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Category Archives: James F. McGrath


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The Massacre of the Innocents: did it happen and does it matter?

The Massacre of the Innocents in Matthew 2:13-18.

The Massacre of the Innocents in Matthew 2:13-18.

James McGrath and Tony Jones have engaged in a blog discussion over the historicity of the “Massacre of the Innocents” as described in Matthew 2:13-18. For some, this may be unattractive because it seems like these sort of topics are discussed ad nauseum, especially around Christmas and Easter, but I think this particular debate is interesting and it may be worth your time to read. Why? McGrath and Jones are discussing the historicity of the narrative because of the contemporary events that occurred last Friday in Newtown, CT. Many have connected the story of the Massacre of the Innocents to the killing of twenty children at Sandy Hook Elementary School because the Massacre of the Innocents is a “Christmas story” in the sense that Herod is described as having ordered for all the children near Bethlehem be killed because his conversation with the visiting Magi from the east lead him to think that another “king of the Jews” had been born there, one who would threaten his reign. In the narrative the one born in Bethlehem is Jesus, and though he escapes to Egypt with his parents due to angelic intervention, the other children in the area are killed.

McGrath wrote the provoking post, “Why I’m Glad the Infancy Narrative isn’t Literally True”, in which he expresses concern with a narrative where an angel would warn one family of impending doom, but not the others. This seems to McGrath to be quite unjust. Why couldn’t the angel have told all the families, saving far more children? Since McGrath finds this story improbable historically he expresses relief that in fact Matthew’s insensitive narrative is something we can ignore, for it doesn’t really tell us about how God acts in the midst of tragedy, merely how Matthew mistakingly depicts God as acting.

James McGrath

James McGrath

McGrath has a variety of reasons for denying, or strongly doubting, the historicity of the event: it is ignored in the Gospel of Luke, it is not mentioned in any other sources, it appears to be motivated by the author’s desire to place Jesus in Egypt so that he can be a “new Israel” with a “new Exodus”. Personally, I don’t find these points to be as devastating a critique as McGrath, especially since (1) the actions fit the Herod we know from other sources; (2) I think scholars often invert Matthew’s exegetical approach depicting him as having read Scripture in order to find events to narrate whereas the peculiarity of Matthew’s exegesis leads me to think he had existent traditions through which he read the text connecting events to Scripture. In other words, I think Matthew had a tradition that Herod killed the children while seeking Jesus and this lead him to read Scripture to see if there was any “foretelling” of such an event. This doesn’t mean that Matthew’s information was correct, but I think it does force us to stop and think before denouncing Matthew as someone who created wild mythologies about the life of Jesus while reading the prophets.

While not to deny the quagmires of theodicy, I don’t feel as troubled as McGrath by this text’s depiction of God’s favoritism toward Jesus. McGrath doesn’t seem to give much thought to the theological reasons for why God may have intervened to save Jesus, the particular favor and role of Jesus in the plan of God, and how if God intervened to stop all evil it would be the eschaton! If he did think about these things, he dismissed them, quickly. As hard as this may be to swallow, Jesus’ life was more important than others, theologically, as is his death at the end of the story. If God saves the world through Jesus then we have to rethink the theodicy of this passage. If God does not save the world through Jesus, then we may have reason for demanding that God be egalitarian about who he rescues from death.

Tony Jones has different qualms with McGrath, which he expresses in “James McGrath is Wrong: Herod Really Did Massacre the Innocents”. He sees this as a liberal side-stepping of the problematic parts of Scripture. Jones is thankful that the Bible contains stories like the Massacre of the Innocents because it matches real life. Some people survive, others die, and God’s role in the world is quite messy. For Jones, McGrath’s exegetical move silences the victims. It doesn’t allow the reader to wrestle with the injustice of the world because the reader can say, “Well, thank God that didn’t actually happen!”

