Shows
The Lydia McGrew PodcastExamining Dale Allison's Arguments for "the appearance to the twelve"Recently Dr. William Lane Craig has claimed that what we "should be talking about" is how great it is that Dale Allison acknowledges "the appearance to the twelve" and Allison's arguments for it. Craig earnestly urges that we should accentuate the positive when it comes to Allison, emphasizing how very impressive it is that a person who thinks the Gospels have many legendary embellishment nonetheless acknowledges some of the central "facts" that Craig himself uses to argue for Jesus' bodily resurrection.https://content.blubrry.com/reasonable_faith/RF_PODCAST_Dale_Alliosn_on_Resurrection_2025.mp3?fbclid=IwY2xjawNnXMNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFIdVphNUpRMHBXc3Nyd0...
2025-12-011h 02The Lydia McGrew PodcastBart Ehrman Cherry Picks on the Raising of LazarusToday's discussion was inspired by this post on Bart Ehrman's blog. https://ehrmanblog.org/john-versus-the-synoptics-how-does-jesus-raise-the-dead/Most of it is behind a paywall for subscribers, but Ehrman says that he makes the same argument in _The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings_.Ehrman claims that the raising of Lazarus, contrasted with the raising of Jairus's daughter, illustrates an overall tendency which shows that John's Gospel is significantly ahistorical. This is the supposed tendency of John to make Jesus' miracles more of a public spectacle than in the Synoptics, to make Jesus use his miracles as signs...
2025-03-2537 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastBad Methodology: Discrepancy Hunting in Non-biblical History
Even non-biblical historical works should often be harmonized. That's just part of applying common sense to history. For the next few weeks I will talk about the epistemologically bad discrepancy hunting method and how it applies to non-biblical history. In this method, mere differences are often exaggerated into discrepancies. Then further these discrepancies aren't attributed to common human errors (like not remembering quite correctly what one of your sources said, or misunderstanding a source) but are automatically treated as deliberate. Then, further, these allegedly deliberate factual changes are treated as examples of a "compositional device," which "everybody" knew might...
2025-01-0528 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastDon't Do a priori history!
The oft-repeated claim that there would *never* be a Roman census in a "client state," used to discredit Luke's mention of a census in the Christmas story, is an example of a priori history. Those who insist on this claim have only the thinnest justification for it--namely, the fact that client states under Rome had *some* measure of independence in matters of taxation. They also ignore or fumble to dismiss the explicit non-biblical example from Tacitus of Roman-style census-based taxation in the client state of Cilicia, during the reign of Tiberius. (So there isn't even the bad excuse of...
2024-12-2917 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastVirgin Birth and Resurrection: No epistemological mystery
What do the Virgin Birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus have in common? For one thing, they both emphasize the fact that Jesus had real body. Today I discuss why that is important from the perspective of knowledge (epistemology) and why we Christians shouldn't confuse a theological mystery with a lack of hard evidence.
Have a very merry evidential Christmas!
Links mentioned in today's broadcast:
"Mary, did you lie?"
https://youtu.be/CdsrlQz_R04
Virgin Birth playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn3za22QzE28xKqhTq5KvCB2
Podcast prior to Novemeber, 2024:
https://podcasts.apple.com...
2024-12-2213 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastRigid Scholars Mock Harmonization
In this video I read four quotations in which scholars make fun of harmonization by comparing reasonable harmonizations with far-fetched ones, sometimes using views that have never even been seriously advocated as a straw man of harmonizing. This is a tactic that one should be prepared for. This sort of condescension and mockery can make anyone more conservative than the "scholarly consensus" feel foolish and ignorant. But such illicit tactics are less likely to work if one has been prepared for them in advance.
My peer-reviewed article on achronological and dyschronological narration (mentioned in the video): http://jgrchj.net...
2024-12-1030 min
The Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus' Historical Teaching = Data
Why should you think that it matters if Jesus didn't historically, recognizably say something recorded in the Gospels? What if that is just the author's extrapolation or application of Jesus' teaching put into his mouth, based on the author's belief that this is the "higher meaning" of what Jesus really taught, or that this is what Jesus would have said if asked?
Even if you're not a Christian (yet), it's legitimate for you to wonder what you'd be buying into if you became a Christian. Would you have to adopt the position that apostolic teaching *put into the mouth...
2024-08-1129 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArguments From Silence: The Chances and Changes of This Mortal Life
Here I consider the various events that can prevent an account in history from being preserved and reaching us. Recognizing these "chances and changes of this mortal life" can help us to avoid making arguments from silence against testimony. We should not demand that we possess multiple accounts of an ancient event.
I then revisit the analogy of your brother telling you that he won the lottery, setting it in the 1800s when letters and information are hard to exchange, to give a better sense of the problems with arguments from silence in history.
Here again is Tim McGrew's...
2024-06-1613 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArguments From Silence: The Randomness of Saliency
Continuing to talk about arguments from silence in biblical studies today. Too often biblical scholars fail to recognize the randomness of saliency. What one author thinks to record or not record needn't have, and often doesn't have, any heavy explanation. Recognizing that it's often a bad idea to put a high probability on the prediction that *this* person will report *this* thing in *this* document is not at all akin to deciding that our senses are unreliable. It's more like realizing that it's very difficult to predict who will fall in love with whom. Or realizing based on empirical...
2024-06-0929 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArguments From Silence And Bad Analogies
This week I'm starting a 3-part series on arguments from silence. Last year Testify channel rightly rejected a skeptical challenge to the Virgin Birth on the grounds that it isn't recorded in the Gospel of Mark. Here's that video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXlZPjFmY9E&t=74s
But philosopher Dustin Crummett challenged the video, saying that Testify's argument is like rejecting sensory reliability just because we can find some cases where our senses lead us astray. And supposedly rejecting the argument from silence in history is like not making the sensible prediction that a brother we're in...
2024-06-0222 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastDo Critical Scholars Make a Surprising Admission About John?
