(29 votes, average: 4.90 out of 5)
Loading...Here’s a post from long ago that deals with an issue that has come up among some blog members recently. Was Jesus in favor of armed resistance? Were he and his disciples armed? Was he killed for insurrection because he actually *was* an insurrectionist? Here is the question in one of the forms I have received it, and my response.
QUESTION:
What is the scholarly view on this subject: did Jesus himself, his movement and then early Christians walk around with weapons (swords, e.g.) to protect themselves, despite preaching the love for enemies? Do we have any historical evidence of how things looked in this matter?
RESPONSE:
This is a hugely important question. I dealt with it in my book Jesus Before the Gospels, and don’t think I’m able to say it any better by putting it in other words. So here is what I said there:
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In all four Gospels, at least one of Jesus’ followers is armed when he is arrested. In the Synoptics, this unnamed follower draws his sword and strikes the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear (see Mark 14:47). In John’s Gospel we learn that the sword-bearing disciple was Peter (John 18: 10). Jesus puts a halt to his follower’s violent inclination, however, and humbly submits to his arrest. In Luke’s version he does so only after healing the ear (Luke 22:51).
From the eighteenth century until the present day (starting with Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the first scholar to write a critical study of the historical Jesus in the modern period), there have been scholars, and non-scholars, who have thought that this incident in the garden is both altogether plausible and indicative of the character of Jesus’ message and mission. In this opinion, the incident must be historical for a rather simple reason. What later Christian would make up such a story? When Christians were telling and retelling their accounts of Jesus’ life in the years after his death, of course they would want him to appear entirely palatable to their audiences. Nothing would make Jesus more palatable in Roman eyes than the view that he was a peace-loving promoter of non-violence, not a violent insurrectionist against Rome. If Jesus allowed his followers to be armed, however, that would suggest he was in favor of them carrying out acts of violence. If later Christians would not make up the idea that Jesus’ promoted violence, then no one could make up the idea that his followers were armed. Following this logic, the story of the sword in the garden is not an invented tradition but a historical fact. Jesus’ followers, therefore, were armed. Moreover, if they were armed, so this reasoning goes, then Jesus must have anticipated and even promoted an armed rebellion.
There’s a good deal of sense to this view and it is easy to see why it is attractive. Still, at the end of the day I don’t find it convincing. This is for two reasons, one that is obvious but ultimately unpersuasive, and the other that is less obvious but absolutely (to my mind) compelling. The obvious objection is
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This is a variation of your second point but does the fact that Jerusalem becoming an early center of Christianity, and continuing to be for decades, show that the early followers had a non-violence philosophy based upon teachings of Jesus? In other words, if violent insurrection was a core philosophy of the group wouldn’t they have been hunted not only at the time of the crucifixion but likely would not have been able to “set up shop” in conspicuous Jerusalem for so long before being annihilated?
Yes, I think that’s a good argument.
This post reminds me of the last line from the 1959 film “Ben-Hur”. A starry-eyed Charlton Heston, who plays the title character – whose hatred and violence towards the Romans intensifies throughout the film, finally sees Jesus, and says, “And I felt his voice take the sword out of my hand.” I know this is Hollywood, but it sums up the character of Jesus’ ministries mentioned in this post. The tone could have been part of the original movement; however, I understand it could also have been adopted over subsequent decades.
Note that the written account of the violent act mentioned in this post was perpetrated against a slave of the high priest, and not against a Roman.
Ryan,
Unrelated, I finished your book and already miss it. I enjoyed it very much, with just some personal misgivings over certain descriptions, which I relayed elsewhere.
Super creative, convincing, well written, a page turner. Can’t tell how plausible it can be, though, even at a lesser degree of collaboration between the characters. But I will never be able to relate to the Gospels the same way again.😊
Will give it five stars on Amazon.
Gisele
Thank you! In the Author’s Note at the end of the book, I am planning on changing the wording you highlighted regarding my generalized statement of the “nature” of a people, and the identifier for King Saul. It then takes a few days for the changes to take effect on Amazon. I can ask Amazon to send you a free copy of the revised book without my knowing personal information (address, etc.) if there is such a procedure.
