tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/apostle-paul-28538/articles
Apostle Paul – The Conversation
2022-12-12T13:38:52Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195159
2022-12-12T13:38:52Z
2022-12-12T13:38:52Z
Who were the 3 wise men who visited Jesus?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498572/original/file-20221201-12-ffufr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scholars have provided different interpretations of who the 'wise men' were who visited Jesus soon after his birth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/inside-the-saint-sulpice-church-in-paris-royalty-free-image/1296007408?phrase=three%20wise%20men%20and%20jesus&adppopup=true">Christophe Lehenaff/Collection Moment via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christmas Nativity scenes around the world feature a familiar cast of characters: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an angel or two, some barnyard animals, shepherds and, of course, the three wise men led by a star. </p>
<p>Within the New Testament, the story of the wise men is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. It spans <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+2%3A1-12&version=NRSVUE">12 short verses</a>, and is simpler than most readers likely remember. The wise men arrive in Jerusalem from an unnamed location “in the East,” led by a star and in search of a new king. They make their way to Bethlehem, where they bow before Jesus and offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then, they return home by a different route.</p>
<p>The details in this story are slim, and so it raises more questions than it answers. Where were the wise men actually from? Why were they interested in Jesus? And, above all, who were they?</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://vandeneykel.hcommons.org">a scholar of early Christian literature</a> who has spent years <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506473734/The-Magi">researching and writing about the wise men</a>. I maintain that their identity in Matthew’s Gospel is ultimately more mysterious and more complex than what traditional Christmas stories suggest. One of the keys to understanding them lies in what Matthew calls them: “magi.”</p>
<h2>What’s in a name?</h2>
<p>“Magi” is a Greek word that is difficult to translate. Some versions of the New Testament render it as “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+2&version=KJV">wise men</a>” and others say “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%202%3A1&version=TLB">astrologers</a>.” But neither of these captures the full sense of the term. </p>
<p>“Magi” is where the English word “magic” derives from, and just as magic can have both positive and negative connotations today, so too did magi have a range of meanings and uses in the ancient world. Some ancient authors speak positively of individuals they describe as magi, while others consider the label to be more of an insult.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the New Testament Book of Acts, which mentions two magi: <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+8%3A9-24&version=NRSVUE">one is named Simon</a>, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+13%3A4-12&version=NRSVUE">the other is named Elymas</a>. </p>
<p>Simon is a performer who amazes crowds with his ability to do magic, and he angers Jesus’ apostles by offering them money in exchange for some of their powers. Elymas is an adviser to a government official on the island of Cyprus, and he is referred to as a “false prophet.” He is struck blind for trying to interfere with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle">the apostle Paul’s</a> attempts to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+13%3A8-11&version=NRSVUE">convert the official</a> to Christianity.</p>
<p>When it comes to both of these characters, the label “magi” is meant negatively. It was intended to suggest to readers that they are sinister charlatans, and not to be trusted.</p>
<p>In other ancient literature, however, magi are sought-after specialists who possess valuable skills like divination. In <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/daniel/2.html">the Greek translation of the Book of Daniel</a>, the king of Babylon summons magi to his court and asks them to decipher the details of a strange dream. </p>
<p>The Greek historian Herodotus <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+1.107&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126">tells a similar story</a> in which the Median king Astyages asks magi about a dream featuring his daughter, and they foretell the birth of the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/courses/999/Essenes.htm#Gymnosophists">likewise speaks of magi</a> as people with the special ability to understand mysterious visions.</p>
<p>Many ancient authors who speak of people as magi also frequently do so in the context of religion and ritual. One of the more well-known instances of this is a teacher named Zoroaster, from whom <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zoroastrianism">Zoroastrianism</a> takes its name. </p>
<p>The Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0258">says that Zoroaster was actually the first of all the magi</a>. He <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0258#%5B6%5D">also writes</a> that magi lived simple, ascetic lives characterized by limited comforts, and that they had a reputation for worshiping their gods through sacrifice. </p>
<p>The Greek biographer Plutarch <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0240%3Asection%3D46">speaks similarly of Zoroaster</a> as a magi who taught a form of spiritual dualism, good versus evil.</p>
<h2>The identity of Matthew’s magi</h2>
<p>Who, then, are the magi who visit Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew? The answer, it turns out, is complicated. Matthew doesn’t tell his readers exactly what he means when he refers to his visitors in this way, and so it is up to them to figure it out.</p>
<p>Biblical scholars <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140088/the-birth-of-the-messiah-a-new-updated-edition/">often argue</a> that Matthew intended for the magi in his Gospel to be understood as gentiles or non-Jews who come to Bethlehem to worship Jesus. They surmise that this story is meant to foreshadow the fact that Christianity would eventually become a gentile religious movement instead of a Jewish one. </p>
<p>The argument that the magi are meant to be understood as gentiles is based in part on the fact that they come to Jerusalem and Bethlehem “from the East,” which could suggest that they are “outsiders.” But in light of how magi are spoken of in other ancient literature, this understanding is too simple. Had Matthew intended to say that gentiles came to Bethlehem, he would have done so without using a loaded word like magi.</p>
<p>Because Matthew doesn’t bother to say exactly who these visitors were supposed to be, the magi have fascinated readers and kept them guessing for nearly 2,000 years. </p>
<p>They have been imagined as <a href="https://members.efn.org/%7Eopal/therealmagi.html">Zoroastrian priests</a>, <a href="https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/astrologers-met-jesus-toddler/">astrologers</a> and, of course, as <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/we-three-kings-lyrics/">kings</a>. They have appeared in various forms in <a href="https://www.artbible.info/art/verses/36.html">paintings</a>, in <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qklsb">film</a>, in <a href="https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf">literature</a> and in <a href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jamestaylor/homebyanotherway.html">song</a>.</p>
<p>Given the complex nature of the word magi in the ancient world, one has to wonder if Matthew chose this word precisely to inspire a sense of mystery in his readers, and to keep them wondering about who the magi actually were. </p>
<p>If this is the case, then I would argue that he certainly accomplished that goal many times over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As Christmas approaches, Nativity scenes showing three wise men visiting the newborn Jesus are put up around the world. A scholar of Christian literature offers an explanation on their identity.
