The Lydia McGrew Podcast

In 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 theorists, claiming that both undermine reliability to an equal extent? I address that criticism in this video.   If you're interested in more on the topic of Gospel reliability and the compositional device theories in video form, see "The Device Dilemma":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJBiyXtlRAs&t=557s   If you want to dive deeper into the arguments for and against, get The Mirror or the Mask, available in paperback or Kindle:  https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1  #gospelreliability #mikelicona #lydiamcgrew Originally uploaded Jul 18 2021

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 let anyone tell you that you have to accept this approach because most scholars accept "Markan priority."  It's okay to use more commonsense explanations of Gospel differences, and at this channel we're trying to make common sense rigorous.   I use this article as a foil for the discussion:  https://www.academia.edu/40139908/The_Rhetoric_of_Redaction_A_Rhetorical_Analysis_of_Redaction_in_Luke Here are some other places where I've discussed the use of "the exercise books" in a way that functionally undermines Gospel reliability:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLb6rsnNycc&list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0S9CsFG47bKjcYxsnHujhg&index=2 https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-licona-series-on-greco-roman.html http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2018/04/going_chreiazy.html  And, of course, The Mirror or the Mask:  https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1 #mirrororthemask #gospelreliability #lydiamcgrew Originally uploaded Jun 18 2021

In 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 to use "spotlighting" as a harmonization. I give as an illustration the fact that elsewhere Dr. Licona (and Dr. Keener) suggest that perhaps Matthew made up an extra demoniac! This is justified (by Dr. Keener) on the basis of a non-existent "device of inflection," which simply represents a blunder in interpreting a simple Greek grammar exercise. Dr. Licona suggests both "spotlighting" and Matthew's making up an extra demoniac in a "menu" of possible solutions to that alleged contradiction.  Here is the video on Inspiring Philosophy to which I'm responding.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaXHOO14i5c I talk a bit about "spotlighting" in this video from last summer.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSexrkVMGuk&list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0S9CsFG47bKjcYxsnHujhg&index=4&t=313s  Here is a blog post to go with that:  https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-licona-series-equivocation-plutarch.html See also pp. 38-39 in The Mirror or the Mask.  https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1  Here is a blog post from last summer where I discuss the "exercise books" more and specifically the blunder concerning inflection, which I mention in this video.:  https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-licona-series-paraphrase-exercise.html  Here is the video I did last summer on the "exercise books." There is much, much more in The Mirror or the Mask (TMOM):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oldgDKH_xKY&list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0S9CsFG47bKjcYxsnHujhg&index=4&t=328s  One more point to add: If someone means by "spotlighting" that an author was *trying* portray only one (angel, demoniac, man, etc.) as present in his narrative when the author *knew* that two or more were present, then this would of course be a factual change. But by that same token, it would not be the simple, uncontroversial claim that most people take Dr. Licona to be referring to. And it would require a lot more evidence to show that an author was trying to do this. It would also be quite confusing to readers for an author to do such a thing in an apparently historical document. So *if* Dr. Licona is conflating the harmonizing kind of "spotlighting" discussed in the video with fact-changing spotlighting, that is another distinction that needs to be made. I really hope that he is not doing this. But in the case of alleged discrepancies about time, there is often equivocation going on (between achronological and dyschronological "telescoping" and "displacement," as I've discussed elsewhere), so I bring up this possibility for the sake of completeness. Originally uploaded June 29 2021

Who 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_pFPr7c&t=1s Originally uploaded to YouTube Jun 11, 2021

Today 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

Why 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 detail is an extra hypothesis, which means that we need extra evidence before we accept it. Originally uploaded to YouTube 5/29/21

Here 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 and subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to get notifications!  Don't forget to get a copy of The Eye of the Beholder if you don't have one already.  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+beholder%2Cstripbooks%2C185&sr=1-1 Originally uploaded to YouTube 5/21/21

Today'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 not to use scholarly opinion all by itself as evidence but rather to look at the underlying evidence on which scholars are relying and then to describe it clearly and evaluate what it really supports or does not support.  Here was my earlier webinar on the minimal facts approach to the resurrection.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUt3r3dXBr4 Originally uploaded May 1 2021

Here 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 Matthew's account:  https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/08/on-that-infamous-saints-rising-passage.html Originally uploaded to YouTube April 24 2021

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 refer to Doubting Thomas as being embarrassed because he didn't recognize Jesus, though I immediately affirm that he did recognize Jesus! My meaning was that he was embarrassed because he didn't (previously) believe the other disciples. At another point I refer to Paul's Damascus Road experience as occurring after the resurrection, which is true as far as it goes, but what I meant to say in the context was that it occurred after the Ascension.  Clearing away foggy definitions and concepts is part of making common sense rigorous. Originally uploaded Apr 17 2021