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Dating The New Testament   The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History?   The Jesus Myth
 

Recently ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and FOX have featured programs about Jesus. Inevitably, two things come up:

The only information we have about Jesus is in the Bible, specifically the 4 Gospels, and we can't trust them;

Jesus was (if he existed at all) certainly a great man, but no more than that.

Neither of these assumptions is correct. Dr. John Ankerberg spoke with two biblical scholars to learn what they had to say about the Bible vs. other classical literature, interpretive assumptions, and Jesus - His deeds and His claims about Himself.

Dr. Craig Evans

1. The evidence about Jesus is better than we have for any other historical figure of his time.

Dr. John ANKERBERG: Craig, Peter Jennings opened his special with these words. He says, "We suspected that reliable sources would be hard to come by" in terms of investigating Jesus. And they constantly hammered on the theme that there’s a lack of evidence concerning Jesus’ life. Is that true?

Dr. Craig EVANS: Well, it depends on what you mean by that. There’s not a lack of evidence if you’re talking about ancient sources that tell us the important things that Jesus said and did. If you’re talking about stuff that’s of popular interest like, "How tall was Jesus?" Or, "What color was His hair or His eyes?" Yeah, we don’t have information about that. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is what He said, what He did, how He understood Himself, how He understood His mission–and we have plenty of reliable material for that.

ANKERBERG: Compare the material that we have for Jesus with, say, of Caesar or any other historical figure of that time.

EVANS: Well, it’s above average. We have more information about some of the Roman emperors, but for goodness’ sakes, what are we talking about? We’re talking about the Roman emperor and Jesus is in that same league. We have four biographies about Him and with some of the Caesars we have maybe one biography or maybe two; for some, nothing at all. So Jesus compares very favorably, never mind comparing against other, say, ordinary people. But compared the Roman Caesars, I think He compares rather well.

2. Ancient biographies often had a theological bias.

ANKERBERG: Now some people would say the information we have is not historical biographies because the guys have so much theology in there. But say, compare that with Tiberius Caesar, the guys that wrote about him.

EVANS: There’s theology in everything that’s written in antiquity. They don’t make that distinction—"Well, this is secular and this is theological". Everything is theological. The question for the Caesars was to what extent did the gods assist, help, inspire, guide, whatever, the Roman Caesar? So that same idea underlies any kind of biographical writing in late antiquity. And so just because the New Testament Gospel writers have a theological interest and that’s what drives them to tell the story of Jesus in the first place, that doesn’t disqualify their writing. It doesn’t make it suddenly unhistorical or of no value.

ANKERBERG: Yeah. Give me some examples of ancient history where you have the same thing come up and yet no historians would throw that information out.

EVANS: Well, there are all sorts of information from Suetonius and other ancient historians who talk about certain events in the lives of these Caesars as they grow up and historians normally accept that, unless it’s something really fantastic or strange this information is readily accepted. Historians of classical antiquity and history use the Gospels for information about what was going on in Palestine in this period of time. For some reason, biblical critics are highly skeptical, excessively so in many cases, and always approach with sort a hermeneutic of skepticism or hermeneutic of doubt when they approach the Gospels—and that’s strange, because historians of classical antiquity, they don’t do that.

3. The best place to find information about a person is to start with his contemporaries.

ANKERBERG: All right, for a news reporter or a historian, let’s talk about, where does a person start when you want to find information about Jesus? What is the historical method? What’s accepted among the scholars?

EVANS: Well, where you begin, you begin with your oldest sources, your oldest and most reliable sources. And we’ve got them. We have four Gospels in the New Testament. But there are other gospels and some people think, Well, what about the Gospel of Peter? Or what about the Gospel of Thomas? Or what about this source or that source? Well fine. Scholars who’ve studied them, they don’t compare very well. Their secondary, second century and later. And I think for good scholarly reasons, these gospels, by most scholars, are held in reserve and are not considered of primary importance as are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

ANKERBERG: All right, so if you go to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, a lot of the folks in the Jesus Seminar would say Matthew didn’t write Matthew; Mark didn’t write Mark; Luke didn’t write Luke and John didn’t write John. Okay? What do you say to those people?

EVANS: Well, okay, again I think we’ve got a little too much skepticism going on here. The early Church believed that Matthew the Apostle wrote Matthew, and that a figure named John, possibly the Apostle John, wrote John. But the early Church says Mark and whose Mark wrote Mark. They didn’t say James or they didn’t say Peter. They didn’t come up with some apostle for Mark. What does that say? And they come up with Luke? Who’s he? Apart from his authorship of Luke, Acts, we don’t really know anything about Luke. He’s just a name in one of Paul’s letters. So why does the Church choose two non-apostolic authors of the Gospels? It’s because I think they are trying to be accurate and trying to remember who really did write these things anyway. So to me that’s a strong indication of the veracity of the Tradition. Matthew probably did have something to do with the Gospel of Matthew; and someone named John, possibly the Apostle John, had something to do with John. And Mark probably is the author of Mark and Luke probably the author of Luke.

4. "Conspiracy theory" won’t work to explain away the Gospel accounts about Jesus.

ANKERBERG: What would you say to guys that are so skeptical they say, "Well, you know, even Papias and those guys that lived and wrote before, say, 110 A.D. and mentioned those fellows in that connection, they were in cahoots, in other words, they were part of the Church so they were all building the case here. I mean, where do secular scholars draw the line and say, "That’s too skeptical?"

EVANS: Well, that’s a subjective call I realize but the way you phrase that question, it sounds almost like a conspiracy theory.

ANKERBERG: Right.

EVANS: These people are putting their lives on the line. They’re being murdered in some cases, imprisoned, they lose their jobs. I mean, there are scary things going on. They’re not in cahoots at all. They’re looking for the truth and there better be something to it or they’re not going to believe it. I’m not going to lose my job, I’m not going to be imprisoned, I’m not going to be executed for some kind of a thing that I know is false or something that’s a conspiracy. I’m not going to be in cahoots with somebody just so that I can pull the wool over the public’s eyes. And I find that kind of argument not very persuasive.

5. All the evidence, both internal and external, indicates that the Gospels are credible.

ANKERBERG: Go the opposite way. Tell us why it’s acceptable to scholars that probably the writers, the traditional writers, did write it. In other words, that we do have good information from people rather relatively close to the fellows that wrote the stuff who verified it.

EVANS: Sure. What’s so strange about the idea that somebody would put to writing, set down in writing, the life, the teaching and the events, the major events, of somebody that in their opinion fulfilled prophecy, was the long awaited Messiah and Redeemer of Israel. What’s so strange that after the passing of 30 years or so this is all put to writing? We would expect that. It would be very strange if they had not. So I’m not surprised at all that several Gospels within one generation were produced. That really is what we should expect.

6. Ancient historians had a purpose for writing, and for including or excluding certain material.

ANKERBERG: All right, now, talk about the methodology of writers in ancient history as well as the New Testament writers, how did they go about organizing their material? In other words, Matthew seemed to be writing to a certain crowd; Luke seemed to be writing to a different crowd; John seemed to be writing to a different crowd. Is that bad? Does that automatically knock one writer out versus another? How did people in ancient history write?

EVANS: Well, that’s how they wrote. And the whole idea in writing a story was, there was a moral to it. There was something about it. It taught the youths something. It conveyed and passed on values. That was the whole purpose. And so there was always a slant to how one wrote. But the Gospels, what are interesting about them in comparison to other biographies an antiquity, you have this very old, very archaic material that survives. Sometimes even though the Greek gets bumpy because of the underlying Hebrew or Aramaic, and it smacks of antiquity and originality, authenticity. You don’t just have real smooth, polished Greek speeches the way you usually do in the Greco-Roman sources. But you get a little bit of this...you know you read and you think, "This is kind of funny. It sounds a little better in Hebrew or Aramaic." And I think that’s a sign of the originality and antiquity that we see at work in the Gospels.