Eric Vanden Eykel, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Ferrum College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168058
2021-09-27T12:57:17Z
2021-09-27T12:57:17Z
What Ötzi the prehistoric iceman can teach us about the use of tattoos in ceremonial healing or religious rites
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422985/original/file-20210923-23-1fnt1on.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4363%2C2856&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man takes a picture of a statue representing the 5,300-year-old mummy named Ötzi, discovered in the Italian Alps 30 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-takes-pictures-of-a-statue-representing-an-iceman-named-news-photo/160644052?adppopup=true">Andrea Solero/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ötzi the Iceman remained hidden to the world for millennia <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/tzi-the-iceman-what-we-know-30-years-after-his-discovery">until two German tourists discovered it 30 years ago</a> <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/scientists-have-mapped-all-of-otzi-the-icemans-61-tattoos">in a glacier in the Italian Alps</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Four images showing tattooed lines on the mummy of Ötzi the Iceman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423149/original/file-20210924-19-192dccr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tattoos on the mummy of Ötzi the Iceman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.iceman.it/en/media-archive/">©South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Eurac/Samadelli/Staschitz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This 5,300-year-old mummy is not only perhaps Europe’s most famous mummy, but also one of the most significant finds for those who study the global history of tattoos.</p>
<p>Ötzi was adorned with <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/scientists-have-mapped-all-of-otzi-the-icemans-61-tattoos">61 tattoos</a> that were incredibly preserved by the glacial climate.</p>
<p>The meaning of those tattoos has been debated ever since his discovery by the two hikers. Many of Ötzi’s tattoos were found to be lines drawn along areas such as the lower back, knees, wrists and ankles, areas where people most often experience <a href="https://www.archaeology.org/issues/107-features/tattoos/1351-oetzi-copper-age-alps-iceman-tattoos">ongoing pain</a> as they age. Some researchers believe these tattoos to be an ancient <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-otzi-icemans-tattoos-reveal-about-copper-age-medical-practices-180970244/">treatment for pain</a>. Various herbs known to have medicinal properties were found in close proximity to Ötzi’s resting place, lending further credence to this theory.</p>
<p>However, not all of Ötzi’s tattoos were on places usually affected by the wear and tear of everyday life on joints. Ötzi also <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/scientists-have-mapped-all-of-otzi-the-icemans-61-tattoos">sported tattoos on his chest</a>. Theories of the purpose behind this set of tattoos, <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/scientists-have-mapped-all-of-otzi-the-icemans-61-tattoos">which were discovered using new imaging techniques in 2015</a>, range from early <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-otzi-icemans-tattoos-reveal-about-copper-age-medical-practices-180970244/">acupuncture or ceremonial healing rituals</a> to being part of a <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742823/ancient-ink/">system of ritual or religious beliefs</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, the idea that Ötzi’s tattoos may have held deep cultural or religious meaning for him and his people is not beyond reason. As a tattoo historian and scholar, I have seen how tattoos have historically been used for <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742823/ancient-ink/">ceremonial healing</a>, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Tattoo-History-Source-Book-HC/Steve-Gilbert/9781890451073">religious rites</a> and to show belonging to both <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057231/written-on-the-body">cultural and religious groups</a> throughout the ancient world and leading all the way up to modern times.</p>
<h2>Ancient tattoos</h2>
<p>The mummified remains of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tattoos-144038580/">women in Egypt</a> shows tattoos dating back to 2000 B.C. In addition, engraved and painted figures in tomb reliefs and small carved figurines depicting women with tattoos date back to 4000-3500 B.C. </p>
<p>In both cases, the tattoos were a series of dots, often applied like a protective net across a woman’s abdomen. There were also tattoos of the Egyptian Goddess Bes, seen as the protector of women in labor, on a woman’s upper thigh. In both cases, these ancient tattoos were regarded as a kind of talisman of protection for women who were about to give birth.</p>
<p>The early Greek historian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-historian">Herodotus</a> discussed how runaway slaves at Canopus <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057231/written-on-the-body">voluntarily tattooed</a> themselves as both a way to cover up the branding performed on them by their masters and out of religious devotion. </p>
<p>These new marks were often used to symbolize that these men and women no longer served their earthly slave masters, but instead were now in service to a certain <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057231/written-on-the-body">god or goddess</a>. </p>
<h2>Tattoos across many faiths</h2>
<p>The early Christian Apostle Paul is recorded in the <a href="https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Galatians-6-17/">Bible in Galatians 6:17</a> as saying, “From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” The original word used for “marks” was the word “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tattoos-144038580/">stigmata</a>,” which was often seen, hailing back to Herodotus, as the term used to describe tattooing practices. </p>
<p>Multiple scholars believe <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057231/written-on-the-body">Paul’s tattoos were meant</a> to show his devotion to Christ. The tattoos would also help other Christians, who faced persecution from the Roman empire, identify him as a believer.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sketch of a Māori chief" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422982/original/file-20210923-18-1wl02qt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Māori people of New Zealand have long been practicing tattoo art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C4%81_moko#/media/File:MaoriChief1784.jpg">Sydney Parkinson - Alexander Turnbull Library via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Māori people of New Zealand have been practicing the tattoo art of <a href="https://www.zealandtattoo.co.nz/tattoo-styles/maori-tattoo/">Tā Moko</a> for centuries. These tattoos, which are still practiced today, hold a deep cultural meaning and history. The tattoos not only convey social status, family identification and a person’s own life accomplishments, but also hold spiritual meaning with designs that contain protective talismans and appeals to spirits to protect the wearer.</p>
<p>Multiple Native American and First Nations tribes in North America have <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Tattoo-History-Source-Book-HC/Steve-Gilbert/9781890451073">a long history of wearing sacred tattoos</a>. In 1878, the early anthropologist <a href="http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv35336">James Swan</a> <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Tattoo-History-Source-Book-HC/Steve-Gilbert/9781890451073">wrote multiple essays</a> on the Haida people he encountered around Port Townsend, Washington. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcbooks/items/1.0221712">one essay</a> he detailed that the tattoos were more than ornamental, with each design having a sacred purpose. He also detailed that the ones who performed the tattoos were seen as spiritual leaders or holy persons.</p>
<p>The ancient Aztec god of sun, wind, learning and air, Quetzalcoatl, is often depicted as having tattoos in <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Tattoo-History-Source-Book-HC/Steve-Gilbert/9781890451073">ancient reliefs</a>. The Aztec people themselves practiced religious tattooing, with their priests often in charge of various forms of body art and modification. West African nations such as <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/looking-at-the-worlds-tattoos-60545660/">Togo and Burkina Faso</a> have used, and continue to use, tattoos and ritual body modification as sacred rites of passage.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Sacred practices</h2>
<p>In modern times, one can still see people around the world wearing sacred tattoos with religious significance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman making a traditional mambabatok tattoo using a mallet and needles in the Philippines." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422981/original/file-20210923-23-1yt71ye.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The oldest known living tattoo artist, Whang-Od Oggay in the Kalinga province of the Philippines, makes a traditional tattoo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whang-od_tattooing.jpg">Mawg64 via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether it is a member of the Kalinga province of the Philippines receiving a mambabatok tattoo, a pattern of traditional designs done with a single needle, from the oldest known living tattoo artist, <a href="https://mymodernmet.com/whang-od-tattoo-artist/">102-year-old Whang-Od Oggay</a>, to the countless <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1472586X.2019.1687331">crosses, Bible verses, and other symbols of Christianity</a> that can be seen in the U.S., tattoos can still hold deep religious and spiritual meaning.</p>
<p>What the tattoos adorning Ötzi the Iceman’s mummified body meant to him will most likely remain at least partially a mystery. </p>
<p>But Ötzi is an important reminder that tattoos have been, and continue to be, a sacred part of many cultures worldwide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Hawn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When the 5,300-year-old mummy of Ötzi the Iceman was found 30 years ago, researchers found 61 tattoos on it. A scholar explains how tattoos have been a sacred part of many cultures across the world.
