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The Intersection of Christianity and Ancient Cultures

To hear the podcast click here.

George Kalantzis  

Hi. I am George Kalantzis, and I teach theology at Wheaton College, where I also direct the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies.

David Capes  

Dr George Kalantizis, welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast. It’s a great pleasure to be with you. We are here at the Lanier Theological Library. You’re going to be teaching a class on early church history beginning tonight for our certificate program. I have to tell you, there’s been a lot of excitement around this class.

George Kalantzis  

Thank you. It’s a great opportunity to try to do 500 years in five hours!

David Capes  

That’s all we’ve given you for 500 years? I don’t know what that boils down to per decade or per century, but maybe just one hour per century. It’s going to be coming pretty fast. You’re working on some other projects as well. What are you working on now? 

George Kalantzis  

I’m finishing a book right now on seven questions that framed and shaped the Christological discussions in the first six centuries. Basically, how did the answer, any answer to Jesus’s question, “who do you say that I am”, frames and brings further questions that need further clarity. And in that process, how the church developed a grammar and a lexicon on how to understand and how to speak of the one we worship. 

The other project is on the theology of refugees. It’s not a theology for refugees, but it’s a theology of refugees. I’ve been working with the International Association for Refugees for almost a dozen years now. Refugee work in southeast and the eastern part of Africa, hearing the voices of our brothers and sisters who have been displaced. Who have been forcibly displaced, seeking refuge. How do they see God? How do they hear God? Who does God reveal himself to be to them? It’s the same God we worship. Based on our location where we are as we speak of God and expect to hear God in particular ways. They hear God differently. Their emphasis, for example, is a lot more on the Old Testament. The emphasis is on the prophets and the messages of the prophet, the emphasis on the liberation from oppression.

David Capes  

That’s what they know, that’s what they’re experiencing. 

George Kalantzis  

That’s their experience. God is a lot more, can I use the word tangible, to them than perhaps the God of the universe is to us.

David Capes  

A lot of times, people think of God in a far-off way. As in, I’m going to God one day when I die. But they have to begin to see God working in their lives, working in history.

George Kalantzis  

Yes, even in relationships.

David Capes  

Yes, which is very scary, because they have been, as you said, forcibly displaced. They’re not there in Khartoum or some other place because they want to be. They’ve been forced there by some power, some political power.

George Kalantzis  

Political, economic, health. They’re fleeing cholera. They’re fleeing famine. They’re fleeing civil war. They’re fleeing militias. Ten or twelve years ago I remember a question from Pastor Steven, a Presbyterian pastor of South Sudanese. When he spoke, he lifted his left arm, half of it was missing because he was cut off by a machete in an attack. And when we asked him, what do you expect from the next week that we’re going to be together. 

He raised his hand and said, by the end of the week, I want to be able to forget. Forget that I had to dig with my hands a shallow grave to bury my wife as we were fleeing the conflict. He never stopped being a pastor. He never stopped being a man of God, and now he’s one of the leaders of the Christian movement in refugee camps. But that relationship is a very different relationship with God and certainty of God than perhaps I have in the suburbs of Chicago.

David Capes  

Living in easy circumstances. I can’t wait to see that book. Eerdmans is publishing that. Today we’re going to turn our attention to the history of the Christian faith and discuss briefly, the first 500 year period of the early church. From the time roughly toward the end of the first century, into the fourth, and fifth centuries. What are you going to be talking about in that class?

George Kalantzis  

All stories begin with Alexander the Great.

David Capes  

You say that because you were born in Athens!

George Kalantzis  

You don’t have a middle name of “the” for nothing! We’re going to work through five movements, some of the five key developments in the story of Christianity. And it’s not just simply church history; it’s history of Christianity. In other words, more broadly as a movement than just simply ecclesial. The first one is the break with Judaism. How do the two faith traditions, by the end of the first century, beginning into the middle of the second century, start moving away from one another?

David Capes  

Yes, because they’ve been mostly one [people].

George Kalantzis  

They have been. It sometimes surprises people when I remind them, Jesus was a Jew. So, we’re all the apostles.

David Capes  

Yes, everybody that wrote the New Testament.

George Kalantzis  

That’s right. But then we have varying discussions, especially in the second century, as Christianity moves beyond the Judea centered experience into the diaspora experience. That’s where we have interactions with Hellenistic or diaspora Jews and Hellenistic Christians or pagans converted to Christianity. To whom do the scriptures belong? And by that, they mean the Hebrew Bible. What happens with the law? Do we keep the law? Who are the true people of God? That has can be seen perhaps as a bit theoretical. But the lived experience of these people is not just simply theoretical. Because being a Jew, or of the genus of the Jew, as the Romans would recognize them, the religion of the Jews carried with it legal standing. Being a Christian did not carry that.

David Capes  

It was a new thing, a new religion [as far as the Romans are concerned].

George Kalantzis  

It was a superstition. We had no legal standing. So, do Christians claim the status of the Jew? Do the Jews claim the Christians as their team? How does that work? Fundamental break with Judaism that happens both in theology, but also in legal standing and in outlook. 

The second is the movement of interacting with the world around them, because now we’re moving from a Jewish environment such as Palestinian, Judea, Samaria, Benjamine to a much broader environment that is Hellenistic, with its culture, with its philosophy. And we have a variety of Hellenistic Judaism, but also Philo in Alexandria, in Ephesus. But also we have middle Platonism. We have middle philosophical systems that are operative, about God, about ontology, about metaphysics, about morality. So how do Christians adopt, adapt, and interact with those philosophical systems? In the beginning was the logos.

David Capes  

You’ve got a pretty important Greek term there.

George Kalantzis  

That’s right. What do you want to do with that? We’re going to bring that all the way up to the second, end of the second century, beginning of the third with Tertullian of Carthage, the first great Latin theologian who gave us words and concepts like trinitas, trinity to describe what is “three in one” God. Sacraments, etc. 

So how does Christian movement interact with, adopt and adapt aspects of Greco-Roman culture and philosophy. Because not only did they take them in, but they changed them again. In the beginning was the word. That’s not a Jewish concept; that’s a Greek concept.  John continues in 1:14 and the Word became flesh. Well, his name was Jesus, right? We adopt and we adapt. 

The third would be what is this thing? We call it the church, the ecclesia. Great. How do we organize ourselves? When do we worship? To whom do we pray? How do we pray? Do we baptize? How do we baptize? What is this like? How does it function? So, church organization within that context. And what we’re going to see is that sometimes we think that the earliest church starts with a set organizational system, including worship.

David Capes  

Just like what I do every week. People think the same way as I do. They do exactly what we do every week.

George Kalantzis  

And from there, it diversifies. In actuality, it’s exactly the opposite. There is so much diversity in the earliest generations, and slowly, slowly, it takes us a few 100 years to standardize, sometimes per region, other times per language, etc, our worship and structure. The Eastern Church and the Western Church don’t have the same structure and organization. The fourth one is going to be what do we actually believe? Who is this Jesus? And if we confess with our mother church and tribe that “Hear O Israel, the Lord, your God, the Lord is one”, but now you have two or three. How do you do that? 

David Capes  

Really looking at the idea of the Trinity that has developed, that it’s already around. It’s not that it just is birthed in that century. But there’s not really been a system that puts it all together.

George Kalantzis  

We don’t have the grammar yet. Pliny, the younger, the famous governor of Bithynia in the second century, in 111 AD said “they pray to Christ as if to a God”. Already from the third generation [of Christians] in Bithynia, up in Pontus and Bithynia, Christians pray to Jesus as if to a God. In other words, praying to Jesus as God is the earliest that Christians do, from very early on. Okay, that’s great, but how do you not have two gods? So, you need to develop language to talk about it.

