Is Jesus History?

Is JesusHistory? (Dickson)

The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Bock)

Studying the Historical Jesus (Bock)

Mikel Del Rosario:

Welcome to the table where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Mikel Del Rosario, cultural engagement manager here at the Hendricks Center. And our topic on the table today is Jesus and history. Jesus and history, it is no exaggeration to say that Jesus is at the very least one of the most influential figures in human history. Countless people talk about him every day, and that's outside the church too. But sometimes, especially around Christmas and Easter, when Christians are talking to their friends about Jesus, they get interesting questions about maybe things their friends have seen on TV, things they've seen on YouTube or read in a popular book.

Mikel Del Rosario:

They get questions like was Jesus married? Was Jesus a zealot? Even did Jesus really die on the cross? And so today, I'm very pleased to have two expert guests. Joining us to talk about the historical Jesus. First guest coming to us all the way from Australia, is John Dickson. John was the founding director of Australia Center for Public Christianity. And today he is a distinguished fellow and senior lecturer in Public Christianity at Ridley College in Australia. Welcome, John.

John Dickson:

Hey, thanks for having me. I don't know why you need me here, when Darrell is here, I've got half of his books over on those shelves and the other half of his books over on that shelf. But, whatever.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, you are doing a really good job talking about this down under where the situation is a little bit different from us here in North America. That's great, we have some good coverage, international coverage as well. And second guest coming to us also via Zoom all the way from across the street at Dallas Seminary's Hendricks Center is Dr. Darrell Bock, executive director of cultural engagement and senior research professor of New Testament here at DTS. Darrell, welcome to the show, once again.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

My pleasure to be back, and it's fun to be in a different seat.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah, it's really cool to have both of you on the show today, because we are talking about the historical Jesus, something that's near and dear to all of our hearts. But certainly, you having worked in this for decades, and John doing his work in Australia as well. Now, there is a huge academic discipline that many people don't know about, called historical Jesus studies. And when sometimes skeptics will say, "We're not really sure we can know very much about Jesus."

Mikel Del Rosario:

They're behind the times in terms of academia, because this is not something that academics have talked about in terms of, "Well, we can't really know hardly anything about Jesus," for many, many decades. But just help us still get oriented to this academic discipline in terms of, how do scholars who are from all walks of life, from all different religious commitments or even to no faith, how do they look at Jesus as a historical figure and begin to study the things we can know about him?

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Well, they do it the way they look at any figure. They look at the historical sources, the historical remnants of what exists, whether it be in text, or in what we call realia, which are the things that have been left behind in the culture that archeologists find, that kind of thing. And they put that all together. And so, the first question is, of course, did Jesus exist?

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I like to tease my students that if they get me in an ordination exam, the question I'm going to ask them is, tell me how you can show that Jesus exists, but you cannot cite a Christian source in order to make the case? And then we're off and running. We're talking about the testimony of Josephus, which some people dispute but which a wonderful video that John did with Chris Forbes, basically walks through in about five minutes to show Josephus did write about a historical Jesus. And then other remnants of evidence that exists that clearly indicate that he exists. The whole Jewish tradition that reacts to Jesus only reacts if he existed.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So there are lots of grounds. The historical Jesus study is an attempt to argue for Jesus on the basis in which everyone pursues history in the humanities, that's the simple way to say it. Now, that doesn't mean it's an easy discipline because worldviews impact what you see and read and how you react. And the Bible challenges worldviews, because it has things in it like miracles, which are not impervious to worldview impact, if I can say it that way. They actually impinge on worldviews in terms of how you read it.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So if you have a worldview that doesn't allow space for miracles, but you encounter a story that has miracles in them, you've got to come up with another explanation for what's going on. And so sometimes, that's what happens. And the roots of historical Jesus study, and this will be the last thing I say, the roots of historical Jesus study did begin with a skepticism towards the Bible, which has meant that concert of generally speaking, have been very hesitant to engage, at least until recently, in significant ways with historical Jesus attempts, because of its problematic roots, if I can say it that way in terms of where it came from.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So all this figures in. And so when you hear the phrase historical Jesus, you might get a blood pressure reaction, depending on how aware someone is about what's behind it. But it is a good way to have a conversation with someone who doesn't share your faith, to be aware of how to make those arguments in ways that someone who doesn't need to have a faith can appreciate as you talk about Jesus.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm. So it sounds like, "Well, I don't believe the Bible. So we can't have a conversation." When you're talking to your skeptical friend. No, actually, people who are atheists, people who are Jewish, people of all different faiths can actually come together, come to the table. And we do have a way to begin talking about things that Jesus said and did and investigate those things historically.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Now, John, when some people look at the historical evidence for Jesus for just in general, and then also the things Jesus said and did, some Christians think that they have almost a higher standard that they try to apply to the data versus if you were just looking at like Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus or somebody else in history. Why do you think there's that pushback when it comes to Jesus in history?

