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Weekly Readers’ Mailbag: January 30, 2016

In this installment of the Weekly Readers’ Mailbag, I’ll address two questions, one about the Jewishness of Jesus the other about my personal (bad) experience with editors. If you have a question, either send it via a comment here or zap me an email. QUESTION: What is it in the NT portrayal of Jesus that tends to obscure the centrality of his Jewishness? RESPONSE: The person who asked this question mentioned the fact that it is only in fairly recent times, since the second half of the twentieth century, that scholars have emphasized that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. Prior to that, Jesus’ Jewishness was commonly downplayed. So the question is, what about the New Testament led scholars away from recognizing how thoroughly Jewish he was? I have three things to say in response to this very good question. First, my sense is that in no small measure, the earlier scholars who did not see Jesus’ Jewishness were living and doing research in an environment that was itself anti-Jewish. Christianity, as we long know, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:02-04:00January 31st, 2016|Book Discussions, Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reader’s Questions|

The Prophetic Background of Jewish Apocalyptic Thought

Several members of the blog have asked me to go into greater detail to explain where Jewish apocalypticism came from. I’m happy to do so: it’s an important topic for understanding Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians. As is true for all religious and political ideologies, the historical background to the rise of apocalyptic thinking is complicated. To make sense of it, I have to say something about a very different perspective which provided the matrix out of which apocalyptic thought was eventually born and grew: the perspective of the “classical prophets” of the Israelite tradition. I will spend a couple of posts explaining what the prophets of the Hebrew Bible had to say, focusing on arguably the earliest, Amos (who in many key ways is typical) before explaining how these views came to be transformed and radically altered centuries later into the apocalyptic views held by so many Jews in the days of Jesus. In these posts I will simply reproduce material on the prophets as found in my recent textbook, The Bible: A [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:32:01-04:00January 10th, 2016|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus’ Return to Life as a Resurrection

So far I have talked about the significance of the belief in Jesus’ resurrection for both Christology (the understanding of who Jesus was) and soteriology (the understanding of how salvation works). It also was significant for eschatology (the understanding of what would happen at the end of time). Christologically, the resurrection proved that Jesus really was the favored one of God, appearances notwithstanding. It may have *seemed* like the crucifixion would show that Jesus was not God’s son, and certainly not the messiah; but the resurrection (for those who came to believe in it) showed that in fact he was. He was the son of God in an even more exalted sense than anyone had thought – he actually had been made into a divine being. So too he was the messiah in a more exalted sense than had been expected – he was not a mere human king but the divine King of all. Soteriologically, the resurrection showed that the death of Jesus had not been a mere miscarriage of justice or the unfortunate [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:46-04:00December 29th, 2015|Afterlife, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Readers’ Mailbag December 18, 2015

It is time for my weekly Readers’ Mailbag. If you too have a question you would like me to address – on much of anything at all! – let me know, either by sending me an email or by commenting on this post. I’ll be dealing with two questions today, one on dealing with where apocalyptic views came from, the other with my personal experience as a born-again Christian who had been raised Episcopalian. ********************************************************************************************* QUESTION: Was there something in the air roughly 2000 years ago that gave rise to apocalyptic beliefs? Was the world uniquely viewed as a ‘hell on earth’ requiring imminent Godly intervention, or are such views one of those ‘hardy perennials’ that exist all the time with deluded individuals perceiving themselves as possessing unique insight into the mind of God and so qualified to opinions on The Plan? RESPONSE: I suppose the answer is both Yes and Yes! There certainly was a historical and cultural context from which apocalypticism emerged. Scholars of ancient Judaism have traced the origins of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:45-04:00December 18th, 2015|Bart’s Biography, Early Judaism, Reader’s Questions|

The Apocalyptic Context for Jesus’ View of the Messiah

In this thread I am trying to argue that Jesus understood himself to be the messiah. So far I have made one of my two main arguments, with the understanding that *both* arguments have to be considered in order to have a compelling case. So the first prong doesn’t prove much on its own. But in combination with the second argument, it makes a strong case. The first argument is that Jesus’ followers would not have understood him as the messiah after his death (as they did) unless they believed him to be the messiah before his death – even if they came to believe he had been raised from the dead, that would not have made them think he was the messiah. I’ve explained why in my previous post. The second second involves showing that it was not only the disciples who understood Jesus to be the messiah before his death, but that Jesus himself did. This is even harder to show, but I think there is really compelling evidence. There are two major [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:14-04:00November 15th, 2015|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Jesus and the Messianic Prophecies – Did the Old Testament Point to Jesus?

