Immune to Evidence

Recently I finished teaching a study of the Gospel of John. This class took two year (with summers off) so we spent considerable time in John.  The class elected to study the letters of John next and so in preparation I have once again been reviewing the preliminary question of authorship, which for the letters is strongly intertwined with the Gospel.

Usually I deal with such questions at the start of a study, but coming back to them having just finished the Gospel really drove home how utterly basis were the claims that the apostle John was not the author.  The problems here are an example of what is wrong with so much of academia.

Without going into too much detail, there are several things one can look at when trying to determine authorship. One is external evidence, which in the case of the Gospel of John is very clear and strong, linking back to those who personally knew and worked with the apostle.   Then there are several types of internal evidence.   The first is what the Gospel claims for itself.  The Gospel of John says it was written by “disciple whom Jesus kept loving” (John 21:20-24 ISV) and when the statements about this disciple are examined, it turns out to be John.

From all of this it would seem pretty clear that the apostle John was the author.  And yet many, if not most, scholars not only reject the authorship of John, but claim instead John was the work of many authors.  Now if there were some clear changes in style or language, another type of internal evidence, which pointed to multiple authors, then one could understand such claims. But as D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris point out in their “An Introduction to the New Testament”,

The stylistic unity of the book has been demonstrated again and again as concrete evidence against this or that source theory.  Even the prologue (1:1-18) and the epilogue (chap 21) exhibit a style remarkably attuned to the rest of the book. (p 152)

Again, having just completed an in depth study of the Gospel, and having just recently looked in detail at all the evidence for chapter 21, it drove home how true this statement is.   So why then, given the solid external evidence, the claims of the book itself, and the internal consistency, is the authorship of the apostle John even an open question, but less rejected?

The answer seems to be that before a lot of this evidence was established, scholarly opinion dated this, and the other gospels, well into the second century, some dating it as late as  170, well beyond the lifetime of the apostles.   If the apostle did not write it, then someone else did, and this someone must have gotten the material they wrote from somewhere.   As a result, scholars spent considerable time trying to determine the sources of the Gospels and multiple sources have frequently been seen as multiple authors.   A real problem, however, is that unlike the other evidence, attempts of find sources is much more problematic, subjective, and thus error prone.

As a result, elaborate speculations were developed about a Johannine tradition, community or possibly even a school, which was responsible for the creation of the Gospel of John and the letters.  Over time these speculations became theories, which with succeeding generations of scholars came to be seen as established fact, based more on the reputation of the earlier scholars, than any actual evidence. Under close examination they remained little more than speculations, with very little if any actual evidence to support them.  The earlier speculations then came to be the foundation for even further speculations by succeeding scholars, until a large and elaborate framework of speculation was developed.

Since then, however, the late dating of the Gospels has run into serious problems, not the least of which have been that a fragment of the Gospel of John have been discovered that dates from around 125, well before the speculations about it authorship had claimed it was even written.

And yet, even though the evidence now show the Gospel was written within the lifetime of the apostle John, many scholars continue to reject his authorship, preferring instead the theories/speculations that it was written by Johannine community.   In short, they reject the actual objective evidence that points to the apostle John, and instead support what are really little more than speculations that depend mainly on scholarly inertia and group think.

This problem is not limited to Biblical Scholarship.  With the possible exception of the hard sciences, which have the ability/burden to actually objectively test their theories, it is found throughout academia.  Once the bastion of the exploration of new ideas grounded in reason and evidence, academia have become increasingly unified and closed mined, wedded to scholarly speculations and immune to the evidence.

As in, biblical scholarship, students in the various disciplines are discouraged from thinking critically about the prevailing views of the disciplines, but instead to accept them, in some cases as dogmatically as any medieval doctrine.   Slowly, any existing critical thinking and common sense are drummed out of the student, replaced instead by the new gospel of truth, the study.

