Historian Maurice Casey on the Pauline tradition in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-5 and the empty tomb of the historical Jesus

When I began to research the topic of the historical Jesus, one of the things that surprised me was the good evidence in favour of the empty tomb story and above all the bad objections against it. Also, and contrary to my expectations, I was schoked to discover that most scholars who write about the topic (including anti-Christian, atheists, jewish, agnostic, etc.) accept that the empty tomb of Jesus is a historical fact.

Despite of the evidence in its favor, some few scholars still remain skeptical or it.

One of the standards arguments against the empty tomb is that in Paul's earliest tradition, the empty tomb is not mentioned. 

In the earliest tradition of 1 Corinthians 15: 3-5, Paul writes:

For I passed on to you as of the first importance what I also received-- that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Note that the earliest Christian proclamation included 3 propositions:

1-That Christ died for our sins

2-That he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures

3-That he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Note that Paul doesn't mention explicitly the empty tomb. But does it justify concluding, on historical grounds, that the empty tomb was not historical? Can a resurrection (in the Jewish-Christian sense of bodily resurrection) occur without the empty tomb? 

Well, in his modestly entitled book "Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teaching", historian Maurice Casey casts doubt on the empty tomb story.

Casey comments that "the Pauline tradition is that there is no mention of an empty tomb" (p.458).

But as William Lane Craig has argued:

We have seen that the second line of this [1 Corinthians 15: 3-5] saying refers to the burial of Jesus in the tomb. When Paul says "He was raised", this therefore implies that the tomb was left empty. (The Son Rises, p.66)

Craig's argument is that Paul's tradition in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-5 presents a temporal and sucesive sequence of events, from Jesus' death to Jesus' apparitions. In between, Jesus was buried and THEN he was raised. Craig's argument is that empty tomb is implied, because the same body which was buried is the same body which was resurrected (because we are talking of a bodily resurrection of the dead, not simply of the soul's immortality).

Now Casey is skeptical of this argument. In reply to Craig, Casey writes:

Some scholars have argued that the empty tomb is implied by the information "he was buried"...  For example, Craig comments that "in saying that Jesus died--was buried--was raised--appeared, one automatically implies that an empty grave has been left behind". This reflects Craig's own beliefs rather than those of Paul and the Second Temple Jews, and his supporting arguments are extraordinary weak. (p.458)

But Craig's argument doesn't reflects simply his own beliefs. On the contrary, such arguments reflects the beliefs of Paul and the first century Jews, who believed in a bodily resurrection (not in a immaterial one).

According to liberal New Testament scholar Dale Allison:

 there is no good evidence for belief in a non-physical resurrection in Paul, much less within the primitive Jerusalem community... Even Paul, in 1 Cor 15, when defending the notion of a "spiritual body", teaches -like Bar 51:10- the transformation of corpses, not their abandonment" (Resurrecting Jesus, p. 317)

Given that Paul's own view is that a resurrection affects the physical body, it is impossible that Paul held the resurrection of Jesus without implying the empty tomb. The corpse which was buried is the same which was raised, and this implies (as Craig correctly notes) the empty tomb, regardless of whether any mention of it is done explicitly by Paul.

In fact, perhaps Paul didn't mentioned the empty tomb precisely because it was obvious that a "resurrection" implies the empty tomb and there is not point in stressing this obvious fact. Only a 20th or 21th century "independent" scholar would ask the silly question "Does the resurrection imply an empty tomb?". This question would sound ridiculous to first century Jews who believed in bodily resurrections, not in non-physical resurrection (a contradiction in terms).

Let's to see an analogy (a crude one, I concede):

 

When I say "Hey, I sent you an e-mail yesterday", I'm implying that I was connected to the internet in the moment when I sent it (otherwise it would impossible to me to send it). I don't need to explicity say, let alone to stress, that I had an internet connection which allowed me to send the e-mail to you. The single fact that the e-mail was received sufficed to prove my internet connection. I assume that everybody, specially the one to whom I'm sending the e-mail, understand that and no more clarification is needed.

Only a person unfamiliar with internet and online communication (or someone incredibly stupid or retarded) would remain skeptical of me having an internet connection in the moment of sending the e-mail.

When studying the New Testament material, we have to keep in mind the full context and culture of first-century Judaism, the fact that Jesus and his first followers were monotheistic Jews, and the religious categories, idioms and expressions typical of that time. It is an egregious mistake to try to interpret that material in terms of our contemporary culture, sensibilities, fashions and prejudices of the men of the 21th Century.

In this sense, as Allison observes, among Jews, no other concept of resurrection besides the physical one existed. Therefore, when speaking about resurrection in that Jewish context, the empty tomb is implied, regardless of whether it is mentioned explicitly or not. Stressing the lack of mention of the empty tomb, bypassing the full context of the meaning of the resurrection,  only reflects the scholar's superficiality and unability to put himself in the shoes of a first century Jew.

So, far from just reflecting his own beliefs, Craig's arguments for Paul implying the empty tomb (and other evidences for it) are among the best and most convincing arguments of contemporary New Testament scholarship (arguments which, I repeat, have convinced most of scholars who write about this topic). 

  

Moreover, not just Paul implies the empty tomb, also there are other evidences explicitly supporting the historicity of the empty tomb, and this is precisely what makes the evidence for the empty tomb pretty good.  For this reason, even many skeptical scholars, atheists and critics of Christianity affirm the historicity of the empty tomb. 

For example, agnostic Bart Ehrman writes in one of his scholarly work:

the earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying that Jesus was in fact buried by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, so it's relatively reliable that that's what happened. We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later" (From Jesus to Constantine: Lecture 4, the teaching company, 2003).

Another secular historian, Michael Grant, comments:

True, the discovery of the empty tomb is differently described by the various Gospels. But if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was indeed found empty (Jesus, An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, p. 176).

A popular, non-technical and very easy to understand presentation of the main historical arguments of contemporary scholarship for the historicity of the empty tomb (and reply to some common objections), are summarized in William Lane Craig's book The Son Rises, Chapter 3.

Marcus Borg on a Q saying implying High Christology about the Historical Jesus

One of the sayings of Jesus implying an exclusivistic self-percetion is Matthew 11:25-27, in which Jesus says:

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

As I argued in a previous post, this saying is likely to be authentic since it passes at least 3 criteria of authenticity.