In a recent discussion with Potential Theist, Dr. Michael Licona said that most critical scholars, even if they don't acknowledge traditional authorship of the 4th Gospel, do acknowledge that a personal disciple of Jesus was a "primary source" for the information in the Gospel. He tried to apply this to strengthen the case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
Do the majority of critical scholars really acknowledge anything interesting or helpful about the eyewitness source of John? Not really. In this video I debunk that claim, first by pointing out that Dr. Licona apparently misunderstands Dale Allison (whom he...
2024-04-0725 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Strange Minimalist Use of Liberal Scholar Norman Perrin
The quotation from Dr. Craig from Norman Perrin is found here:
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-3/s3-doctrine-of-christ/doctrine-of-christ-part-40#_ftnref7
Perrin's book is found here. I am reading from the conclusion, pp. 80 and following. Perrin's book can be electronically checked out fully legally from Open Library.
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5920323W/The_Resurrection_according_to_Matthew_Mark_and_Luke?edition=key%3A/books/OL4902689M
2024-03-0336 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastName Statistics Argument 10: Narratively Unnecessary Qualifiers
Now that we've talked about unnecessary clumps, what about more unnecessary disambiguations? Like Jesus of Nazareth and Lazarus of Bethany, these are additional places where there's no reason *within the narrative of a particular book* to give an extra qualifier with a name. Even if it's a popular name, if there's only one person in the book by that name, or if his identity is made amply clear by context, there's no need to add another qualifier.
First of all I discuss evidential "noise," where the information in question would likely be given regardless of whether the name was...
2024-01-2823 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastCan you refute undesigned coincidences? Dirk Bogarde and Bergen-Belsen
I'm kicking off a new series on undesigned coincidences with the question, what does it mean to ask if we can refute the argument from undesigned coincidences?
Obviously you can't tell a priori that any source is going to be supported as a historical document by evidence of undesigned coincidences. So in that sense of course we can't just sit in our armchairs and say that we know a priori that the Gospels and Acts are supported by them. But when skeptics dismiss the argument they sometimes give the impression that the whole concept of undesigned coincidences is some...
2023-10-1624 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastGospel Development Theories Are All Bunk 7: Do the chief priests crucify Jesus in John?
In an attempt to make John's Gospel sound like the pinnacle of so-called "anti-semitic" portrayals of Jewish responsibility for Jesus' death, Bart Ehrman makes the false statement that the chief priests carry out the crucifixion in John.
Here is the audio in which he discusses his development theory, beginning around minute 17:
https://www.premier.plus/unbelievable/podcasts/episodes/ehrman-vs-mcgrew-round-2-do-undesigned-coincidences-confirm-the-gospels
2023-08-2722 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastDevelopment Theories of the Gospels are all Bunk 6: Increasing Antisemitism?
Bart Ehrman claims that the Gospels' crucifixion stories become increasingly anti-semitic. According to Ehrman, Pilate becomes more innocent in Jesus' death and the Jews more guilty as we go through the Gospels chronology. Here I argue that this is all bunk, focusing on the three Synoptic Gospels. Ehrman misrepresents Mark, points to one verse in Matthew, and then switches to a completely different measure of Pilate's supposed increasing innocence in Luke.
Here is the link to the discussion between Tim McGrew and Bart Ehrman. Around minute 17 and following Ehrman gives his development theory.
https://www.premier.plus/unbelievable/podcasts...
2023-08-2124 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastTestimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the GospelsMy new book, Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels, is now available!
Purchase here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Testimonies-Truth-Why-Trust-Gospels/dp/1947929232/?fbclid=IwAR3OkHnlE00mi-y7oGAonghJRnWF-0uP_R2ikaUg7zU2jOUo2Oo58ZIr-vA Purchase here on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/testimonies-to-the-truth-lydia-mcgrew/1142990976?ean=9781947929234
This video provides a short summary answering questions like --How is Testimonies different from my earlier books on the Gospels? --Who has endorsed Testimonies? --How is Testimonies different from other books out there about Gospel reliability?
To see all endorsements, read here: http://lydiamc...
2023-02-1307 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastStrauss vs. Harmonization: Is Harmonization outdated?Here I continue on the theme that Tim McGrew addressed: Did D. F. Strauss put an end forever to the reasonableness of harmonization? I will be reading a quotation from Dale Allison accusing harmonizers of "trying to erase knowledge" and being motivated only by an outworn theory of inspiration that was "pulverized by the deists." On the contrary, the satire by Johannes Ebrard, written within ten years of Strauss's Life of Jesus, "pulverized" Strauss by pointing out how faulty Strauss's methodology really was. In this "war of the quotations," I will be reading and commenting on Allison, Strauss, and Ebr...
2022-12-1122 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastStraussian method vs. Harmonization: A Reading from the Library of Historical ApologeticsDid David Friedrich Strauss refute forever the method of harmonizing Gospel accounts, as Dale Allison has claimed? Not at all. In fact, Strauss's own theories about the way that Gospel narratives were supposedly invented are enormously complex and improbable, showing that his judgement about the factuality of the Gospels is far off-base. We welcome Tim McGrew giving a reading from William Lindsay Alexander on the Straussian approach to the Gospels, with reference to the birth of John the Baptist.
2022-12-0606 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus in John: Avoiding the "Greek Mystery" viewWe're wrapping up our series on how Jesus sounds in John's Gospel and we've seen how argument after argument fails to support the claim that John embellishes, elaborates, invents, or puts his own interpretations into Jesus' mouth. Today we're getting into the nitty gritty of some specific Greek aspects of what is called Johannine idiom. All too often, the fact that an argument concerns an ancient language is used to make laymen--or indeed anyone who doesn't fluently read that language--feel that they are not entitled to an opinion. The impression given is that having a credential of formal study in...
2022-09-1845 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus in John: The Myth of the Allegorical JesusHere I tackle the claim that Jesus sounds in certain discourses in John so oddly literary, his words uncannily similar (for many verses) to an "I am" way of speaking supposedly characteristic of Lady Wisdom of the Old Testament and extra-canonical Wisdom literature, that it raises the suspicion that these passages are in a different genre and are not intended to be historical. Short version: Nope. Watch the whole video for a thorough debunking of these claims. Want more about the robust, literal historicity of John?
Get The Eye of the Beholder! https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Beholder-Gospel-Historical-Reportage-ebook/dp...
