Frequently Asked Questions (4)
Larry Hart

The following questions and responses (divided into four separate posts) are related to podcasts 19-24 on Larry’s Inklings. If you prefer listening to reading the questions and answers you can find them as audio on Larry’s Inklings (Podcasts 25-28).

Q) What is the synoptic problem? Does it have any good solutions?

A) The Synoptic Problem is not a problem in the sense of an unwelcome or hurtful difficulty to be dealt with, but rather a problem in the way that a math question in a textbook is a problem. As you probably know, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called “the Synoptic Gospels” because they can be “seen together” (syn-optic). They can even be easily arranged in three parallel columns and read together. There are, however, some important differences in their wording and in the order in which they place stories and events. But sometimes they are very close in their wording. So, scholars who spend their days and nights wondering about such things pose the question: “What is the relationship between these three Gospels, what accounts for their similarities and differences.” They want to know things like: “Are they so similar in some instances because they were all dependent on the same oral tradition or maybe some other written source? Or are they somehow dependent on each other? Can we determine which was written first and which was written last; that is, can their priority be established like a geologist determining which rock formations are the oldest and which the youngest? That’s the Synoptic Problem; or, I would say: “That’s the Synoptic Question.”

Explaining the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels begins, according to scholars, by observing that Matthew and Luke have a lot of material they share with one another as well as with Mark. Scholars, therefore, hypothesize what is known as “the priority of Mark”––that Mark was written first, and then Matthew using Mark as a source wrote his Gospel. Finally, Luke also relying on Mark and adding material unique to him, wrote the third Gospel. One reason for claiming the priority of Mark’s Gospel is that where the wording of a text in Luke may differ from that of Matthew it will agree with Mark, and where Matthew may differ from Luke he will retain the wording in Mark. Scholars believe this  indicates that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a common source in writing their Gospels.

It is also argued that since Mark is the shortest of the Gospels and does not include material found in Matthew and Luke it is more likely that Matthew and Luke expanded upon Mark’s material than that Mark edited down Matthew and Luke. In short, it is argued that it makes more sense to say that Mark wrote a Gospel before Matthew wrote his that didn’t contain a story about Jesus’s birth and infancy than that Mark chose to delete the story despite its being there in Matthew.

So that’s the Synoptic Problem or Question, and its most accepted solution or answer according to both conservative and liberal scholars who conclude that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source in writing their Gospels. That is a reasonable guess; although, there is no way of being absolutely certain.

Q) I keep reading about the Q sayings, but I am not sure what is meant, or its relevance for Scripture study.

A) This is a good follow up question to the last one. In answering that question, I noted that most scholars believe Matthew and Luke used The Gospel According to Mark as a source in writing their Gospels. There are a number of other things, mainly sayings of Jesus, which Matthew and Luke have in common but which do not occur in Mark. Sometimes the wording of these sayings shared by Matthew and Luke is so close as to be nearly identical, suggesting that there was another source other than Mark, a second source that Matthew and Luke used. The word for “source” in German is “Quelle,” and so when scholars want to refer to this second source they simply say “Q”––the first letter of “Quelle.”

No one knows whether Q was a part of the general oral tradition about Jesus, whether it was a person or persons Matthew and Luke both interviewed, whether it was something more like notes or perhaps a brief letter or letters they both had access to, or whether it was something more like the gospels they themselves wrote––The Gospel According to Q if you will. All of these are, in whole or part, possibilities. None can be proven or disproven. It may be that the whole thing is as simple as Mark having been written first, Matthew using Mark, and Luke relying on Matthew while adding material he himself had discovered.

Non-confessing scholars like to believe that Q was an actual written document that they can reconstruct by analyzing Matthew and Luke. In fact, so they claim, they cannot only reconstruct it but can determine its various literary layers and describe the imagined community in which it was written. Quite a feat for a document that exists only in the imagination.

