McDowell's Trilemma Argument - Part 7

Josh McDowell's Trilemma includes the following key claim:

Jesus claimed to be God.
(the first sentence of section 2A, on page 104 of EDV).

Most of the evidence McDowell gives in support of this claim comes from the Gospel of John. Therefore, the strength of McDowell's argument depends on whether the following assumption is correct:

(ROJ) The Fourth Gospel is a reliable source of the words and teachings of Jesus.

I have previously shown that most of the leading Jesus scholars of the New Quest and also of the Third Quest reject this assumption.

Other leading Jesus scholars, besides those previously mentioned, also reject ROJ, including:

Reginald Fuller
Raymond Brown
Jurgen Becker
John Riches
Christopher Tuckett
Dale Allison
Graham Stanton
James Charlesworth

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The evangelists, in their use of sources and oral traditions, shaped them according to their theological interests; this editorial work is known as redaction. Thus, the synoptic Gospels contain material that developed in three stages: authentic words and memories of Jesus himself (stage I), materials shaped and transmitted in oral tradition (stage II), and the evangelists' redaction (stage III), the gospel of John, however, is very different. It contains some stage I and stage II materials independent of the synoptics that can be used sometimes to confirm or supplement the synoptic evidence in reconstructing the career and teaching of Jesus. But the Fourth Gospel contains much more material belonging to stage III. ( "Jesus Christ" by Reginald Fuller, from The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, Oxford University Press: New York, New York, 1993, p. 356)

Jesus does not claim overtly to be Son of God in any unique sense. Passages in which he appears to do so belong to stage II or III of the tradition. ("Jesus Christ" by Reginald Fuller, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p. 360)

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To what extent can we attribute such clear Son-of-God christology [in the Fourth Gospel] to the ministry of Jesus? ... although the words of the Johannine Jesus may be rooted in the words of Jesus of the ministry, they are suffused with the glory of the risen Jesus. Morover, ... John's christology gained clarity through hindsight as the Johannine community was challenged by the synagogue. Therefore use of John to determine scientifically how Jesus spoke of himself during his lifetime is very difficult. (An Introduction to New Testament Christology by Raymond Brown, Paulist Press: New York, New York, 1994, p.88).

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The Fourth Gospel also occupies a special position. While it offers some help with a few biographical-historical questions, because of its christological stance it contributes nothing to an understanding of the message of Jesus. The image of a Jesus who claims to be sent by the Father differs in type and content so much from the Synoptics that we are forced to choose between presenting Jesus in synoptic terms or offereing a Johannine Jesus. Faced with that alternative we must go with the Synoptics, for the Johannine christology, which leaves its mark on every detail of the Fourth Gospel, most certainly represents a late form of Primitive Christian theology. All of which is to say that our Christian sources, for all practical purposes, are limited to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
(Jesus of Nazareth by Jurgen Becker, English translation by James Crouch, Walter de Gruyter & Co., New York, New York, 1998, p.9)
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While there are sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John and in the noncanonical gospels, as well as possible echoes of such sayings in the Pauline correspondence, it is clear that the main source of authentic sayings of Jesus is the Synoptic tradition which underlies the Synoptic Gospels. Little of the extracanonical material is likely to go back to Jesus, and where it does, it is frequently dependent on the Synoptic Gospels; the utterances of Jesus in the Gospel of John are so different from those of the Synoptic Gospels, both as to form and content, that they must be adjusted to be, largely the work of the early Church. ("The Actual Words of Jesus" by John Riches, from The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, New York: Doubleday, 1997, 1992.)

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It is widely believed today that John's Gospel is primarily a testimony to the beliefs and experiences of that Gospel's author (or his community) and provides at best a very indirect witness to the historical Jesus. For the most part this seems a justified conclusion. The reasons for such a view are manifold and certainly one cannot easily accept the historical reliability of both John and the Synoptics together. ("Sources and Methods" by Christopher Tuckett in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p.125-126)

For the most part, John's Gospel offers us a profound reflection on the Jesus tradition from a particular author in a particular context. Nevertheless, the historical reliability of the gospel (in the sense of providing reliable information about the historical Jesus) may be rather limited. ("Sources and Methods" by Christopher Tuckett in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, p.127)

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What is the correct interpretation of Crossan's result? Seemingly implicit in his method is the presumption that most of the traditions attested singly may have been created by the particular community that handed them on, and so they were not widely known. Perhaps this presumption is correct. Who among us would assign to Jesus sayings singly attested in sources as late as John or the Dialogue of the Savior? We assume they were created by the author of John or of the Dialogue or by their communities or by those communities' special tradition. (Jesus of Nazareth by Dale Allison, Fortress Press 1998, p.25-26)

Since most of the words and teachings attributed to Jesus and nearly all of the extraordinary self-assertion claims attributed to Jesus by the Gospel of John are only found in that Gospel, this skeptical remark implies that John is an unreliable source for the words and teachings of Jesus.