2022-08-2239 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Myth of the Seven "I am" DiscoursesToday we examine another "false fact"--the claim that there are seven, or even about seven, discourses in John that combine the properties of being about an "I am" saying and being fairly lengthy. Sometimes scholars will add the (also false) claim that each of the "I am" sayings with a predicate is combined with both a miracle and a discourse. Of course, nothing would follow either deductively or non-deductively even if this were true, to call into question the fully recognizable historicity of such sermons and sayings. But the premise isn't even true. As I stress in the...
2022-08-1419 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastDoes Jesus in John sound so different? The Messianic Secret ArgumentJohn 8:58 and John 10:30 contain quite clear references to Jesus' deity. The fact that these don't appear in the Synoptic Gospels is used as an argument that John invents material. Sometimes the argument is a pure argument from silence. Sometimes an added argument will be that Jesus "wouldn't have" spoken this explicitly about his own deity since, in the Synoptics, he sometimes told people not to tell others that he was the Messiah. If he was secretive about being the Messiah, you'll hear, he wouldn't have spoken explicitly about being God, as he apparently does in John. So John must...
2022-08-0828 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArguments From Silence: The Good, the Bad, and the UglyArguments from silence are widespread in biblical studies. What makes the difference between a strong argument from silence and a weak one? Here is the abstract for Tim McGrew's paper on this question: https://philpapers.org/rec/MCGTAF-2
Originally uploaded to YouTube Apr 3, 2022
2022-08-0123 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Case of the Swiss MessengerIs it really true that harmonization of reports is a desperate conservative Christian ploy to ward off the threat of biblical contradictions? In this reading from 19th-century theologian Johannes Ebrard, we learn of what I call The Case of the Swiss Messenger, in which various accounts of a non-biblical event turn out to be quite compatible with one another, though a skeptic could make them appear discrepant. A reading by Tim McGrew.
Here is the book from which the reading is taken: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Gospel_History.html?id=IAMpl0PhPVwC
2022-08-0105 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastTim McGrew reading George Horne on Skeptics Who Don't Listen to AnswersThe more things change, the more they stay the same! Here is the 18th-century clergyman George Horne on how skeptics raise the same objections after they have been repeatedly, carefully answered. "Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer."
Originally uploaded Feb 6 2022
2022-08-0103 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastIs Agnosticism Safe?This week we have a fun discussion of agnosticism, probability, and the existence of God. (And the existence of Tim McGrew!) Is agnosticism the "safe" epistemic position? Is it always reasonable to withhold belief from the position that affirms more? Suppose that I told you that the logically stronger, more committal proposition always has a lower probability (on the same evidence) than the proposition that affirms less. Would that mean that agnosticism is more reasonable than Christianity? The answer is no. Watch to find out why!
Originally uploaded to YouTube 1/30/22
2022-08-0113 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastRichard Cecil on facing objectionsThis week Tim McGrew reads from 19th-century clergyman Richard Cecil on what to do when you are confronted with an objection to your faith.
Originally uploaded to YouTube 1.23.22
2022-08-0104 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus says, "I told you so!"Today I'll be talking about evidence for the reliability of the Gospels that also has devotional and pastoral value--the unity of Jesus' personality. I'll be focusing on one aspect of that evidence: Jesus' tendency to predict, to talk about his own predictions, and to say, "I told you so!" This video will provide a sneak preview of some of the content in the new, popular-level book I'm drafting, Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels. A new aspect of "I told you so" Jesus just recently occurred to me, and it is encouraging. If you use m...
2022-07-2511 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastErrancy, Devices, and the Courtroom WitnessIn the previous video on definitions of "inerrancy" and the reportage model, I explained that if you are a traditional inerrantist, you already believe the reportage model of the Gospels. I also argued that any "inerrancy" that there is any point in believing is incompatible with the compositional device views, according to which the evangelists felt themselves free to change various facts. But I also left space within the reportage model for those who aren't inerrantists, like myself. What if someone then said that there is nothing to choose between my own viewes and those of the compositional device t...
2022-07-1516 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastSynoptic variation: Don't make it too complicated!Here we're talking about the story of the raising of Jairus's daughter, mostly, and a bit about the woman who was healed when she touched Jesus' robe. This video is about what I think is a wrong approach to variations in the stories among the Synoptic Gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This redactive-critical approach overinterprets trivial differences, creates contradictions where none are present, and attributes any additional information in Matthew and Luke to invention when it isn't in Mark, rather than realizing that Matthew and Luke could add information to a story even if they were also using Mark. Don't...
2022-07-1527 minThe Lydia McGrew Podcast"Spotlighting"--No need to invoke Greco-Roman devicesIn this video I talk about "spotlighting." This is a name that Dr. Michael Licona has given to a standard harmonization move: Just because one account mentions two while another account mentions one, that doesn't mean that they are in contradiction. One author might just have been focusing on one. There is nothing wrong with this move or with giving it a new name. The problem arises when we think that this is something we are "learning" from "Greco-Roman compositional devices" and thus come to think that we need to endorse the literary device views more broadly in order...
2022-07-1514 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastQuintilian vs. the EvangelistsWho was Quintilian, and does he have something to tell us about the genre of the Gospels? Here I read passages from Quintilian and talk about the vast difference between his cynical advice for Roman orators and the Gospels' sober, restrained narrative. For more information on the genre of the Gospels, read The Mirror or the Mask: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary-ebook/dp/B0896W473Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1 Here's another video where I discuss how the Gospels sound and contrast them with modern fiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW1Z_pFP...
2022-07-1525 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Conversion of Paul as an Argument for the ResurrectionToday I talk about how to use the conversion of Paul in a cumulative case for the resurrection. We should distinguish Paul's experience of seeing Jesus from the experiences of the disciples while Jesus was on earth. Paul's experience did not have the same physical aspects that their experiences had, directly verifying the physicality of Jesus' resurrection. How can we acknowledge the legitimate force of Paul's conversion as an argument for the resurrection while acknowledging that his experience was different from that of the other apostles?