I altered this comment in response to your upcoming question regarding reissuance of the book.
Are you re-issuing the book?
Thanks. Since it is possible to review and sometimes change things – I am very pleasantly surprised to hear that- , I would share, with your permission, one other thing: the trial and the physical violence of priests and guards. Two thoughts: the fact that there are no longer any villains besides the Jews of the Sanhedrin creates an abysmal lack of proportion, with the Jews portrayed as monsters. Secondly, I did not get such level of violence from reading the Gospels, by far. Magnifying such conduct to the brutal levels you reach goes to support the millenarian unjust and homicidal influence such – I must name it- anti-semitic tropes, all the way to the ridiculous charge of deicide. Jews have suffered untold catastrophic misery from all those lies told about them in the Gospels, to different degrees by the distinct authors.
I think you must tone down the horror of what you describe. What’s in the Gospels seems to cover it pretty much.
Thanks for listening.
I agree that your second argument is absolutely persuasive. I find it incredible (in the literal sense) that a follower of Jesus would attempt to violently intervene with Jesus’s arrest by armed soldiers and not be immediately arrested himself or, more likely, killed on the spot.
On your first point, however, Jesus is also quoted as saying “I come not in peace but with a sword” (Matt. 10:34). How did that one escape the pacifist Christians’ notice?
It was usually interpreted metaphorically: he would not unite families but divide them, putting them at each others throats. And I guess he did!
I had the same question. I’d also note that that Jesus was executed because he was said to have claimed that he was the King of the Jews.
I don’t really disagree with your conclusion but, right at the moment, in a rather reflective and dreamy mood, it makes me wonder, given these sorts of inconsistencies, how much we can actually say with confidence about the historical Jesus.
Perhaps it’s too superficial a view but It makes me feel sympathetic to mythicists and others who, though not mythicists, are very skeptical that we can know much of anything about the historical Jesus.
Wasn’t that the view of many NT critical scholars, eg, Bultman, for an extensive part of the first half or so of the twentieth century? What sorts of things caused that to change to a more optimistic view?
Yes, Bultmann was highly skeptical about what we could really know about Jesus. But he did write a book on what we could know, so he wasn’t a complete skeptic. In part his skepticism was connected with his theological views, that the true Christian faith was not predictated directly on the teachings of Jesus but on the understanding about him by those impacted by his death and resurrection. What changed came as a result of teh work of Bultmann’s students, such as Ernst Kasemann, who came to realize that if you started with the later understandings of Jesus’ followers you could establish lines of *continuity* with the historical figure himself. An intersting shift in scholarship that very much remains with us today. I’ve never met a mythicist yet who understands how this history of scholarship devloped or even knows the key names, let alone their actual arguments. But I do understand skepticism about the details, since I share them.
I’ve never been able to understand, why he asked the Disciples to buy swords. I’ve seen different explanations from believers. What do you think about it?
Yeah, that’s an especially tough one. I don’t think it’s historical — i.e., I don’t think it’s something Jesus himself said. But why would someone put it on his lips later? My guess is that it was a way of saying that the followers of Jesus were not going to find peace on earth but would be violently opposed, and they needed to expect that. But the way the saying expresses the idea runs completely contrary to what Jesus himself said about turning the other cheek and loving the enemy. Sometimes that happens: a follower will support a teacher and take his/her teachings ina way he/she would never have expressed them.
I think you’re probably right about this, though it’s still hard to understand why the disciples weren’t arrested, even if they were unarmed. If Jesus was seen as a threat, wouldn’t that have automatically made his followers de facto threats as well?
Yes, it may seem odd, but sometimest that happened, if the authorities had no reason to think the followers were a danger, just the leader who might give them bad ideas. A similary thing happened with John the Baptist — he alone apaprently was taken.
“In all four Gospels, at least one of Jesus’ followers is armed when he is arrested.”
Actually in Mark’s gospel we are only told that the crowd had swords (14,43.48). Of the disciples it is only said they deserted Jesus, just as he, quoting scripture, had just predicted they would (14,27): “You will all become deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’ (Zech 13,7).
