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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 push off from shore to teach people, because for Jesus the priority is not healing people. He would not regard Himself as a healer. He’s a proclaimer of the kingdom, and when He heals it’s proof of the kingdom and you get in the gospels that Jesus is frustrated because people focus on the healing and not on the message. That smacks of authenticity.

45. However you look at him, Jesus was extraordinary.

ANKERBERG: The Jesus Seminar, liberal scholarship, and maybe the last 200 years of this Jesus quest—we’ve got 50 different Jesuses, all with a smack of truth to them. What does that say about this guy?

EVANS: Why have there been thousands of books written about Jesus? Tens of thousands of articles and reviews; hundreds of conferences; thousands of scholars, just in the last 200 years, devoted to studying His life. What does that say about Him? I think what it says is that no matter what your assessment is, no matter which dimension or facet of His life and His person that one chooses to pursue, there’s something about Him like a magnet that draws people. No matter what their persuasion is, people say, "This guy’s extraordinary, nobody like this has ever lived. He’s incomparable. Nobody has ever taught this way, acted this way, impressed people this way. No one has ever done these things. This is a guy I can’t leave alone. I’ve got to study Him." And that’s true, by the way, of the Jesus Seminar guys. Whatever you might think of the conclusions they reach, of the assumptions or whatever, these people are fascinated by Jesus. They’re consumed with Him and want to know more about Him. That’s why I delight in dialoging with them, because most of these people are honest questers–they want to know more about Him, and I salute them for that and I’m willing to participate in dialoging with them and I’ve even published things with them. I’m willing to do that because there is this fascination, this mutual fascination, with the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

ANKERBERG: What would a traditionalist say to all these folks? In other words, if they’ve all grabbed a piece of the action, a piece of the manuscript, and they come up with their own Jesus, and you agree with the fact that that portion for their Jesus is fine—what would you say to the part that they exclude? How would you bring them over to say, this guy accepts this part, you accept this part, you accept this part—you know if you guys all got together you’d have the Jesus that we’re holding to. How could you persuade them to do that?

EVANS: I don’t know if I could. Maybe. With scholars it’s always—it’s a complicated question because scholars are hyper-specialists. And I think that’s part of the problem. Just the nature of the business encourages this hyper-specialization. Of course, whatever you specialize in, it’s human nature, it’s important, obviously. And, what I don’t specialize in and what I don’t understand very well, but you do, well it’s probably not as important. I think that’s part of the factor that goes on. What are we talking about here? Some of the Jesus Seminar guys are criticized because they don’t know Judaic literature very well. Well, we’re talking about Hebrew and we’re talking about Aramaic. We’re talking about a vast array of sources, etc. That is not easy to master. So, if you can just stick to one language, stick to Greek, and one set of sources—isn’t that a little easier? I think that’s a factor, and that’s why there’s a resistance to reaching out and trying to develop mastery in a whole lot of other fields to pull it all together and be able to say, "I think I’ve got the picture now."

46. Jesus’ ministry was not designed simply to create a movement.

ANKERBERG: In the Jesus special, they said, "Jesus must have been a controversial figure, preaching about a kingdom where the well-off might lose everything, luring away sons of respectable families and leaving them to mix with all sorts of unsavory people like prostitutes, tax collectors, and other outcasts of society." This picture of Jesus pulling away everybody to a controversial worldview, part of it’s true and part of it’s false. Talk to that.

EVANS: Well, I have to ask you, what part of it’s false? Everything you read there, the gospels portray that. What’s false there? I don’t hear anything.

ANKERBERG: Put it the other way. What would be wrong with this worldview? What’s left off? Jesus was a controversial figure, but that’s not all He was.

EVANS: Jesus’ ministry was not designed simply to create a movement. Or, as some have put it, Jesus’ ministry was not designed simply to create the church. So, Jesus is not trying to get a movement underway that has members at every level of society in His new movement. His mission is much more comprehensive than that. His mission is none other than to see the will of God unfold, in a powerful way, on earth, beginning with Israel. His mission is to announce the in breaking of the kingdom of God and to urge His contemporaries to respond to it the right way, in repentance and faith. Otherwise, they face the danger of being steam rolled by it, and it’s not a coincidence, in my view, that the ruling priest who rejected His preaching got crushed. They’re gone. They were destroyed forty years later in the Jewish/Roman war. The temple that they loved so dearly, and for which they sacrificed and invested everything they had in it, is destroyed and its rubble pitched off the top of the temple mount, rubble that is still, even as we speak, being excavated. And so Jesus, I think, was trying to avoid that. He was saying, "If the nation would just repent, if the nation would repent, these wonderful prophecies would be fulfilled, Israel would enjoy the blessing of the reign of God, and the whole world would enjoy that blessing." Israel did not repent, and the judgment came. And, that’s where we are today.

ANKERBERG: The way you said it, it could be that Jesus was just the messenger to preach it. Did He play a part in what He was preaching? In other words, not just the fact that He was a proclaimer only, but what was His duty in that whole scenario?

EVANS: I think Jesus was a proclaimer and an inaugurator. He proclaims, but He also does—He also initiates. And so He proclaims the kingdom of God and He actually enacts it through His ministry of healing and exorcism, and His ministry of teaching. And so, both ideas are true—proclaimer and initiator. And He goes to the cross and He brings it to a new level. I really think that Israel was at a fork in the road. As far as Jesus was concerned, it could go either way. I think His offer to the nation to repent and avoid God’s judgment and instead enjoy and experience God’s blessing—I think that was a honest to goodness option. When He was rejected, He then was speaking not only of His death, but He was speaking of the death of the nation as His disciples knew it. That was a depressing subject—"Oh, Master, look at these beautiful buildings and these marvelous stones." And, you can see some of them today. Just amazing, the Herodian temple, the buildings, the sanctuary itself right there in the center of the temple mount. The disciples are still clinging to the hope that the nation will repent, God’s blessings will be poured out, and Jesus will set up a new government as the Lord’s anointed. Israel and the whole world would be blessed. And Jesus said, "Oh, you see these impressive buildings. I’m telling you, not one stone will be left upon another that won’t be thrown down." Of course, that prophecy was literally fulfilled a generation later. All of those stones were pulled down and pitched over the temple mount into the valley below, and I don’t think that’s what the disciples wanted. But, that was the option. Jesus came to that point when He knew, "That’s it. I and my message have been rejected. That means judgment—the judgment I’ve been warning you about will now overtake you"

47. Jesus did not view his death as failure.

ANKERBERG: When Jesus came to the self realization that His message had been rejected about the kingdom of God, what part then did He see His death having in what He was preaching?