Originally uploaded June 4 2021
2022-07-1522 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastExplaining away and symbolic details in the GospelsWhy should we be cautious about adopting symbolic explanations of details in a biblical narrative? After all, the details could be both literal and symbolic, couldn't they? Here I discuss the probabilistic phenomenon of "explaining away." Two explanatory theories can compete for the force of evidence even if those theories are, strictly speaking, logically compatible. That's why you would be a bit offended if you were just telling about what happened and your friend or spouse started theorizing all sorts of symbolic reasons for the details of your story. The idea of a theological meaning for an apparently literal...
2022-07-1523 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastGospel Details in the Goldilocks ZoneHere I make a new argument for the reliability of the Gospels from the pacing and inconsistency of their use of specific, vivid details. I read a passage of modern fiction and contrast it with the feeding of the five thousand (in Mark) and the foot washing (in John) to show the difference between the "camera rolling" in fiction and the way that the Gospels drop in details in their narratives. (By the way, in my view of the video it looked like the Pargeter book cover was showing backwards, but actually it showed correctly!) Be sure to like an...
2022-07-1520 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe minimal facts argument and epistemic entanglementToday's session discusses how the minimal facts approach to the resurrection involves trying to help oneself to a "consensus of scholarship" by describing what scholars grant in a "fuzzy focus" (that there were "appearances" to the disciples) while not recognizing from the beginning that many of the scholars in question actually believe that the appearance experiences were such as to indicate that Jesus was probably *not* risen from the dead. This involves treating something as evidence for the resurrection which (if the scholars' opinions are to be taken as authoritative) would actually be evidence against. A better approach is n...
2022-07-1521 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastEpistemic Routing and Matthew's Raising of the SaintsHere I discuss what it might mean to defend the story of the raising of the saints in Matthew 27. We can legitimately use the other evidence for Jesus' resurrection to raise the probability that this event actually occurred. And we can answer a priori objections to this event, rather than dismissing it out of hand, without concluding that it happened aside from our evidence that Jesus himself arose. See my earlier video on mutual support and miracles for more on this concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqkNJ497VJo See my post on the question of "apocalyptic literature" and...
2022-07-1522 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus' Bodily Resurrection: Actually, we do know what we're talking about!Here I discuss Dale Allison's views on the nature of Jesus' resurrection and contrast these with the traditional, orthodox view that Jesus rose bodily. I counter the implication that we do not have a clear, coherent concept of Jesus' bodily resurrection if we have unanswered questions, such as whether Jesus after his resurrection walked to Galilee, whether he needed to eat, and where he lived "in between" the times when he was with his disciples. There are two places in the video where I briefly mis-speak but decided not to re-record, given the video length: At one point I re...
2022-07-1525 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastWhat's a Blessing For the Heretics?In this video I discuss a mainstream criticism of the historicity of John. According to this criticism, John or the "Johannine community" made up the part of John 9 where it says that the Jewish leaders would throw anyone out of the synagogue who confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. Supposedly that was an anachronistic allusion to the "life situation" of the readers of the Gospel, a situation that didn't arise until late in the 1st century. Should we take this criticism seriously?
Originally uploaded to YouTube Mar 23 2021
2022-07-1511 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastA Strange Way to "Defend" John's GospelIn this meaty video I discuss and rebut the theory that John dyschronologically moved Jesus' references to his "hour," Jesus' expression of distress about his forthcoming crucifixion, and Jesus' reference to dying to live from different scenes in an earlier "Synoptic tradition" and constructed non-historical places for them within his own Gospel in an entirely different setting in John 12. I talk once again about mainstream scholar Jörg Frey, who thinks that this is exactly what John did. Frey rightly sees that such a theory seriously undermines the historicity of John, if it is true. Of course he's wrong to...
2022-07-1525 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastTim McGrew reads Thomas ChalmersThis is a reading from "The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation" by the great Scottish divine Thomas Chalmers. Chalmers is here laying out the nature of the evidential case for Christianity. https://books.google.com/books?id=-qAPAAAAIAAJ In a recent blog post I noted an historical misstatement by William Lane Craig in Reasonable Faith. Craig states there that in the 19th century it would be difficult to find an influential thinker defending the Paley-style approach to arguing for Christianity. Chalmers is a counterexample to this historical claim. http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection_29.html
2022-07-0804 minThe Lydia McGrew Podcast"I believe that as a Christian"What does it mean to say, "I believe that as a Christian"? How does that sentence interact with evidence? Is it possible to "believe that as a Christian" and be thoroughly rational about it? All of this, surprisingly, is related to the issues of miracles, the Virgin Birth, and even intelligent design in science. Watch here to find out why!
Originally uploaded 12.26.21
2022-07-0814 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastIs truth enough? A Christmas reflection on the genre of the GospelsHere I connect the question of the truth of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke with the question of whether they were trying to bring their Gospels into conformity with the conventions of Greco-Roman biography. Would they have required that motive for including birth narratives? If they thought that these remarkable stories were true, wouldn't that have been enough to motivate them to include them?
For more on the Gospels' genre and on the genre of Greco-Roman biography, see The Mirror or the Mask: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&k...
2022-07-0819 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastGeorge Rawlinson on Christianity and History: A reading by Tim McGrewToday we have another reading from an historical apologist, the historian George Rawlinson. Our special guest Tim McGrew returns! See here for a different passage by Rawlinson on the accuracy of the Gospels in factual matters: http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-annotated-rawlinson.html Remember all of this when anyone suggests to you that the negative connotation of fabrication is modern and that any of the Gospel authors were more interested in spiritual truth than in historical truth.
Originally uploaded 12.12.21
2022-07-0804 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Fallacy of ObjectionsWe have a special guest this week! Tim McGrew, aka Esteemed Husband, provides us with a reading from the Library of Historical Apologetics. This is taken from the writings of Richard Whately, Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. He is talking about how we do need to use our minds to investigate the truth, but we should not think that we are obligated to answer every objection. Rather, we need to get a sense of the relative strength of the objections on both sides of the argument. This is a reading from the work Introductory Lessons on Morals and Christian Evidences, a...