David Capes  

To talk about it, about the oneness of God. At the same time, have a trinity.

George Kalantzis  

So what is one? What is three? How do they relate? Does God the Father have a son, produce a son? That’s not a novel idea for the Greeks and the Romans. All their gods are born. They have mothers and fathers. So is that who he is? And if the father birthed the son, who’s the mother? Of course, here we have to talk about Mary. So that basic doctrinal definition, when we come and say, I want to be part of the community, and we say, great, this is what we believe. This is what we believe, and this is what you’re going to be baptized into. “I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”. What does that mean? And if all things have been created by him, by the father, then what about Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. So basic definitions, that’s going to preoccupy the bulk of our time on the second day.

The same person who came over and said, I want to be part of this community, we say this is what we believe? But we don’t stop there. We also say, and this is how we live our life, which is the fifth part. Which is what are the patterns of spiritual and moral life that Christians had in the same letter, letter 96, Pliny to the Emperor Trajan. 

Pliny says this is the total sum of their worship. Remember, this is a pagan speaking right, trying to get it right. But he’s a pagan. He has no idea who the Christians are. It’s the first time he meets Christians. He says they gather on a specific day, early in the morning, they pray antiphonally with one another, in other words, back and forth, back and forth from the Psalms, basically. Then they take an oath with one another, to not commit adultery, to not commit murder, do not commit theft, to return a deposit. Then they go away, and at the end of the day, they gather together again for a common, ordinary meal. Can you imagine if our Sunday services ended with an oath? You turn to your neighbor and you take an oath. Like, this week, this is how I’m going to live my life.

David Capes  

I’m not going to murder.

George Kalantzis  

I’m not going to commit adultery. We will be having a different kind of discussion. 

David Capes

It’d be a different kind of service.

George Kalantzis  

So how do these patterns develop? How many times a day do you pray as Christians? What days do you fast? Why do Christians fast on Wednesday and Friday? Good question. Because we’re not Jews who fast on Monday and Thursday. It’s community formative. Rituals are community formative.

David Capes  

These are the things that we do that set us apart from other people.

George Kalantzis  

A simple thing that Christians did from early on, was to cross themselves. You make the sign of the cross. We don’t do it, or at least Protestants don’t do it. But Christians did because they marked themselves in public. You cross yourself in view of others, right across yourself. Others see you.

David Capes  

It’s not something you do in private. 

George Kalantzis  

That’s right. You don’t do it in private only. You do it in public and people see you. And that has consequence in the late third century. 

So we’ll come all the way up to there and see the transformation. We’ll close with the transformation of the Roman world from a pagan world to a Christian world.

David Capes  

Where Christianity does become legal at that point.

George Kalantzis  

That’s right. It becomes tolerated. It becomes legal, and it becomes the only within the span of 120 years.

David Capes  

Which, in historical terms, is very fast. Now, persecution seems to have been an important part of the history. You’re going to be addressing throughout.

George Kalantzis  

That’s in the break with Judaism, the response to the Roman world. There are reasons for the persecution. Persecution is not “because I don’t like you”. They are accusations. Christians are accused of being seditious traitors because they don’t take an oath. They don’t pledge allegiance to the Roman state and to the Roman emperor, pure military state, like the Romans are. How do you respond to people who do not pledge allegiance to the Caesar.

David Capes  

Or do they want to serve in a military? That became a problem as well. 

George Kalantzis  

That became a problem, especially when Christians are recognized or claimed to not be Jews. Because Jews were exempted from military service for religious reasons. But that was almost 200 years before. It has a long tradition in the Roman world. But you, your group, your people, say you’re not Jews, so you’re not covered by the exemptions of the Jews.

David Capes  

History is just messy, the birth of the Christian church in Palestine in the first century, and then its growth in the next 500 years. It’s just really phenomenal to see the expansion of it but also the things that have to take place in order for it to become a religion that is tolerated and then eventually favored, in the Roman world.

George Kalantzis  

Christianity, did not grow by leaps and bounds. For the first almost 250 years, Christianity was roughly around 2% [of the population of the Roman empire].

David Capes  

Of the Roman of the Roman population. 

George Kalantzis  

Yes. And then it starts reaching into the sociologically important 10% and then by the end of the third century, it reaches roughly in the mid 20%.

David Capes  

By then, they’re formidable.

George Kalantzis  

They’re a formidable group politically. Because if a group that is 2% or less of the population, you don’t know anyone in that group. 2% of 100 people that you meet on the street.

David Capes  

Maybe 2 in 100.

George Kalantzis  

Maybe two, yes. And how do you recognize them? But at10% you think wait a minute. I know some of these people.

David Capes  

Yes, I’ve met them. I think I work with one or two of them. 

George Kalantzis  

When they reach 25%, they live in your neighborhood. So now you pay attention. So how does that work? The other accusation was that they were atheists, and that is not just simply that Zeus in your heart. For the Romans, the relationship with the gods is sacred and pragmatic. It matters if the gods are turning against you as a person, as a city, as a province, as an empire. You’re done for.

David Capes  

Calamity is coming.

George Kalantzis  

Calamity is coming. Now flip the equation. When calamity comes. Why does it come? And everybody’s thoughts turn.

David Capes  

We have 10% of the people who are Christians, and they’re really messing all of us up. 

George Kalantzis  

That’s right. So, their atheism puts all of us in danger.

David Capes  

But the word atheos doesn’t mean what we mean by it.

George Kalantzis  

It means that they don’t worship our gods. They don’t give honor to our gods. Romans don’t care if Jesus is in your heart, or Zeus is in your heart, or nobody’s in your heart. They just don’t care. What they care is that each one of us acts in public according to the rituals of Roman religion.

David Capes  

And that ensures the safety of the city and all the people. I’m really fascinated by what we’re going to be doing tonight. I appreciate you coming all this way and sharing with us a little of what, what you know.

George Kalantzis  

We’re basically doing 16 weeks in five hours.

David Capes  

Okay, let’s see how quickly you can talk and we can listen to George Kalantzis, thanks for being with us today on The Stone Chapel Podcast.

George Kalantzis  

My pleasure. Thank you.

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The Impact of Joanna on Jesus’ Ministry

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David Capes  

Hi everybody, and welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast. My name is David Capes. Joining me today is Dr Nancy Dawson, who has been with us before, several times to talk about remarkable women in the Bible, and she’s working on this amazing book called All the Women of the Bible. We’re going to be talking today about one of those women, and her name is Joanna. Dr Nancy Dawson, welcome back to The Stone Chapel Podcast.

Nancy Dawson

Thank you, Dr. Capes!

David Capes  

You’ve been here before to talk about the women who are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. And you’ve also been here before to talk about your book, All the Genealogies of the Bible. You’re working on another one called All the Women of the Bible. Tell us about that project.

Nancy Dawson  

There was a theme there. It’s a very exciting project. Broadman and Holman have asked me to write that book. Of course, it covers Old Testament and New Testament women. There’s around 350 women. So it’s a comprehensive, and a little bit daunting task, But very exciting and insightful to see the roles that women have. And why are they there? Why are they mentioned? How do their stories dovetail with what else is going on in the narratives and their overall importance. When you look at a fleshed out view of the women, you see how important they are. They do counter cultural things. I see that they foreshadow many of the characteristics of Christ and also divine characteristics. Through their actions, sometimes words, but definitely through their actions, they do these remarkable things. They are noteworthy.

David Capes  

All right, so when should we be able to go to Amazon or go to our local bookstore and pick that up?

Nancy Dawson  

It’ll probably be a couple of years. I’m in the middle of the research right now, which I enjoy so much, but getting that down into words and edited takes time.

David Capes  

You like the research better or the writing better?