Allison Hawn, Instructional Faculty in Communication, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167170
2021-09-02T12:23:38Z
2021-09-02T12:23:38Z
As Texas ban on abortion goes into effect, a religion scholar explains that pre-modern Christian attitudes on marriage and reproductive rights were quite different
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418956/original/file-20210901-15-29ytfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=63%2C12%2C8371%2C5547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Texas' abortion restrictions to take effect.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supreme-court-police-officer-patrols-at-the-u-s-supreme-news-photo/1234993989?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/01/supreme-court-texas-abortion-ban-508275">failed to rule on an emergency application</a> to block SB8, a controversial Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. As such, the legislation went into effect on Sept. 1, 2021.</p>
<p>While signing the new law on May 19, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/18/texas-heartbeat-bill-abortions-law/">Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated</a>: “Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion.” </p>
<p>As Abbott’s words show, these kinds of draconian restrictions on women’s reproductive rights in the United States <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-christian-rights-efforts-to-transform-society-120878">are often fueled by the belief of many Christians</a> that abortion and Christianity are incompatible. For example, the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM">catechism of the Catholic Church</a>, an authoritative guide to the beliefs and practices of Roman Catholics, states: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”</p>
<p>However, this statement tells only one part of the story. It is true that Christian leaders, virtually all male, have largely condemned abortion. Nonetheless, as a <a href="https://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/faculty/profile/luis-josue-sales">scholar of premodern Christianities</a>, I am also aware of the messier realities that this statement conceals.</p>
<h2>Celebrating women’s celibacy</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painted portrait of the saint Walatta Petros, created between 1716-1721, prevoiusly found in the saint's montastery in Ethiopia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C4%2C1327%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410460/original/file-20210708-19-1dis12o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The story of Walatta Petros, a 17th-century Ethiopian noblewoman who was later made a saint, shows that Christianity has a complex history with abortion and contraception.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walatta_Petros#/media/File:Portrait_of_Ethiopian_Saint_Walatta_Petros,_painted_in_1721.tif">A 1721 manuscript/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The earliest Christian writings – the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%207&amp;version=NRSV">letters of the Apostle Paul</a> – discouraged marriage and reproduction. Later Christian texts supported these teachings. In a second-century text known as the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/thecla.html">Acts of Paul and Thekla</a>, a Christian author in Asia Minor praised Thekla for rejecting her suitors and avoiding marriage in favor of spreading Christian teachings instead.</p>
<p>In the third century, Thekla’s story inspired a Roman noblewoman called Eugenia. According to the Christian text titled the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/select-narratives-of-holy-women-translation/3B43CAD1AA875B23551CD19B3C94A930">Acts and Martyrdom of Eugenia</a>, Eugenia rejected marriage and led a male monastery for a time. Afterward, she discouraged Alexandrian women from having children, but this advice angered their husbands. These men convinced the emperor Gallienus that Eugenia’s teachings about women’s reproductive choice endangered Rome’s military power by reducing the “supply” of future soldiers. Eugenia was executed in the year 258. </p>
<p>Even as the Roman Empire became increasingly Christian, women still received praise for avoiding marriage. For example, the bishop Gregorios of Nyssa, an ancient city near Harmandali, Turkey, wrote the beautiful text <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/macrina.asp">Life of Makrina</a> to celebrate his beloved sister and teacher, who died in 379. In this text, Gregorios admires Makrina for wittily rejecting suitors by claiming that she owed faithfulness to her dead fiancé.</p>
<p>To sum up, while early Christian texts did not exactly encourage women to explore sexual experiences, neither did they encourage marriage, reproduction and family life.</p>
<h2>Choices beyond celibacy</h2>
<p>Pre-modern Christian women had options besides celibacy as well, although the state, the church and mediocre medicine limited their reproductive choices.</p>
<p>In 211, the Roman emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fh9jv">made abortion illegal</a>. Tellingly, though, Roman laws surrounding abortion were centrally concerned with the father’s right to an heir, not with women or fetuses in their own right. Later Roman Christian legislators <a href="http://nbls.soc.srcf.net/files/files/Civil%20II/Texts/Digest%20of%20Justinian,%20Volume%204%20(D.41-50).pdf">left that largely unchanged</a>.</p>
<p>Conversely, Christian bishops sometimes condemned the injustice of laws regulating sex and reproduction. For example, the bishop Gregorios of Nazianzos, who died in 390, <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310237.htm">accused legislators of self-serving hypocrisy</a> for being lenient on men and tough on women. Similarly, the bishop of Constantinople, Ioannes Chrysostomos, who died in 407, <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210224.htm">blamed men for putting women in difficult situations that led to abortions</a>.</p>
<p>Christian leaders often gathered at meetings called “synods” to discuss religious beliefs and practices. Two of the most important synods concerning abortion were held in Ankyra – currently Ankara, Turkey – in 314 and in Chalkedon – today’s Kadiköy, Turkey – in 451. Notably, these two synods drastically reduced the penalties for abortion relative to earlier centuries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Abortion protesters listening to clergy give speeches and praying" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410880/original/file-20210712-15-l5nbfk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some contemporary Christians oppose abortion and contraception based on their religious beliefs. But historically the faith has sometimes supported women’s reproductive autonomy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PlannedParenthoodProtests/af52d6f1312245dd911e4cba3f27574a">Brennan Lindsey/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But over time, these legal and religious opinions did not seem appreciably to affect women’s reproductive choices. Rather, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/abortion-and-contraception-in-the-middle-ages/">pregnancy prevention and termination methods thrived in premodern Christian societies</a>, especially in the medieval Roman Empire. For example, the historian Prokopios of Kaisareia claims that the Roman Empress <a href="https://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2426/2484749/chap_assets/bookshelf/procopius.pdf">Theodora nearly perfected contraception and abortion</a> during her time as a sex worker, and yet this charge had no impact on Theodora’s canonization as a saint.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/abortions-in-byzantine-times-325-1453-ad/">Some evidence even indicates that pre-modern Christians</a> actively developed reproductive options for women. For instance, Christian physicians, like <a href="https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/person_79115278">Aetios of Amida</a> in the sixth century and <a href="https://library.princeton.edu/byzantine/subject-name/paul-aegina">Paulos of Aigina</a> in the seventh, provided detailed instructions for performing abortions and making contraceptives. Their texts deliberately changed and improved on the medical work of Soranos of Ephesos, who lived in the second century. Many manuscripts contain their work, which indicates these texts circulated openly.</p>
<p>Further Christian texts about holy figures suggest complex Christian perspectives on the acceptable termination of fetal development – and even newborn lives. Consider a sixth-century text, the <a href="https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2016/09/16/102632-venerable-dorotheus-the-hermit-of-egypt">Egyptian Life of Dorotheos</a>. In this account, the sister of Dorotheos, an Egyptian hermit from Thebes, becomes pregnant while possessed by a demon. But when Dorotheos successfully prays for his sister to miscarry, the text treats the unusual termination of the pregnancy as a miracle, not a moral outrage.</p>
<p>Around 1,100 years later, a similar event happens in the Ethiopian <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691164212/the-life-and-struggles-of-our-mother-walatta-petros">Life of Walatta Petros</a>. According to this text, Petros, a noblewoman later canonized as a saint, married a general and became pregnant three times. However, every time she conceived, she prayed for her fetus to die promptly if it would “not please God in life.” The narrator tells us that all three children died days after birth, since “God heard her prayer.”</p>
<p>Certainly, Christians have a history of opposing methods for preventing and terminating pregnancies. But these pre-modern texts, spanning some 1,500 years, indicate that Christians also have a history of providing these services, and making them safer for women.</p>
<p>This tense and inconclusive relationship to abortion may be poorly known – or perhaps overlooked for political convenience. But that does not change the fact, as I see it, that Christians who support women’s reproductive rights are also following the historical precedent of their religious tradition.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/christian-attitudes-surrounding-abortion-have-a-more-nuanced-history-than-current-events-suggest-162560">first published on July 13, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Josué Salés does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Supreme Court declined to rule on a Texas law that bans all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. However, abortion and contraception were quite common among pre-modern Christians.