John Dickson:

Well, because Julius Caesar didn't make the same level of claim. He came close a couple of times. And certainly his propaganda machine did. Jesus did, and so the claim spooks us. And so there's a kind of immediate resistance. And apart from anything else, Jesus became the most influential figure in world history. And so because the implications of that are so great, I think people are particularly rigorous and there's a great big skeptical pushback. And I'm sure Darrell has found this as well, but over my years, playing between theological seminaries and ancient history, classics departments in secular universities, I reckon there's no one who takes a more skeptical approach to the New Testament than New Testament theologians.

John Dickson:

Classicists, just general classicists who are studying Airans, Anabasis of Alexander, or whatever are nowhere near fine-tuned skeptic about every line. It's a really weird thing. And I've had Roman historians say to me, "What is it with New Testament theologians? Why are they so skeptical with their documents? They're written so close in time to the events, we have so many manuscript copies of them. What's wrong?"

John Dickson:

And I think actually, what you're seeing is so much depends on this Jesus story from the worldview perspective that Darrell mentioned. That there is a more intense pushback about these particular first century documents that I think you find in other first century documents in general.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I think it's important to say that John, is trained as an ancient historian. So when he wasn't playing music and in a band, in his former life, and so he trained in an ancient historical context. He's circulated in those circles, all my training is basically New Testament related. So he speaks of an area that he knows because he's interacted these classicists as he's done his own work in historical Jesus work. And he was prepared to interact with the Jesus materials in light of that ancient historiographical study and background.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm. Now, in fact, John wrote a book, Is Jesus History? Which talks about this. And in this book, one of the things that he mentions is a social media challenge that he put out to atheists and anybody else really, who wants to see him eat a page out of his own Bible? If… John you want to tell us about that?

John Dickson:

Here it is. I got my Bible ready. Okay, Matthew chapter one would be appropriate the opening of the story-

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Is that is sweetest page in the Bible or something? I would really make a selection before I put on a bet like that.

John Dickson:

Well, I just think if I get found out, I'll chop it up and put it on Vegemite toast, Darrell…

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Vegemite, oh man… we'll have to explain that to the American audience. I want to hear your definition of Vegemite.

John Dickson:

It's very simple, you just look it up in the dictionary, and it says, the greatest bread paste you've ever tried. Okay, so my challenge, made in a rush of blood to the head some years ago, was that if someone can find just one professor of classics, or ancient history, or New Testament, in a secular university anywhere in the world, who argues Jesus never lived, I will eat a page of my Bible.

John Dickson:

And when I did that Twitter exploded, as it does for a little while, and people were throwing professor names at me. But they turned out, obviously, they were some professors of theology because for the reasons I just mentioned, they're weirdly more skeptical than classicists. But there was a professor of poetry, professor of folklore, there's even that famous professor of German language, Darrell, that we all talk about, G.A. Wells. But no professor of classics, or ancient history or New Testament in a secular university.