Nancy Dawson  

I definitely like the research better. That’s my background but I’ve always been interested in teaching the Bible and writing about men and women.

David Capes  

Well, you’re a great teacher. I’ve seen you teach here. I’ve had you come to the course I teach for Truett seminary on the gospels and the book of Acts. You’ve done a great job in those classes. You’re a good teacher as well as a good researcher, and a great writer. 

All right, Joanna, let’s talk about Joanna.  Joanna is a person that a lot of people may not know very much about. She’s mentioned in passing in some ways, but she’s mentioned in some very important times and places. Let me read one of these texts from the Gospel of Luke. And it’s Luke, chapter eight, verse one. 

Soon afterward, he (Jesus) went on through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God. And the 12 were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager. And Susanna and many others who provided for them out of their means.

Nancy Dawson  

Remarkable. Number one, you probably haven’t ever heard a sermon about her, but she’s this Galilean aristocratic woman who is healed by Jesus of evil spirits, along with Mary Magdalene and Susanna. And remarkably, she becomes a disciple or follower of Jesus. The text says that she’s the wife of a Herodian official. And of course, they’re talking about Herod Antipas, who was the successor of Herod, the Great, his father. And this is a real poignant place in the text that tells you about her background and what information she might have about that royal court. And then, she becomes this faithful follower throughout Jesus’s ministry, and she’s going to be a witness, along with other women, to the crucifixion and the empty tomb.

David Capes  

She’s gone from Galilee at that point, the Galilean ministry, down to Judea, so she’s traveled with them. Is that correct?

Nancy Dawson  

Yes. Her name means “God has given graciously”. She’s named after her father, which might be common these days. Her father’s name was John or Yohanan, and this was a common practice in the Second Temple period. There was research done by a wonderful scholar named Tal IIan, who worked on Jewish women in the Greco Roman world and about 3- 4% of the women are called Joanna. It’s a very common name. Around 46% of the women are called Mary. So, this is why you always see terms of disambiguation for the Mary figures, like Mary of Magdala or Mary mother of Jesus. 

And some scholars have speculated that she should be equated with the Junia figure of Romans 16. I don’t adhere to that, but some scholars have said this is a possibility, but they’re usually very tentative, in making that association. She’s married to Herod Antipas’ steward named Chuza. He was an appointee of Herod and had a lot of court responsibilities, overseeing his estates, possibly acting like a steward or a guardian over the ones that would be up and coming for inheritance under Herod Antipas.

David Capes  

And they lived in Tiberias you said.

Nancy Dawson  

They lived in Tiberias, which was on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. That town was basically built by Herod Antipas around AD 18-20 but noteworthy is it was built over a cemetery, and so this is not something that goes down well.

David Capes  

That’s not really kosher! Tiberias is a thriving city today. If you go to Israel, you’ll see it on that western shore.

Nancy Dawson  

It’s part of Galilee. It’s one of the major cities. Jesus grew up in this small Nazareth hometown in the Sepphoris area and so that’s the general area. But what we see with Joanna is that she’s definitely from this elite, aristocratic background. She’s Jewish, and whether her husband was a believer or not, is not clear. 

David Capes  

You mean a believer in Jesus?

Nancy Dawson  

In Jesus. She seems to be a type of informant, both to the Herodian court and also to Jesus and his followers of what’s going on. More than once she said Herod Antipas has heard about Jesus, and he’s curious, and he wants to see him. But he wants to see him so that he’ll perform a miracle for them.

David Capes  

He wants to see a show, doesn’t he?

Nancy Dawson  

Yes, that’s exactly right. But you can see that there’s this definitely negative overlay. She’s from a wealthy background, so has the luxury of the socially elite. Also, this is a highly Romanized place. The Jews do not like the taxation. They do not appreciate any of the political domination, the economic exploitation. Heron Antipas actually had to pay people to come and live in Tiberias.

David Capes  

Like Alaska today, you have to pay people to go live up there. There’s a couple of things I found fascinating from this. She’s mentioned specifically, as well as Susanna, as providing for Jesus and his ministry out of their own means. Let’s discuss that part of it.

Nancy Dawson  

These women are following Jesus and that’s strange and counter-cultural for the day. You don’t hear about women being in the entourage of John the Baptist. This is something you hear about only with Jesus. So, this is very striking for that time. Jesus invites women and approves of them being a part of a mixed entourage. So that’s very noteworthy. 

What you see is that she is supporting Jesus out of her own personal finances. There was a great book written in 2002 by Richard Bauckham called Gospel Women, and he researched where women would have the ability to have discretionary funds that they could use, possibly separate from their husband. Because Chuza may not have been supportive of this. She has at least some disposable funds at her discretion. 

And there’s seven sources. One is that you could have inheritance from your father. Usually, this is like the prodigal son. The father is dead, and then you receive it. But there’s also property that can be acquired by a deed of a gift from your father or mother or your husband. That she could use also. There was at the time of marriage, ketubah money, the marriage contract money. That was what her husband would pay to her in case they were ever divorced or something would happen to him. 

David Capes

A prenuptial agreement in a way,

Nancy Dawson

Exactly, yes. She could have tapped into that. The dowry that was paid by her husband to her father, sometimes that is given to the daughter. 

David Capes  

This could be considerable money that you’re talking about.

Nancy Dawson  

Yes, or possibly property. Something like Barnabas, who sold his property to support the ministry. And it could be something like this that she availed, this source of funds and monies to give. And this is so consistent with her name which means “God has given graciously”. Then you see that she, in turn, gives graciously. This is a striking aspect of ministry.

David Capes  

There’s a lot of talk these days among scholars about benefactors and patrons and those kinds of things. Benefaction is a particular kind of giving, but what I hear you saying is this is not really “benefaction.”

Nancy Dawson  

Not according to that traditional female patron benefactor role where a wealthy person is giving money or provisions for a community in return for status or honor. Instead, she actually joins this itinerant band of followers of Jesus. She is not regarded in any special way. We know from the story of the widow with two mites, she gave everything that she had, and so that was what was praised. Not how much you give, but that you give willingly and graciously. And this is what she does. 

David Capes  

It’s striking to me that she leaves behind a rather a luxurious life for this itinerant life, sleeping in tents and walking lots of distance and probably doing lots of washing clothes at the river, those kinds of things.

Nancy Dawson  

Yes. We don’t really know. The text is silent on what these women actually do. But Luke is so poignant in mentioning this; that it’s women who support the ministry. It doesn’t mean that men did not support the ministry, but Luke is making a statement on what is generally true. And so, you see the mention of her in a Luke 8:3 and then we’re going to see that Luke mentions her again in Luke 24. There’s an inclusio, a literary inclusio about Joanna that I find is again, remarkable.

David Capes  

Let me read that text. We’re looking at Luke 24:9.

Now at daybreak on the first day of the week Jesus had been discovered as raised from the dead. Then they, (that is these women) who observed this returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary, the mother of James, and others who accompanied them, also told this to the apostles. But their story, (that is, the women’s story,) seemed like nonsense, so they did not believe them.

What do you learn from that?

Nancy Dawson  

The testimony of women was considered unreliable. I think it was J.D. Atkins on one of the Exegetically Speakingpodcasts that said the old lexicons say that sounded like hum-bug. It’s like just an old wives tale. We’re not going to believe that. It’s just a silly tale that women are saying. But what you see is in all the Gospel accounts, it is women who are present at the crucifixion, at his burial, at the empty tomb and at the resurrection. Now John 19:25 also mentions one of the disciples that was at the crucifixion, and that was John the Beloved Disciple, but you don’t hear any mention about men. And again, this is noteworthy. These women have a staying power, a presence, even in these difficult moments. They’re not running away. 