Luis Josué Salés, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Scripps College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111138
2019-02-08T11:32:17Z
2019-02-08T11:32:17Z
What is the Great Commission and why is it so controversial?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257817/original/file-20190207-174864-iqg8xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Missionary nuns in a Congolese military camp in 1960.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-COG-APHS454741-Congo-Missionaries/253880c827ba4e0c9bde9e56b52994c6/346/0">AP Photo/Horst Faas</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A majority of church-going American Christians are unfamiliar with the term, the “<a href="https://www.barna.com/research/half-churchgoers-not-heard-great-commission">Great Commission</a>,” a 2019 survey found.</p>
<p>Even among those familiar with it, 25 percent recognized the phrase but could not explain what it was. Only 17 percent were familiar with the phrase and its meaning. </p>
<p>So what exactly is the Great Commission? And why is it a <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/jeffertsschori/pondering-great-commission">controversial idea</a> for some?</p>
<h2>A Christian obligation</h2>
<p>Briefly, the Great Commission is a concept that has been used to support the missionary activities of many Christian denominations.</p>
<p>The Great Commission refers to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A16-20&version=NIV">several passages in the Gospel of Matthew</a>, where Jesus Christ urges his apostles to make “disciples of all the nations” and “baptize” them. </p>
<p>The word “disciple,” which is “<a href="https://biblehub.com/greek/3101.htm">mathetes</a>” in Greek, literally means “pupil” but also “follower,” as in “follower of Jesus.” </p>
<p>“Baptize” refers to the Christian practice of using water to remove the “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_1.shtml">original sin</a>,” an inherent fault that Christians believe marks all human beings at birth. Baptism is an important sign of entrance into the Christian faith. </p>
<p>The Great Commission, therefore, is usually interpreted to mean spreading the Christian message and converting others to Christianity.</p>
<p>The Gospel of Matthew <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057369104700406?journalCode=ttja">does not specifically use such a term</a>. In fact, the phrase “Great Commission” does not appear until late in Christian history. Some scholars argue that it was coined by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hu3zDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=baron+justinian+von+welz&source=bl&ots=7kyniO8wHT&sig=ACfU3U3ApqBn_Vvv6GvPz1WCuSzshp3G8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_8OPB-6LgAhUEbawKHdIWDuw4ChDoATADegQIARAB#v=onepage&q=baron%20justinian%20von%20welz&f=false">Baron Justinian von Welz</a>, a 17th-century <a href="https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/lutheran-church-15-facts-to-know-about-martin-luther-history-and-belief.html">Lutheran</a> nobleman, who argued that the words in Matthew 28 meant that all Christians were required to spread the faith, not just Jesus’ closest disciples. </p>
<p>Von Welz proposed a missionary organization called the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LzYtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT207&lpg=PT207&dq=Jesus+Loving+Society+von+welz&source=bl&ots=EtPZCRzQBD&sig=ACfU3U1KD6H1bjiUJtUNk7emPOJ_cPqntA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNrY75vKrgAhWIyIMKHaKRBlQQ6AEwCnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Jesus%20Loving%20Society%20von%20welz&f=false">Jesus-Loving Society</a> to spread Protestant Christianity throughout the world. It is thought that the term “Great Commission,” or certainly the basic concept, was central to von Welz’s argument for bringing Christianity to foreign lands.</p>
<p>Two centuries later, the Englishman <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/missionaries/hudson-taylor.html">Hudson Taylor</a> is believed to have used the idea of the Great Commission to justify Christian missionary efforts, particularly the <a href="https://omf.org/us/about/our-story/china-inland-mission/">China Inland Mission</a> that he founded in 1866. Taylor’s mission attempted to bring Christianity to China’s inland provinces. This was dangerous work and 79 China Inland missionaries were killed later, in what is referred to as the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/china/boxer-rebellion">Boxer Rebellion</a>.</p>
<p>Hudson is often cited by Protestant missionaries, in the quote: “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered, but it is a command to be obeyed.” There does not appear to actual evidence, however, that he actually spoke these words.</p>
<h2>A controversial idea</h2>
<p>Christian missionary activities predate the use of the term “Great Commission.” <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-47/apostle-paul-and-his-times-christian-history-timeline.html">The Apostle Paul</a> was influential in establishing Christian churches throughout the Mediterranean after the death of Jesus. </p>
<p>Much later, Catholic religious orders, such as the <a href="https://jesuits.org/mission">Society of Jesus</a>, attempted to spread Christianity throughout the world, usually with the help of powerful nations such as <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739176801/Religion-and-Politics-in-a-Global-Society-Comparative-Perspectives-from-the-Portuguese-Speaking-World">Portugal</a> and <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0180.xml">Spain</a>. </p>
<p>The Great Commission certainly <a href="http://www2.bhpublishinggroup.com/books/products.asp?p=9780805443004">motivated</a> Protestant efforts to convert nations and peoples in Africa and Asia in the 19th century. It also fueled more recent efforts by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/evangelical-christianity">evangelical Christians</a> to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/opinion/evangelicals-politics-latin-america.html">missionize</a>” Catholic Latin America. Indeed, Latin America would not have become so Catholic without indigenous peoples being dominated by European imperialism and colonialism.</p>
<p>Missionary efforts sometimes served <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/276633/a-history-of-christian-missions-by-stephen-neill/9780140137637/">economic</a> interests relating to trade and resources as well religious ones. Additionally, converting conquered peoples was a powerful way of extending <a href="http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/catholic-church-and-nation-state">political</a> control. </p>
<p>Converting others to Christianity raises a fundamental question about whether religious diversity is a reality to be celebrated or an obstacle to be overcome. Given the complex history of missionary activity, <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/jeffertsschori/pondering-great-commission">the meaning</a> of the Great Commission will continue to be a subject of debate as Christianity confronts a rapidly changing world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The term refers to passages in the Christian gospels, in which Jesus urges his apostles to make ‘disciples of all nations.’ Later, it became a prime motivator of missionary efforts.
Mathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98419
2018-06-18T10:52:18Z
2018-06-18T10:52:18Z
The Bible’s message on separating immigrant children from parents is a lot different from what Jeff Sessions thinks
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223396/original/file-20180615-85854-fdna94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jeff Sessions is citing the Bible in defending the Trump administration’s immigration policy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-addresses-recent-criticisms-zero-tolerance-church-leaders">speech</a> to law enforcement officers on June 14, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited biblical scripture <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13&version=NIV">Romans 13</a> to claim support for zero tolerance immigration policies, including the Trump administration’s forced separation of immigrant families. </p>
<p>He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Illegal entry into the United States is a crime – as it should be. Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later in the same day, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/dont-you-have-any-empathy-sarah-huckabee-sanders-confronted-over-families-separated-at-border">echoed</a> these sentiments, saying that “[it] is very biblical to enforce the law [and] that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.” </p>
<p>As a scholar whose <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9795.2012.00542.x">research</a> is on Christian ethics, human rights and obligations to the poor, I would dispute this interpretation. Scripture commands Christians to help the poor, to recognize the importance of the family, and to criticize unjust laws. </p>
<h2>Loving thy neighbor</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223397/original/file-20180615-85840-pcxzl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/bible-god-religion-christianity-983105/">JamesNichols</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly teaches that Christians should love their neighbors. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A36-40&version=NIV">says</a>: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31-46&version=NIV">Later in Matthew</a>, Jesus explains what loving your neighbor involves: feeding the hungry, slaking the thirsty, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these,” Jesus says, “you did not do for me.” </p>
<p>And in the very passage that Sessions cites, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13%3A8-10&version=NIV">Romans 13</a>, the Apostle Paul mirrors Jesus’ teaching. “Whatever other command there may be,” he writes, “[they] are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.“ </p>
<p>Given the scriptural emphasis on acts of mercy and love of neighbor, Sessions’ claim that Paul’s command is clear is at best dubious. It is at worst indefensible. </p>
<h2>The centrality of the family</h2>
<p>How do mercy and neighborly love relate to the family? Beginning with Genesis, Scripture emphasizes the centrality and importance of the family for individual and social well-being. In Genesis, God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2&version=NIV">creates</a> Adam and Eve so that they may be companions to one another. God also <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A28&version=NIV">commands</a> them to be fruitful and multiply. </p>
<p>In addition to being placed by Jesus <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A16&version=NIV">at the heart of the Kingdom of God</a>, children are a <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+127%3A3&version=NIV">gift</a> from God. And parental love aims to mirror for children <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+3%3A15&version=NIV">the love of God</a>.</p>
<p>The import of these teachings is reflected in several contemporary documents, including <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.html">Catholic social doctrine</a>, the <a href="http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/udhr_article_25.html">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>, all of which claim that civil society and the state should prioritize care for mothers and children. </p>
<h2>Forced separation of immigrant families</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223406/original/file-20180615-85845-twahu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators taking part in the Families Belong Together Day of Action, on June 1, 2018, in Miramar, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent days, the media have reported the painful stories of the forced separation of hundreds of immigrant families at U.S. border detention centers.</p>
<p>What’s conspicuous and morally problematic about these stories, is the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/children-immigration-borders-family-separation.html">trauma</a> that forced separation causes to families, and in particular to children. </p>
<p>Sessions’s invocation of Romans 13 is only the most recent example of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/15/sessions-says-the-bible-justifies-separating-immigrant-families-the-verses-he-cited-are-infamous/?utm_term=.f665daf5ba2a">use of this passage</a> which has been used to justify all manner of immoral behavior: imperialism, slavery, Nazism and apartheid. </p>
<p>What Sessions and others have missed is the moral of Romans 13. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+1%3A17&version=NIV">Care</a> for the most vulnerable, falls to the family <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+5%3A8&version=NIV">first</a> and then to the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13%3A4&version=ESV">state</a>. Immigrant families fleeing from destitution are attempting to find the means to provide for their themselves. The state must honor this priority if people are to consider their laws just and worthy of the submission Paul enjoins on Christians. </p>
<p>The spirit of charity and hospitality, recognizing that we are all <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%202:10-12&version=NIV">strangers and sojourners alike</a>, demands caring for the most vulnerable members of the human family. The Trump administration’s rhetoric and action flout these.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bharat Ranganathan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sessions ignored the many gospel teaching about love, and used a passagethat has been used historically to justify all manner of immoral behavior, including imperialism, slavery, Nazism and apartheid.
Bharat Ranganathan, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Notre Dame
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/75530
2017-04-07T12:42:40Z
2017-04-07T12:42:40Z
The Case for Christ: What’s the evidence for the resurrection?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164145/original/image-20170405-14591-1xigc52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Basilica of San Vitale, a church in Ravenna, Italy,</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/art_roman_p/8454477752/in/photolist-dQGYMP-8G1u2m-ej1rLd-djdZxM-djesZ2-9aGTWP-98Kxjr-98KSur-9aK3eL-9aJqc5-9aLGUN-8FXhbk-dSZwDi-dQHboR-e6CH4L-nfd81q-98NzZd-6fNDxD-9aHqB2-dT6t4b-9aKmrW-9aLnYm-98KT3x-dQGHL6-qhGUNL-7D1fL2-9MWRM4-98NuDo-djecHV-7D1d6Z-9MYrbz-7D5guS-98NNyA-dT6pFN-7D4XKQ-8G1BPS-9aLq3d-eiKBvh-9aGrLM-dw7M6T-dw81UX-dwdaqG-a1VHMP-a1Yvsd-a1VLDM-dw7y16-dw7CWa-9aoKZa-djdQ5d-6cnn7L">kristobalite</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1998, Lee Strobel, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and a graduate of Yale Law School, published <a href="http://www.zondervan.com/more/top-book-series/the-case-for-christ/the-case-for-christ-movie-edition">“The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.”</a> Strobel had formerly been an atheist and was compelled by his wife’s conversion to evangelical Christianity to refute the key Christian claims about Jesus. </p>
<p>Paramount among these was the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, but other claims included the belief in Jesus as the literal Son of God and the accuracy of the New Testament writings. Strobel, however, was unable to refute these claims to his satisfaction, and he then converted to Christianity as well. His book became one of the bestselling works of Christian apologetic (that is, a defense of the reasonableness and accuracy of Christianity) of all time. </p>
