(15 votes, average: 4.87 out of 5)
Loading...In my previous post I talked about the traditions that indicated that Jesus associated with women publicly during his ministry – in an attempt to use established historical criteria to know whether the prominence of women in the earliest Christian communities may have had precedence in the life of Jesus himself. What about the contextual credibility of these traditions?
It is true that women were generally viewed as inferior by men in the ancient world (see below). But there *were* exceptions:
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Who is the Son of Man in this blog post and what is his relationship to Jesus?
It depends on whether you’re asking who JEsus thought the Son of Man was or who the Gospel writers did. Since the post is about the historical Jesus: he expected a cosmic judge to come from heaven at the imminent end who would destroy all opposed to God and bring the obedient into the kingdom, as based in part on Daniel 7. The Gospel writers, on the other hand, thought that he himself wsa that coming judge, and they called him the Son of Man (and had him call himself that)
Could there be a simpler reason why Jesus welcomed women into his ministry: he was a accepting financial support from them? Kind of bad to bite the hand that feeds you.
According to Luke 8 some of them did support him; if that was the *reason* he welcomed them, I’d say it’s impossible to say.
So, in the ‘kingdom of heaven’, which Jesus believed would soon be established on Earth, would there be gender equality or would it be just a nicer version of the same old patriarchal society everyone was used to?
He doesn’t say. In Eden — which this kingdom was to replicate — the woman was made in order to help out the man, since none of the animals sufficed.
“a kinder and gentler nation.” In his Inaugural Address he pledged in “a moment rich with promise” to use American strength as “a force for good.””
I apologize to the other readers who have no idea what I am talking about.
BUT I am the real thing gave his life to Sunday school, Religious Right teachings of pre-1990s & OT/NT promises!
Thank you, Dr Ehrman!
A plausible argument. When I read the Gospels and especially Revelation, I feel like the message is directed entirely at men and women are excluded.
Sing it: She’s got the whole world/in Her Heart/She’s got the whole wide world/in Her Heart…
Hi Dr. Ehrman. Unrelated question. In your book Armageddon you wrote:
pp. 175,176 “It is not enough to obey all of God’s commandments: you have to abandon everything to attain the ‘wealth’ of heaven. Jesus . . . means this: it is almost impossible for a wealthy person ‘to enter the kingdom of God’ . . . . Like so many Christians after them, they think that surely wealth is a sign of divine favor. God bestows material blessings on those he holds dear, right? Wrong. Not for Jesus.”
p. 179 “Being rich in God requires being poor in possessions. Wealth is not merely a matter of indifference, it is an impediment. Those who want it—now or later—will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s the teaching of Jesus.”
What would Jesus say to Abraham, Isaac, Job, and Solomon? The Bible explicitly says the first two were wealthy because they were blessed by the Lord. Job was both wealthy and “blameless and upright.” Solomon was given wisdom by God, but apparently not wisdom from Jesus.
See Job 1:1, 3; Gen. 13:2; Gen. 24:34-35; Gen. 26:12-13; 1 Kings 10:23-24.
I wish we knew….
Has the beloved diciple been named in the first fragmets of john and later removed.
Do the first framents refer to the beloved deciple as lazarus?
If it is lazarus would it be seconary testomony, so would it give evidence for jesus or was it just made up?
I’m not sure what you mean by the first fragments of John. We don’t have any earlier fragments of ch. 21.
Dr.Ehrman. Did Jesus really teach about future resurrection? In Mark ,Matt, Luke, He seems didn’t talk about resurrection. Only in John, He mentioned it in one place.
The most important passage in the Synoptics is Mark 12 (Matthew 22, Luke 20), the debate about the resurrection with the Sadducees; there is also Luke 14:14, and, you’re right, John 5, 6, and 11. Other references appear to be talking about the contrast of destruction and bodily life in the age to come in the kingdom.
“Do we not have the right to take along a BELIEVING WIFE as DO the OTHER APOSTLES and the BROTHERS of the Lord and CEPHAS?” (1 Corinthians 9:5).
Why would Jesus be different from the rest of his brothers and other apostles in taking along a believing wife ?.
One could argue that in fact Paul did not mention Jesus among those taking ‘believing wives’ with them, but Paul is mentioning alive people , probably as an example that could eventually be corroborated .
I think the gospels depict Jesus and his followers in a manner closer to what the christian communities of the gospel writers were than that of what really happened in Jesus’ time and place.