While one can forgive the other evangelists for reading Mark’s story and imagining that it was one of Jesus’ disciples who defended his teacher from arrest, there’s no reason to think Mark thought so. Without arguing that Mark thought it was one of the crowd who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, as far as we know, Mark did not think it was important who did so.
So where did the sword come from in Mark’s story? Perhaps it comes from the very same verse of scripture already quoted by Mark: “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate,” says the LORD of hosts. …” (Zech 13,7).
Further explored in this thread of the Readers Forum.
Reportedly Martin Luther King, Jr. carried a hand gun. Although he was an avowed pacifist, he also knew people wanted to kill him and his family. So carrying a weapon was a practical matter.
Being armed in a violent place and time doesn’t refute the philosophy of non violence, but reflects a complicated and human stance toward a very real threat. So it seems entirely believable that at least some of Jesus followers were armed with the weapons of the day.
This is a question I have always wanted to ask scholars about: after Jesus was off the scene, why did his immediate followers re-locate the movement’s headquarters from Capernaum to Jerusalem? Did they want a better life in cosmopolitan Jerusalem? They would be much safer back in Galilee where the Jerusalem authorities couldn’t round them up and execute them at a moment’s notice. In forming the Jerusalem church, they would be in the midst of their enemies unless some sort of a truce was arranged. Contrary to the book of Acts, I think a truce was arranged. The Jerusalem authorities were probably worried that anyone of the hundreds of people in this growing movement could grab a sword, claim to be the resurrected Jesus, and create a rebellion resulting in the Roman army coming in and destroying the city. So, the truce was probably a mutual agreement that both sides would police the movement since neither side wanted that to happen. That means the so-called persecution of the Jerusalem church was more of an uneasy truce with unpleasant policing. But are there any theories on why the relocation to Jerusalem took place?
The most common theory among scholars (so far as I know) is that the disciples expected that since Jesus was exalted to heaven, he was the one coming back to judge the world as the Son of Man (Jesus spoke of a future son of man, and after the resurrection the disciples concluded he must have been talking to himself. The son of man would come back to Mount Zion in Jerusalem in judgment in fulfillment of prophecies. So they probably went back to Jerusalem in expectation of his imminent appearance.
That seems to be a plausible answer, but I wonder if, contrary to the New Testament, Jesus main “disciples” were part of a religious order, or group, not established by him. In other words, Jesus took over leadership of an already established religious group. John 1:35-42 seems to suggest that Jesus main “disciples” were already an established group under John the Baptist. And Acts 1:21-22 says “the Lord Jesus went in and out among us” which, again, may suggest an already established group, with its own identity, that Jesus entered and temporarily ruled. In that case, the group would have a loyalty and commitment to its own identity and continuity apart from its loyalty to Jesus. That might be one of the reasons why it kept going and it may have something to do with establishing itself in Jerusalem. Food for thought.
Interesting idea. There seems to ahve been a good deal of diversity among them in terms of background; I’d say that John 1 is not historical about how Jesus’ disciples came together, since the earlier Synoptics have a completely different portrayal. The only unifying factor we can see among the twelve is that they were committed to Jesus and his message. THat *would* mean, though that they at least were all apocalyptically minded Jews from Galilee: maybe not from a particular sect/group, but all of a similar religious perspective.
I agree that John is probably mostly non-historical but John 1 may have been based on an earlier document that did have some correct biographical information. My understanding is that the movement Jesus led was a carbon copy of the movement created by John the Baptist. Jesus and his followers adopted John’s baptism and, like John, Jesus traveled around giving speeches on morality and a coming apocalypse. Also, like John, Jesus had disciples and Jesus’ movement basically had the same theology as did John’s. Jesus may have asembled his followers from among those already inside John’s movement; perhaps an already existing group. Mark may not have known about it but you are correct that Jesus himself may have assembled his movement from scratch, using what John the Baptist did as a model, and I know that is the standard thinking. I don’t think the synoptics are correct in the way Jesus obtained his followers. If any of us were out in public and a complete stranger said: “drop everything you are doing in life and come follow me” we would do it right then and there.
