The Lydia McGrew Podcast
by The Lydia McGrew Podcast
The goal: To take common sense about the Bible and make it rigorous.I'm an analytic philosopher, specializing in theory of knowledge. I've published widely in both classical and formal epistemology. On this channel I'm applying my work in the theory of knowledge to the books of the Bible, especially the Gospels, and to apologetics, the defense of Christianity. My aim is to bring a combination of scholarly rigor and common sense to these topics, providing the skeptic with well-considered reasons to accept Christianity and the believer with well-argued ways to defend it.
Episodes
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Alleged Seams in John Part 9: Chapter 20-21
This will be the last installment in my series on alleged seams in John. Does the fact that John 20:30-31 sounds sort of ending-like provide evidence of an editor? I answer no. I also examine the very strange scholarly tendency to turn John 21:24 on its head. That verse says that the Beloved...
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Alleged Seams in John Part 8: A truly silly argument from silence
Today's seams in John video describes a truly strange, truly silly claim of a seam or aporia in John. The claim is that in John 19 Jesus is left outside in view of the crowd when Pilate is supposed to be questioning him back in the Praetorium. Huh? Apparently John isn't allowed to leave anything…
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Alleged Seams in John Part 7: No one is asking where Jesus is going?
Is there a contradiction between John 16:5, where Jesus says that none of the disciples is asking him, "Where are you going?" and John 13:36, where Peter asks Jesus, "Where are you going?" I argue that there isn't. Watch (or listen) to find out why. Plus, even if this were contradictory, it would...
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Alleged Seams in John Part 6: John 14:30-31 "Arise, let us go."
Today I talk about a passage that is considered a "biggie" among arguments for editorial seams in John: The supposed contradictions created by John 14:30-31. I argue that these contradictions are overblown and that the phrase "arise, let us go" in John 14:31 appears to be the result of vivid...
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Alleged Seams in John Part 5: Mary of Bethany
Gary Burge uses the parenthetical remark from the narrator about Mary of Bethany in John 11:2 as an example of "seams" or "aporias" in John. He considers it to be a "problem" that this is a forward reference to John 12, the story of Mary anointing Jesus, which hasn't yet been narrated when John...
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Alleged seams in John Part 4: Should John 5 come right before John 7?
Is there a problem with the chronological order that John indicates for the events in chapters 5, 6, and 7? Here I continue to argue that there is not. Critical scholars have created "problems" where no problem really exists. I discuss several more extremely weak arguments that chapters 5 and 6…
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Alleged Seams in John Part 3: "The other side" of the Sea of Galilee
I'm continuing to argue against the claim that John's Gospel has "seams" that show where editors other than the Beloved Disciple have been ham-handedly stitching material together. This week and next week I'll discuss the claim that John 5 and John 6 are in the wrong order. Should we be trying to...
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Alleged seams in John part 2: "Into the Judean land"
Today I'm talking about the alleged "seam" in John 3:22, which says that after these things, Jesus and his disciples came/went "into the Judean land." Does this mean that they weren't in Judea before? Is this an internal contradiction, because Jesus was already in Judea, in Jerusalem, in the...
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Alleged Seams in the Gospel of John 1
What are so-called "seams" (or aporia) in the Gospel of John? This week I start a new series on this topic with fresh content that is not even found in my book The Eye of the Beholder. Some scholars use the presence of (allegedly) awkward transitions, (alleged) contradictions, and (allegedly)...
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Multiple Attestation Tumbling Down
In this last in the series on why you should care if the Gospel authors put words into Jesus' mouth I warn again about thinking that "multiple attestation" to some type of teaching or some type of event will make up the epistemic deficiencies of the case, if you've already granted that the Gospel...
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Explicitness is Evidential
Why should it matter if the Gospel authors put their words into Jesus' mouth? The sayings in John 8:58 and 10:30 are, at least on the face of it, especially clear as statements of deity. In _Jesus, Contradicted_, Dr. Licona takes this to be a reason to question their recognizable historicity. He...
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Jesus' 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...
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The apostles' distinction between their interpretations and Jesus' teachings
Should you care if the Gospel authors put their own interpretations into the mouth of the historical Jesus? What if the Gospels record things as though said by the historical Jesus when the historical Jesus never recognizably said those things in those contexts? Did the evangelists think that…
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Can Carson Be Co-opted?
In recent interviews Dr. Michael Licona has invoked the name of D. A. Carson, giving the strong impression that Carson shared/shares Licona's own views of the Gospel of John--views which are surprising and controversial coming from a conservative scholar. These include the idea that John invented...
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Licona's Views on John are shared by all the kool kids?