John Dickson:

And I was very precise in my language. I mean, you do find the occasional person who got a PhD in the discipline. I mean, obviously, Richard Carrier is a big name. He got a decent PhD in an ancient history department. And now is a full time blogger and speaker on behalf of the atheist cause. Now he argues Jesus didn't live but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about people who have actually got what we call in the British and Australian tradition, tenured professorship. And then there are thousands of them, right? It's not like this is too narrow, thousands of these characters, who argues Jesus didn't live, find me one.

John Dickson:

Well, they are still looking. In fact, I landed in accidentally on a online conversation with a little Australian atheist group, who were saying that they were still looking. And they plan to come into my office when they find such a professor, and with a camera crew and force me to eat my page of the Bible. So I've got my speech worked out already. I've got Matthew one, primed, and Vegemite toast always in the pocket. And I'm ready, my speech to camera for them would simply be, "So you found one. You found one."

Mikel Del Rosario:

And of course, the point being here is that it's not just that, well, almost virtually all professors who study this for a living realized that Jesus lived and existed. It's that these Jesus mythers, as I like to call them, who say that Jesus never existed are so far out of the mainstream. This is like flat Earther stuff. This is really extreme out there stuff.

Mikel Del Rosario:

I love how Bart Ehrman, who is the most famous agnostic, New Testament professor, who says whether we like it or not, Jesus existed. Certainly, even if you want to rail against Christianity, the best way to do it is not to deny what virtually every historian on the planet agrees upon, which is that Jesus was a real person, and he really existed.

John Dickson:

And look, there's a really simple way, for the person outside of scholarship to prove that there is a settled consensus about Jesus. I can prove it, right? I'm not saying I can prove Jesus existed. I'm saying I can prove that secular historical scholarship has no doubts at all about whether Jesus of Nazareth lived. And what you do is you go to any major library, any university library, and you pick up the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which is just up there on my shelf here, 1,600 pages compendium of all things Greek and Roman, produced by scholars for scholars as the compendium of all things we know.

John Dickson:

And you turn to the section on Christianity, and you will find several paragraphs that begin to just outline what we know of the historical Jesus, and zero doubt is raised. Zero doubt is raised about whether this figure really lived. You could do it again with, up there is volume 10 of The Cambridge Ancient History, which deals with the Augustan period, entirely secular account of ancient history.

John Dickson:

Turn to the section on the birth of Christianity and there are several pages written by a famous classicist about what we know of the historical Jesus. We could go on and on with this. The Brill's New Pauly, right? Which Darrell, not many people know it's the… this is like the greatest I think 25 volume scholarly account of the classical world, right-

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I've read the table of contents.

John Dickson:

Yeah. Well, And if anyone has a lazy €6,000 they want to throw my way, I'll be able to say, "And there it is on my bookshelf." But anyway, you go to this, there's an actual essay on Jesus there in this, it's entirely secular compendium, and it's 5,500 words long, right? Just on the historical Jesus, and you'll get a sense of what secular historians are very confident is real. And there's no hint that we're dealing with a fictitious character. My point-

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I did an essay in a volume entitled, I don't know, Five Views on the Historical Jesus. I don't remember how many there were now. But we had a, Jesus is myth guy, in the in the mix. And when Jimmy Dunn wrote his response, he basically said that no classical scholar doubts that Jesus existed and that this view, portrayed it as really being way out on the fringe with very little to commend it.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So yeah, that part that Jesus existed, I mean, think about it for a second. Why would you even have historical Jesus discipline, if historical Jesus never existed? That's why I get my hairline. Questions like that.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, I'm honored to work with somebody who can call D.G. Dunn "Jimmy" and Tom Wright. So when we think about these sources, okay, we're talking about sources like, Darrell, you mentioned Josephus, let's just go there for a minute. Sometimes people will say, "Oh, there's a lot of question about Josephus." I'm not sure if we can use him as a source. But tell us about how actual Josephus scholars take a look at this section in Antiquity?

