Burton L. Mack and Who Wrote the New Testament?

[Apologia Xristou]

Hello,

I am currently reading "Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of the Christian Myth", written by Burton L. Mack. I would like to see comments on this book, or this author, posted by viewers. Has anyone noticed any errors or presuppositions in "Who Wrote the Gospels?"?

In gratitude,

Chris

[Apologia Xristou]

hmm....

[jpholding]

Hello,

I am currently reading "Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of the Christian Myth", written by Burton L. Mack. I would like to see comments on this book, or this author, posted by viewers. Has anyone noticed any errors or presuppositions in "Who Wrote the Gospels?"?

Tons of 'em.

What would you like to talk about?

[Apologia Xristou]

Tons of 'em.

What would you like to talk about?

Hi there,

Thank you for your response.


If you could just give me a couple of examples of Mack's errors and presuppositions, that would be great.


In gratitude,

Chris

[ephphatha]

I don't know specifically about that book, but I read another book by him called The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins. I don't know if it addresses the same issues or not, but if you're interested, I wrote a review about that book where I pointed out some of the errors I thought he made. I imagine there would be some overlap, judging by the title.

ephphatha

[Apologia Xristou]

Hi Ephphatha,


Thank you very much for posting your review of Mack's "Lost Gospel." I shall certainly read over it, and see if the material does indeed overlap with "Who Wrote the New Testament?"

In gratitude,

Chris

[jpholding]

Hi there,

Thank you for your response.


If you could just give me a couple of examples of Mack's errors and presuppositions, that would be great.

OK, sure, but it has been a few years since I have read it and all I have is a few notes.

1) His thesis of Jesus as a cynic sage is contrived and selective with the evidence.
2) He has to invent Christian groups to explain his thesis, though he has not a shred of literary, historical, or archaeological evidence for them; he creates them merely from parsing NT texts.
3) His comparison to how Greco-Roman students produced "speech in character" not only begs the question of this technique used in the NT but also doesn't tell us that the technique was ever used to promote something as real history that was not, nor that anyone did so and got away with it.

I'd have to get the book or hear more from you to get more specific. These are notes from 1999 and I have read dozens of books since then.

[Amazing Rando]

Hey JP- did you ever read Luke Timothy Johnson's The Real Jesus? I was looking on your site and didn't see it reviewed. It's an older book, perhaps 1996 I think? I'd be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on that one.

[jpholding]

Hey JP- did you ever read Luke Timothy Johnson's The Real Jesus? I was looking on your site and didn't see it reviewed. It's an older book, perhaps 1996 I think? I'd be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on that one.

I did read it but for some reason I can't recall chose not to write a review. I will soon because someone recently asked me to do so. It's on the way from the library now.

[Amazing Rando]

I'll look forward to it!

[Apologia Xristou]

OK, sure, but it has been a few years since I have read it and all I have is a few notes.

1) His thesis of Jesus as a cynic sage is contrived and selective with the evidence.
2) He has to invent Christian groups to explain his thesis, though he has not a shred of literary, historical, or archaeological evidence for them; he creates them merely from parsing NT texts.
3) His comparison to how Greco-Roman students produced "speech in character" not only begs the question of this technique used in the NT but also doesn't tell us that the technique was ever used to promote something as real history that was not, nor that anyone did so and got away with it.

I'd have to get the book or hear more from you to get more specific. These are notes from 1999 and I have read dozens of books since then.

Thank you for your comments on Mr. Mack's "Who Wrote the New Testament?". I will continue reading it, and I will pose more questions as I read through the book.

Thanks again,

Chris.

[Bib Lit Major]

Hey JP- did you ever read Luke Timothy Johnson's The Real Jesus? I was looking on your site and didn't see it reviewed. It's an older book, perhaps 1996 I think? I'd be interested in hearing some of your thoughts on that one.

Took the words right out of my fingers...(I guess that is the correct message board evolution of the saying...)

[TheAntichristia]

Chris,
Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament is one of the best books on the subject that you can read. (Get the hardback copy, the print in the softbound copy is so small you'll hurt your eyes.)

Every book on the eary days of Christianity is going to contain a great deal of conjecture, because there are simply no historical documents covering that. Yes, Mack's book contains a great deal of conjecture, i.e. the various Jesus groups that produced the writings that were eventually woven into the New Testament, but it's very good conjecture. Mack is a top notch scholar, and while you don't have to agree with everything he says, he should not be dismissed with a handwave.

The descriptions that he gives of the authorship and content of the individual books of the New Testament jibe quite well with what you would find in any good study Bible (e.g., the Harper Collins Study Bible, The Oxford New English Study Bible, and others).

The subtitle of the book is The Making of the Christian Myth. Mack holds that Christianity in essence is mythological and that the traditional interpretation of Christ (born of a virgin, crucified and resurrected, etc...) is also a myth. Although he does not deny the existence of a historical Jesus, he says that it is impossible to write about him:

"But what, then, about the historical Jesus? Should not a book about Christian origins and the New Testament contain a chapter on the historical Jesus? The answer is no. It is neither possible nor necessary to say much about the historical Jesus." (WWNT, Ch. 2)

Go ahead with the book. It's a good one. I've read it twice and I'm going to read it again.

Cheers,
John

[shunyadragon]

Hello,

I am currently reading "Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of the Christian Myth", written by Burton L. Mack. I would like to see comments on this book, or this author, posted by viewers. Has anyone noticed any errors or presuppositions in "Who Wrote the Gospels?"?

In gratitude,

Chris

The book is ok, but does make some significant stretches in some conclusions, but his conclusions of the lack of known authorship of much of the NT is legitimate and shared by many scholars. His description of the lack of information, actually none outside the NT at the time of Jesus life, and only third hand references later concerning Jesus Christ is legitimate.

Probably the biggest contention is over whether the gospels are primary or secondary documents.

[Doug Shaver]

Has anyone noticed any errors or presuppositions in "Who Wrote the Gospels?"?

I've read the book a couple of times.

Nobody can either write or read about the past without presuppositions. When you're reading history, all you can do is try to identify the author's presuppositions and then decide whether they're the same as your own presuppositions. So far as I can tell, Mack doesn't presuppose anything significant that I don't presuppose.

I didn't notice any mistakes. That doesn't mean I think there aren't any, just that I didn't catch them. I don't accept inerrancy for any document, ancient or modern. Some of his conclusions I would say might be true or might not be true. When it comes to Christian origins, I'm quite OK with "Maybe, maybe not." We just don't have all the evidence we need for certainty about much of anything.

Mack accepts Jesus' historicity. I don't, but I don't prejudge scholars who do accept it because I don't regard Jesus' nonexistence as proven, only more likely than not. I think it possible that there was a historical Jesus, and if there was, then I think Mack's portrayal of him as a cynic sage is as least as credible as any other -- certainly more credible than that of orthodox Christianity.

His description of original Christian diversity appears well supported. The thesis of Christianity's original uniformity has nothing going for it, it seems to me, other than orthodox dogma.

I'd have to read the book once more to check whether Mack thinks the gospel authors believed, or intended their readers to believe, that they were writing purely factual history. For addressing the book's title question, I don't think it makes much difference. Whatever the authors' intentions, we don't know who they were. If they thought they were writing history, they were mistaken, but, with the possible exception of Luke, I don't think they thought so.