2022-07-0812 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArtificial Disharmonization 2This is my second video on the phenomenon I've called artificial disharmonization in the previous video and that I call utterly unforced error in The Mirror or the Mask. Here I discuss three more examples where a scholar questions the historicity of an event or saying for (in effect) no reason at all, creating a problem or an issue out of nowhere and then applying the heavy-handed tools of literary conjecture to explain something that didn't need any special explanation in the first place. The three I discuss here are... Did John the Baptist call himself the voice of one...
2022-07-0827 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastPain and the Silence of GodThis is a very different video from my usual. In it I discuss a recent serious (and possibly permanent) health condition I have developed and how this intersects with my Christianity and my defense of Christian evidences. The existential problem of evil is going to hit all of us in one way or another at some time in our lives. It behoves us to gather evidence on the ultimate questions when we have the opportunity. Thank God that the evidence is there for Christianity! Here is the link to the video by @Joni and Friends on finding peace in pai...
2022-07-0822 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastReconcilable variation in Luke's central sectionHere I continue discussing Luke's central section, sometimes called the "travel" section. I bring out some really interesting connections with John's Gospel and with Josephus and make some chronological suggestions. This is an illustration on the use of reasonable conjecture and imagination in dealing with apparent discrepancies in the Gospels. Here is my older post on the topic: http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-possible-solution-to-long-standing.html
Here is a map showing the Jezreel valley: https://leejagers.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/jezreel-valley-place-of-victory-and-slaughter/
Here is a video on the concept of achronological narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4TzGiFCeLE&list...
2022-07-0818 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastLuke and the Perean Ministry: New Undesigned CoincidenceHere's a new undesigned coincidence that also incorporates some external evidence from Josephus. In Luke 13, why is it a little odd that the Pharisees "warn" Jesus that he needs to get out of there, or Herod Antipas will kill him? Watch to find out what's odd about that, and what the explanation is!
Originally uploaded Sept 26 2021
2022-07-0812 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastArtificial DisharmonizationHere I'm once again going to show how those of us who think the Gospels are reliable can take the "forward" position and go on the offensive rather than letting the skeptic or liberal scholars set the agenda. It is so common to characterize any response to an alleged Gospel problem as "artificial harmonization," but in many cases this is the purest projection on the part of the critic. The critic creates an artificial problem where no problem exists *at all* and then impatiently and arrogantly dismisses a completely reasonable attempt to point out that there is no problem...
2022-07-0630 min
The Lydia McGrew PodcastWhat I Think About the Synoptic ProblemAlternative titles: The Synoptic Problem is No Problem Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Synoptic Problem? I like both of those, but I decided to go with What I Think About...because it makes it easy to point to this video as a corrective to misunderstandings about what I (or "the McGrews") do and don't think about the Synoptic Problem. I prefer to call it "the Synoptic puzzle," because that shows that it's really nothing more than a somewhat interesting and esoteric scholarly puzzle, but rightly understood even the now-popular "two-source hypothesis" does not undermine reliability at all. Why no...
2022-07-0126 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastOn "setting aside" the prior probability of the resurrectionThis is a slightly techy video that I nonetheless try to make fun. It concerns what it might mean to set aside the prior probability of the resurrection of Jesus (or the prior improbability) when discussing the specifics of the case from testimony. In our article back in 2009 on the resurrection, Tim and I didn't give a specific prior or posterior for the resurrection, but we did "back-solve" for a low prior that, we argued, the evidence we gave could overcome. Here is a link to a free version of that older article, archived with publisher permission: http://www.lyd...
2022-07-0117 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastOnly One JesusIs it really true that we have virtually nothing in the Synoptics that sounds like the Jesus of John? In this video I read a sample passage from The Eye of the Beholder that gives you a taste of the evidence refuting that claim. You can purchase The Eye of the Beholder here. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for an announcement at the end of the video! https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Beholder-Gospel-Historical-Reportage/dp/1947929151/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2P5N15K1P8TIJ&dchild=1&keywords=the+eye+of+the+beholder+lydia+mcgrew&qid=1617757441&s=books&sprefix=the+eye+of+the+be...
2022-07-0120 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastHow Does Fiction Teach? Fake Points Don't Make Points!Here I continue reading sample passages. This time the section is from The Mirror or the Mask, aka TMOM. I explain how blocking the "third option" (that the Gospel authors were sincere non-deceivers but nonetheless changed facts) forces us to confront squarely their claims to being scrupulously factual. They would have had to be *really* deep deceivers to exploit their hearers' expectations of literal truthfulness while deliberately changing what happened to "teach" theological truths. Because in reality fiction doesn't provide, by itself, epistemological grounding for believing theological truths. In the book section I also talk about parables. I didn't re...
2022-07-0118 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastJesus Who SuffersHere I'm beginning a series of videos featuring short readings from my recent books. This one is from The Eye of the Beholder and is about how Jesus suffers mentally from his knowledge that his closest friends will fail him. This is a unified aspect of Jesus' personality across all four Gospels, including John, and across very different passages. We can see from this that the so-called "Jesus of John" is actually the same man as the "Jesus of the Synoptics." Reflection on Jesus' desire for personal friendship and loyalty has devotional value as well. (For some reason the a...
2022-07-0116 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastWhy I am not an inerrantistHere I finally get to answering that question: Why I am not an inerrantist. I give several relevant examples (not a comprehensive list!) and a bit of history. I also discuss how this can be seen as related to the Problem of Evil. One of my goals is to show how a very conservative position is possible that is not inerrantist but also not averse at all to harmonization of alleged contradictions. Here is the blog post on the Old Testament slaughters mentioned in the video: http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-magic-bullet-copans-insufficient.html Here is a two-part cordial discussion between me a...
2022-06-2422 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastFour Kinds of Traditional InerrancyHere I'm setting up the discussion of some of my reasons for not being an inerrantist by making a four-part taxonomy of kinds of traditional inerrancy. This episode also contains a little bit of autobiography about the types of inerrancy I held when I was an inerrantist. This taxonomy of kinds of inerrancy should be useful to everyone, and there is one type that I have never seen anyone else talk about explicitly. Be sure to like and subscribe!