Dr. Darrell Bock:

They certainly recognize that the text that we have it has been doctored. There are three places in the text that say things that only a Christian would say, and everyone who's done work on historical Josephus, okay, would say one thing we know about Josephus is he was not a messianic Christian, he was not a Jewish Christian. So but you strip that away, and you have what's left a declaration that Jesus existed, that he did unusual works, that he is responsible for the origins of Christianity.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I mean, some of the core elements of what the New Testament shows are there. And then there's another text, and later on in Antiquities, book 20 that citation is in book 18, 63 and 64. But when you go to book 20.200, I cite these verses, because I have my devotions in them regularly. But anyway, when you go to 20.200, you will see an allusion back to the so called Christ, an illusion that does not make any sense at all, as a throwaway remark, unless there has been a reference to this person somewhere in these volumes.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And so that pretty much suggests that Josephus did have a discussion, Jesus that fits in the right section, where there is a discussion of those who are perceived to be agitators in Judea, during the time of Pilate and others. And so it fits where it belongs, et cetera. So almost all classicals, I think we could almost say it this way, almost all classical scholars recognize that Josephus did say something about the historical Jesus.

John Dickson:

I mean, the additions actually a part of the giveaway. I mean, you can hear two voices when you read, particularly the book 18 paragraph. "At this time, there was a wise man, if indeed one can call him a man. I mean, you can even hear the two voices there, right? One Josephus, who was happily calling Jesus a wise man, and some later editor, some scribe who either wrote it in the margin, and then it was later inserted, or just was bold enough to insert it, if one can call him a man. You can hear the two voices right there, there's a giveaway, the one we should really be looking for the explanation.

John Dickson:

For this passage, the best explanation is that it's a modified passage, some naughty Christian has tried to improve the Jesus. And the two… I'm sorry, I'll just add the two best articles, the technical peer-reviewed articles on this question, were written by very famous scholars, neither of whom is a Christian, one is Gaeza Imesh who wrote a really classic article on the Josephus testimony, and the other is by James Carleton Paget from Cambridge University. And they are just beautiful examples of subtle, relatively unbiased, classical approach to this ancient Greek text.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah, I was just going to say my favorite edition is the third editorial edition which basically as a result of the resurrection speaks about this and 10,000 other things, marvelous things that Jesus did. And I like to teach my students that I can hear the hallelujah chorus going in the background when you read that addition.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I mean, so that you read this section, and I like the two voices idea, because even the description of Jesus as a miracle worker is put in very neutral terms by Josephus, he uses the word-

John Dickson:

Paradoxa erga, "weird deeds."

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Exactly, right. Yeah, unusual things. I mean, there are lots of ways that, frankly, we could have a living or not RSV translation of it. But still, the point is, you can see a very neutral expression of who Jesus is on the one hand, and then this more exalted set of additions next to it. But something's got to trigger that. You don't make up a statement that has two contrasting voices within it. I mean, it just doesn't make sense.

John Dickson:

And don't you love the last line, Darrell, after the one you just quoted about 10,000 other things he fulfilled among us. And then he goes, "And the tribe of Christians has still not disappeared to this day." He expects it to disappear anytime soon. But my goodness, they're still here.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

We come to second century Roman historians, you get remarks like, "All things gathered together in Rome, were all problematic." This is paraphrasing, for all problematic things in our land. So I mean, it's clear that, in fact, the word superstition, which is a classic Roman word for religious activity, that someone doubts, appears in one of these second century Roman citations. And so everyone is recognizing there's something here and then the people who don't believe say, "Well, there's been a lot of stuff added to this alongside." And then you've got the Christians who say, "No, it all really did happen. And you've got your worldview, difference right there, in the early given take on assessing who Jesus is, which ended up producing what centuries down the road became the quest for historical Jesus.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we mentioned Josephus, of course, there is a variety of other sources that you can go to, but Josephus is a first century Jewish historian, and he's writing about the Jewish involvement in Jesus death. And go outside the Jewish writings, you can find Tacitus, who's a Roman historian who was writing about the Roman involvement in Jesus death.