EVANS: I think when Jesus knew that His death was unavoidable, He did not view it as failure, He did not view it as meaningless. I think He saw it as significant. I think He saw that through His death there was still hope that Israel could still be redeemed, that the world could still enjoy the blessings and promises made to Abraham long ago and reinstated in various ways by the prophets. So I don’t think Jesus gave up in despair even though He was frightened by it. That, to me, again smacks of authenticity. Jesus falls face down on the ground, and prays, "If at all possible, can I avoid this fate?" And, that’s what He’s talking about when He says, "I don’t want to drink this cup. If it’s at all possible, let this cup pass from me." So, Jesus recognizes that His death is coming. It frightens Him, He’s not thrilled about it, but He sees in it the will of God and He sees God’s purposes being accomplished by it. And, on a historical, critical level are we to believe that Jesus, who believes in the resurrection—and you think of the question that was put to Him about resurrection and He defends it—Jesus believes in the resurrection and Jesus believes in His own mission, in His own ministry—are we to believe that He attaches no significance to His death? I find that highly unlikely. If the martyrs during the Maccabean struggle 200 years earlier, if they attached significance to their death, if they believed that through their death and through the shedding of their blood God might have mercy on Israel, why would Jesus think anything less? I’m sure He would see His death, and did, in fact, see His death as having great significance. So, He came to Jerusalem proclaiming the judgment that was coming and the need for repentance. I think Jesus was open to the possibility of Caiaphas and company accepting Him. If only Caiaphas and the ruling priests had greeted Him from the temple steps, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," but they didn’t. But, if they had, disaster, perhaps, could have been averted. They ignored Jesus, and Jesus carries on with His mission. He knows according to Daniel 7 there’s a great struggle between the saints and evil forces. And, He’s willing to be one of the causalities, convinced that God’s will will, nevertheless, unfold. His disciples are not so convinced. Judas decides to betray Him and give Him up. The disciples run away when He’s arrested. Peter, the only one with enough courage to follow along at a safe distance, when asked if he’s a follower, denies Jesus. And this is a pretty sad picture, but Jesus believes that God will pull it off somehow even if He has to die. And the other disciples aren’t too sure—they become sure at Easter but up to then, they’re not too sure.

48. There is no evidence of a "suffering messiah" concept prior to Jesus’ time.

ANKERBERG: All right. Talk to this thing about the fact of in Judaism you’ve done a lot of research was there any thinking in the literature that the Messiah would come and be the one who would have to suffer? Did they understand that kind of thinking at all?

EVANS: Well, we don’t know what kind of thinking, what kind of range we had. We just don’t know. I am reluctant to build on an argument of silence. But, I will tell you this, that there is no evidence of a "suffering Messiah" prior to the time of Jesus. There is a modicum of evidence that Isaiah 53 was understood as messianic, but not necessarily as a suffering servant. So, where does Jesus come into this? I think Jesus is innovative here. He is the Anointed One of Isaiah 61 who proclaims the Kingdom; but He’s the Son of Man of Daniel 7 who engages the forces of evil and struggles, struggles to the death. And I think what you have is an innovative interpretation on Jesus’ part where He is the Anointed One of Isaiah and Daniel; also, the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53. And so He begins to hint, then, at His death to which He attaches significance. So the idea of a suffering Messiah probably has its roots in Jesus Himself.

ANKERBERG: How much of Isaiah 53 can you import into Jesus’ words? I mean, can you get that atoning sacrifice that you find in Isaiah 53?

EVANS: Probably. The Mark 10:45 passage about the Son of Man coming "not to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many," that last part: "giving his life as a ransom for many," probably is an allusion to Isaiah 53. So there we have Isaiah 53 blended together with an innovative interpretation of Daniel 7:14. That’s original to Jesus. And I think what the Church does is, it seizes upon it and develops it as part of its Christology [Doctrine of Jesus/Christ] and soteriology [Doctrine of Salvation], but its origin is Jesus.

ANKERBERG: So what are the tip-offs of when did Jesus understand this. Because you have a bunch of these statements like that one plus the other statements that appear in the texts where He told the disciples, "I’ve got to go up to Jerusalem where I’ll get killed there," they didn’t believe Him.

EVANS: Okay, I’ll tell you what I think. My own view is, this is a Markan touch. I think Jesus began to speak of His death in Jerusalem and not before.

He may very well have said, "Look, guys, I know going to Jerusalem is dangerous and who knows? Somebody might get killed." But I think the formulaic statement: "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed in the hands of sinners. He’s going to be mocked and spit upon and the elders and so on are going to give Him up," I think Jesus began talking about that after He entered Jerusalem. I think when Mark tells his Gospel, Mark has in his own mind two simple phases of Jesus’ ministry: the Galilean phase, chapter 1, verse 1 to 8:26; and then the Judean phase. And so Mark it’s chapters 1-8, miracles and teaching in Galilee; and then halfway near the end of chapter 8 to the conclusion of his Gospel, he has Jesus, then, oriented toward Jerusalem, talking about His death, and His altercation with the ruling priests and, of course, leading up to His death and the discovery of the empty tomb. So I think that’s a thematic presentation on Mark’s part.

My own view, as a critical historian, I don’t think Jesus said, "Okay, guys..." when He’s way up north of Galilee–just about as far north as you could go, Caesarea Philippi, "Okay, guys. We’re going to go south now. We’re going to go to Jerusalem because that’s where I’m going to die." I don’t think He would have had any following at all. I don’t think Judas would have said, "Oh, that sounds good to me," and would have gone all the way down to Jerusalem and then decided to betray Him. Why did Judas wait so long; didn’t he believe Him during this journey?

So, I mean, that’s my own view on that.

ANKERBERG: The other thing, though, is even when He told them in Jerusalem, the passages say that they didn’t believe Him. That would be true to their whole outlook, wouldn’t it?

EVANS: Yeah.

ANKERBERG: Because they expected things to happen when He did get there.

EVANS: Of course. When Jesus was proclaiming the Kingdom, He wasn’t proclaiming His death. He was proclaiming the Kingdom of God and He’s telling people, "You better repent and prepare for it because it’s coming" and then He appoints Twelve.

49. The Triumphal Entry had clear Messianic overtones.

ANKERBERG: Take me through the last week. Everyone agrees that Jesus came to Jerusalem for Passover. By the end of the week He was dead. What happened that week?

EVANS: Well, I think there are two key things that take place. There’s the nature of His entry–which just has messianic overtones written all over it.

ANKERBERG: How?

EVANS: Well, He rides the donkey—Zechariah 9:9. Mark doesn’t appear to be aware of that. That’s interesting. The earliest Gospel just says He gets... in fact, he doesn’t even use the word "donkey." Mark’s reader would not know if we’re talking about a donkey, a mule or a horse. So Jesus rides in on this animal. People are waving palm branches. They put their coats on the road. They’re shouting, "Hosanna!" They’re alluding to Psalm 118, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," and then they paraphrase it in an interesting way, "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David." So they give it a Davidic stamp. That’s putting it in a messianic, restorative direction. And Psalm 118 is alluded to by Jesus Himself later with the same direction. So that’s one factor–the way He enters the city.