7. Jesus probably spoke predominately in Aramaic.

ANKERBERG: What language do you think Jesus spoke?

EVANS: Well, I think He predominantly spoke Aramaic, but linguistic study in late antiquity in Israel—and by that I mean inscriptions that we find. We find inscriptions of graves, on ossuaries, bone boxes; the manuscripts that we have found and so on—you can’t rule out Greek and even Hebrew. I think in Judea itself and in Jerusalem the language spoken there was probably more Hebrew than it was Aramaic. You go up into Galilee where Jesus ministered and where He was raised, and it’s more Aramaic than it is Hebrew. And yet you’ve got Greek everywhere. And so I think it’s distinctly possible that when Jesus was speaking, for example, to the Syro-Phoenician woman He may very well have been speaking to her in Greek. When He was being interrogated by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, that conversation may very well have taken place in Greek.

8. We need to be realistic about the kind of physical evidence you should expect to find from someone who lived 2,000 years ago.

ANKERBERG: Jennings stated, "All but the most skeptical historians believed Jesus was a real person even though when you come here"—talking about coming to the Holy Land—"you do not find any physical evidence." They’re talking about the rock that Mary sat on and stuff like this. My question is, What kind of evidence should people expect to find in the Holy Land today regarding Jesus?

EVANS: Well, of course, I mean, a question like that would exclude 99.99 percent of the population that had ever lived in Palestine in late antiquity. I mean, what kind of evidence is he talking about? Pieces of property with your name inscribed on it? I guess. In which case we have precious little evidence. About the only time anybody’s name shows up on something is on an epitaph; it’s on his grave; it’s on a tomb; it’s on a bone box. That’s about it. And so I don’t know what evidence we can talk about.

ANKERBERG: Yeah, talk about the other way of the archaeological evidence, some of the archaeological evidence that we have found in the Holy Land that substantiates the New Testament record. It’s not every piece of the New Testament record, but you’ve got enough that it makes it credible. In other words, if there are some things that show up like the stuff that Luke said in Acts and in Luke, what are the things that stand out in your mind that have been found, say, in the last 20 years archaeologically that substantiate we’ve got a solid historical account?

EVANS: Yeah. Well, there are several things that come to mind. One of the things that’s very interesting is the way Jesus replies to John the Baptist and he wants to know, "Are you really the one who is coming or do we look for somebody else?" And Jesus, in an almost indirect way, says, "Well, go back and tell John what you see and hear: the blind regain their sight, etc." and we read that and we think, early Christians didn’t make that up because they’re not going to make up a story about John expressing doubt about Jesus. And they’re not going to make up a story where Jesus indirectly replies. And so that was accepted as authentic but people were left wondering, how come Jesus doesn’t come right out and say, "Well, I’m the Messiah. Go back and tell him, ‘Of course I am.’" Well, then we find a scroll from Qumran and we realize the way He replied was indeed messianic. The passages of Isaiah He was alluding to — it’s clearly messianic. It’s discoveries like that long the way, and we realize, "Huh! the reason we didn’t understand it before is we just didn’t know any better. We just lacked the information." The culture, the background, things that anybody living in Palestine in the first century just took for granted we don’t know. You get a Ph.D. basically. You get a Ph.D. today to know some of what the average illiterate person knew back then. And it really is funny when you think about it. And so there are things we find and we realize, "Ah! now we understand the Gospels better," or we realize, "Yeah, they’re telling the truth all along but we just didn’t know because we lacked the information. There are examples like that.

9. Luke (author of the Gospel that bears his name) claims to have checked many sources, including eyewitnesses, before writing both Luke and Acts.

ANKERBERG: All right, you’ve written a commentary on Luke. Luke says, in the very first verse, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us from those who from the first were eyewitnesses." What was he talking about? What do these words mean?

EVANS: Well, it’s very clear what he means by that. He’s going to provide an accurate account of the important elements in the life of Jesus. And there is no reason in the study of Luke and Acts to think that he did not do that. Luke wrote a very good history, very reliable history, and where he can be checked, where we actually can compare what he says to other sources in late antiquity, Luke has it right.

ANKERBERG: When Luke says, "Hey, when I came on the scene, many had already written an account," what kind of stuff was he looking at do you think?

EVANS: Well, he may very well have been talking about an early edition of Mark, an early edition of a collection of Jesus’ sayings. At least, it’s in the plural, at least two other accounts already are in circulation, maybe more than that. And so his Gospel is not one of the first, it’s one of a series.

ANKERBERG: Okay, he says, "Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account." What do those words mean, "I myself have carefully investigated these reports"? How did he do that?

EVANS: Well, if he is indeed the Luke of Luke/Acts, and I believe he is, then he’s an eyewitness to some extent. He actually is with Paul during some of his travels in the Book of Acts. It also means he’s been in Palestine. He’s actually had a chance to meet face-to-face with some of the living eyewitnesses, people who could tell him things about what Jesus said and did; people who saw Him with their own eyes.

ANKERBERG: Now, why then would modern scholars doubt what the man claims? Is that fair?

EVANS: No. I don’t think it is fair. I think, again, it’s this hyper-skepticism that’s at work. And they look at that and the very verses that you read at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, they say, "Well, that’s formulaic. That’s the kind of things that historians write." And then they go on and politicize and say whatever they want. But I think it’s unfair to assume that an author of the caliber of Luke says this and doesn’t really mean it and doesn’t really live up to it.

ANKERBERG: Yeah. Anything else you can say about that kind of skepticism that would be an illustration from ancient history that suggests you shouldn’t do that. You ought to give the benefit of the doubt, whether the guy is a Christian, Buddhist, Gnostic, agnostic or whatever.

EVANS: The benefit of the doubt is in fact given to ancient historians. That’s the routine. If you have reason to suspect the veracity, if you have reason to suspect their motives, fine. But routinely the benefit of the doubt is given to our ancient sources. It’s something about skeptical biblical scholars who do not give the benefit of the doubt to New Testament writers. And I don’t know what that is. It’s a disease or something.

ANKERBERG: Okay. Take, besides Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, let’s stray for a moment into Peter’s book because Peter is also a part of the New Testament and what he said is that, you know, "we have not devised cunning tales in making known unto you the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His glory." Okay? Does this kind of stuff count when Peter just says in black and white, "Hey! We were eyewitnesses."

EVANS: Well, there’s an irony in this whole thing and that is, classical scholars who study classical history lament the lack of sources, but biblical scholars, skeptical biblical scholars, discount the sources they do have.

10. The Gospels are not contradictory versions of Jesus’ life.

ANKERBERG: Peter Jennings said, "Scholars told us early on that they don’t take everything they read in the New Testament literally because the New Testament is four different and sometimes contradictory versions of Jesus’ life." Do we have four contradictory versions of Jesus’ life? Or is there something going on?

EVANS: No. That’s an exaggeration. We have four Gospel accounts. They are not the same, that is quite true. Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar. John is very different. However, what they do is, they give us different aspects of Jesus’ life and they’re attempting to do different things. They’re speaking to different audiences. They cover different material. They present it in different ways—they arrange it and present it differently. And so I think the fact of the differences is exaggerated and they are not really that different. And the portrait of Jesus as it images is remarkably coherent and consistent.

If we had four Gospels that said essentially the same thing, then people would suspect collusion. They’d say, "Hey, this is artificial. This just isn’t the way it is." And so the diversity provides us like a check and a balance and we realize, Hey, we’ve got four different sources coming at it from different angles and yet a unified picture still emerges.

