The Apocalyptic Jesus (Part II): The imminent kingdom of God

Let us continue with our series which attempts to highlight the imminent eschatology of Jesus (part I here), an eschatology we would label as apocalyptic. In the previous post I highlighted how important it is to interpret the ministry of Jesus against the backdrop of the worldview of second temple Judaism, and how this worldview shaped and catalyzed the apocalyptic framework. This will be important to keep at the forefront as we, in this post, delve into another focal point of Jesus ministry: the Kingdom of God.

To those familiar with the New Testament it should come as no surprise to hear that Jesus’ ministry was organized around and predicated on the Kingdom of God. Jesus spoke of this Kingdom probably more often than he spoke of anything else. In fact, in the book of Matthew alone the phrase “kingdom of God” (or kingdom of Heaven) is used thirty-seven times, while it is used thirty-two times in Luke’s Gospel! In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus famously asked for “Thy Kingdom come.” Scholar Craig Keener notes that “virtually every stratum of Gospel tradition testifies that Jesus regularly announced the kingdom, there should be no doubt that this was a characteristic emphasis of Jesus teaching.” In the same vein,  secular historian Michael Grant claims the following in his book Jesus:

[E]very thought and saying of Jesus was directed and subordinated to one single thing […] the realization of the Kingdom of God  upon the earth[…] This one phrase sums up his whole ministry and his whole life’s work. (p. 10-11)

So it’s clear then, Jesus’ ministry was about one general focal point: the kingdom of God. But what exactly was meant by this phrase? Was it metaphorical or literal? Christians these days interpret the phrase “kingdom of God” as meaning a Christian lifestyle of love, or some interpret it as world evangelization. But in order to find out what Jesus meant by the phrase we need to understand how it was used in second temple Judaism.

In The Historical Jesus of the Gospels Craig Keener claims that in Jesus’ time the phrase “kingdom” signified the concept of “rule”, “reign”, or “authority” (p. 196).  Again, Michael Grant, in agreement with Keener, claims that “the Hebrew term [kingdom] refers not so much to a realm as to the dynamic kingly rule and sovereign action of God.” (p. 15) So, the kingdom of God seems to represent God’s sovereign rule and reign. To quote Keener again, “When Jewish people prayed for God’s kingdom to ‘come,’ they weren’t simply invoking God’s mystical presence among them for the present time; they were praying for God’s future reign to come.” (p. 198)

Moreover, we can survey Jewish texts in the second temple Judaic period and see how they used the phrase “kingdom of God.” The Kaddish prayer states the following: “May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and at a near time.” In the Testament of Moses 10:1 it says that “[God’s] kingdom shall appear throughout his creation, and Satan shall be no more[.]” And from the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q246 it states the following: “His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all his ways in truth. He will judge the earth in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease from the earth and all provinces will worship him[.]” These uses of kingdom surely seem to imply the reign, rule and authority of God.

Thus, the phrase “kingdom of God” seems most plausibly to be conceived as the restoration of God’s rule and authority as seen through the Davidic Kingdom, brought about by divine intervention ( see part I).  Again, this is what was expected by most Jews and it makes perfect sense to interpret Jesus’ use of the phrase “kingdom” in this vein—any other interpretation only strains credulity and is anachronistic.  For, as the Jews believed, God’s authority obviously was not being exercised in second temple Judaism since the Jews were still being oppressed. But, His rule was soon to come, and his Kingdom would be established once and for all. At least this is what Jesus and many Jews believed.

This brings us to Jesus actual statements about the kingdom, and exactly how close he believed God’s rule was to being realized:

The kingdom of God has come near you. Luke 10:9

Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power. Mark 9:1

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.  Mark 1:15

You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Luke 12:40

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Mark 13:30

And will God not grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. Luke 18:7-8

Obviously this is the tip of the iceberg. Anyone who’s ever cracked open the New Testament will see phrases of this kind peppered throughout. The point is that Jesus believed God’s intervention, which aimed at establishing his kingdom once and for all was right around the corner. So close in fact that his disciples wouldn’t even die before it happened. So close that Jesus’ own ministry was the first fruits of the ushering of this kingdom. This is apocalypticism, plain and simple.