Whilst Jesus himself had no intention of directing or abetting an armed insurrection – God would intervene, defeat evildoers and establish the Kingdom- , some individuals surrounding him could have been associated with rebellion or even terror.
Judas Iscariot comes to mind. If ” Iscariot” is interpreted not as Ish-Kariot (a man coming from Kariot ), then Sicarii, derived from the word dagger and also translated as ” assassin”, would name the sort of terrorist who would decades later defend Masada.
But then the question arises: if Judas was indeed known as a murderous” Sicarii”, how did the priests cut a deal with him? How didn’t they arrest him? Zealots were murdering hundreds of innocent people, randomly.
Being associated with extreme elements might have worked against Jesus, and he could have been misunderstood as being a rebel himself.
There is another, subtler element: Jesus was capable of public fits of anger. Not just the debacle in the Temple, but his various threatening pronouncements against the people, the priestly establishment, cities which stood condemned in his eyes or even a fig tree. Such superficial demonstrations might have left an impression of aggressiveness and hostility, and the combined appearances could have misled many.
I feel like Jesus was following in the spirit of the Axial Age, while the Romans were still following a pre-Axial Age primitive religion. The Romans saw that their religion was primitive and started adopting the eastern cults, and Christianity (rooted in Judaism) was the most sophisticated of those. I suppose the objection could be that the Greeks had philosophy, but that was the elites, not the common people, and the commoners would have converted first. The philosophers were then persecuted by Justinian etc. Do you consider it useful to look at it in those terms, Dr. Ehrman, or is that Axial Age vs. non-Axial Age dichotomy too simplistic? Thanks Dr. Ehrman.
It’s an interesting idea. But my sense is that Roman religion was pretty sophisticated, not seen as “antiquated.” At least none of our many, many authors that speak of it consider it primitive. Christianity was not seen as “sophisticated” or more advanced when it came into the world; on the contrary it seemed bizarre (and some pointed out htat it was based on hopelessly primitive notions of the need for a huuman sacrifice). So I’m not sure the Axial Age thing works too well to explain it all.
The one episode that is in sharp contrast to the character of Jesus as the pacifist is when he entered the Temple earlier that week, “making a whip out some cord, he drove them (the money-changers) all out of the temple” (John 2:15), “nor would he allow anyone to carry anything through the Temple” (Mark 11:16). This story could not have been invented as all four gospels recount it. Why, then, would the early Christians allow for this one violent episode to be recounted?
The whip, of course, is John’s invention. It is often thought that something like the “cleansing of the temple” really did happen, and that it was not simply Jesus being upset about the corruption of the temple but even more a symbolic act showing that God was soon to destroy the place because it was leading peole astray. And so it was a parabolic act demonstrating God’s wrath. I suppose the justification would be that Jesus caused a ruckus, but didn’t actually hurt anyone.
Aside from any Abrahamic beliefs, are there any religions that are very similar to Christianity?
Not really. But it kinda depends what you mean.
Perhaps theology wise? The sacrifice of a man brings salvation, and this man ascended to the heavens to become a divine being after being resurrected. I doubt it but it’s never bad to know 🤷♂️
Ironically, doesn’t this story (and many others) undercut the claim made by the maxim. Many people who don’t live by the sword die by the sword, too.
Well, I guess it’s not denying that, but is saying that fighting ain’t gonna bring peace but only death. But yup, lots of innocent people die….
Why the devil would Jesus be advocating armed resistance to the Romans when Jesus, according to the Gospel of Mark, believed that God would very soon (within the lifetime of his followers) send the Son of Man down to earth to put an end to all evil on earth and establish God’s glorious righteous kingdom on earth?
Some apocalypticists (including those who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) thought that when God intervened to destroy the forces aligned against him, his people would participate in the battles. It would be an armed conflict and God would enable his warriors to win.
Hi Bart,
I need to research more about the Gospels’ accounts of a disciple’s sword in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In any case, I propose that Jesus emphasized nonresistance to Roman soldiers because Jesus foresaw that any Jewish rebellion against Rome would fail. And we see that a violent minority of Jewish extremists eventually resulted in Rome destroying Jerusalem and the Second Temple.