In my previous post I started to explain why, based on the testimony of Paul, it appears that most Jews (the vast majority) rejected the Christian claim that Jesus was the messiah. I have to say, that among my Christian students today (most of them from the South, most of them from conservative Christian backgrounds), this continues to be a real puzzle. "But there were prophecies of Jesus being the messiah," they argue. "Hundreds of Old Testament passages, such as Isaiah 53, describe him to a tee." They genuinely can’t figure it out. What About Old Testament Messianic Prophecies? In their view, the Old Testament makes a number of predictions about the messiah: he would be born in Bethlehem his mother would be a virgin he would be a miracle worker he would be killed for the sins of others he would be raised from the dead These are all things that happened to Jesus! How much more obvious could it be? Why in the world don’t those Jews see it? Are they simply hard-headed [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:13-04:00November 8th, 2015|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Public Forum|

The Jewish Messiah

In my previous post I began to discuss the understanding of Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, in the Gospel of Mark (this is a thread within a thread within a thread – but it doesn’t matter. Each of these posts makes sense on their own). I am trying to show that Mark portrayed Jesus as the Son of God (meaning: the one who was in a particularly close relationship with God who was chosen by God to mediate his will on earth) and the messiah. But he was the Son of God/Messiah whom no one understood. Even his disciples. What though would it mean for first century Jews to think of someone as the messiah? Some serious background is necessary. As I pointed out in my previous post, the word Messiah is a Hebrew term (the Greek equivalent is “Christ”) which meant “anointed one.” Why would you call someone the anointed one? In Jewish circles the term goes back to a kind of royal ideology (i.e., understandings of the kingship) from centuries [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:31:13-04:00November 4th, 2015|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Dead Sea Scrolls

In my previous several posts I discussed the discovery and contents of the Nag Hammadi Library. A lot of people on the blog know about all that, since it is a major topic of discussion among scholars of early Christianity. But the reality is that among the general populace, no one really knows about it. People may have heard about the “Gnostic Gospels,” but they don’t realize that there is such a *thing* as the Nag Hammadi Library (or, obviously, why it is called that). On the other hand, everyone has heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, even if they have no clue what the scrolls are, what they contain, and how they were found. The Dead Sea Scrolls are by virtual consensus the most significant manuscript discovery of the twentieth century. And they are decidedly *not* to be confused with the Nag Hammadi Library! Here is what I say about the scrolls in my New Testament textbook. (These paragraphs actually say more about the Essenes that produced the scrolls than the scrolls themselves.) [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:29:45-04:00June 23rd, 2015|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

Apocalypticism and Apocalypses

In the just finished thread I discussed the number of the Beast, 666, in the context of the book of Revelation and its broader symbolism. In response, several readers asked me to say some more about Revelation (which by the ways does NOT have an “s” on the end!! That’s one of my pet pieves. It’s not the book of Revelations but the book of Revelation). So I think I’ll do two or three posts on it. It is the one book my students are *most* interested in. The book is so weird, so unlike anything they’ve ever seen, that they assume that it can only have come about by divine revelation, and that it is in fact predicting something that is to happen in our near future. I’m afraid that I end up disappointing my students by my understanding of the book. I don’t think it is a blue-print for what is to transpire in the early 21st century. It is a book written in its own day, and for its own audience, to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:28:22-04:00February 20th, 2015|Early Judaism, Revelation of John|

Josephus’s Clearest Claim about the Burial of Crucified Victims

We come now, at last, to the best argument in Craig Evans’ arsenal, in his attack on the views of Jesus’ burial that I set forth in in How Jesus Became God. Tomorrow I will deal with the second best – an argument from archaeology. Craig makes a somewhat bigger deal of the second best; in fact he throws off this, his best argument rather quickly. But it’s the most important point of the many (many!) issues he raises. The argument is this. In one passage of Josephus’s writings, in an extremely brief few words (it’s only half of one sentence) (this is the only half sentence in the entire corpus not only of Josephus’s 30 volumes of writing but in the entire corpus of pagan and Jewish literature of all of antiquity that makes this claim) he explicitly indicates that Jews buried victims of crucifixion before sunset. Craig’s commentary on the passage amounts only to two sentences. At the end of the day I don’t find even this piece of evidence persuasive, and in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:07-04:00July 29th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