Tony Jones

Tony Jones

The strength of Jones’ argument is it does expose what many “liberal” or “progressive” types like to ignore: there is no objectivity. Even when doing historical work we are prone to accept and reject evidence based on presuppositions and motivations. Many historians would like to think that they “just read the text”, but no one does this. The weakness of Jones’ argument is doesn’t address some of the critiques of the event’s historicity presented by McGrath.

In McGrath’s response titled, “Am I Wrong About the Massacre of the Innocents” this is the direction he takes the conversation. Now, McGrath does use a slight of hand: he says Jones is asking a “theological” question while he is asking a “historical” one. Anyone who read McGrath’s first post should be aware that this is a false dichotomy. Both are asking theological and historical questions. Jones failed to give the historical questions enough attention. That is probably a more accurate assessment. McGrath says the following:

“Ironically, because Tony has justifiable concerns that the text not be misused for theological ends, Tony ends up ignoring the crucial historical question, which has to be paramount when we ask what did or did not occur. We do not say that the Holocaust occurred because otherwise it would let God off the hook. We say that it occurred because the evidence is clear and undeniable, and includes people who lived through it. And if we ask whether Israelites invaded Canaan and slaughtered Canaanites, the answer to that question must be based on the historical evidence, not because it either does or does not let God or Israelites off the hook.”

This is a fair criticism and it will be worth watching to see if Jones aims to address the lurking questions that need to be answered if one is going to demand that the Massacre of the Innocents happened in space-time. (FWIW, this is not a debate between a “liberal” and a “conservative”, so Jones won’t appeal to something like the inerrancy, infallibility, or trustworthiness of Scripture. For those who would approach it from this angle the question of why we should affirm the historicity of these events lingers still.)

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Agnosticism regarding the “earliest” fragment of the Gospel of Mark.

Dan Wallace has written another post on the rumored “earliest” fragment of the Gospel of Mark. While there are no additional details he does seem quite optimistic that further study of what could be “…a manuscript that is dated within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection! “ You can read his full post here: “Earliest Fragment of the New Testament Discovered?“

In the meantime we should listen to the words of James McGrath who writes, “The best course is neither to assume authenticity and risk seeming to have been duped, nor to assume inauthenticity and risk finding ourselves insisting something is inauthentic even once test results are in and point towards authenticity.” He is correct. If we aren’t patient we could become more emotionally invested in the results that we ought to be. I encourage people to read his full post “Patience, Not Undue Skepticism, Regarding Early Mark Manuscript Claims“.


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Are these good or bad reasons to affirm a “historical” Adam?

Adam: did he exist? Do we need him to have existed?

Kevin DeYoung listed ten reasons why one should believe in a historical Adam in “10 Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam” . James McGrath responded point-by-point in  “Ten Really Bad Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam” . In summary, these are the points made:

(1) The Bible doesn’t distinguish between “history” and “theology”.

(2) The biblical creation story intends to inform the pagan cultures that “this is how it really was.”

(3) Genesis 1-11 are not mere “poetry” but intend to describe history.

(4) Adam in Genesis 2 is connected to Abraham in Genesis 12.

(5) The genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 include Adam.

(6) Paul affirmed a historical Adam.

(7) Most Jews and Christians have affirmed a historical Adam.

(8) If we don’t go back to Adam “ we lose any firm basis for believing that all people regardless of race or ethnicity have the same nature.”

(9) Adam is necessary for the doctrine of original sin.

(10) Christ as the “second Adam” presupposes a first Adam.

I recommend reading both posts. If you would like to do so then return to share your thoughts they’d be most welcome.

What do you think of DeYoung’s list? Do you think they are good points, bad points, or a bit of each?  What do you think of McGrath’s counter points?


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Even more on Morton Smith and Secret Mark.