That said, the Garden of Gethsemane scene involved Temple guards and not Roman soldiers.
You bring up a good question about why the Temple guards did not also arrest sword-carrying disciples if that detail of the scene is historically accurate. However, Jesus could have used his charisma to protect his disciples while making the Sanhedrin and their guards feel satisfied with arresting only Jesus. Nonetheless, I am currently undecided about the historicity of one or more disciples carrying a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane.
This is just an idle speculation but after Jesus has been arrested Mark says-
“But one of those who stood near drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit?'”
Now it would be perfectly natural to assume, as the later gospel writers did, that the slave of the high priest would be included in the crowd of those arresting Jesus, but why then does Jesus immediately berate the crowd arresting him for bringing weapons?
Could it be that Mark meant it the other way around? That “one of those who stood near” was part of the arresting party and the slave was with Jesus? In context wouldn’t that make more sense?
I’m not sure that it would, since the Gospels consistently portray the representatives of teh priests as being opposed to Jesus, no aligned with him.
“In all four Gospels, at least one of Jesus’ followers is armed when he is arrested.”
This has sparked a question that I’m sure you have answered before, but I don’t remember.
We all fully accept the so called ‘Synoptic Problem’ without a second thought nowadays but is there any evidence from the early Church Fathers that they were aware of Luke and Matthew copying Mark?
The ancient view waas that Mark was a condensed version of Matthew, not that Mathtew was an extended version of Mark.
Do you think that Jesus’ pacifism came from his philosophical outlook? Or was it a more practical position based on his belief that God was about to act in human history and therefore no armed insurrection was needed to end Roman rule?
I”m not sure where it came from. It may have come equally from his unerstanding of the Bible, for example. It seems like there could be multiple answers, and it would be hard to decide among them.
Were both Jesus and John the Baptist arrested and executed due to the belief that they might cause a rebellion?
Jesus yes. John no. He was just seen as offensive.
But the second argument can be turned on its head: Jesus’s disciples almost certainly wouldn’t have drawn swords to resist unless they judged, in the moment, that they had a chance of success. They were wrong insofar as they failed to prevent his arrest, but they were right insofar as they were still able to get away.
You’ve already categorized the first reason as unpersuasive, but in addition I’d point out that, if you have a black-and-white apocalyptic view of the world, it is easy to preach love and peace in general, while having a violent attitude to those you view as aligned with the forces of evil. There are Christians today whose attitude is very much like that.
Add to this: there is an enigmatic passage in which Jesus tells his disciples to sell their clothes to buy swords (Lk 22: 36-37)–there seems to be a faint recollection of the apocalyptic prophet who envisioned a very proximate violent conflict.
Finally, I just think the events of Jesus’s last week, including his entry, his betrayal, and his being crucified as “king of the Jews” all make unique sense if his followers posed a real, credible threat of dangerous insurrection.
Let me just add–I can’t see much reason for Luke to invent a saying of Jesus to the effect of “let him who has no sword, sell his cloak and buy one,” but, provided that saying was already known, I can see plenty of reason for him to recontextualize it by turning it into a reference to the fourth servant song (see Is 53:12) and watering down the command so it becomes some purely symbolic fulfillment of a prophecy.
As if Luke were saying, When Jesus told his followers to get swords, he just wanted them to be a token threat (two swords for 13 men was enough!) so that he could be considered a transgressor (or insurrectionist) in fulfillment of the fourth servant song.
Mt 10:34, taken alone, can be read in other ways, but when you put it together with the other passages (his claim to kingship, his being crucified as king, Lk 22:36-37), it is hard to resist the conclusion that he did historically evision some immediate violence, and that expected violence got quickly whitewashed out of his preaching and plan.
Devil’s advocate: why would the Romans care that a slave of a Jewish priest had his ear injured in a scuffle? Let’s say it did happen and the priest goes to the Romans to complain that one of Jesus’s crew smote his slave’s ear; is it likely the Romans would judge the event as an act of insurrection against the state, worthy of arresting not just Peter but Jesus and all his followers? Pilate is supposed to have said he wasn’t at all interested in law enforcement issues between Jesus and the Jewish leaders (“what is he supposed to have done? Judge him according to your law”).
