How do Divine Beings Procreate?

I suppose the short answer is: “anyway they wish!” The question in the title may seem silly to some, but I find it to be a serious question that has largely gone unnoticed, as far as I am aware.¹ First some disclaimers. Divinities are not beings, since they have no existence in time and space, as rocks and people do. If any characterization is appropriate, divinities are spirit, if they are at all. If they are spirits, they are not existing in time and space. By spirit I mean to suggest that they are wholly other than the beings, creatures, and things of this universe. In one sense they are eternals; even if they fall out of fashion, they are still there waiting to be rediscovered. Personally, I have no independent knowledge of the nature and character of spirits, I only know what I have been told by others and what I have read. And that includes information as to how they procreate.

As it turns out, literary evidence exists for examining what people thought concerning the origin of divinities in western religious traditions. The Gods of the ancient Greeks, for example, were generally thought to procreate on a human model, by means of a male and female of the divine species, or with human partners, but the fertile imagination of the Greeks devised even more novel ways for how their Gods procreated.² The “birth” of Aphrodite, for example, was a kind of spontaneous generation: one tradition of her birth was that “she rose naked from the foam of the sea.”³ There are stories about the “sperm” of the Gods as well. The Goddess Athene was set upon by the God Hephaestus. As she tore herself away, Hephaestus ejaculated on her thigh a little above her knee. She wiped it off with a piece of wool and threw it away. The wool with sperm fell on Mother Earth and impregnated her. Erichthonius was born as a result.⁴ So Greek Gods were known to reproduce by means of sperm, and people were also quite aware that human births occurred from the pairing of the male sperm with matter provided by the female.⁵

The story of Onan (who spilled his sperm on the ground, Gen 38:7-10), rather than father a child (in levirate marriage) with his brother’s wife (Tamar), suggests that the issue in the story was the identity of the child in the family as the son of Er. Hence, in the final analysis inheritance was the issue: the recognition of the child as the son of the dead brother (Er).

In the Christian tradition Matthew (1:18-23) and Luke (1:26-35) imagined that Yahweh, the ancient Israelite God, procreated by a human female, as did the ancient Greek Gods on occasion. Paul also appears to think that Jesus was born naturally, for he was “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4). Only in Matthew and Luke is Mary referred to as “virgin” (Parthenos), a term that applies to the period before she became pregnant. Her description as virgin can only apply before her pregnancy—that is, prior to her divine encounter (Matt 1:18, 20).⁶ In Matthew, Mary’s pregnancy was from a holy spirit (an attribute of God).⁷ In Luke (Luke 1:34-35), Mary’s pregnancy was going to happen in the future from holy spirit and power of the Most-High (Luke 1:35).⁸ There must be some connection between the deity, the woman, and the child for him to be acknowledged as the child of the deity. Aristotle associates both these terms (spirit and power) with the process of human procreation.⁹ For Matthew and Luke spirit and power are attributes of God. Because of the way Matthew and Luke narrate Jesus’ generation (birth through a woman), it is reasonable to suppose that conception might have involved a kind of spiritual “sperm” (so to speak). At least, the author of first John appears to believe that God used spiritual “sperm” in producing the children of God:

Those born of God do not commit sin, because his sperm [sperma] remains in him, and he is not able to sin because he has been born of God (1 John 3:9).

The question boils down to this: what did Matthew and Luke think occurred in the generation of Jesus? Not being a mind reader of paper characters in a text, I have no idea. But the historical context and the way they describe Jesus’ birth suggests that spiritual “sperm” is a likely possibility, if not a probability.

The author of the Gospel of John has no birth narrative, but the narrative speculates that the origin of the Word is lost in the fog of “the beginning” (John 1:1-5, 9-14).¹⁰ The Word is both distinguishable from deity and yet identified with deity (John 1:1). The Word comes to be in flesh (John 1:14; cf. Phil 2:7); that is, he was not born so there is no issue of “sperm,” spiritual or otherwise.

