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Loading...Below is the third guest post by my colleague David Lambert, connected to his book How Repentance Became Biblical. For many readers of the blog, this will be the most important and interesting of them all. It deals with the historical Jesus. Did Jesus tell people that they needed to repent? You might think the answer is obvious….
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Did Jesus Preach Repentance?
In my past two posts, I argued that the concept of repentance, as we use it today and as it first developed within Judaism and Christianity, was not originally found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Now, it’s possible that you might be tempted by this argument to draw the conclusion that repentance is a specifically Christian concept. It’s important, however, to keep in mind that, even though repentance became very important to Christianity, it actually first developed in the context of late Second Temple Judaism shortly before the advent of Christianity. The concept, for instance, is alive and well in the writings of Ben Sira (also known as Ecclesiasticus) a text that was written by a Jew in the second century B.C.E. Nevertheless, in ancient Judaism repentance was not yet a fully established concept. It appeared in the writings of certain ancient Jews, like Ben Sira and Philo, but was strikingly absent from the writings of others, particularly those with a commitment to apocalypticism, such as the Dead Sea sect. Apocalyptic-minded Jews favored instead the notion that, at the end of days, there would be a divinely-orchestrated transformation of human nature, a concept that differs from repentance by strikingly locating all agency in the hands of God. In fact, they saw a promise of just such a transformation in Deuteronomy 30:6, which alludes to God circumcising Israel’s heart at some point in the future. No amount of human repentance could change human nature or alter the course of history. Humanity was just too rotten to the core, too overrun by powerful demonic forces, to save itself. Only some radical divine intervention would suffice.
Now, as Bart has made clear in his recent posts, understanding the history of Jewish apocalypticism is fundamental to understanding the development of the early Jesus movement. In fact, it’s not wrong to see it, at its earliest stage of development, as a Jewish apocalyptic sect. So, where did the early Jesus movement fall on the question of repentance?
On the face of it, there is a very simple answer: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” (Mark 1:14-15) However, deeper inspection reveals a number of problems. First of all, on the basis of this famous passage and its parallels in Matthew, scholars have often misunderstood the nature of ancient Jewish apocalypticism, claiming that a call to repentance in connection to the end of time is the norm rather than the exception. But, as I stated, this formulation looks like a later development that uses traditional apocalyptic language but departs considerably from its standard formulation that human transformation will only occur at the end of days through direct divine intervention.
More importantly, this statement, attributed to Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, does not seem to really fit what Mark goes on to describe elsewhere as Jesus’ main activities: healing, exorcism, and proclaiming the good news. All of these activities transpire without any allusion to repentance and do not seem to presuppose repentance. Jesus seems most keen on demonstrating the fact of the impending arrival of the kingdom of God, not on leveraging its arrival for the purpose of moral renewal or doctrinal change. In fact, we don’t hear of repentance again until Mark 6:12, when Jesus passes the torch, so to speak, to his disciples to carry on his mission.
Scholars have dealt with this problem of disconnect in several ways. It is often argued that the need for repentance is implicit in all of Jesus’ actions and teachings, even when it is not actually mentioned. This argument would have more weight if, in fact, the absence of repentance wasn’t entirely comprehensible, indeed, expected, in light of its absence in the apocalypticism of late Second Temple Judaism. Others assume the later editorial additions made by the author of Luke when they interpret the passages from Mark. So Jesus states in Mark 2:17: “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners,” but Luke adds: “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) But is it safe to assume that Jesus’ “calling of sinners” necessarily involved repentance, where other notions of group identity and even human transformation are available? Maybe, he’s gathering a group of sinners around him to heal them himself? Luke is clearly very interested in repentance, but were his earlier sources? Luke also, for instance, added repentance to the parable of the lost sheep, as we can tell from comparison of the text to the Gospel of Matthew. (Compare Matthew 18:12-14 with Luke 15:4-7.)