There is nothing inherently wrong with studies, and the point here is not to attack them per se.  But like everything else, they have their strengths and their weaknesses.  Yet, I have actually heard professors claim that they will not believe anything unless there is a study to support it. This is an absurd claim, but the very fact that a supposedly learned person could make such a statement, and make it proudly, shows one of the problems with academia.  Pointing to studies is a way to avoid actually thinking.  If the study says X, then you don’t have to think about X any longer, you can just accept the study.

One only has to consider the problems of conflicting studies, to realize the problems with such a claim.  But the problems are much deeper.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s there were no studies that show men and women were different.   The common sense view that they were different was rejected as being based on common sense.  So men and women were declared the same.

As a result of advances in our knowledge of biochemistry and how the brain works,  we now know for a fact that men and women are not only different, but significantly different in the way they  think and react.  But as with the evidence for the authorship of John, this is largely ignored and the view that men and women are the same continues to shape much of society even today in everything from how we dress, to how the sexes interact,  to how we raise our children,  to marriage, and same-sex marriage.

Some might ask: So what? Where is the harm?  When pressed, such questions usually are little more than a demand for evidence from yet another study.  But, it is also a further problem with the group think-study based view of academia.    Most studies are so narrow that they only seek to answer the question the scholar asks.  If your knowledge is based on studies, then your knowledge will be limited to what is researched.  Thus if they don’t look for the problems, the studies will not find them.  The group-think that controls so much of scholarship passively, and sometimes even actively, limits what will be researched. Even when studies are done, that show problems, the group think mentality tend to relegate them to obscurity.

In short we live in a world increasingly under the sway of an academia that through the schools and in government are reshaping society to fit theories that are increasingly cut off from reality. This is a prescription for disaster.

 

Memorial Day

Gas Insanity – 2011

Einstein famously defined Insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Based on this definition, we are once again entering into insanity when it comes to gas prices. I have been observing this since the 1980s, and I am sure that it goes back before this. Every summer prices go up and people start grumbling about “Big Oil.” If they go up a lot, the politicians get involved, demanding investigations of the oil companies. The summer turns to fall, demand lessens and prices decline, people’s interest turns to other things. Then the results of the investigation come out and the oil companies are cleared. The net result is that nothing happens. Then the next summer comes and the whole thing repeats again, except that most years the problem slowly gets worse. Insanity.

In reality there are several problems here. The first is refineries. In 1982, there were 301 operable refineries in the United States. Currently the number of refineries is only 148, less than half the number. While from 1983 to 2009 average US Total Gasoline Sales by Prime Supplies went from 287 million to 363 million gallons per day.  (It peaked in 2007 378 million but has declined with the economy.) Not too surprisingly this has been accompanied by an increase in utilization rates for the refineries which are now near 90%.  In fact we can no longer refine all the gas we need but must import 250,000 barrels of gasoline a day.

This is why the prices jump whenever there is problem at a refinery. There is simply no slack in the system. So given that while we increased our consumption by 26%, we cut the number of refineries by over 50%, doesn’t it make more sense to at least consider building some new refineries as perhaps a better solution to higher gas prices?

The other major factor is the role of Government. Not only has its policies and regulations contributed to the drop in refineries, its taxes also have a major effect not only at the federal level, but at the state level as well. In fact, government makes far more on a gallon of gas than the oil companies.  The effect of states and county government can be seen in a nice map from GasBuddy.com. While some of the differences can be accounted for by transportation costs, looking over the differences in prices it is pretty clear that government is the major difference between having to pay $3.35 or $4.26 per gallon.

Government’s restrictions on oil production also artificially drive up the price by reducing supply.   Thus for example, recently Shell Oil had to postpone drilling when permits which had been issued were rescinded by the EPA.   As U.S Rep Don Young put it, “Shell has spent more than $3 billion and been ready to put Alaskans to work for the last few years but because of an inefficient bureaucracy and an overabundance of unnecessary regulations, they still have not been able to drill a single hole.”