The other major factor at the beginning of Passion Week is the temple, "temple cleansing" as we call it, although that word doesn’t actually show up anywhere, but it’s His temple demonstration. And that would have been highly offensive to Caiaphas and the ruling priests because they are the masters of the temple precincts and Rome respected that. There was an area, there was a boundary line with an inscription, and if you were not an Israelite and you crossed that line, you were responsible for your death that would immediately follow. Rome respected that. The Roman soldier, if he were to cross that line, can be struck down by a Levitical guard. They respected that. And so Jesus goes into the temple precincts and He does not like what He sees. He sees that this has been turned into a swap meet; this has been turned into an emporium. This is money-making time. Let’s skin the pilgrims. Let’s fleece them. And Jesus objects to this and says, "This is supposed to be a house of prayer for all the nations! This is what our God-given destiny is supposed to be," and He’s quoting Isaiah 56, a very interesting oracle, that looks forward to the day when all peoples will come to Jerusalem and worship God there. And the offerings of any person who is repentant and has a sincere heart, those offerings will be accepted. And Jesus sees it that the temple has fallen far short of that grand vision of Isaiah. And so this is where we get the prophetic shift. Instead of being a house of prayer for all the nations, Isaiah 56, He alludes to Jeremiah 7 and "instead, you’ve made it a cave of robbers." Well, anybody who knows Scripture knows what He has just alluded to. Jeremiah 7 – that’s the passage where Jeremiah says to the ruling priests of his day: "Quit kidding yourselves by saying, ‘This is the temple of God. We’re safe.’ You have made it a cave of robbers. God has seen that and the day of judgment is coming. He’s going to make this house into rubble just like He did His house that used to stand at Shiloh." And what do they do with him? They wanted to kill Jeremiah and nearly did so–threw him in that cistern and all that. Well, this is what Jesus is doing. And 30 years later another Jesus, son of Hananiah, or Ananias in Greek, he alludes to Jeremiah 7 also. "Wandering about"–Jeremiah 7:34–warning that the city will be destroyed, including the temple. And what do they do with him? Same thing. The ruling priests grab him, beat him up, hand him over to the Roman governor. Demand that the Roman governor put him to death. The Roman governor interrogates him, whips him, and decides that he’s harmless and eccentric with no following, and therefore no threat and lets him go. Jesus went through the same experience–Jesus of Nazareth–only Pilate decided, "He’s not harmless. He is a threat." And decides to accede to the wishes of the ruling priests and puts Him to death.

50. The picture of Pilate in the Gospels fits with the historical information about him.

ANKERBERG: Let’s pick it up right there in terms of all that you’ve written in terms of Josephus and authenticity of Pilate trying Jesus and this whole thing. It’s so complicated here in terms of, "Were they in cahoots and so on?" Here’s what I think either Borg or Crossan said: "In very version of the story the Jewish leaders take Jesus to the Roman military government, Pontius Pilate, and have to pressure him before he will pass the sentence. Many historians don’t believe it." You don’t believe that statement because of the research you’ve done. Explain that.

EVANS: Okay. Pontius Pilate, his headquarters, is at Caesarea Maritima. His occupation and his concern lie mostly with the rebuilding of the harbor there. He’s interested in having a quiet and peaceful administration and he’s interested in promotion. He goes to Jerusalem once or twice a year. One of the times he always goes, of course, is at Passover time. So he’s relatively the new boy in town when he arrives. In the meantime, there’s been this confrontation between Jesus and the ruling priests. The ruling priests hand Him over and say, "We want Him put to death."

Now, Pilate is a practical man. He’s not a saint, but he is practical. Does he really want to crucify two or three Jewish men on the eve of Passover? Is this really the politically smart thing to do? Why? Why should I crucify this guy? Because he’s embarrassed you? Has He really threatened the peace? Does He have an army? Does He have an armed following? Why should I put Him to death?

Pilate’s hesitation smacks of reality and when Paula Fredriksen and some of the others in the Peter Jennings show said that Pilate slaughtered thousands of Jews several times, all I can say to that, "That ain’t so." There were two times when Pilate killed anybody in his otherwise lengthy and relatively successful administration. The one time–and in complete cooperation with the ruling priests–people who were protesting the use of the sacred treasury to build a water pipe and several hundreds were killed and injured to clear the streets. He did that.

And the next time he did something violent had nothing to do with the Jewish people; it had to do with the Samaritans. And he was removed from office for that.

So this statement that Pilate was bloodthirsty and cared nothing and he slaughters thousands of Jews a whole bunch of times, that’s a gross exaggeration and it’s misleading.

So, Pilate comes into town. Put yourself into his shoes. He is trying to maintain law and order. He comes in with some auxiliary troops, a legion perhaps, something to just make sure the city is quiet and they’ve got this popular preacher and they want to put him to death? Why? Is it really necessary? Is it really a good idea? He understandably hesitates. He interrogates Jesus. Okay, He’s got some religious ideas. He’s talking about a Kingdom of God. Is He really dangerous? The ruling priests had to persuade him that He is a danger to Rome–that He really is claiming to be Israel’s Messiah, or in Roman language: King of the Jews. So Pilate says, "Okay."

But Matthew says he washes his hands. Mark doesn’t say that. Well, whether Pilate actually washed his hands or not, metaphorically he clearly did. And isn’t that what politicians do all the time? Pass the buck. That’s what he does. He wants to make sure that the Jewish people see this. Rome doesn’t really see a need to put Him to death, but your leadership does. Okay, we’ll put Him to death.

And so I see Pilate actually acting very shrewdly, very astutely, given the potentially explosive situation he’s thrust into.

ANKERBERG: Josephus, you say, also proves that the New Testament writers were correct in getting the story straight. Why?