About a week ago Craig Evans wrote a piece titled “Doubting Morton Smith and Secret Mark” for the website The Bible and Interpretation. It was greeted with a response from James McGrath titled “Secret Mark vs. Secret Morton” where McGrath expresses his hesitancy to say that Smith created the forgery (if it is a forgery). On this blog Evans wrote a response to McGrath’s response which we titled “More on Morton Smith and Secret Mark” to which McGrath has written another response. In his most recent response McGrath argues that it is most likely a coincidence that Smith expressed certain views that were conveniently confirmed when he “discovered” Secret Mark in the Mar Saba Monastery in the Judean Desert.

I asked Evans if he wanted to write another response at this time, but he preferred that we point readers in the direction of an article where he has already written on why he finds it unlikely that this was a mere “coincidence” (juxtaposing ‘innocent’ and ‘suspicious’ coincidences). So I’ve decided to link to the article. It is titled “Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt”. It is the paper he presented at the York University Conference. The most relevant pages regarding what McGrath has written will be pp. 22-24.

I am thankful to both Dr. Evans and Dr. McGrath for having been willing to discuss this subject openly online. It has benefited all of us students to learn more about Morton Smith and Secret Mark.


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Week in Review – Evolution Addition: 12.11.2010

The topic of evolution seems to be resurfacing among Christians of all persuasions. To add to Brian’s weekly review, I found a few of posts on evolution that have popped up this week:

- James McGrath produces a nice compilation of recent Evolution and Christianity posts.

- Debunking Christianity has highlighted PZ Meyers’s year-old post on Alvin Plantinga and Plantinga’s views on evolution and naturalism.

- Denyse O’Leary of Uncommon Descent reflects on Darwinism, Christianity, and the creeds. Larry Moran of Sandwalk responds.

- Troythulu links the video “How We Know It Happened and Why It Matters” featuring Donald Prothero.

- Progressive Christianity & the Law reflects on how the Darwinism debate can be a distraction from following Christ.


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Anderson on Revelation – Session 3

Last Wednesday (March 10), Paul Anderson presented on two of four Johannine crises that lay in the background of the Johannine literature, particularly the Epistles and Revelation. Before I report on this, I would like to back up to Session 2 and make some additions/corrections.

In Session 2, Anderson noted four threats in history which the Johannine writings were seeking to address. Anderson gave a few evidences for these. I already noted the compositional evidence and the Epistles. In addition to those, here are some other evidences for these threats: 1) two-edition hypothesis of John, 2) echoes from the Apocalypse, 3) letters of Igantius, and 4) John 6 and traces of history. In regard to the two-edition hypothesis of John, the first edition (namely the Gospel of John without the Prologue, ch. 6, chs. 15-17, and ch. 21) addressed synagogue tensions and presented Jesus as the Messianic king. With the additional material added in later to form the second and final edition of John, the Gospel addressed gnostic tendencies and ecclesiology. The letters of Ignatius provide a corroborative witness to these threats. I am thankful to Anderson for providing me with his outline for all the lectures.

Coming to Session 3, Anderson began by addressing a question on his two-edition hypothesis and the interfluence between John and the other Gospels. He has allowed me to share with us an outline of his Bi-Optic Hypothesis and below I have reproduced the interfluence chart found therein:

A Charting of Johannine-Synotpic Interfluential Relations

Of note are the following: 1) Markan and Johannine traditions have influence on each other, 2) Johannine tradition has influence on Q and the Lukan tradition, and 3) after the first written edition of John, the continued preaching of John interacts with the Matthew’s Gospel until the production of John’s final edition.