ANKERBERG: Give me a real example of where the scholars, like the Jesus Seminar, would say they do contradict each other that you think would show, not collusion, but the fact is, the veracity by the fact that they did say it differently.

EVANS: One of the very obvious differences, Matthew, Mark and Luke give the Jesus’ temple cleansing, as it’s traditionally called, His temple action, at the end of His ministry. John places it at the beginning of His ministry in John chapter 2. What’s going on there? And if we had collusion, if we had something that was artificial, I don’t think that would happen. John puts it at a different location. He’s trying to make a different point. I think he’s trying to present Jesus as something over against the Temple establishment and he wants his entire story stamped with that, so it’s presented near the beginning.

For Mark, it occurs near the end, which is when I think, on a historical level, it probably happened.

ANKERBERG: Is there anything wrong with them choosing that?

EVANS: No. Why not? In fact, that’s what I think accounts for why John is so different from Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is trying to do something very different. I mean, he ought to be given a Pulitzer Prize. It’s an interesting piece of literature that he’s put together. So he’s giving us some theology. He has given us confessional material and at the same time he’s updating it and trying to make it very relevant for a persecuted and recently excommunicated Church at the end of the first century. And John does it very effectively and he can’t do it by just simply giving us a fourth synoptic Gospel.

11. Paul’s writings are right in line with the Gospel accounts.

ANKERBERG: Now, pull Paul in here, too, in terms of showing that we have information that we could trust in the Synoptics and John via Paul because the Gospels may be "out" in terms of some of the scholars, but Paul is "in." Well, if Paul is "in," what does that tell you about the Synoptics?

EVANS: When some of the scholars say that Paul doesn’t really know the Gospel tradition or doesn’t relate to it, they’re wrong because you have the tradition of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in Paul in various places–like the words of institution: the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11; or the eyewitnesses of the Resurrection mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15. There is important Matthew, Mark, Luke tradition right there in Paul years before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written.

12. At least two of the Gospel writers were eyewitnesses, the other two certainly knew eyewitnesses.

ANKERBERG: Peter Jennings said in the Special: "It is pretty much agreed among scholars that the Gospel writers were not eyewitnesses." What would you say to that?

EVANS: Well, two of the Gospel writers were not eyewitnesses but that does not mean they did not know eyewitnesses. Two of the other Gospel writers may very well have been–and that’s Matthew and John. And so again, Jennings’ statement reflects what I think is a hypercritical stand that’s entertained by some scholars but not by all.

13. The Gospels were written within a generation after Jesus’ death.

ANKERBERG: Another statement that he made was, "In fact, the Gospels were probably written 40 to 100 years after Jesus’ death." Where would you place them?

EVANS: Okay, 40 to 100 years. That’s way too far. I would put them more like 35 to 50 years after Jesus’ death.

ANKERBERG: And if they are 35 to 50 years after Jesus’ death, if He died in 30 A.D. and they’re on the newsstands at 60 A.D. up to say 85 A.D., what does that tell you about the content of those books?

EVANS: Well, the books are written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and written in the lifetime of people who knew what Jesus said and did.

That’s another important thing about it. The Gospels are very honest about the criticism that’s leveled against Jesus. And so you have some critics saying, "Oh, sure. He performs miracles. Yes, He can cast out demons. But He had Satan’s help in doing that." And the Gospels acknowledge, admit that, yeah, there’s controversy. But what I find interesting, as a historian, is that whether you accept Him or not, whether you believe in Him or not, everybody acknowledges He did those things.

14. The "Gospel of Peter" was not a source for Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

ANKERBERG: There are other documents that aren’t a part of what we call the traditional New Testament. How should scholars, how should people in general evaluate these when the Jesus Seminar is pulling them up and making them like the Fifth Gospel? Do you agree with that kind of thinking?

EVANS: No. I don’t. On the level of as a historian and as a scholar, I think everything is "fair game." And if somebody finds a Gospel, they did it up and find it in Israel tomorrow, I want to look at it and take it very seriously. So in that sense I don’t privilege the canonical Gospels. Just because they’re in the Canon, that doesn’t mean that everything else will be ignored or belittled or something like that. But, after doing the study, what are the results? I’m not impressed by the Gospel of Thomas. I’m not impressed by the Gospel of Peter. I think that book has no credibility at all. And some of the other writings.

ANKERBERG: Why?

EVANS: Well, I could give you a grocery list of items that are serious problem with the Gospel of Peter. The Gospel of Peter contains fantastic and bizarre elements that smack of the second century. The Gospel of Peter has ruling priests and members of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Sanhedrin, sleeping over in a cemetery. Anybody who knows anything about Judaism and their concern with corpse impurity and that sort of thing–a sleep-over in a cemetery! You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s in the Gospel of Peter. And Dom Crossan says this contains the earliest account of the Resurrection. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are dependent upon it? Give me a break! That just won’t wash. Sorry, Dom.

ANKERBERG: That’s right. But that’s exactly the truth. Anything else?

EVANS: Well, the non-canonical Gospels have been carefully studied. Almost all scholars view them as secondary and inferior to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I know that the Jesus Seminar in recent years have made them in vogue. The Gospel of Peter, though, contains anachronistic things. The author of the Gospel of Peter isn’t really sure who rules Judea. He seems confused with who Herod is, with Pilate. He doesn’t understand Jewish customs and traditions. There’s a touch of Gnosticism, I think, or something like that which shows up in Peter. All of these things. The very description of the Resurrection itself. Two angels who are giants whose heads reach up into the heavens. They go into the tomb. They bring Jesus out. His head goes above the heavens. This is the NBA "Dream Team." And what comes out following them is the cross? What is this cross doing? Is it a pogo stick, boing, boing, boing, following these three? And then a voice from Heaven says, "Have you preached to them that sleep?" And who answers the question? The cross. Not one of the angels. Not Jesus. The cross does. And we’re told, "Oh, yeah, this could date back to the 50’s of the first century and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are dependent on it." I don’t believe that. And most scholars don’t either.

15. The Jesus Seminar does not speak for biblical scholarship.

ANKERBERG: What is the opinion of the European scholars, many of them that we’re going to interview in Europe, concerning our American Jesus Seminar group?

EVANS: The opinion is not very good, to put it mildly. Continental scholarship, they either haven’t heard of the Jesus Seminar or if they have, they dismiss it derisively. British scholarship, it’s just the same way. They.... "They Jesus Seminar! Oh, you must be kidding. Does anybody take them seriously?" That’s the European response. I’ve seen that firsthand.

ANKERBERG: What about in scholarly circles in our own country? When you go to your meetings with the other scholars, do they lead the way?

EVANS: No. They do not. They try to be influential and they’ve had positions of leadership; but I’m an active member of the Historical Jesus section of the Society of Biblical Literature. Three, four hundred show up typically at their meetings. That’s about 10 times what typically show up at a Jesus Seminar meeting. And the Jesus Seminar guys, when they present their distinctive views–like a non-eschatological Jesus, or the Gospel of Peter as a primary source for the other Gospels–those views are simply–to put it with slang–"blown out of the water." These are minority opinions and they do not hold sway in the larger cross-section of Gospel scholars throughout North America.

ANKERBERG: Then are the scholars astonished that they get such great press?

EVANS: I think they are, but then I think they look at that as that’s the way the media operates and they’re not impressed.

16. Jesus was a complicated person.

ANKERBERG: Okay, we’re going to come back to this thing of, there are so many different Jesuses that are being written about. You’ve got the Spirit Jesus, the Exorcist Jesus; you’ve got the Revolutionary Jesus; the Peasant Jesus. You know? What’s going on here in terms of methodology? How do you get to these different Jesuses and what’s also wrong with just coming out with the specific kind of Jesus: the Peasant Jesus, the Spirit Jesus, etc.?