Since it is hard to refute it on historical grounds, some liberal scholars have astutely found a way to deny the exclusivism implied by such saying. They accept the historicity of the saying but reinterprets it in a way which devoids it of its straightforward exclusivistic meaning in order to make it compatible with contemporary religious pluralism.

 

A telling example of this is Marcus Borg. In his book Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus, religious pluralist scholar Marcus Borg accepts the historicity of such Q saying and its importance to support Jesus' self-perception of having a special relationship with God (a relationship which, Borg argues, is not exclusive of Jesus but common among "Spirit-persons". This is, by the way, Borg's standard view of a religious pluralistic reading of Jesus).

Borg writes:

A Q text reports that Jesus spoke of the intimate knowing that occurs between father and son and uses this analogy to speak of Jesus' own experience of God: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son". The two halves of the statement are a Semitic idiom which means simply "Only father and son really knows each other", the Semitic way of speaking of a reciprocal relationship of knowing and being known (p.242).

Before commenting of Borg's view, it is important to understand accurately what Borg is arguing. He is saying that Jesus expresses, through a family analogy about the connection between fathers and sons, his own personal experience of God, and in order to express such analogy, he uses a "Semitic idiom" (Father knowing the Son and viceversa) to convey such intimate knowing.

Critique:

1)Note that Borg says that Jesus is using an "analogy" based on a Semitic idiom. But what evidence has Borg to support such claim? Why couldn't Jesus be expressing such teaching in a straightforward manner and not in an analogical manner? Borg doesn't say. He simply assumes it.

The fact that an analogy about the connection between father and son was available in Jesus' time and hence could be used by Jesus, doesn't imply that Jesus actually is using it in that specific saying. (Such leaps in logic and hidden assumptions are common in Borg's works). We need more argument to support this contention, which Borg doesn't provide.

The reason, actually, is that the straightforward reading of the full tradition (not just of Borg's truncated citation, see point below), support an exclusivistic self-perception of Jesus' connection with "My" (=Jesus') Father, and the Son' exclusivistic function to provide special revelation about the Father.

2)Note very carefully that Borg left out the last statement of the tradition, namely "those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him". This statement is crucial to provide a full context of the tradition and hence to help us to discern what Jesus actually meant.

In order to bypass such context, and hence to make Jesus' words more ambiguous (and thereby, passible of alternative readings, including religious pluralistic ones), Borg needs to leave out such key, crucial and christologically charged statement.

Note that such omitted sentence about the Son revealing the Father has nothing to do with Semitic idioms or analogies, it has to do with Jesus' teaching about the function of the Son as the only intermediary between God and man. Only the Son can reveal the Father to others. This is straightforwardly religious exclusivism (i.e. men cannot find God bypassing the Son, or independently of the Son, or through other intermediaries). It is hard to find a clearer statement of exclusivism than this (and precisely for this reason Borg is forced to leave it out).

And who is the Son? Obviously Jesus himself, since in the same tradition, Jesus said (note that Borg ommited such statement too!): "All things have been committed to me by my Father"

Jesus is NOT saying that all things have been committed to US by my/our father (religious pluralism), but "committed to ME" by my father (religious exclusivism). No evidence exists that Jesus is including other spiritual teachers or sages in addtion to him (ME) regarding the property of having received "all things" directly from the Father. Can a personal pronoun to be more individualized, exclusive, particular and self-centered than ME?

And, and the context, it is clear that Jesus is providing a teaching about the revelation of God, which only THE Son (not a bunch of sons) can reveal. The key word here is "reveal" or "revelation" and this has nothing to do with analogies or idioms. This is a theological claim.

No Semitic idiom nor analogy tells us that only the son can reveal the father and only to whom the son "chooses" to reveal him. In its purely analogical, non-spiritual context, it would misleading and false, since it is false that we cannot know a father independently of the son, or that we have to wait until the son "chooses" us in order to know a father. Regarding this point, the Jews didn't think otherwise (see point 3).

Jesus clearly is saying that the Son (Jesus) has an special connection with the Father (because all the things have been given to the Son by the Father), and that only the people chosen by the Son (Jesus) can know the Father (therefore, people who seeks God independently of the Son are choosing a wrong way...which is precisely what religious exclusivism is all about.). 

You can strongly dislike this teaching, you can hate it, you can fear it, you can feel pain in the stomach when you read it, but nothing of these subjective impressions change the technical problem about the proper exegesis of the NT material, in full context, of what Jesus meant (If Jesus' exclusivism was theologically true or not, is another question... I'm doing here an exegetical analysis, not a theological argument).

This exclusivistic interpretation is confirmed by other sayings like Mattew 7:21-23 in which Jesus's teaching imply a decisive, crucial, exclusivistic function of Jesus himself as the one who receives the claims for entering God's kingdom and who has the prerrogative of accepting such claims or rejecting them.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ²³ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!

In a "Son of Man" saying in Luke 12:8-9 ( in general, such "Son of Man" traditions are likely to be authentic since they are used almost exclusively by Jesus, not by his later followers, so passing the criterion of dissimilarity), Jesus says:

I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. ⁹ But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God

Note that even if Jesus were not the Son of Man (some scholars like Bart Ehrman argue, implausibly and against the evidence, that the Son of Man is a different person than Jesus), Jesus is claiming that men will be judge before the Son of Man on the basis of their response to Jesus (which again, implies an exclusivistic self-perception, which coheres with all the relevant traditions about Jesus in the New Testament).

Trying to find religious pluralistic interpretation of Jesus in the New Testament is not based on evidence nor in serious, honest biblical exegesis, but in ideology and contemporary pro-pluralistic prejudices and strong anti-Christian animus.

3)The "analogy interpretation" of Borg is made more implausible in the light of the fact that, as argues New Testament scholar Eduard Schweizer in his work on Matthew, in Jesus' time the men were generally closer to their friends and wives than to their fathers. (See Schweizer's book The Good News According to Matthew, p. 271).

So, if Jesus wanted to use a "family analogy" to convey the sense of intimate knowledge between he and God, he chose a wrong one.

This suggests, specially in the full context of the tradition (which as argued above, Borg "innocently" ommited), that Jesus was not using an analogy: He was providing a straighforward teaching about the special, unique connection between he and God, and his own personal and exclusivistic role in providing the special revelation of God to men.