<p>This Friday, April 7, <a href="http://caseforchristmovie.pureflix.com/">a motion picture adaptation of “The Case for Christ”</a> is being released. The movie attempts to make a compelling case for historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. As one character says to Strobel early in the movie, “If the resurrection of Jesus didn’t happen, it’s [i.e., the Christian faith] a house of cards.”</p>
<p>As a religious studies professor specializing in the New Testament and early Christianity, I hold that Strobel’s book and the movie adaptation have not proven the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection for several reasons. </p>
<h2>Are all of Strobel’s arguments relevant?</h2>
<p>The movie claims that its central focus is on the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Several of its arguments, however, are not directly relevant to this issue.</p>
<p>For instance, Strobel makes much of the fact that there are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in existence, far more than any other ancient writings. He does this in order to argue that we can be quite sure that the original forms of the New Testament writings have been transmitted accurately. While this number of manuscripts sounds very impressive, most of these are relatively late, <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/4098/the-text-of-the-new-testament-an-introduction-to-the-critical-ed.aspx">in many cases from the 10th century or later.</a> <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/4098/the-text-of-the-new-testament-an-introduction-to-the-critical-ed.aspx">Fewer than 10 papyrus manuscripts</a> from the second century exist, and many of these are very fragmentary.</p>
<p>I would certainly agree that these early manuscripts provide us with a fairly good idea of what the original form of the New Testament writings might have looked like. Yet even if these second-century copies are accurate, all we then have are first-century writings that claim Jesus was raised from the dead. That in no way proves the historicity of the resurrection.</p>
<h2>What do the New Testament writings prove?</h2>
<p>One key argument in the movie comes from the New Testament writing known as First Corinthians, written by the Apostle Paul to a group of Christians in Corinth to address controversies that had arisen in their community. Paul is thought to have <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">written this letter</a> around the year 52, about 20 years after Jesus’ death. In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+15%3A3-8&version=NRSV">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a>, Paul gives a list of people to whom the risen Jesus appeared. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Testament.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tywon/12668908175/in/photolist-kivt2i-ndbWEp-9DCTzz-knQZ7g-9AwfZ9-FAJpXv-9DCU8v-EC1ZGM-9DFK7w-FDgdTM-9ZS4vZ-6eivSR-EM6SGG-9DCV6T-iEykne-92ije2-c2w1Z5-cV8NRj-87cZ4g-dK6AaL-9DCTh4-c5X6oA-dK6AAm-e7X6f3-e7ur2T-gKQXMk-9DCUok-avTuN3-9ZS1XP-bGwx8P-9DCTVF-atXxSw-e7nFaw-e7hvGT-e7yrmh-btqadQ-bGjYv6-9H3n99-y6VKX-e7nzRQ-dyiLo3-83uGzp-9DCSSP-bGwxaB-e7CFAh-e7PMKB-e7UCX1-e7NZDx-e7Rqsg-e7NMVx">Ty Muckler</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These witnesses to the resurrected Jesus include the Apostle Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and, most intriguingly, a group of more than 500 people at the same time. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">Many scholars believe</a> that Paul here is quoting from a much earlier Christian creed, which perhaps originated only a few years after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>This passage helps to demonstrate that the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead originated extremely early in the history of Christianity. Indeed, many New Testament scholars would not dispute that some of Jesus’ followers believed they had seen him alive only weeks or months after his death. For example, <a href="http://religion.unc.edu/_people/full-time-faculty/ehrman/">Bart Ehrman</a>, a prominent New Testament scholar who is outspoken about his agnosticism, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061778193/how-jesus-became-god">states</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What is certain is that the earliest followers of Jesus believed that Jesus had come back to life, in the body, and that this was a body that had real bodily characteristics: It could be seen and touched, and it had a voice that could be heard.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This does not, however, in any way prove that Jesus was resurrected. It is not unusual for people to see loved ones who have died: In a study of nearly 20,000 people, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00789221">13 percent</a> reported seeing the dead. There are <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4316157.aspx?tab=2">a range of explanations</a> for this phenomenon, running the gamut from the physical and emotional exhaustion caused by the death of a loved one all the way to the belief that some aspects of human personality are capable of surviving bodily death.</p>
<p>In other words, the sightings of the risen Jesus are not nearly as unique as Strobel would suggest. </p>
<h2>A miracle or not?</h2>
<p>But what of the 500 people who saw the risen Jesus at the same time? </p>
<p>First of all, biblical scholars have no idea what event Paul is referring to here. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">Some have suggested</a> that it is a reference to the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+2&version=NRSV">“day of Pentecost” (Acts 2:1)</a>, when the Holy Spirit gave the Christian community in Jerusalem a supernatural ability to speak in languages that were unknown to them. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">But one leading scholar has suggested</a> that this event was added to the list of resurrection appearances by Paul, and that its origins are uncertain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resurrection Chapel mural at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timevanson/6623027365/in/photolist-b6fKhZ-9D8Ysk-fiW5gj-3XbeD-9oVcVi-9D8RAF-bGk3QM-8tciKc-bnp7DV-9DG69W-9xYfZb-4PQm8B-btBSe7-9DupnJ-kivt2i-9fZ76H-hsThr4-cBn8V9-bKQvQp-9DG7Cm-bwzN5b-6fSXcE-9DrvWM-Ftdhp-qAuiKk-9DDMBZ-e7uq3W-nupEDE-6CjBkh-SCjy4J-aCmgGQ-nupumM-b6fJZR-btux4q-9DDm7M-8PNrda-7Mfp25-f7EfHt-XXKFK-9x3Ywa-9DDrTK-7mQ8Jk-7fq2Kf-6ag71G-b6fKut-9DGNTW-cRhtDS-HAHXPY-9wggCA-9zMxrB">Tim Evanson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, even if Paul is reporting accurately, it is no different from large groups of people claiming to see <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Apparitions_of_the_Blessed_Virgin_Ma.html?id=EVt-AAAACAAJ">an apparition of the Virgin Mary</a> or <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674024014">a UFO</a>. Although the precise mechanisms for such group hallucinations remain uncertain, I very much doubt that Strobel would regard all such instances as factual.</p>
<p>Strobel also argues that the resurrection is the best explanation for the fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty on Easter morning. Some scholars would question how early the empty tomb story is. <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060616298/the-historical-jesus">There is significant evidence</a> that the Romans did not typically remove victims from crosses after death. Therefore, it is possible that a belief in Jesus’ resurrection emerged first, and that the empty tomb story originated only when early critics of Christianity <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061228803/scripting-jesus">doubted the veracity of this claim.</a></p>
<p>But even if we assume that the tomb really was empty that morning, what is there to prove that it was a miracle and not that Christ’s body was moved for uncertain reasons? Miracles are, by definition, extremely improbable events, and I see no reason to assume that one has taken place when other explanations are far more plausible.</p>
<h2>Who are the experts?</h2>
<p>Apart from all of these other weaknesses in Strobel’s presentation, I believe that Strobel has made no real effort to bring in a diversity of scholarly views. </p>
<p>In the movie, Strobel crisscrosses the country, interviewing scholars and other professionals about the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The movie does not explain how Strobel chose which experts to interview, but in his book he characterizes them as “leading scholars and authorities who have impeccable academic credentials.” </p>