What is lost or gained in considering the question? I personally think nothing is lost but that something may be gained. It fills out the image of the human model of procreation Matthew and Luke chose to use. The spiritual “sperm” inseminating Mary and producing the child was holy Spirit (Matt 1:18) or holy spirit and power (Luke 1:35), or so Matthew and Luke must have reasoned and wanted (or allowed) the reader to think.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹One welcome exception willing to peel back the mystery of Matthew and Luke’s myth of origins is Robert Miller’s, Born Divine. The Births of Jesus &the Other Sons of God (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2003).

²See Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (2 vols in 1; George Braziller, 1959). Hesiod, The Theogony: https://users.pfw.edu/flemingd/Hesiod%20Theogony.pdf

³Graves, The Greek Myths, 1.49; 11.

⁴Graves, Greek Myths, 1.96-97.

⁵Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 1.xviii; Peck, Aristotle: Generation of Animals (Loeb), 71-89; see also Richard Smith, “Sex Education in Gnostic Schools” in Karen King, ed., Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Philadelphia, Fortress, 1988), 345-60; and https://journals.openedition.org/cliowgh/339

⁶Matthew does not narrate this event; in Matthew it occurred prior to Matt 1:18, 20.

⁷Robert J. Miller argues that “Matthew’s use of ‘begotten by the holy spirit’ does not imply a virginal conception”; that is, it does not rule out human sperm. See Miller’s conclusion: “Did Matthew Believe in the Virgin Birth?” The Fourth R 21.6 (November-December 2008), 7-8, 26. Luke, on the other hand, reports “that Jesus was born in the manner of pagan sons of God, the offspring of a human mother and divine father. . .” (p. 26). In both cases insemination would have happened by spiritual “sperm.” Miller notes, however, that Luke is “cautious to describe God’s role in a non-physical way” (p. 4). On the other hand, it appears to me that Luke’s language is mildly evocative of a sexual encounter; in Luke 1:35: “a holy spirit will come over you and the power of the Most-High will overshadow you. For a more complete discussion of the issues involved see Miller’s book Born Divine.

⁸Luke does not narrate this event; in Luke it occurred somewhere between Luke 1:34-35 and 2:1, off stage as it were.

⁹Aristotle associates dunamis (power) and pneuma (sprit) as being involved in the process of the generation of animals. Dunamis is the physical substance in the semen by which impregnation is effected (p. lii). Pneuma is a substance used as the instrument in the generation of offspring (p. liii). See Peck’s introduction in Generation of Animals, xlix-lix.

¹⁰Unlike the “Word,” whose origin at the beginning is not described, Lady Wisdom was specifically described as being created at the beginning (Prov 8:22-31).

Can Social Customs become Religious Rituals?

One clear example of this phenomenon appears in Paul's first letter to the "gathering of God" at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2).  When they assembled as a group, they enjoyed a regular meal together, which they enjoyed in a way similar to a "potluck" (1 Cor 11:17-19). Paul was less than satisfied with their practice, which to outsiders would have seemed little different from other dining associations in Greco-Roman culture. Paul chided them for not observing what he called the "Lord's Supper" (1 Cor 11:20-22). He gave specific instructions on how they should observe the meal (1Cor 11:23-32), and told them they should eat in this way when they gathered as a group—turning the meal into a mystical experience. Over many years their simple fellowship meal evolved into the mystical community ritual that became the celebration of the Mass.

 

            There may well be another example of a simple act of hospitality evolving into a religious ritual. It is difficult to be certain because most of the aspects of common living in the ancient past are lost in the shadows of history, and hence critical points on a trajectory are usually concealed. In John 13:1-16 at the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples before the Passover Jesus rose from his couch, stripped off his outer garment, girded himself with a towel, and washed the feet of the disciples. Reclining again in his place at the table, he said, "I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you" (John 13:15).

 

            As most of you are aware, the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples in the synoptic gospels is a Passover meal (Mark 14:12) at which Jesus says the traditional words over the bread and wine: "This is my body"; "this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:22-25). To which Luke adds "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). This Passover meal becomes in time instituted in the Christian community as the celebration of the Lord's Supper/Eucharist/Mass. There is no Eucharist in the Gospel of John; there is no act of ritual foot washing in the synoptic gospels.