EVANS: Well, part of the problem is, there’s a grain of truth in all of it. Jesus was called Rabbi. So to refer to Him as "Rabbi" I think is legitimate. He refers to Himself as a prophet and is regarded by others, we are told, as a prophet. So I think that’s true, too. He is a healer and He is a man of the Spirit, and so a lot of these categories are, to some extent, accurate. The least accurate, in my view, is that Jesus is to be regarded as a philosopher. And what is terribly inaccurate is to compare Him to a cynic. And so I think what happens with scholars is they get hold of a particular facet, they find it fascinating, and they pursue it. And sometimes to the expense of other legitimate categories. The truth of the matter is, Jesus was a complicated person. He was an unusual individual and incorporated many, many of these dimensions within His own person and in His ministry.

Now, part of the problem with the "cynic" for hypothesis–if I may pursue that one–is the archaeology does not support it. A number of years ago, archaeology at Sepphoris, a town which is just four miles away from Nazareth, so Jesus grew up, you might say, in shadow of Sepphoris, a city on a hill nearby. And it’s a city that was very urbanized and scholars thought, "Hey! This is a Greco-Roman city and Greco-Roman cities have cynics in them. So perhaps Jesus was influenced by a cynic." The problem is that now that they’ve pretty well completed their work, it turns out that Sepphoris was a very Jewish city prior to the year 70. How do they know that? There’s no pig bones in the dump. It’s interesting how archaeology can do these things. After 70, it then becomes a heavily Gentilized city. There’s a Greco-Roman presence. And we find pig bones in the dump. In fact, one third of the bones are from pork and swine and so on. And so we realize, Hey, this was a Jewish city. There weren’t any cynics in this city. There weren’t any cynics there in Sepphoris to influence Jesus in nearby Nazareth.

17. Jesus’ "revolutionary" cry was for national repentance.

ANKERBERG: All right in talking there let’s talk about environment shaping Jesus’ views. He’s living next to Sepphoris and you’ve got other towns, and the Romans have done things to the Jews down through the years. Bring me up to speed here in terms of Jesus’ period of time when He lived, how much influence was there from the Romans on the Jewish people that would have influenced Jesus’ life. Could it have made Him into a political revolutionary?

EVANS: Well, yes, I suppose so. Jesus, depending on how you define revolutionary, Jesus was a revolutionary. Why? He wanted the Old Testament laws to be observed: taking care of widows and orphans and that sort of thing. That’s why He faults the Temple establishment. They’re oppressing these people; they’re not helping them. So is that the message of a revolutionist? Yes. In a sense it is. But His message went far beyond that. His was a call for national repentance in view of the coming judgment of God.

18. The phrase "the Kingdom of God" holds more than political overtones.

ANKERBERG: Kingdom of God. The Jesus Seminar says the Kingdom of God is a political term. Tell me the truth and falsity of saying that.

EVANS: Well, it’s a political term in the sense that "Kingdom of God" has a major impact on politics, on life, on social circumstances. So that’s not entirely wrong. But it’s more than that. It’s a spiritual concept. It’s an eschatological concept. It means big change is coming. It means the power and reign of God that will impact all of human life and experience.

ANKERBERG: Was this a phrase that the Jewish people would have been familiar with or was it introduced by Jesus?

EVANS: It’s a phrase that the Jewish people would have been familiar with. We know that now because we have constant references to God as King and His Kingdom in some of the scrolls as Qumran; also in the Aramaic paraphrase of the Bible in Jesus’ day there is reference to the Kingdom of God. And so this would have been known in Jesus’ day. So Jesus is using a phrase that people understand but He’s telling them, "It’s fulfilled now" and He’s demonstrating it in His own ministry through miracles, exorcisms and so forth.

ANKERBERG: Okay, make it unique for Jesus. In other words, segment the usual understanding. How did Jesus make that unique?

EVANS: Well, I think Jesus gave His own spin to "Kingdom of God" because He personalized it: It’s right here; it’s in your midst. And when He casts out a demon or heals someone, it’s evidence that the Kingdom of God has come powerfully right within the human sphere. And that was new. People had not heard of that before.

19. Jesus saw himself as a proclaimer of the Kingdom of God.

ANKERBERG: What does Jesus’ "Kingdom of God" message tell us about His own self-realization?

EVANS: Well, He clearly sees Himself as the proclaimer of the Kingdom. And I think He understands Himself as that unique and special human being–or in Aramaic: Son of Man described in Daniel chapter 7. He is this "Son of Man" who has been authorized by God to proclaim the Kingdom and bring it about.

ANKERBERG: All right, as a scholar, looking at those statements, would they have gotten your attention? Let’s say you’re not a Christian but you’re a scholar and you’re looking at Jesus making these statements about the Kingdom of God and His part in it. What do those statements tell you about who Jesus thought He was?

EVANS: Well, if I were a secular historian and looking at what Jesus is saying, I’d say this guy clearly thinks that He’s some kind of emissary from Heaven. This guy thinks He is the person described in Daniel 7 who is given authority and kingdom and now on earth He’s bringing it about. The evidence would point in that direction.

ANKERBERG: Did Jesus put this in any kind of messianic context?

EVANS: I think it’s the only context it can be put in.

ANKERBERG: Why?

EVANS: If you’re not anointed by God to carry out this task, then you’re being very presumptuous.

20. "Messiah" means more than "anointed one"—it implies Jesus is the Son of God in some unique way.

ANKERBERG: Did the word "Messiah" as used by the Jesus people have no reference to Jesus being the Son of God? Did it only mean "the anointed one"?

EVANS: No. Messiah meant not only "anointed one," but in the Jewish context, in a context of Old Testament Scripture, it would imply that one is God’s Son. What exactly that mean, well, that has to be defined. But Messiah, for Jesus and His following, meant that He’s the Son of God. It had to mean that.

ANKERBERG: Stick with the Messiah aspect first of all. What does Messiah mean for our American people out here?

EVANS: Oh brother. It’s hard to say what Messiah means. But for American people it usually means Savior, somebody who has the answers to all the questions, to all the ills of life; somebody who comes and cures everything. I think that’s what it means to Americans today. And that’s not too far from the truth, for what it meant for the Jewish people in the first century, a people beleaguered and oppressed by heavy taxation, by the heavy hand of Rome; people that were appalled by what they perceived as corruption within the Temple establishment; people who were looking for the land of Israel to be redeemed and purified and for the golden era finally to come back. The Messiah is supposed to bring that about.

21. Jesus pointed to his actions to show that he was the Messiah.

ANKERBERG: Explain why Jesus didn’t use the word Messiah but still was making noises that He was the Messiah.

EVANS: Well, it would have been highly presumptuous for Jesus or for anyone to go around saying, quote: "I am the Messiah." That would be considered presumptuous, borderline blasphemous. And that’s why when John’s friends asked Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come?" Jesus has to answer, "Go back and tell him what you see and hear." Draw your own conclusion. And the way He summarizes His ministry in terms of the blind regaining sight and the dead being raised up clearly implies, "Of course, I’m the Messiah," but you have to draw that conclusion for yourself.

22. The title "Son of Man" had clear divine overtones for the first century Jews.

ANKERBERG: Some of the people in the Jesus Seminar as well as other scholars would say that, Yeah, He did talk about Himself as Son of Man, but they take away the divine dimension of Son of Man. Can you do that?

EVANS: No, I don’t think you can do that because of Daniel 7. Daniel 7 presents a "Son of Man," and that really just means "a human being," a person that looks like a human being, as Daniel puts it. But this person is invested with divine power and authority. So for this person to say it just means a mortal and nothing more underrates and, I think, misinterprets Daniel 7 and therefore does not fairly interpret Jesus’ appropriation of that image.

