Robert M. Price - When Gospels Collide

When Gospels Collide

When Gospels Collide

Robert M. Price

GCRR Press

An imprint of the Global Center for Religious Research 1312 17th Street Suite 549

Denver, CO 80202

www.gcrr.org

Copyright 2021 by Robert M. Price

DOI: 10.33929/GCRRPress.2021.04

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of GCRR Press. For permissions, contact: info@gcrr.org.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.

All rights reserved worldwide.

Copyeditor/Proofreader: Christian Farren

Cover Design: Darren M. Slade

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data When gospels collide / Robert M. Price

p. cm.

Includes bibliographic references (p. ).

ISBN (Print): 978-1-7378469-8-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7378469-9-4

1. BibleGospelsCriticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Hermeneutics

Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. BibleEvidences, authority, etc. 4.

BibleLanguage, style. I. Title.

BS2350-2393 .P753 2021

I dedicate this book to my wonderful wife Qarol, without whom I would doubtless be living in a sleeping bag under the escalator at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

A Selection of Book Publications

By Robert M. Price

Beyond Born Again: Towards Evangelical Maturity (Hypatia Press, 1993) Deconstructing Jesus (Prometheus Books, 1999) The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (Prometheus Books, 2004) The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave (Prometheus Books, 2005) The Pre-Nicene New Testament (Signature Books, 2006) Jesus Is Dead (American Atheist Press, 2007) Blaming Jesus for Jehovah: Rethinking the Righteousness of Christianity (Tellectual Press, 2015)

The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (Signature Books, 2012)

Jesus Christ Superstition (Pitchstone Publishing, 2019) Judaizing Jesus: How New Testament Scholars Created the EcumenicalGolem (Pitchstone Publishing, 2021)

Advanced Endorsements

Dr. Robert Price is one of the most creative scholars in the field of Biblical Scholarship, and one of the most snubbed and misunderstood. One does not need to agree with his interpretations of ancient texts to appreciate the range of his interests and his imaginative evaluation of them and their relevance to the modern world. His should be a welcome alternative voice to the stodginess of contemporary biblical scholarship. I often have been amazed at the breadth of his reading in ancient literature and modern scholarship, his grasp of ancient mythology, and his courage to challenge the ignorant shiboleths of so many publications about the Bible. Dr. Price knows that we often disagree, but my engagement with his informed and thoughtful interpretations has enriched my scholarship. That no doubt will be the experience of many readers of this publication.

Dennis R. MacDonald,

Emeritus Professor, Claremont School of Theology With profound honesty and scholarly rigor, Price reveals how the contradiction and incoherence that suffuse the Christian Gospels conceal a treasury of insight for the mature reader. A powerful look at the creative diversity of earliest Christian traditions.

Dr. Richard C. Miller,

Author of Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity

The erudite and always entertaining Robert Price has produced another lively, informative book with a premise many may find challenging: that the contradictions between the gospels provide a veritable gold mine of valuable information about the uneven early evolution of early Christianity. A great read!

Russell Gmirkin,

Author of Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus

Contents

Introduction

1 Biography

Where Was Jesus Born? 7

Misquoting Micah? 11

Miraculous Mis-conception? 12

Generating Genealogies 16

Emmanuel Cant 18

After All Ive Tried for Three Years,

Feels Like Thirty, Feels Like Ninety 18

The Old Age and the New Age 20

2 John the Baptist

Was John Elijah? 22

A Face in the Crowd 27

Did Jesus Wait in the Wings? 31

What did He Say and to Whom did He Say It? 33

The Devil on Jesus Shoulder 36

3 The Disciples

Names on a List 39

Havent We Met Before? 40

Confession and Omission? 42

You Come in Here with a Skull Full of Mush

and You Leave Thinking Like an Apostle 47

The Good Seats 48

4 Jesus Teaching

Rejected in Nazareth? 50

Repentance by Itself 54

INRI and IRS 57

Fast Times at Nazareth High 59

The Rich Young Rules 62

Did Jesus Permit Divorce? 65

Forever Family Values 68

No Man Knows the Day and the Hour

or the Century or the Millennium 72

Could Jesus Keep a (Messianic) Secret? 75

The Lords Prayers 80

No Gentiles Need Apply 81

Itinerant Inventory 86

Persecution Sooner or Later? 87

5 Miracles

Did Jesus Do Miracles? 89

Double the Demoniacs! 92

Mister Beal Meets His Match 97

I Dont Give a Fig 99

Cartoon Physics in Action! 101

Back for Seconds 103

Major Minors 105

6 Endgame and Execution

Gathered in Gethsemane 108

That Slippery Cross 109

On the Hot Seat 110

Jesus Who? 110

Is It Appointed to a Man to Die Once? 111

ix

7 The Art of Resurrection

Why Seek Ye the Historical Among the Literary? 113

Clues, Not Goofs 115

Conclusion 117

Bibliography

x

Introduction

hy would readers of the Bible fear having to admit the presence of contradictions in their sacred text? And it is W fear, as anyone can see from the lengths that fundamentalists will go to resolve them. Contradictions must be ironed out, harmonized, because they believe biblical contradictions are like Kryptonite to Superman. The superpowers of the Superbook would be drained by contradictions. The supernatural book would collapse and die from exposure to the poison radiating from those contradictions. In other words, the Bible could no longer be esteemed as the Word of God. It could no longer dictate your life and your beliefs,which is just what you want it to do. Why? Because people have been taught to imagine God as a peevish theology professor who will send you down the chute into hell if you get too many answers wrong on that postmortem final exam. And to prepare for that examination, you need a textbook to give you the infallible answers. You dare not rely on guess work! How would you know how many persons are in the Godhead if that information were not forthcoming from a divine source? And if one passage disagrees with another, how would you know which one to believe? If either? Because the mere presence in Scripture of a notion could not any longer guarantee its truth. And then youre up the creek!

The upshot is that this model just does not work. It does not fit the data, or what evangelical theologians call the phenomena of Scripture. As Clark H. Pinnock, himself an evangelical theologian, once said, The fundamentalists dont like the Bible theyve got.1 In Thomas Kuhns classic book, The Structure ofScientific Revolutions, he relates how researchers start shopping 1 Comment during a lecture at New College in Berkeley, CA in 1978.