 

            The background of the foot washing scene in John likely comes from a common act of hospitality extended to guests in the Middle-eastern home (Gen 18:4-5; 19:2; 1 Sam 25:41; Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8), and/or from a requirements of personal hygiene (Gen 43:24; Judges 19:21; 2 Sam 11:8; Song 5:2-3). In the latter case apparently one's personal hygiene became associated with ritual cleanness (Ps 24:4; Lev 13:6, 34; 14:8-9; 15:1-33; Num 19:19; Exod 30:17-21; 40:30-32; Gospel Oxyrhynchus, 2:3). But exactly how personal hygiene came to segue into ritual defilement is unclear.

 

            Although the background of the foot washing scene in John is found in Middle Eastern customs of personal hygiene, hospitality, and ritual defilement, the foot washing scene in John 13:1-16 is  described as an example of humility. Jesus said it this way:

 

If I then your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you example, that you should do as I have done to you. (John 13:14-15).

 

            The question is: does Jesus' command (mandatum) in John 13 direct the establishment of a community ritual, or is it, as Jesus said, simply an example of humility (Mark 10:42-44)? That is to say, leaders should think of themselves as servants of those whom they serve. In a sense my question is academic, however, since some early Christian groups began practicing foot washing—widows in the community "washed the feet of the saints" (1 Tim 5:10) as a part of their service to the community (1 Tim 5:3-16). The earliest discussion (400 CE) about ceremonial washing is attested in a letter of Augustine (LV, 33), where it is mentioned that some churches simply rejected the practice of foot washing, while others did not accept it as a custom lest it be confused with the act of baptism; others, on the other hand, observed it in connection with Lent. In the seventh century the earliest trace of the celebration of foot washing was in connection with Maundy Thursday of Holy Week.¹ Today many churches continue foot washing in connection with Holy week on Maundy (from the Latin word mandatum) Thursday.²

 

            Which brings me back to my question above: was Jesus consciously establishing a church ordinance? To judge from the character of Jesus' career represented in the gospels that would not appear to be the case. In the gospels Jesus is represented as a peripatetic teacher of wisdom who wanders from village to village without founding communities.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹Shepherd, "Foot Washing," IDB, 2:308; see also Weiss, "Footwashing," ABD 2.828-29.

²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_washing#Anabaptist_practice

What happened to the Gods of Ancient Greece?

            Some years ago I spent six hours on the Greek island of Delos walking its streets and climbing among the various sanctuaries and temples dedicated to the ancient Gods of the Greco-Roman world.  Delos, a tiny island 5 kilometers by 1300 meters, began as a religious center dedicated to the Ionian God Apollo.  Its influence in the Greek Cycladic islands endured from the seventh to the first century BCE.  The devout of many faiths from all over the civilized world came to build holy shrines on Delos, and for six hundred years worshiped their gods there.  But now the site consists of crumbled ruins, whose white marble remains glisten as so many skeletons in the burning Greek sun. Apollo, Asclepius, Dionysus, Isis, Aphrodite, and the many other Gods of their generation survived into the Roman period, but to my knowledge today there is not a single active temple dedicated to the worship of these Gods, whose power captured the imagination of the people of the ancient Mediterranean world.

 

            One modern response is to say that they were not real Gods—meaning, I suppose, that they never existed at all. I can just imagine, however, the response of the hundreds of thousands who believed in them, and through the years made their holy pilgrimages to Delos—just as today modern Christians, Jews, and Moslems make pilgrimages to the holy shrines of their faiths.  The ancient believers came, offered prayers and sacrifices, and left inscriptions throughout the ancient world attesting to the power of these Gods and their influence in the daily lives of the believers.  They would be shocked at the idea that Asclepius and Apollo are not "real."  Nevertheless today their sanctuaries are silent and these Gods considered historical artifacts. What do modern believers in God say about the silent sanctuaries of Delos?  Should they assume that these ancient Gods were simply products of the over-active imaginations of a primitive and superstitious people who lived during a naïve age?