Mikel Del Rosario:

And so even outside the Bible, it's pretty amazing actually how much we can learn about Jesus even before getting to the actual text of the New Testament. But John, for those people who now want to say, "Okay, here's the Bible, we can see that secular sources outside the Bible can point us to the Bible." For their friends who say, "I'm not so sure I'm comfortable reading this book, because I don't believe in the Bible." We can't use these Christian sources. How would you respond to that idea that we can't use Christian sources to study Jesus?

John Dickson:

Well, I mean, makes no sense. Can you not use any Jewish sources like Josephus to understand Jewish history? Use Tacitus because he's a Roman, and you can't trust anything he tells us about Rome? It begins to just not make any sense. You end up not being able to believe anyone who thinks something. Oh no, you can't tell me that you think that because you think that-

Mikel Del Rosario:

Right.

John Dickson:

We're left in going nowhere. So classicists are just very happy going, "Oh Tacitus had his bias, or his perspective is probably a better way to put it." And he loved one tradition of the Roman Empire, and he hated another tradition. And that's so obvious in his writings, we just read him in that context. Doesn't mean he made up things whole cloth, but it does color his perspective.

John Dickson:

Josephus also has a double bias. Josephus is writing for a Roman audience, but he's also a Jew. He's got a little bit of self justification going on, because he was known to have betrayed his own Jewish people. And so they're a little bit of self justification, but he wears it on his sleeve. And so once you know these perspectives, you can read him. It's unlikely that he's making stuff up. And we can so often verify the things that Tacitus or Josephus say just in passing. That we know they're not making it up whole cloth. But we read it with perspective.

John Dickson:

It's the same with the New Testament, and that is the really important thing. Classicists open the New Testament, knowing that it was a first century. Well, it wasn't even one document it was separate documents. You can't think that Mark and the letters of Paul were in a volume in the first century, right? They weren't, they were separate writings. And so classicists open them up and go, We're pretty confident that these were written in the first century."

John Dickson:

In the case of Paul's letters, pretty much in the middle of the first century. Mark a little bit later. That's pretty close in time. I mean, compared to Tacitus, we read Tacitus, for the life of Tiberius, but Tacitus is writing 80 years after Tiberius is dead, right? At least with Paul's letters he's only, not even 20 years after Tiberius dies.

John Dickson:

So we're reading early documents, we just read them as human documents. Don't come with skeptical prejudice, arbitrary prejudice, the way some of our skeptinet people do. And don't come with the the pious credulity that the Christians do, just come and read them as human documents. And you'll find that just reading them as human documents opens up an enormous set of genuine possibilities about knowing this figure from the life of Jesus.

John Dickson:

So what historians do just as basic method, this is true as Darrell said, it's true of studying Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar. They read all of the available documents that touch on this figure, right? They read them all with a completely open mind. But then they read those primary documents about the figure against the backdrop of everything we know about Rome, about Judea, about Galilee, the archeology, the Britain background sources, and see if the figure in the primary sources, in the direct witnesses fits plausibly with what we know in the background.

John Dickson:

That's the main historical principle. And when you do that, with the New Testament, it just looks like Jesus was a Galilean Jew in the early first century, who had a particular vision of the kingdom of God and had a particularly liberal approach to some things and very conservative approach to other things. And winded up clashing with the Jerusalem authorities and died on a cross. Those things just are facts.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And he fits in the Jewish backdrop of apocalyptic expectation about what the end is going to be about. So John has mentioned, the Greco-Roman sources for the most part. But you put that in a Jewish milieu as well, which is mixed, it's a mixed Jewish Hellenistic background. You go to things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, you look at the apocalyptic expectations and documents beyond Daniel in what we call the apocalypse pseudepigrapha technically known as Second Temple Literature. And low and behold you go, he drops. Jesus drops into a world in which he makes sense. And scholars work with that.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Now there are fine points that get debated. A week away from writing a piece on John the baptist, and John the baptist relationship to Jesus in which this apocalyptic background is a major player that they share in terms of their perspective, et cetera. And there are all kinds of fine points that we'll be discussing as scholars with one another about what those relationships were and what Jesus relationship with John the baptist was, that are very, very discussable and not always completely clear.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

