Jesus in the place of sinners, taking the punishment they deserved—must remain at the center of the gospel. We cannot move it to the side, we cannot replace it with any other truth, and we cannot reimagine it as something less offensive than it really is. Otherwise, we present the world with something that is not saving, and that is therefore not good news at all.

I've already shared it in Google Reader, but it's so good that I wanted to try to give it a bit more of an audience, small result as that might be on my part.

When you're sitting by yourself in a public place, say a cafeteria or at a conference, and someone you like whose company you enjoy sees you but does not sit next to you, instead of feeling rejected, consider it a compliment. He considers sitting next to you a place of honour.

"[D]o not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place." (Lk. 14:8-10)

Of course, if you consider it in this manner, your next course of action must be to go to that person and insist he sit with you, in the place of honour.

"[W]hen your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher.'" (Lk. 14:10)

Update: I struck the word "like" at the beginning of the entry in favour of a more explicit mean. Since "like" in English can carry the meaning of romantic interest (though it hadn't occurred to me when I first wrote the post), I decided, when I did realize how it sounded, to change it.

The following are the first ten terms of a sequence:

5, 7, 13, 19, 31, 43, 61, 73, 103, 109, . . .

Same idea as the other sequences. Describe the pattern of the sequence. If you use a search engine, please don't submit it in the comments.

If it hasn't been solved by Thursday I'll give a hint. Also, if you ask a polar question (i.e., a yes/no question), I will probably answer it if it relates to this sequence.

I'll post the solution on next week's sequence.

Last week's sequence (0, 4, 9, 8, 25, 13, 49, 12, 18, 29, . . .) was the sum of the squares of the prime divisors of the index (with multiplicity). E.g., 1 has no prime divisors so a(1)=0. E.g., 10 has prime divisors 2 and 5 so a(10)=2²+5²=29. E.g., 24 has prime divisors 2 (with multiplicity 3) and 3 so a(24)=3(2²)+3²=21.

Isaiah 9:6: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

The four titles we get here for Jesus list, again, as

1. Wonderful Counselor,
   
2. Mighty God,
   
3. Everlasting Father, and
   
4. Prince of Peace.
   

First, I'd like to admit that I've wondered before what it means for Jesus to be the "Everlasting Father." If I were a modalist (i.e., someone who denies that God is simultaneously three distinct persons [not one at a time]), I'd jump all over this verse. The Trinity is not fully revealed in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. So, given that the Old Testament is types and shadows of New Testament realities, I'm willing to be satisfied in saying that Isaiah was describing this future man as a father of sorts, without confusing Him with God the Father.

Anyway, here I'm musing over titles 2 and 4. It's interesting that Isaiah calls Jesus "Mighty God," only later to say that He's a prince. What does every prince have? A king! So the natural reading of this verse has Trinitarian overtones.

When I say "natural reading," I say that recognizing it's possible that in the Jewish literature of Isaiah's day, to be a prince might have meant that person was the primary leader, not the king. But until shown otherwise, a prince is a son of the king.

If you know me, it might shock you that a post with the word "Vatican" in the title isn't critiquing Roman Catholicism.

In the first interview of Lee Strobel's The Case for the Real Jesus he's talking to a (Canadian) expert on alleged alternative gospels (Dr. Craig A. Evans). The six documents they deal with are The
Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Peter, The
Gospel of Mary, The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Jesus Papers,
and The Gospel of Judas. Pretty interesting.

There was an interesting quote about conspiracies, but it's not funny if it's out of context, so I'm going to try to give enough background.

From Wikipedia:

The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History is a book released in 2006 by author Michael Baigent. He explores the detailed history of Jesus' life and crucifixion; using papers that, according to Baigent, were covered up. The work documents the political context of Jesus' birth, and then goes on to examine the history of the migration of the family of Jesus, the chronicles of his teachings, and his death.

And here's how Dr. Evans explains it:

"Baigent describes how he went into a walk-in safe of an antiquities collector and saw the papyri under glass. He couldn't take a picture of them, of course. He has admitted that he doesn't read Aramaic and said the [coauthor of The Jesus Papers] doesn't either—so how does he know what they say? He's assured that two well-known archaeologists, Yigael Yadin and Nahman Avigad, have confirmed it. Oh, but did I mention that Yadin and Avigad are dead?

"So we have an author with dubious credibility in the first place; an antiquities dealer who can't be identified; documents that Baigent can't read or produce and for which we have no translation or verification; and two archaeologists who are dead. This is just the dumbest thing." (p. 53, "International Trade Paper Edition")

But he's made loads of money off the book that is exposing the information in these documents. How does he explain the absence of the documents? Conspiracy, of course. This is how Evans describes it:

"He's playing on the ignorance of people as well as the desire for a titillating tale of conspiracy, intrigue, and hiding the truth. And it's always the Vatican getting involved—buying off people or pressuring people into silence. Baigent says Pope John XXIII asked the archaeologists to destroy these incriminating documents, but they refused."