EVANS: Yes. Josephus mentions the rule of Pilate, and of course, Josephus has an axe to grind. He wants to make Pilate out to be the most incompetent and insensitive governor he can. Philo does the same thing at Pilate’s expense. And there’s a complicated political backdrop to all of this and we don’t need to go into. And so along the way, trying to paint Pilate as insensitive and brutal, tells the story of Jesus. And it’s the well-known Testimonium Flavianum. It’s in Book 18 of Antiquities. And so what he tells us is there was this guy who was a well-known teacher, and "doer of wonders." Now, I know some later Christian writers tamper with it, put in some confessionals and stuff like He was the Messiah and He fulfilled all these prophecies, but those three additions that Christians add to the text are easily identified–and scholars agree and they’re deleted. And what you’re left with is a coherent picture that Jesus the teacher and wonder worker who was quite popular with Gentiles as well as with Jews–probably a little bit of an anachronism there–He is seized by the first men among us, the hoi protoi, as Josephus says. Well, who are these "first men"? When you do your lexical study of Pilate, you quickly find out, they’re the ruling priests. Those are the "people who are the first among us," says Josephus himself, "of ruling priestly family. They seize Jesus and deliver Him up to the Roman governor who puts Him to death." And that’s exactly the sequence, the process you have in the New Testament Gospels. And that argues strongly against some in the Jesus Seminar who have maintained the view that there really is no connection between Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom in Galilee and His death on a Roman cross in Jerusalem. That it’s somehow an accident or a fluke. He’s caught up in a riot. Or, you know, Pilate just summarily routinely executes Jews. In other words, he’s blood-thirsty. That’s what he does. That’s a caricature. There is a meaningful connection between Jesus the proclaimer of the Kingdom of God, and the crucified Jesus, King of the Jews–a very meaningful connection. It’s attested in Mark; followed by Matthew and Luke. It’s independently attested in John and it’s independently attested in Josephus. That’s pretty good source material and evidence for the historicity of this event and sequence of events.

ANKERBERG: Tacitus.

EVANS: Tacitus attests the fact that Jesus was put to death by the Roman government, Pilate; and in fact, makes a mistake and calls him a procurator instead of a prefect.

51. Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple threatened the Jewish religious leaders on several levels.

ANKERBERG: A couple of things they say: "When Jesus walked into the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers, He was a marked man from that point on."

EVANS: That’s probably true.

ANKERBERG: Okay.

EVANS: There’s not a chance in the world that Caiaphas would not learn of that and be very angry about it.

ANKERBERG: Were the Jewish leaders afraid that a public disturbance at Passover would lead to the intervention of troops which might lead to several thousands of people being killed? Was that their reason for not wanting Jesus to overturn the tables of the moneychangers?

EVANS: Probably. Probably the primary reason. I mean, put yourself in Caiaphas’ shoes. And Caiaphas has been a high priest since the year 18. He has been high priest now for about 15 years if it’s the year 33 we’re talking about or 12 years if it’s the year 30. Do you know, that’s longer than anyone else? And he would go on until he got booted out with Pilate in February or so or March of 37–a 19-year administration. The longest of any ruling priest in the last 100 years of the temple’s history. That’s pretty good. And he lasted that long because he was not stupid. And when Jesus or anyone else, for that matter, comes into the temple precincts trying to stir up the crowd, the onus on him is to act effectively–and that usually means shutting people up, immobilizing them, gagging them. But in this particular case, naturally, as a politician, he wants Rome to do it. He doesn’t want to have his own Jewish people blaming him. He wants Rome to take the blame. Rome, of course, wants him to take the blame. And so you have a very, very realistic scenario unfolding.

But to size him up, Jesus has taken action in the temple precincts and shortly thereafter, perhaps the next day or however we are to interpret the time line in Mark, a delegation of ruling priests comes to Jesus and says, "By what authority are you doing these things?" And so that’s very interesting. And the way Jesus responds is very interesting, too. He then appeals to John the Baptist. He asks, "Well, now, was his authority from God or was it from people?" And what’s interesting about that, those are the alternatives they were faced with with Jesus: Is He from God or is He from people? Well, we all know what the correct answer is as far as Jesus is concerned. John is from God and He is from God. And so you have right there an indirect but very important self-testimony on Jesus’ part. Then He does answer their question indirectly in the parable that follows. I mean, they’re still standing there and He turns around and says to His own disciples: "A man had a vineyard..." and He goes on alluding to Isaiah 5, tells this parable, but He introduces new characters into this parable. Isaiah doesn’t say anything about farmers tending the vineyard–Isaiah 5. But Jesus does. And, of course, He’s introduced the ruling priests into His parable, and they recognize that He’s told a parable against them. He has answered the question, "By what authority does He do these things?," from God. In fact, more than that, He’s God’s Son who has come into the vineyard. And these guys, the ruling priests, are about to murder Him. And then He asks them, "Haven’t you ever read the Scripture"–and we’re back on to the Psalm 118 theme, the Davidic theme of rejected stone which, in fact, becomes the foundation stone in God’s own plan in redeeming and restoring Israel. And they perceive that–they’re not stupid. They understand that and they go away saying, "We’ve got to destroy this guy. He is serious trouble because He has just indirectly threatened us with being removed and replaced. So that’s it. It has escalated to the point now, we have...it’s either Him or us. This town is not big enough for both of us. We’ve got to get rid of Him."

52. Jesus claims—or at least strongly implies—that he is sent by God.

ANKERBERG: What does this say about, again, who Jesus thought that He was? He is pushing. He’s pushing the ruling people, but even in His pushing and making these declarations He’s saying a whole bunch about Himself.

EVANS: Oh, yes. Well, He has–in this parable–He has strongly implied that He is sent by God; He is God’s beloved Son. This is consistent with the vision at His baptism; it’s consistent with the vision at the Mount of Transfiguration, as we call it; He has this self-understanding. He is God’s Son, Psalm 2, the anointed One of the Lord, who is God’s Son and He’s going to Israel on God’s mission. He clearly understands that and is willing, if necessary, to die for it. I think it’s a pity that some scholars make a hash out of that and when they do that, then the whole thing logically begins to break down. You begin wondering, "Now, wait a minute. If Jesus was just a preacher of egalitarian virtues of equality and so on, if He’s just a pest, if He’s just sort of pooh-poohing society and its materialistic values, why does He go to the cross as King of the Jews? That doesn’t make any sense. Why does His following celebrate the words of institution? Why do they attach atoning significance to His death if Jesus hadn’t taught any of that stuff, if Jesus didn’t think any of that? Why isn’t He just remembered as our beloved Teacher who was martyred? But His memory lingers on. It would be that simple, if that’s all Jesus had done. There were others who had taught and were martyred and that’s how they’re remembered. Why is Jesus exceptional? I think He’s exceptional in the Church’s memory because He was exceptional in His own life, in His teaching and in His deeds.

ANKERBERG: This very fact blew Paul away, too, that Jesus was willing to go to the extent of being a Servant even to the death on the cross, so Philippians 2 comes about. But this had to blow Paul’s mind.

EVANS: I’m sure it did.

ANKERBERG: I mean, tell why this whole thing that Jesus did impressed His followers later on, people that were Pharisees like Paul.