In two recent interviews Dr. Michael Licona has attempted to associate a star-studded roster of conservative commentators with his controversial views on the historicity of John's Gospel. At the same time, he implies that those who disagree with him strongly on these matters (which he refers to…
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Getting Geisler Right
Dr. Michael Licona has claimed for several years now, since shortly after Norman Geisler's death, that Geisler said that Matthew moved the Temple cleansing (and hence the cursing of the fig tree) by one day. Others have been led by Licona's confidence to accept this statement without question…
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False Caution
Is it being properly cautious, if experts disagree about something, to choose some intermediate probability for that proposition and treat that as the best that you can do, as a non-expert, at estimating the probability on all the public evidence? Not really. Such false caution can result in…
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3 Principles for Max Data and Contradictions
If you do a maximal data approach to arguing for the resurrection, does that mean that you have to stop midway through your positive presentation and answer every Gospel contradiction claim that a skeptic might make? Not at all. Here I give three important principles for handling the issue of...
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Are "apologetic" sections in the resurrection stories suspicious?
Here I'm challenging the claim that if some section of a Gospel resurrection story is of apologetic value, that makes it suspect as plausibly being an apologetic addition (invented). I argue that that rules out the most reasonable, natural, expected kind of evidence that the early church would…
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Arguments 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…
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Arguments 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…
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Arguments 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...
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Editorial fatigue, Probably Not 6
In this, probably the last in my current series on editorial fatigue, I discuss another instance of "sudden onset fatigue syndrome," according to Mark Goodacre. Goodacre postulates that Luke eliminates the fact that Jesus was in a house when the paralytic was brought to him, then suffers…
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Editorial fatigue, Probably Not 5
Here I talk about the claim of editorial fatigue in Matthew's version of the beheading of John the Baptist. I argue that Goodacre takes a rigid, un-nuanced view of Herod's plausible motives, placing Matthew and Mark into artificial conflict with one another. I also coin the term "sudden fatigue...
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Editorial Fatigue, Probably Not 4
This week I continue to examine Mark Goodacre's arguments that Luke invented the Parable of the Minas himself and tried (ineptly) to make it look like a parable that Jesus really told. Does evidence of "editorial fatigue" support this claim? Not at all. Here I argue that the claims that there is...
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Editorial fatigue, Probably Not 3
Mark Goodacre says that Luke invented a new Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:11-27), trying to make it different from the Parable of the Talents told in Matthew 25:14-30. But, says Goodacre, Luke made up a clunky parable (that Jesus never really told) due to "editorial fatigue," and we can find the...
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Editorial fatigue, Probably Not 2
Here I discuss Mark Goodacre's claim that the feeding of the five thousand in Luke shows signs of "editorial fatigue." According to Goodacre, Luke factually changes the location of the feeding to a city and then just two verses later slips back into including elements of the story that are...
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Editorial Fatigue, Probably Not 1
Today I start a new series on Mark Goodacre's claims that we find what he calls editorial fatigue in the Synoptic Gospels. These are theories that the Gospel authors started out trying to change something in a source but then grew fatigued and stopped making edits consistent with that change. In...
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Do the Majority of Critical Scholars Acknowledge Markan Authorship?
Recently Dr. Michael Licona claimed on the Potential Theist channel that a majority of critical scholars writing today affirm that Mark wrote the Gospel traditionally attributed to him and that Peter was his main source. He also said that what these scholars grant means that the resurrection...
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Do 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...
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A Max Data Easter: A maximalist approach to the appearance to James
Happy Easter, 2024! Today's episode tackles this question: Since the New Testament documents contain no narration specifically of the appearance to James, Jesus' brother, listed briefly in I Cor. 15:7, does this mean that that appearance has no place in a maximal data approach to the argument for...
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Undesigned Coincidences in Secular History: Where's Paoli?
Today, one more co-incidence between Whittaker Chambers's testimony and that of Alger Hiss--where did Hiss's wife grow up? Chambers says "near Paoli," Hiss says "Frazer." Both are true, and the similarity with natural variation provides evidence for Chambers's close acquaintances with the Hisses.…
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Undesigned Coincidences in Secular History: Druid Park Spring Water
Continuing to talk about undesigned coincidences in the Chambers-Hiss testimony, I discuss the detail Chambers knew about Hiss's childhood business collecting and selling spring water from Druid Hill Park, at that time on the outskirts of Baltimore. I compare this connection to the undesigned...
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Undesigned Coincidences in Secular History: The prothonotary warbler
I'm often asked if "real historians" use undesigned coincidences. I answer that of course they do, if they're good historians, even though it's unlikely that they use that exact phrase. Here I begin to explore confirmations in the Chambers-Hiss hearings in 1948. Alger Hiss had claimed (at first)...
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The 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...
