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Book Review and Commentary – The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith, by James F. McGrath

James McGrath, of Exploring Our Matrix, has written an interesting book called The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith. The text below is the review I wrote of the book at Amazon.

In The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith, James McGrath provides a well-written introduction to a number of topics that many people will not have seen, but should nonetheless be aware of if they wish to understand the Bible in terms of the social and political contexts of its time. Concepts of the interplay between history and faith, the uncertain authorship of the Gospels, and the Synoptic Problem are topics that the average Christian of any (or no) denomination is unlikely to encounter unless he goes out and deliberately looks for them. McGrath gives a high-level overview of these subjects, and then ties them together with a case-study of the details of Jesus' burial as provided by the Gospels, demonstrating how the details of this event were embellished over time subsequent to their description in the earliest Gospel, Mark.

The use of Jesus' burial as the example here is an interesting one, as many discussions of Gospel inconsistencies focus on the differences between the Crucifixion accounts or the Resurrection accounts, ignoring the small but crucial matter of what happened in between. Comparing the Gospel accounts to contemporary Jewish burial customs gives clues about how far removed culturally, geographically, and temporally the Gospel writers were from the events they portrayed, and comparing the accounts to one another gives clues to how those accounts may have been embellished over time. Both comparisons illustrate the challenges inherent in literal, inerrant interpretations of the Biblical texts.

The only notable omission from the book is the lack of an index or list of references. McGrath's work here shows some echoes of the work of Bart Ehrman, the late Raymond E. Brown, and perhaps the late Bruce Metzger, all of which would be valuable resources for a reader interested in further explorations of New Testament studies.

Overall, The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith gives an excellent and very readable introductory treatment to several important topics in modern Biblical scholarship, and is highly recommended for anyone seeking a place to start gaining a deeper understanding of the Bible in the contexts from which it evolved.

I'd like to expand on some points from the review here, since Amazon isn't really the place for extensive commentary.

The question of the reliability of the Bible historically, scientifically, and spiritually is a central one to a vast number of people. Most people, I think it's fair to say, come by their knowledge of the Bible through some combination of the following: church attendance, Sunday school, and (primarily for those who attended religious schools) religion classes in school. Since most people who attend religious schools are placed in schools that are doctrinally compatible with their churches, and since Sunday school classes are invariably attached to those churches, this implies that most people's knowledge of the Bible (and by extension the history and contextual circumstances of its composition) is limited to what is acceptable to their church's viewpoint.

There are exceptions, of course. People who take religious history or comparative religion classes in college are more likely to get a broader view, and individuals who seek degrees in these and related fields will have a correspondingly wider background. Nevertheless, the majority of folks won't get beyond the relatively basic teaching of their own churches unless they make a point of seeking out works that describe contemporary Biblical scholarship, and even if one wants to seek out such works, it's not always easy.

Why?

Well, for one reason, most churches tend to provide their congregations with information aligned to their own viewpoint. No Catholic priest is going to recommend Josh McDowell or Ray Comfort. No Southern Baptist minister is going to suggest Raymond Brown or Bart Ehrman. The upshot of this is that a lot of people are simply unaware of the diversity of viewpoints out there, and those that are aware often find it challenging to learn about positions contrary to their own beliefs. Some may actively try to avoid being exposed to those positions Digging in to modern Biblical scholarship will likely expose some serious differences between what one learned in Sunday school and what is revealed by the archaeological, paleontological, and historical records.¹

Another reason is that current scholarship tends to appear in journals and books that aren't typically found in the local bookstore or the average public library. The Religion section at Borders has around 40 shelf-feet of different Bible versions, a comparable amount for various inspirational self-help books, and about twice that for books by various writers about why their particular flavor of Christianity is the right one. There is little, if any, shelf space dedicated to serious Biblical scholarship. A reader interested in moving beyond Sunday School Bible study must first find out who the well-regarded scholars are, then must go through some effort to locate their works. (And this takes us back to the problem mentioned above.)