<p>Yet the two biblical scholars who feature in the movie, <a href="http://www.liberty.edu/divinity/?PID=12818">Gary Habermas</a> and <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/william-lane-craig">William Lane Craig</a>, both teach at institutions (Liberty University and Biola University, respectively) that <a href="https://www.liberty.edu/media/1312/applications/FacultyApp-08042009_Final.pdf">require their faculty to sign statements</a> <a href="http://offices.biola.edu/hr/ehandbook/static/media/pdf/1.2.pdf">affirming that they believe</a> the Bible is inspired by God and is free of any contradictions, historical inaccuracies or moral failings. For example, the Liberty University faculty application requires assent to <a href="https://www.liberty.edu/media/1312/applications/FacultyApp-08042009_Final.pdf">the following statement</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We affirm that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, though written by men, was supernaturally inspired by God so that all its words are written true revelation of God; it is therefore inerrant in the originals and authoritative in all matters.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The overwhelming majority of professional biblical scholars teaching in the United States and elsewhere are not required to sign such statements of faith. Many of the other scholars he interviews in his book have <a href="http://www.denverseminary.edu/about/faculty/member/86444/">similar</a> <a href="https://divinity.tiu.edu/academics/faculty/d-a-carson-phd/">affiliations</a>. Strobel has thus drawn from a quite narrow range of scholars that are not representative of the field as a whole. (I estimate there are somewhere around <a href="https://www.sbl-site.org/SBLDashboard.aspx">10,000 professional biblical scholars</a> globally.) </p>
<p>In an email reply to my question about whether most professional biblical scholars would find his arguments for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection to be persuasive, Strobel said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As you know, there are plenty of credentialed scholars who would agree that the evidence for the resurrection is sufficient to establish its historicity. Moreover, Dr. Gary Habermas has built a persuasive “minimal facts” case for the resurrection that only uses evidence that virtually all scholars would concede. In the end, though, each person must reach his or her own verdict in the case for Christ. Many things influence how someone views the evidence – including, for instance, whether he or she has an anti-supernatural bias.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>No compelling evidence</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Easter Cross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/4thglryofgod/8609030890/in/photolist-e7KwX5-9AAeMc-6eH3ND-5aUfuU-RDyM26-6fSSyE-5P8nCC-qXsmV8-jKQWDs-7jtVV6-aYGwSZ-p6iBVW-FFRass-7fmcTz-GL3trk-dTavnm-nfv3Si-bNhYg6-kbVUEz-9CAqTo-7S5Vva-9pzfoo-b6gEDK-9Da6Kv-e9opkj-fUtXW-e6ctL8-GeMC5-nKSKWF-7fq4Tq-nmCtLL-9zMxqV-9ygzXu-cmt2R-e8af5B-bWX6sh-9Da6nv-pwH3x5-9xVhDV-onJ9SE-9V9Kwj-a5Vn32-do4nYY-dQPjyA-RgNkjx-b6fKmt-R4zE16-8QYk24-9xVhtX-btq5EU">Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to Strobel, I would say that if he had asked scholars teaching at public universities, private colleges and universities (many of which have a religious affiliation) or denominational seminaries, he would get a much different verdict on the historicity of the resurrection.</p>
<p>Christian apologists frequently say that the main reason that secular scholars don’t affirm the historicity of the resurrection is because they have an <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/miracles/335370">"anti-supernatural bias,”</a> just as Strobel does in the quote above. In his characterization, secular scholars simply refuse to believe that miracles can happen, and that stance means that they will never accept the historicity of the resurrection, no matter how much evidence is provided.</p>
<p>Yet apologists like Gary Habermas, I argue, are <a href="http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/religious_studies/rel_stud_res_claims_in_non-christian_religions.htm">just as anti-supernaturalist</a> when it comes to miraculous claims outside of the beginnings of Christianity, such as those involving later Catholic saints or miracles from non-Christian religious traditions.</p>
<p>I have very little doubt that some of Jesus’ followers believed that they had seen him alive after his death. Yet the world is full of such extraordinary claims, and “The Case for Christ” has provided, in my evaluation, no truly compelling evidence to prove the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Landau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The movie ‘The Case for Christ’ is released this weekend. A scholar takes a close look at the claims for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.
Brent Landau, Lecturer in Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60302
2016-06-20T10:04:03Z
2016-06-20T10:04:03Z
Should ethics professors observe higher standards of behavior?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127161/original/image-20160617-11098-1sa01g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does teaching ethics come with obligations?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lentina_x/3596663014/in/photolist-6tPQBh-7GAf7M-9hUqhm-9siACi-hNadS-5pYW2R-7y7us3-7AKG1M-3P2xtV-73EbF-rmobKP-rmhZFG-abtp9B-cvk7kQ-b5uVW6-cjLcb9-9HVQv-fwmvkW-nJiBxP-7PfbQF-7PfbNe-6tgeoA-5nn7Fj-5nhQJa-5jGjnT-6JoFo-haxGLa-nm5iP-3K7Rqt-aQz4TD-6vH5K6-qTYC1-9Pckrc-5jGjTH-8iJJg9-qTYBY-7fepNb-6EUr43-7cFzEf-ebup7j-6zu8fC-6nMHkE-2vc9u7-3mRmxe-5ctnKU-3d1HaX-5jGjET-afcm6J-5ctnE1-8iJJnY">lentina_x</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This is an enduring dilemma in the area of ethics and one that has recently come to light with charges of unethical behavior brought against a prominent philosopher, Professor <a href="http://philosophy.yale.edu/people/thomas-pogge">Thomas Pogge of Yale University</a>. Pogge has been <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/yale-ethics-professor?utm_term=.jxreEv7Qj#.gxngYnleo">accused of manipulating</a> younger women in his field into sexual relationships, <a href="http://dailynous.com/2016/05/21/thomas-pogge-responds-to-accusations/">a charge he has strenuously denied</a>. </p>
<p>Without making any judgment on the case itself, this situation raises larger questions about how the behavior of the experts in ethics is to be reviewed and evaluated. </p>
<p>As with most professions, there are no “ethics police” in the professions themselves. We who work in these professions are expected to police ourselves according to our codes of ethics, as is the case, for example, with physicians, lawyers and clergy members. Obviously, law enforcement comes into the picture with actions that are against the law. </p>
<p>Of course, we know that these professions also harbor people who do engage in unethical behavior, but in the case of experts in ethics, should we expect a higher standard of good behavior simply because they are experts in ethics? </p>
<h2>Learning from Greek wisdom</h2>
<p>This question would not have made much sense to ancient Western philosophers or to eastern teachers like Confucius, Lao-Tse or the Buddha. The Greek philosopher Plato put it this way – once one understood the good, one would perform good actions. </p>
<p>His teacher Socrates <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D29d-e">stated</a> during his trial speech that it was morally better to pursue “truth, understanding and the improvement of the soul” than to give one’s attention “to acquiring as much money as possible and to devote oneself to status and reputation” at the expense of moral concerns. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127163/original/image-20160617-11110-11atx7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is a distinction between what we know we should do, and what we choose to do.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/justinbaeder/194066146/in/photolist-i9D73-8GggAp-cnCiyW-fp2hqE-a24Qxq-EEhp2-dMGwMQ-3f9otk-ptyuFA-68cUpm-9tLrFk-6kNSNw-aSaSPe-psANed-pL1iUK-pL5C3Y-ayJ8RL-pL5BJw-psANc9-pL5BPb-nHNRJq-ptz44k-pHUVAQ-pL5BQo-aSaRUF-5BjW62-82RJAJ-psDnZs-aSaSjk-aSaS6c-aSaSwx-fbo5KK-psDndh-6pa3UQ-psDnpu-psBjQ2-psDnWb-4CxNwF-pK81tm-a9vzo5-psyejR-psDn4E-8h6gJC-psDkXG-brtnLP-pJP5AK-psBjxt-pK3EkX-oNfe3B-brtnNZ">PROJustin Baeder</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As much as we are indebted in Western philosophy to the wisdom of the Greeks, we think about these matters differently today. We now make distinctions between the “cognitive” and “volitional” aspects of ethics: that is, between what we know and what we choose to do. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.biography.com/people/hannah-arendt-9187898">Philosopher Hannah Arendt</a> in her two volume work, “The Life of the Mind,” <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/hannah-arendt/the-life-of-the-mind-combined-2-volumes-in-1-vols-/">showed the connections</a> and differences between thinking and willing. She noted that these deeply human actions are not always in harmony as we navigate ethical dilemmas. </p>