When a federal judge ordered the administration to end its moratorium on drilling in the gulf, the administration responded with what critics call a permitorium,  there is no moratorium, there is just no permits being issued, and the net effect is the same.

These and other efforts to block production are defended with claims that they “wouldn’t do anything to bring down the high gas prices because the wells wouldn’t start producing significant amounts of oil for several years, assuming the exploration is successful.”    Such claims, however, completely ignore the fact that these blocking actions have been going on for decades.   The battle over potential drilling in a miniscule portion of the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)  started during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.   Had it not been block, the oil would have been flowing for several decades by now.

Then there is Obama’s effort to end the “unwarranted tax breaks.” Whatever merit of these tax breaks, it is unclear at best, how raising taxes on oil companies will help reduce costs.  In fact it is a little incoherent as any tax increases would simply be passed on to consumers driving prices even higher! More likely this is just another example of political opportunism rather than any serious concern for high gas prices; in the words of Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel,  “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

There one possible difference with the oil prices this time:  inflation.   As I warned in Preserving Democracy, over the last few years we have “increased the money supply 10 times more than the next largest increase over the last 50 year.” (p. 263) Since that warning we have printed even more money, tripling the money supply.  The normal result of such printing is inflation, and there can be little doubt that inflation is on the rise.

The Federal Reserve hopes to decrease the money supply as the economy begins to recover, but before inflation can kick in.  To believe they can do this is to believe that they can do something on a very large scale that they have not been able to do on a far smaller scale.   It is like believing that someone who has crash every time they have tried to land a small plane can now be trusted to land a jumbo jet full of passengers.

Inflation is the scariest of the factors driving up oil prices, because once started it will be the hardest to deal with. In addition, given the unprecedented amount the money supply has been increased, we can likewise expect unprecedented inflation, at least unprecedented in this county. As J. Kevin Meaders summarized it:

With the tripling of the money supply, cold mathematics would imply that eventually prices will likewise triple — once the new money has made it out into the economy. Thus, $3.50 gas becomes $10.50 gas. Clearly the math is not as easy as that, because really no one (especially Bernanke) can predict what will happen; but if history is any guide, then all of a sudden, $7 gas seems like a deal.

Thus while there are a lot of factors driving the increase in gas prices, it truly would be insane to one again try to demonize the oil companies, while ignoring the real factors driving up prices.

Note:  this is an updated version of a similar post from 2007.

Review: Why Four Gospels. By David Alan Black

There are two types of books that I particularly like.  First are those books that clearly, concisely, and rationally lay out and defend a position from differing points of view.   Sadly, many books lack this attribute, in one form or another.   Many authors simply assume their position and don’t even mention opposing points of view. When they do, it is often in such a straw man fashion as to be barely recognizable to their respective supporters. Secondly are books that argue in favor of a minority position.  Even when I believe they are wrong, they ‘keep me on my toes’ so to speak; challenging me to consider evidence I may not have fully considered.   As James Burke points out in his BBC series, The Day the Universe Changed, we all have a basic built-in tendency to ignore any evidence that does not fit how we view things.

In Why Four Gospels, David Alan Black has succeeded in both areas.   First, the majority view.  No one disputes that there is a close literary relationship between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, as they are just too similar, and in fact in some places match word for word.   While there are numerous variations, the majority view is basically that Mark was written first, and then was used in the creation of Matthew and Luke.  The variations emerge because, while this would explain a lot, it does not explain all of the literary relationships, such as the places that Matthew and Luke agree, but differ from Mark.  Based on this some argue that Luke was based on Matthew as well.  Others postulate a hitherto unknown source called Q.   But whatever the variations, the majority all agree that Mark was the first to be written.

In a mere 78 pages, Dr. Black clearly, concisely, and rationally points out  the problems with the majority position and lays out the evidence for a different point of view, a view in which Matthew was written first, and then latter used in the writing of Luke. The Gospel of Mark, rather than being written first, was the last of the three and based on the other two according to this view.

