A Response To Bart Ehrman's Webinar Against The Virgin Birth

It aired at 2:00 P.M. Eastern time today. It consisted of three segments, two presentations that were a little over an hour each and one session of questions and answers that lasted a little under an hour. I saw all of it other than about the first seven minutes of the first presentation, which I missed due to technical problems. The video isn't available for replay yet, but should be later this week. I plan to watch those first seven minutes at that point, then post any further comments that are warranted. But given the small amount of time involved and the nature of the webinar as a whole, I doubt that I missed much in those first several minutes.

When I provide documentation of something said during the webinar, I'll refer to the section involved and the approximate minute within that section. I don't have a video to play back at this point to get more precise numbers. So, "(second presentation, 21:00)" refers to something at roughly 21 minutes into the second presentation, "(questions and answers, 3:00)" refers to something about 3 minutes into the segment with questions and answers, etc.

The webinar didn't interact with the large majority of the arguments for the virgin birth. See my post here for a summary of many of those arguments. There was nothing in the webinar about why the premarital timing of Mary's pregnancy wasn't treated as more of a scandal among the early Christian and non-Christian sources (an accompanying Christian belief in the virgin birth being the best explanation). Nothing about the citation of the gospel of Luke as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18. Nothing about how early and widespread belief in the virgin birth was in the earliest extrabiblical sources, including among Pauline and Johannine individuals and churches and people who thought highly of Mark's gospel, for example. Nothing about how Celsus and his Jewish source(s) dated the virgin birth claim to Jesus' lifetime rather than dating it as late as Ehrman does. And so on.

Ehrman thinks Jesus was conceived through sexual intercourse between Joseph and Mary and believes that was the view of the earliest Christians. He thinks the gospel of Matthew is the only New Testament document that referred in its original edition to the virgin birth, though belief in the virgin birth didn't originate with the author of Matthew (second presentation, 55:00). All of the first two chapters of Luke other than the first four verses were added later (second presentation, 7:00, 14:00), meaning that the original edition of Luke had the first four verses of our version, then went to 3:1. He doesn't provide a date for when the material in Luke 1-2 was added. So, there's a wide range of options here. He appeals to Marcion's shorter version of Luke as evidence for the original absence of most of the first two chapters (second presentation, 10:00). He also appeals to how there's a different writing style in the first two chapters, the Semitisms that are often discussed (questions and answers, 35:00). So, he apparently doesn't think the author of the third gospel added the material later. Ehrman seems to think somebody else added it, though he doesn't say when. I don't know what the significance of 1 Timothy 5:18 is under Ehrman's view as he presents it in this webinar. He rejects Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy, and I don't know how he dates 1 Timothy relative to the adding of Luke 1-2 to the gospel, so 1 Timothy 5:18 could refer to the later version of Luke that includes the first two chapters. That would be problematic for his claim that the virgin birth is "completely absent" in the New Testament outside of the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two chapters later added to Luke (first presentation, 40:00), that "nowhere else has anything" (first presentation, 41:00), that the thirteen letters attributed to Paul "don't say a word" about the virgin birth (first presentation, 14:00), etc.

Andrew Lincoln isn't mentioned in the webinar, but I suspect Ehrman was influenced substantially by Lincoln's material. See here for my review of Lincoln's book on the virgin birth.

Ehrman does mention Raymond Brown's The Birth Of The Messiah (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1999) and recommends it (second presentation, 3:00). See here for a collection of my responses to Brown's book.

Ehrman says a lot about how the infancy narratives allegedly are inconsistent. He's "sure" that Matthew and Luke disagree about Joseph and Mary's initial place of residence (first presentation, 31:00). The two gospels "can't" both be right in all of their details (first presentation, 38:00). Regarding reconciling the two genealogies, he claims "it simply can't be done" (second presentation, 3:00). As I mentioned in a recent post, I've reconciled the infancy narratives, and so have other people. See here for a collection of my material on Christmas issues, including posts on harmonization issues. I can cite non-Evangelicals acknowledging that the material can be reconciled. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, two very liberal Jesus Seminar scholars, acknowledged, "It is not impossible to harmonize them." (The First Christmas [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007], 23)

Ehrman repeats the common objection about a supposed ancestral census in Luke 2 (first presentation, 39:00). See here for the evidence that the census isn't ancestral.

