Historical Jesus Archives - Page 19 of 34 - The Bart Ehrman Blog

Jesus and Paul: Similarities and Differences

In my previous post I raised the question of whether Jesus and Paul represent fundamentally the same religion or not. Here I continue the discussion by pointing out what seem to me to be the main similarities and differences between them, as I spelled it out in a post several years ago: ******************************************************************* I have been talking about the relationship of Jesus’ proclamation of the coming Kingdom of God to Paul’s preaching about the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the previous post I argued that the fundamental concerns, interests, perspectives, and theologies of these two were different. In this post I’d like to give, in summary fashion, what strikes me as very similar and very different about their two messages. Again, in my view it is way too much to say that Paul is the “Founder of Christianity”: that assumes that he is the one who personally came up with the idea of the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus for salvation, whereas almost certainly this view had [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:40:00-04:00January 29th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

Are Paul and Jesus on the Same Page?

In response to my previous post on the importance of Paul, I have had several people ask me about the relationship between the teachings of Jesus and Paul: are they actually representing the same religion? I dealt with that question some years ago on the blog. Here is the first of two posts on the issue. ****************************** I have spent several posts explicating Paul’s understanding of his gospel, that by Christ’s death and resurrection a person is put into a restored relationship with God. He had several ways of explaining how it worked. But in all of these ways, it was Jesus’ death and resurrection that mattered. It was not keeping the Jewish law. It was not knowing or following Jesus’ teaching. It was not Jesus’ miracles. It was not … anything else. It was Jesus’ death and resurrection. I then summarized in my previous post, the teaching of Jesus himself, about the coming Son of Man and the need to prepare by keeping the Law of God, as revealed in the Torah, as summarized [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:59-04:00January 26th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters|

Was Jesus Given Special Treatment?

Every now and then on the Blog I get bored with a topic and simply want nothing more to do with it (for a while). For some reason I feel like that about this question of whether Jesus was really buried on the afternoon of his death. It’s an effort to respond even to the comments. But for some reason I can’t seem ever just to let it die (so to speak). Still, this is my last post about the matter for the next 29 years. I think. I just want to make one major point, which probably has relevance to a range of topics we deal with here on the blog. For most of us, if we had to pick one person to name as the Single Most Important and Influential Figure in the history of Western Civilization, it would almost certainly be Jesus. Who else would it be? There are others that people today might choose – Hitler, Constantine, Caesar Augustus, pick your name. But I think it’s pretty obvious that none of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:59-04:00January 23rd, 2018|Historical Jesus|

Pilate, Who Never “Learned His Lesson”

This is the second of my two posts from over three years ago that try to show that Pilate almost certainly would not have removed Jesus' body from the cross on the afternoon of his death simply because not to do so would have been in violation of Jewish sensitivities. (NOTE: Pilate is not said to have done so for the other two who were crucified with Jesus. Are we to think he made an exception in Jesus' case, since, after all, he was far more important?) 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 [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:59-04:00January 22nd, 2018|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus|

Pontius Pilate: A Sensitive Guy….

QUESTION: Could Pilate have conceded over burial rights also? Granted this may not extend to those accused of treason, but as Pilate did permit some local customs, does this not open up sufficient space for Josephus’ claim over burial rights to be taken seriously? RESPONSE: This question arose a couple of weeks ago after I had returned briefly to an older conversation about whether Jesus would have been buried on the afternoon he was crucified. I tried to show that if so, this would have been in clear violation of policy and precedent. Part of the entire punishment for capital offenses -- especially crimes against the state (e.g., claiming to be a ruler of a people ruled instead by Rome) -- was to be left *on* the cross for days, as a public display, and a humiliation and denigration: bodies were left subject to the elements, the scavengers, and natural decay. The Romans wanted everyone to know that THIS is what happens to those who cross the power of Rome. A number of readers [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:59-04:00January 21st, 2018|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

Did Romans Allow Jews to Bury Crucified Victims? Readers’ Mailbag January 1, 2018
Gallery
Did Romans Allow Jews to Bury Crucified Victims? Readers’ Mailbag January 1, 2018

Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions

Did Romans Allow Jews to Bury Crucified Victims? Readers’ Mailbag January 1, 2018