ANKERBERG: Where did Jesus appropriate Daniel 7 to Himself?

EVANS: Well, I think His baptismal experience where the heavens open up, I think that’s closely related to Daniel 7. This is the connection between earth and heaven and Jesus is the Son of Man invested with heavenly power and authority to proclaim the Kingdom and indeed to bring it about with God’s help.

ANKERBERG: Talk about His trial and those words coming up there as well.

EVANS: Well, this is one case where Jesus Himself affirms explicitly His messianic identity and that, in my opinion, points to the veracity of the Gospels. If the Gospels are fictions, they’re going to have Jesus walking around all the time saying and doing Messianic things. The Gospels don’t do that and I think that’s because the Gospels are restrained by what actually happened, what Jesus actually said. And the high priest, looking for a charge that could be brought against Jesus before the Roman authorities, asked Him, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?" And Jesus says, "I am." And then He defines that His way: "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power coming with the clouds of Heaven." There He’s alluding to Daniel 7 and also to Psalm 110, which is a royal Psalm. So He is the Son of Man. That’s how He understands Messiah, One who’s actually greater than David. And that’s why David calls the Messiah his Lord.

ANKERBERG: Did the Jewish leaders understand it that way?

EVANS: Oh, I think they very clearly understood it that way. That’s why the high priest rips his robes, screams "Blasphemy! We don’t need any other witnesses." They all agree. They condemn Him to death and He’s handed over to the Roman governor for execution.

23. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial are credible.

ANKERBERG: Is that a credible story, the trial of Jesus?

EVANS: It certainly is.

ANKERBERG: Why?

EVANS: Well, for one thing, you don’t have any fantastic details. You don’t have any big long speeches. You have a paucity of detail. Some have said, "Oh, how would any of Jesus’ followers have known that what happened at the trial because they weren’t there?" Well that could explain why we have such little detail of the trial itself. All we know is, Jesus is accused of threatening to destroy the temple, and those who were accusing Him of that couldn’t make it stick. And then the high priest asked Him, "Are you the Messiah?" That’s all we have. That’s not much. And He is, in fact, condemned as a Messianic claimant and in Roman language that’s "King of the Jews" and that’s how He is crucified. So that’s all we have–a false accusation: Jesus threatened to destroy the temple; and the actual condemnation itself: He claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, which means He’s the King of the Jews as Rome would interpret that. That’s all we have. Of course, they knew that. I’m surprised we don’t actually have more details. So you don’t have to have an eyewitness to know those kinds of things.

ANKERBERG: And why did they need those two points? Why are those two points important? One was for the Jews; one was for Pilate. Explain that.

EVANS: Well, from a Jewish point of view it’s no crime to be the Messiah in that sense. And it’s not even blasphemy for that matter. But you’ve got to make it stick. If you’re going to have Jesus executed because Jesus is a threat–the ruling priests were not stupid. They realized there could be a riot. There could be an insurrection–which, in fact, happens 35 years later. And so they know there is this danger, and here is Jesus in Jerusalem talking about the Kingdom of God and talking about things that are going to change. His parable of the wicked vineyard tenants threatens the ruling priests with being thrown out of office and replaced with others. So they’re not stupid; they know this is coming down the road. If they don’t act quickly and shut Him up–and that’s what they want to do–and so if they’re going to hand Him over to Pilate, Pilate’s going to say, "Well, if this is just a religious dispute, what’s this to me?" So they have to hand Him over to Pilate with a serious charge that the Romans, then, will act upon. And when they present to Pilate...present Jesus to Pilate as the King of the Jews, as the Messiah, that’s treason and Pilate must act on that.

24. Jesus was crucified as "the King of the Jews".

ANKERBERG: All right, this is a real important point that keeps coming up over and over again. It came up in the Peter Jennings Special: "Why was Jesus crucified?" I mean, what was the ruckus about?

EVANS: Well, He was crucified as "King of the Jews." Some have disputed that, that placard that was on the cross that said this–but I think their arguments are weak. Christians did not refer to Jesus as King of the Jews. Jews do not refer to the Messiah that way either. So where does this title come from? It’s a Roman title. That’s what Herod the Great was named by the Roman Senate.

ANKERBERG: You actually debated some of the fellows in the Jesus Seminar on this topic. How did the argument go?

EVANS: Well, this is always the problem the Jesus Seminar has and that’s to explain, How is it that Jesus was crucified as King of the Jews? Because you don’t crucify harmless pests, people who are wandering around saying, "Hey, we ought to love one another." People that are preaching a politically correct doctrine of egalitarianism, you ignore them; or at most, you give them a whipping and send them out of town. But being crucified as King of the Jews, what does that mean? And the only plausible explanation in context is Jesus was claiming to be Israel’s Messiah and on that charge He’s handed over to the Romans who crucify Him in their terms as King of the Jews because that’s exactly what Israel’s "Messiah" means.

25. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem at the Triumphal Entry was a clear Messianic greeting.

ANKERBERG: When Jesus went up to Jerusalem and Passover, did the crowds really greet Him and hail Him as the Messiah or were they simply singing and shouting because they’d entered the Jerusalem area and seen the temple?

EVANS: Well, there may have been some people that greeted any pilgrim entering the city with those kinds of shouts, but they don’t throw their garments down on the road; they don’t take palm branches and wave them. And they don’t greet someone riding on a donkey this way. All of these things smack–anyone, anyone who knows Israel’s history, they realize, "This guy’s doing what Zechariah 9:9, the King who comes to the city humble, that’s what He’s doing. The palm branches and the garments that are placed on the road—this is how they celebrated the entry into the city of other kings from Israel’s past. So, they knew what they were doing. This was a messianic greeting on the part of many of these pilgrims.

26. Jesus must have had a fairly extensive following at the time of His Triumphal Entry.

ANKERBERG: In The Search for Jesus, some of the Jesus Seminar fellows said when asked, "What was the status of Jesus’ movement at this point, talking about when He came into Passover, came into Jerusalem at Passover? Did He have a great many followers?" Their answer, "I don’t think that He did. I think maybe 10, 15, or 20 followers." What do you think?

EVANS: I was astonished by that statement because one of the things that we read in the gospel account is that the ruling priest wanted to make a move against Jesus but did not do so on account of the crowds, on account of Jesus’ popularity. If Jesus had a following of 10, 15, or 20, then Jesus could have been seized easily right at the beginning of that final week, and they would not have had to conspire and plot and try to take Jesus at night by stealth because He would have had no following. And so the fact that they had to move against Jesus in a stealthy fashion shows that there were large number of supporters, both from Galilee, who accompanied Him south, and also recent converts, you might say, from Judea and Jerusalem themselves.

27. Jesus understood that He would be killed when He went to Jerusalem for the Passover.

ANKERBERG: Why did Jesus want to go up to Jerusalem?

EVANS: Well, I think Jesus understood the time had come. I think He understood that He was going to have to die, and no prophet dies outside of Jerusalem. And so, Jesus has this sense of prophetic destiny to complete and fulfill His mission. It was time to go to Jerusalem, and what better time than to go at Passover time—the time that celebrates God’s deliverance of His people.

ANKERBERG: Doesn’t that, though, smack a little bit of almost like suicide? I mean there’s a feeling there that was also expressed in the "Search for Jesus" that one of the Catholic scholars on the program in the Garden of Gethsemane said, "There’s a lot of ways for Jesus to get out of the Garden of Gethsemane—I think three different escape routes. He could have taken any of them when He saw the soldiers coming, but He didn’t. In essence, He turned Himself in." Now, is part of that true? It sounds like He’s just committing suicide.