This interpretation coheres well with the other argueably authentic sayings of Jesus implying exclusivism (like Mark 13:32: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father", see discussion here) and all the evidence in the New Testament. On the contrary, the religious pluralist interpretation doesn't cohere well with these sayings (and in fact, religious pluralist scholars realize this and hence are forced to deny the authenticity of such sayings, despite of them passing the criteria of authenticity).

As I commented in a previous post on Borg/Crossan's another work, I'm very dissapointed by the way in which these scholars address and handle the evidence. I don't trust them  In my evaluation, the works of these authors are historically and exegetically irresponsable and (if Jesus' actual teachings have any theological significance whatsoever, which is not the point of this post) such "scholarly works" by people like Borg have the potential to be spiritually dangerous and misleading, regardless of how they make us feel emotionally.

Anti-intellectualism, obscurantism and the paranormal: New Age influences on the paranormal community with examples about the historical Jesus and contemporary religious pluralism

In a previous post, I complained about anti-intellectual, obscurantistic and pseudoscientific trends in certain paranormal circles. In this post, I want to expand this argument. For the purposes of this post, let's call "paranormalist" the people who exemplifies this kind of anti-intellectual mindset. (I'm not impliying that everybody who accepts the paranormal, myself included, are paranormalists in that sense. On the contrary, people like Dean Radin, Charles Tart, Chris Carter, Stephen Braude and many, many others are people of high intellectual level and enjoy my utmost respect, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with some of their views).

I argued in my post that many paranormalists use (or rather, misuse) science, specially quantum mechanics in order to support some of their paranormal views. I showed that the proper interpretation of quantum mechanics is controversial among QM scholars and philosophers of physics, and that there are exists around 10 different interpretations of it, which have wholly different metaphysical implications. This point tends to be bypassed by paranormalists, who speak of QM as whether its metaphysical implications (supposedly supporting the paranormal) are a straightforward and settled matter.

They have no idea of what the hell they are talking about.

Let's see another example of the influence of New Age beliefs in contemporary paranormal community:

   Example of the historical Jesus: 

Since discussing about Jesus and Christianity seems to evoke very, very strong and negative emotions in so many people which tends to impair their rationality, objectivity and logical thinking, I ask all my readers, including the Christian ones, to assume (just for the purpose of this post and of helping readers with emotional/spiritual wounds and scars to think with less bias) that Christianity is false. This assumption will allow us together to discuss the matter objectively and without strong feelings of "fear" and "guilty" connected with Christianity. Are you ready? Let's it on!

In New Age circles, what predominates is religious pluralism, the view that salvation is possible through several religions or spiritual paths, not just one. One reason for it is that the New Age has been strongly influenced by Eastern worldviews and philosophies, which include a plurality of views about God and spiritual matters. Some of these worldviews are atheistic and impersonalistic (e.g. some versions of Buddhism or Hinduism), and even polytheistic, other pantheistic or theistic.

Hinduism has played a major influence on New Age thinkers and authors. In the wikipedia entry on Hinduism, you can read this about its concept of God:

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others;^{[136][137][138][139]} and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization.

Note that regarding the concept of God, Hinduism includes beliefs which are mutually incompatible with each other, from atheism to polytheism. And the concept is dependent on "each individual and tradition and philosophy followed", because Hinduism doesn't share a canon or set of stable beliefs regarding God.

This kind of radical subjectivism and religious pluralism has had its impact on the New Age and from it to the paranormal community.

For example, in one of my posts about Jesus' resurrection, several paranormalists "suggested" that the resurrection, if happened, happened because Jesus was an expert in Yoga, Chi Kung, Meditation, Buddhism, Tai Chi and so forth, and these practiques/techniques allowed him to bring back to life his corpse.

Like in the case of QM, these people hold such beliefs on a prioristic grounds and independently of the historical evidence. No serious, scholarly, historical evidence supports such claims. In fact:

-No evidence exists for Jesus knowing, let alone mastering, these techniques. (Obviously, if Jesus was God or the Son of God, then presumibly he knew them... but we're assuming in this post that Christianity is false, remember?).

-No evidence exists that these techniques, after being mastered, allow the practitioner to become immortal through the resurrection (in the Judeo-Christian understanding of it).

-No evidence exists that Jesus gave credit to un-Jewish religions, worldviews or philosophies (like Hinduism or Buddhism or Taoism), let alone their idiosyncratic practiques (whatever their utility could be).

-The best evidence about Jesus supports that he preached the coming of God's Kingdom and the conditions for enter in it, and this implies assuming from the beginning and throughly a radically theistic worldview, not an atheistic nor polytheistic ones (hence, hardly, Jesus would confuse his hard-core monotheistic Jewish followers with worldviews or philosophies which are atheistic, pantheistic, polyheistic or at best highly confused about  God, which would ring blasphemeous, implausible and incoherent to his followers who expected a Messiah understood in Jewish terms). This supports the implausibility of the claims of Jesus teaching Eastern philosophies or practiques.

So, not only no evidence supports any of these paranormalists' speculations, but that the actual evidence at hand supports contrary conclusions.

But for many paranormalists... to the hell with the historical evidence about Jesus!

This kind of "suggestions" by paranormalists are possible only in people more or less infected with New Age beliefs and idiosyncratic ideas about the Historical Jesus, or simply ignorant of the scholarly discussion about Jesus (or all of these together).

In fact, note that if we apply the criteria of authenticity (widely used by Jesus scholars) we don't find ANY support to the view that Jesus knew or mastered all or some of these techniques (nor that he used them to produce his resurrection). But if we apply such criteria, we get at least prima facie evidence for Jesus' self-understanding as the unique or exclusive Son of God with special prerrogatives to the salvation of man.

Now the interesting question is: Why does people become hostile, skeptical, dissmisive and incredulous regarding Jesus claiming being the unique and special Son of God (when some of such exclusivistic claims DO pass the criteria of authenticity), but at the same time become extremely sympathetic, favourable, prone to accept and consider very plausible the view that Jesus knew and mastered a bunch of hinduistic, chinese, non-Jewish techniques like Yoga or Tai Chi (a claim which doesn't pass any criterion of authenticity)? How do we explain this ASYMMETRY in the use, reading and evaluation of the evidence and of what is plausible or not?

This asymmetry provides telling and compeling evidence of the implicit prejudices, bias and pressupositions operative in these people.