To return to Mark, the passage attributing the preaching of repentance to Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry (Mark 1:15) could be seen as an attempt to summarize or even interpret his later activity. It doesn’t necessarily fit the original content of that ministry, and the same can be said for the summary of the disciples’ mission given in Mark 6:12. That raises the real possibility that a concern for repentance was introduced later on as the Synoptic traditions grew and the early Jesus movement moved from an apocalyptic sect to a more established religious group. It needed a method for ensuring discipline within the community and a method for allowing individuals to join the community with relative ease. However, the most important point, here, in my view is not whether we can say with certainty that Jesus preached repentance or not but to point out that we’ve been overlooking some of the underlying diversity or gaps in the Gospel sources. Some of them privilege the concept of repentance, while others seem to do without it. In that respect, they would be exactly in keeping with the kind of range of interest in repentance that we see in late Second Temple Judaism.
For further discussion of relevant passages and, especially, the additional cases of John the Baptist and Paul, please see my new book!
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Even though Jesus doesn’t always say explicitly or upfront, “Repent!”, doesn’t he often tell someone after healing them or showing them mercy, “Go and sin no more.”? Isn’t that Jesus telling someone to repent in response to His/God’s action toward them?
Interesting question. Actually, that formulation appears only in John 8:11 and not elsewhere! What’s interesting is that we end up “hearing” that formulation in the back of our heads when we read all the other passages as well.
Is it possible that the increased emphasis on repentance stemmed from feelings of deep guilt and shame Jesus’ followers experienced after they allowed him to go alone to the cross?
It seems to me that Jesus was less concerned with repentance than with redemption. Did he feel people were fundamentally rotten? I think it was more that he felt the human world itself was too corrupted, and therefore had to change, in order for the best in humankind to flower. Not the world of nature, but the world of man.
He did clearly believe in personal transformation by faith, which for him was the Kingdom of God in miniature. He did believe you had to humble yourself to be exalted. This doesn’t mean he didn’t believe the Kingdom was coming soon. He did. But it would be more than just God imposing his will on the world. People had to want it. That’s why he was so encouraged when Non-Jews and sinners showed signs of faith. The potential is there, beneath the corrupted surface of humanity–it just needs to be brought out. People want to be saved, and somebody just has to show them the way. Set an example.
Actually, repentance doesn’t figure much as a concern among Jesus’ followers after the crucifixion. It’s directed outward, instead, particularly in Acts. There it is sometimes directed against the Jews, with the implication that they need to repent of their involvement in the death of Jesus.
I would agree that the primary concern in the earlier sources about Jesus’ life is much more consistently on redemption than any sort of moral or religious transformation. With regard to your last point, it is a matter of perspective, but I would argue that, in general, we moderns tend to accentuate human agency, the human role, beyond the original sources. What was expected was a sort of human acknowledgment of the events unfolding around them, but the idea of “wanting to be saved” may be a way of bringing more agency and freewill into the texts than they support. It’s certainly worth thinking through this more when we read these texts.
Do you think the apostles had a Calvinistic belief about salvation?
There were no Calvinists before Calvin.
Fascinating post! Thanks for taking the time to make these posts and answer comments. I’ve added your book to my Amazon wish list!
I might fly out to see you Bart and check out campus !
I’m A believer so you might feel gods presence around me
I would hold off on flying out to campus if I were you.
Prof Lambert
Very interesting. If we take the call to repentance in the sayings ascribed to Jesus as secondary in the tradition wouldn’t it follow that the ethical admonitions, for example the teachings recorded in the so-called “Sermon of the Mount”, are secondary as well?
thanks
Yes, potentially, but I think an argument needs to be made for each case. In theory, it would be possible to imagine a series of ethical admonishments without repentance. But it’s also possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a slightly different direction, not just as admonishment, but as an actual interpretation and reformulation of the Law.
Dr. Lambert, if you’re saying that Jesus’ (and John the Baptist’s) notion of repentence was much closer to that of contemporary Judaism than it was to that of Medieval Christianity — implying that Jesus wasn’t necessarily proclaiming radically new ideas — then I would say that’s most likely true. If that’s not what you’re saying, then, I’m afraid, I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying.