Non-confessing scholars like to think that Q was an actual document, a Gospel like the Four Gospels of the New Testament, because that would, in their estimation, discredit the Christian faith. Their logic runs like this: Q, in so far as it is possibly found in Matthew and Luke, is for the most part, not entirely but for the most part, a compilation of Jesus’s sayings. Maybe the first gospels to be written were like that––made no great claims like, Matthew, Luke, Mark, or John, as to Jesus’s identity or deeds––no story of any unusual circumstances surrounding his birth, no resurrection, no post Easter appearances, and no ascension. Maybe they were just scrolls of Jesus’s sayings like, “Love your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.” Or, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” However, even if tomorrow a team of archeologists excavating Caesarea Philippi in the Golan Heights found a perfectly preserved copy of only Jesus’s sayings (no actions or events) which could be scientifically dated to 40 C.E. my question would be: “So what?” We know from Luke that numerous attempts were made to provide an account of Jesus. My personal assumption is that someone may very well have recorded only the sayings of Jesus; and for all we know someone else composed a scroll to which they gave the title: “The Movements and Actions of Jesus From His Baptism to the Hill of Golgotha.” What would be disconcerting is a scroll purporting to be quotations of Jesus claiming he said things that contradict what he says in the canonical Gospels: “Truly, truly! Violence is sometimes the solution.” Or, “Be aggressive! Loving your enemy and turning your cheek does not work.” The whole matter is  obviously more complicated than I have stated it here, but basically that’s what I think about Q. For something more comprehensive I would suggest reading Mark Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin, Questioning Q.

Q) What do you mean by reading Scripture for formation rather than transformation?

A) I am not sure what more or differently I can say from what I have said or written many times. So, I will be very brief. To read for information is to read for facts, for mental apprehension, for intellectual mastery. We live under the illusion that if we can know enough about an object, an idea, a doctrine, a process, a person, or even God, we can manage it to make things better, safer, more secure, less fearful, happier for ourselves. We may even mean well in this desire to control matters. We may sincerely believe if everyone would do what we think best everyone would be much happier. And so, we read the Bible, or listen to sermons, or buy the latest self-help book for information that will give us the ability to manage life and manage it well.

To read for transformation is a kind of deep listening––listening openly and honestly for what God may have to say to us. It is not so much an attempt to extract a spiritual meaning from the text as it is an openness and willingness to let its meaning emerge within us. It requires a kind of contemplative attitude, a spiritual surrender rather than trying to dominate the text––a love and trust for the Holy Spirit’s work in us. Not everyone seems to have the spiritual capacity for this, but if you want to explore the difference between reading for information and reading for spiritual formation a little further, I suggest M. Robert Mulholland’s book Shaped By the Word, as well as Watchman Nee’s What Shall This Man Do?

Frequently Asked Questions (3)
Larry Hart

The following questions and responses (divided into four separate posts) are related to podcasts 19-24 on Larry’s Inklings. If you prefer listening to reading the questions and answers they can be found as audio on Larry’s Inklings (Podcasts 25-28).

Q) What can be said about the dates for the composition of the New Testament, and what does it matter?

A) When the New Testament was written is a significant issue for many who see it as impacting the historical accuracy of the Bible. Non-confessing scholars believe that the later the date they can claim for the writing of the New Testament the more it strengthens their argument that Christianity is the result of a long developmental process. The original autographs, or manuscripts, of the New Testament were not written, they argue, until very late in the first century or early to mid-second century after undergoing many editorial changes along the way. The Gospels in particular, it is argued, are stories and sayings various writers and groups made up after the apostolic era, after the time of the apostles, to serve their own purposes. So, what is the man or woman of faith to make of this?

Dating the four Gospels and other books of the New Testament is difficult for a number of reasons: The Jewish, Macedonian (Greek), and Roman calendars all began at different times of the year. When dealing with intervals of time, whether a day or a year, it is difficult to determine whether the interval is inclusive (the whole day or year), or exclusive (a part of the day or year). Also, dates are frequently designated not by the calendar, but by the time someone ruled or reigned. It is, therefore, commonly understood that dates for ancient historical events may be a year or two off either way. Occasionally, but not as often as we would like, it is possible to coordinate Biblical events with the dates of established secular events.