Thinking hard about this taught me that for many in the New Age community, evidence is secondary. What they think about Jesus is largely determined by their prejudices and pressupositions about what "Jesus is supposed to be", and not about what the historical evidence shows. They "read" the evidence, and the sources of the evidence, in terms of such presuppositions (e.g. from the beginning, they give more credibility to liberal authors who say what they want to hear, than to Christian authors who defend the traditional view, without examining the evidence supporting each position... an approach very similar to "skeptics" who, instead of engaging with the evidence themselves, give credit to what the Skeptic Dictionary or James Randi says because, supposedly, "psychic researchers like Dean Radin are professionally interested in defending parapsychology and hence are biased and unreliable"). Sheer prejudice and superficiality.

Why would a materialistic author like Michael Shermer be more objective regarding parapsychology than Dean Radin? Why would the Jesus Seminar (which supports an atheistic and naturalistic mindset as seen in the introduction of his main book) be more objective and credible that Christian scholars (evangelical, catholic, or whatever)? 

Everybody defend what they think is true, and we have to examine the evidence to settle the matter. Simply pointing out that certain people (e.g. Christian apologists) are unreliable because they're defending a one side of the story is stupid, since every rational person defends the side of the story he thinks is true (if you defend both sides of a contentious issue, you're breaking the law of non-contradiction, holding mutually incompatible theses, and don't contributing anything to settle the debate). 

Does Dean Radin defend the case AGAINST parapsychology? Obviously not, because he thinks parapsychology is a science and the evidence for psi is good (hence he actively supports the case FOR it, for example creating the website SHOW ME, which shows precisely some of the best evidence FOR psi. Although evidence against psi also exist in the literature, and Dean Radin mentions it, the skeptical belief that only negative evidence against psi exists is false, as Radin tries to show in his website. Therefore, he's trying to show, on the grounds of all of the evidence, positve and negative, that psi is an actual, really existing phenomenon). 

Does Chris Carter defend the case for the SUPER-ESP interpretation of afterlife evidence? Obviously not, since he thinks the super-ESP cannot account for the best cases. 

Does Richard Dawkins defend the case for theism? Obviously not, since he thinks atheism is true and theism false.

Does socialists support the case for capitalism? Obviously not, since they think socialism is correct and capitalism wrong.

Does Jime Sayaka defend the case for materialistic pseudoskepticism? Obviously not, since I think materialism is false and pseudoskepticism is obscurantistic and contrary to reason.

Every rational person defends what he thinks is true, and hence he defends one side of the story. Why would the rational defenders of Christianity (e.g. Christian apologists) would be an exception? Like everyone else, they're defending what they think is true. Why exactly the defenders of Christianity are unreliable, but the apologists and defenders of any other position (e.g. liberal Christianity, atheism, religious pluralism, NDEs, parapsychology, animal rights, science, spiritualism, democracy, socialism, free market, feminism, enviromentalism, abortion, anti-abortion, etc.) are, or could in principle be, reliable?

I've became increasingly dissapointed with the intellectual atmosphere of many people in the paranormal communities, which I now consider them to be extremely prejudiced, obscurantistic, misleading, extremely arrogant and profoundly ignorant of topics regarding which they talk authoritatively and dogmatically but know next to nothing (like QM, the Historical Jesus and many others).

Regardless of the influence of materialism and pseudoskepticism in the outcasting of paranormalists and the paranormal itself, I'm sure that many paranormalists themselves are guilty of having so bad intellectual reputation. They deserve it.

In future posts, I'll provide more examples of contemporary "paranormal obscurantism".

Daniel Drasin's new website, Dean Radin's SHOW ME, website, and other interesting stuff

Daniel Drasin has informed me about his new website.

Also, check the new link about his widely read anti-pseudoskeptical article "Zen and the Art of Debunking"

Read an interview with Daniel published in my blog here.

Also, Dean Radin has created a website entitled SHOW ME, in order to provide open-minded skeptics and other people interested in parapsychology some of the best evidence and research of the field.

A brief comparison between the High Christology of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John about Jesus as the "The Light of the World"

In the Gospel of John (8:12), Jesus says "I'm the light of the world". Such kind of claims are considered typically as expressing "Christology", that is, claims implying a divine self-understanding or self-perception of the historical Jesus. This understanding is the distinctive Christian view about Jesus.

Given the cultural influence of contemporary of atheism, secularism, scientific naturalism and religious pluralism in our society, many people are uncomfortable with the religious exclusivism implied by such kind of sayings. Such emotional and cultural discomfort produces a very strong psychological predisposition which is then rationalized by such people, making them ideologically sympathetic to and biased in favour of alternative, more palatable, non-exclusivistic interpretations of Jesus (hence the receptivity of many people to the radical revisionism of the Jesus Seminar and to non-scholarly, New Age "sources" like The Urantia Book, A Course in Miracles, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus, etc.), a phenomenon which is characteristic of the culture of the United States of America as I've explained here (but with ramifications in all over the world, since what happens in USA tends to impact on the rest of the world). 

These alternative sources offer a Jesus who (surprise!) is extremely palatable to and "fit well with" contemporary postmodernist sensibilities about religious matters, and above all, provide emotional relief and subjective liberation from negative feelings of many Americans (mainly strong emotions fear, guilty and hatred which developed often, but not exclusively, when they were young people) connected with evangelical Christianity.

"Truth" becomes a secondary matter, "feeling good" becomes an emotional and existential priority (in fact, "feeling good" and compatibility with contemporary sensibilities become itself a kind of criterion of truth about the historical Jesus. So any view about Jesus incompatible with religious pluralism and other contemporary and culturally acceptable beliefs become suspicious and are distrusted on a priori grounds).

Many scholars (specially American scholars) have felt the same discomfort. Given the metaphysical naturalism and atheism which controls the academic world, these scholars have tried to avoid the controversial paranormal sources about Jesus (like A Course in Miracles), and have attempted to find alternative, non-exclusivistic, non-Christological sources about Jesus in historical documents, which is a more convincing and promising approach for academic purposes.

Among such documents are the second century's Apocryphal Gospels (all of which are temporally later in comparison with the first century's canonical Gospels, being the exception perhaps the Gospel of Thomas, which could contain some traditions of the first century, even though most scholars seem to be skeptics of it).

The Gospel of Thomas offers a mostly Gnostic interpretation of Jesus, a view about him which is most palatable to contemporary readers, specially the ones culturally influenced by mystical, New Age and Eastern philosophies.

But even such Thomas' Jesus contain evidence of high Christology, and hence (to that extension), confirms the traditional, Christian, divine self-perception of Jesus.