Now it is important to note that Dr. Black’s book, while based on serious scholarship, is not, as he points out “written for biblical scholars”  (p. v).  Thus the book is very accessible to anyone with an interest in this question.   The layperson will find the argument summarized without scholarly jargon or a need to understand Greek, while those interested in exploring the questions raised in greater detail will find a twenty page Bibliography to get them started.

Of course the most obvious question is what leads Dr. Black to such a different conclusion than the majority. At its core, the difference comes from how one views the various types of evidence.  Markan priority, the majority view, is based primarily on internal evidence; that is the detailed comparison and analysis of the passages that three Gospels share in common, along with the passages where they differ, to try and determine which was written first and who used whom.    That this method has not yielded a clear answer, but has many variations, and in some cases has had to invent new sources such as Q to make it work, is enough to call it into question for Dr. Black.

The view that Matthew was written first is based on external evidence, primarily the statements of the earliest church fathers, those closest in time to their writing.  One of the real benefits of Why Four Gospels is that, rather than just discuss these references, it quotes all the relevant passages.  The reason for this is pretty clear. “Whenever the four Gospels are mentioned, Matthew always heads the list”(p. 28).  In fact, patristic evidence argues pretty clearly and consistently against the modern view of Markan priority and  in favor of the view Dr. Black lays out.

Thus, whether or not one ultimately agrees with Dr. Black’s view, Why Four Gospels preforms a valuable service.  Its clear and concise arguments, its laying out of the evidence from the earliest Christians,  its rational critique of the evidence  behind the majority position, is sure to challenge, if not convince.  If nothing else, it will challenge the existing notion of many biblical scholars that the earliest Christian sources are “inconsistent, contradictory, and insecurely based” (p. 33), a view that, while common among biblical scholars, is not shared by scholars of Classical Greece and Rome.

Thus Dr. Black’s Why Four Gospels is an important work that should be read by every serious student of the New Testament.

The Deal: Strike One

As the dust settles form the last minute settlement to avoid a government shutdown, it is clear, at least to me, that Boehner came up short. From a campaign promise of $100 billion, House Republicans bargained themselves down to $61 billion, which was reduced even further in the negotiations with the Democrats to $38 billion.   As for the riders, Boehner did not get a single one.

The bottom line seems to be that Boehner simply was not going to let the government shutdown.   In the run up to last Friday’s deadline Democrats were eagerly looking forward to a shutdown, while Republicans grew increasingly fear full.   Both sides were looking back at the last shutdown, which, in the mythology of the beltway, has come to be seen as a disaster for the Republican, even though in the next election they held on to the house, losing only two seats.

Even going back to Reagan, Republicans have demonstrated a huge reluctance to shut down the government.   Reagan complained about the size of the budgets that Congress put before him, but in the end he signed them because he had to, for otherwise the government would shut down.

The Democrats play this game very well.  They know Republicans are likely to blink, and therefore they like large packages of bills.  The bigger the consequences of a shutdown, the better the Democrats like it.  Thus when Republican passed a bill to pay the military through the end of the year, Democrats refused to act on it.  They would rather risk troops in the field going without pay than put NPR or Planned Parenthood at risk.

Boehner, and some other Republicans, claim this is just a first step, and that the amounts of money being cut here, while historically significant, were minuscule when compared with the true scope of the problem.    In this they are correct, as $38 billion is only about 1 week’s borrowing. These House Republicans point to the bill on raising debt limit, and next year’s budget as better places to stand and fight, with somewhat vague assurances that they will.  Let’s hope so.

A congressman not happy with the deal,  John Campbell, being interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s show last Friday stated that based on the testimony of economist the country has somewhere between 2-5 years, possibly even less, before the house of cards that is the federal deficit brings the economy crashing down.  A few worried investors are already beginning to get out of federal treasuries.

So for the three major chances to truly get the federal budget under control, the congressional Republicans have let the first opportunity go by them for a strike, refusing to even swing. They have two more opportunities.  Next up: the debt limit.

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