EVANS: If Jesus had not been resurrected, I don’t think they’d have been very much impressed. They’d have said, "Well, you’ve got to give Him high marks for devotion to His vision and willingness to die for it." They might have said that. But when He was resurrected, they realized, "You know, He was right in what He was saying. He really was God’s Son. He really was acting according to God’s will. God did raise Him up." And for Paul, Paul’s testimony would be very similar because Paul would assume that when the Messiah came, the only people that are going to do any suffering are the bad guys. The only people who are going to be doing any suffering are the Romans. That’s the way it’s supposed to be when the Messiah shows up. "So Jesus obviously can’t be the Messiah. He’s dead." But now you’ve got this heresy, and people are running around saying, "Hey, aspects of the law of Moses really don’t have to be followed. I mean, in the name of Jesus you don’t have to do this and that and the other thing," and he says, "Oh, obviously Jesus is a heretic. Jesus must have left behind a legacy of false teaching." So Paul, the purist and the Pharisee, is going to stamp it out–until he encounters the risen Jesus. And now he has a whole new insight as to what the Messiah means, a whole new personal insight as to what his own righteousness means and what the Law means. And so you have Paul turned inside out because of his encounter with the risen Christ.

53. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was more than just a psychological phenomenon.

ANKERBERG: Let’s talk about this whole thing–Paul, James, all the boys that convert that shouldn’t have converted if this was just kind of a psychological deal at the end here. You know, Peter Jennings and the guys on the Jesus Seminar, they come out, "As we know, the Jesus movement grew and flourished, which is why some eminent scholars believe there was indeed a Resurrection." Like there is some other theory that would be better. Talk about all the reasons why this Resurrection had to have occurred, that there is nothing better to replace it.

EVANS: No. You’re quite right. There have been all sorts of alternative theories that have been proposed. The New Testament, without any variation, unanimously affirms that Jesus was raised from the dead. Resurrection we’re talking about, not ghost appearances and things like that, or wishful thinking, or memories and dreams, nor anything like that. Jesus was resurrected. And that was contrary to expectation. The disciples had run away. Why in the world would they think Jesus was going to be resurrected. They didn’t want to hang around for His execution. They took off. So the disciples were all drawn back. Jesus’ own family members were somewhat resistant to His ministry. You see that clearly in Mark 3. And yet His brother James becomes the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. Mary, who, you know, comes on board. So what has changed the minds of these cowardly disciples who had run away? What’s changed the minds of some of His own family members? What has changed the minds of some of the Pharisees – two, by the way, who, according to Luke, become converts early on? And it’s because of the Resurrection–and that was contrary to expectation. They believed in the Resurrection probably the way a lot of Christians today do. It’s kind of pie in the sky eventually, somewhere down the road. I think they would have believed that. But Jesus was talking about being resurrected in three days. And you don’t have to press that and say that means literally 72 hours or something like that. It’s based again–it’s typical of Jesus–it’s based on a loose paraphrase, Aramaic in this case, of Hosea 6:2: "On the second day He will revive us; after three days He will raise us up." And in the Aramaic paraphrase, which was developing in the synagogue of Jesus’ day and beyond, it’s understood to be, "He’ll raise us up in the day of resurrection." And that’s probably where Jesus’ language comes from. So He’s trying to assure His disciples, "On the third day I will be raised up." And He’s alluding to Hosea 6:2. Well, that sounds nice in theory but, you know, would you like to put it to the test? No. Most people wouldn’t. "I’ll pass on that." And but Jesus had faith that God would raise Him up and the disciples were, I think, thunderstruck when they realized after three days He was raised up. And Jesus’ hope and His faith in His Heavenly Father were vindicated and then He appears to them. And of course, they are just overwhelmed. Here is their Master. He stands before them bearing the marks of crucifixion still within His body. They are astounded by that and utterly transformed. No more cowardice; no more doubting; no more fickleness and fecklessness–the way it had been. No. They become His witnesses throughout their lives right to their own deaths and for most of them, it was martyrdom.

54. There is solid historical evidence that Jesus died on the cross. So the missing body has to be explained somehow.

ANKERBERG: Let’s talk about, Is there solid historical evidence that Jesus actually finally ended His life on a Roman cross, was crucified, was seen to be dead there, and then what happened to the body?

EVANS: Almost all scholars would acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross. The idea that He swooned, passed out, woke up in the tomb later, pushed over the stone, got out somehow, presented Himself alive as the exalted, risen Christ. I mean, that’s laughable. I know that has been proposed in the past, but nobody does now. Jesus died; Jesus was taken down from the cross and put in a tomb – that is disputed. And a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, Dom Crossan, has argued that more than likely Jesus’ body was either left hanging on a cross to be mauled and chewed by carrion creatures or maybe He was thrown into a ditch, or His body, perhaps, was eaten by dogs. Now, Dom means no disrespect by that; in fact, indeed, it’s part of his own theology and his appreciation for Jesus’ suffering that he even talks this way. Because to be denied burial, a Jewish custom, is a terrible shame, a terrible disaster. It’s an act of piety to bury someone. So I understand that. But on a historical level I find it highly unlikely. Why? Well, for one thing, this is the Jewish land; this is Israel. There’s an Old Testament commandment that strongly discourages leaving an unburied corpse lying around on the ground. It should be buried. That’s a requirement of the law. Israel is concerned with purity, corpse impurity. You’re going to leave a body in a ditch where dogs can chew at it and carry its bones off into different directions. That’s unthinkable. Crossan and others have said, "Well, yeah, but that’s happened many times. There have been thousands of Jews who have been crucified and their bodies are just left hanging on the cross." Yes. Yes. That’s true. But you have to know what the circumstances are. During the Jewish revolt, during times of war when hundreds of people are strung up on crosses and their bodies are just left there to rot and be torn apart by animals and so forth, but not during peacetime; not when the Roman authorities are acting in concert and cooperation with the Jewish authorities. They’re not going to leave a body up there. On the eve of Passover, some corpse being mauled by animals?! That isn’t going to happen. And so historical context and probability strongly favor the Gospels’ account that Jesus’ body was actually taken down and put into a tomb–and put into a rock cut tomb. That’s what they did in those days. Jesus’ body would be put in the tomb and then one year later His disciples or family members would have a second funeral service, would gather His bones together and put them in a bone box. That’s what they would do. And perhaps take the bone box back up to Nazareth or wherever, or maybe Bethlehem, wherever the family crypt was. That was the expectation. So, the probability of actually being buried is very high. The idea of being left hanging on the cross or thrown into a ditch to be mauled by dogs–that is a highly, highly unlikely scenario. A scenario from 68 to 70 when Rome was attacking Judea and surrounding the city of Jerusalem–oh, sure. That’s scenario then becomes plausible. But not in 30 or 33 when Jesus was crucified. He would have been put in a tomb. It’s very, very likely that’s what would have happened. [Also See Section on The Resurrection]

55. We have good evidence of the message the disciples preached in the time immediately following Jesus’ resurrection.

ANKERBERG: What was the message–how can we tell people what the message was after Jesus died before the Gospels and the New Testament were written. How do you even know anything about what was preached immediately after?