Originally uploaded to YouTube Aug 8 2021
2022-06-2420 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThat Pesky CenturionIn which I discuss the centurion incident recorded in Matthew 8 and Luke 7 and the discrepancy between them. Was the centurion there or not? I distinguish between "transferral" in a non-fact-changing sense (as if you said, "John is building a house" when John is hiring contractors) and in a fact-changing sense (as if you described John as personally building the house when you knew that he didn't do so). I discuss a couple of attempts to harmonize these two accounts using a non-fact-changing, unintentionally ambiguous reference to the centurion's conversation with Jesus and ultimately conclude that that is not plausible. I...
2022-06-2427 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastDefinitions of Inerrancy and Gospel ReportageIn which I explain how what I call the "reportage model" of the Gospels intersects with the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. In fact, if you hold to inerrancy, you probably already believe the reportage model! I also talk about how the attempt to make the compositional device views compatible with inerrancy creates confusion. What is the point in saying that a book that looks historical to all appearances is "inerrant" while holding a view that entails that it isn't literally reliable? This is why so many traditional inerrantists, including J. W. Montgomery, J. P. Moreland, Randy Le...
2022-06-2416 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastParaphrase vs. "Paraphrase"Here I continue with my response to a video that was drawn to my attention that was posted on Inspiring Philosophy. In that video Michael Jones did some quite ordinary harmonization of the resurrection accounts but strongly implied that this was made possible chiefly by reliance on special, expert knowledge gained from Dr. Licona's work on ancient "compositional devices." In the previous video I discussed how this relates to "spotlighting." Here I discuss the concept of paraphrase and the way that Dr. Licona and others use that word in multiple senses. Ordinary, moderate, historically recognizable paraphrase (which easily explains m...
2022-06-2419 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastWhy arguing that the disciples believed is not enoughHere I talk about a probabilistic "bottleneck" and argue that piling on more and more evidence that the disciples believed that Jesus was risen physically, without further details of their reasons and without a defense of the non-embellished nature of the Gospel accounts, is no substitute for a more robust approach. Here is the blog post that I mentioned in the video. The cordial exchange with Justin in the combox is what I was talking about. http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2021/01/an_irony_of_minimalism_in_defe.html
Originally uploaded to YouTube 5-18-21
2022-06-2118 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastBe careful what you grant!In this episode, I discuss the Maximal Data approach to the resurrection and contrast it with a modified or enhanced version of the Minimal Facts approach. This version attempts (like the ordinary MFA) to avoid defending the reliability of the Gospels but tries to make up for this refusal by arguing indirectly that the disciples must have had physical-type experiences of the risen Jesus, thereby defending the physical resurrection. In the course of critiquing this approach I debunk some misunderstandings of the Maximal Data approach and suggest ways of setting aside (bracketing) one issue while making an argument one w...
2022-06-2124 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThat's not Occam's Razor!In this first new channel episode since the trailer for The Eye of the Beholder I discuss a 2018 book called Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel by mainstream New Testament scholar Jörg Frey. Frey accuses more conservative scholars of following "aprioristic" methods, but the shoe is on the other foot. It is Frey himself who so strongly assumes that John is at least partially ahistorical, and who is so captivated by hyper-complex literary theories, that he is closed to strong, commonsense evidence for John's historicity. Even Jesus' saying, "Get up, let's go!" in different scenes is taken b...
2022-06-2120 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Eye of the Beholder: A Content TourThe Eye of the Beholder is now available for purchase! In this video I go through the table of contents at a rather leisurely pace describing the contents of the book and explaining why it is unique. Here is the link at Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947929151/?fbclid=IwAR38tRMeIYMYH7X03nFUg-KvOZ-T0PZMq4YYb5XIOgZfOp9dzOM_XaG7Ml8 Here is the link at Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-eye-of-the-beholder-lydia-mcgrew/1138856063?ean=9781947929159 Here is the link at DeWard: https://deward.com/shop/books/jesus/the-eye-of-the-beholder-the-gospel-of-john-as-historical-reportage/ Here are samples. Table of Contents: http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBTableofContents Chapter I: http://lydiamcgre...
2022-06-2126 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastWhat in the world is a Johannine Pentecost?Here I discuss a rather surprising scholarly theory that John narrates "theologically" by inventing the incident in which Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." I point out that, aside from questioning the resurrection appearance itself, there is no special reason to doubt this particular sub-incident. So why do scholars do so? Why do they talk about a "Johannine Pentecost" when the two events are so obviously different? You'll be able to see the weakness of the claims and the reasoning behind them in this discussion. Here is an older blog post in which I d...
2022-06-2114 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThree false facts about John's GospelWe're getting closer to the release of my new book, The Eye of the Beholder, all about the Gospel of John! Here I discuss what I call three "false facts" about John. A false fact is something that is taken to be a fact (though it really isn't) that all theories must take into account. It often goes unquestioned and thus distorts theories. The three false facts I discuss here all concern the way that Jesus speaks in John's Gospel and the way that John represents Jesus' speech. This is a theme that has caused a lot of confusion...
2022-06-2118 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastAvoiding the Pitfalls of the Passage-by-Passage ApproachThis is another methodological discussion. What do I mean by the "passage-by-passage" approach to Gospel historicity, why is it a bad idea, and how do you know if someone is using that approach? What are "the criteria of authenticity" in studying Jesus and history? If you say that a passage is likely historical because it would be embarrassing to the Christians to include it, does that mean that you're using the passage-by-passage approach? Where does authorship come into this discussion? I advocate a holistic approach to Gospel reliability. We should try to see if the evidence favors our trusting a...
2022-06-2119 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastGospel Reliability and Miracles: The Man Born BlindToday I pivot to starting to talk about the Gospel of John as we ramp up to the release of my new book, The Eye of the Beholder, in March 2021. I argue that the account of the healing of the man born blind in John has marks of realism that contribute to its own credibility. One involves a small mark of consistency in the narrative. One involves an undesigned coincidence with the Synoptic Gospels. And the most striking--the personality of the healed man himself.
Be sure to follow and get notifications from my author page on Facebook. Y...