They’re not afraid. They’re there at the crucifixion and they’re at a distance, it says. But then at the burial, they’re taking spices to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea; and they prepared the body, but because it was a Sabbath, it wasn’t completed. It was done in haste.

David Capes  

They had to, by the rules the Sabbath, stop what they were doing with the idea that the when the Sabbath is over, the first day of the week has arrived, which was a day of work, then they would go back finish the job.

Nancy Dawson  

And so, this is what the women do. They complete this proper burial ritual. They prepare spices and take them in. They complete that process. But when they arrive at the empty tomb, two angels are there, and they say to the women, 

“Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has risen.”

And the next phrase that’s used is, 

“Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, and He would be crucified and rise on the third day”.

And then they remembered his words.

David Capes  

In other words, the women were there when Jesus was saying all this.

Nancy Dawson  

Yes. You see that they don’t even have to touch Jesus or eat with Jesus, or remember the scriptures. They remember his words. And this is what we’re all called to do, is recall the scriptures, recall what Jesus has said. And so, they become these incredible eyewitnesses and servants. Joanna left a life of ease. She reminds me a little bit of Old Testament Abigail, who was married to Nabal, the fool. And she leaves that life of luxury and becomes a wife and follower of the Son of David, and so, there’s these interesting parallels.

David Capes  

Yes, there are interesting parallels. What’s one thing you take away from Joanna as you think about your own life here in the 21st Century?

Nancy Dawson  

What I see is that we always need to be flexible. We need to consider and be ready to leave that life, that maybe we have had, and be willing to follow a new path. And that Jesus can use you with whatever you bring. For Joanna it was possessions, but it was also a kind of fidelity, and this is what we’re called as Christians to do. And Luke probably uses Joanna as a source for information. The material that’s unique to Luke is called the L material in text criticism. She is giving these personal insights. This is what we all bring. It’s a personal insight. God can use you and remake you. And transform you.

David Capes  

I like the idea that Luke is naming his sources, throughout the gospel. He does it, I think, with Mary as well, and in an earlier passage. This is a great, great help, honestly. Maybe somebody will feel now they need to do a sermon on Joanna and encourage women and others who are there, who have the ability to give a gracious gift and be a gracious blessing. Dr Nancy Dawson, thanks for being with us today on this podcast.

Nancy Dawson  

Thank you so much. 

Description

Dr. Nancy Dawson is back on The Stone Chapel Podcast to talk with Dr. Capes about a woman in the New Testament who followed Jesus.  Few could name her or tell us anything about her. Her name is Joanna.  She came from elite circles to follow the Nazarene in a less than luxurious life. Luke tells us (Luke 8:1-3) that she supported Jesus’ work financially and was a close follower of him. 

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Study in Jerusalem: Online and In the Land

Baruch Kvasnica
My name is Baruch Brian Kvasnica, and I’m president of Jerusalem Seminary.

David Capes
Dr. Kvasnica, good to see you, Baruch.

Baruch Kvasnica
Good to be here.

David Capes
Thanks for being with us. We’re here together face to face, which is always good. Now you’re president of Jerusalem Seminary. We’re going to find out more about that in a minute, but I want to find out about you now. For those who don’t know you, who is Baruch Kvasnica?

Baruch Kvasnica
I was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Michigan, as well as the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, where I graduated as a Wycliffe MK. I loved my time there as a kid, growing up with a broader mission than just a local church, but also the whole world. I went from Ukarumpa High School in Papua, New Guinea, to Houghton University in Western New York. Knowing that I had Jewish heritage, that idea expanded in college, getting to know a person who was born and raised in Israel. And that piqued my interest.

I really wanted to study early Christianity in the land of the Bible. I went there in the summer of 1994, and I couldn’t believe how much I didn’t know. I thought I knew my Bible well, and then I went to the land. It showed all these places where I had gaps that I hadn’t focused on, or I didn’t understand, or hadn’t paid attention. And I just ate that up. I jumped on an Anglican priest course at Tantur with Jim Fleming and Kenneth Bailey. And I couldn’t believe that. It was amazing. I studied under Petra Heldt at Hebrew University on Eastern Christianity. As a history and religion major, I thought I knew my history of Christianity, but I didn’t know it very well.

David Capes
Now you’d already graduated from Houghton?

Baruch Kvasnica
No, this was between my junior and senior year. I was there just for nine weeks during my summer break. I went back to Houghton and became pastor of a little country church, as well as finishing up my honors project on John Wesley’s Religious Epistemology. I applied to different seminaries, and I got a full-ride offer to an Ivy League school. But I decided not to take it because my life was influenced so powerfully by those nine weeks in the summer of 1994. I went back [to Israel] after Houghton and started studying religious studies, comparative religions between early Judaism and early Christianity.

David Capes
Where were you studying at that point?

Baruch Kvasnica
At Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Harvard of Israel.

David Capes
Our good friend, Emmanuel Tov, teaches there. He’s great.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, he’s been my neighbor down the street for the past 10 years.

David Capes
So, are you married?

Baruch Kvasnica
I’ve been married very, very happily for 24 years to Shoshi, my wife. She was born and raised there in Israel. She’s a messianic Jewish gal.

David Capes
So, how’d you get the name Baruch?

Baruch Kvasnica
Baruch has been my name for the past 15 years. I was walking one day in 1998 with my dad, and he said, if I ever immigrate to Israel, I think I’d be Baruch instead of Bob. And then when I became a permanent resident there, I said, hey, this is a good opportunity for me to recognize my latent Jewish heritage. I’m still a believer. I’m a Christian. I’m the same person, but I’ve seen a lot of Jewish believers assimilate to the point that their Jewishness is no longer realized. Statistically, two to three generations after a person becomes a believer, their children don’t understand themselves as being Jewish anymore.

David Capes
Though by heritage and by blood, they are.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, so I thought this is a way to reaffirm what my dad felt, and who my grandfather was. I feel like I’m blessed. My wife and I have seven children, and we’re so thankful. We’re living in the land which is a blessing and a challenge. Baruch means “blessed, blessing.”

David Capes
You’re president of Jerusalem Seminary. Tell us a little bit about it. What is its mission?

Baruch Kvasnica
When I went first in 1994, I couldn’t find a place where I could do a Master’s of Divinity in English. I needed that to be ordained. I looked for different ways to do that. I couldn’t find an easy way to do it. Later on, I could do it online. But I didn’t really want to do it online. I wanted to do it in person, if possible, or some component in person.

So, I thought, there’s not a seminary in the land of the Bible. Why not create one? That’s the short story. The longer story is that my life was so transformed by being in the land and learning Hebrew, and not just Greek. I learned Greek too, and that’s awesome, but knowing both Greek and Hebrew really impacted my faith. It rooted me in the land and history of the people of Israel, that strengthened my faith. It challenged it a little bit too. And I thought, God, this is so amazing. I want to share this with other people. I started guiding and teaching pastors and academics and lay people. In 1998 I saw that it was
also beneficial for them. I started training Bible translators in Hebrew.

I saw the impact that Hebrew in the land had, both in my life and for others. I thought, wow, everyone going into ministry should have the opportunity to spend some amount of time with the right people in the land of the Bible. And so that’s really the driving passion of why Jerusalem Seminary exists, to give that opportunity that I had, that I hope many, many thousands of others can have in the coming years.

David Capes
Now, are you an online seminary, or are you residential? How does that work?

Baruch Kvasnica
We started in 2018.

David Capes
Okay, so at this point you’re only seven years old.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, and this is just before the pandemic. Our first school of Hebrew was founded in 2018, and this was geared towards Israelis, to have them learning Biblical Hebrew in a lived or communicative manner. Israelis know a little bit of biblical Hebrew, because modern Hebrew is not too different. The first 1,000 words are about 88% the same vocabulary. But beyond that, the poetry and a lot of the syntax is different.