EVANS: Well, we assume that the Gospel was proclaimed by word of mouth, and so what we hope is that something is written down before the living eyewitnesses pass away–and that’s what happens. Paul is talking about it, and the way Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians it’s "old hat." They’ve known about it for years. What Paul is writing, 20 years, maybe 17, 18 years after the event. And so that, from a historian’s point of view, that’s pretty good because remember what historians of antiquity have to deal with. Sometimes we have one source written down two or three hundreds years after the event took occurred and the oldest copy of that source we have is five or six hundred years after the original was written. And you say, "Well, that’s pretty good. We’ve got some good solid information here to work with." And so we go to the scene where it all happened and we find a few stones that match the source and we say, "Hey! It’s confirmed."

Well, the Gospels give us a ton of stuff in comparison to that. We actually have Paul talking about critical events, like the words of institution, eyewitnesses to the Resurrection, writing that within 20 years, writing within the lifetime of the people who were the witnesses themselves, and then the Gospel is written 10, 20, 30 years after that–and several of them, drawing upon at least two, probably three, maybe four distinct sources. That’s pretty good attestation compared to what historians of antiquity normally have to work with. There are lots of historians of antiquity that would rejoice if we had sources that reached back to Paracletes within 20 years of his life, sources that reach back to living eyewitnesses; and then had hundreds of manuscripts and copies of these sources dating within a century or so. They would be ecstatic! Well, that’s what we have in New Testament research and yet some of the scholars are hyper-critical, hyper-skeptical. I just don’t understand.

ANKERBERG: Okay, so then right there hit probability. In other words, it is probable, then, that you should believe this and this message. It’s not that you’re forced to, but if we’re going to be intellectual at this point and honest with the data that is there, define historical probability and what a scholar should do, regardless of your background.

EVANS: Yeah. I would say that the Gospels rank very high in terms of probability of historicity and accuracy. That’s not to say there is no evidence of any editing or that there’s no evidence of a theological interest and rearranging the material in a certain way to underscore certain emphases and so forth. But the Gospel material is, you know, solid source material, and the probability of the portrait of Jesus emerging from the Gospels, the probability of that being accurate is very high. And if we’re going to be so skeptical that we say, "No. That’s still not good enough. We need even more," then we really are in no position to say anything about history from that period of time.

But, no, I don’t think that kind of skepticism is required. The probability is very high that the Gospels have accurately portrayed Jesus.

56. If you are going to ignore Jesus, you will have to do so on grounds other than historical.

ANKERBERG: What is the relationship in your mind between historical probability concerning Jesus and faith? In other words, why should someone consider Jesus because of this good data?

EVANS: If somebody does not want to take Jesus seriously, if someone wants to ignore His claims and what the New Testament says so, then they’re going to have to ignore Him on grounds other than historical. Because that would be a cop-out to say, "Oh, well, I just don’t know what the real Jesus is like because the Gospels are contradictory and unreliable." That’s a specious argument because that’s just not so.

The Gospels give us a clear and coherent picture. We have a good idea of who Jesus is. We have a very clear idea of His significance not only in the Gospels, but it’s made quite explicit in the later epistles and so on–Paul and other writers. So if a person is going to say, "Jesus is not going to be important in my life. I’m not going to believe in Him," then they’re going to have to say that for other reasons besides historical. They’re going to have to say that for other reasons than to say that the evidentiary base is inadequate because it’s not. The evidence is there; the sources are there; the picture is clear and coherent, and in my academic opinion, the picture is quite compelling.

57. Jesus understood himself to be uniquely the Son of God.

EVANS: I think purely from an academic point of view, from a historical/critical view, what emerges is a person who understands Himself as commissioned by God, invested by divine power, and, indeed, a relationship with God that is unusual and a-typical and beyond a mere prophet or rabbi or something like that. And He believes the substance of His message is, the Kingdom of God is breaking out, and it’s His task, God-given task, to proclaim it and to inaugurate it. And so He begins this ministry with these convictions, with this very clear vision, and demonstrates it to His contemporaries through miracles, through acts of power, through compelling teaching and astonishing teaching unlike what had been heard before, and carries that vision to Jerusalem and remains faithful to it in the face of stiff opposition and rejection, knowing that it will take Him to the cross. And He remains true to His vision and finds within His forthcoming death meaning that this death, in fact, will accomplish God’s purposes. God’s purposes will not be thwarted. So I see someone who has a vision, who has the spirit, who has self-understanding, who knows He’s the Son of God, and this is His task and He pursues it unwaveringly. Even when He realizes it means death, He still finds significance for it and believes that in His ministry, in His death, God will accomplish His purposes, which ultimately will mean the redemption and restoration of Israel and the world.

ANKERBERG: What changed, then, at the Resurrection? What was added?

EVANS: Well, that depends on the question, "Added to whom?" I mean, I think for Jesus, there is no human limitation at this point. I mean, I believe in the Incarnation fully and by that I mean...because a lot of Christians, I think, don’t. I think they see Jesus as God wearing a costume or wearing a human mask and that is a shortened view, a defective view of the Incarnation. I think with the Resurrection Jesus Himself is fully restored. I actually think that’s what He’s talking about in the words of institution when He says, "I’m not going to drink of the fruit of the vine until I drink it anew" and we sort of quibble about what does that exactly mean in the Greek. Well, I think the underlying Aramaic means, "I’m not going to drink wine again until I drink it fully renewed"–and He’s referring to Himself. And with the Resurrection, that’s what’s happened. This is the new Jesus–not that the humanity has been washed away or lost or anything, but the Resurrected Jesus is no longer limited by the Incarnation, limited in any way by His humanity. Knows God fully; knows Himself fully; knows everything fully. So that changes for Jesus. For the disciples, of course, everything changes. They now realize, "Hey, He really was the Son of God. His death really does have meaning after all. He knew what He was talking about. They weren’t just words of despair, but He knew what He was talking about." And it changed them completely from cowards to dynamic, courageous people, many of whom were martyred for their faith. And did so, I think, without qualms because they knew who Jesus was now.

58. If the Gospels were written today, they would probably be written differently—but they weren’t written to 21st century standards, or for a 21st century audience.

ANKERBERG: Explain why the Gospels are written the way they are.

EVANS: Well, okay. One of the differences between the Gospels and the way we write history today, we try to be dispassionate. We try–and I don’t know what you want to call it; it’s a modern way of thinking–we try to be a aloof. It’s expected of a historian. And so you don’t become involved. You don’t want the reader to think that you have a faith commitment in one direction or another. You write a political biography and you don’t want to tip your hand. You don’t want the reader to know that you’re either a Republican or a Democrat or Independent. You don’t want the reader to know, for example, that you either admire or despise Bill Clinton. You hold that back. You try to be dispassionate. You try to be "objective."