2022-06-2121 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastMutual Support and MiraclesIn this "nerdy" addition to our podcast collection, I discuss how the issue of mutual support relates to the issue of circular reasoning and how both of those relate to miracle reports. How can we acknowledge that the deity of Jesus supports the claim that he performed a miracle and that a report of a miracle supports the deity of Jesus without reasoning in a circle? Here is the JSTOR link for the Erkenntnis article that discusses this more technically.
It is (I'm afraid) available only if you have institutional access to JSTOR, but some readers will. ht...
2022-06-2116 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 7: Solid historicity stands despite dubious doubtsIn this final episode of my Virgin Birth series I treat the viewer to a reading of various interesting quotations from, unfortunately, evangelical scholars expressing...well, you can decide for yourself what they are expressing. Something about the infancy narratives in the Gospels. Something about how defensible they are or are not, historically. What's the point? When you hear doubts raised by anyone, even an evangelical Christian, about the historicity or defensibility of some portion of the Gospels, you should never assume that these references to profound problems are based on some especially cogent evidence, merely because the person s...
2022-06-1423 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 6: The Last Two ObjectionsHere I discuss the last two objections I plan to cover to the accounts of the infancy and Virgin Birth of Jesus. These are 1) the claim that Luke contradicts Matthew about when Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth and 2) the claim that Luke's genealogy of Jesus contradicts Matthew's. Note that the second of these strictly speaking goes outside Luke's birth and infancy story, since he gives the genealogy of Jesus when he tells about his baptism. I discuss responses to these that would be incompatible with the doctrine of inerrancy but that I consider plausible.
These theories in...
2022-06-1427 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 5: You'd never suspect it was the same person!Here I counter the objection that, if the name "Jesus" were not connected with both accounts, you'd never suspect that the infancy stories in Luke and Matthew were about the same person. They are just sooo different! If interested, you can see more along the same lines in a couple of old blog posts that I wrote in 2016, including one called "The extreme probability of one's own life," a phrase borrowed from C.S. Lewis's essay "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism." http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/06/the_extreme_improbability_of_o.html
And more here: http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/06/new_post...
2022-06-1412 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 4: That Pesky CensusWhen we start to talk about objections to the birth stories about Jesus in the Gospels, the supposed problem of the census mentioned in Luke 2:1-2 has pride of place. Luke seems to be saying that Jesus was born at the time of a census ordered by Caesar Augustus for the whole world, and that this "first" census has something to do with a Roman governor named Quirinius. But the only census of Judea that we know about under Quirinius as governor was much too late--in A.D. 6. What's up with that? The literature on the census is vast, a...
2022-06-1418 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 3: Two Geographical Centers in Jesus' NativityIn this episode I discuss the realistic picture that we get in Matthew and Luke in which both Nazareth and Bethlehem play a role in the lives of Joseph and Mary at the time of Jesus' birth. I suggest that Mary was from Nazareth and that Joseph was from Bethlehem as his home town, though he may have been living for a time in Nazareth. Mary had family down in the Judean hill country as well. If the couple was planning to settle in Bethlehem, as they apparently did after Jesus' birth for a while until the flight to...
2022-06-1412 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastVirgin birth 2: Signs of truth in the birth storiesHere I talk about the importance of not conceding that the birth narratives of Jesus are late additions coming from who-knows-where. Not only is there no evidence that the Gospel authors felt free to make up stories, and not only is there evidence for their care and veracity otherwise, there are signs of truth in the birth stories themselves. Here I emphasize their Jewish character. The stories appear early, even seeming to encourage messianic expectations of an immediate earthly reign. They aren't at all the kind of thing you would make up as late inventions to try to commend...
2022-06-1425 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Virgin Birth 1: Mary, did you lie?This episode begins what will probably be a five-part series on the Virgin Birth in the larger series on Gospel reliability and miracle reports. Here I focus on what it would mean for the evidence for the Virgin Birth if Mary herself was Luke's witness and told him (or affirmed to him in some other way--e.g., by presenting him with a document or notes) the material that we find in Luke's accounts of Jesus' infancy, the birth of John the Baptist, etc. I examine Mary's motives and the implausibility of her lending credence to such a massive lie...
2022-06-1415 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Feeding of the five thousand 4: Indications of Truth in a Miracle AccountThis wraps up my series on the feeding of the five thousand with two more undesigned coincidences, several more indications of independence and individual veracity, and a discussion of the intersection of the miraculous and the non-miraculous aspects of the accounts.
Originally uploaded to YouTube Nov 30 2020
2022-06-1418 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Feeding of the Five Thousand 3: Four Undesigned CoincidencesHere I turn to the positive evidence contributed to the case for Gospel reliability by the stories of the feeding of the five thousand. I discuss four undesigned coincidences that confirm details of the feeding--two about place and two about time.
Originally uploaded to YouTube Nov 27 2020
2022-06-1420 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Feeding of the Five Thousand 2: More Apparent DiscrepanciesHere I continue explaining apparent discrepancies between accounts of the feeding of the five thousand. These apparent discrepancies help us to see that the accounts are not dependent on a common source. And they are the kinds of things that could easily arise from different accounts that come from separate witnesses of the events.
Originally uploaded to YouTube Nov 23 2020
2022-06-1411 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Feeding of the Five Thousand 1: Apparent DiscrepanciesThis episode begins a sub-series on the feeding of the five thousand. The feeding accounts in the Gospels make an important contribution of their own to the case for Gospel reliability. But what about alleged discrepancies between them? Here I point out how the appearance of discrepancy between accounts contributes to the case that they do not come from a common source--a type of independence. This is especially valuable if the apparent discrepancies can be well explained by causes that we expect to arise when we have different accounts that go back to separate people with knowledge of the...
2022-06-1412 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastEvaluating Two Shorter Miracle Accounts 2This is the second, shorter, section of my discussion of the miracle accounts of Jesus raising Jairus' daughter and healing the woman with the issue of blood. Here I discuss potential naturalistic competitors for a miraculous explanation and how well they hold up if the externally observable facts occurred as told in the Gospels. Note that I'm asking how much these accounts themselves support a miraculous explanation without bringing in other evidence we have about Jesus' ability to work miracles. I conclude that in the case of the woman with the issue of blood we do need to rely...