But this line of thought can be taken even further, and can illuminate further elements of Jesus’ ministry. Think of some of Jesus’ extreme commands in the vein of asceticism: Taking no thought or concern for subsequent days.   To make oneself a eunuch for the kingdom’s sake. A lack of concern for material things, including personal possessions and even shelter. Jesus’ willingness to die etc. (This asceticism is also illuminated in Paul when he told the churches not to marry.) It should be obvious from reading the Gospels that Jesus kept a general distance from the way normal society took its course. He simply didn’t care about what most Jews and Romans cared about. And why should he have, since he believed the world was about to end due to God’s intervention. Why care about possessions if they won’t be important any longer? Why care about what’s going to happen tomorrow, since tomorrow might not come at all? Why care about your family or marrying a woman if such things won’t matter when God intervenes? This point is driven home in Karl Frank’s book With Greater Liberty when he states that “the conviction that the end of the world was near always fostered asceticism.” (p. 30) It should be obvious that this ascetic outlook fits like a glove with an apocalyptic worldview, and therefore gives us more reason to regard Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.

Thus, we see that Jesus’ ministry rested on the fulcrum of the kingdom of God. Yet we’ve seen that in second temple Judaism the kingdom of God represented God’s eventual intervention which would establish once and for all his sovereign authority. And we’ve seen that Jesus made statements that explicitly state that this intervention was right around the corner and would happen within the lifetime of his disciples. Lastly, we saw that Jesus’ indifference to the common matters of the world makes perfect sense under the condition that Jesus believed the world would be ending soon. Everywhere we turn, the apocalyptic framework makes perfect sense when predicated of Jesus’ ministry. 

The Apocalyptic Jesus (Part I): Apocalypticism and John the Baptist

I realize that this current series of articles is going to turn off some of my Christian readers—hopefully only momentarily. I understand that. The idea that I’m entertaining and arguing for is completely contrary to any form of orthodox Christianity, and it will be seen as heretical and blasphemous. I understand that as well. But before you dismiss what I’m about to argue, please understand that I once felt the same way. The idea that Jesus (wrongly) expected the world to end in his own lifetime is something that I would have scoffed at only about four years ago. But after reading the scholarly arguments put forward for the apocalyptic Jesus thesis, and after a hard road of trying to convince myself otherwise, this viewpoint just seemed to be the most logical explanation of Jesus’ ministry that I had ever come across. I didn’t want this view to be true, I really didn’t. But at the end of the day I had to follow the evidence where it led; and it is this evidence that I will attempt to put forward over the next few articles. I admonish you, the reader, not to let your preconceptions rule your judgment of the evidence—though I know that this is almost impossible. Please try to be as objective as possible and read with an open mind.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Apocalypticism

It should go without saying that a historical figure’s life, words, and deeds should be studied and judged within the larger context of their immediate culture. Jesus is no different. Jesus lived in the time of second temple Judaism (515 BC-70AD) and during the latter part of this time period a certain worldview was rampant and ubiquitous among the Jews—namely, that of apocalypticism.

Apocalypticism is an eschatology (i.e. set of beliefs about the end of the world) wherein the end of history is brought about by divine intervention and is thought to be happening very soon. It is this belief that became the primary worldview of second temple Jews for a few reasons. You see, starting in the eighth century B.C., the promised land of the Israelites was constantly under attack from foreign powers. The most important of these attacks took place in 586 B.C. and subsequently led to the exile of the Israelites from the southern kingdom and their subsequent oppression by the Babylonians. This exile was interpreted by the prophets as punishment from God for Israel’s lack of faithfulness and sin. So the prophets promised that if Israel got their act together and sincerely repented of their unfaithfulness, then God would restore them their land and would reestablish them among the nations. But unfortunately the land was never restored back to their control and their land was continually dominated by more and more increasingly powerful nations, despite the fact that Israel had indeed repented of their unfaithfulness—this happened for a couple centuries. So if Israel, God’s chosen people, had done what God wanted, then why wasn’t he fighting for them any longer? Why was he now the one no longer being faithful?