Remember that in the Gospel of John, Jesus is reported to having said "I am the light of the world".

But look what happen when we examine the Gospel of Thomas.  In Saying 77, we can read:  "Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there"

Is Jesus claiming in Thomas something different than in John's? In both Gospels and regarding this particular point, he's claiming basically the same, namely, to be THE light which is OVER everything that exists (=the world or "all things", which is precisely what the word "world" means). Note that the property of being "above all things" is precisely what God is supposed to be: The ultimate LIGHT which is metaphysically senior and more fundamental regarding everything else.

Note very carefully that, to the extent to which we consider the traditions of the Gospel of Thomas to be independent and reliable, the saying of Jesus being "The Ultimate Light" becomes argueably an example of MULTIPLE ATTESTATION, because it is found in two independent sources, the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. Therefore, it is likely to be historical.

Note, moreover, that in Thomas, Jesus is claiming another exclusive divine property, namely, OMNIPRESENCE. In addition to being the senior light (like in John's), Thomas' Jesus is saying that Jesus is in every place (=omnipresent). 

So, saying 77 provides multiple attestation of the view that Jesus is the "senior light", but also provide additional High-Christological features of Jesus like the divine property of being omnipresent.

With more or less similar terminology, both Gospels are attributing to Jesus divine properties. Far from supporting religious pluralism, this puts Jesus in the same exalted, exclusivistic, divine status that some scholars have tried with everything they got to avoid. What other plausible interpretation could be given to Thomas' Jesus saying "I am all; from me all came forth, and to me all attained"? What more evidence do scholars need to accept a high Christology in Thomas, and hence a confirmation of the canonical Gospels regarding such exalted divine status of Jesus?

All of this brings back the initial discomfort felt by many scholars. They were interested in Thomas precisely as a way to find a different Jesus than the divine one portrayed in the New Testament, but in close examination they got a confirmation of the divine self-understanding of Jesus already present in the canonical Gospels, the crucial aspect about Jesus that these scholars wanted to avoid in the first place!

Further discussion of the Christological aspects of the Gospel of Thomas can be found in this post. 

Most people, I'd say the overwhelming majority of them, are slaves of their emotions and desires. They don't follow the evidence wherever it leads. They select, twist and reinterpret the evidence in terms emotionally and intellectually palatable to them (sometimes this occurs unintentionally). Truth, specially spiritual truths, becomes a matter shaped by emotions and a priori convictions about how spiritual things "are supposed to be" or "must be".

In spiritual matters, I think such irrationalistic apriorism and emotionalism is the most dangerous path that one could ever take.

Many readers have asked me why I do stress so much the point that the best historical evidence supports that Jesus' actual self-perception was exalted, divine and exclusivistic, if such a thing is "clear" when reading the Gospels. Asking such a thing is equivalent to asking why some blogs (including mine) do stress so much the evidence for the paranormal, if "everybody" knows that the paranormal exists.

This question reveals the unfamiliarity of such readers regarding the scholarly world about the historical Jesus (and parapsychology, in the second example). Like in the case of parapsychology, the topic of the historical Jesus touches FUNDAMENTAL beliefs, that is, important metaphysical and theological beliefs strongly rooted in our personality and emotional structure, and hence many people with beliefs incompatible with a Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel will be tempted (even unintentionally) to dismiss, reject, twist or reinterpret the evidence to make it fit their own worldview.

This seems to be part of human nature.

Fully aware of this flawed aspect of human nature, I intentionally employ a different approach: I try to constantly actualize and adjust my worldview according to my findings and studies. If the evidence for a given claim is good, I try to incorporate it into my worldview. If it doesn't fit with my worldview, I try to change my worldview in order to make room for the evidence. This way I'm constantly developing and perfecting my own worldview.

In New Testament studies, a bunch of scholars (mainly the liberal ones) have tried hard and by all the means imaginable to deny, misrepresent, dismiss or reinterpret the evidence of Jesus' exclusivistic self-perception and teachings implying his own perception of having divinity authority (key in this approach is their misuse of the criteria of authenticity. More recently, a few of scholars have posited a new clever strategy: they claim that such criteria themselves are "worthless"!... precisely, because they realize that when you apply them correctly, the evidence supports Jesus' exclusivistic and exalted self-perception, in addition to supporting traditions related to the resurrection, like the empty tomb).

This is why I do stress this aspect in my discussions about the historical Jesus.

In future posts, I'm going to analyze critically the arguments of these "new liberal scholars" who are skeptical of the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus studies, as a new clever way to block any inference about the historical Jesus based upon the proper application of the criteria of authenticity.

Further considerations about the criteria of authenticity and their uses and misuses in Historical Jesus studies

 Before discussing the main topic of this post, I want to do a preliminary (and off-topic) comment:

One problem that one often encounters on the internet is that many people are superficial, biased and utltimately incompetent readers. They interpret a post or article based upon their own prejudices, instead of accurately grasping the author's own purpose, meaning or intention. (Sometimes the author's style of writing is guilty of it and I'm sure I'm not an exception, but often are the readers themselves who misrepresent the article, due to their own prejudices or strong emotions about the matter). 

Moreover, they tend to like a website mainly when the author says things that the readers want to hear, which is telling not just of their prejudices and unability to think "outside the box", but of the largely emotional driving of their "feels good approach": Instead of searching for the truth (whatever it is and wherever it can lead us), they are searching mainly an emotional validation and confirmation of their worldview and belief-system, or a relief of their cognitive dissonance.

Based upon some e-mail correspondence that I've received, I've gotten the impression that the topic of Historical Jesus studies is very often misundertood, specially by people who has absolutely not idea about this field. The most common egregious example of this is when some readers conflate historical reflections or arguments about the Jesus with theological claims or conclusions about him.

For example, one reader asked me (about one of my posts on Antonio Piñero) "Are you saying that the criteria of authenticity made Jesus the Son of God?". Another one argued: "Even if Jesus said he was the Son of God, it doesn't mean he was something like that".

These comments reveal the confusion mentioned above and I'm shocked that so many people seem to be victim of such egregious confusion.

The discussion about the criteria of authenticity and their application about Jesus traditions is a HISTORICAL and METHODOLOGICAL problem, e.g. a problem of trying to figure out whether the traditions about Jesus pass positively the criteria of authenticity and hence warrant our conclusions about their historicity. By themselves, they have nothing to do with theology, religion or metaphysics. (Obviosuly, metaphysical, religious and theological reflections about Jesus have to take into account such historical data; otherwise, they're mere fantasies or unfounded speculations).