The Gospel writers, they may do a little of that, but they’re involved. They’re too close. This is part of their story, too. It isn’t just, "Well, we’re writing a biography about Jesus and we’re just trying to get our facts straight. We’ll leave it to posterity to judge." Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They’ve already judged it from their own experience. They know it’s true. They’ve been involved in it. They’re caught up with the story completely. So they can’t help it. So it’s a very involved, personal, lived-in history, and so, of course, there’s a confessional element to it. They’re not going to bother writing about Jesus if it weren’t so, if Jesus weren’t the Messiah, if He had not been raised up. They’re not going to bother writing a story about Him. You might end up with a handful of his saints floating around in the Talmud. That’s what you’d end up with. But because of what He did and because of what He accomplished, because it became so clear who He was, then they’ve got...they can’t write enough about Him. You’ve got a whole bunch of Gospels that are written in the first century and they keep getting written on into the second and third centuries. And the Church has to sort this out. They decided to go with the early ones, the ones that had the best claim to apostolicity, the ones that–and I think the Church, by the way, made a good choice. You can read these other ones and choose for yourself. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John belong in the Canon; the others don’t.

59. The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter are two good examples of what happens when legend creeps into the story.

ANKERBERG: Let’s talk about this from an academic historian’s viewpoint and that is that it seems to me that Sherwin White and some of the others said there’s a certain among of time that has to take place for a legend to actually creep up, and I think just about the time he said it’s supposed to creep up, lo and behold, we do get the Gospel of Thomas and all this other stuff that is legend. Define that yourself. Say it and then give the examples.

EVANS: Oh, I agree. You just hit on a very good example. Jesus dies in the Gospel of Mark; the Centurion is impressed by the manner of His death. And no matter how you want to interpret that, maybe that’s just an utterance of a very superstitious man, and Romans were known for their superstition: "Wow! Something happened!" You know? "This strange darkness; the ground shakes a little bit. Man! This guy must have been the Son of God," so he says. Well, you go from Mark and about 80 years later the Gospel of Peter is composed. And what do you have in the Gospel of Peter? Well, you’ve got angels that are 100 feet tall. You’ve got a talking cross. You’ve got all kinds of errors, you know: ruling priests sleeping in a cemetery, keeping watch. You know, you get apologetic interests at work. That’s the very stuff you expect to start showing up in the second century. That is what Sherwin White was talking about. You’ve got legends that are starting to develop. And there is legendary material. The beginnings of the Infancy Gospel tradition are to be traced to the second century: the Boy Jesus who is a wonder. He makes clay pigeons, claps His hands and they fly away. These were legends that began to develop. You don’t have that in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You have restraint. But you get into the second century and the bizarre Jesus of Thomas, the fantastic Jesus of Peter, you know, the boy wonder of the Infancy Gospel tradition, this stuff starts developing. But that’s in the second century. That’s now 3, 4, 5 generations removed. People who had never been to Palestine. They don’t know what they’re talking about, have no idea what Israel looks like. They don’t know anything about Judaism. That’s when the stuff, you know, where imagination is given free reign. But you don’t have that in the canonical Gospels.

60. Jesus’ relationship to God was unique.

ANKERBERG: You’ve said that Jesus talked about His having a close relationship with God that was different than other men had. Prove that. Give me examples.

EVANS: All right. The best way of talking about how Jesus’ relationship to God differed from that of others, is, go to the Prophets, because the Prophets of the Old Testament probably had the closest relationship you can talk about. We have eyewitness accounts from Prophets. You have Isaiah describes his vision and his call. You have Jeremiah. You have Ezekiel. So the major Prophets all talk about how God reached out, touched them, summoned them, and commissioned them to preach and to proclaim His Word. And they’re terrified of God. There’s a sense of gulf. There’s not a sense of closeness, filial closeness and endearment. But you have that with Jesus. "The Holy One–Blessed be He"–and that’s the way they would refer to God – He is far off and aloof; the wrathful God of fire and judgment. And there’s a little bit of fearfulness. And in Jesus you have a closeness and a...like a familial and filial relationship that you had never seen before. And this is why I say this is unusual and so that’s why He emphasizes, He tells His disciples, "Pray to God as your Father – Abba" and He emphasizes that. That is not completely unknown. I mean, that’s found in other places but why does Jesus emphasize it so much? I think it’s because it’s His experience and so He’s inviting His disciples to come in close and discover that God is a loving Father in the way that Jesus has discovered that. And I think that’s one of the signposts that shows that Jesus’ relationship is special. And, you know, the voice from Heaven – that’s unprecedented. I don’t know of any parallel like that from Jesus’ time or before.

61. "Tradition" in the New Testament context does not equal "Catholic Tradition".

ANKERBERG: Talk about 1 Corinthians 15. Get "tradition" on the table for our American people to realize that’s important, almost technical data that Paul is giving that the community accepted. In other words, our people don’t seem to understand the import of what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 15 and why that’s so important in verifying that Jesus was a historical person, that the Resurrection took place–you’ve got the empty tomb; you’ve got the eyewitnesses all labeled there. But it’s packaged in a special way that you scholars sit up and notice. Why is it authentic stuff? Why is that portion important and what’s the information that’s being given there?

EVANS: Well, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul passes on as tradition what he has received, what they have received, he wants to pass on to them, and underscore it. And he does so for a reason because there are some heretical views regarding Resurrection that are beginning to float around in the Corinthian church and Paul wants to stamp it out. And so he appeals to old tradition. Well, it’s funny – "old" tradition? The tradition isn’t even 20 years old yet and it’s old tradition. And so it’s tradition that is circulating with the eyewitnesses still living. And so this is why many scholars, in fact, do take it very seriously. Some may not, but most do. They take it very seriously.

ANKERBERG: Define tradition first then.

EVANS: Well, Paul defines it and so "Jesus died, and He was buried, and He was raised up." We get these key verbs that summarize a lot of things. And "was buried," by the way–that’s something that I think Dom Crossan has to look at again and take more seriously. It’s not "Jesus died and was shamefully left..." I mean, why not incorporate that in the Christian story if Jesus wasn’t buried: "Jesus died and was dishonored with no burial and then He was resurrected"? But, no, He died, He was buried, and this summarizes old stuff and it’s stuff that’s so old it has already developed into a shorthand. It has been around. You know the whole story so well, you just need three verbs and you can summarize the whole thing. "Hey, I know what you mean." And that’s what it has become: a theological and historical shorthand summarizing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And it’s considered "tradition," already "old stuff"–20 years later? That’s amazing! You know, it really is something. It reaches back to the time of Jesus. It reaches right back into the lifetime of eyewitnesses, many of whom were still living; and Paul says so. "He has appeared to over five hundred"–after cataloging everybody, "most of whom are still living." That’s pretty solid stuff. And if Paul is making it up, I mean, he would have been compromised; he would have been found out so easily and discredited. But he’s not making it up. In fact, that isn’t even the point of the argument. He just reminds them of this and then goes on and makes his argument having to do with the importance of the Resurrection for the believer.