 

            If such popular and influential Gods can so completely pass out of fashion, or be so easily dismissed as never existing, what should one think about one's own God?  Is my faith really that different from these ancient faiths, whose Gods were credited with as much power and influence in the ancient world as the Gods of current faiths enjoy in the modern world?

 

            If there is no completely satisfying answer to these questions, they at least remind us of the character of faith: faith is not demonstrable proof; it is only the evidence of a deeply held hope.  God's existence cannot be quantitatively proven—at least not in a modern scientific test-tube sense.  And that knowledge should make us all a little less arrogant in our own religious beliefs, and just a little more tolerant of the beliefs of others. It also raises the issue as to whether or not the demise of the Greek Gods was the beginning of the twilight of all the Gods.*

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*An earlier version of this essay appears in Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009, 51-52.

Of Journeys and Far-Away Places

A motif frequently appearing in literature is "journey to a distant land." The content of the destination changes with the ideas of each writer, but the motif is always expressed in terms of a journey to some distant location expressed as a far away land, a distant city, or far country—but always somewhere away-from-here.

 

            The son of an indulgent father received what likely amounted to half the father's personal worth.  The son journeyed to a far country (Luke 15:13), a location that likely represented to the lad freedom from parental influence, which translates into fun and good times—since he squandered everything in "loose living." When Abram lived in Haran, he was directed by God "go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), where, he was promised, his progeny would become numerous and he would be a blessing to "all the families of earth." In this case the then unknown distant land (Canaan) held the promise of material prosperity and universal influence.  The author of Hebrews took the image of the distant land and conceived it as a celestial city, "whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:8-12). The imagined destination was a spiritual ideal, the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22-24), representing to this author a place of heavenly rest (Hebrews 4:1-13), and the journey led ultimately to the afterlife.

 

            In John Bunyan's thinly disguised allegory of the Christian experience, the protagonist (Christian) journeys from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, which is imagined as a 17th century vision of Heaven.  The journey to that ideal place is cast as a pilgrimage, which is fraught along the way with temptations and threats to Christian's progress in faith.

 

            After the ten year long Trojan War, Odysseus, King of Ithaca returns to his native land.  In terms of physical distance Ithaca is not far, but in terms of time, it still takes him ten years to reach home, beloved Ithaca and wife Penelope. His journey home is an epic tale filled with numerous dangers, and "home" is everything positive that the word evokes.

 

            Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick (1851) describes the ill-fated voyage of the Pequod, a whaling ship commissioned ostensibly as a profit venture.  Her captain (Ahab), however, had another goal, and turns their journey into a quest to kill the white whale, Moby Dick, that earlier had destroyed another vessel and maimed Ahab in body, mind, and soul. The ultimate destination is thereby changed from a successful and profitable return to home port, to Ahab's revenge on the whale. The poem by William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1892) poetically imagines a getaway house in the wood amidst natural surroundings, but thematically the poet is yearning for what can only be found away-from-here: "an ideal place where he will find perfect peace and happiness."

 

            In the modern world we conceive journeys and destinations in linear terms: a beginning that leads forward to some destination—somewhere in a different location. The ancients, on the other hand, thought in cyclical terms, perhaps because their lives were more obviously dependent on the cycles of nature: the earth dies in the winter but renews itself every year in the spring—a perennial cycle of life. Neither one's personal history nor history as human experience was conceived by the ancients as linear progress toward some ultimate goal.

 

            For example, Empedocles (5th century BC) introduced the idea of repeated world cycles: because periods of "Love and Strife" alternated, the history of the cosmos was viewed as a series of cyclical periods (Nahm, Greek Philosophy; fragment 66, 110). Hesiod (around 700 BC) saw reality as an alternating series of five world ages (Works and Days, 106-201). Marcus Aurelius said "…the universe is governed according to finite periods (of coming to be and passing away)" (Meditations 5.13)—each period began and another cycle ended at the same point.

 

            Might the ancients have been correct after all? Our tiny blue and white planet, for example, is on an infinite journey of repeated twenty-four hour cycles around its sun.  Hence one's personal physical age should not be thought of as linear sequence, but rather should be calculated in terms of a succession of repeated cycles around the sun. We don't really go anywhere in life; we just repeat the cycle every twenty-four hours.