This is exactly what Israel was asking itself, and out of these questions apocalypticism was generated. For it was then thought that Israel was no longer being punished by God for being unfaithful, rather Israel was being punished by God’s enemies (both spiritual and physical) for being faithful! Thus, the Israelites were suffering for their faith, instead of suffering for lacking it, as had previously taken place. Moreover, Jews were beginning to stand up to their oppressors, and consequently were being martyred left and right for their faith; thus cognitive dissonance caused the Jews to cook up an afterlife and a day of final judgment, in which the faithful would be vindicated, and the enemies of God who were oppressing his chosen people would finally get what they had coming to them—since God obviously wasn’t doing this currently. This day of God’s intervention, restoration, and subsequent judgment was seen to be more and more imminent, because it was thought that God surely would not let his children suffer needlessly. Hence, it was seen by a majority of Jews in second temple Judaism that God’s cosmic intervention was right around the corner, and any day now the messiah would come and drop the curtain on this inversion of world powers.

We see these pronouncements of apocalypticism in the Assumption of Moses, 1 Enoch, the Book of Daniel, Isaiah 24-27, Zechariah 9-14, 4^th Ezra, the Apocalypse of Abraham, 2^nd Baruch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the Essene movement. The point is that second temple Judaism was soaked in an apocalyptic worldview, and it is in this context that the ministry of Jesus must be interpreted—to claim the opposite is anachronistic. To quote critical NT scholar Dale Allison from the book The Apocalyptic Jesus: [T]o propose that Jesus thought the end to be near is just to say that he believed what many others in his time and place believed. (p. 23)

The question then is, Did Jesus really believe the end was near?

Those that came before and after

One way to best understand Jesus’ ministry is to survey the ministry which was the genesis for his own, as well as surveying the ministry that was generated from his. Let us begin with the former.

It is no secret that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. For Jesus to submit himself to be baptized by John, he obviously had some theological and doctrinal continuity with him and his ministry.  As Scholar Craig Keener notes in The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, the “baptism indicates, at the least, that Jesus knew and accepted John’s message[…] Jesus’ message stood in continuity with John’s[.]” (p. 176) Not only this, but Jesus explicitly praised and endorsed the Baptist himself. He stated that John was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9) and that “among those born of women there has not risen one greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11) Therefore, it seems clear that Jesus thought very highly of John, and, since John preceded him, Jesus believed his ministry to be a continuation of John’s.

But what exactly did John the Baptist preach? Well John was quite clear that Israel needed to turn to God and repent, but why? Well, John asked “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” and stated that “the ax is laid to the root of the trees.” (Luke 3: 7 and 9) That is to say, John expected God to intervene soon—the ax is laid to the root of the trees—and therefore repentance was necessary if one wanted to be on God’s side when he intervened. Again, Keener states that “John was a wilderness prophet proclaiming impending judgment.” (p. 167)

Moreover, the fact that John was a prophet living in the wilderness should not be overlooked. You see, many Jews expected Israel’s restoration to occur in the wilderness—partly because of verses like Hosea 2:14-23—and the prophets seem to have insinuated that a new exodus would take place there. The Qumran community was an apocalyptic movement and they lived exclusively in the wilderness for the same reasons—though it is not thought that John was part of the Qumrans. Thus, a ministry in the wilderness, as John had, seems to have clear apocalyptic implications.

So, it seems that Jesus had continuity with John’s ministry, and his ministry seems to have had an apocalyptic element to it. And thus it makes even more sense to view Jesus as an apocalypticist due to his theological predecessor John the Baptist. But what about Jesus’ immediate followers and successors? Did they show any signs of imminent eschatological expectations? You bet they did. Let us survey just a few verses to demonstrate this:

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. (Romans 13:11)

In a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay. (Hebrews 10:37)

You must also be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. (James 5:8)

The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ (Revelation 22:20)

It should be quite apparent from these verses that the earliest followers of the Jesus movement expected their salvation and vindication—which included the return of Jesus—to manifest very soon. At any moment Jesus would be riding on the clouds to usher in that very thing.