More on Josephus and Jewish Burial Practices

In my previous post I began to deal with the first of two arguments that Craig Evans provides from Josephus. Craig wants to argue that Josephus, a first-century Jewish authority, explicitly indicates that Romans allowed Jews to provide decent burials for their dead. In this first argument Craig provides a concatenation of passages from Josephus that together, Craig argues, indicate that Jews would not leave a corpse (such as that of Jesus) on the cross, but would provide a burial for it. Here is the argument again. “Josephus asserts the same thing. The Romans, he says, do not require “their subjects to violate their national laws” (Against Apion 2.73). The Jewish historian and adds that the Roman procurators who succeeded Agrippa I “by abstaining from all interference with the customs of the country kept the nation at peace” (Jewish War 2.220), customs that included never leaving a “corpse unburied” (Against Apion 2.211). I dealt with the first quotation in yesterday’s post, where I pointed out that in Against Apion Josephus is not referring to burial [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:07-04:00July 28th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Does Josephus Show that Jews Always Buried Their Dead?

I have not covered all of the points that Craig Evans makes in his essay “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right,” which is his response to the position I stake out in How Jesus Became God. My view is that Jesus probably was not given a decent burial on the day of his death by the otherwise unknown figure, Joseph of Arimathea. In this thread I have tried to focus on Craig’s main points – but I will be happy to address any of the others if anyone is interested. In my judgment, despite all the various issues he raises there are really only two of that are directly relevant and that need to be taken with utmost seriousness: Josephus appears to say that Jews were allowed to bury their dead (Craig makes two arguments about this) and we have the skeletal remains of one crucified victim from Judea at about the time of Jesus. First I’ll be dealing with the evidence from Josephus. My view is that of the two arguments Craig makes, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:07-04:00July 27th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Josephus and the Burial of Jesus

I have devoted a large number of posts to going carefully through the main arguments that Craig Evans makes in his critique of the position I take in How Jesus Became God with respect to the burial tradition, in his essay, “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right.” To this point I have been trying to argue that the accumulation of arguments in and of itself does not constitute a “cumulative argument.” Each of the accumulated arguments has to carry *some* weight if the overall argument is to carry *much* (or a lot of) weight. And in my judgment, none of the arguments that I have adduced and responded to so far carries much, if any, weight. Some of you will probably disagree with me, and that’s fine. But I do hope that I’ve shown that I’m not the uninformed skeptic that Craig portrays in his essay. At times, reading it, I felt like I was being lectured to. On the other hand, maybe Craig feels the same way in reading my responses (he’s not [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:26:06-04:00July 24th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Pilate the Intransigent

To make the best sense of this post it is important to keep in mind what I said in the previous one. In his response to my views of in How Jesus Became God – that Jesus most likely was not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea – Craig Evans has maintained, among other things, that Pilate was not the kind of governor who would ignore Jewish sensitivities. For Craig, Pilate started his rule by making a big mistake of bringing into Jerusalem the Roman standards that bore on them the image of the emperor. But once he realized that the Jewish populace was offended, he backed down and from then on he showed that he had learned his lesson. For that reason, Craig finds it “hard to believe” that at a later time Pilate would do something so opposed to Jewish custom as allow a body unburied on the day of a person’s death. This view strikes me as extremely problematic, for several reasons. To start [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:25:49-04:00July 19th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Did Pilate “Learn His Lesson”?

I think there is almost no historical figure that Craig and I disagree on more than the Roman governor of Judea at the time of Jesus’ death, Pontius Pilate. I see him as a cruel, vicious, hard-headed, insensitive, and brutal ruler; Craig portrays him as an efficient but wise and rather sensitive aristocrat who could learn from his lessons and who would go out of his way not to offend Jewish sensibilities. A lot hangs on which view (if either) is right, since it was Pilate – we agree on this! – who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, if Jesus was given a decent burial (Craig’s view) or was left to hang on the cross for some time in accordance with standard Roman practice (my view), it was, in either case, Pilate’s decision. Craig’s view is that Pilate’s sensitive decision not to allow crucified victims to hang on their crosses after their deaths is what allowed him to keep “the nation at peace” (the phrase comes from the Jewish historian Josephus, whom I will be dealing [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:25:49-04:00July 18th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Did Pontius Pilate Respect Jewish Sensitivities?