For example, in 2 Corinthians 11:32 Paul provides this solid time reference. He writes there: “In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.” It is known that King Aretas died in 40 C.E. This would mean Paul’s conversion adventures on the road to and in the city of Damascus occurred sometime prior to 40 at the very latest. Most scholars believe Paul’s conversion and time in Damascus actually took place much earlier––probably within no more than one or two years after Jesus’s crucifixion––so in 33 or 34 C.E.

In Acts 18: 11-12 there is another incident which when coupled with an inscription discovered by archeologists in 1905 helps establish the chronology of Paul’s work and writing. This text in the Acts of the Apostles reads: “And Paul was in the City of Corinth for eighteen months, teaching the word of God among them. But while Gallio was Governor of the Province of Achaia the Jews rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat.”

In 1905 nine fragments of a stone were found at the ancient Greek city of Delphi and put together by a team of international archeologists. The inscription on the stone was from the Roman Emperor Claudius to Gallio who was Proconsul of the region or province of Achaia in which the City of Corinth was located. The inscription itself is an order for Gallio to find a way of repopulating the city of Delphi, which had fallen on hard times. The Emperor, Claudius, declares in this inscription that this is the twelfth year since his ascension to the throne. Since it is known from other sources that his ascension was January 25, 41 C.E., we also know that his 12th year, the year of the inscription, covered January 25, 52 to January 24, 53. This means Gallo was serving as Proconsul between January 25, 52 and January 24, 53. This fixes Paul’s eighteen months in Corinth noted in Acts 18:1 as between January 50 and July 51. With this bit of hard data, John A.T. Robinson proceeds, using chronological data provided in Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, as well as that of Josephus, to construct a chronology for Paul’s life and his letters.

Robinson ends his chronology with Paul’s imprisonment in Rome and the writing of II Timothy around 59 to 62 C.E. However, many scholars believe that Paul was acquitted and released from prison, that he then traveled through Spain establishing Christian communities but was arrested and imprisoned a harsher second time. Either way, however, the tradition and consensus are that Paul was beheaded by Nero shortly  after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 C.E. But this is by no means certain. It is possible given the brutal conditions of first century prisons that Paul died sick and alone before that in his cell. But the bottom line is that all of Paul’s epistles were completed before his death which at the latest was in 64 C.E. As noted in one of my earlier podcasts, I believe this includes the Pastoral Letters as well as the Epistle to the Ephesians.

This leads to another logical conclusion. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles is, according to Acts 1:1-7, the sequel to The Gospel According to Luke. Acts ends with Paul waiting for trial but living in Rome in his own rented house. This would indicate, then, that Acts was completed between 62 and 64 prior to Paul’s death. If, as most scholars think, Matthew and Mark are earlier than Luke all three of the synoptic Gospels must have been written before 64.

There is no date more certain or more filled with sorrow for Jews than the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. For the ancient Jews the Temple was the place, more than anywhere else on earth, where God’s presence was to be felt and known and cherished. Their cultural, political, economic, social, and spiritual life was bound up with the Temple. Their very identity was stamped by it as a sacred place. The earliest Christians, like Jesus, were Jewish, and while being Christian meant that Christ was now their center, they steadfastly retained their Jewish identity. It is impossible to read the New Testament from beginning to end without being aware of just how steeped in Judaism it is. My point is simply that for the Christians of this early period the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was, as it was for all Jews both within and outside Israel, a cataclysmic event of unimaginable proportions. It is exceedingly strange, therefore, that not a single book of the New Testament records this historic “shaking of the foundations” (Isaiah 13:13). It is depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome (81 C. E.). It is there in the early Rabbinic Literature telling of the Jewish Revolt and Fall of Jerusalem. It is there in considerable detail in the work of the Jewish historian Josephus (92-94 C. E.) It is there in the Roman historian Suetonius’s biographies of twelve Roman emperors (121 C.E.). It is there in the third century Greek historian Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (170). And it is there in Eusebius of Caesarea (290). But it is not in the New Testament. The simplest and most obvious collusion is that the entire New Testament must have been written before 70 C.E.

Now, I am certainly aware of the counter argument to this: namely, that it is mentioned in the Gospels indirectly as an ambiguous prophecy by Jesus:

As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down (Mark 3;1-4; see also: Matthew 3:2-3; Luke 21:5-24).