So where did this belief come from? Because this belief was not some peripheral doctrine of Jesus’ immediate followers.  It seems to be a ubiquitous eschatology that permeates the deepest desires of the Jesus movement.  If Jesus did not believe that the end was near, then why did his posthumous ministry hold to such a belief? How do we explain the ubiquity of apocalypticism in Jesus’ followers? Is it really just plausible to say that Jesus’ followers just all happened to form this mistaken belief independently of one another? Or is it not more plausible that the ubiquity of their belief had its genesis in the teachings and beliefs of him whom they called their Lord?

Now when you pair this with the eschatology of John the Baptist then our thesis becomes even more compelling. For if the Jesus movement branched out from an apocalyticist movement, and if the successors of the Jesus movement maintained apocalypticist beliefs, then it really only makes sense that Jesus himself was also an apocalyticist. The denial of this claim is simply implausible. For then one would have to address why Jesus endorsed John’s ministry, yet had a completely different eschatology—even though his eschatology seems to be apocalyptic, a point we’ll argue for in the next few articles—and why Jesus’ followers jettisoned (their master) Jesus’ eschatology in favor of an apocalyptic one. This latter thesis is too ad hoc and it violates the principle of parsimony. It seems that simplicity prevails here, and it seems most plausible that Jesus, like those immediately before and after him, was an apocalypticist. To quote Dale Allison: “[T]o reconstruct a Jesus who did not have  strong eschatological or apocalyptic orientation entails discontinuity […] with the movement out of which he came as well as with the movement that came out of him. Isn’t presumption against this?” (p. 21)

Harry McCall responds (sort of), and profundity does not ensue

Harry McCall and I have been engaging in a back and forth regarding his thesis that the OT—yes, the entire OT--is a forged document from the late second temple period. I wrote a blog post demonstrating logically, historically, and textually why McCall’s thesis is unreasonable. McCall has claimed that he will properly deal with my arguments. In the comment section of this recent post at DC, McCall claimed the following: I'm going to post a full article here at DC tonight (It's just about finished) that takes you [sic] blog's post apart piece by piece. However, McCall never posted this article that was supposedly “about finished”, or if he did I have yet to see it materialize.

What he did do, however, was post a short rebuttal comment to an argument I promulgated over at DC in the comment section. Is this the material he claimed was going to take up a full article? I can’t say. And why McCall did not post this “response” on his own blog instead of the comment section of my blog is strange. Usually McCall parades his idiosyncratic theses around the DC pages. But, when claiming to take my arguments apart “piece by piece” he seems to not want many to see his responses. And after reading his so-called rebuttals, I can clearly see why.

So, the purpose of this post is to demonstrate why McCall’s recent answer to my arguments fall short of the mark, are predicated on more non-sequiturs, and only deal with a small fraction of my original arguments.

Let me set the stage and begin with McCall’s argument, as articulated at DC, on how to “deprogram a Christian”:

1.  Demand textual proof that any verse of the Old Testament was written before 200 BCE. (There's 23,145 verses to prove them right or wrong.)
2. Demand historical proof (apart from using the New Testament to prove the New Testament) that Jesus Christ existed. (Let's see absolute truth prove itself.)

As you can see, 1) is predicated on McCall’s biblical forgery thesis, and 2) is predicated on Jesus Mythicism. My response was as follows:

 

How to Deconvert/Deprogram a believer in the writings of Tacitus
(1) Demand textual proof that any volume of Tacitus' Annals was written before the ninth century.

 

How to Deconvert/Deprogram a believer in the existence in Caesar Augustus
(2) Demand historical proof (apart from using the writers that already assume Augustus existed) that Augustus existed.