Also, at the end of the story, the ear was put right (or more likely to me, not that great an injury. Perhaps partly cut, Jesus applied pressure to stop the bleeding. But whether the ear was made whole by divine power or simply not a big deal of an injury, what is the priest going to present to the Romans to ring alarm bells about insurrection? A story by a Jewish priest about a slave’s ear that now looks fine?
I’m not sure they would much care about the ear; but they might care about people whackin’ aaway with swords. That’s why I doubt if the incident is historical.
According to one scholar, it’s unlikely these were actually swords. The Greek word used in the Gospels really means something more akin to knife, and knives can be easily concealed, and moreover, since it was the time of Passover many Jewish men had access to sacrificial knives. I think that apart from how certain details of the story have been wrongly or hyperbolically translated, the story itself is plausible within the broader narrative of the gospels.
Yes, that argument has been made. Others have refuted it. I wish we had some photos….
Bart, I know you’re writing a book on the New Testament canon, so I thought I’d ask you this same question I asked my professor: Do you think we have the best collection possible of the most relevant and historically reliable writings dealing with early Christianity in the New Testament?
It depends how you gauge what it means to be relevant. Or “historically reliable.” The NT Gospels are the best records of Jesus’ life himself (even though they have big problems). But books like 1 Clement and the Didache are as early as some NT writings and are extreemely useful for knowing about what was happebing in early Christianity.
This vague suspicion that the Gospels are a portrait of Jesus, more than a historical record, more or less written with intentions, troubles me. There seems to me to be so many references to the Jewish ongoing history, perhaps using stories more or less directly from the Hebrew Bible, such as the story when Jesus was betrayed by Judas (Greec, Judah in Hebrew), among the 12 (as Judah did with his brother Joseph) who got 20 silver coins when they “handed him over”. This similarity is among many others similarities to what can be found in the Hebrew Bible. This also just came after the cleansing of the temple, which seems to refere to Zechariah in chapter 14 says that when they stop selling and buying animals in the temple, is the start of the Messianic age, or the day of the Lord.
I might be open to that the Gospels might be intentional jewish potraits of Jesus as part of the jewish ongoing story, rather than historical. Using pictures as would be natural for a jew at that time travelling from town to town, like carrying arms for protections from robbers, killers or animals. The Agatha Christie figure “Poirot” actor David Suchet mentioned when he interviewed a Jewish historian in a BBC program following the trail of Jesus or Peter (can’t remember), that it was natural to travel with weapons between cities, but that during festivals they had to leave the big weapons at the gate, but could keep a personal dagger.
If so, perhaps the story about the dagger attack shouldn’t be read litteral as a historic account. It could according to John Shelby Spong refer to Christian-jewish struggle against the orthodox jews (hence the symbols) than an attack against the Romans.
I’ve always had trouble understanding how one would manage to slice off an ear with a sword. That is very weird. I do not believe that the swords of that time were light enough or sharp enough to have been used as a precision instrument, and I don’t think that the average person of that time could use a sword of any kind as a precision instrument. Try to visualize the movements required to accomplish that. It’s ludicrous. I could imagine someone BITING someone else’s ear, in a scuffle, and perhaps removing a bit of the victim’s ear, since that has happened in a notorious case, but slicing off an ear with a SWORD?? It didn’t happen. It could not have happened. The story is either a gross distortion or poorly written fiction. It would be hard to accomplish with a knife, in fact, since surely the owner of the ear would be fighting back. It’s downright silly.
I”ve never been tempted to find out….
Sorry if this already was mentioned. Were not some Zealots among Jesus’ followers? I seem to recall reading about a Simon the Zealot. Zealots believed in armed rebellion against the Romans. Is it not possible that among his followers in the garden was an armed zealot, perhaps like Peter also a “Simon”, hence the origin of the story?
It’s a debated point. Part of the problem is that “Zealot” is actually not a title for a group until the uprising against Rome in 66-70 CE. Before that it was just an adjective for someone who was keenly devoted to one or another aspect of Judaism.