Here on the first day of the new year, I was digging around on the blog and I found a post that I *meant* to make a couple of months ago that I never did. Don't remember why! But here it is. It is from the Readers' Mailbag, and about a very interesting and controversial issue: would the Romans have allowed anyone to bury Jesus the afternoon on which he was crucified? I think not, even though I'm in the decided minority on that one. Here's the post: ****************************** QUESTION: In Josephus's Jewish Wars he states:: “Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.” It looks like (to me) that the Jews were allowed to bury the crucified before sunset – how do you interpret this passage? RESPONSE: I dealt [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:15-04:00January 1st, 2018|Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

The Pope and the Lord’s Prayer

I have received numerous queries about the Pope’s recent comments about the Lord’s Prayer. There has been a good deal of news coverage on the topic. Here is an article from my local paper: http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/NewsandObserver/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=NAO%2F2017%2F12%2F09&entity=Ar05202&sk=CF05DD44&mode=text The issue is summed up in that article as this: In a new television interview, Pope Francis said the common rendering of one line in the prayer – “lead us not into temptation” – was “not a good translation” from ancient texts. “Do not let us fall into temptation,” he suggested, might be better because God does not lead people into temptation; Satan does. “A father doesn’t do that,” the pope said. “He helps you get up right away. What induces into temptation is Satan.” In essence, the pope said, the prayer, from the Book of Matthew, is asking God, “When Satan leads us into temptation, You please, give me a hand.” And so I have been asked by several people what I think about that. There are at least three issues involved: What should Christians today pray? On this, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:31-04:00December 10th, 2017|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions, Religion in the News|

Jesus’ (Young?) Mother and (Half?) Brothers? The Proto-Gospel of James

A few days ago lot of readers made comments on the question (thanks to the Roy Moore newsflashes) of whether Mary was a young girl when she got married; and now I have mentioned Jesus' mother and brothers in Mark's Gospels. So let me say a few more things about them. The earliest non-canonical source that talks about Jesus' mother (indicating she was a teenager -- not something found in the NT) and his brothers (were they really is brothers?) is in the non-canonical Proto-Gospel of James, from some time in the second century. I thought it might be useful for me to re-post a discussion of the matter from a number of years ago, here: ************************************************************** The Proto-Gospel of James was very popular in Eastern, Greek-speaking Christianity throughout the Ages, down to modern times; and a version of it was produced – with serious additions and changes – in Latin, that was even more influential in Western Christianity (a book now known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew). In some times and places, these books [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:15-04:00November 20th, 2017|Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reflections and Ruminations|

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers in Mark

A brief tangent on Mark’s account of Jesus’ rejection in his hometown (Mark 6:1-6), as summarized in my post. As I indicated there, Jesus’ townspeople are incredulous that he can deliver such an impressive address in the synagogue. They ask: “Where did he get such these things? What what is this wisdom that has been given to him? And how can such miracles be worked through his hands? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Juda and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” In other words: the townsfolk knew of Jesus as an unimpressive member of the community, who worked a day job with his hands (say, a construction worker) – not great miracles (with his hands). And his family was all there. The comments on the family are interesting and have prompted a lot of discussion over the years. To begin with, Jesus is here said to be “the son of Mary.” As frequently noted, that’s a bit odd. Normally ... To read the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:15-04:00November 19th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Did Jesus Mean that Literally? Rewards and Punishments in the Afterlife

I return now to my thread dealing with the teachings about the afterlife in the New Testament. One question that can naturally be asked is whether what is said about the afterlife in this, that, or the other passage is meant to be taken literally. For example, I have discussed the famous passage of the “Sheep and the Goats” in Matthew 25, where the Son of Man at the end of history sits on his throne and divides the nations (or gentiles?) into two groups as a shepherd would separate his sheep and goats. The sheep are given eternal life and the goats are forced to go to eternal punishment. But isn’t this all symbolic? After all, people are said to be farm animals, when in fact people are human. So isn’t the whole thing symbolic? Isn’t it, for example, a kind of parable? I may change my mind on the matter, but my sense at this stage of my thinking is that the passage is not a parable. Here I’ll give several reasons. First [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:39:14-04:00November 3rd, 2017|Afterlife, Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Sheep and the Goats