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Name statistics argument 14: Josephus
In principle it would have been barely possible for someone to make use of the works of Josephus to learn about 1st-century Palestinian male name statistics. In this respect the Josephus suggestion by Gregor and Blais passes a very minimal threshhold of possibility, unlike their other suggestions...
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Name statistics argument 13: List of the 12 as a "source"?
Gregor and Blais suggest that the lists of Jesus' brothers and of the twelve apostles circulated prior to, and separately from, the Gospels and constituted a source from which realistic name statistics made their way into the rest of the Gospels and Acts. They suggest this despite the fact that…
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Name statistics argument 12: Can the argument be (Macca)beaten?
Do the books of Maccabees and the popularity of Maccabeean names help to explain away the name statistics evidence for the historicity of the Gospels and Acts? Nope. If anything, for a fictionalizer to notice this pattern and invent names based upon it (rather than just basing them directly on…
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Name statistics 11: Macdonald Doublets as an explanation of accurate name statistics?
It's getting weird now! This week I examine Gregor and Blais's suggestion that Macdonald "doublets" of names would (if true) help to explain the accurate name statistics in the Gospels in a non-veridical way. The theory in question is that Mark made up mirror image pairs--one Simon who denies...
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Name 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…
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Name statistics argument 9: Judas Not Iscariot and Joseph Barsabbas (Justus)
Just in case you didn't get enough two weeks ago on unnecessary clumps and disambiguators, here are two more: If the other Judas among the twelve were not historical, why did John go to the trouble of awkwardly attributing a unique question to him in the farewell discourse, which required John to...
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Name statistics argument 8: The disambiguation of "Jesus" and "Lazarus"
The names "Jesus" and "Lazarus" were quite popular at the time of Christ, but they are not highly represented in the Gospels and Acts. But the use of classic disambiguators for Jesus and Lazarus are well explained by the fact that there would have been others with the same name at the time. In…
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Name Statistics Argument 7: Disambiguation and Unnecessary Clumps
What is the disambiguation argument, and how does it intersect with the broader name statistics argument? Does the use of disambiguators ("second" names like "bar Jonah") in the Gospels and Acts provide evidence that supports historicity in a way that goes beyond the use of popular names for more...
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Name statistics 6: Rare names from the Gospels, Ilan, and chance
In this second episode to be released on January 7, 2024, I examine Gregor and Blais's criticism that the Gospels and Acts percentage of rare names is too low. I point out the "elephant in the room" that they have overlooked--the comparison between the percentage of rare names in the Gospels and...
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Name statistics argument 5: The Gospels statistics are no better than chance?
In my two discussions today I discuss a hypothetical chance model used by Gregor and Blais to emphasize the supposedly uninformative nature of the Gospel and Acts name statistics. First I discuss how they ignore the "shape" of the data in the Gospels and Acts--"swoopy" rather than flat--which...
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Name statistics argument 4: Artificial people?
As my response to recent criticisms of Richard Bauckham's name statistics argument continues, I disagree with a move to add over 400 "artificial occurrences" to Tal Ilan's name database. I note how this move tends to flatten the database and blur the distinction between more popular and less...
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Name Statistics Argument 3: Some effects of mutilating the sample
I continue discussing the decision made by Gregor and Blais to remove from the Gospels and Acts sample all persons whose existence is separately attested--approximately a third of the sample used by Richard Bauckham in his name statistics argument. Although the full impact of this decision...
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Name Statistics Argument 2: Mutilating the Sample
I critique a central pillar of Blais and Gregor's attempted refutation of Richard Bauckham's name statistics argument: They remove from the sample of persons in the Gospels and Acts any person whose existence is attested in other documents--specifically Josephus, the acknowledged Pauline…
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Name Statistics Argument 1: What's it all about?
I give a brief overview of the name statistics argument for the Gospels and Acts as found in the work of Richard Bauckham, Peter Williams, and others. I also give a brief overview of the recently published critique by Kamil Gregor and Brian Blais. Over the next weeks I'll be talking about some...
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Undesigned Coincidences: "Do you love me more than these [love me]?"
In this last installment of my 2023 undesigned coincidence series, I touch on a lot of topics. Which is stronger, a UC where something in a later work explains something in an earlier work or a UC where something in an earlier work explains something in a later work? I suggest that neither is per...
About this show
The goal: To take common sense about the Bible and make it rigorous.I'm an analytic philosopher, specializing in theory of knowledge. I've published widely in both classical and formal epistemology. On this channel I'm applying my work in the theory of knowledge to the books of the Bible, especially the Gospels, and to apologetics, the defense of Christianity. My aim is to bring a combination of scholarly rigor and common sense to these topics, providing the skeptic with well-considered reasons to accept Christianity and the believer with well-argued ways to defend it.
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