 

            That is not true of the universe, however, which is expanding outward all around (if it is circular) at a rapid rate of speed on a wild ride toward some unknown destination; hence the universe clearly appears to be moving "somewhere" in linear fashion.

 

            Whether we conceive our journey as being locked into repeated centripetal cycles or caught up in a linear centrifugal force, which concept adds more significance to life, the journey or the destination?

 

The Greek poet C. P. Cavafy in a short poem about Odysseus's journey home (Ἰθάκη, Ithaka), claimed that journeys were more significant. What do you think?

 

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=259&cat=1

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

BE THERE DRAGONS IN THE BIBLE?

How could there be? Dragons are mythical or legendary creatures. They constitute the stuff of fantasy and fiction, and are certainly not the material on which history and revealed religion are based—at least that is the prevailing view today. The dragon has a long and widespread tradition in the world.  See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon

 

            Answering the question, "are there dragons in the Bible?" is more complicated than one might suppose, however. It is complicated because translators practice the art of translation differently in rendering ancient words into what they take to be a modern equivalent, and because we must work in two ancient languages Hebrew and Greek. The Hebrew Lexicons indicate the following: Brown, Driver, and Briggs (1st edition 1907) and Gesenius-Robinson (1857) agree in the translation of "land-serpent, dragon" as being appropriate for the following passages: Deuteronomy 32:33; Psalm 91:13; Exodus 7:9, 10, 12; Jeremiah 51:34; Nehemiah 2:13).

 

            Not all translators acknowledge this information in the seven English translations I checked. The following translations use "dragon" to translate Psalm 91:13, Deuteronomy 32:33: New American Bible; An American Translation (AT). The New American Bible (NAB) and the New English Bible (NEB) render Jeremiah 51:34 with "dragon." The following translations render Nehemiah 2:13 by "dragon": Today's English Version (TEV), New International Version (NIV), NEB, and NAB.  The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) renders the following passages by δράκων (drakōn: dragon, serpent): Deuteronomy 32:33, Psalm 91:13, Exodus 7:9, 10, 12.  Of the translations I checked, except for Nehemiah 2:13, the NIV never used the word "dragon" to translate the ancient Hebrew text. The King James Version translated all passages with "dragon," except for Exodus 7:9, 10, 12.  The NEB translated Isaiah 51:9 using "dragon"; the TEV also used "dragon" for Isaiah 27:1. The NAB used "dragon" in the translation of Psalm 74:13, Isaiah 51:9, Isaiah 27:1, and AT used "dragon" in translating Psalm 74:13, Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 51:9.

 

            The word "Dragon" (δράκων) appears in the following passages in the New Testament: Revelation 12:3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 17, 17; 13:2, 4, 11; 16:13; 20:2, where dragon is twice secondarily identified as an  ὄφις, which the lexicon terms a "snake, serpent" (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).  The Latin translation of the Greek text uses draco, which the lexicon identifies as "a sort of serpent, a dragon."

 

            Is the mythical or fantasy "dragon" actually described in the Bible? The answer is "Yes," and dragons were part of the landscape of nature in antiquity—at least to judge from the writings of some of the best known names of our classical Greco-Roman past, such as Aristotle, Herodotus, and Pliny, as well as others.  Their reports on the nature of the creature, however, were not uniform. The description of the dragon in Philostratus (2nd century CE), the author of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, is most similar to what we have come to know as the mythical creature. These ancient writers are not describing mythical creatures, however; they are reporting about creatures they claim to know—sometime serpent-like at other times dragon-like. The description of the creature in Revelation, however, is actually something more than simply a snake or a serpent.  It is described as a species of reptile with a tail; snakes do not have tails.  And this creature "stood on the sand of the sea" (Revelation 12:18).  Serpents do not have legs, and hence cannot "stand." This dragon made certain sounds that enabled it to be identified as a dragon (13:11).*

 

            What do we learn from this information? The lexicographers really didn't know the species of the creature on which they offered translation advice. The ancient classical writers are confident that they are describing actual existing creatures. And there actually are dragons described in the Bible.