We wanted to train them, and not just teach them Biblical Hebrew, but teach them how to teach in this lived, expressive, spoken way. They became the core of our teachers, both residentially, abroad and online. What we’re doing still is training Israelis to learn how to teach Biblical Hebrew, and they do that by going to Mongolia, Nigeria, Togo, Myanmar, Grand Rapids. Two by two, we send these Israelis, these Messianic Jews who know Biblical Hebrew inside and out and express that. All of the learning is done in that manner. That’s our School of Hebrews, founded in 2018.

In 2021 we started the School the Bible, which started right in the midst of the pandemic. We started that completely online. We were able to have some short-term courses come in 2022 and 2023. And we’re looking to expand that. But our School of the Bible, started in 2021, and this is more on a BA level, more for enrichment. This fall, just a month or two ago, we started our School of Graduate Studies, and this is our first degree, a MA in Biblical studies.

David Capes
In these other programs, you don’t earn a degree. They are more of a certificate program. But the graduate studies, you’re offering the full degree.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, that’s right. But our certificates are not lightweight, meaning that almost half of our students are Bible translators. Because I’ve been training Bible translators in the land of the Bible for about 15-20, years. They know about us, and they know, by God’s grace and for His glory, how incredible our School of Hebrew is. They are coming to learn online and in person in August. For example, every August for the past eight years, and diaspora Hebrew month-long intensives, we call them. So even though they’re certificates, they’re actually very serious.

David Capes
Yes, they can be. This is fascinating! All right, so if people have heard something today and they want to connect with you, how would they get connected with Jerusalem Seminary and you as President?

Baruch Kvasnica
Well, jerusalemseminary.org is our website, and that has our course catalog.

David Capes
jerusalemseminary.org.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes. They can see the course catalog and can register for both individual classes. They can take them for credit. They can take them for audit. There are also certificate programs. And there’s also the new MA in Biblical Studies that requires them to be in the country twice. So, everything can be done online, except for two residential intensives in the land.

David Capes
Are those one week, or two weeks?

Baruch Kvasnica
Two weeks.

David Capes
Two weeks each. Do you have residences that they can occupy?

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, as soon as we received money, that was given from here in Houston, back in 2017. As soon as I knew about this seed money, I immediately thought of the building that we’re in. It’s the Alliance Center. It’s where a number of institutions have been born, and it has eight dorm rooms. It has a beautiful chapel, it has classrooms, has offices. It’s right downtown in central Jerusalem.

David Capes
Oh, wow. So, this is not tin he Old City.

Baruch Kvasnica
It’s about a seven-minute walk from the Old City. On Prophet Street. It’s even biblical!

David Capes
Nevi’im the prophets! So, people can get to know the city of Jerusalem. Do they go up to the Galilee, over to the Dead Sea, and Jericho? Places like that.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes, we often start our short-term courses down in the Negev just like the patriarchs and the wanderings in the wilderness and the manna. And then we move up to the Galilee at some point for a couple days or so and see the coast. Then focus at least half the time in Jerusalem. So yes, it’s definitely an active field trip and lecture combination for our short-term courses.

David Capes
How has the war affected you and your institution?

Baruch Kvasnica
It’s been a long journey. Not only the war, but COVID was tough for everyone. Israel tried to be really tough.

David Capes
Everything was shut down.

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes. Then the war has persisted in bringing challenges. It’s been a very difficult psychological challenge. We’ve had staff that have been involved in serving. They’ve been pulled out for reserves because about 75% of our staff are local, so that makes us a little unique too. There’s a number of institutions in the land. God is building us in such a way that we can be there, long term. We pray, so that we can have a lasting effect.

Some of my children are needing to serve because that’s required by law, boys and girls. That clipped our wings as far as bringing students in the land, but we’re looking forward to a new era. Now that there’s greater peace, we have a number of seminaries and Bible colleges interested in coming back to the land. Having short-term courses or a semester abroad or a year-long program. We’re looking forward to the future.

David Capes
I know some of the people who teach for you, but for our listeners, tell us a few people that teach for you. If I were to come and study, besides working with you and learning Hebrew, who could I study with?

Baruch Kvasnica
We have Dr. Gerald McDermott, who’s been with us from the beginning, Dr. Petra Heldt, who was my first teacher in Hebrew University in 1994 and she is amazing. We’re trying to get her to write a book. We have Randall Buth, who’s doing some of the lecturing for the gospels course. We have Dr. Halver Ronning, who has been here. Nick Aaronson is coming on board. Walter Kaiser is on our Advisory Council.

David Capes
What does the future look like over the next three to five years?

Baruch Kvasnica
We are looking forward to having hundreds of students come each year. Our goal is 1,000 a year in about 5-10 years, but looking for hundreds to come and be in the land or online. We have about 250 students now, each year, but only about 20% of them are in the country. We want to just expand that from 250-1,000.

David Capes
Your students are from different countries?

Baruch Kvasnica
Yes. This semester, I think we have 14 different countries. Last semester, we had 85 from 21 countries. This is mainly because we have so many Bible translators. But the wonderful thing about Bible translators is, often, they’re not just translating Bible. They’re also preaching, yeah. So we get two for one, preachers and Bible translators at the same time,

David Capes
All right, once again, for those who want to be in touch with you. Maybe they feel like they want to donate some money, or maybe they feel they’d like to study in the land. I’d like to go over there for two weeks and have some time or take a short-term course or be involved in a program of study. How would they do that?

Baruch Kvasnica
They can connect us with us at jerusalemseminary.org. They can write, email, call. If they’d like to donate, there’s a “Give” page. I totally believe that this is God’s doing. That the Kingdom needs to advance in the land of the Bible. Meaning that pastors can be rejuvenated. Seminarians can be rooted in the land and will have a much more fruitful ministry by being connected to the land and language of the Bible. If people would want to join what God is doing at Jerusalem Seminary, feel free to check us out at jerusalemseminary.org.

David Capes
That sounds great. Dr. Kvasnica, thanks for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”

Baruch Kvasnica
Thank you very much. My pleasure.

12

Posted on

Matthew and Luke on Jesus’ Birth

with Caleb Friedeman

To hear the podcast click here.


This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.


David Capes
Let’s talk about some of the specific things that you find in Matthew’s birth account and then let’s talk similarly about Luke as well. What’s happening in the birth narratives that we really need to payattention to.


Caleb Friedeman
I think part 1 cues us up to be attentive when we come to Matthew, besides just resituating the burden of proof, it also really makes us think about sources and how an author is using them. Because sourcesare one of the historiographic features. And by the way, I don’t think that Matthew cites sources, so he doesn’t use the historiographic feature of sources in his birth material. But what he does do is usesources pretty evidently. I do a pretty close analysis of both the genealogy and the birth narrative proper.


And one of the really fascinating things is a lot of scholars agree that Matthew is using sources for his genealogy, and particularly the Old Testament. Places like First Chronicles 1-3, places like Ruth 4 are pretty evidently in view there.

So he’s using these sources and actually following them fairly closely. And where he departs from
those sources, he seems to be operating within a range of flexibility that was acceptable for Jewish genealogies. So that’s interesting, and it doesn’t track very well with the idea that this is just legendary. Matthew is following sources. If all he wants to do is write a legendary genealogy, why not just take every big name, Old Testament figure that he admires. Why not put Isaiah in there, regardless of whether they were related in any way. Why not just have a random assortment of the hall of faith or something like that?


David Capes
Yes, why not put Moses in there. Throw Noah in there.


Caleb Friedeman
Exactly, yes. Obviously, he likes Isaiah a lot because he cites him. Why not include people like that in there if this is just legendary genealogies of sources. Though, we find, I think, sources heavily implied by the birth narrative proper. A lot of scholars tend to focus on Matthew’s use of the Old Testament as being something that counts against historiographic intent. I actually think a close analysis of that material pushes the other way.