EVANS: Well, He’s not committing suicide because He doesn’t take His own life. But, there is some truth to that observation. Had Jesus wanted to flee, He could have fled. Jesus has informants—He knows to some extent what’s going on in the city. He knew it was hot, He knew He had to be careful. There were secret arrangements made for the Upper Room. So, if Jesus simply wanted to save His life, if that was His objective, He would have gotten out of town a day or two before He was arrested. But, no, He wanted to fulfill His ministry. I believe He sincerely believed that His death was necessary to complete His task. And, are there ideas like that in Judaism at this time? Yes! And you find statements in some of the Maccabean literature, for example. It’s in the Old Testament Apocrypha where the righteous person knows that, by his death, perhaps judgment will be averted; perhaps God will forgive His people. So there’s already a precedent for that, but I think Jesus takes it to a new level because He’s the Son of man of Daniel 7.

28. Jesus taught that His death would be significant.

ANKERBERG: This whole idea of Jesus giving His life as a sacrifice for other people, for sinners, etc. Is it solidly established from what He says before we get to this time of Passover and going up to Jerusalem? Has Jesus already taught that concept?

EVANS: Because Christianity emphasizes this, this becomes the essence of Christianity. There is the natural suspicion on the part of some scholars, especially some of the scholars with the Jesus Seminar, that maybe Christianity is reading this idea back into the historical Jesus. But, I don’t think so. I can’t believe two things: (1) that Jesus did not anticipate His death—He would have been remarkably dull if He had not seen that coming; and (2) I can’t believe He attached no significance to it. So I’m sure He meditated on that, He knew it was coming, and He knew why it was coming. He attempted to teach this to His disciples, and they were the ones that couldn’t accept it. And that could very well be why Judas decided to betray Jesus. If you could get Judas here today and ask him, "Why did you do it? Why did you betray Jesus?" what he might say is, "I betrayed Him? He betrayed us. He was supposed to have come to Jerusalem and become the king and we were all supposed to get top appointments in His government. What’s all this stuff about martyrdom? I want out."

29. The story of Judas is historical.

ANKERBERG: Is the story of Judas a fictional account, or what makes you think that’s a real one?

EVANS: The overwhelming majority of scholars accept it as historical, and I think for good reason. Why in the world would the church invent a story that one of the twelve, not just one of the general disciples in the wider circle but one of the twelve—one of the inside twelve—would betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? That’s just unbelievable. The church was appalled by this. No, this is authentic tradition. It’s not an anti-semantic thrust or anything like that.

30. There is little reason to doubt Jesus said the words attributed to him at the Last Supper.

ANKERBERG: Do historians differ about what happened at the Last Supper?

EVANS: I don’t think they differ so much as to what happened at the Last Supper as much as what do the words of institution at the Last Supper mean. That’s the question, and of course, it’s closely linked with this whole issue of, "Did Jesus understand His death as having significance, value, atoning significance, and that sort of thing?" If you accept that Jesus did anticipate His death and did believe that it had meaning, atoning significance, then the meaning of the Lord’s Supper is not that problematic.

ANKERBERG: We have the words. Are the words accurate words as far as the scholars are concerned? Did Jesus actually say those statements? And, secondly, if He did say those statements, what’s the meaning of those statements?

EVANS: First of all, it’s very probable that He did say those words. You have multiple attestation. You have it in Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, so you have a very early source. When Paul writes this down, not even twenty years have elapsed. And he sites this as received tradition. People already knew about that. So Paul, even if he’s the first to write about it, he’s not the first to know about it. It’s already an old tradition—the gospels are written later.

ANKERBERG: So if you have multiple attestation, what’s the problem?

EVANS: I think, again, it’s the assumption that something that’s so meaningful to the church, there’s always the suspicion that’s read back into the life of Jesus. That’s a critical orientation that I think is very unfortunate. It goes back to Rudolph Bultmann in his era—it’s called the criteria of dissimilarity. What’s authentic is that which is somehow intentioned with or dissimilar from emphases in the church later. But that criterion is very dubious.

ANKERBERG: Why?

EVANS: It’s dubious because what it does is it erases Christianity’s own definition. Christianity came into existence because of certain things Jesus said and did that became precious and dear to the church. And so, naturally, the church then elaborates on those things, analyzes them, theologizes them, and moves on. To then go back later and say that because it’s of the interest to the church, it must have been read back into the gospels, I think that’s a very questionable way of proceeding.

31. If you are going to establish your own rules of interpretation you should at least be consistent in applying them.

ANKERBERG: If you set up a rule of dissimilarity and multiple attestation, and then you find all the criteria that meet your rules but you don’t follow your own assumptions, what does that say about the group making those statements?

EVANS: It does create the suspicion that the conclusion is already forgone, and so as long as the data support the conclusion, they’re embraced but the data that do not support the conclusion is swept under the rug. I think some of that happens.

I think a good example of where the Jesus Seminar is inconsistent in their own criteria is the whole question of Jesus’ messianic self-understanding. They assume that this is the early church reading back into the gospels. Here’s the problem with this: you have multiple attestation. Everywhere in the tradition, Jesus is regarded as the Messiah—in all four gospels, in the epistles, everything in the New Testament. How in the world that could emerge in the aftermath of Easter, if Jesus had never claimed to be Messiah, had never allowed His following to think of that. Where does all of this come from? Multiply attested, and also another criterion is the criterion of result. How do you explain that? Or, another way of putting it is where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. Everybody is calling Him the Messiah after Easter—where did that come from? Probably from the fire of Jesus Himself in His ministry before Easter.

32. The Bible is both historical and theological.

ANKERBERG: One of the criticisms of a lot of the Jesus Seminar folks—not just those folks, but some scholars would say that the Christ of faith is not the Christ of history. They’re saying that statements such as Jesus being divine—these were the experience more than the historical fact of later believers. Can you tie what they were saying later on—Paul and other places—in terms of the divine Jesus? Can we get the stuff of the creeds in the historical Jesus, I guess is what I’m asking.

EVANS: To some extent, yes, but to another extent, no. History is history. And so, it’s a historical statement to say Jesus died on the cross. It’s a historical statement to say they found the tomb empty. It’s a historical statement to say that they claimed the risen Christ appeared to them. But, it’s no longer history when you say Jesus was the Son of God. That’s not history—that’s theology, that’s confession. To say that Jesus died on the cross to forgive sins—the first part is history, the second part is theology. So, sometimes that distinction that’s made is necessary and valid. But, I think if they go on to say that there’s no evidence that Jesus saw Himself as God’s son, or that there’s no evidence that He saw Himself as Israel’s messiah—that’s history, and in this case, it’s bad history.

33. The title "Son of God" meant different things to different people.

ANKERBERG: Define the uses of Son of God so that our people understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means, Son of God, all the time. It did and it didn’t. Explain the uses of Son of God in Israel.

EVANS: Israel was part of the Roman Empire, so when you say Son of God, that conveys lots of meanings. In Roman ears it means someone who has been touched by the divine maybe even in a quasi sense of adoption or something like that. It can mean a lot of things. So, what some critics have argued is that Jesus was called Son of God, or the idea of messiah as Son of God, because Christianity spread throughout the Greco/Roman world and came into contact with that idea as the Roman emperor as the Son of God. What’s interesting, though, is that the Son of God concept is much older than that and is, in fact, rooted in Israel and Jewish tradition themselves. A document from Qumran makes that very clear. An Aramaic document from about 50 BC, found at Qumran, talks about the coming of a person who will be called Son of God, Son of the Most High. And that makes it very clear that the Son of God idea, as a potential messianic redeemer, is already clearly imbedded in Judaism even a generation before the time of Jesus. So, when Jesus’ contemporaries regard Him as God’s Son, that would make sense and we would not have to think, "Oh, this is some kind of Greco/Roman concept that’s intruding into the tradition." That’s unnecessary to argue that way. Naturally, early Christians would want to say to the Greco/Roman world, "Here’s the real Son of God—not Julius Caesar and his descendants."