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Today it is generally agreed that neither Matthew nor John was written by an apostle. And Mark and Luke may not have been associates of the apostles. (The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, Oxford University Press, 1989, p.135)

Historical study, however, underlined the gap between the way Jesus spoke about himself in the fourth gospel and in the synoptic gospels. In the fourth gospel Jesus speaks regularly and in exalted language about himself and his relationship to God. In the synoptic gospels he does so rarely and then often rather reluctantly. (The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, p.220)

In this chapter we have seen just how difficult it is to separate the claims Jesus made about himself from their later development in the early church. Jesus spoke about his own role reluctantly. (The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, p.233)

Since the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as constantly making claims about himself in exalted language and speaking about his own role, Stanton is clearly assuming that the Gospel of John provides a distorted and unreliable account of the words and teachings of Jesus.

I suggest the following as a 'working hypothesis'. Once we have taken account of four factors, we may accept that the traditions of the actions and teachings of Jesus preserved in the synoptic gospels are authentic. These are the four important provisos: (i) the evangelists have introduced modifications to the traditions; (ii) and they are largely responsible for their present contexts; (iii) some traditions can be shown to stem from the post-Easter period rather than the lifetime of Jesus; (iv) since certainty nearly always eludes us, we have to concede that some traditions are more probably authentic than others. (The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, p.163)

Notice that Stanton's proposed method for determining the authentic actions and teachings of Jesus focuses on study of the synoptic gospels and ignores the Gospel of John. This also assumes that the Fourth Gospel is an unreliable source of information about the historical Jesus.

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Two insights have now become apparent. First, the Evangelists sometimes significantly and deliberately edited Jesus' sayings. Second, we have learned that it is imperative to distinguish between the Evangelists' theology and Jesus' thought. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, Abingdon Press, 2008, p.15)

...the Evangelists certainly did take incredible liberties in shaping the Jesus tradition; and that means we need to be ever cognizant of the best scientific method for separating what the Evangelists received and what they added. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.20)

We [New Testament experts] do not know who wrote Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.39)

In Chapter 3, Charlesworth asks a key question:

Was Jesus' teaching defined by the Rule of God (Mark; Matt.; Luke) that was offered in challenging parables or by "I am" proclamations (John)? (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.41)

It is clear from other passages that Charlesworth accepts the view of Jesus' teachings put forward in the Synoptic Gospels and doubts or rejects the view of Jesus' teachings in the Fourth Gospel.

Does that mean that the Synoptics (Matt.; Mark; Luke) present somewhat accurately Jesus' fundamental message? The answer, as we shall see (chap. 8), is probably yes. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.42)

It has become clear to the leading scholars that Jesus thought his primary mission was to declare the coming Kingdom of God or, better, God's Rule. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.97)

Jesus' proclamation that God's Rule was imminent is characteristically expressed in parables. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.101)

In Parables as Poetic Fictions, C.W. Hedrick accurately summarizes the state of present research: "New Testament scholarship has, in the main, been quite positive about two aspects of the Jesus tradition: it affirms that the proclamation of the kingdom of God is an essential feature of the message of Jesus and that Jesus announced his message in parabolic stories" (p.7) (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.103)

What questions are peculiarly shrouded in the mists of history? Here are some: Jesus was probably intimate with Mary Magdalene; but we cannot define what intimacy means in this instance, and we possess no data that allows us to decide if he had been married to her. We may also catch only a glimpse of what Jesus thought about himself; that is true for two reasons: his followers--especially the Fourth Evangelist--often shaped the passages in which we might discern such self-understanding. Likewise, Jesus was more interested in speaking about God and God's Rule than about proclaiming who he was. (The Historical Jesus by James Charlesworth, p.xviii)

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McDowell's Trilemma Argument - Part 6

Josh McDowell's Trilemma includes the following key claim:

Jesus claimed to be God.
(the first sentence of section 2A, on p. 104 of EDV).

Most of the evidence McDowell gives in support of this claim comes from the Gospel of John. Therefore, the strength of McDowell's argument depends on whether the following assumption is correct:

(ROJ) The Fourth Gospel is a reliable source of the words and teachings of Jesus.

In previous posts, we have seen that the leading scholars of the New Quest for the historical Jesus rejected ROJ: Gunther Bornkamm, Joachim Jeremias, James Robinson, and Norman Perrin.


We have also seen that some of the leading scholars of the Third Quest for the historical Jesus also reject ROJ: E.P Sanders, Geza Vermes, Ben Meyer, and Marcus Borg. I know of at least three other prominent Third Quest Jesus scholars who reject ROJ: John Meier, Gerd Theissen, and James Dunn.

In the first volume of John Meier's magisterial series of books on the historical Jesus, he states that,

...the rewriting of narratives for symbolic purposes and the reformulation of sayings for theological programs reach their high point in John. (A Marginal Jew, Volume 1, p. 45)

In a footnote, Meier focuses specifically on the words of Jesus in John:

[The sayings tradition of the Fourth Gospel]...has undergone massive reformulation from the Johannine perspective. (A Marginal Jew, Volume 1, p.53, footnote 22).