The assumption of the secular non-confessing scholar is that since there is no such thing as the supernatural, there is no such thing as prophecy. Jesus, therefore, could not have predicted the destruction of Jerusalem leaving as the only possibility that his words were written sometime well after the fact. I am not going to debate either the possibility or impossibility of prophecy here, but without getting overly complicated there are a couple of responses that should be made.

First: I am going to argue that one need not believe in anything supernatural at all to believe Jesus could very well have predict the devastation of 70. It is known for a fact that a person by the name of Jesus Son of Ananias went around Jerusalem in 62 prophesying the city’s destruction eight years before the event. The Jewish authorities handed him over to the Romans who tortured him to make sure they got accurate and actionable information. However, they concluded he was a madman and released him. No one today believes he had any supernatural power, but neither does anyone doubt he predicted the fall of Jerusalem before it occurred.

Between the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I wrote an article for the magazine Episcopal Life in which I predicted America would lose the Afghanistan War. When America pulled out in disarray twenty years later and the Taliban reasserted its authority, no one was at all amazed by my prediction or called me a prophet. There is nothing astonishing about Jesus’s prediction that demands it be explained away as pointing to a later composition date for Matthew, Mark, or Luke. What is amazing is that the New Testament nowhere speaks with any specificity, directness, or detail of the Jewish Revolt of 66 through 70 or the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple as past events, but only as cryptic predictions. If the proponents of late dating are correct, then it seems to me that the authors of those New Testament books supposedly written after 70 (some it is claimed as late as 160) missed a great marketing opportunity. It would have made perfect sense for them to have said in explicit language, “Look! the Lord prophesied the destruction of the Temple and it happened as he said it would.”

My second response to the notion that Jesus’s prediction of the destruction of the Temple indicates a late date for the Gospels is simply that many literary scholars, even if they subscribe to a late dating of the New Testament, believe because the original question of the disciples is never answered, and because of the lack of connection between the disciples’ question and Jesus’s answer, that the text was not written retrospectively.

My third response is to note that not only does Jesus’s prediction, or prophecy, lack sufficient detail, but at times the detail given does not fit events as they actually happened. I will not go into what I believe is the more accurate interpretation of the relevant texts here, but I will point out that in Luke the disciples are told: “When you see the abomination of desolation. . . those in Judea must flee to the hills.” This cannot, as often claimed, refer to the desecration by Titus’s soldiers because by that time it was too late to flee to the hills. Not only this, but we also know that before the war broke out and the city was under siege Christians, believing they were acting on Jesus’s prophecy, fled, not to the hills, but to Pella in the Decapolis which is actually below sea level. So, Jesus’s prophecy of the temple’s destruction lacks the sort of detail to be expected if it had been written retrospectively, and the details that are given do not match up in the way we would expect. I remain convinced that the entire New Testament was written before the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.

These, then, are some of the reasons I would agree with those who favor an earlier rather than later date for the writing of the New Testament. For those interested in a more thorough investigation I usually suggest reading John A. T. Robinson’s Redating the New Testament, Larry Hurtado’s Introduction to One God One Lord: Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Early Christianity, and also the Introduction to J. N. Kelly’s A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles.

Frequently Asked Questions (2)
Larry Hart

The following questions and responses (divided into four separate posts) are related to podcasts 19-24 on Larry’s Inklings. If you prefer listening to reading the questions and answers they can be found as audio on Larry’s Inklings (Podcasts 25-28).

Q) If the Bible is an anthology, who compiled the anthology? Who decided what should be included and what should be excluded; and, when and how did they make the decision?

A) Another way of asking this question is, “Who decided the canon?” The Christian canon of Scripture is the set of twenty-seven books considered authoritative by the Christian community for its life and work. Originally the word “canon” referred to a reed that was used as a measuring stick. The canon, then, is the rule or measuring stick which establishes the biblical books as legitimate and authoritative; that is, a book is canonical if found to meet a standard of measurement. This criteria, or standard of measurement, emerged slowly as a consensus. To be recognized as canonical a book had to meet four requirements: (1) It had to be apostolic in origin; that is, it had to be attributed to or based on the teaching of the first generation of the apostles or their close companions. (2) It had to have universal acceptance, meaning that it had to have been acknowledged by all the major communities or centers of Christianity in the ancient world (Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Asia Minor, Caesarea, Damascus, Greece, and Rome) by the end of the fourth century. (3) It had to have been used liturgically––read publicly in Christian communities as they gathered for worship. (4) It had to have a consistent message. It had to be similar to or complementary to accepted Christian writing.