2022-06-1408 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastEvaluating Two Shorter Miracle Accounts 1In this continuation of my series on Gospel reliability and miracles, I evaluate the stories of Jesus' healing the woman with the issue of blood and raising Jairus's daughter. These stories are told in intertwined accounts. We find them in all three Synoptic Gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here I discuss issues of independence between the accounts and of the credibility of the accounts and conclude that, between the other evidence we have for reliability and the credibility of these accounts, we have a good case that the external events recounted in these stories took place and were observed by...
2022-06-1420 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastGospel Reliability and Miracles: The ResurrectionIn this podcast, I take the methods that I talked about in the previous episode on methodology and Miracles and show how they apply to the central miracle of Christianity--Jesus' resurrection. I outline a "Paley-style" argument for the resurrection and give both a super-brief version of it and a somewhat expanded version. I show how Gospel reliability fits into the argument to bolster the claim that the evidence we have is highly improbable if the witnesses were just mistaken in thinking that Jesus rose from the dead. This type of an approach is an alternative to the more common "...
2022-06-1416 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastMethodology and MiraclesThis is the introductory episode in a new series on historical methodology, Gospel reliability, and miracle reports. How can we avoid being either too skeptical or too credulous about miracle stories in the Gospels? How can we take proper account of evidence for high Gospel reliability while recognizing that miracles are unusual and exercising due care in evaluating miracle stories? Suppose that we end up relying on our independent evidence that Jesus was God in order to conclude that he really performed a certain miracle. Does that mean that we're "believing as a Christian" rather than using historical reasoning...
2022-06-1415 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Device DilemmaSuppose that you're inclined to accept the existence of fact-changing "compositional devices" in the Gospels, without carefully investigating the arguments against them, because you believe that this will simplify your apologetic task. Now, thank goodness, you don't have to "get into the weeds," "get off-track" discussing alleged discrepancies and harmonizations. What a relief! But this comes with a heavy cost, as I discuss in this video. Examine these theories carefully, and the arguments on both sides, before you adopt them!
You may also be interested in my discussion with Mike Winger on his show. https://www.youtube.co...
2022-06-1116 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Temple Cleansing 6: Theological TheoriesIn this final episode of my series on the Temple cleansing, I point out the subjectivity and implausibility of the theological motives attributed to John. If it's too easy to come up with imaginative ideas about what theological or literary symbolism John might have intended by such a factual change, isn't that a clue that none of those various theories are well supported? And how would John's audience have known what symbolic lesson they were supposed to learn?
Scholarly ingenuity is a poor guide to historical probability.
This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube Oct 19, 2020.
2022-06-1109 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Temple Cleansing 5: Forty-six yearsIn this episode I discuss a specific reference to the year of the Temple cleansing in John's Gospel--46 years. How does this time reference confirm the historicity of an early Temple cleansing as record.
This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube Oct 16, 2020.
2022-06-1107 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Temple Cleansing 4: "How do we spin this one?"In this episode I talk about how the Jerusalem religious leaders try to "spin" Jesus' early miracles by saying that he is casting out demons by the prince of the demons. This is after some of them have witnessed Jesus healing a paralytic man while claiming to be able to forgive sins. Following New Testament scholar Alan Chapple, I argue that the fact that these scribes and teachers of the law, apparently representing the Jerusalem leadership, traveled all the way to Galilee from Jerusalem and were so hostile to Jesus so early in his ministry is well explained by...
2022-06-1107 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Temple Cleansing 3: "Destroy this Temple..."Here I continue the series on the Temple cleansing, defending the conclusion that John reports historically rather than changing the facts. This episode discusses an undesigned coincidence between some dialogue in John's account of the Temple cleansing and the testimony of some hostile witnesses in Jesus' trial. This casual connection provides evidence both that John and the Synoptic authors are reporting accurately and that John's account describes (as he says it does) an event that occurred early in Jesus' ministry.
This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube Oct 6, 2020.
2022-06-1107 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Temple Cleansing Part 2: Beware of a Priori HistoryIn the second part of my series on the Temple cleansing, I discuss what one sometimes hears vaguely referred to as "other" reasons why many scholars reject two Temple cleansings. These reasons consist of the insistence that Jesus would not have been allowed to cleanse the Temple twice or would not have been allowed to continue to live and carry out a ministry for several years as described in the Gospel of John if he really cleansed the Temple early as John reports. I show that this is completely unfounded speculation. The Gospel of John presents a coherent and...
2022-06-1110 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastTemple cleansing Part 1: Uncanny Similarity? Not ReallyIn this first episode on the Temple cleansing, I discuss the objection to two Temple cleansings that says that the two accounts in John and the Synoptics are just too similar to describe different events and that therefore such a harmonization is strained and artificial. I point out various differences that make it entirely open and not implausible that these were indeed two different events, just as the evangelists' reporting would normally lead us to believe.
This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube Sep 28, 2020.
2022-06-1108 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastFour Different Ways of Reporting TimeToday I begin a new series of short episodes on New Testament reliability. These episodes will highlight a concept or issue in this area. This first episode discusses the reporting of time order or chronology. I distinguish four different ways that one might report time. 1) You state or imply a time and get it right. 2) You state or imply a time and get it wrong by honest error. 3) You state or imply a time that you know is contrary to fact. (I call this dyschronological narration.) 4) You don't really intend to state or imply a time, though someone might...
2022-06-1106 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 7 of 7: What's at stake?In my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you are interested in more information, please see the fuller...
2022-06-1124 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 6 of 7: Gospel Differences and the Reportage ModelIn my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see...
2022-06-1128 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 5 of 7: Methodological Missteps?In my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see t...
2022-06-1118 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 4 of 7: Equivocation, Plutarch, and Differences Between AccountsIn my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see...
2022-06-1124 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 3 of 7: Paraphrase and Exercise BooksIn my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see...
2022-06-1123 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 2 of 7: Greco Roman Biography and the GospelsIn my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see...
2022-06-1113 minThe Lydia McGrew PodcastThe Mirror or the Mask, 1 of 7: Fictionalizing Literary DevicesIn my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see...
2022-06-1125 min