Evans's sarcasm hit full stride. "It's astonishing for as active and energetic as the Vatican is when it comes to bribing people and destroying documents that they are never able to cover their tracks," he said, smiling. "Baigent can always find out." (Author's emphasis, pp. 53-54)

Strobel had actually started the discussion on The Jesus Papers criticizing Baigent's reliability: The second sentence reads, "Scholars uniformly scoff at Baigent's conspiracy theories and poorly supported allegations, which sound convincing to those untrained in ancient history but which quickly collapse upon examination by experts" (p. 52).

Maybe this isn't as funny as I think it is. It's a good thing, for Baigent's sake, that there exists a denomination with a centralized church government, whose power spans over each of the populated continents, so that he has someone to accuse of the conspiracies that put his scholarship in such hot water. With that in mind, I'm very satisfied with my independent, congregationalist polity, thank-you-very-much.

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The book's worth reading. Some of it seems to be repeating some of the information from The Case for Christ, but some of it is new. My interest in it rests in two of the discussions, the one above on alleged alternative gospels, and one on the accusation that the Jesus story was taken from pagan myths pre-dating Christianity.

Sorry for not posting the hint last week. I was busy, and thus forgot, focusing on things that actually matter.

The following are the first ten terms of a sequence:

0, 4, 9, 8, 25, 13, 49, 12, 18, 29, . . .

Same idea as the other sequences. Describe the pattern of the sequence. If you use a search engine, please don't submit it in the comments.

If it hasn't been solved by Thursday (and if I remember), I'll give a hint. Also, if you ask a polar question (i.e., a yes/no question), I will probably answer it if it relates to this sequence.

I'll post the solution on next week's sequence.

Last week's sequence (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, . . .) was a recursive sequence. First, define a(1)=1. Next, for i=1, 2, 3, . . ., if a(i) is a composite integer (i.e., non-prime), then a(i+1)= a(i)+1, and if a(i) is prime, then a(i+1)= a(i)+2. Pretty easy; no examples.

Update: Hint: It's related to the prime divisors of the terms.

In passing, Dr. Mohler on his radio program yesterday made reference to Graham Crackers having an origin that you wouldn't expect. Finding the reference interesting, I looked it up on Wikipedia.

From the section on the History:

Graham crackers were originally conceived of as a health food as part of the Graham Diet, a regimen to suppress what he considered unhealthy carnal urges, the source of many maladies according to Graham. Reverend Graham would often lecture about the adverse effects of masturbation, or "self-abuse" as he called it. One of his many theories was that one could curb one's sexual appetite by eating bland foods. Another man who held this belief was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of the corn flakes cereal.

Reading more into the article you'd soon discover that originally Graham Crackers would be made out of a sort of whole wheat flour, namely, Graham Flour, not white flour as they are today. Furthermore, they had much less sugar back in the day.

Anyway, I find random facts interesting. Maybe this will be of interest for others.

Second Peter 2:4 reads, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment."

And Jude writes, "And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day" (v. 6).

From Grudem's Systematic Theology:

They are removed from the glory of God's presence and their activity is restricted (metaphorically, they are in "eternal chains"), but the text [Jude 6] does not imply either that the influence of demons has been removed from the world or that some demons are kept in a place of punishment apart from the world while others are able to influence it. (p. 413)

He then argues in a note for this statement,

2 Peter 2:4 does not say, "God did not spare some of the angels when they sinned," or, "God cast some of the sinning angels into hell," but it speaks generally of "the angels" when they sinned, implying all of them who sinned. Similarly, Jude 6 speaks of "the angels that did not keep their own position," implying all who sinned. Therefore, these verses must say something that is true of all demons. Their current home, their dwelling place, is "hell" and "pits of nether gloom" [RSV] although they can range from there to influence people in the world. (p. 413n2)

So, from out of hell Satan and his demons are still able to impact worldly events, even to such a great extent that John writes, "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1J. 5:19).

I'd never thought about this before until I read it in Grudem. For example, consider Job 1 and 2: "The LORD said to Satan, 'From where have you come?' Satan answered the LORD and said, 'From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it'" (Jb. 1:7; 2:2). Or in 1 Peter, where the apostle writes, "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion" (5:8). From these verses it appears that Satan has freedom. But Jude says that he along with all the demons are in chains.

I guess that somehow they're being punished at the same time as they keep doing their evil work. Counter-intuitive. I'm not sure how else to describe it.

The following are the first fifty terms of a sequence:

1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, . . .

Same idea as the other sequences. Describe the pattern of the sequence. If you use a search engine, please don't submit it in the comments.

If it hasn't been solved by Thursday, I'll give a hint. Also, if you ask a polar question (i.e., a yes/no question), I will probably answer it if it relates to this sequence.

I'll post the solution on next week's sequence.

Last week's sequence (1, 7, 10, 13, 19, 23, 28, 31, 32, 44, . . .) was the list of numbers whose iteration of the sum of the square of their digits converged to 1. E.g., 1²=1, so 1 is in the sequence. E.g., 2→2²=4→4²=16→1²+6²=37→3²+7²=58→5²+8²=89→8²+9²=145→1²+4²+5²=42→4²+2²=20→2²+0²=4 and from here the iteration loops infinitely through the cycle 4, 16, 37, 58, 89, 145, 42, 20, thus never reaching 1. So, 2 is not in the sequence. E.g., 13→1²+3²=10→1²+0²=1. So 13 is in the sequence. It was not solved.