For example, in one of my post on Piñero, my main and underlying argument was that some liberal historical Jesus scholars misuse the criteria of authenticity in order to create a portrait of Jesus which is at variance with the Christian one. In order to provide hard and irrefutable evidence for this important claim, I use a prestigious New Testament scholar like Piñero as a concrete, specific example of the misuses of such criteria. Note that I'm doing a factual judgment about the historical methodology of Piñero, not a theological argument about Jesus' actual nature. I'm doing mainly an exercise on historical analysis and criticism of the New Testament material in the light of the scholarly work of an author whom I respect.

The purpose of such post was not to argue that Jesus was or was not the Son of God (that would be a theological argument), and my blog is not mainly interested in theology (although I sometimes discuss purely theological matters, like my post on divine simplicity). 

Also (and this could be a motive of confusion), I tend to use conditional arguments (e.g. arguments of the form "If X, then Y...") as a way to explore the implications of a given position and for purposes of critical evaluation of it..., for example arguing that If the resurrection happened, THEN the Christian view about Jesus (and Jesus's claims about his divine sonship and exclusivism, some of which pass positively the criteria of authenticity) are likely to be true. For example, on the post on the Old Testament concept of Savior and its possible connection with Jesus, I wrote: "If Jesus' resurrection was historical and the basic facts of his life mentioned above are veridical, I think the Christian interpretation of Jesus' death having an atoning function in terms of Isaiah 53 is very likely to be correct. Jesus' life was as God predicted in the Old Testament prophecies, and God's will and overall plan was actualized by Jesus' ministry and life"

Note the conditional structure of the argument. IF (Jesus' resurrection plues certain New Testament claims about his life are historical) THEN (the Christian interpretation of Jesus' death having an atoning function in terms of Isaiah 53 makes sense and is likely to be correct). This is not a categorical claim but a conditional one.

I use often such conditional claims assuming that my readers are intelligent enough to understand the logical and conceptual difference between a conditional and categorical claim.

 

But some people, due to their strong negative feelings and emotional wounds (specially feelings of fear, guilty, hatred) connected with their experiences or interpretations of Christianity, are so obsessed to deny the theological view that Jesus was the Son of God (or God's ultimate revelation to humankind and the religious exclusivism implied), that they even cannot understand historical arguments about the historical Jesus, nor discern them from theological reflections or considerations about him. 

But let's return to the main topic of this post:

Considerations about the criteria of authenticity in Historical Jesus studies

1-The criteria of authenticity are positive criteria which help us to establish what is historical about Jesus' traditions. They are NOT criteria for establishing what is non-historical (i.e. they are not criteria of non-historicity). 

In fact, it is hard to see what would count as a criteria of non-historicity: How the hell would you establish directly what DIDN'T happened in the past? At most, you can establish what happened and from there to infer indirectly what didn't happened (e.g. when a given claim is incompatible with what has been positively established as historical... for example, you can argue that Socretes wasn't a student of Aristotle, since the positive evidence shows that Socrates was the master of Plato and Plato the master of Aristotle...).

The implication of this is that if a tradition about Jesus doesn't pass any criteria at all, it doesn't make such tradition a false or unhistorical one, nor a product of "mythmaking". It simply means that such a tradition is one that we cannot establish positively as historical in the light of such criteria. But it still could be a veridical tradition.

2-Given point one, being "criteria FOR authenticity...", they say nothing about what is non-authentic or product of a fabrication.

3-Therefore, in order to reach conclusions about non-historicity, some scholars are forced to MISUSE such criteria. It is absolutely crucial to understand exactly how such misuse is done.

I've have detected several ways in which the criteria are misused, but the most common one is this:

Using the criteria as necessary conditions for historicity: 

This is the most common misuse of such criteria.

According for this misuse,  in order to a Jesus tradition to be historical, it HAS to pass one or several of such criteria. The most egregious and extreme examples of this can be found in the works of the Jesus Seminar and also in the works of scholars like John Dominic Crossan (who misuses the criterion of multiple attestation in order to deny important Christian-supporting traditions about Jesus), Bart Ehrman and many others. 

For example, Q scholar Burton Mack misuses the criterion of date (the criterion according to which, all conditions being the same, a tradition about Jesus which is early is more likely to be historical than the same tradition if it were later). 

For example, in his book The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and the Christian origins, Mack writes:

The first followeres of Jesus did not known about or imagine any of the dramatic events upon which the narrative gospels hinge. These includes the baptism of Jesus; his conflict with Jewish authorities and their plot to kill him; Jesus' instruction to the disciples; Jesus' transfiguration, march to Jerusalem, last supper, trial, and crucifixion as the King of Jews; and finally, his resurrection from the dead and the stories of the empty tomb. All of these events must and can be accounted for mythmaking in the Jesus movements, with a little of help from the martyrology of Christ, in the period adter the Roman-Jewish war. Thus the story of Q demostrates that the narrative gospels have no claim as historical accounts" (p.247)

Please, note very carefully that Mack infers the non-historicity of events like Jesus' baptism or the empty tomb simply because they don't pass the criterion of date posited by the Q material. In other words, Mack is using the criterion of date provided by the Q material as a necessary condition for historicity.

But this is obviously a flawed historical methodology, because in addition to the criterion of date, we have many other criteria (like mutiple attestation, dissimilarity or embarassment) which events like Jesus' baptism and the empty tomb pass positively.

Moreover, Jesus surely said and did many things which are not recorded in the Q material (for example, the events in the life of Jesus when  he was 18 years old were not recorded in Q nor in any other historical document). Does it mean that they didn't happened? It would absurd and false to claim that, since the Q material is not an exhaustive collection of the events in the life of Jesus, and for sure many events in the life of Jesus are historical even when they weren't recorded in Q (nor in any other historical document, for that matter).

If you (mis) apply (as Mack does) the criterion of date for other historical figures, you would destroy history as a rational study and would have an extremely limited caricature of the actual, complex, living figures who lived and acted in the past.

But Mack NEEDS to misuse the criteria in order to deny the historicity of the distinctive aspects of the Christian interpretation of the historical Jesus.

Moreover, Jesus' self-understanding as the Son of God and the exclusive intermediary between God and humankind pass (among others) the criteria of date provided by Q, as I've shown here. 