This response was put forward in order to demonstrate the double standards that McCall employs in making his historical arguments against the Bible and Jesus’ existence. And it is to this response that McCall has offered his so-called rebuttal. McCall’s response begins as follows:

 

We know Rome existed! We don’t need either the writings of Tacitus nor Caesar Augustus to prove this. There ARE tons of archeological evidence from the time they discuss that one can see in Rome and Italy today. However, there is totally NO evidence Biblical Israel existed as described in the extensive and detailed text of the Bible.

McCall’s assertions here greatly confuse me. I never argued that Rome did not exist. McCall’s and mine discussion has no bearing on the topic of the existence of Rome. Second, neither did I ever claim that the writings of Tacitus or Augustus were necessary in order to demonstrate such a thing. So, McCall’s comments here have only caused more confusion, and have not even begun to scratch the surface of my arguments against his thesis. McCall continues with his next objection:

Neither Tacitus nor Caesar Augustus give detail word for word statements from hundreds of people over thousands of years. While Steven wants to play down the myths of Adam, Eve and the talking Snake, Steven then depends heavily on the internal Biblical chronology itself to link it to some history, but sadly for him, there is none[.]

There are many responses here. First, McCall’s objection here seems to, once again, not even pertain to the discussion. Remember that the discussion, based off of McCall’s own thesis, regards whether or not we have any reason to believe that the Hebrew Bible was forged in the second temple period. McCall’s (attempted) point in the above comment is that the Bible claims to give history over many centuries while Tacitus’ writings—I never mentioned the writings of Augustus, so I fail to see why he uses Augustus here—only claim to give historical details over a period of decades. So, what exactly does this latter point have to do with McCall’s original thesis? I profess that I have no idea. Whether the Bible was a forged document has nothing whatsoever to do with how long its purported historical recollections are. This seems to be another non-sequitur, the mark of McCall.

Second, even if McCall’s above objection was efficacious, it fails to take into account the nature of the biblical data, and draws a false parallel between the OT and the writings of historians of antiquity. For remember that the OT is an anthology, and was therefore written by dozens of authors. So, of course it makes sense that the timeline of dozens of authors stretches across centuries, while the timeline of one historian only stretches across decades. What else would we expect?

Notice that nothing McCall has objected here has even touched upon my original objections to his thesis. McCall is attempting (though not succeeding) to pick off the fleas while ignoring the dog that the fleas rest on. McCall continues:

Sadly for Steve, he’ll find totally nothing like this for the works of Tacitus or Caesar Augustus nor the total lack of evidence for a Classical archeologist digging in Rome or the Roman Empire because the Roman Empire existed (unlike the myth of the Biblical Israel).

McCall once again seems to have blatantly missed the point. The discussion is not over the existence of Rome. Rather, the discussion is regarding whether or not we are warranted in extending the existence of a writing beyond its earliest existing manuscript, and how this ties into the biblical textual evidence. Apparently McCall has amnesia and has forgotten exactly what we are discussing.

McCall articulates his third and final objection:

A major error Steve is making in his analogy is early evidence for a book (the Bible) that records 4,000 years of history before Christianity. Steve come up totally empty hand for any early Biblical text apart from the late post 200 (250?) BCE Qumran Scrolls.

Um, ok. McCall is oblivious to the fact that I have already conceded this. I agree that we have no copy of a biblical text that dates to before 250 BCE. Did you catch that? I agree. But, McCall has missed the point yet again. The debate is not regarding the date of these texts, but, rather, whether we can date the originals of these writings to before our earliest copies. The answer is  of course we can! Again, to reiterate what I already said in my last post on this subject, nearly all writings from antiquity survive on copies that date to centuries after they were written. So, to claim that we can project an earlier date for the originals of these copies from antiquity, but not for the Bible, is to enact a double standard! McCall has heard all this before, but instead of reformulating his thesis so as to avoid special pleading, he simply ignores the damaging objections to it and continues to promulgate such weak hypotheses. McCall continues:

Neither Tacitus (born 100 BCE) or Tacitus (born 56 CE) claim to record in detail direct speeches from both men, angels, demons and god, but are late down to earth documents we would expect of ancient historians of the time[.]