 

            As Oliver Hardy said to the second of the famed comic duo, his partner Stan Laurel, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" The Christian and Jewish Bibles, that are thought to report ancient history and are confessed popularly in conservative Christianity as "The Word of God," attest to the actual existence of what we today regard as a mythical and fantasy creature. Archaeologists and geologists, on the other hand, have given us the Pterodactyl and Pterosaur, a type of flying reptile that actually lived during the late Jurassic period (to judge from their petrified skeletons). These creatures, which actually did exist at one time, are not a part of the Biblical record.

 

            So the "Word of God" (if I may call it that) leads us to a fantasy creature that never existed, but the modern scientific study of the earth gives us historical dragon-like creatures that actually existed. Go figure!

 

What do you make of dragons in the Bible?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*The Greek word for "spoke" in Revelation 13:11 can also be used of inarticulate sounds.

Are There Legends in the Bible?

Every culture has legends.  Readers will recall the legends about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, John Henry the railroad pile-driving man, the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow, and George Washington's cherry tree, among others. A current dictionary definition of a legend is: a story coming down from the past, especially one popularly regarded as historical, although its historicity cannot be verified.

 

            Biblical scholars find that certain narratives in the Bible are also legends—a story popularly regarded as historical but whose historicity cannot be verified. In his magisterial work on the Old Testament Otto Eissfeldt, for example, identifies the story of David's victory over Goliath (1 Samuel 17:40-50) as a legend.* According to Eissfeldt a biblical legend is a poetic narrative "intended to give pleasure and entertain, and not really to adhere to the recalling of what has happened, nor to instruct."** In this legend the force of the story is not really on the man David, but rather on the divine power that controls him (1 Samuel 17:47).

 

            Here is another definition of legend: Legends are stories about holy people and religious heroes that are read for inspiration, religious instruction, and spiritual benefit.*** By this definition the story of Jesus besting the Devil in a debate (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13) is a legend.

 

            Generally people want to know if a historical event actually happened much like its legendary description. The answer is, no. Legends are not history.  In form the legend is thought to be fictional, although there may be a historical element at the base of it.  For example, with regard to the temptation narrative: it is surely plausible that Jesus may have experienced an inner personal struggle at some point in his career, like, for example, the much simpler statement in Mark 1:12-13 suggests—but even this brief statement, as it appears, is legendary in character.  The details of biblical legends, if dependent on oral tradition, are enhanced in the oral transmission of the stories, and appear at the time of their first inscription.  In the case of the temptation narrative the story is enhanced further in Matthew and Luke.

 

            Mark's narrative about Jesus' personal struggle at Gethsemane before the crucifixion (Mark 14:32-42) could be either a pious fiction invented by Mark or possibly a legendary account based on a historical datum that in considering his death Jesus did indeed struggle through his own "dark night of the soul." There is in fact a similar tradition in Hebrews 5:7:

 

In the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his Godly fear.

 

Even this brief report, however, has a legendary character ("and he was heard for his Godly fear").  Scholars are divided on whether the report in Hebrews is to be related to the more developed narrative account in Mark.**** But in light of the fact that Hebrews shows no obvious influence from the synoptic gospels, this brief description of a personal struggle of Jesus in the face of death may possibly have a basis in historical fact.  In the light of the courage of the Johannine Christ in facing his death (John 12:27-33), one is encouraged to see in John a reaction to a tradition about a tortuous personal struggle of Jesus when facing his own death—something less than what is depicted in Hebrews 5:7.

 

            The romanticizing of the traditions about Jesus in the gospels has obscured for the most part the historical details of Jesus' humanity and personal history. The Jesus Seminar in its second report, The Acts of Jesus. The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus found that only 16% of the 176 events they considered in early Christian literature had credibility as an actual historical event (p. 1).

 

How does it seem to you?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*The Old Testament. An Introduction (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 42.

**The Old Testament, 34-35.

***Keith Nickle The Synoptic Gospels. An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980), 40.

****Harold Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 148-52, n. 144; W. Robertson Nicholl, The Expositor's Greek Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 4.288-89.