But obviously such evidence is unacceptable for liberal scholars (even if the evidence meets their own, flawedly applied, criteria), because they have decided long before, in advance, that it cannot be accepted. Their personal ideology, theological preferences and personal desires determine in advance the results of their methodology.

The criterion of date is an important one, because early sources are temporally closer to the events in comparison with later ones. But this criterion is not the only one. The Gospel of John, for example, is considered as the latest one among canonical Gospels, and by the criterion of date alone, other Gospels would be more reliable. But the traditions of John can pass other criteria which would make them historically reliable. (Note by the way that some people skeptically laugh and dismiss and condescendenly reject as unreliable John's Gospel because it is the latest one among the first century's canonical Gospels, but simultaneously and sympathetically accept extremely late, 20th century "sources" of information about Jesus like The Uratian Book, A Course in Miracles, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus and so forth, an approach which is not only inconsistent, pseudoscientific and unscholarly but mad from the point of view of serious historical Jesus  methodology).

When studying the evidence for the historical Jesus, we need to have a deep, accurate understanding of the criteria of authenticity and their uses and misuses, fully aware of the fact that many things about Jesus (or any other historical figure) are historical even whether we cannot prove them in the light of such criteria (because such events were not recorded at all).

Beware of using the criteria improperly, in order to reach conclusions congenial with your prejudices about Jesus.

Summary of my criticisms to Ken Wilber's metaphysics: Tension with the possibility of survival of consciousness, the afterlife, abstract objects, the Big Bang Cosmology and the existence of God

In two previous posts, this and this (which I suggest you to read carefully), I argued that the metaphysics of Ken Wilber is in tension with  number of things agreed by most people (including some of Wilber's readers), namely:

1)With the possibility of survival of consciousness (specially in an unembodied form, like suggested by the best cases of NDEs) and the afterlife.

2)With the existence of abstract objets (like numbers or propositions), provided they're not just subjective and useful concepts in our minds.

3)With the theory of the Big Bang, which implies the absolute origin of matter, energy and space-time (i.e. the absolute origin and coming into being of nature itself).

4)With the existence of God.

Just for the record: My main and underlying argument in both posts is NOT that Wilber's metaphysics is false (although I think it is), but that they're in tension with the existence, or possible existence, of at least the 4 categories of beings, events or phenomena mentioned above.

Why is that important? Because Wilber's ideas are shared by a lot of "New Age" fans and students (specially those with certain intellectual interests) and such people also tend to share all or some of the above 4 beliefs, at least implicitly.

Therefore, if I'm right in my critique of Wilber, people who holds one of the above 4 beliefs have to either abandon them, or reject Wilber's metaphysics.

In my opinion, Wilber's metaphysics can be useful to understand the evolution of material systems, but not to understand the origin of matter/nature itself, let alone spiritual problems. His view is highly similar to emergent materialism, with the difference that Wilber uses a spiritualistic terminology (e.g. "consciousness") and a kind of Hegelian mindset.

Ultimately, Wilber's system seems to imply the same kind of impersonalistic worldview (=a worldview based ultimately and fundamentally on non-personal forces, processes or entities) than materialism or scientific naturalism, which is at variance with the objective existence (as part of the fabric of reality) of basic and intrinsic person-relative/person-dependent features like rationality, intentionality, free will, moral responsability, etc. 

In impersonalistic worldviews, "persons" (if they exist at all) are later by-products of more fundamental, non-personal forces, entities, events or processes (e.g. subatomic particles, fields of forces, the law of entropy or gravity, natural selection, "universal consciousness" or "cosmic energy", and so forth). In some New Age doctrines, person-relative properties are "reified" (=assumed to be individual things and not properties of things), like "love" (without lover), or "intelligence" (without a person who exercises it) and other abstract "energies" which being impersonal behave as persons... so, these people can say "the universe is intelligent", or "the universe is love" or "the universe cares of you",  without realizing that they are positing person-dependent features to non-personal realities.

Impersonalistic worldviews, at the bottom, tend to ultimately nullify, limit and undermine the distinctive features of persons on behalf of (supposedly) most important, fundamental and senior impersonal forces and processes (think about the "dissolution of the self" so common in the Eastern and New Age literature... a dissolution which, if true, will ultimately destroy any sense of rationality, free will, personal agency, moral responsability, etc. since the existence of a individual free and rational "self" is a necessary condition of these person-relative features. Not surprinsingly, many of these impersonalistic worldviews say that things like "good and evil are mere illusions based upon dualistic thinking" or "there is not justice nor injustice in the creation but only love..." which obviously is the negation of the objective existence of a rational, moral and just realm in which we are ultimately accountable for our free decisions and deeds, specially if our conscious, spiritual and moral life extends beyond this physical existence).

A given worldview is either personal or non-personal, that is, rooted ultimately in a person or persons, or in non-personal forces. This is why the most plausible cadidates are theism (personal worldview) or scientific naturalism (impersonal worldview based on natural science).

Postulating a spiritual dimesion fit well with theism, since God is a spiritual being. But a spiritual dimension of souls and finite conscious beings don't fit well in a worldview which is impersonalistic, like naturalism. (This is why naturalists are critical and debunkers of spiritual matters).

Monistic metaphysics (like Wilber's) don't escape from this. Either, such unitary principle is a person or not. If it is a person, then everything that exists is a expression of such person (and some version of theism seems implied) and person-dependent features find a secure place in that worldview. If not, and the root of reality is a non-personal principle or entitiy ("undifferentiate consciousness", "cosmic energy", "loving universe", the quantum vacuum, "abstract intelligence", numbers, etc.), then "persons" seem to be secondary by-products, contingent, more or less accidental, non-fundamental realities, and person-dependent features have not a fundamental place in it, only a secondary and temporal one.

Wilber's view uses a person-dependent language (e.g. "The Spirit"), but in examination such principle seems to be a non-personal energy or entity. Such Spirit far from being "free", is subject to a bunch of metaphysical laws which imply a continuous progression of developmental process through the material world and eventually evolving to personal minds.

For the reasons explained in my two posts on Wilber, I find his metaphysics at variance with phenomena which fit better with theism.

A review of Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008. The Astonishing True Story of One Man’s Eleven Year Journey from White to Black Belt in the Jiu-Jitsu Academies of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1997-2008 by Roberto Pedreira

The book "Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008" by BJJ Black Belt Roberto Pedreira is a must read for martial artists in general, and practitioners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) in particular.