62. Jesus is for everybody—but it’s got to be on His terms.

ANKERBERG: Is Jesus for everybody?

EVANS: I think so. That’s His message. That’s His kingdom message. God is for everybody. He didn’t come proclaiming that God is now going to reign, however, only in certain areas; only in certain countries or whatever. God comes and reigns everywhere. God is for everybody. Jesus, the proclaimer of God, is therefore relevant to everyone. Not just to, "Well, to Gentiles He’s relevant but He’s not to the Jewish people." Or, "Well, just to North Americans, but He really isn’t to Asians" or something like that. So if Jesus’ message is to be believed and respected, the answer is very clear: Yes, Jesus is for everyone.

ANKERBERG: What would you say to the modern student that says, "It’s rugged to think of the exclusivity of Christ; that He would be the only approach to God." Like John would say that no one else comes to the Father but through Christ. What...how would you introduce that to a modern student that says, "That sound bigoted."

EVANS: I know. We’re in a complicated world. We’re in a world of diversity, some of which is good because it promotes tolerance in areas where we ought to be tolerant. I mean, who wants to return to 40 years ago or 80 years ago, a time of bigotry and racism and so on. I mean, who wants that? But it’s like the idea of truth and absolutes and so on that has been thrown to the wind. And like it or not, there are things that are true and there are lots of things that are false. Like it or not, you know, there is one way. I mean, can you imagine if the scientists at NASA had said, "You know, there are lots of ways to the moon. Every way will get...." That would be absurd. The margin of error is so small. You know, you either are on target or you’re going to miss the moon and you’re just going to keep on going into deep space, lost. And the notion that, "Well, any way will work," I mean, that really is false. And there’s your myth. And so I encourage my students, "Go ahead and take a course in comparative religion. Go ahead and look at what other faiths, other religions, teach. Do you see that as all equal? Do you all see that as equally valid?" And I’m not going to name any names. I’m not, you know, that’s not my place to do that, but I’ve read some stuff, you know, the views of various religions. It leaves me pretty cold. And it doesn’t strike me as reflecting the divine will or the character of God. And so that’s partly what I tell students. Just go ahead and shop around. Go ahead and make some comparisons. But in the scientific world, in the world that we can measure, the empirical world which we can observe, where we acknowledge that there are hard and fast laws, it’s nonsense to say, "Oh, you can get there by any route you choose." That just isn’t true. Why should that be true and in the world of spirit, in the metaphysical world, why is that true to say in that case, Any way will get you to God, where in the scientific world, you know that isn’t true.

63. Christianity is more than just a philosophy.

ANKERBERG: Somewhere in your academic training these facts got into your heart, your mind, they affected you. It was that existential moment that Borg talks about, but we’re doing it with the facts. Where did this become more than just academic information?

EVANS: Well, with my own Christian faith, you know, the academic information was of secondary importance initially. But as a university student I wondered, "Maybe I have uncritically accepted stuff. I’m psychologically conditioned. I’m whatever, whatever." And so I was interested in confirmation, ratification, alteration, whatever. And of course to this day that remains my view. If you can’t maintain that view with integrity, I don’t think you belong in academics because you should approach everything with an open mind. And so I exclude Peter and Thomas and that stuff not because I privilege the canonical Gospels but because in comparing them I just don’t see them as providing the quality information I’d like to have if I’m going to do Historical Jesus work.

So for me, evidence, sources, facts, study and all of these other things have combined to persuade me that my faith isn’t stupid and irrational and based on nothing. And that’s important for Christianity because Christianity isn’t just a philosophy. A lot of Christians, I think for them it is a philosophy: "Well, Jesus taught that we should love one another. I accept that teaching and I want to act upon it." That kind of thing. Well, that’s not really Christianity. That may be using an adjective "Christian" or "Christian-like," but that’s not Christianity. Christianity is the belief that God really...or that Jesus really was God’s Son, that He did proclaim with authority the Person and Kingdom and rule of God and that His death on the cross really did accomplish God’s purposes and He was really resurrected. I mean, there are historical elements, and once we start talking history, then potentially we can start talking "source" and "evidence." We can actually go to the place. It’s a real place. It isn’t some fairy-tale land somewhere. It isn’t King Arthur and his round table. We can actually go some place and say, "This is where it all happened. In fact, look. We’ve actually dug up the very pavement where He walked." Things like that can be found. Potentially all kinds of things. We could still find other documents. You don’t find corroborating evidence for fairy-tales and myths and so on. Well, for the Historical Jesus you can find plenty of corroborating stuff.

And so the evidences, the facts, the artifacts, all of this can flesh it out and you can say, "I understand it better" and I can also understand it rests on a firm foundation. Now, archaeology doesn’t prove that Jesus was really God’s Son. Source critical work and all that stuff doesn’t prove those things. But what it does is, it shows that there is a historical foundation on which confessions of faith...or in the light of which confessions of faith make perfectly good sense because I would not want to be in a situation–again, I’m not going to name any religions or something–but a well known North American one where they’ve got faith in certain things and yet there is no archaeological corroboration. Faith in a particular religious book that tells stories that cannot be confirmed, that fly in the face of what we know about America and North American history and so on–I wouldn’t want to be in a position like that where there is no Nazareth that can be found. There is no Bethlehem that can be found. There is no corroborating archaeological evidence. And so, "Well, I take it by faith." Yeah, there are some things you take by faith but there are other things where, in Christian thinking, you can inquire. You can say, "Well, yeah, I’d like to know, though. Where is the evidence for this anyway? The Bible tells about this city or that city. Well, where is it?"

And of course most of these places–a couple of cities we can’t find but almost all cities and places and locations have been identified.

And what that does is it reinforces one’s confidence: this isn’t a book of fairy-tales. This is a book that’s describing real people and real places and things that happened and you can look at it and then you can ask the next step, "Well, okay. Good. Do these stories actually tell us something about God and about what God expects of us?" And that’s where you take, then, the step beyond the evidence, beyond the rational, you might say, and take that next step and ask, "Well, how do I respond to it? What do I choose to believe and choose to obey and live in light of?" And that becomes very personal.

Dr. Craig Evans earned his Ph.D. in New Testament from Claremont Graduate School and is the Director of the Graduate Program in Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University, where he has taught since 1981. He has lectured at Cambridge, Durham, and Oxford. Co-editor of Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds, Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research and Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Author of Jesus and His Contemporaries.]

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