The epistles of Paul circulated as a collection by 100; although they were, obviously, read individually much earlier. The Four Gospels circulated as a collection by 160, and by 200 a set of Christian writings very similar to the New Testament as we know it. In 367 Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of books exactly like that of the New Testament today and referred to them as canonized. Synods and councils meeting in 393, 397, and 419 all regarded the canon as closed. So, the process of canonization was a long, slow, organic process.

A number of non-confessing scholars have argued that the canon was a later creation of powerful bishops who imposed it on Christian communities by political force. That simply does not fit the historical facts. Scholarly evidence in the form of theological essays, letters, and histories from earliest Christianity into the fourth century points to a long process of canonization. There was no single church authority or council who authorized, imposed, or had the power to impose, an official set of books. It just didn’t happen, other than in Dan Brown’s fictional novel The Da Vinci Code. I reiterate: The Twenty-Seven books Christians recognize as sacred emerged slowly out of the spiritual dynamics of the faith. If you want to read more, I suggest C. E. Hill’s book Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy.

Q) You haven’t said anything about the early Christian communities which gave rise to the Four Gospels. What can you tell me about them, and their importance to interpreting Scripture?

A) I assume you are referring to the idea that the Christian movement did not begin from a single center –– a single faith community or church, in a particular city like Jerusalem, but, instead, there were many different centers where different groups of disciples, quazi disciples, groupies, opportunists, and the curious tried to make sense of Jesus’s teaching, presence, and gruesome end. Each of those groups had a different take on what the significance of Jesus was. They understood his life, crucifixion, and resurrection in a bewildering variety of ways. Some did not focus on the claims of his resurrection at all, but instead concentrated on his teaching and how those teachings could liberate them from political and economic oppression. Consequently, the non-confessing scholar Richard Horsley writes this: “The movements that formed around Yeshua Ben Yosef survived the Roman Crucifixion of their leader as a ‘rebel king’. In fact, his martyrdom became a powerful impetus for the expansion and diversification of his movement.” The origins of the Christian movement according to Horsley, are not to be found in the person of Jesus as the Christ, “but in the large number of ‘peasants’ who eagerly responded to the pronouncements of peasant prophets that God was again about to liberate them from oppressive rulers and restore cooperative community life under the traditional divine principle of justice.” According to people like Horsely and Baur, not only did these groups have different understandings and beliefs, but they were also in competition with one another. From the earliest days of Christianity, according to this view, there is no distinction between orthodoxy and heresy–– just “different strokes for different folks.” Each of the Four Gospels, it is claimed, was written by a leader or leaders of different communities, or churches to answer the questions and serve the agenda of their community; for example, the Gospel of John, it is asserted, emerged from within the church centered in Ephesus which was composed of Jewish Christians who had been expelled from the synagogue.

However, the most striking supposed difference was between those emphasizing a secret esoteric knowledge and the material world as inherently evil, the gnostics; and those we might think of as Apostolic Christians who emphasized God’s love and wisdom made alive, real, and available in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ.

Now, as the question states, I haven’t said anything about all this, and I haven’t done so for several reasons. For one thing, while this wild hypothesis of communities is now widely assumed to be true by non-confessing scholars there is no real evidence for it at all. It is entirely conjecture, pure speculation. Because it does not rest on anything substantial it is nearly impossible to argue it with those who accept it without feeling like you are going mad. I watched the television series Ivanhoe while thinking about this, and it occurred to that trying to argue with non-confessing scholars on such matters is like trying to answer the cruel Grand Master of the Knights Templar when he has the Jewish physician Rowena on trial for witchcraft. Nevertheless, I find the following problems with this speculative proposal:

1) No one has ever found any such community that actually existed. There are real places with real Christian churches (actual centers of the Jesus Way) named in Acts of the Apostles, in the Epistles, and in Revelation ((Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Laodicea, Thessalonica), but there is no evidence of a concrete, physical, or real Matthean, Markan, Lukan, or Johannine community.