McCall is, again, missing the point completely. First, the topic of the writings that we’re discussing is irrelevant. What is relevant is when we can date these texts. Just because the Bible claims to report speeches from angles, demons, and God says nothing at all about when we can date the writings of said texts. McCall has formed another non-sequitur.

Second, and more importantly, there are many writings from reliable historians in antiquity that can be put in a similar genre as some of the writings of the Hebrew Bible. Let us take Tacitus, since we have already been using him as our prime example. Tacitus recorded that Roman emperor Vespasian miraculously healed a blind man and a lame man. That is, Tacitus recorded a miracle! A miracle, you know, like the kind found in the…the Bible.

Let us look at another example from the great historian Herodotus. Herodotus records that a horse gave birth to a rabbit. He also records a supposed fulfilled prophecy from the God Apollo. He also records that a Persian magi cast a spell to stop the Persian War on the fourth day. Herodotus even records that the Temple of Delphi miraculously defended itself with lightning bolts and rock avalanches! After reading these accounts one might label Herodotus as a dubious historian. On the contrary, he has been dubbed the “Father of History” and is regarded as, arguably, the greatest historian in antiquity.

All this is to demonstrate that there are indeed miraculous accounts in other writings from antiquity that can be paralleled with biblical accounts. So, McCall cannot claim that the miraculous nature of the Hebrew Bible allows us to discount an early date for its composition—a blatant non-sequitur—unless he is willing to do the same for other writings from antiquity. But, so far, we have seen that he is not, for then his illogic would be explicitly manifest.

McCall then ends his comment by listing a number of textual documents that demonstrate that other ancient nations existed in antiquity. However, seeing as how I have not called into question the existence of these nations, I fail to see McCall’s logical punch-line. To reiterate ad nauseum, the discussion is about the warrant one has for dating a writing earlier than its oldest manuscript; and a list of other nation’s textual writings adds nothing to my objections to McCall’s thesis.

In short, McCall’s thesis remains predicated on illogic, double standards, and a blatant ignorance of the actual textual evidence. I have demonstrated this before, and McCall’s most recent answer is drowned in more of the same—double standards and non-sequiturs. But, as I said, this seems to be the mark of McCall.

Harry McCall's thesis on biblical forgery

Harry McCall is a former fundamentalist Christian turned atheist. He (surprisingly) is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and received his B.A. in biblical literature. I first came across McCall over at John Loftus’ blog Debunking Christianity, and subsequently read his essay in the anthology Leaving the Fold.

In October 2012 McCall expounded a thesis of his, in a post at Debunking Christianity that he built up with much suspense, basically claiming that such a thesis would destroy the very historical foundation of Christianity. This thesis is not a scholarly consensus and has not been promulgated by any  major academic community. It is to McCall’s explanation of his thesis that we will first survey (I will quote McCall piecemeal):

[F]acts prove that the Old Testament is little more than a canonized group of forge [sic] books written at a time when Palestine was awash in religious turmoil and where long dead Biblical figures all seem to have written something ancient.

There is no Biblical manuscript (I repeat), not one single section of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) older than 250 BCE at the earliest!

My goal is to prove that there was no Biblical record until the middle of the Second Temple Period!

McCall is arguing that the Hebrew Bible, as it stands, had its genesis in the Second Temple Judaic period (515 BCE to 70 CE), because none of our manuscripts are earlier than this time, and therefore the whole Old testament is the result of countless forgeries which took place no earlier than 250 BCE (though I believe McCall has revised this thesis and has moved the date even later, to the second century).

This thesis is, to say the least, far-fetched and extreme. No consensus of scholars of antiquity, classics, aNE, nor OT/NT biblical studies holds to such a hypothesis. It is a fringe thesis, and should be treated with skepticism, seeing that the majority of scholars in the relevant fields have seen no warrant to promulgate such a hypothesis. I maintain that this thesis is the epitome of absurd and is predicated, simply, on sloppy scholarship, shoddy reasoning, double standards, special pleading and wishful thinking. In order to substantiate my above claim, we will examine three aspects of McCall’s thesis: 1) the fact that it is a non-sequitur; 2) the double standards and special pleading he employs; 3) the absolute ignorance McCall demonstrates regarding the biblical textual evidence. It is to these objections that we now turn.