But what you can say, my piece is going to be entitled, What we Know About John the Baptist and Why It Matters. And the emphasis is going to be that Jesus fits into the same Jewish apocalyptic world that John the baptist was operating in. And that's something most scholars who work technically in this area recognize. And then you go from there.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So what often happens in historical Jesus discussions, and this is tricky for Christians, is you're trying to prove by a set of mostly secular standards, I think it'd be fair to say, what you can show about Jesus. And so you end up not being able to prove everything. But you can make a very good case for a lot of basic things that make sense out of Jesus, even as we know them in the Bible.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And so that difference is a problem for some people. But in discussions with people who do not share your worldview, it's actually a very significant distance to be able to come in having the conversation. And that's the value that you gain from people who pursue this, including conservative scholars who pursue this, because they help you bridge some of those gaps with what you could on any standard, say to someone, on a historical basis, we can be reasonably confident that we know this.

John Dickson:

Can I offer a couple of examples Mikel?

Mikel Del Rosario:

Sure.

John Dickson:

… of what Darrell is saying, specific examples that bear out this Jewish background and how Jesus in the figure of Jesus leaps from the pages that were. You take something like his expression, the kingdom of God, and everyone agrees that the kingdom of God is this primary motif. But it's actually not a big motif in the Tanakh or the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, and nor is it, interestingly, a big deal, or very often mentioned in the letter, like in Paul's letters, or in Peter, or even in the Didache or One Clement that the letter literature, right?

John Dickson:

But in Jesus, it's everywhere. So what's going on there, right? And what explains is when you open the Dead Sea Scrolls, you suddenly see this kingdom of God language, and quite often. You open the Psalms of Solomon, written shortly before the time of Jesus, a Jewish patriotic poem, the sound is on. Speak of the kingdom of God coming in power. And so suddenly, Jesus looks like he really only fits in this particular time and place in discussions about the kingdom of God. Is great the coming of God's reign into history.

John Dickson:

Another would be the way Jesus did act out his message, he didn't just preach the message, he acted it out. So everyone knows the clearing of the temple. He's overturning the tables as a symbol of the overturning of what we're bringing of God's judgment. The collection of 12 disciples only 12, not 11, not 13 is a very suspicious activity. He is wining and dining with sinners. What's going on there? This fits perfectly in the Jewish context, doesn't fit the later context of Christians going into the Roman world.

John Dickson:

It fits perfectly with what we know, signs prophets we're doing. You see examples in the Old Testament, of course, Ezekiel having to eat bread baked over cow manure, was it Darrell? In public, he had to set up a little model of Jerusalem and attack it in public. The signs, right? We know a few signs prophets directly before Jesus, John the baptist is almost certainly a signs Prophet, taking people out to the Jordan River to begin Israel's journey again. And Jesus fits into that context as well. Not just preaching, but doing signs you expect of a Jewish prophet.

John Dickson:

We can go on with little examples, but this is the thing that makes the historian go hang on, we are dealing very much with a real first century Galilee and Judean story.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Now let me put two of these examples together, one that John mentioned, let me add one, and underscore the point. And that is take the title, son of man, which is Jesus's favorite way to refer to himself. Okay, basically, once you get outside the gospel, it's always on only on the lips of Jesus, for the most part. Once you get outside the gospels, you hardly ever see it. But this is his favorite way to refer to himself almost an exclusive. It's an exclusive way that he refers to himself because no one else refers to himself with his title.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Where does that come from? I mean, if you're arguing that the church put this into his mouth, then why isn't the church putting it in everybody's mouth, in the stuff that comes later? Kingdom of God is a similar thing. It shows up occasionally. So it's not quite to the same degree of sentiment, but it's the same thing.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Why would these distinct emphases that in our sources are coming directly and almost exclusively from Jesus, all of a sudden, when we get to the later Christian documents get expressed in completely different terms, even though conceptually, we're dealing with fundamentally the same concepts. Obviously, you're getting an echo of the real Jesus in that stuff. And that's the conclusion someone should come to.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Well, if I've got the Jesus who preaches the kingdom of God, and I've got the Jesus who claims to be the son of man, which, of course, when tied to Daniel is a figure who receives authority from the Ancient of Days, I've come a pretty long way, in terms of the way the Gospels are portraying who Jesus is. I tease people, I can do a lot of work, I can do a lot of Christian damage, if you will, if I've got the kingdom of God and the son of man.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the son of man is so interesting to me. And, Darrell, you know this full well, because you're supervising my dissertation on Jesus' claims, and I love son of man in Mark 2, and Mark 14. I think that there's a wonderful connection there that's really, really interesting to pursue. But I think for agnostics, and atheists, some of our more skeptical neighbors, it's surprising to them sometimes when they find that, actually, professional historians and scholars who study Jesus for a living actually spend most of their time in the New Testament texts, and in the Gospels and in Paul.

Mikel Del Rosario:

And so Darrell wrote a book called Studying the Historical Jesus. So for those who are listening, that's a great introduction to the sources that I commend to you to check out. We are slowly coming to the end of our time here, and I just want to signal to our listeners, we do have a couple of different shows that talk about historical evidence for things like the crucifixion of Jesus, for things like the empty tomb, arguments for the resurrection of Jesus based on the evidence that we can talk about historically.

Mikel Del Rosario:

But I like to play a little game, guys, sometimes with Google and with YouTube. And I'll type something in like, was Jesus, and just observe what the autocomplete gives me, because that gives you an idea of what people are searching for, typing into Google and even, was Jesus really crucified? Like, really, people are asking that? Actually, yes.

Mikel Del Rosario:

But a couple of these ones that I just want to touch on, before we end our show today is one that I got last Easter from a Christian who went to my church, who read a book and was curious about it. Was Jesus married? Now, how would we go about just helping someone think through that particular question? Darrell I'll ask you, you wrote a little thing and Breaking the Da Vinci Code about that.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I ask where the sources are now. There was a lot of hubbub about a decade ago, about a text that supposedly said that Jesus was married. Subsequent research on this text showed that it was basically a fraud. And it was completely fraudulent. When this came up with the Da Vinci Code at the turn of the millennium, makes it sound more impressive when you say it that way.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And people look to see what the evidence was. There isn't any real evidence that Jesus was ever married. And so it's a speculation. I mean, it'll start with an observation like, well, most Jewish men were supposed to get married and pursued marriage. That's true. Okay. But Jesus wasn't like most Jewish men. And the tradition in Matthew about Jesus remarks about divorce, and the remark about being able to be a eunuch, okay? And that some people are capable, tells you there's another form of existence that can take place, that kind of thing.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So there isn't really much evidence that Jesus got… I've got to quickly tell you a Siri story that I want to play it in front of the students. I was on my phone, right when Siri came out, and I said, "Who is Jesus Christ?" And Siri's voice blares out over the iPhone in front of these students, "Ask a religious expert."

Mikel Del Rosario:

Siri, didn't want to direct you to the classical library.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah.

John Dickson:

Pity they didn't say ask a classicist.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

No, well, your day's coming.

Mikel Del Rosario:

John, let me throw this one out to you as we come to the end of our time here. Another one is, was Jesus a zealot? There is another popular book called Zealot that made that affirmation. How have you responded to that?

John Dickson:

Right, here.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Behold.

John Dickson:

Yeah, Reza Aslan. Was Jesus a zealot? Let me make it nice and simple, no. And virtually no one thinks that. I mean, way back in the 1700s, Hermann Samuel Reimarus argued this point, he dismissed everything magical about Jesus and said, "Well, what would be the most likely figure?" And he looked at a few Jewish sources and said, they were sometimes rebels, so that's what he was. And he started with this thesis excluded everything that didn't fit with it as a later accretion to the Jesus story and said he was a rebel.