2) One main piece of evidence offered for these different groups, centers, or communities, is the disagreements between Christians reported in the New Testament itself. But to argue that disagreements within a community prove multiple communities simply defies the rules of logic. More reasonable is Hurtado’s observation that differences in the early Christian community, which are obvious in the canonical books, demonstrate a willingness to accommodate a certain amount of diversity as the Apostle Paul urges in the Corinthian correspondence.

3) It is further argued by non-confessing scholars that there could have been no
such thing as heresy because no one center, or group, or church community was in a position to claim its views alone were legitimate, correct, or orthodox; in short, there was no canon by which to measure orthodoxy. That’s really a little silly and unworthy of any serious lay student of the Bible much less a professional scholar. The canon for those who, in spite of his crucifixion, continued to give their heart to Christ, the canon for “those of the Way” as they were at first called, was Christ himself and the Apostles. To the Apostles Jesus entrusted the keys of the Kingdom saying: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19). Or, Ephesians 2:19-20, “You are. . . built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Certainly, the little Epistle of 1 John is concerned with what it means to live an authentic Christian life. In five short chapters John provides the measuring stick for Christian orthodoxy, for Christian authenticity: Live with purity of heart if you want to see God. If you want to know God live love. Be honest with yourself and with God about your sins. Walk in the light. Do not continue in sin, but “acknowledge the exact nature of your wrongs;” and Christ, through his death and resurrection will forgive you and set right anything wrong between you and God. Keep Christ’s commandments––live his teaching. Acknowledge Christ, give your heart to Him as the “Word of Life” come in the flesh, the eternal life and light from God and which was from the beginning.

Now, we do know from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the Book of Acts, that there were people in Jesus’s own day trying to figure out who he was; as well as individuals doing their own thing in his name––some of them, like today, charlatans. But if there were whole groups or communities of independent disciples, we know nothing of them. But even if there were it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter how many groups existed or how many different ideas there were about Jesus. The defining characteristic of orthodoxy is continuity with Jesus and his teaching through the apostles.

4) Every casual reader of the history of the Roman Empire is aware of how the Pax Romana, the common use of the Greek language, and Roman engineered roads throughout the Empire wove travel into the texture of the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond. And every casual student of Biblical history is cognizant of the impact of this relative ease of travel and communication on the rapid spread of the Christian message. It is well established that the earliest churches maintained close connections through the exchange of letters, messengers, separated families maintaining their ties, or those traveling for other reasons such as trade, government business, or holy pilgrimage. Yet, the theory that many of the earliest Christian communities were highly diverse, with little exchange between them and other Christian centers, and rather self-absorbed with little interest on how their spirituality impacted the larger world ignores this reality.

5) It seems to me that a fifth factor must be figured into this equation. Both Judaism and Christianity were highly exclusive faiths, and “their demands,” as Hurtado notes in The Origins of Christian Worship, “were at odds with all other religious attitudes of the Roman era.

Finally, I will add just two more very brief observations regarding the composition and transmission of Scripture––”The Book God Breathed.” First: If one regards the Biblical text as wholly corrupted, as does Bart Erhman, then it is impossible to form any intelligent hypothesis about the historical nature of events it describes, or, to deal decisively with such questions as authorship and dating on the basis of style, vocabulary, or grammar. One cannot have her cake and eat it too” (see: Larry Hart, The Annunciation, 2017, 144). Second: When earliest Christianity, and its literature, is reduced to what amounts to little more than small disparate groups of peasants led insurrectionists, or discussion groups of disgruntled Jews debating esoteric Greek philosophy, it is hard to imagine Christianity having the kind of impact on the world it has had.

This is why I haven’t had anything to say about the notion of “literary communities” as envisioned by non-confessing scholars. It is an intriguing and clever bit of sophism, but ultimately a distraction from our spiritual work.