First, it should be obvious to any objective reader that McCall’s thesis, even if predicated on valid facts (which I believe it is), is a non-sequitur—that is, even if his facts are correct, the conclusion does not logically follow. It is certainly not reasonable to conclude that because the oldest manuscripts we have of a specific writing date to such and such a time, they could not have been written any earlier than said time. Notice that at this point we’re dealing with pure logical possibility. It is perfectly reasonable to infer—and in fact we’ll see below that this is done with most writings from antiquity—that the original manuscript of a writing can date to many years before the oldest surviving copy of said writing. The oldest surviving manuscript of a writing does not logically necessitate that said manuscript is the earliest copy of the writing. To claim otherwise is pure ignorance embedded in dogmatism.

Now if my above objection is true, then this means that McCall’s conclusion does not at all follow from the facts he has highlighted; and if McCall’s conclusion does not follow, then his thesis is unwarranted and fallacious. The only way for McCall to revive his thesis is to claim that it is plausible for an oldest existing manuscript to have its genesis in an earlier copy that is not currently possessed; but if McCall does this then his thesis loses all efficacy. McCall is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Second, I maintain that McCall commits a major double standard with his thesis. To reiterate, McCall is claiming that since the oldest manuscripts we have of the Hebrew Bible are no older than 250 BCE, they could not—remember that if he admits they could then his thesis loses all plausibility—have been written any earlier. Yet, McCall only applies this standard to the Bible, and not to other writings of antiquity. But, most writings of antiquity run into the same problem that McCall is posing for the Bible, namely, late manuscripts.

Let us demonstrate with examples. Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 56-120) was a Roman historian and senator. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians of antiquity. So, one would think that Tacitus’ writings live off of an abundance of manuscripts that date back to his period, right? Wrong. Tacitus’ Annals originally contained at least sixteen volumes. Yet, only volumes 1-4 and 12-15 survive, and therefore we only have half of Tacitus’ original work. Not only that, but the oldest surviving manuscript of the Annals that exists dates to the ninth century! Therefore, by McCall’s own reasoning, it could not have been written any earlier, and was forged in Tacitus’ name.

These types of examples abound in the ancient world.  Suetonius (A.D. 69-140) was another Roman historian, and the earliest manuscripts we contain of his The Twelve Caesars date to the ninth century as well. Thucydides (460-400 B.C.E) was a Greek historian and his earliest fragments date to the 1^st Century A.D. Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 B.C.E) was labeled “The father of history” and is seen as, arguably, the greatest historian in antiquity. His masterpiece The Histories survives with the earliest fragments dating to the 2^nd Century A.D. This is only the tip of the iceberg. And all these great and well-known historians of antiquity are hundreds of years removed from the earliest existing manuscripts of their writings.

But remember that by McCall’s own reasoning, all these documents were forged! Here is a quote from McCall: To argue that the Bible was an ancient historical document that existed prior to this period, one MUST have textual support. Now let us take McCall’s same line of reasoning and apply it to the other historians of antiquity surveyed above:

To argue that [the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius, Thucydides and Herodotus were] ancient historical documents that existed prior to [their oldest existing manuscripts], one MUST have textual support.

Surely we can now see how ridiculous McCall’s thesis is. If McCall’s standard was employed with regards to all writings in antiquity, then we would have to conclude that all writings in antiquity were forged! That means Tacitus didn’t write the Annals and Herodotus didn’t write The Histories. Again, this is what we must infer if we are to follow McCall’s reasoning. Now, McCall has had this objection brought to his attention. This was his response:

Apples and oranges…Tacitus was not writing a divine history…he did not claim to have the one true history for over 4,000 years. He did not copy other works, then deny they existed and claim them exclusively as from his god/gods.