Pedreira trained in the "Mecca" of BJJ, namely, Brazil, with the best instructors of this martial art. 

The book tells Pedreira's experiences and anecdotes training with these masters, and provides interesting insights and pieces of information about the history of BJJ (a history which, sadly, has been written in most sources according to the interests of certain persons).

Of particular interest to me was Pedreira's meeting with Judo master George Kastriot Mehdi. According to this master, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is actually a version of Judo.

According to the standard story (promoted mainly by Rorion Gracie), Helio Gracie learnt jiu-jitsu from his brother Carlos, who in turn learnt form Mitsuyo Maeda, a japanese jiu-jitsu master. However, as evidence shows, Maeda was mainly a JUDOKA, not a jiu-jitsu master (it is true that Maeda trained in jiu-jitsu too, but he was a member of the new Kodokan group founded by Jigoro Kano, a group which reformed traditional jiu-jitsu into a more sport-oriented form of combat).

Not surprinsingly, ALL the techniques used in traditional Gracie Jiu-Jitsu exist in Judo (certainly, the Gracies have improved the transitions among the techniques and talented BJJ sport competitors have possibly created new ones for sporting purposes and adapted to the rules of BJJ tournaments). On the other hand the distinctive features of traditional jiu-jitsu (like stand up striking to vital points, nerve and pressure points attacks, finger locks, wrist locks etc.) are not stressed in BJJ (exactly as occured in Judo, because such techniques were precisely the ones that Jigoro Kano excluded from Judo due to their dangerous nature... leaving them as part of the most advanced curriculum of self-defense of Judo).

So, Mehdi is, after all, probably right about BJJ being a form of "judo" (an incomplete form, Mehdi would suggest).

Pedreira met with many others notable BJJ figures like Ricardo de la Riva, Murillo Bustamante or Reyson Gracie.

Pedreira's writing style is good, balanced and objective, and I look forward to read more of his works.

Clarifying the history of BJJ

Not topic in BJJ is so obscure as the history of the art itself. Although Pedreira's book provides some interesting comments and passing notes about the history of the art, we need a through research about it (which, as far I know, is not available yet, at least not in English).

In particular, specific answers to the following questions are needed:

1-Exactly what techniques Mitsuyo Maeda taught to Carlos Gracie?

BJJ is commonly divided into 3 areas: Self-defense (mostly standing up), Vale Tudo and sport BJJ.  

Did Maeda teach only the self-defense aspect? Or the Vale Tudo one? Or both? (Sport BJJ seems to be a later creation by the Gracies...).

2-Exactly what techniques Helio Gracie improved and which are exactly such improvements?

Most people, including Carlos Gracie Jr., agree that Helio Gracie modified the judo/jiu-jitsu that he received from Carlos. Some of them suggest that Helio added the "defensive mindset" to the purely offensive one which Carlos supposedly taught.

But when asking for Helio's specific improvements, we get pure generalities like "Helio modified the techniques to make them less reliable on strengh". Fine, but exactly what are such modifications? Is the rear naked choke from Helio different from the way in which it is done in Judo and traditional jiu-jitsu? In what exactly Helio's basic Americana armlock from the mount or lapel choke differs from the Judo's versions of it?

I have to confess that, after careful examination, I don't see where or how exactly Helio modified such techniques. Having trained in both Judo and BJJ myself, I don't see any substantive or distinctive difference in the application of the techniques when individually considered (obviously, differences exist in the transitions and overall combat philosophy as previously mentioned). Like Mehdi says, they are simply the same old Judo techniques.

3-BJJ practitioners claim that BJJ is superior to other forms of martial arts, and Royce Gracie victories in the early UFC are the primary evidence for this claim (other evidences, like the Gracie Challenge, etc. are often mentioned too).

But note that, at most, this evidence shows that the VALE TUDO part of the BJJ is superior (i.e. that in a vale tudo context, BJJ is superior than other arts due to the BJJ's overall strategy and advanced form of ground fighting). It doesn't show that the SELF-DEFENSE aspect of the art (which is mostly standing up) is superior than other arts.

Some Gracies have tried to argue from the success of BJJ's ground work in Vale Tudo to the overall efficacy of the system for street self-defense, which is a non-sequitur.

For example, are the BJJ's techniques for disarming gun and knife superior than Krav Maga's? It hasn't been proved at all, let alone from Royce's impressive victories in the UFC (because weapons weren't part of such competition).

In conclusion, we cannot infer the superiority of BJJ as a overall street self-defense art from the success of BJJ in Vale Tudo competitions, because the techniques and enviroment are different.

4-The fact that many of the BJJ techniques for self-defense are different from the Vale Tudo techniques is seen when examining carefully the Gracie material and the BJJ curriculum.

For example, in Helio Gracie's video "Episode One" (and in Royce Gracie's book on BJJ self-defense), a defense from a standing front choke against a wall consists in a FINGER LOCK finishing hold. But in  Vale Tudo, the Gracies never teach finger locks as part of their combat arsenal (and consequently, never use them).

Another example, in Royce's book on self-defense even a pressure point using the knucles is taught to escape from a grab. But in Vale Tudo, pressure points are not taught by them.

In fact, when BJJ instructors (including the Gracies) are asked about finger locks and pressure points techniques, their standard reply is "they don't work".

But if they don't work,  why the hell such techniques are taught as part of the classical stand up self-defense program of Helio's BJJ? I cannot understand it.

Perhaps the most charitable interpretation is to suggest that such self-defense techniques work against untrained opponents (which are the most likely attackers), not against trained fighters. 

But then the unqualified claim that such techniques "don't work" is false: They don't work against trained fighters, but they work against the untrained ones.

And if this point is conceded, then the claim that other martial arts don't work (because Royce kicked the butt of representatives of these arts in the UFC) is also false, because at most such victories by Royce and others BJJ experts only shows that such martial arts don't work against BJJ or against trained fighters... but perhaps (like the BJJ's finger lock to escape a front choke) such techniques will work against untrained street attackers... after all, is BJJ better in finger locks than Wally Jay's Small Circle Jujitsu or Yang Wing Ming's Chin Na? I don't think so...

Obscurities, fallacies, implicit assumptions and unwarranted extrapolations are part of the world of BJJ (this also happens in other martial arts, by the way).

We need a more scholarly approach to the history and philosophy of BJJ... I wish that Pedreira (and other qualified and objective researchers) will address these problems specifically in future works.