If the sayings of Jesus in John have "undergone massive reformulation" and if this reformulation was done "for theological programs", then it is clear that the Fourth Gospel is not a reliable source for the words and teachings of Jesus. So, Meier would reject ROJ.

In The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Gerd Theissen states his views on John:

The Gospel of John clearly presents the Jesus of the Gospels who is most stylized on the basis of theological premises. ... Nevertheless, the Gospel of John, which is independent of the Synoptics, is not worthless. (p.36)

Theissen goes on to list five examples where John diverges from the Synoptics and yet "hands down data...[that] can go back to old traditions." None of the examples relates to words or teachings of Jesus. They are all about events or circumstances: (1) first disciples of Jesus were former disciples of John the Baptist, (2) Peter, Andrew, Philip were from Bethsaida, (3) plausible political motivations for Jesus' execution, (4) a hearing of the Sanhedrin is reported, rather than a Jewish trial of Jesus, (5) Jesus dies before Passover.

In a Chapter on The Evaluation of Sources, Theissen has a section entitled, "The unhistorical Johannine picture of Christ". In that section he argues that, "The historical value of the Synoptics is clearly to be rated higher than that of the Gospel of John." (The Historical Jesus, p.97). Theissen allows two qualifications to the claim that John gives an unhistorical picture of Jesus:

The Gospel of John also has a series of sayings of Jesus with a Synoptic stamp. (The Historical Jesus, p.97)

The Gospel of John could have preserved historically accurate information in its narrative sections, where the specifically Johannine stylization of the picture of Jesus has not been at work. (The Historical Jesus, p.97)

These qualifications are not enough to raise the Fouth Gospel to the point of being a reliable source of the words and teachings of Jesus.

The fact that John has a few sayings that line up with the Synoptic gospels says nothing about the reliability of the long theological discourses attributed to Jesus in John, and certainly does not provide support for the historicity of the "I am" statements in John. The fact that a few narrative elements in John "could have preserved historically accurate information" is irrelevant to the issue of the reliability of John concerning the words and teachings of Jesus.

Given Theissen's view that John is "the most stylized on the basis of theological premises" and his view that John generally presents an "unhistorical picture" of Jesus, and given that Theissen does not make a qualification to his skepticism in relation to the long theological discourses of Jesus found in John, it seems fairly clear that Theissen would reject ROJ.

In his scholarly tome, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, Volume 1), James Dunn shows a strong preference towards the Synoptics over John for determining the truth about the historical Jesus:

...few scholars would regard John as a source for information regarding Jesus' life and ministry in any degree comparable to the Synoptics. (p.165-166)

Among other factors, Dunn relates his skepticism about the Gospel of John to how it portrays the teachings of Jesus:

Probably most important of all, in the Synoptics Jesus' principal theme is the kingdom of God and he rarely speaks of himself, whereas in John the kingdom hardly features and the discourses are largeley vehicles for expressing Jesus' self-consciousness and self-proclamation. Had the striking 'I am' self-assertions of John been remembered as spoken by Jesus, how could any Evangelist have ignored them so completely as the Synoptics do? On the whole then, the position is unchanged: John's Gospel cannot be regarded as a source for the life and teaching of Jesus of the same order as the Synoptics. (Jesus Remembered, p.166)

In other words, the strong self-assertion claims of Jesus in John are themselves evidence that lead to skepticism about the reliability of John.

Dunn, unlike the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, is a conservative Jesus scholar, and yet his rejection of ROJ can be seen in his own response to the Trilemma:

...scholars have almost always found themselves pushed to the conclusion that John's Gospel reflects much more the early churches' understanding of Jesus than of Jesus own self-understanding. ... Again evangelical or apologetic assertions regarding the claims of Christ will often quote the claims made by Jesus himself (in the Gospel of John) with the alternatives posed 'Mad, bad or God,' without allowing that there may be a further alternative (viz. Christian claims about Jesus rather than Jesus' claims about himself). (The Evidence for Jesus,1985, p.31-32)

Dunn rejects the Trilemma argument because he rejects the assumption upon which it is based. Since the Gospel of John is an unreliable source for the words and teachings of Jesus, we cannot build a solid argument on the basis of words that are attributed to Jesus only by the Fourth Gospel.

Many leading Jesus scholars of the 20th Century have rejected ROJ:

• Gunther Bornkamm
• Joachim Jeremias
• James Robinson
• Norman Perrin.
• E.P. Sanders
• Geza Vermes
• Ben Meyer
• Marcus Borg
• John Meier
• Gerd Theissen
• James Dunn.

Thus, as I stated earlier, the skepticism of Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar concerning the Gospel of John is in keeping with mainstream Jesus scholarship. If anyone is out of step with mainstream Jesus scholarship, it is Evangelical Christian apologists who put forward the Trilemma argument and make heavy use of the Gospel of John in support of the premise that Jesus claimed to be God.

There are a couple of replies to my objection that I will consider in future posts:

(1) McDowell and others provide evidence from the Synoptic Gospels, and not just from John.
(2) In recent decades, N.T. scholars have been taking a more positive view of the historical reliability of the Gospel of John.