Continuing on in Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ"
1. Overall, how have Blomberg’s responses to these eight evidential tests affected your confidence in the reliability of the gospels? Why?
Blomberg's responses have done absolutely nothing to give me confidence that the gospels are reliable, just as he did nothing to convince me that they are even eyewitness accounts.
2. Which of these tests do you consider to be the most persuasive and why?
The corroboration test. If the facts don’t match the story that is a huge red flag. Blomberg doesn't seem interested in it and his answers are weak and unconvincing. He admits that archaeology has "presented some problems" but quickly shrugs it off without elaborating.
3. When people you trust give slightly different details of the same event, do you automatically doubt their credibility or do you see if there is a reasonable way to reconcile their accounts?
This is a loaded question, but I'll play along and say that when two reliable sources give contradictory accounts and we do not have enough evidence outside of these two sources, we acknowledge this fact and revert to the default position which is "we don't know for sure."
How convincing did you find Blomberg’s analysis of the apparent contradictions among the gospels?
Not very. Blomberg fails to provide any good reasons for why we should accept the validity of the gospels other than suppositions and excuses, much like the reasons he gave for how we can know the gospels are "eyewitness" accounts.
In answering if it was the stated or implied intention of the writers to preserve history, Blomberg says we should take Luke and John's word for it because they say so and there are no “outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing” like those found in other ancient writings. I wonder if he means the crazy shit you find in other myths like being born of a virgin, being the offspring of a god, miraculously healing the sick, raising the dead, and coming back to life after dying. Maybe he is referring to some other kind of "blatant mythologizing" like having to go through some big long struggle or vision quest like ... Oh, I don't know, having to live in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights while being tormented by an arch-nemesis.
When answering if the writers were able to reliably record history, Blomberg says in oral traditions, much had to be committed to memory and was via poetry and songs, with a 10-40% variance of incidental details. I’ll come back to this.
As far as whether or not it was it in the character of these writers to be truthful,
Blomberg says yes. We have no reason to believe that the gospel writers weren't truthful (except for some glaring contradictions and all that non-blatant mythologizing) and they were willing to die for what they believed. The willingness to die for what you believe to be true does not verify the truthfulness of your claim. If it did, we could believe in the veracity of more claims than just the Christians’.
Now when it comes to whether or not there are irreconcilable discrepancies that undermine the trustworthiness of the accounts Blomberg says that once you allow for a 10-40% margin of error, they are consistent. Oh, and too much consistency would be suspicious. Strobel brings up inconsistencies like “Gadara” and “Gerasa” and Joseph’s genealogy, which Blomberg buries under excuses like “mistranslations,” “Mary’s genealogy in disguise,” “Legal vs. biological parentage,” etc.
Of course, the “hard-hitting” Strobel helpfully pitches him softballs. He does not bring up:
-That only Matthew and Luke seem to know that Jesus was born of a virgin. Shouldn’t that warrant mention in the other two? If, as Blomberg suggests, there were “fixed points that were unalterable” in oral accounts, shouldn’t “born of a virgin” be one of them? Considering how many mythological figures were born of a virgin, maybe they felt that sort of thing was just mundane.
-Where and when did the Ascension take place? I can understand getting names like “Gerasa” and “Gadara” mixed up (hell I’ve gotten them mixed up in this post), but what about “Bethany” and “Mount Olivet”? In Luke, the Ascension takes place in Bethany the day of Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:50-51). In Acts (supposedly written by Luke!) it takes place at Mount Olivet 40 days later (Acts 1:9-12). Is this just an “incidental detail” that we should expect Luke to disagree with himself about?
Did Jesus go to Egypt after his birth? Matthew says yes, (Matthew 2:13), Luke says no (Luke 2:39). The prophecy (according to Matthew) called for the messiah to be called out of Egypt. Why did Luke get this wrong? Or did Matthew get it wrong? Or is whether or not Jesus fulfilled a messianic prophecy by coming out of Egypt “incidental?”
Did Herod order the death of all boys under the age of 2? Matthew says yes, Luke makes no mention of it. That seems to be a crucial part of the story and the reason for Jesus coming out of Egypt. So who was wrong, Luke or Matthew?
Did Jesus go to Galilee after his resurrection (Matthew) or Jerusalem (Luke)?
Where and to whom does Jesus first appear after coming back to life? To Mary Magdalene (and possibly other women, two accounts seem to be at odds) at or near the tomb (Matthew, John), or to Cleopas and an anonymous companion on the road to Emmaus (Luke)?
Why don’t the oldest manuscripts of Mark (the ones without 16:9-20) mention Jesus appearing to the disciples after his death? Who added Chapter 16:9-20 and when?
Why weren't these contradictions addressed as opposed to Strobel;s batting practice fastballs?
When addressing if the gospel writers had any biases that would have colored their work,
Blomberg basically says that they were too biased to be biased and so biased that that they were unbiased.
Roger that.
In addressing if the people, places and events mentioned corroborated historically, Blomberg essentially says “yes, because I say so.”
In writing about this question, Strobel writes a note to himself:
“Get expert opinions from archaeologist and historian.”
Apparently he didn’t think too much of Blomberg’s answer to that question either.
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