1 Corinthians 9:5 also shows that not only James but other Jesus’s brothers were part of the early church, by contrast Mark 6:1-5 speaks about the rejection of Jesus by his family. Is this rejection historical or is that the communities of the gospel -writers experienced problems with his own families that were addressed in different ways (Mark 6:1-5 ; Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 10:38-42).
Paul’s way of dealing with this was more preemptive , he favored singlehood over marriage.
Hiya, I hope it’s ok if I wonder about your interesting observation on the contrast:
1 Corinthians 9:5 also shows that not only James but other Jesus’s brothers were part of the early church, by contrast Mark 6:1-5 speaks about the rejection of Jesus by his family.
Could Jesus have brothers on his biological dad’s side? Like with Gnostic or Qur‘an -related interpretations of events, would it be easier to get a doppleganger like Apostle Thomas Didymos Twin/Twin if they were family?
(There are so many role names in the Bible that there should be a map — Thomas Didymos (Twin Twin), Haggar (The Stranger), HaSatan (The Adversary), The Diabolos (The Liar), Jethro (His Excellency), Isaac (Steward King in Akkadian), Sarai (Royalty in Akkadian).
The Son of Man and The Son of God are recognized as a role probably by the use of “The”, I’m guessing.
Part of my ‘interpretation framework’ is to consider Pauline priority in all related to ‘historical’ christian origins.
In the gospels, Jesus, Peter or any other apostle are just characters in these mainly fictional literary works, like Moses in Exodus.
But in Paul’s letters James,Peter,John or Jesus are real people, Paul even met the former three!.
For instance, was Peter a former fisherman from Galilee , the first in joining Jesus along Andrew,James and John, as depicted in Mark? Well , maybe Jesus’s ‘inner circle’ of apostles in Mark (Peter,James and John) was inspired in Paul’s “three pillars” that ruled the Jerusalem church about two decades after the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. Because of Mark’s agenda of showing Jesus as rejected by his own family (something probably experienced by many of his readers/listeners), he invented the character of ‘James son of Zebedee’,keeping ‘James’ name but denying him any family link with Jesus. The differences between Paul and the real James that can be perceived in Galatians could have also led Paul’s heirs to erase all mentions of James ‘the brother of the Lord’ (think in Stephen’s death in Acts that resembles that of James the Just in Josephus and Hegessipus).
Hi, Bart,
1) Death is talked of as waiting the sinners who haven’t repented in Jesus as mentioned in verses like James 5:20 NRSV
[20] you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Is the death that the author talks of the eternal death (destruction) the historical Jesus talked of at the end of times? Or is it talking of Sheol? Does the author believe in an eternal fiery tornment?
2) What is the beginning and origin of the ideas that the flesh and the pleasurable desires associated with it are corrupt? Is this part of the apocaliptycal culture in which the devil is seen as responsible for these?
Like we see in 1 Peter 2:11 NRSV
[11] Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.
Thanks
1. He’s referring to members of the Christian community and indicateing that they may die if they don’t repent. He doesn’t explain whether he imagines the afterlife involves annihilation, eternal torment, or something else.
2. In the Xn tradition the idea is developed most fully by Paul, our first author, in passages such as Romans 7 and 8 but also in Galatians.
Hi Dr. Ehrman!
I apologize for being a bit off topic, but I have a question surrounding the criteria of authenticity in Jesus studies. The criteria such as multiple attestation, embarrassment, discontinuity and coherence has been under a certain amount of scrutiny by some scholars. I believe Dr. Allison has argued these criteria’s are insufficient and he has opted for a more wide approach. Arguing that reoccurrence helps establish facts rather than singular criteria’s. What are your thoughts on this matter?
It’s an important and complicated question. My short answer is htat Jesus scholars for some reason have idealized these criteria and imagined — probably from not reading much history otherwise — that they are “invented” for knowing about Jesus. In a sense they were, but really they are simply the kinds of criteria every historian of every kind used for every historical investigatoin. Which sources talk about hte subject? How many sources are there? Are they independent of each other or did the collaborate. Do they basically corroborate what each one says. Does an individual source clearly present a vew that it is biased in favor of or against. Are there any anachronisms? How does one deal with contradictory accounts? Etc. etc. NT scholars just give these hard-core categories (“dissimilarity!”) and call them criteria. Mos historians simply use them as the sensible way to do history.