Ehrman Misleads on Jesus and the Destruction of the Second Temple

I listened to Sam Harris’ recent interview with Bart Ehrman, which was just released today. I thought the interview was curious insofar what he was telling Harris here conflicts with what he has said in other venues.

In the section of the interview around the twenty-minute mark, Harris and Ehrman juxtapose the “modern academic dating” of the Gospels against the “fundamentalist” dating. Ehrman says that when he was a fundamentalist Christian he accepted the earlier dating of the Gospels, but that now he accepts the dating of “critical scholarship.” In particular, he says the following (around 21:45):

So the deal with the modern academic dating [is that] the Gospel of Mark seems to know that the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans. That happened in the year 70; so probably it’s written some time after the fact. But fundamentalist Christians would say that no…It’s predicting that it’s going to happen. [So] this Gospel [was written] well before that. And if you don’t agree with that it’s because you have an anti-supernaturalist bias [Ehrman then laughs].

The clear implicature in the conversation here is that the position that Mark was written prior to the destruction of the second temple is merely a fundamentalist position.

First, whatever the accurate dating of the Gospels may be, it is manifestly false that whoever believes in an early dating of the Gospels is a fundamentalist. To be fair, this is not explicitly stated by Ehrman; however, in my judgment it is the implicature of the conversation. But I invite people to listen and to judge for themselves. In any case, like I said, Ehrman’s implicature here is just blatantly false. For example, J.A.T. Robinson, a scholar who famously dated all the Gospels prior to 70 A.D., was certainly no fundamentalist. An Anglican bishop, he seems to have been a proponent of universalism; needless to say, no fundamentalist is a universalist. Moreover, James Crossley, an atheist, argues that Mark was written no later than around 45 A.D. These are just two examples of non-fundamentalists who give earlier-than-70 dates to Mark. There are many more.

Second, unless Ehrman has recently changed his position, one which he didn’t want to make known in this interview for the sake of “scoring points” against Christianity, Ehrman himself believes that Jesus predicted the destruction of the second temple! So it is very strange that he is presenting the view in a manner such that the listener gets the impression that only fundamentalists believe this. Here is a video from a lecture where Ehrman explicitly affirms Jesus’ prediction, offering good arguments totally independent of so-called fundamentalist considerations.¹ True, this is a relatively old clip of Ehrman, but that clip was filmed when Ehrman had already abandoned Christianity—so he couldn’t have been a fundamentalist then. Moreover, in his book, Failed Apocalyptic Prophet of a New Millenium, Ehrman also argues for the historicity of the prediction. Again, although it is a relatively old book, he was clearly not a Christian when he wrote the book. Here is the relevant excerpt:

It was this most sacred place, the dwelling of God himself, that Jesus predicted would be destroyed in the coming judgment—of this very God. Evidence is found in multiply attested traditions. The earliest surviving account is Mark 13:2: And as [Jesus] was coming out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher: see what great stones and what great buildings are here.” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another that will not be destroyed.” In later traditions, Jesus himself is said to have threatened to destroy the place. For example, at his trial, false witnesses reputedly claimed, “We have heard him saying, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and after three days build another made without hands” (Mark 14:58); and on the cross he was allegedly mocked: “Look at the one the apocalyptic teachings of jesus who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days!” (Mark 15:29). Something similar is independently stated in John, where Jesus tells his Jewish opponents, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days” (John 2:19). And from an unrelated source, a speech found in the book of Acts, at the martyrdom of Stephen, false witnesses again arose to say that they had heard Stephen claim that “this Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this place and revamp the customs that Moses gave to us.” Even the Gospel of Thomas gets in on the act, as Jesus there says, “I will destroy this house and no one will be able to rebuild it” (G. Thorn. 71). Thus the tradition that Jesus spoke about the destruction of the Temple is widely spread. Moreover, most of these traditions indicate that Jesus himself will have something to do with it. The idea that he would personally destroy the Temple is difficult to get past the criterion of dissimilarity: Christians who considered him the all-powerful Lord may well have given the sayings that twist in order to show that after his death, he “got even” with Jews by destroying their temple. Nor does it do well by the criterion of contextual credibility: How could a single man claim to be able to demolish an enormous set of buildings like this? Similarly problematic is the notion found only in John, that when Jesus talked about the temple being destroyed and raised in three days, he was actually speaking of his body (John 2:21). Did Jesus then speak at all about the coming destruction of the Temple? One might be tempted to push the criterion of dissimilarity a bit further, and claim that since the Temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, none of the predictions of Jesus can be safely trusted as actually going back to him—that is, that later Christians put predictions of its destruction on his lips to show his prophetic powers. Most scholars, though, consider this an extreme view, since the predictions of the destruction on one level or another pass all of our criteria: (a) They are obviously multiply attested (Mark, John, Acts, and Thomas!). (b) Moreover, in one respect, at least, the earliest form of these sayings appears to pass the criterion of dissimilarity, since Jesus’ claim in Mark that not one stone would be left upon another did not in fact come true, as you can see yourself by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem today; if anyone actually knew the details of the destruction, they wouldn’t have invented this verse, (c) And, just as importantly, the sayings are completely contextually credible. For we know of other prophetic figures throughout the history of Israel who had maintained that the Jewish people had so strayed from God that he would enter into judgment with them by destroying their central place of worship [emphasis added].²

Well, there you have it—straight from the horse’s mouth. No comment is necessary.

Third, suppose that Ehrman did actually change his mind here; suppose that now he denies the historicity of Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the second temple of Jerusalem. In this case, his position is probabilisticially inconsistent. Why? Because, as I pointed out in Part 1 of the series of whether Jesus was a failed prophet, the historicity of the Olivet Discourse is essential to the failed-prophet view. And in the Olivet Discourse, as recounted by all three of the Synoptic authors, Jesus seems to prophesy the destruction of the second temple. But given that Ehrman believes that the Synoptics were written after 70 A.D., and more than a decade afterwards in the case of Matthew and Luke, then on his view the authors had to be imputing what they believed to be false prophecies on to the mouth of Jesus. But this is very improbable. So, if he indeed now denies that Jesus actually prophesied the destruction of the second temple, then, he, as a failed-prophet theorist, cannot consistently affirm a post-70 dating for the Synoptics (note that the consistency in question I am talking about is not a logical consistency, but a probabilistic one).

So it appears that Ehrman is being highly misleading here, and/or conveniently leaving out very relevant and important facts, something which he seems to do not infrequently.

If you think that I am being uncharitable towards Ehrman, please let me know, and provide reasons to back up your claim. But I must confess that I didn’t listen to the very beginning of the clip, as it just seems to be Ehrman recounting his deconversion story, something which I am already familiar with.