Jesus’ teaching about the “separation of the sheep and the goats” is found in only one place in the New Testament, Matthew 25:31-46. It is easily one of my favorite passages of the entire Bible, and as I have pointed out, in my view, it is a teaching of Jesus himself (not something put on his lips by Matthew or by Matthew’s source, M, or by an early Christian story-teller). I think in fact, it well encapsulates Jesus’ entire proclamation. There is a judgment day coming and those who have lived in an upright way, loving others, showing compassion on those in need, helping those in dire straits, will be given an eternal reward; those who fail to live in this way will be severely punished. The passage is sometimes called a “parable,” but I don’t see any strong indication that it is meant to be taken metaphorically. As far as I can tell, it was meant as a literal description of what would happen at the end of this age when the judge of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 25th, 2017|Afterlife, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Son of Man, Pericopes, and the Complexities of Biblical Scholarship

I realized anew this morning why it is so difficult for scholars of the NT (or the Hebrew Bible) to explain the results of their results of their research to non-scholars. Well, one of the reasons. As is true, I suppose, for most fields of serious intellectual inquiry, the *results* of scholarship are built on other results that are built on other results that are built on… and so it goes. If the scholar explains his findings without explaining the background – the assumptions based on previous findings that are built on the assumptions based on yet previous findings and so on – then it all sounds very arbitrary and rather easily dismissed. That’s why it is so easy for a scholar to give an interpretation of a passage based on a detailed analysis that is itself based on careful research only to have a non-scholar “refute” it simply by quoting a verse from somewhere else. The non-expert simply assumes the scholar doesn’t know about this other verse, or hasn’t thought about it, or taken [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 24th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Decent Burials for Crucified Victims: A Blast From the Past

My post a couple of weeks ago about the burial of Jesus (understandably) struck a nerve for some readers; I was just now digging around in the archives, and see that I addressed most of the important issues, head on, in this rather controversial post I made back in 2012. All these years later, I'm still open to being convinced otherwise!!! ****************************** In my previous post I quoted a number of ancient sources that indicated that part of the torture and humiliation of being crucified in antiquity was being left, helpless, exposed not just to the elements but to scavenging birds and other animals. These sources suggest that the normal practice was to leave the victims on the cross to be pecked and gnawed at both before and after death; in some instances there are indications that this would go on for days. And so the question naturally arises if the same thing could be expected in the case of people being crucified in Judea around the year 30 CE. As I pointed out John [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 20th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Jesus, the Sheep, and the Goats

I have been talking about the criterion of dissimilarity for one ultimate reason: wanted to show why, in my opinion, a particular passage in Matthew’s Gospel goes back to the historical Jesus, the man himself. I.e., it does not involve words put on his lips by later followers, but is something he himself actually said. If you’re a little fuzzy on how the criterion of dissimilarity works, please read the preceding two posts. The following has been taken from my undergraduate textboo on the NT. In it I give two examples of how this particular criterion can be applied to the teachings of Jesus. It is the *second* example that I will be most interested in, but the first can help get you into the swing of things about how the criterion works. ********************************************************** In some respects, there isn’t a whole lot that we can say about the various apocalyptic teachings ascribed to Jesus in our Gospels from the standpoint of the trickiest of our criteria to use, the criterion of dissimilarity. Most of his [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:57-04:00October 18th, 2017|Afterlife, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

How Do We Know What Jesus Said or Did? The Criterion of Dissimilarity in Practice

The reason I’m explaining the criterion of dissimilarity is because I want to *use* it to talk about a passage in Matthew of relevance to the broader themes of this thread. But before I use it I need to make sure everyone understands it. In this post I show how it can be applied usefully; I being by restating the caveat about the criterion that I ended with yesterday (if you haven’t read that post, I’d suggest doing so before reading this one). ********************************************** I want to be perfectly clear about the limitations of this criterion. Just because a saying or deed of Jesus happens to conform to what Christians were saying about him does not mean that it cannot be accurate. Obviously, the earliest disciples followed Jesus precisely because they appreciated the things that he said and did. They certainly would have told stories about him that included such things. Thus, on the one hand, the criterion may do no more than cast a shadow of doubt on certain traditions. For example, when in [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 17th, 2017|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Were the Disciples Martyred for Believing the Resurrection? A Blast From the Past

Here is an interesting question that I addressed on the blog exactly five years ago today, one that continues to be relevant and significant; ************************************************************ QUESTION: Another very very popular evidence put forward for the resurrection is “the disciples would not have died for what they knew was a lie, therefore it must have happened.” I hear this all the time. You note that they really believed they saw Jesus after he died so they were not lying. However, is there evidence (historical or literary) that they were killed because of their belief in Jesus’ resurrection? RESPONSE: Ah yes, if I had a fiver for every time I’ve heard this comment over the years, I could retire to a country-home in Maine…. Several other people have responded to this question on the blog by saying that we have lots of records of lots of people who have died for a something that they knew, literally, not to be true. I am not in a position to argue that particular point. But I can say something [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 13th, 2017|Historical Jesus, Reader’s Questions|

How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?
Gallery
How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?

Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations

How Old Was Jesus at His Baptism, Start of His Ministry & Death?

How old was Jesus at his baptism, when he started his ministry, or when he died? You've probably seen the popular inspirational quote that goes something like this, "Jesus didn't start his ministry until he was 30 years old, and yet he changed the world." I guess this is supposed to encourage people in their teens and twenties that haven't accomplished much in their life. (As if comparing their potential future to the accomplishments of the supposed "son of God" is supposed to make them feel better! Ha!) It also illustrates a common assumption (or perhaps misconception), that Jesus was 30 years old when he began his ministry. Is that a fact? If so, where does the Bible say so? How Old Was Jesus When He Died? This is not a slam dunk answer. In fact, I ask all my students at Chapel Hill this question (many of whom answer incorrectly) on their first-day quiz. Almost everyone who thinks about the matter thinks that Jesus was 33 years old when he died. But the New [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 11th, 2017|Historical Jesus, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|

Explaining Jesus’ Apocalyptic Assumptions

One other aspect of Jesus’ teaching is important to emphasize before continuing on to consider his understanding of the afterlife. That is the thoroughly apocalyptic character of his views. I have discussed Jewish apocalypticism a number of times on the blog—including some months ago on the current thread. I don’t want to repeat all that here in the same form, but I do want to summarize what the view is and discuss its underlying assumptions. In a small nutshell, apocalypticists believed that this world was being controlled by evil forces responsible for this terrible mess of things (corrupt governments; natural disasters; persecution of the righteous), but that God, who was ultimately sovereign, was soon to intervene in the course of human affairs, overthrow the forces of evil, and establish a utopian kingdom here on earth. To Read the rest of this post you need to belong to the blog. Belonging is easy and relatively cheap -- less than 50 cents a week! And every cent goes to help those in need. You get tons for [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 10th, 2017|Afterlife, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Preaching of Jesus in a Nutshell

I am trying to set up what I want to say about Jesus' view of the afterlife, and am finding that it requires a good bit of background information. I have already done two things: shown what he taught about the coming kingdom and explained that his teaching (about the kingdom and everything else) is very different in John from the Synoptics. Scholars are almost unanimous that given these differences, the older sources (the Synoptics and the accounts they built on, e.g., Q, M, and L) are more likely to be accurate about Jesus' words than the later and heavily theologized John. Now I need to explain more broadly, if in very brief form, the major elements in Jesus' preaching/teaching. For that I have borrowed from a post a few years ago, as follows: ************************************************************** We could obviously have a year-long thread on the topic of what it was Jesus taught during his itinerant preaching ministry. Many people have written very long books on the subject – and the books just keep comin’ out. If [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:56-04:00October 9th, 2017|Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

The Skeletal Remains of Yehohanan: Readers Mailbag October 8, 2017

Yehohanan: a reader's question. QUESTION: One thing came to mind during the discussion of whether crucified persons were buried. There is a case where an ossuary was found with a nail through the ankle bone. [I think it was an ankle, might have been a wrist.] Obviously, this was an exceptional case; as I recall, there are some 900 bone boxes in Israeli museums and this is the only such case, where according to Josephus hundreds (thousands?) were crucified in 1st Century Palestine. But at any rate, what do you make of this exceptional case? RESPONSE: I dealt with this issue on the blog several years ago, while I was responding to the claims of my scholarly colleague Craig Evans, who maintained that Jesus must have been buried right away, not left to hang on the cross for days, as I had argued in my book How Jesus Became God. Craig was asserting the traditional Christian view (as found in the Gospels), and he mounted a number of arguments based on various pieces of evidence. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:38:55-04:00October 8th, 2017|Bart's Critics, Early Judaism, Historical Jesus, Public Forum|

Previous 1···181920···34 Next