Ehrman is still citing passages like Mark 3:21-35 and John 7:1-10 as evidence against the virgin birth. See here for a post I wrote a couple of years ago that responds to Ehrman's use of that argument. Remarkably, he claimed in his webinar today that Jesus' brothers didn't know Jesus was "anything special" in John 7 (first presentation, 47:00). That passage comes just after Jesus' miraculous feeding of thousands of people and other highly public miracles, including ones done when his brothers were nearby (John 2:1-12). The "works" Jesus' brothers refer to in John 7:3-4 surely at least included miracles, given the immediate surrounding context and the nature of Jesus' public ministry in general up to that point. So, the brothers (like Mary in Mark 3) weren't objecting to a lack of miracles. As my response to Ehrman linked above explains, the Mark 3 passage likewise explicitly refers to Jesus' performance of miracles, even his enemies' acknowledgement of some of his miracles. It's astonishing that Ehrman not only brought up such a bad objection to begin with, but also has repeated it for years.

He claims that Jesus doesn't belong to the ancestral line of Joseph, and that the genealogies don't make sense, under a virgin birth scenario (first presentation, 54:00). He makes a brief comment in passing about how Jesus might be associated with Joseph's line through adoption (first presentation, 55:00), but goes on to assert that the genealogies don't make sense if Jesus was born of a virgin (first presentation, 56:00). Jesus didn't have to be biologically related to Joseph in order to be considered his son and part of his line. And whether he was biologically related to Joseph depends on the mechanism used for the virgin birth. I hold to a transfer view of the virgin birth, meaning that God transferred the relevant material from Joseph, so that Jesus was born of a virgin and had a biological relationship with Joseph. For more about both issues, see here. Furthermore, the genealogy in Luke 3 refers to Adam as the son of God (verse 38), so how would Ehrman explain that under his assumption that a biological relationship has to be involved? Both gospels also refer to the possibility of raising up children of Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8). Again, it doesn't seem that either gospel author is working under Ehrman's premises. If the genealogies don't make sense under a virgin birth scenario, why did two different people (the author of Matthew and the later editor who added material to Luke) include those genealogies with their virgin birth accounts?

In the process of arguing that the four women mentioned in Matthew's genealogy were sexually immoral, Ehrman refers to how Ruth seduced a drunk man at a party (first presentation, 58:00). Read Ruth 3 and see how you would come up with Ehrman's tendentious interpretation.

Ehrman occasionally refers to people like the Ebionites and the Gnostics for later support of adoptionism and rejection of the virgin birth. See the posts here and here in my response to Andrew Lincoln regarding how widely the virgin birth was accepted early on and how weak the opposition was. And Ehrman's position is even worse than Lincoln's. Ehrman denies that the gospel of Luke originally referred to a virgin birth, and he cites fewer extrabiblical sources than Lincoln did. So, Ehrman has the virgin birth coming from fewer of the earliest sources and cites less opposition to the virgin birth among the extrabiblical sources. According to Ehrman, rejection of a virgin birth was the earliest Christian view, advocated by sources as prominent as Paul, three of the four authors of the gospels, and other New Testament authors. Yet, the virgin birth is widely and prominently accepted and advocated among the earliest extrabiblical sources onward, including by a large variety of Pauline, Petrine, and Johannine individuals and churches, for example. See my recent post on early Ephesian sources, for instance, and see my two posts responding to Lincoln cited above for much more of the same. Ehrman claims that the early extrabiblical sources who affirm the virgin birth are only repeating what they got from the New Testament (questions and answers, 31:00). How could he know that? Read my documentation, linked above, regarding sources like Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp, and the Ephesian church and ask why we should accept Ehrman's assertion. His appeal to alleged denials of the virgin birth in the New Testament are weak, for reasons explained in my response to Lincoln, and the extrabiblical evidence weighs heavily against Ehrman's position.

I want to close by making several points about Ehrman's hypothesis that most of Luke 1-2 was a later addition to the gospel. People hold a wide variety of views of issues like how Luke 1-2 relates to the rest of the gospel of Luke, the relationship between that gospel and Marcion's, whether there was a third source both drew from, and so on. I can only address a small amount of the evidence here. I'm focused on Ehrman's position, and I'll occasionally make comments relevant to other views. When I refer to "Luke 1-2" below, I'm referring to all of those chapters other than the first four verses, since Ehrman accepts those verses as part of the original gospel.

- Ehrman acknowledges that all of the manuscript evidence supports the inclusion of the relevant material in Luke 1-2 (second presentation, 8:00).

- Ehrman acknowledges that Marcion's version of Luke differed from the canonical version in "many" ways, not just in its rejection of Luke 1-2 (second presentation, 12:00). So, Ehrman's proposed version of Luke is significantly different than both the canonical version and Marcion's.

- It seems that the Marcionite rejection of canonical Luke was highly unpopular outside Marcionite circles. Irenaeus tells us that some heretics rejected some New Testament documents (Against Heresies, 3:11:7), but that most "do certainly recognise the Scriptures; but they pervert the interpretations" (3:12:12). Tertullian wrote, "that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is known is also by the same reason condemned." (Against Marcion, 4:5) Origen notes, "There are countless heresies that accept the Gospel According to Luke." (Joseph Lienhard, trans., Origen: Homilies On Luke, Fragments On Luke [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 1996], 67)

- Justin Martyr was a contemporary of Marcion who spent time in the same region of the world as Marcion, and Justin refers to Marcion in his extant writings and wrote against him further in his non-extant writings. Justin repeatedly cites material from Luke 1-2 (e.g., Dialogue With Trypho 78; First Apology 34). Justin makes much of alleged Jewish corruption of some portions of the Old Testament text (Dialogue With Trypho, 71-73, 120), yet both he and Trypho (in a discussion that's supposed to have occurred in about 135) seem to assume a common text for the New Testament. (There would have been some textual variants, of course, but they apparently weren't of much significance.) It's unlikely that Justin would have argued as he did if as large an amount of material had recently been added to the gospel of Luke as Ehrman alleges (a triple-digit number of verses in modern Bibles). Ehrman could argue that the material was added to Luke early in Justin's life or before he was born, but, even under that scenario, you'd expect the original version of Luke to still be circulating to a significant degree and still be widely remembered.

- Around 140, Aristides wrote:

"The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it. This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished. But he himself was pierced by the Jews, and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven. Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness." (Apology, 2)

The characteristics Aristides mentions (the virgin birth, the ascension, the apostles' work to bring Christianity to the nations, etc.) are consistent with the gospel of Luke and its sequel, Acts, though he may not have intended to include Acts. It was common early on to refer to the gospels collectively as "the gospel". Aristides seems to either be referring to the gospel of Luke alone (possibly with Acts) or the gospels collectively, with a focus on Luke. Either way, he seems to be thinking primarily or entirely of Luke's gospel. And it doesn't seem to be substantially different than our version of Luke. It includes the virgin birth. Notice, too, that he not only thinks the gospel of Luke is a good representation of Christianity, but also expects that gospel to be accessible to pagans like the ones he's addressing in his apology. It seems that his version of Luke, which includes the virgin birth, was in wide use at the time.

- Clement of Alexandria referred to an account of the gospels' origins that he received from some early elders (in Eusebius, Church History, 6:14:5-7). Since Clement was born around the middle of the second century, the elders he appeals to surely lived part of their lives before that time. Clement refers to "the Gospels containing the genealogies", Matthew and Luke. So, Clement's elders either referred to Luke as a gospel with a genealogy or didn't say anything that prevented Clement from thinking of Luke that way. I don't know if Ehrman accepts the genealogy in Luke 3 as part of the original gospel. (There are reasons to at least doubt that he accepts all of the genealogical material as part of the original gospel, as I'll discuss below.) But to the extent that Ehrman or anybody else doubts that the genealogy in Luke 3 was part of the original gospel, Clement provides significant evidence to the contrary.

- The expansiveness of Luke's material makes the inclusion of Luke 1-2 more likely than its exclusion. Think of the broad language used in the introductory comments in Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1. He says he's addressing "the things accomplished among us", events "from the beginning", "the exact truth", and "all" that Jesus did and taught. Think of the expansiveness of how both of his documents end. His gospel not only goes beyond the resurrection to include the ascension, but even goes further still to include the ongoing activities of the disciples after the ascension (24:51-52). Acts goes all the way to the 60s, a few decades beyond the ascension, and it not only narrates Paul's arrival in Rome, but even continues with years of events afterward (28:30-31). Or think of the opening of Acts. He goes back over the material at the end of his gospel and covers the events just before and just after the ascension in more depth. Given the expansive scope of his work, as described in the openings of the two documents and as illustrated in how the gospel ends and how Acts both begins and ends, a similarly expansive beginning to his gospel makes more sense than a beginning when Jesus was already a few decades old. Remember, Luke said he would address a category as broad as "the things accomplished among us" and "all" that Jesus did and taught. He also suggests he wants to cover "everything" "from the beginning". (For evidence that "from the beginning" refers to the span of events Luke is covering, not how long he's been studying, see Darrell Bock, Luke, Volume 1, 1:1-9:50 [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1994], 60-61. And the "beginning" in Luke 1:3 isn't qualified the way the "beginning" in Acts 1:22 is. That Acts 1 passage is addressing a narrower context, so the beginning in Acts 1:22 shouldn't be read back into Luke 1:3.) Luke's expansiveness lines up better with the canonical version of Luke than with Marcion's or Ehrman's.

- The different writing style Ehrman refers to in Luke 1-2 can be explained adequately by Luke's use of one or more sources. For example, I've argued that much of Luke's material on Jesus' childhood likely came from the brothers of Jesus, especially James. And a lot of Luke 2 aligns well with Luke's having gotten material from James in the context of Acts 21. See my post just linked for more details.

- There are dozens of terms and themes in Luke 1-2 that are found later in Luke and in Acts. That weighs more than the Semitisms Ehrman appeals to in Luke 1-2. For example, "[Luke] 1:5-2:52 is better seen as an overture to the Gospel. In it Luke's major theological themes are sounded, esp. that of God's fidelity to promise. The 20 Lucan themes investigated by J. Navone (Themes of St. Luke [Rome, 1970]) are already enunciated in 1:5-2:52: banquet, conversion, faith, fatherhood, grace, Jerusalem, joy, kingship, mercy, must, poverty, prayer, prophet, salvation, spirit, temptation, today, universalism, way, witness." (Robert Karris, in Raymond Brown, et al., edd., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary [Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990], 679) James Edwards wrote:

"Verbally, the infancy narrative [in Luke] and body of the Gospel are strongly knit together. Paul Minear provides a list of fifty-five 'words or phrases which appear both in the birth narratives and in the rest of Luke-Acts, and which are found more often in these two books than in the rest of the New Testament.' Henry Cadbury cites six phrases in Luke 1-2 that reappear either verbatim or nearly verbatim in the remainder of Luke-Acts. Most important, Joachim Jeremias devotes one-third of his meticulous examination of the vocabulary of Luke to the vocabulary of chaps. 1-2 and the influence of that vocabulary on the remainder of the Gospel….In the commentary on Luke 1-2 we noted Luke's proclivity to bracket key theological words/ideas in the infancy narrative with the same at the end of the Gospel or the end of Acts. These inclusios are numerous and striking." (The Gospel According To Luke [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2015], 99)

As an example of what Edwards is referring to, notice that Luke's material on Jesus' childhood opens with Zechariah in the temple (1:9) and that the gospel ends with the disciples in the temple (24:52-53). Or think of how Mary is named in Acts 1:14, just as Jesus' disciples are named in the previous verse, even though they had already been named in the gospel. It seems that the author wanted to name these individuals again early in Acts, to introduce them to new readers or remind people who had already read his gospel. It seems likely, then, that he would have named Mary in the gospel as well. But the only place she's named is in Luke 1-2. If you take out Luke 1-2, then Mary appears in Luke 8:19-21 without being named. Since she was named in Acts 1:14, it's likely that she was named in the gospel as well. But you need Luke 1-2 for that. Somebody could try to avoid the problem by proposing that Luke 8:19-21 was also added to the gospel later. But that just makes his problem even worse. Now he has to try to justify the removal of another part of the gospel and once again go against so much evidence to do so.

In his webinar, Ehrman appeals to similarities in wording and themes to argue for unity of authorship between Luke and Acts (second presentation, 17:00). He can't just object to some unusual language in Luke 1-2. He needs to also address the language and themes in Luke 1-2 that are so similar to what's found in Luke 3-24 and Acts.

- It could be proposed that a later source imitated Luke's language and themes in the process of composing Luke 1-2. But why go to so much trouble to imitate the original author if the early Christians were so undiscerning that they would be taken in by the addition of so much material to a document that previously didn't include it? There's a disconnect between the alleged sophistication of the interpolator and the alleged unsophistication of his audience. You could propose some other scenario. For example, that the interpolator wasn't trying to convince his audience that Luke 1-2 came from the same author as the rest of the gospel and Acts, but instead was imitating Luke/Acts because he enjoyed doing such things. But how many people would enjoy imitating such a large number and variety of characteristics of another author to the point of going to so much trouble to do so? Proposing that such an extremely unusual individual was behind Luke 1-2, that his work somehow got combined with the gospel of Luke, that the combination was so widely mistaken for the original gospel, etc. is a much less efficient explanation of the evidence. The simplest and best explanation is that Luke 1-2 came from the same author who produced Luke 3-24 and Acts.

- Ehrman kept repeating the popular claim that the events of Luke 1-2 aren't reflected in the remainder of the gospel or Acts or other parts of the New Testament outside the infancy narratives. See here for a series of posts arguing otherwise. The material in Luke 1-2 makes the initial popularity of John the Baptist in Luke 3 more coherent, Luke 3:23 likely alludes to the virgin birth, Luke 1-2 helps explain Jesus' early popularity and how his disciples reacted to him in Luke 5, the combination of Nazareth and Capernaum in Luke 4:16-23 likely involves Jesus' identifying himself as the figure of Isaiah 9:1-7 (as referred to by Matthew in Matthew 4:12-16), etc.