Now onto the two crises that Anderson covered. These were:

  • The Synagogue and Antichrist threat (1 John 2:18-25)
  • Emperor Worship and its Implications: “the Second Beast” and “666″ (Revelation 13)

Because I have already mentioned the antichrists more than a few times, I only want to point out that the message here is: Abide with Jesus and his community and love one another. With regard to the second crisis, Anderson mentioned that the topic of emperor worship is a pressing one in Revelation. Underlying this are the emperors Nero (reigned 54-68 CE) and Domitian (reigned 81-96 CE), both known persecutors of Christians. Because of the synagogue threat, in which Christian Jews were expelled due to their perceived ditheism, Christians were vulnerable because they were no longer under the religious protection afforded to Judaism. This left the Christians open to persecution as the Roman government did not take kindly to any “new” religious movement. Christians were also the recipients of persecution due to the institution of emperor worship. As Christianity became predominantly Gentile in population, the potential for emperor worship grew. Perhaps Gentiles were being persuaded to just go through the motions of offering incense and giving homage to the emperor without really meaning it; perhaps some Gentiles saw nothing wrong with syncretization—after all, the Pantheon had many gods and Christ could be one god while the emperor could be the other. For Gentiles, the threat of persecution could cause them to reason in this manner. Revelation would be a corrective and a guide for those facing such temptation.

James McGrath pointed out in a comment on my first summary that “666″ was the number for Nero; most scholars would agree. There is a numerological system in Hebrew that allows for each letter of Nero to be assigned a numerical value: when added together, the number is 666. Some manuscripts have “616″ because of the deletion of a final letter of a word that can but does not always have to be present in the original language. Because 666 is applied to Nero as the mark, then the Beast would be reference to Nero and his fierce persecution of Christians. When Domitian came upon the scene, he was just as fierce as Nero, if not more fierce. Domitian then becomes the second Beast in Revelation. The number 666 also becomes applied to him. The imagery in Revelation is meant to address the issue of imperial religion.

The message in Revelation for the original recipients in this crisis would be two-fold: 1) do not bow down or worship, contra to “all the world” doing so; and 2) those who overcome will be recorded in the Book of Life.


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Jesus (Logos) and Moses in John

Last semester I wrote a paper Jesus as the New Moses in Matthew. One of the resources that came up during my search was James McGrath‘s John’s Apologetic Christology. Since it had more to do with Jesus and Moses in John, I didn’t pay much attention to it.

As I was looking at potential topics for the MA thesis, I put down Johannine Christology as one. Now that Johannine Christology has made it to the final round, I decided to do some reading on it. The potential advisor I sought for this topic pointed me to agent Christology in John. I found that McGrath has a great chapter on that titled “God’s equal or God’s agent,” taken from John 5.

As I have always had an interest in John’s prologue, I decided to read McGrath on the prologue in the section dealing with Jesus and Moses. This quote I found particularly interesting:

John appears to have in mind here in the prologue the Exodus/Sinai traditions in the Jewish Scriptures. Just as in John 3 it is denied that Moses ascended, so here it is denied that Moses actually saw God: Moses, it is implied, saw the Logos, the one who alone can see God.1

McGrath there points out from this text something I was completely oblivious to, even though I’ve heard and read plenty of times that Moses did not actually see God. The idea that it was the Logos that interacted with Moses accords well with what the early Christian writer Justin Martyr wrote:

The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.2

McGrath continues:

The difference between Jesus and Moses is thus one of kind rather than degree: the Word spoke to Moses, but became Jesus. Or to paraphrase Johannine terminology, the Word gave revelation through Moses, but appeared on the scene of human history as the human being Jesus. John is thus using traditional Wisdom categories, but has identified Jesus and Wisdom more fully and completely than any other before him, thus altering in subtle but extremely important ways his understanding of Jesus.3

Jesus is superior to Moses because Jesus is God’s Wisdom. This Wisdom is personified as an attribute of God but yet distinct from God (Proverbs 8). It seems that for John, the Logos was one that was distinct from God but also God. With these considerations, it is hard to see how the creeds and the doctrine of the Trinity could not be derived from Scripture.

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1 James F. McGrath, John’s Apologetic Christology: Legitimation and Development in Johannine Christology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 156.[Back]

2 Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 63, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxiii.html (accessed January 24, 2010).[Back]

3 McGrath, 156.[Back]