John Dickson:

So hardly anyone believed him. And hardly anyone has believed him ever since. And then Reza Aslan tried to resurrect this thesis. I mean, it falls down on so many levels. If you just approach it from a historical point of view, there are too many different lines of evidence pointing to Jesus using Kingdom of God language in a really upended way that it's really about the meek inheriting the earth. That it's about the peacemakers. It's about little children. It's about the smallest mustard seed.

John Dickson:

There are so many ways in which Jesus drives home in parables, in sayings, in Mark and sayings and Q. And then you can go to Paul's letters where it's clear that Paul's Jesus traditions already in the 50s are about love, and humility and so on. All these lines of evidence point to the fact that Jesus was not a zealot, looking for a political overthrow of the government, he thought that actually, the real job of the Messiah was to enter into the fury of God.

John Dickson:

So I'm picking up sort of Albert Schweitzer's language at the beginning of the 20th century. Enter into the fury of God bear the great suffering trial judgment of the world so that everyone might come into the kingdom of God. That really does seem like the only plausible account he upends the notion of violent revolution.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah, when you think about a zealot, and a zealot really was about overthrowing Rome, violently. Okay. It's actually the antithesis of what Jesus was. Jesus was a rebel. And there's no doubt that he was the bringer of a revolution at a social level. But it didn't have a single sword attached to it. And so that makes him an anti-zealot.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, with just a few minutes left, there is one more thing I wanted to ask John, because we're kindred spirits in a number of ways. One, we both love studying historical Jesus and doing public Christianity stuff. We used to be in bands and also, I used to collect coins. And somebody went to the Vatican and got me this. And these are not as cool as what you have because these are reproductions. But I have here a denarius of Augustus, it says 27 BC to 14 AD and I keep this in my office. And when I saw that you wear a denarius around your neck, I wanted to ask you on the air to explain why that is.

John Dickson:

Yeah, so I wear this denarius. It's a real one. It picks up from where Augustus left off, because it's Tiberius date, 14 to 37 AD. And I've collected coins for two decades. And I've been wearing this one for a very long time. Partly because it's the coinage referred to when Jesus was asked, "Should you pay taxes to Caesar?? He said, "Whose images on it?" We assume when they say it's Caesar's image, we assume they're referring to Tiberius with a denarius. So it's this coin, I'm not saying it's this very coin.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So you're ready to pay, right, John?

John Dickson:

So it's got that connection for me. But the other reason I wear it is just, it's a great reminder to me that all these things we're talking about, were once just as real and solid as this piece of silver is around my neck, like I'm touching it now I can feel it. I'm now transported back 2000 years ago, I think, what meals did this buy? What lodgings did it pay for? What sort of dealings did it pay for? Who was the poor mug who lost it, only to be found and nearly 2000 years later?

John Dickson:

These events we're talking about didn't occur in Middle-earth, the land of the hobbits. The Jesus story is just as much a part of the history of the Middle East as this coin is around my neck.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Mm-hmm. That's amazing. Yeah. When I was in college, one thing that really struck me as I got serious about my faith is that, if what we're talking about is really true. And there's no difference between religious truth, quote, unquote, and regular, actual everyday truth. If Jesus really is who he claimed to be, Jesus really lived, he really died, he really rose from the dead. If Christianity is really true, then it has to change my whole life. And Christianity is either true or it's not and Jesus, if he is who he claimed to be, is worth living and dying for. So thank you guys so much for… thanks so much for joining us. John, thank you again.

John Dickson:

Thank you.

Mikel Del Rosario:

And thanks, Darrell, for being an expert guest with us today as well.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I'm glad to do it. If I ever have to pay a Roman tax I know who to go to get the money.

John Dickson:

Well, I owe you in so many ways, Darrell. So maybe.

Mikel Del Rosario:

Thank you so much for joining us on The Table today. Please do subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. We hope to see you again on The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture.