Including The Resurrection Claim In A Prophecy Argument With Hostile Corroboration

We've argued that Isaiah 53:10-11 likely refers to the resurrection of the Servant of the Lord figure in Isaiah's Servant Songs. Though there's good evidence for Jesus' resurrection from Christian sources, there's some evidence from non-Christian sources as well. So, the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is another example of a prophecy whose fulfillment is evidenced by hostile corroboration. There was early non-Christian corroboration of the empty tomb, and some of the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead were non-Christians who apparently converted to Christianity as a result of an experience they thought was an encounter with the risen Jesus. See here on James, here on Paul, and here on the likelihood that other non-Christians had such experiences. It's not an adequate response to object that people like James and Paul were Christians. The point is that they were hostile to Christianity originally and converted under circumstances relevant to what I'm arguing for in this post.

Another way of putting it is that the plausibility of the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:10-11 is significantly increased when multiple non-Christian sources support the resurrection of Jesus in multiple ways (corroborating the empty tomb, corroborating Jesus' appearing to people alive after his death). One way to appreciate the significance of this kind of evidence is to think of the alternatives. Think of how easily the situation could have been otherwise and how the case for Jesus' resurrection would be weakened if there hadn't been such hostile corroboration.

These things have a cumulative effect. Is it all just happenstance that Jesus' life lined up so well with the chronology of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, the Romans chose penal practices that align so well with relevant Old Testament passages, the figure whose life just happened to line up so well in these contexts had so many hostile sources corroborating his resurrection in various ways, etc.?

Does the unbelief of Jesus' brothers support Mary's perpetual virginity?

I recently heard somebody make that claim. If Jesus' brothers grew up in the same house as Jesus, which would have included having a large amount of information about or even witnessing miracles associated with him, for example, why weren't they believers?

That's just a variation of an objection that's been raised for a long time in other contexts. See my response to Raymond Brown's formulation of it here and here and my response to Bart Ehrman's version of it here, for instance. There's no reason to think there were as many or more miracles occurring in association with Jesus in his home prior to his public ministry than during that ministry. But his brothers were unbelievers during that latter timeframe. The typical non-Christian argument pertaining to Jesus' miracles at the time wasn't that there weren't any miracles, but rather that they didn't come from God. It wasn't an absence of miracles that was motivating the unbelief.

And though children of Joseph from a previous marriage and cousins would be further removed from Jesus than children born from Mary, we'd still expect children from a previous marriage and cousins to have had a lot of contact with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Look at how often they're in close proximity to Jesus and Mary in the gospels and elsewhere. That probably occurred prior to Jesus' public ministry as well. Just as there isn't much difficulty in reconciling the unbelief of Jesus' brothers with their being step-brothers or cousins, there isn't much difficulty in reconciling their unbelief with their being brothers in the most common sense of that term.

Distancing the brothers from Jesus makes their unbelief less difficult to explain in some ways, but not in every context. If the brothers were children from a previous marriage, then they lived through the events of the infancy narratives, as Joseph and Mary did. By contrast, children later born from Mary didn't. Children from a previous marriage also would have been more mature during Jesus' childhood, more capable of handling evidential contexts like having conversations with Joseph and Mary about the relevant issues. In some ways, the unbelief of Jesus' brothers is easier to explain if they were children born from Mary after Jesus' birth or cousins born later rather than earlier.

Even if somebody concludes that a perpetual virginity scenario offers a better explanation of the brothers' unbelief, I don't think it would be much of an advantage. As I said in an earlier post, an advantage for a particular view of the brothers in one context can be accompanied by a disadvantage in another context. What we're after is the best explanation of the evidence as a whole. As the post just linked argues, the view that Mary gave birth to other children is the most efficient explanation on balance, even though it's not the best explanation of every piece of evidence. A Joseph who was older at the time of his marriage to Mary better explains his death prior to Jesus' public ministry, and the perpetual virginity view was held by more of the church fathers, for example, but the advantages of a perpetual virginity view are accompanied by more numerous and weightier disadvantages.

What if the brothers of Jesus were younger cousins?

My last post discussed some evidence for the consistency and historicity of what the New Testament reports about the siblings of Jesus. That material is relevant to the issue of whether Mary was a perpetual virgin, but that wasn't the focus of my last post. I do want to focus on it here and expand on what I said earlier.

Some Agreements Among The New Testament Documents About Jesus' Siblings

I've been discussing the perpetual virginity of Mary in some of my recent posts, and one of the issues I've brought up is how often Jesus' brothers are referred to as being together (Matthew 12:46, John 2:12, 7:3, 7:10, Acts 1:14). I think they probably were Jesus' youngest siblings, born well after him (with his sisters and any brothers who didn't survive born earlier), and were still living in the same house after Jesus left. They probably were in their teens to twenties at the time of Jesus' public ministry, with the oldest brother (likely James) having taken over the leadership role Jesus had in the home after Joseph's death. Since Jesus' brothers were still in the same house, they often did things together. The sisters of Jesus are consistently not mentioned in these contexts, even though they are mentioned elsewhere (Matthew 13:56, Mark 6:3). They probably had moved out of the house, whereas Jesus' brothers were still there.

But whatever reason you'd propose for why they're together so often, and whatever view you hold of the perpetual virginity of Mary, the fact remains that the brothers are often referred to as being active together. Later on, the brothers are referred to as being active individually, later in Acts and in Galatians and the letters of James and Jude. The contrast between their acting together earlier and acting individually later can be seen within a single author in the case of Luke. He refers to the brothers' acting together (Luke 8:19, Acts 1:14), but refers to James' acting individually in later passages in Acts. This is another line of evidence for the historicity of the gospels and other parts of the New Testament. The gospels and the opening of Acts all agree that the brothers were active together, with the sisters not being mentioned in those contexts, and the parts of the New Testament discussing later history agree in portraying the brothers as being active in a more individual manner.

One way to appreciate the value of such agreements is to think of how easily the sources could have disagreed. Why agree that Jesus had any brothers? Or more than one? Or that they acted together so often during the timeframe the gospels and Acts 1 cover? Or that they were more individually active later? The sources could easily have been less harmonious and probably would have been if the New Testament were as unhistorical as critics sometimes suggest.

The Diversity Of The Empty Tomb Sources

I've argued elsewhere that the empty tomb was affirmed not just by the early Christians, but also by both their early Jewish opponents and their early Gentile opponents. In the post just linked, I argue for Justin Martyr's citation of a first-century Jewish source corroborating the empty tomb, and I discuss some other significant material in Justin. I've also written, here, about the tenacity of the Jewish corroboration, so that it persisted well beyond the time of the apostles and adapted to ongoing circumstances. The original Jewish explanation of the empty tomb, that Jesus' disciples stole the body, made far more sense early on than it did later. So, though some Jews continued to use the explanation that the disciples stole the body, others developed another argument, that a gardener took the body.

Not only are these large groups affirming the empty tomb diverse (Christians, non-Christian Jews, pagans), but there had to be a diversity of individuals within each of these groups. Paul was a former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, and he would have had a substantial amount of knowledge of what non-Christian Jews knew about and were saying about the empty tomb. James would have had the knowledge of a family member who had close connections to other relatives of Jesus. If Jesus had received some other sort of burial than what the early Christians reported, such as being placed in some kind of family tomb, James would have been in a good position to know it. The Jewish leaders who had spent years working against Jesus and had arranged to have him crucified surely would have monitored what was going on and would have formulated a response to ongoing circumstances. Or think of Pilate's involvement in the events surrounding Jesus' death, including the entombing of the body and what happened immediately thereafter. Pilate not only had an opportunity to shape both Jewish and Gentile non-Christian views on these subjects, but also may have kept a relevant written record of some kind.

Even if one or more sources like the ones just mentioned were apathetic, careless, or some such thing, it's unlikely that all of them were and that they all erred in the same direction. The best explanation for such widespread affirmation of the empty tomb is that the tomb was empty.

Then He Appeared To James

The resurrection appearance to James (1 Corinthians 15:7) doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should. That's probably largely because we're not given much information about it, including no narrative of the event. Still, more ought to be said about it.

How To Argue That The Early Sources Agree About Jesus' Childhood More Than Critics Suggest

I've discussed forty examples of agreements between Matthew and Luke about Jesus' childhood. More examples could be cited. Yet, critics often suggest that Matthew and Luke only agree about a few things, or they list some higher single-digit number of agreements, for example. Even lists that consist of some low double-digit number are way off in the direction of underestimating the amount of agreement.

Though these discussions are often framed in terms of what Matthew and Luke have in common, we don't have to limit ourselves to those two sources (or just the infancy narratives within those two sources). There are many agreements among many early sources, not just Matthew and Luke.

One way to effectively remember and illustrate some of the agreements is to place them in categories, such as chronological issues or geographical issues. Think, for instance, of how many agreements there are between two or more sources on issues related to Jesus' familial circumstances:

How The Names Of Jesus And His Brothers Corroborate The Infancy Narratives

I've written about how Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus' name was given by revelation and how easily they could have disagreed on the subject if they or their sources were independently fabricating accounts, for example. The name given, Jesus, means "Yahweh is salvation" or "Yahweh saves". And notice something about the names of Jesus' brothers (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, Acts 21:17-18, Galatians 1:18-19, James 1:1, Jude 1):

The Credibility Of Jesus' Relatives As Witnesses

Their testimony is significant in a lot of contexts, such as the events surrounding Christmas and Easter. Here's a summary of the factors involved, taken from a post I wrote last year:

James' Influence On Luke's Resurrection Material

Last Christmas season, I posted an article about how Jesus' relatives influenced our view of his childhood. In that article, I provided several lines of evidence that Luke consulted Jesus' brother James as a source. Part of that article discussed a potential reason why Luke didn't narrate Jesus' resurrection appearance to James. You can read the article, or the relevant portion of it, if you're interested in that issue. But a larger point should be made as well. Luke's use of James as a source means that he was in contact with a pre-Pauline resurrection witness, even with one who had grown up with Jesus and lived with him for a long time. Though Luke was influenced by Paul, we should keep in mind that Paul wasn't the only influence in Luke's life. The influence of figures like James gives us more reason to think Luke's highly physical, highly evidential view of the resurrection and the resurrection appearances is pre-Pauline and historical.

How much does Mark's gospel suggest that Jesus' relatives were unbelievers?

Critics often cite the gospel of Mark against a traditional Christian view of the childhood of Jesus. Supposedly, all of the living members of Jesus' immediate family, including his mother, are portrayed as unbelievers in Mark. That's supposed to contradict what we see in the other gospels, and the unbelief of Jesus' family is considered evidence against what Matthew and Luke say about miracles surrounding Jesus' childhood. Why would Jesus' family not believe in him if those miracles had occurred?

How Jesus' Relatives Shaped Our View Of His Childhood

Early beliefs about Jesus' childhood developed in a context in which relatives of Jesus, including some who lived with him for a long time and interacted with him in other contexts, were highly accessible and often involved in the life of the church. When I mention the earliest beliefs about his childhood, I'm not just referring to Christian beliefs. I'm also referring to the views of non-Christians. They, too, had access to Jesus' relatives (e.g., Mark 3:21-35, 6:1-6; Josephus, Antiquities Of The Jews, 20:9:1). Non-Christians didn't just have access to relatives of Jesus who were believers, but also had access to relatives who were unbelievers. Part of what we need to take into account when evaluating any view of Jesus' childhood is how well it addresses the influence of his relatives.

I want to recommend some resources on those relatives and make some points that are relevant to Christmas issues. Jesus' family is prominent in some modern Christmas contexts, such as theology and music. But there's been a lot of neglect of the role of his relatives in the context of the historical evidence pertaining to his childhood.

The Resurrected Jesus Appeared To At Least Five Non-Christians, Probably More

For the evidence that he appeared to Saul of Tarsus, see the many relevant posts in our archives, such as the posts in the thread here. And see the posts in the comments section of that thread, starting here, for a discussion of some of the evidence that at least two non-Christians traveling with Paul witnessed the resurrected Jesus in the manner I discuss there. For the evidence that at least two of Jesus' brothers claimed to have seen the risen Jesus at a time when they were unbelievers, see here.

And he could easily have appeared to more than the five non-Christians mentioned above. He probably did. There could easily have been more than two non-Christians traveling with Paul in Acts 9. And the appearance in Matthew 28:16 was announced ahead of time, which provided a lot of potential for non-Christians to be present. That Matthew 28 appearance seems to be the best candidate among the ones narrated in the gospels and Acts for the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. (See here for some evidence that the appearance at the end of Matthew 28 is the one Paul refers to.) Since that appearance in Matthew 28 was anticipated, it could easily be the case that one or more non-Christians were brought there (e.g., family members going with each other) or went on their own initiative. Given the nature of ancient Jewish culture and particular types of relationships (e.g., family members often traveling with each other), it's more likely than not that some non-Christians were present during the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned by Paul. And not every resurrection appearance is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 (e.g., the appearances to women), nor should we assume that every appearance is mentioned somewhere in our extant documents. So, there's a lot of potential for Jesus to have appeared to more than the five non-Christians discussed above.

We should be careful to think beyond Paul and James when the issue of non-Christian witnesses comes up. And we need to be careful about objections based on the premise that Jesus didn't appear to more non-Christians. He didn't need to appear to any, and people typically underestimate how many he did appear to and how many he could easily have appeared to without our knowing it.

I expect some people to acknowledge that it seems that Jesus was reported to have appeared to more non-Christians than Paul and James, but to object that he didn't appear to an even higher number and that he didn't appear to more prominent non-Christians. But asking for more evidence isn't an adequate response to the evidence you have. And see here regarding the number of resurrection witnesses and here regarding their nature (e.g., why Jesus didn't appear to somebody like the Roman emperor rather than or in addition to Paul). The latter post just linked discusses an illustration I've found useful, a contrast between Paul and Constantine. Critics often act as though it obviously would have been better for Jesus to have appeared to somebody like a Roman emperor than to have appeared to somebody like Paul. But the choice of appearing to individuals like Paul has been vindicated over time. Paul has had a deeper impact, one with some characteristics that wouldn't be present with somebody like Constantine (or Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, etc.).

The Timing Of The Conversion Of Jesus' Brothers And Their Witness To The Resurrection

I've discussed the subject before, such as the significance of John 19:26-27, which implies that Jesus' brothers either weren't Christians yet or had only recently become Christians. Another issue that should be raised is what best explains the broader pattern of references to the brothers.

They're referred to in several places in the gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters, and we have two letters attributed to the brothers (James and Jude). They're mentioned in multiple places in the gospels as unbelievers. And there's an implication that they're believers in Acts 1:14. They're mentioned many times after Acts 1 (in the remainder of Acts, in Galatians, etc.). But they aren't mentioned in contexts in which close relatives often would be mentioned leading up to and just after the resurrection (e.g., Jesus' trial, the cross, the burial). Jesus' mother is referred to as present at the cross in John 19, but his brothers aren't mentioned there or in any other relevant context. Because of her gender and older age, we'd expect Mary to be less present in these contexts than Jesus' brothers would be, but she's more present instead. And it's striking how wide a diversity of individuals are mentioned in these contexts: Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, the women at the tomb, the men on the road to Emmaus, all of the Twelve, etc. So, the absence of any reference to the brothers of Jesus, especially in light of their later prominence in church history, is significant.

It's possible to reconcile all of this evidence with an earlier conversion of Jesus' brothers. But the issue isn't what's possible. The issue is which explanation is best. A later conversion of Jesus' brothers, one later than the events immediately following his death, makes better sense of the evidence. But the lateness also has to account for evidence like Acts 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:7. The best explanation seems to be that one or more resurrection appearances, like the one in 1 Corinthians 15:7, brought about their conversion. They might have converted on the basis of what others told them about the resurrection or on some other such basis, but that explanation has less explanatory power than something like 1 Corinthians 15:7.

Given the plural "brothers" in Acts 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 9:5, the high status of the individuals mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:5, and the inclusion of a letter of Jude in the canon, a resurrection appearance to at least one brother of Jesus other than James, at least Jude, seems likely. Maybe Jesus appeared to more of his brothers than James and Jude, but it seems probable that he at least appeared to those two.

I suspect all of the appearances to Jesus' brothers happened later rather than earlier. The appearance to James is mentioned fourth among the five chronologically ordered pre-Pauline appearances in 1 Corinthians 15. Furthermore, it would make sense for the gospels to give more attention to the earlier appearances than the later ones, since the earlier ones most closely follow the preceding events and would tend to involve the most intense reactions to the resurrection, since the witnesses' knowledge of the event was so new. The absence of references to the brothers of Jesus in the gospels' resurrection accounts makes more sense if the appearances to Jesus' brothers happened later rather than earlier. I suspect they occurred during the latter half of the forty days referred to in Acts 1:3.

The Significance Of Galatians 2:9

I've often discussed how unlikely it is that Galatians 2:9 would have been written if the earliest Christians had believed in a papacy. Not only is Galatians a good place to go when addressing the doctrine of justification, but it's also a good place to go when the papacy is being discussed. But notice that Galatians 2:9 is also significant in the context of the historicity of the gospels and Acts. Those documents portray Peter, James, and John as the most prominent members of the Twelve (for non-papal reasons), frequently putting Peter and John together, and Galatians 2:9 has Peter and John together as reputed pillars of the church (James the son of Zebedee being dead by then). And the prominence of James the brother of Jesus in Galatians 2:9 is what we'd expect from Acts. So is the placing of Paul and Barnabas together. There's other relevant material in Galatians as well, but 2:9 is a good passage to remember as one that concisely illustrates so much.

The Gospels' Agreement About James And Corroboration Of Other Sources

In a post yesterday, I discussed agreements among the early sources regarding the apostles. Some evidence that's often neglected in that context is what the gospels tell us about Jesus' brother James.

I've discussed their material on him elsewhere. Something I don't believe I've discussed here before, though, and it's something that doesn't seem to get much attention in general, is James' position in the lists of Jesus' siblings in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Notice that the two lists are different, and there are some differences in the surrounding context, so it's not just a matter of Matthew's copying Mark, Mark's copying Matthew, or both's copying some other source. What I want to focus on here, though is how they list the names of Jesus' brothers in a different order, yet agree in putting James first. As I've mentioned before, the order in which names appear in a list can be determined by a wide variety of factors. James could be listed first because he was the oldest brother of Jesus. Or it could be because he was the most prominent for whatever other reasons. Or it could be both. Maybe James was the most prominent, which was partly because he was the oldest and partly because of one or more other factors. Whatever the cause of his being listed first in both documents, that's consistent with his prominence elsewhere. He's prominent in Acts, much more prominent than the other siblings listed with him in Matthew 13 and Mark 6. He's the only sibling of Jesus mentioned by name in the resurrection appearances discussed in 1 Corinthians 15. He's the only brother of Jesus mentioned in Galatians 1-2 and the only one named anywhere in Paul's letters. Jude identifies himself in connection with James (Jude 1), but James sees no need to appeal to a relationship with any of his brothers in his letter. This sort of greater prominence James had, in comparison to his brothers, is corroborated by the passages in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

Several years ago, I wrote an article addressing why the gospels don't include any reference to the resurrection appearance to James. I said that the best explanation for their not including the appearance to James is a desire to be consistent with their previous focus on Jesus' earliest followers and a desire to honor those earliest disciples. You can read the article just linked for a further discussion of that subject and others that are related. I want to note here, though, that since one of the gospels that doesn't include the appearance to James is Luke, there's an implication that Luke wanted to honor Jesus' earliest disciples above individuals like James in the manner I just described. That's significant in light of the fact that some people deny that Luke viewed James as an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry. I've argued that Luke 8:19-21 probably alludes to his unbelieving status. But even if we didn't have that passage, or even if my view of it is wrong, I think the absence of any reference to the resurrection appearance to him is best explained if he was an unbeliever in the relevant timeframe. Even if I'm wrong about both of these matters, the meaning of the Luke 8 passage and the absence of the appearance to James, there has to be some reason why all of the gospels don't mention that appearance. And that's further common ground they have about James.

This too shall pass

"...What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (Jas 4:14)

What is your life?

Is your life a sterling success? Remember your life is a mere breath. There may be a heart-racing pause between air inhaled and air exhaled. An exciting if brief span of time when the atmosphere of the party revolves around you. Indeed, when your life is in the stratosphere. However, breath will expire, and your spirit with it. All you are, all you have, shall fade and diminish as life draws to a close. You cannot bring your social status or worldly goods into death with you. Who remembers Ozymandias? Rather remember your Maker. The one who gives and the one who takes away. The one who enrichens and the one who impoverishes. The one who elevates and the one who humbles. Your life is too short to be wasted on success. However dazzling its accoutrements, they shall fizzle away, recede to nothingness, when you turn to dust and ashes and stand naked in the light of eternity.

Is your life a disappointment and a failure? Do you despair over the foolish and even sinful decisions you've made? Is your life one unmitigated disaster after another? Do even the lowly look on you in disgust? Have close friends and beloved family lost faith in you, are unsure what to think about you, or have altogether left you? Do you have nothing? Are you no one? Remember God, for he remembers you, even if no one else does, even if your own mother has forgotten you. Turn to him, your refuge, your true life. The good news is life is a vapor, it too shall soon end; and this life isn't all there is. So much more and so much better awaits you in the world to come if only you cling to Christ. Where else will you go? Where else can you go? There is no solace in the wilderness. There is no life in the desert. There is only one who has the words of eternal life.

Is your life a middling mediocrity? Remember your life is a mist. It has some form, it has some substance, it has some function, but it is entirely fleeting. Like smoke from a cigar. It might taste pleasant enough, smoke rings look cool, but smoke dissipates. One day may bring wealth and prosperity, but the next bring doom and gloom. Or vice versa. Nothing is guaranteed in life. Not even life itself. The young may be suddenly plucked from this life like a flower in full bloom. The old may wither in sadness or harden in bitterness. Those in the middle grow old, grow old, and wear the bottoms of their trousers rolled. They were never meant to play Hamlet. Perhaps at best start a scene or two. Men won't remember their lives nor deeds, but labor in God's vineyard is never wasted. After all, God's eyes saw our unformed substance. God wrote in his book every single day formed for his children before any of them had ever come to be. Like a man in love preparing a beautiful picnic for his beloved, God has planned and prepared each day for us before we ever arrived on the scene. And each of these days, lived for him, will echo in eternity, even if they appear insignificant to the blind eyes of this world. Why trust what the blind say about that which they cannot see? Yet in God's light do we see light.

Take a deep breath in, breathe out, and the breath is gone. Life is hebel.

Much Of The Resurrection Evidence Comes From Former Critics Of Christianity

A helpful way to think about the evidence for Jesus' resurrection and Christianity more broadly is to notice how much of the New Testament was written by former opponents of the Christian movement. Even under a very liberal view of New Testament authorship, more than a quarter of the documents were written by a former enemy of Christ. Under more moderate or conservative views of New Testament authorship, as much as 55% of the documents were written by people who had been opponents of the religion (Paul, James, Jude).

Note, too, that even under a highly liberal view in which only seven letters were written by an opponent of Christianity, and only one opponent (Paul), the fact remains that other prominent church leaders and resurrection witnesses were former enemies of the religion (the brothers of Jesus). That includes two of the most prominent leaders, Paul and James (as reflected in Acts 15 and Galatians 1-2, for example). Whether you look at this issue from the perspective of New Testament authorship, early church leadership, or both, much of the testimony we have for Jesus' resurrection comes from people who had previously been opposed to Jesus and his movement.

There is hope, but not for us

There are stock arguments for the traditional authorship and dating of NT books like the Gospels, James, and Revelation. I think these are good arguments. But I'd like to explore a neglected line of evidence.

Moderate to liberal scholars typically date the Synoptic Gospels (esp. Matthew and Luke) to after the Jewish War (c. 67-73). I think that's easier to say if you're not a Jew who lived through the Jewish War. 

Admittedly, there's a sense in which that disqualifies me as well. But this is less about being Jewish or having a particular experience, then cultivating an awareness of the relevant sensibilities. 

Let's take a comparison. George Steiner and Edmund Wilson are both great literary critics. Steiner regards Kafka as a major writer, whereas Wilson regards him as overrated and ephemeral. Why the difference?

Simply put: Steiner is Jewish and Wilson is Gentile. Steiner is reading a Jewish author through Jewish eyes. He sees Kafka as a prescient allegory of the Shoah.

That's magnified by the fact that Steiner is, himself, haunted by the Shoah. His father had the wisdom to get his immediate family out of Dodge, but he couldn't save his extended family. He wrote them pleading letters. They ignored the threat and perished in the death camps. Steiner has the psychology of a Holocaust survivor (whether or not he meets the technical definition, which is disputed). 

By contrast, Wilson just doesn't get Kafka. He can't. Kafka doesn't speak to him at that level. It's too alien to his own experience. He has a waspish, patrician background. Hobnobbed with F. Scott Fitzgerald. He has no ear for Kafka. I don't necessarily say that as a criticism. It's not as if I can directly relate to Kafka's experience either. 

Let's draw another distinction. When people look back on their youth and childhood, there's often a sense of loss–assuming they had a happy childhood. But that can take either one two very different forms:

i) They may wax nostalgic about the past. Take writers like Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer) and Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine). Although that's tinged with a sense of regret, because it's irrecoverable, the loss was natural and gradual.

ii) But then you have writers whose happy youth or childhood was torn from their arms. Prematurely ripped away. Take Giorgio Bassani. His novels are set in pre-war Ferrera. And they reflect that place and period. They reflect his actual experience, making allowance for artistic license. 

Yet they are told with a view to the Shoah. Although the historical setting is prospective, the narrative viewpoint is retrospective, as a chain of events leads inexorably to the abyss. 

This is Holocaust literature. And it has Biblical precedent in exilic literature (e.g. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Lamentations). In Jeremiah you have escalating despair as he foresees his people doomed by their own obduracy. What makes it so maddening is the self-fulling nature of their fate. They bring it upon themselves by their defiance. Ezekiel oscillates between elation and bitter rage.  And Lamentations gives voice to the unspeakable. 

Now, the Jewish War was an event similar in significance to the Holocaust and the Babylonian Exile. Even for Jews outside Palestine, Jerusalem was the epicenter of Judaism. It's hard to overstate the psychological impact that would have on survivors. There's medical evidence that children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors suffer from transgenerational trauma. And you'd have the same dynamic for analogous events. 

And that's a basic problem with the post-70 date for Matthew. If it was written after that cataclysm, why does it not read like Lamentations, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel? Although ostensively set in the time of Jesus, we'd expect the calamity of the Jewish War to cast a long backward shadow, just as we find in exilic literature and Holocaust literature. That's assuming it was, in fact, written after 70 AD. 

But Matthew doesn't begin to have the emotional register of someone who wrote from that harrowing vantagepoint. Yes, there are storm clouds on the horizon in the Olivet Discourse. But that lacks the direct transparency and intensity of searing personal experience. It's abstract. Future. Not the past as future.

Instead, the reader is treated to academic debates about Halakha and competing theories of the afterlife–from forty years before. And that's perfectly consistent with Matthew being precisely what it purports to be–rather than a retrojection. 

Compare that to Paul Celan, who lost both parents in the death camps. Who was repeatedly hospitalized for clinical depression. Who eventually committed suicide–unable to overcome the grief and guilt. Likewise, Primo Levi was another Jewish chronicler of the Shoah who survived the death camps, but succumbed to suicide. Ditto: Jean Améry. The memory was just unbearable. 

Conversely, the tone of Revelation calibrates very well with exilic literature and Holocaust literature. It's easy to imagine John writing that after the Jewish War. The emotional register parallels Ezekiel. 

But what about the Gospel of John? I think it might well have been written in the 60s. 

But suppose it was written in the 90s. Is that consonant with what I've been discussing? Possibly. People have different coping strategies. One way is to become more withdrawn. And, indeed, John's Gospel is detached and otherworldly. If the life you knew has been obliterated, that's one way to adapt. 

If Matthew was composed before 70 AD, and is literarily dependent on Mark, then Mark is however much earlier. 

The letter of James is written in a serene style that bears no trace of trauma to the collective psyche of 1C Jewry which you'd anticipate if it was penned sometime after the Jewish War. 

Luke is less susceptible to this style of analysis. Likely a Gentile convert to Judaism, and then to Christianity via Judaism. Although he's profoundly invested in Messianic Judaism, that's not a part of his formative experience, so even if his Gospel was written after 70 AD, I wouldn't necessarily expect it to reflect the same traumatization. There are, however, other arguments for dating its composition prior to 70 AD.

I've been using Jewish comparisons, but we could cast a wider net. Dabney was so demoralized after his side lost the Civil War that he moved to Texas. He just couldn't stand to live in Virginia any more. The life he'd known and loved was literally shot to pieces. Or consider the enduring psychological impact on dispossessed American Indians, driven from their ancestral lands.  

Finally, this may touch on the question of what happened to most of the apostles. After being listed in the Gospels, why did many melt away? You have traditions and legends, but that has an apocryphal flavor. A way of validating a national sect. 

One explanation may be that some of them perished in the siege of Jerusalem. Not because they were too devoted to the city, or nostalgic memories, but because they had relatives there, or because they had house-churches there where they ministered. Like missionaries who stayed behind in China during the Japanese invasion. Rather than abandon their flock, they suffered with them and died with them.