Because when you look at Matthew’s fulfillment citations, to me it’s quite evident that those citations and the texts that he’s selected depend on the story. Why would you pull this precise group of texts together unless you already had traditions about Jesus that made you think about them. Because most of them are not things that you would just readily relate to a Davidic Messiah figure just in the abstract. You would need to have traditions about Jesus in front of you.
And then you say, okay, how does Jesus fulfill this part of the Old Testament. Oh, I see a connection here. And by the way, you can also pull the citations out, and the story works pretty well without them.And I’m not the first scholar to have observed that. It seems to me that Matthew is pretty evidently working with some existing traditions, and then he is adding these fulfillment quotations into that. He’s working with some kinds of sources when he’s writing this birth material. Those are just a couple of the key points that I make about Matthew. And then for both Matthew and Luke, I talk some about the time elapsed. We can come to that in just a minute.


David Capes
Well, let’s move over to Luke. What are some of the features then that we need to pay attention to in Luke historically?


Caleb Friedeman
Just a few quick points here. I think it makes us take Luke 1:1-4, the preface, very seriously. And what I mean by that is, many of these ancient biographers like Luke will include a blanket note about their sources at the beginning of the biography. Prior to the birth material that seems to apply to the whole. Philo, for example, does this in his life of Moses, and Luke does a similar thing here. Because we have analogies for this kind of thing. It makes us say, wait a second. We can’t just bracket out the birth material when Luke has just made this claim about going back to those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

We really need to think about how this material relates to that. Luke employs the historiographic feature of sources in Luke 1:1-4 and that applies to the birth material also. Though I argue that Luke actually presents Mary, Jesus’s mother, as a source within the birth material itself. Twice. Luke 2:19, and 2:51 where he describes Mary as preserving all the words in her heart. Based on my published dissertation. I’ve done that work there, and I reprise it here. But I make a fresh case for why we should regard that as a source marker.

And the last thing I’ll say, in terms of a historiographic feature, is I think Luke also employs what I wouldcall negative evaluation in the genealogy. When he says that Jesus was the Son as was thought, of Joseph. So that could be distancing. Where he just saying, I’m not willing to take responsibility for that claim. I think, though, when you read it in light of the rest of the account, where it’s pretty clear that Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, then it’s suggesting a negative judgment on the idea that Joseph was Jesus’s father in a normal biological sense.


David Capes
Yes, that’s said in the genealogy? Okay, that goes over into chapter 3 then as well.


Caleb Friedeman
Yes, and that’s another interesting piece of it too. If we’re asking where Luke’s birth material is, he includes the genealogy later in the midst of adult material. Which again, makes It very difficult at that point if you want to hold the legendary intent hypothesis. Because what is going to cue the reader to shift from reading historically? Because the first part of Luke 3 is about Jesus’ adulthood, then you go to ahistorical in the genealogy, and then back to historically in the temptation, which comes right after the genealogy. That doesn’t really make sense.


Here’s the other really interesting thing to me, though. If that analysis is correct, and Luke employs nhistoriographic features 1,2,3.4, times. Three instances of sources and one instance of evaluation. I can’t find anywhere else in the Gospel of Luke where he does that, where he employs historiographic features. So that would actually mean he uses historiographic features more in the birth material and in relation to the birth material than he does in relation to the rest of the life. So obviously Luke 1:1-4 is going to apply to the whole life. But that gives you one use of sources, the historiographic feature for the whole life, where you actually have three other historiographic features that pertain specifically to the birth material. So if there’s any material in the Gospel of Luke, that we should be clear that it’s intended to be historical, it’s the birth material.


David Capes
It’s right there because it has those markers as opposed to every other place. Well, that’s fascinating. That really is fascinating. Your next job is to parse all this out. You’ve clearly made the case that it’s the intent of Matthew and Luke to write a historical account of the birth in the origin stories of Jesus. Now we got to go into the story itself and to carefully go through and to make some judgments about individual pericope or episodes within that material.


Caleb Friedeman
Yes. I think one of the interesting things about making that kind of case is the point that I make about time elapsed regarding Matthew and Luke versus other ancient biographers. I mentioned earlier that we have 360 years on average between the subject’s birth and when people like Nepos, Philo, Plutarch and Suetonius are writing about their lives. Obviously, scholars take different positions as to when the Gospels are written. But, if you just take a fairly consensus date of, let’s say somewhere in the 70s. 70 to 80 let’s say for both Matthew and Luke, well, that would mean that they’re far closer. Closer by centuries, almost three centuries closer than most ancient biographers were, most of the time to the events they’re writing about. And probably
would have had access to sources that accord with that kind of distance. So potentially an eyewitness source, or at least someone who would have known an eyewitness.


David Capes
Yes, and that’s part of Richard Bauckham’s case in his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Well, we’ve got to come back to this, and we’re going to follow what you’re going to say about it in the next few years. Because I have a feeling there’s some articles and there’s some books following up on this. It needs to be done. Dr Caleb Friedeman, thanks for being with us today.

Posted on

Jesus’ Birth Stories with Caleb Friedeman

To hear the podcast click here.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and space. 

Caleb Friedeman 

Hi, I’m Dr Caleb Friedeman, and I serve as David A. Case Chair of Biblical Studies and Associate Research Professor of New Testament at Ohio Christian University. 

David Capes 

Dr Caleb Friedeman. Caleb, good to see you. This is your first appearance on The Stone Chapel Podcast. 

Caleb Friedeman 

Yes, great to be on. Thanks for having me. 

David Capes 

I got to know you at Wheaton College a few years back when you were there, and since then, you have finished your degree. You’ve graduated, got your PhD, and are doing great work at your university. 

Caleb Friedeman 

Yes! I had a great time at Wheaton and enjoyed getting to spend a little bit of time together there. And the Lord blessed me with the opportunity to come to Ohio Christian University after I graduated, I’ve been here for going on eight years now. It’s hard to believe, in some ways. It’s been a good ride. And have had a lot of opportunities to preach, to teach, to write, and just feel very blessed. 

David Capes 

Well, you’ve written some great things, and the book that we’re going to talk about today is no exception to that. It’s a very interesting thesis, that is cutting some new ground. But let’s give a little bit more information about you. For those who don’t know, Caleb Friedeman, who is he? 

Caleb Friedeman 

I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Lord led me through my education. I went to Asbury University for undergraduate, and then Wesley Biblical Seminary for an MA. Then I went to Wheaton College for PhD work, which, of course, is where you and I met. Then the Lord opened up this job at Ohio Christian University. Right after that, I am married to Isabella. She’s from Honduras, and we have one son, Paul. I’m an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene. So, I am both a biblical scholar, but I also have a pastoral piece to my calling as well. And I do have some interest outside of writing and teaching. In high school I was a competitive power lifter, and I play piano and guitar as well. Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 2 – 

David Capes 

Well, you’ve written a terrific book entitled Gospel Birth Narratives and Historiography. The subtitle is Reopening a Closed Case. It’s published by Baylor University Press. It’s a really impressive book. Congratulations on it. First of all, let’s talk a little bit about it. What’s the big idea of the book? What are you trying to do here? 

Caleb Friedeman 

Well, as the subtitle implies, the Gospel birth narratives have really been a closed case when it comes to historical Jesus scholarship, for quite some time, I’d say. Easily, reaching back five to six decades, and maybe even longer. Just as one sounding on that, if you do a run through major books on the historical Jesus over the last 40-50, years, you’ll be hard pressed to find a substantive discussion of Jesus’s birth and childhood, even in significant, lengthy monographs. And sometimes, if you do find any kind of discussion, it’s simply to say why they’re disregarding the material. We do have these two birth narratives in Matthew 1-2 to and Luke 1-2, but scholars typically haven’t taken them very seriously. And so I try to dig into that in the book, and I distinguish between two things, two kinds of skepticism you can have toward a source. 

