If one shows a clear unfamiliarity with what the mainstream scholarship states, one should be very wary when those individuals make claims about the mainstream. When those same people build up arguments based on that unfamiliarity, we have major issues. Those issues appear right away in chapter 2.
Britt and Wingo begin their chapter on the Gospels by stating that the picture the Gospels paint “of Jesus’ natural life bounces from anachronistic, to plagiarism to outright dishonesty.” They claim that they will show how this is true, and to begin, they get into the topic of whether the Gospels are actually reliable.
Now I’ve mentioned before that Britt and Wingo don’t cite most of their sources. The citations are greatly lacking, and often, when they do cite a source, they don’t seem to really be familiar with it.
This is the case when they cite Bart Ehrman’s textbook on the New Testament, “The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.” What’s curious is that within the actual chapter, when they cite Ehrman, it’s correct. They are just going over the mainstream view of the dating of the texts, such as Mark having been written around 70, and John sometime between 90-100 A.D.
However, the problem is when you check their notes. This is their first note for the chapter, and they probably should have simply left off any commentary here. Because that’s where they show they didn’t really read or understand what Ehrman was saying in his work.
The first sign of this is when they mention the Q source. The Q source is a hypothetical source that explains the similarities between Matthew and Luke, which are also not found in Mark. It’s part of the two-source hypothesis for the Synoptic problem.
Briefly, when we look at the Synoptics, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, we see a lot of similarities. Some of these similarities are virtually word-for-word, which leads scholars to the conclusion that Luke and Matthew borrowed material from Mark. However, there is also other information shared by Luke and Matthew which is not found in Mark.
The two-source hypothesis argues that there was a second source, which we call Q, based on the German word quelle, which just means source. Q is a hypothetical lost text. We don’t have copies of it, or manuscripts, whether fragmentary or not. Which isn’t necessarily a problem as we know many early documents have been lost. But the reason why scholars posit this hypothetical source is because it makes sense of the data.
Ehrman argues for the Q source in his work. He states most scholars accept it, largely because he claims it’s rather self-evident. That “it naturally suggests itself.” In no way would Ehrman say it’s just a made-up source. Nor does it make sense to say it’s a made-up document, as opposed to what it actually is, a hypothetical document.
If Britt and Wingo wanted to discount Q, there are certainly some alternatives. Mark Goodacre is one such scholar who argues against the Q source. Or they could have cited the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis, which argues that Matthew used Mark, and then Luke used both Matthew and Mark.
It’s not just the Q source that is an issue here though. The authors then decide to take on oral tradition, which they label as notoriously unreliable. This is why, according to Britt and Wingo, why scholars are reluctant to consider later dates for the New Testament. If they had read Ehrman’s book, they may not have argued such incorrect views.
Now, I have touched on oral tradition already, but we will look at just what Ehrman has to say on it. Ehrman covers this in chapter 3 of his textbook. Possibly the most important thing that he says here is that “we should not assume that the Gospel accounts are necessarily unreliable simply because they are late, but the dates should give us pause.”
It means we have to be careful, which is what historians have to do for the vast majority of history. As Ehrman points out, literacy was exceptionally low in the Ancient World. It was through oral tradition that information was passed on.
It also means that we have to realize that some of the stories and traditions were changed for a variety of reasons. This was the common procedure in the Ancient World. We can not look at it through our modern lens, and retroject our views on preserving traditions. This obviously causes some issues, and as Ehrman states, “we will therefore need to develop some criteria for deciding which features of the Gospels represent Christianizations of the tradition and which represent the life of Jesus as it can be historically reconstructed.”
We don’t simply reject oral tradition. Instead, as historians, we realize that it’s more complicated, and thus we deal with it as such. This is what is done for history in general, as much of history is based on oral tradition that is only written down much later. To treat Jesus and Christianity differently here, as Britt and Wingo appear to want to do, is just ridiculous.
The biggest issue here though is that the authors make it appear as if Ehrman’s work supports their own notes. After all, they cite their source, and then under that source, make a variety of claims. The obvious conclusion is that Britt and Wingo are basing their claims on what Ehrman said. As we clearly see, almost nothing they said in their note actually relates to what Ehrman writes about.
Getting back to the discussion about the Gospel reliability, we see this same flirtation with scholarship, only to then jump off the deep end. Britt and Wingo correctly point out what the consensus view on the dating of the Gospels are, more or less. But then they try to discard early dating by saying that only a handful of evangelical Christians place the Gospels “within a decade or so of Jesus’ supposed death.”
That’s simply not true. Possibly the best source on this is Jonathan Bernier’s book, “Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament.” Bernier argues for the lower or early dating of the New Testament, which would place Mark closer to 45 and John at 65 A.D.
What really makes Bernier’s book stand out is that he acknowledges the consensus view, and argues that what he’s doing for the lower chronology, as in doing a full defense of it, needs to be done by scholars who support the middle chronology as well as the higher chronology.
Bernier challenges the consensus, and taking the burden of proof seriously, he builds a solid case for the early chronology. He produces a piece of solid critical scholarship, and presents it as part of a larger conversation. A conversation that he encourages. We can also go back to Maurice Casey’s book, “Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?,” Casey, who clearly is not evangelical, argues for at least an early dating for the Gospel of Mark.