What Prof. McGrath has done in his book is to touch on some of the broader topics in current Biblical scholarship in a way that is (in my opinion, anyway) non-threatening and very accessible. By focusing on Jesus' burial as portrayed in the Gospels - a detail that doesn't carry as much theological baggage as, say, the resurrection accounts - McGrath is able to look at four different accounts of one event, and compare them with what is known about Jewish burial customs in the 1^st Century. What we are shown is a degree of embellishment from the earliest Gospel, Mark, through the latest one, John, which is consistent with evolving traditions about Jesus.² These accounts are not compatible with one another - they cannot be fully harmonized.

This gives us several things to think about.

First, as the earliest author, the writer of Mark³ would have presumably been nearest (in time) to the event. It's reasonable to surmise that the traditions from which he wrote were more likely to be accurate than those of later writers. Furthermore, its reasonable to assume that an unflattering detail is more likely to be authentic than a more favorable version of the same detail appearing later.⁴ The fact that Mark's account of Jesus' burial portrays a rather undignified burial is consequently suggestive that Jesus burial was, in fact, rather undignified, in contrast to the accounts in the later Gospels.

Second, it gives us reason to wonder why Matthew and Luke would have each altered the detail. It's plausible that in the twenty years, give or take, since Mark was written, traditions about Jesus' burial had evolved, (much in the same way that traditions about, say, George Washington evolved. The process is sometimes referred to as heroification), and the authors of Matthew and Luke incorporated those new traditions in their reworkings of Mark. It's also plausible that Matthew and Luke simply made up additional original details to improve what they felt were weak areas in Mark.⁵ It isn't however, plausible that the accounts in Mark, Matthew, and Luke are all completely accurate.

Third, it compels us to ask how we evaluate whichaccount (if any) is accurate. Professor McGrath gives more credence to the account in Mark since it was written closer in time to the event and because it is more compatible with known Jewish burial practices in the 1^st Century. This evaluation depends on some external knowledge namely scholarship about the authorship of the Gospels and scholarship of 1^st Century Jewish customs. The average person is unlikely to be familiar with either field of study. The key here is that the individual who reads the Bible with the expectation that the Bible itself contains all the information necessary to interpret it has put himself at a serious disadvantage. There are two ways around this problem - learn a lot about ancient cultures, or trust that the experts in those fields know what they're talking about.

Fourth, we have to face the realization that if there are several different accounts of the same event, they cannot all be completely accurate - some or all are at least partially wrong.That doesn't mean that they're useless by any means, and it doesn't mean that they were written to deliberately deceive, but it does mean that one cannot simply claim "it says so in the Bible therefore it's right." This is particularly true of things where the overwhelming preponderance of extra-Biblical data tells against the Biblical account.

Now, to bring all this back around to the book. McGrath clearly wrote The Burial of Jesus with a lot of introspection and care. He has managed to present potentially touchy subject matter in a way that's unlikely to be seen as an affront to anyone, and that's a remarkable thing. His material provides quite a few excellent jumping-off points for further discussion in a small group, or for further individual research. I can comfortably recommend this work to anyone interested in the subject matter, and I'm working to get it included in the materials I use in the 7^th and 8^th grade Sunday School class that I teach. (James - I'm still working on this...)

CB
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¹Sometimes these differences are explained away as being put in place on purpose as tests of faith, or as being deceptions contrived by the devil, or in some similar fashion. These explanations are not really explanations at all they're attempts to shut down critical thought by casting it as a negative thing. This is a variant of the diabolical lie.

²McGrath adopts the generally accepted view that Mark was written ~ 60-75 AD, Matthew ~80-90 AD, Luke ~85 AD, and John ~80-110 AD, with Matthew and Luke being independent derivatives of Mark. Ill be writing about this view in an upcoming post, so I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on it here.

³The Gospels are all anonymous works. The names assigned to them are traditional names, and for the sake of convenience Ill usually refer to them as Mark, Matthew, etc.. Occasionally I'll use the form the author/writer of... to reinforce the point that we really don't know who wrote the canonical Gospels.

⁴The rationale for this assumption should be obvious: stories grow in the retelling.

⁵This wouldn't necessarily indicate dishonesty on the part of the authors. All of the Gospel writers went back to the Hebrew Scriptures to find elements that they felt were representative of things that the true Messiah would have said or done. That, coupled with evolving oral traditions and different audiences and objectives unsurprisingly leads to differing accounts.

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