I can look up the Aramaic word in the Peshita, translated as a sword. I also understood the object in a disciple’s hand to be alike a Bowie knife maybe. The people who walked long distances in those days did carry “kits” to repair sandals, much like the Egyptians might have done. Repair kits had bits of rawhide rope for wrapping around the foot or ankles or even up the calf. Plus already cut pieces of leather, like that would fit the foot of oneself – if in case a sandal broke. Plus I’m sure someone would need a sharp instrument to skin a fish or a dove, or even dig up a tuber or slice grapes from a vine. Of course that isn’t about the text. Jerusalem would have been ultimately crowded during Holy Week, so it might make sense to guard one’s person, or another person, by pulling out a sharp object. Also just imagine how much work would go into making a big Roman type sword. Not cheap, plus specialty forging, etc. To my mind unlikely for a religious follower to own a sword, but knife yes.
Franklin Graham when asked about Christian Gun Ownership, replied with the bible verse Luke 22:36 justifying that since Jesus commanded a Sword, then Christians can command a gun. He totally skipped the “reason” for the sword in Luke 22:37 as to being numbered as an “outlaw” to fulfill Isaiah 53:12.
My point, is that people will go to any extream to find justifications to their own agenda. They either add their agenda or subtract the text to make the point of their agenda. Truth is, the Texts is all that we have. Therefore without addition to the text, there is no evidence to suggest that Jesus was intending to lead an armed rebellion.
Moreover… The Zealots were already leading an armed rebellion against Rome. Two of the Gospels Mark 15:6–15 and Luke 23:18–24 identifies Barabbas as such a rebel, thus raises question as to why the crowed would choose the Armed Rebellion of Barabbas over the armed rebellion of Jesus.. It’s moronic to think that Jesus was leading an armed rebellion against Rome. If true, he would have proclaimed such, and possibly the two groups would have united..
There are those who believe that Jesus was indeed an insurrectionist, and that the entry into Jerusalem was a miltary campaign where Jesus’s soldiers captured parts of the city, and that the cleansing of the temple was a part of this campaign. This would explain how Jesus could cleanse the huge temple: He didn’t do it by himself, he had lots of armed soldiers who helped him.
Also, Jesus Barabbas and Jesus was the same person (Barabbas means “son of the father”). Thus, the right man was convicted by Pilate and crucified.
I don’t say I believe this, though…
I too, found myself dealing with this question. So I had to allow the overall testimonies throughout the combined Gospel’s accounts, to be able to see those last moments more clearly. When Jesus was teaching in the Temples, the religeous rulers dared not touch him, because of the revering listeners all around him, besides his chosen twelve. But after his Last Supper, or his plea to the Heavenly Father in the garden, he would only have his devoted eleven chosen ones with him and I strongly believe, he knew this. His suggestion of acquiring a sword, to which they only produced two in Luke’s illustration; (keep in mind, they were not in a familiar housing, but someone else’s, which suggests to me, they were already there). Now two may not be enough to do battle, (however, those who came by night armed with swords and clubs didn’t know that), their presence would be just enough to stay them off. Had they had no defense at all, the mob may have grabbed them as well. Jesus was a loving preacher, but in this case, I believe he was wisely protecting them indirectly. Do you agree with this analogy?
I think the key issue is whether we are talking about the historical Jesus and what actually happened in his life or with the Jesus as portrayed in one of the Gospels — which I take not to be the same thing.
Didn’t the sword show up in all four gospels and only after his plea in the garden?
Yup and yup.
1) Do you think , “Those who live by the sword die the sword” to be a historical saying from Jesus? It lines up with his pacifism.
2) Did Jesus ever mention people who were in the military/or did work that may require violence? Would they still be able to follow him even if they had to break pacifism?
3) Paul says “To is for Christ and to die is gain”. Is this a hint that Paul considered suicide? I think he may be referring to dying as a Christian example rather than out of depression, etc .
1. Yup. 2. Nope. 3. I think so, yes. He’s considering whether to join Christ (as he later indicates, when he says he’s not sure which to do…)
I see. So this mostly likely to join Christ as martyr/example death rather than “giving up” on life?
Yes — or suicide more likely (since he couldn’t control what a Roman official would condemn him to)