One is skepticism of intent, which is basically to say, I don’t think that this source is intended to be historical. For example, if someone is trying to reconstruct the historical person Don Quixote, using the novel Don Quixote, then you might protest that this source is not intended to be historical. So, you’re just off on the wrong foot from the beginning. But the other kind of skepticism would be skepticism of truth. So that basically says, I recognize that this source is intended to be historical. I just don’t think that it’s correct at a given point. 

If you look at those two, they’re both valid, and they’re both very important to use at certain points if we’re trying to do historiography. But skepticism of intent is a lot more efficient if you can pull it off. Which is to say, if I can convince you that what you’re looking at is more like Don Quixote or Goldilocks or something, than it is like Thucydides or some other historian or some historical biography, then we don’t really need to discuss the historicity of individual events. Because we’re just not dealing with that kind of a source. 

And what I basically suggest in the introduction to the book is that the unique skepticism the scholars have leveled at the gospel birth narratives really is unique. I don’t know of another part of the gospels that we disregard in that way. That unique skepticism really depends on the skepticism of intent, because it’s hard to produce truth-oriented reasons that would justify ignoring historical sources in that way. And interestingly, you have had a good number of scholars, who really articulated a skepticism of intent. Even people like John Meyer, for example, doesn’t think that the birth stories are intended to be historical, necessarily. 

David Capes 

So, you have these two kinds of skepticism. Both can be useful in their own way when you’re dealing with the right kind of material, as you articulate. Since Richard Burridge’s work on the Gospels, a lot of Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 3 – 

people accept the idea the Gospels are meant to be an ancient kind of biography. That means they are intended to be taken as historical. 

Caleb Friedeman 

Yes, and I think Burridge and that whole trend of recognizing the Gospels are ancient biographies is really where my project starts. And interestingly, one of the things that I agree with scholars, whom I disagree overall with, is the fact that the Gospels are ancient biographies. And certainly, if not that, at least that ancient biographies give us the best comparisons for how we should be reading the gospels. One thing that’s interesting is, if you look at scholars who have made these kinds of arguments for why birth material should be regarded as legendary or, ahistorical, they’re typically appealing to ancient biographies. 

You might say the argument goes something like this. From the other side, the side that I’m pushing back against scholars will say something like this: birth material, or birth stories in ancient biographies was not intended to be historical. The Gospel birth narratives are in ancient biographies, and so the gospel birth narratives also are not meant to be historical. 

I basically take that argument on and say, I’ll grant you that we’re dealing with ancient biographies here and that that needs to be the backdrop. But I actually disagree on all points. I basically say, let’s start with ancient biographies and look and see how it seems like their authors intended them to be read. My argument is basically birth material in ancient biographies was intended to be historical. And as ancient biographies, then the birth material that we find in the gospels, like in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 is also intended to be historical. I spend the first part of the book dealing with a range of different ancient biographers and looking at how they write their birth material. And then I get into the gospel birth narratives in part 2. 

David Capes 

Let’s talk about some of those historians, or historical figures that you’re talking about. Give us a bit of a rundown. 

Caleb Friedeman 

I’m basically looking for biographers who wrote within a century of the Gospels on either side. And I’m also looking ideally for biographers who have written more than one biography that has birth material we can look at because a sample size of only one biography for an author isn’t the most helpful. I end up going with Cornelius Nepos, and he is actually our first Roman biographer. And then I do Philo, who only has one biography, his Life of Moses. But that has been such a major player in these discussions. Because it’s our only Jewish biography at all that it’s worth dealing with, even given that we only have the one. And then I also do Plutarch. Of course, many people are going to be familiar with Plutarch’s Lives, and those are some of our most important sources for reconstructing what ancient biography was like. And then I do Suetonius as well. I spend a chapter on each of those authors. 

Just a little bit of the backstory of this book too. I mentioned earlier that there are these scholars who are making these cases about ancient biographies. When I was getting into scholarship, even preparing for PhD work, I started to read this scholarly literature about gospel birth narratives. And it wasn’t just Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 4 – 

about the historical parts. I was just reading things like Raymond Brown’s Birth of the Messiah and reading a whole range of works about the gospel birth narratives. And I kept encountering this claim by various authors that this material wasn’t intended to be historical. They were citing ancient biographies to back this up. And at some point, I just said to myself, okay, I want to go read this stuff for myself and see what’s going on. 

I started reading the kinds of biographies that were cited. For example, Plutarch’s Life of Alexander or Romulus or Suetonius Biography of Augustus. I just kept noticing these features that didn’t really track with the story I’d been told about what these biographies were supposed to be doing. For example, they would do things like cite sources for the information they were giving. Well, that’s an odd thing to do if you’re just writing something that’s meant to be legendary. I don’t find a lot of source citation in fairy tales. I would see something like that, or I would find a biographer mentioning differences among their sources. There are three accounts of how this happened. Here’s how the first one goes. Here’s how the second one goes. Here’s how the third one goes. And then they might even go further and say, and I’m going to evaluate these and tell you which one I think is the most accurate or truthful. Or maybe I’ll come up with my own reconstruction of what’s going on. 

And then one last thing is they would sometimes distance themselves from more miraculous or supernatural kinds of claims, or just more fantastic kinds of things. What I mean by distancing is basically putting distance between their authorial reputation and the claim that’s being made. Instead of simply asserting that, a God had intercourse with the subject’s mother and then that led to this person being born. They might say it is said that and then give the tradition. Plutarch might not want to be held accountable for that material, but it allows him to pass on this information into sources without taking responsibility for it, which again, indicates a historiographic consciousness. 

Those four things that I just mentioned, I call those historiographic features, and they’re the basis of the analysis in this book. Those would be sources. And by that, I mean citation of sources in some form or indication that an author has sources. And then transparency, that’s where you note differences between accounts. Then evaluation, where you evaluate the trustworthiness of those accounts, and then distancing, where you distance your reputation from a claim. I basically use those as at least one key part of my analysis when I get to these ancient biographers, and then also when I talk about the gospel birth narratives in part two. 

David Capes 

You have these criteria that you’ve looked at and evaluating. Now, Plutarch writes, in his Lives, I think about 50 plus different people. But he doesn’t give birth narratives to everyone right? 

Caleb Friedeman 

Correct! 

David Capes 

So, birth narratives aren’t necessarily a given feature of every biography. 

Caleb Friedeman Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 5 – 

Yes, that’s right. I would say some people have failed to notice that, and other folks have noticed that, but failed to consider the significance. One of the things that I talk about for Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch and Suetonius, because that’s the only place where you have the opportunity to talk about absence. Because obviously Philo has got birth material, so he’s not going to have absence because he has no other biography. When I am looking at these authors that have multiple ancient biographies, one of the things I talk about is how we make sense of the absence of birth material from their biographies. 

So not only do we find historiographic features in the birth material of many of these biographies, we also find that many of their biographies don’t have any birth material at all, or that the amount varies a lot. In some cases, you might have only a line or a sentence or two on somebody, or just even a very short sentence, if they’re just spinning all this out of whole cloth, and they don’t need any sources. They’re just making stuff up. Why not just have the same amount of birth material for everyone, or have the amount of birth material scale to how much they like the figure that they’re writing about. Which, again, just doesn’t seem to be the case. 