 McCall is claiming that the Hebrew Bible cannot be evaluated with the same standards as Tacitus, Herodotus et al. because the Hebrew Bible claims divine inspiration, whereas the former does not. Yet McCall is simply employing a red herring. Whether a text claims divine inspiration for itself does not necessitate how we should critically evaluate it. What’s amusing is that this is the very thing Christian apologists do with regards to biblical criticism—they engage in special pleading by asserting that the Bible should not be subject to the same standards of criticism as other writings, because the Bible is divinely inspired. McCall is, also, doing nothing more than engaging in special pleading. Just because the Bible claims inspiration for itself does not mean we treat it any different than any other historical document from antiquity. If the Bible claims to be giving us history, which it does claim throughout, then we need to subject it to the same criticism that we subject Tacitus’ Annals to, for example.  

McCall is simply attempting to get away with being overly critical with the biblical text. But, it wont work. Either his standard—that a writing cannot be older than its oldest manuscript—is employed across the board, and therefore most writings from antiquity are forged; or McCall must continue to revert to special pleading, and therefore his thesis is founded on a fallacy; or McCall will have to give up his ridiculous thesis, and therefore his thesis is discarded as invalid.

Third, let us look at a biblical example that seems to run counter to McCall’s hypothesis. Let’s begin with the nature of the Book of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah is considered by the consensus of scholars to have been written by three authors: “First Isaiah” who wrote chapters 1-39, “Deutero-Isaiah” who wrote chapters 40-55, and “Third Isaiah” who wrote 56-66. Now, scholars believe that these chapters were written, for the most part, centuries apart from one another. Yet, on McCall’s thesis we have to believe that all these chapters were written sometime around the Second Temple Period. You see, the earliest copy of Isaiah we possess, known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, dates to around 100 BCE, and therefore it couldn’t have been written any earlier, according to McCall anyway. But, this presents a problem. Isaiah 52, written by Deutero-Isaiah, makes a peculiar statement that makes sense only if promulgated around the end of the exile. Here’s Isaiah 52:1 (emphasis added): Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall be no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. In this chapter the Israelites have just returned from exile, and Deutero-Isaiah is trying to prophesy to the people that they have paid their dues, that Jerusalem has returned into their hands, and that things will stay that way. Now, this is to be expected from a group of Jews who believe that they were sent into exile because of their sinfulness and that they have since paid the price and can now enjoy their beloved promise land.

But why, you might ask, does this prophecy only make sense if professed around the time the Israelites escaped exile? It’s simple: the prophecy failed. In case one didn’t know, Jerusalem has had many the uncircumcised and the unclean set up shop there. Antiochus Epiphanes pillaged Jerusalem in 167 BCE (which helped lead to the Maccabean revolt), and many such destructions and foreign invasions took place soon after. So, obviously, the verse in Isaiah was written before all of this happened, otherwise we’re meant to believe that Deutero-Isaiah deliberately wrote a false prophecy—which goes against common sense, and the nature of Second Temple Jewish literature.

Yet, if we accept McCall’s thesis then examples (and there are many more) like these become inexplicable. If Deutero-Isaiah wrote in Second Temple Judaism, then why would he construct a prophecy he knew was false and was being falsified at that very time? Let it be known that Second Temple Judaic forgeries were constructed to attach validity to their writings and, many times, promulgated prophecies after the fact—that is, after they had already happened so that they would be seen as valid. So, why would Deutero-Isaiah do the complete opposite and attach obvious invalidity to his writings? Such questions seem to have no reasonable answer on McCall’s thesis.

Conclusion

I maintain that we have seen absolutely no reason to (and every reason against) adopt McCall’s outrageous hypothesis. He claims that we need textual proof to overturn his thesis, yet we only need show that his thesis is fallacious, employs double standards and special pleading, and goes against the evidence we do possess. And this has been done. Is the Hebrew Bible a forged document of the Second Temple period? We have seen no cogent reason to think so.