Midrash

EB: One interesting tidbit about the tale of the "many raised saints" found only in Matthew is the probable insertion of the phrase "after his resurrection" which appears to have been inserted so awkwardly into the Greek that it makes the sentences read as though the tombs were opened and the saints raised at Jesus's death, but then they lingered about until "after his resurrection" a day and a half later when they finally "entered the holy city."

SH: Other issues aside, to claim that the phrase was “inserted” into the text implies that Matthew was redacting a preexisting tradition rather than fabricating the account whole cloth.

So even if we went along with Babinski’s assumptions, this could well be a primitive, historical tradition.

EB: Some of course don't think that those two little verses about the anonymous "many raised saints" are historical at all but merely midrash added by Matthew, just as Matthew appears to have added incidents in Jesus's birth and childhood filling in gaps in knowledge with tales composed to add understanding in a similarly midrashic fashion. (One prominent inerrantist scholar was voted out of the Evangelical Theological Society in the 1980s for acknowledging that there was indeed a case to be made for Matthew's use of midrash in his telling of the Jesus story.)

SH:

i) Those who either operate with metaphysical or methodological naturalism will automatically discount anything supernatural.

ii)”Midrash” is a rubbery term, often ill-defined and lacking in clear-cut criteria.

Midrash is frequently confused with typology. See Craig. A. Evans’ careful distinction between targumim, midrashim, pesher, allegory, and typology.

Cf. Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, K. Vanhoozer, ed. (Baker 2005), 380-84.

Mt 2-4 is typological, not midrashic.

iii) Mt 27:52-53 is an example of inaugurated eschatology. The resurrection of these OT saints is a down payment on the endtime resurrection of the just, redeemed by the resurrection of Christ.

iv) Gundry was ousted from the ETS for treating parts of Matthew as fictitious.

v) For a defense of Matthew, consult such standard commentators as Carson, Blomberg, Keener, and France.

EB: As for inerrantist Christian apologists on the web who acknowledge the ancient use of midrash and even pesher to help try and explain the way some Gospel authors stretched the meanings of Old Testament verses to suit their prior view of "who Jesus was," please read "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah" which includes comments from Christian apologists at the end.

SH:

i) I don’t believe that Gospel writers “stretched” the sense of OT verses to “suit” their “prior” view of who Jesus was.

Actually, it was their encounter with Jesus (Matthew, John, maybe Mark) and/or his disciples (Mark and Luke) that altered their prior Messianic expectations.

ii) Babinski is trying to turn this into an argument from authority by name-dropping or citing the opinion of this or that apologist.

But the deciding factor is the quality of the argumentation, and not who said what.

EB: On this topic of the Gospel author's use of midrash and pesher, even J. P. Holding has listed it among "leading Christian myths" that "OT prophecy fulfillment is a good apologetic. It actually isn't useful in the way it was at first. We need to understand (as do Skeptics) Jewish exegesis of the first century. It is not so much that the OT predicted the NT events as that the NT writers looked at history and sought OT passages that echoed what they had seen. This does not mean that there is not actual predictive prophecy at all (for even then God may have orchestrated the pattern) but rather that we cannot present an apologetic on this basis as we normally have; or else we are forced into a corner of explaining ie, why the NT allegedly uses OT passages "out of context."

SH:

i) What goes under the rubric of Messianic prophecy is a combination of specific prophecies along with a convergence of progressive theological motifs on the Christ-event.

Scholars like France, Motyer, Sailhamer, VanGemeren, and T. D. Alexander have done a good job of elucidating the various Messianic themes in OT revelation.

NT writers do not cite the OT out of context. Quite the opposite: they are extremely sensitive to the thematic progression of Scripture.

ii) So the argument from prophecy remains in force.

EB: Personally, I suspect that the ancient world was generally more mysterious and wondrous than today's and average people were more capable of believing stories or weird strange tales, and capable of repeating them and embellishing them as well.

SH:

i) Many modern-day Christians can testimony to God’s providential presence in their lives. There’s no fundamental difference between then and now.

ii) And even outside of Christian experience, many modern-day observers can testimony to a paranormal dimension of experience.

So the world is just as mysterious and wondrous today as it was two or three thousand years ago.

EB: I don't doubt that Christians were motivated in their beliefs…

SH: That sidesteps the question. What gave rise to the faith of the NT writers in the first place? An encounter with the Risen Lord, or exposure to credible testimony thereof.

EB: Truth telling does not seem to have been as important as convincing themselves and others of their beliefs.

SH: This disregards the process of canonization, in which Christians took issues of authenticity and forgery quite seriously.

EB: But certainties are more difficult to come by once Christianity began being examined by more rigorous standards.

SH:

i) Yes, indeed, the Christian faith has come sustained scrutiny ever since the Enlightenment. And it’s survived and thrived under such scrutiny.

ii) I’d add that scrutiny is a two-way street. How well does secularism survive under rigorous scrutiny?

EB: Historians are not easily cowed by partisan stories of miracles, or by miraculous partisan tales of how various religions allegedly began.

SH:

i) Once again, this sidesteps the question of how the NT writers came to be “partisans.”

Churchill wrote a very “partisan” history of WWII. Does that mean his account his historically worthless? Or did he have firsthand evidence to support his version of events?

ii) When Dominic Crossan reconstructs what “really” happened on holy week, he is giving us a partisan version of events. He is also motivated by his beliefs.

What’s more, since he wasn’t there, his partisan alternative is devoid of evidence, and flies in the face of the actual evidence.

EB: The Gospels themselves are written without the author's identifying themselves, and one could read all of the inerrantist and non-inerrantist historians one wants to try and guess who wrote them, and remain uncertain.

SH:

i) Can Babinski cite any anonymous MSS of the four gospels?

ii) How can I be “certain” that Babinski penned the writings attributed to him? Maybe they’re pseudonymous.

After all, an unbeliever would have a motive in pretending to be an apostate. Apostasy sells. Apostasy is a great marketing gimmick.

iii) Does Babinski hold his secularism to the standard of apodictic proof?