You find all kinds of places where you don’t have that kind of scaling. For example, I believe Thrasybulus is one of Cornelius Nepos favorite subjects, and he doesn’t give him birth material. Why? If all this stuff is meant to be is some sort of legendary, non-historical anticipation of what this person is going to become as an adult. It just doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I think that the better explanation for that absence is actually that the reason we have absence, in some cases, is either because the biographer lacks sources, which is the kind of problem a historian or a historical biographer would have for sure. Or the information in their sources just wasn’t relevant or interesting enough to include. But what that really keeps out of bounds is the idea that, they’re just making this stuff up. 

David Capes 

Yes. I like that. I think that’s an important part of the argument. Now, what we find too, in the New Testament is that Mark begins and has no birth narrative. And same thing is said of the Gospel of John as well. There’s not really a birth narrative. There’s a theological prologue in GJohn that talks about his pre-existence. But that seems to be of a different class than saying the things that you say in these birth narrative 

Caleb Friedeman 

Yes, I would say the fact that Mark and John don’t have what we might call a birth narrative proper has actually become a lot less surprising to me the more that I’ve studied ancient biographies Because you just begin to recognize this is not a requirement or even a norm necessarily that you’re going to have these. There are too many exceptions to say that this was a universal requirement, or even something that was odd to leave out. 

Just for example, as you look across those four authors that I mentioned, Nepos, Philo, Plutarch and Suetonius, I analyze 95 biographies from those authors. I can only discuss so many of those in detail in the chapters, but I give tables at the end of the book in appendixes that actually give an analysis of historiographic features of things like omens and miracles if they’re there. Then something called time elapsed, which we can come back to. But I give my analysis and those tables at the back. Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 6 – 

If you go through and look, I also talk about where the birth material actually is in each life. I think it’s 18 of the 95 that don’t have any birth material whatsoever. And then that’s even being very gracious, because I’m counting things like, if there’s a sentence that pertains to the person’s childhood or birth. I’m including that as birth material. So on that count, actually, if you were to grant that any kind of claim about someone’s childhood or birth counts as birth material, then you might say that Mark and John have a little bit because, you’ll find a mention about being the son of Mary or the son of Joseph. 

David Capes 

And it’d not necessarily in the first chapter or the first writing that you encounter, but you encounter in the story that he has brothers and sister and those types of things. 

Caleb Friedeman 

And by the way, if you want to say, let’s not count that kind of stuff, and you then had a harder line analysis for all these other ancient biographies that I deal with. Well, you might end up saying that a lot more than 18 don’t have birth material. 

David Capes 

Yes, exactly. 

Caleb Friedeman 

I just say that I think what we find as you cross the four Gospels and whether or not they have birth material is within the range of what we’d expect for ancient biographies. I don’t think that it’s particularly unusual that Mark and John don’t have a birth narrative, and then that Matthew and Luke do. 

David Capes 

I guess the bottom line is that ancient biographies, when they did talk about birth material, their intention was to say, I’m writing history here, and I’m making judgments about that history. And so when we come to the Gospels, we can say that at least the intention of Matthew and the intention of Luke is to say that I’m writing history here. Not only in the things that Jesus said and did as an adult, but also in the stories of his origins, the stories of his family. Even those that are interlaced with some dream interpretation and visions and those kinds of things. 

Caleb Friedeman 

I think that’s exactly right. And I guess the way that I would put it is Matthew and Luke and other ancient biographers wrote their birth material with historiographic intent. That’s to say that they didn’t have a unique approach to this material vis a vis other parts of their biographies. All I’m really saying is we need to read this material the same way we would read anything else in a nature biography. Instead of treating it as a special case, we just should approach it with the same kinds of assumptions that we approach their accounts of the person’s adulthood. And that should be self-evident, but I think it hasn’t been in scholarship, and that has generated the need for this kind of book. 

In addition to historiographic features and the absence of birth material that I look at, I also look at a couple other elements. One is their use of supernatural elements. Here I include both omens, which are Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 7 – 

things that today we might call coincidences, but the people in ancient times often saw significance to. You would maybe have a coincidence, and then you would interpret it in a certain way. So that would be something like an omen. Then you actually have supernatural events, which you might call miracles, where the biographer is actually affirming that something happens. One thing that’s really interesting coming out of that is that number one, you really don’t find biographers typically making miracle claims in birth material a lot. 

Usually, if they’re going to relate something supernatural, I would say the vast majority of the time, they’re going to include a historiographic feature that’s going to either distance them from it or make it just an act of transparency, where I have this in my sources. But it’s actually fairly rare to find a biographer affirming that kind of stuff. The number of supernatural claims that you find in birth material and these four ancient biographers that I deal with is actually fairly minimal. 

The other thing that’s interesting that I look at is the time elapsed between the subject’s birth, and when the biographer is writing the biography. And obviously it’s a little hard to analyze that, because you don’t know exactly when these things were published or and it’s even harder to say when the research began. When did Plutarch begin researching this person’s life? But I do that kind of calculus, just as a broad way of making a comparison. If you look across those four authors and their biographies, what I find is that the average time elapsed across all 95 biographies from those four biographers is over 360 years. 

David Capes 

Wow, that’s a long time. 

Caleb Friedeman 

That’s the kind of remove that they’re operating in. And. It doesn’t tell you anything about their intention, but it does tell you something about the kinds of sources they would have had available to them, or that they wouldn’t have had available to them. For example, in very, very few, if any cases, are these four biographers, outside the Gospels, going to have access to eyewitness sources, or even to family members of the person. Or people who knew eyewitnesses well. 360 years. Then you do a comparison to Matthew and Luke, and it becomes really interesting. 

But I just wanted to mention those two things, because they are pretty important for part one of the book. What all that does I think, is resituates the burden of proof when you get to the gospel birth narrative. If ancient biographers tended to write their birth material intended to be historical, then that means that if we’re going to deny that for Matthew and Luke, we need to have really good reasons why. But prior to that kind of analysis, I think many people would have said, well, you need to have extraordinary reasons to think that Matthew and Luke did intend their birth material to be historical. And I’m saying actually no, it’s the other way around. 

David Capes 

Yes. There are certain assumptions driving scholarship very often. And I’m curious what your conclusions were about the time between the events of the birth of Jesus and then the writing of that. You’re not talking about 360 years. You’re talking about, in some cases, maybe 60 years later, or 70 Transcribed by https://otter.ai – 8 – 

years later. There are some that would date Luke, and Matthew, or both into the second century. But more and more, it’s interesting to note that people are actually beginning to date the Gospels a bit earlier than they were just even a few years ago. This is really fascinating. You’ve done a fantastic job. We’re talking to Caleb Friedeman about his book, Gospel Birth Narratives in Historiography: Reopening a Closed Case. So, is it closed again, or is it still open? What do you think? 

Caleb Friedeman 

Well, I guess the case that I want to open is actually talking about the historical value of what Matthew and Luke are saying about Jesus’s birth and childhood. I think the reason it’s reopening a closed case is because it’s saying these are historical sources that we need to analyze as historical sources. As opposed to simply dismissing them as being legendary or non-historical. The analysis that you still need, or where the scholarship still needs to be done, is to say, if they’re intended to be historical, how well do they achieve that? I would say, by and large, scholars haven’t really even been asking that question for several decades. You might be able to find a few exceptions to that, but I would say by and large, we really haven’t been asking the question about truth. If we’re talking about intent and truth, I think I’ve done my best to answer the intent question in this book. Now the truth question remains, where I’d like to see us do more work. 

David Capes 

Dr Caleb Friedeman has been with us today to talk about his book, Gospel Birth Narratives in Historiography: Reopening a Closed Case. It’s a fascinating book, an important contribution to the study of the New Testament and of the life of Jesus, the historical Jesus. He is reopening a case that has been closed on many accounts. Thanks for being with us today. Dr Friedeman. 

Caleb Friedeman 

Thanks, David. It’s been great to be here.