34. Caiaphas clearly thought Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah.

ANKERBERG: How was it used when the Jewish priests said it at His trial? What did Son of God, Son of Blessed One mean to those guys there?

EVANS: I think it probably would be an allusion to Psalm 2. In Psalm 2 you have both key words. You’ve got "Messiah," the Lord’s anointed, and you’ve got "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." So, you have both concept right there in Psalm 2, in verses two and seven. And so when the High Priest, Caiaphas, says, "Are you the anointed one?" or "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed," that’s what he’s eluding, to and everybody would understand that. "Are you Israel’s anointed messianic king?" And Jesus says, "I am," and goes on to define Himself His way as the Son of Man seated at the right hand, coming with the clouds. You know, He may have been suggesting that the next time Caiaphas and company see Him, He will be seated at God" right hand on the chariot throne. That’s what was so outrageous. He says, "I’m coming in judgment on you. Next time we meet, you’ll see me on the chariot throne," and in Jewish tradition that’s a very special thing. The chariot throne is described in Ezekiel 1 and 10, so he’s shocked at this! "Who are you to say that!" And he screams out, "Blasphemy!" and calls for His death.

ANKERBERG: In the Old Testament, how were those words associated, "coming in the clouds of glory"?

EVANS: Epiphany—it’s a manifestation of God Himself. That’s what made it so shocking. "You’re going to have a vision of God, and I’m going to be right there with Him."

35. Jesus uses "Son of God" in reference to Himself in ways that the Jews would not have made up.

ANKERBERG: What statements of Jesus stand out that are being excluded by the Jesus Seminar that shouldn’t be? In other words, there are statements that He made. Maybe you want to start with something like "Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many." Is that one of those statements in the Synoptics that later on becomes the basis for the high theology? What are some of the statements that you find there that should be taken at face value?

EVANS: In Mark 10:45, Jesus says that "Son of Man comes to serve and not to be served and to give His life as a ransom for many." The Jesus Seminar regards that as unauthentic—they regard that a Christian confession that has been read back into the tradition. I question that. For one thing, it stands somewhat in tension with Daniel 7. In Daniel 7:13 we have the vision of the Son of Man who comes with the clouds and authority and kingdom are given to Him, and the very next verse says that all nations will serve Him. That’s what you would expect. If Christians are going to be making up something, why not follow what Daniel says? Why not say, "Yes, the Son of Man is coming to be served?" But, he doesn’t do that. In fact, it stands in tension with what Daniel says—that’s the originality, that’s a finger print of Jesus stamped on the tradition. He surprises people because He’ll quote or allude to the Old Testament, and sometimes turn it on its head. I think He’s done that here. Oh, yes, the Son of Man someday will be served, but He must do the serving first —and that’s consistent with authentic Jesus tradition. Statements like, "If you want to be exalted, you must humble yourself," "the first will be last, the last will be first," that’s consistent with some of these distinctive comments that Jesus makes. This smacks of that right here.

36. Jesus has the authority to forgive sin.

ANKERBERG: In the earliest account the scholars accept of the gospels is Mark. In Mark chapter 2, you have a day in the life of the Lord Jesus. In Mark chapter 2, you have something amazing going on. Jesus makes a statement in front of the Jewish religious leaders that they claim is blasphemy. Tell us what’s going on there, how the scholars look at what was said, and Jesus’ statement that He can forgive sins.

EVANS: In Mark chapter 2 when Jesus says that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, that’s a very important indicator not only that Jesus understands Himself as the Son of Man, again harking back to Daniel 7, but He has authority as Son of Man on earth—I think that’s so interesting the way He says that—well, where else would you have that authority? Well, Daniel 7 says He got the authority in heaven. So, having received the authority in heaven through this heavenly vision, He now has this authority on earth to forgive sins, to make pronouncements on Sabbath, to make purification pronouncements, to do astonishing things—"You’re forgiven"—"You’re this… you’re that"—He’s acting as if He’s like a priest or something. And that’s because He’s invested with this heavenly authority as the Son of Man.

37. Jesus had the authority to do what he said—unlike the scribes.

ANKERBERG: What do the guys do with the Sermon on the Mount where, after the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the crowds, it says, were amazed because He taught as one who had authority and not as the scribes. What’s going on there?

EVANS: I think that’s a very important statement. He taught as one having authority, not as the scribes. Authority means not only that He could make pronouncements and say, "Hey, I know you’ve heard this and I know you’ve heard that, but this is the way it is." It’s His teaching style, but it’s also backed up with the way He commands unclean spirits, "Shut up and go." They’d never seen that. Were there exorcists in Jesus’ day? Yes, Josephus tells us about a few. We know from other sources that there were exorcists. But, they had to do all kinds of rigmarole to get the spirits out. They would even burn incense that would go up the person’s nose to draw the spirit out through the person’s nose. Jesus would not bargain with the unclean spirit—that’s what they would do, they would argue. Jesus would just say, "Shut up, and leave!" And, it happened. And people were just astounded by that. That’s an authority that we’d never seen before. The scribes get out their special recipes and they go through all their rigmarole to see that in the name of Solomon they conjure up this and that and the other thing, have gimmicks perhaps. Hopefully they can get the demons to leave. Jesus just says, "Go!" and it goes. People had never seen anything like that.

38. Jesus performed miracles.

ANKERBERG: You’ve done a lot of work on this area of Jesus, the miracle worker, and there’s a lot of stuff being written about Him, and the modern scholars are really tripping all over themselves in trying to delete that information. Many of them can’t, so talk about what’s going on in terms of this miracle worker, Jesus.

EVANS: This is one of the most interesting features in historical Jesus research. The whole thing that got the scholarly quest started more than 200 years ago was because of wide-spread skepticism in the miracle tradition in academic circles. We’ve come full circle. Now it’s widely acknowledged that Jesus was a miracle worker. That’s a fascinating thing. It’s partly a change in our understanding of science, a change in our understanding of worldviews. The historian’s task is to say what happened, what were people saying, what were people observing, how were people reacting to things. It’s not the historian’s task to become a philosopher and to try to get into the metaphysics. So, on a historical level, we can’t say for sure what actually happened when that guy could suddenly see, or the leprosy vanished, or the lame person was able to walk. But the historian asks, "Did those kinds of things happen?" The evidence says, yes, it did. That’s why Jesus drew large crowds. So now, with scholars who are not known as evangelical, not known as conservative or traditional, you’ve got scholars who consider themselves left-wing, etc., they say, "Yeah, Jesus performed miracles. That must be what He did because He drew large crowds." Those kinds of things happened—people remarked on His astounding abilities. Those who were skeptical, those who didn’t believe in Him, those who didn’t trust Him, they would say, "Yeah, I know He’s doing those things, but He’s doing it with Satan’s help."

39. Jesus’ miracles were quite different from miracle stories of Greek and Roman mythology.

ANKERBERG: In The Search for Jesus, they tried to discount the miracles by saying that the miracle stories are similar to those of Greek and Roman mythology like Poseidon and Dionysus. Talk to that aspect first, that the boys were just copying stuff over to build up Jesus’ character to make Him look like the ancient myths.