<p>We may know the right thing to do and yet we choose to perform an unethical action. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Romans-Chapter-7/">Apostle Paul recognized</a> these human conflicts when he wrote in the Epistle to the Romans, the sixth book in the New Testament: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I do. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Ethicists and ethical behavior</h2>
<p>Apostle Paul and others who followed him found a spiritual solution to this deep inner conflict. We, however, tend to look to professional disciplines such as philosophy of mind, empirical psychology and moral psychology to illuminate and help resolve these ethical conflicts. </p>
<p>So, what is the relationship between philosophical ethics and actual ethical behavior?</p>
<p><a href="http://philosophy.ucr.edu/eric-schwitzgebel/">Researcher Eric Schwitzgebel</a> at the University of California at Riverside is one of the philosophers currently working on these issues by conducting empirical research into how ethicists actually behave. His work shows how flimsy this relationship can be between views held and real-life moral choices. </p>
<p>Schwitzgebel has done an empirical analysis of what ethicists actually do – not only what they teach in ethics courses. In his analysis, <a href="http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-moral-behavior-of-ethics-professors.html">he does not find</a> that ethicists are any more ethical than most other professionals.<br>
As a result of a survey he conducted in 2009, Schwitzbebel argues that even though ethicists in the survey showed strong ethical knowledge, their moral behavior was not significantly more stringent than academics in other disciplines – both within and beyond philosophy. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127162/original/image-20160617-11112-oggc19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knowledge of ethics does not make people ethical.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ocs_camp/3525565217/in/photolist-6nxrHc-6kNsc-7Ld23M-6hqKZ7-oWAB3U-MioTi-4B13mM-fAkiBh-qu3FGQ-nzWHjV-4CC5dC-94araG-84EQMW-6kNn7-84EQS9-6kNoP-qZbxE7-9DgmVn-84EQCU-5m8mQ3-84BKbP-84EQyo-Hcsei-5ashWZ-6kNgd-cr58mo-qFyqt-6kNiu-6kNjY-GL1or3-oPdKaZ-2bVfSK-5d4MLv-po9ZoZ-pfQCJG-ef631E-6KqY9U-a1uZpv-5YgqGn-59C5GY-973dtw-97taTJ-csxRZY-8U1C1v-aE3a9c-7nsbJZ-8XLzCQ-aGRBBz-6TQkPo-6eTuZ9">Joseph Gilbert</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, he shows that knowing about ethics did not make them any more ethical in their choices. He chose 10 different ethical issues to investigate and even though his research relied on self-reporting, his methodology was constructed in ways to compare and correct for differences between measured and self-reported responses in the survey.</p>
<p>These findings raise significant questions. For example, if ethicists accept the arguments proposed by <a href="https://uchv.princeton.edu/people/faculty.php#peter-singer">moral philosopher Peter Singer</a> that show the ethical cogency of not eating meat, why are these ethicists not vegetarians? </p>
<p>Singer <a href="http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1980----.pdf">proposes a utilitarian argument</a> for being a vegetarian and argues that utilitarianism’s principle of minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure can be well applied to sentient animals. The injunction to be a vegetarian follows from this principle. </p>
<p>In fact, as Schwitzgebel’s findings show, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515089.2012.727135">60 percent of the ethicists surveyed</a> rated consuming meat as unethical to some degree and yet in behavior their meat consumption did not differ significantly from nonethicists. </p>
<p>Still it seems legitimate to ask, why are they not vegetarians? Why are their choices not in accord with the arguments they support? </p>
<p>In sum, Schwitzgebel and fellow <a href="http://www.stetson.edu/other/faculty/profiles/joshua-rust.php">researcher Joshua Rust</a> have discovered in their empirical study that ethicists <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/%7Eeschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthSelfRep.htm">do not show</a> significantly improved moral behavior in comparison to professors in other fields. </p>
<p>We can ask, if one has knowledge and skill in a particular field and teaches that knowledge and skill, why would such a person not put that knowledge and skill into practice? Answers to some of these questions are connected to the ways we use to deal with ethical dilemmas. </p>
<h2>Application of theories</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, we can still ask the central normative ethical question: Ought that be the case? </p>
<p>Furthermore, what is the point of knowing the various ethical theories like utilitarianism that argues for choosing the action that brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people affected by the action, duty-based principles that argue for following moral principles, or virtue ethics that supports cultivating virtue as the way to move toward human fulfillment? Can this knowledge be valuable in and of itself?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127164/original/image-20160617-11094-1i28qfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What’s the point of knowing ethical theories?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/irisdragon/4776589804/in/photolist-8h6gJC-psDkXG-brtnLP-pJP5AK-psBjxt-pK3EkX-oNfe3B-brtnNZ-kSHpz-5Bpeky-aYQeQv-3kJrF-pGXiPE-J8tSpF-psAMwS-pK7ZFQ-81uFZE-9ExCGx-utZaF-dKmU6-BYwvL-4yVLph-FouFp-nrdG-nrdH-H49fC-H4brt-bGZkrD-H49jo-4CAr69-qkjPH-2xgKPW-54wJid-FxbgES-7r88f7-imMZmc-aYQePp-7TC3JC-87GH-5KwmbU-4yZazJ-81JzpW-7LH693-eDDv75-JpQPY-7mVdkm-a7aWir-7BuUGw-a22fJi-eDEemS">Pamela Carls</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/70476606-ae8e-11e3-aaa6-00144feab7de.html">Philosopher Mary Midgley</a> has argued that ethical theory should not be privileged over practice. In her view theory is incomplete <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7MFEGGHlaxwC&q=33#v=snippet&q=33&f=false">without its application</a> to real-life situations. </p>
<p>And how else is ethics “applied” except by engaging in informed ethical actions? </p>
<p>By analogy, one can study pure mathematics as well as use mathematics in engineering the new bridge. It matters to get the mathematical concepts right as well as their applications to engineering. </p>
<p>In ethics it matters in different, but deeply connected ways, to analyze the theories and to apply them well. During his time in ancient Athens, Socrates wondered how his fellow citizens might be persuaded to live for truth and moral improvement. He thought this could happen at least by examining these questions and living by the answers one discovers. </p>
<p>Such is what we can and should expect of ethicists. Is that too much to ask? </p>
<h2>What is ethics for?</h2>
<p>A final point on ethical behavior and its relation to knowledge: On the one hand, one can certainly be a person of outstanding moral character without delving deeply into ethical theories. </p>
<p>One has to know some things, at least in an intuitive sense, about being good along with the will to do the good in order to perform ethical actions. One need not be an expert in ethics to do so. </p>
<p>On the other hand, being an ethicist does entail some obligation not only to know the good, but to do all that is in one’s power to perform ethical actions. If not, then what is ethics for?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Stark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A prominent ethicist was recently accused of manipulating younger women into sexual relationships. A philosopher argues that being an ethicist comes with obligations. Otherwise, what is ethics for?
Judith Stark, Professor of Philosophy, Seton Hall University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.