When I was in high school I was active on the debate team, and really loved it. We were pretty good, although I was nowhere near being the best on the team. My colleague and another fellow on the team ended up debating together in college and won the national championship as sophomores. These guys were terrific. One of the decisions we constantly had to make when arguing the negative side of a resolution was how to go about attacking the claims of the affirmative side. There were two general approaches: one was what we called the “shotgun” approach. This involved leveling lots and lots of arguments (like buckshot) and hoping that the other side could not respond to them all, thereby making the judge of the debate think that some of the arguments stuck, even if not all of them were that good. The problem with the shotgun approach was that if a bunch of the arguments weren’t very good, the affirmative side could knock them down fairly easily, and by the end, it [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:25:48-04:00July 17th, 2014|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Was Jesus Married?

I am en route just now, back from Las Vegas, where I participated in a discussion with two other scholars at the Black Mountain Institute on the question “Would It Matter If Jesus Were Married?” The Black Mountain Institute is part of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV); it sponsors events having to do with literature and history. Usually these involve two or more scholars, on stage, on chairs, with a moderator, discussing a topic of mutual interest. The moderator last night was Carol Harter, the former president of UNLV. The two other scholars were Karen King and Mark Jordan. Both Karen and Mark are very well known and highly respected scholars. Karen is a professor of early Christianity at Harvard, where she holds the oldest endowed chair, of any kind, in the country; her expertise is especially in early Christian Gnosticism, and she has become best known in the past few years for her role in publicizing the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” that I have blogged on before (search and see!). I’ve [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:23:57-04:00January 25th, 2014|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Sex and Sexuality in the Bible|

Jesus and Sacrifices

QUESTION: Would it be accurate to say that after Jesus' death the first-century Christians turned him into an enduring symbol of the very sacrificial system that he himself rejected in life? By 'sacrificial system' I'm referring both to the ancient lamb/goat-based traditions surrounding Yom Kippur, as well as to the later lamb sacrifices conducted by the Jerusalem temple priests during Jesus' day, etc. And, by the word 'rejected,' I'm wondering if Jesus having upset the moneychanger's tables at the temple was his way of disparaging the very notion of paying money to buy a lamb for a priest to sacrifice in order to atone for one's sins. RESPONSE: This is an interesting question, with several intriguing aspects: 1) Did Jesus reject the Jewish sacrificial system? 2) Did his followers borrow their imagery for the salvific character of his death from the Jewish sacrificial system? 3) If so, were they not embracing precisely what he abandoned? I think the easiest question to answer is #2: Yes, I think the early followers of Jesus did see [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:55-04:00July 11th, 2013|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Gentile Judaizers

I ended my last post with a question: Suppose Matthew really did think a person had to be a Jew in order to be a follower of Jesus. Would that indicate that he himself was born and raised a Jew? In this case I think there is a clear and certain answer. But it may not be the answer you’d expect. I think the answer is certainly No. The reason is that we know of other Christians in the early church who insisted that to be a follower of Jesus, one had to adopt the ways of Judaism. And these other Christians were themselves born and raised pagan. The clearest instance involves Paul’s opponents in Galatia. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the most dense and difficult writings of the New Testament. There are verses and even passages that are, in my opinion, virtually impenetrable, statements that Paul makes that I still have difficulty figuring out after years of thinking and reading about it. But the basic situation that prompted the letter, in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:54-04:00July 5th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

So … Was Matthew a Jew?

I am near the end of this thread on the Jewishness of Matthew’s Gospel. I have several more posts to go, so I’m not completely at the finish line; but it’s within sight. (I should stress that I am not intending to give an exhaustive analysis of the problem and all the relevant issues. That would take a very long book. In fact, scholars have indeed written significant books on the topic. One of my graduate students, Judy Siker, wrote her dissertation on one aspect of the issue. She's also the author of Who is Jesus? What a Difference a Lens Makes. I hope to close out the thread with posts on three related topics: this post and the next on whether Matthew was himself Jewish; the one after on whether Matthew – whether Jewish or not – was anti-Jewish (I hope to do that in just one post, but it may take more); and finally one on whether Matthew and the apostle Paul would have or could have seen eye-to-eye on the relationship of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:21:54-04:00July 4th, 2013|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Reader’s Questions|

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