EVANS: It’s been argued in the past by some scholars that the miracle tradition in the gospels is a tradition that reflected Greco/Roman ideas, and that if Jesus really is somebody important, if He’s the world’s savior, or something like that then we’ve got to load up the tradition, pack it up with miracle stories that remind us of the great deeds of Greek gods, etc. But, that’s viewed a lot more differently now. For one thing, there’s the Semantic character of it, there’s the recognition that there were other holy men who did things somewhat similar to what Jesus was doing, and there’s the recognition that as historians we observe what the sources say, what people—what Jesus’ contemporaries—say they saw. And we realize the evidence is compelling and the logic strongly supports the idea that Jesus must have done things that were extraordinary, that His contemporaries looked at as miracles, that His supporters, of course, considered works of God, that His critics regarded as works of the devil. I think the evidence is compelling in that direction, and it’s had a major impact on where scholarship is today. If He is Son of Man, that special person in Daniel 7 invested with authority and power, then wouldn’t we expect to see it demonstrated? And, we do.

40. Scholars are compelled by the evidence to accept that Jesus did miracles.

ANKERBERG: Why do the secular scholars think they’re forced to accept these miracles? Is it in all the strata or what’s the evidence that’s so compelling that they’re coming out with these books admitting that Jesus did do the supernatural?

EVANS: There are lots of reasons for it, I think. The miracles are multiply attested, widely attested, and very primitive. Even in Paul’s letters, he talks about works of power that an apostle does. Are the apostles doing things that Jesus couldn’t do? No. This stuff goes back to Jesus. And this is being recognized now, widely attested in every layer, and also there are unique features and characteristics that are not easily explained as Christian invention. You have one or two odd miracles that are in the tradition where Jesus actually anoints a person’s eyes with spittle and asks, "Can you see?" And, he says, "Oh, men look like walking trees." "Well, let’s do it again." An invented miracle would be just one shazam—it’s done right the first time and finished. There’s something about this miracle. There’s a reluctance on Jesus’ part to cast out the demon that’s in the little girl that belongs to the Syrophoenician woman. And He says, "Well, it’s not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs." The early church wouldn’t make up a story like that—it’s potentially offensive and easily misunderstood. This stuff goes back to historical Jesus. Critical scholars today recognize that. So then they go on and explain what does it mean. And I think what it means is that Jesus is indeed the Son of Man, the anointed one of God whose mission is the redemption of Israel and the rest of the world that follows that.

ANKERBERG: Isn’t that part of the answer that He gave to John when John doubted that He was truly the one sent from God?

EVANS: That’s right. John is in prison, and wonders, "Why am I still in prison?" Because one of the things the anointed one does, according to Isaiah 61, is that he releases captives from prison. Why is John still in prison? So, John’s doubts are perfectly understandable, and Jesus recognizes that. He knows why John doubts, and that’s why He alludes to Isaiah 61 in His reply to John. "Go back and tell John the blind have regained their sight." That’s what Isaiah 61 says will happen. The poor had good news preached to them, the dead are raised up, lepers are cleansed. "Blessed is the one that doesn’t stumble over my words."

Blessed is the one, in other words, who still has faith even if not everything hoped for and expected is working out.

41. The Gospel accounts clearly point to the fact that Jesus saw himself as God.

ANKERBERG: Paula Fredriksen says, "In terms of these miracles, more seems to be taking place than just reassurance. You see what’s happening—the blind see, the lame walk. This means the kingdom of God is occurring. It’s about to break in. So, did Jesus really heal blindness?" What I’m saying is, if a person admits that Jesus did do all of that, then doesn’t the traditional view of Jesus follow? How can you escape it?

EVANS: That’s a very good point. Jesus healed the blind and performed other acts of healing and exorcism. When they can see that, it seems to me that it shifts the burden heavily on the scholar who still wants to say that Jesus didn’t see Himself as God’s Son or Jesus didn’t see Himself as the Messiah, the traditional portrait of Jesus in the gospels really isn’t the authentic, historical portrait. It seems to me it shoves the burden very, very heavily onto someone who would want to maintain that view. What got the quest of the historical Jesus going in the first place was skepticism during the time of Daoism, the time of philosophy, that said, "Hey, God created the world, then backed off. He doesn’t do anything any more. Miracles don’t happen." And because of the miracles in the Bible in general, but especially in the gospels, scholars back then began to have doubts about the gospels’ historical reliability. Now, here we are 200 years later, we’re saying, "Yeah, I think the miracles did occur. So, maybe the gospels are reliable after all."

42. If your worldview forbids miracles, perhaps you need to change your worldview.

ANKERBERG: Usually the criticism is, "We’re not going to accept the miracles because our world view forbids it ahead of time." So, what’s happening here to the worldview if you accept the miracles?

EVANS: The worldview has changed—I think that’s part of it. We have seen some interesting developments in the last thirty years. I can remember, as a university student, the idea of any kind of miracle story was poo-pooed, it was laughed at. That’s changed in thirty years. You can see it in popular culture, you can see it in the popular television program, "Star Trek." Mr. Spock wants to be a machine. Right? He wants to be scientific. Science can solve everything. In the new series, the new version of it, you’ve got a machine that wants to be a human! You’ve got characters that want to be in touch with the inner spirit and channel and do all kinds of strange things. That show reflects the change that’s taken place. In science, there’s a recognition, hey, we don’t have a closed universe any more. We have to be open. We’re not real sure about our origins any more. Maybe there is something beyond the physical universe. Maybe there is a god. Maybe miracles do occur. But, that’s a big change. You go back 50, 60, 70 years ago, Rudolph Bultmann in his heyday, and he could say, "We all know this now. It’s a scientific worldview. We know miracles can’t happen and never have happened." And yet, the gospels tell miracle stories, so we have to explain that. "Well, it’s influence from Greco/Roman pagan influences" and that kind of thing.

43. Even in Bible times, all disease was not caused by evil spirits.

ANKERBERG: The opposite side in the special came out as well. The old adage here, when Jesus is said to have healed people and cast out demons, it’s only true in the sense that in the first century sick people were thought to be possessed by evil spirits. So, what you really have going on here is a psychiatric dimension, not a real physical healing.

EVANS: Well, there’s a set of false alternatives here. Were people mentally disturbed in the modern sense? Of course. So, Jesus’ ministry was to people with physical problems and people with mental problems, people with emotional problems, spiritual problems. But, I think there’s a reality to the spiritual world that should not be underestimated. I think some of what we call the exorcisms might, in fact, have been no more than the curing of someone’s mind and setting in order a deranged mind. But I think it’s a risky thing to say there’s no such thing as a demonic world and that there were no real, genuine exorcisms that took place. I think that would be a precarious argument to make.

44. Ancient people were perfectly capable of telling a true miracle from a false one.

ANKERBERG: I forget who made the statement, but I thought it was a good one, that the way some of the scholars write it’s only in the last 200 years do we know if a guy was really dead or not. Talk about this thing that people in the ancient world were not as dumb as some of the scholars are making them out to be, that they knew the difference between a real miracle and a false one, between a guy not being healed from blindness and a guy being healed from blindness.

EVANS: I think if there was only one miracle story, or maybe two, in the gospel tradition, then we’d be left wondering was that a real miracle or not. Was that guy really dead or was that guy really blind or was he really lame? The thing is, there’s just too many. So, even if you want to argue that in one or two cases Jesus resuscitated somebody who was merely comatose, or Jesus brought back some kind of restoration in a psychosomatic way, or something like that, and it wasn’t really a miracle, that’s no big deal. The trouble is there’s just too many of these. You just can’t have one fluke after another, one near-miss after another. There are too many. And, the people are astounded. And, you’re right—the people aren’t naïve, they aren’t gullible. They’re desperate is what they are. Sociologist of antiquity estimate that in that part of the world at that time, as many as 25% of the population was infirm or ill at any given time. And yet, most of this population was too poor to afford physicians. And what you have in Jesus is a one-man HMO. And, that’s why He’s mobbed. And that’s what has led scholars in recent years to say, "He must have been a miracle worker—look at the way He’s mobbed." He actually has to leave dry ground and get in a boat and