I think we need to put a few things into perspective. For one, did Jesus (and John) think God’s Kingdom was going to arrive within a matter of months, days, years, decades? If we’re talking months versus decades, then we’re talking about quite different reasons for repentence. I, for one, think Jesus (and John) believed God’s Kingdom was coming that very year of 30CE. (I have all sorts of circumstanial evidence that I won’t get into.)
Consequently, the idea that Jesus and his followers alone could bring the message of repentence to the entire world in that time frame would seem just as ludicrous to them as it does to us. Clearly, Jesus and his band thought that they were only one of possibly several groups — the so-called Elect — (e.g. John the Baptist’s followers) who would be saved on Judgment Day. If that’s the case, then Jesus and his early followers weren’t particularly special in that regard. They were only one of many groups who believed that they had effectively repented and, therefore, were saved from oblivion. Now, taking that into consideration, Jesus’ notion of repentence would be pretty far removed from that of not only Medieval Christianity but from the gospels themselves, which, by the time they were written, assumed that the saving message of Jesus would, indeed, have enough time to spread throughout the whole world, and the christian notion of repentence evolved in light of that fact.
I don’t agree with this at all. Jesus clearly showed that he thought anyone of good will who had faith could be saved, including non-Jews. Story after story. His ministry was primarily to the Jews, but he would hardly be telling the disciples they’d be rulers in the Kingdom if there was no Kingdom to be ruled OVER. If only a handful would survive, there would be no kings, no thrones, no nations.
God is coming to reshape the world, not end it. To create a situation where people of good will and faith can prosper, instead of evil men.
That’s what the Jesus of the gospels seems to think. But for the Jesus of history, it’s very unlikely he cared much what the gentiles believed. Jesus probably thought the Jews — God’s people — were going to rule the world upon the coming Kingdom, and that includes ruling over whomever gentiles so happened to remain. In fact, I would conjecture that the only reason men such as Paul were sent out by the Jerusalem church to mission to the gentiles was because the Jerusalem church came to believe — after years of Jesus failing to return — that a number of “righteous” gentiles needed to be brought into the church so that Jesus would have a kingdom to rule over after he returned. In other words, the mission to the gentiles was merely self-serving on the part of the Jewish-Christians, and it’s highly unlikely the Jewish-Christians had any feelings beyond ambivalence for Gentile-Christians. And that’s why the Jesus of the gospels (conveniently) seems to care about the gentiles (under a pretense).
What I suggested is that Jesus may not have preached repentance at all. He emphasized the arrival of the kingdom of god. Some people saw that too, joined the movement, and would be redeemed. Others didn’t. Repentance didn’t figure into the language of most of the sources portraying Jesus’ activities, especially the early ones, and doesn’t seem to have been the point. I’m raising this reading as a counterbalance to the majority of scholars who just assume, without thinking through it critically, that Jesus was all about the preaching of repentance.
Ah, okay. I see what you’re saying. I agree somewhat. I think Jesus did preach repentence — in the Jewish sense, not in the Christian sense — but only to those disciples who came to him thinking he was a prophet already. That is to say, Jesus’ main pretense was as a prophet, and when he gained a following as a prophet, he pretended to divulge secret knowledge to his followers, one bit of which was this notion of “returning” to God — a notion that likely included proper Torah observance; a continual, earnest appeal to God for salvation (cf. Krishna’s preaching to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita that Arjuna must continually keep the Lord Vishnu in mind in order to reach the highest level of Nirvana upon death); and a total rejection of this corrupt world, including unrepentant friends and family. This is probably what Jesus meant by repentence in the short term, seeing as how Jesus probably thought the Kingdom was arriving in months if not weeks or days.
So by the time the gospels were written, the idea of repentance was moving back into the theology of Christianity because the “end” had not come ( as Jesus preached); therefore, people had to repent for the sins they committed in order to be saved. Is that right?
My sense is that when an apocalyptic sect expecting the immanent end of the world needs to mature into a more established church it runs into a problem with the continued sinful behavior of its adherents. At that point, a concept like repentance becomes very useful.
My understanding is that Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptizer, so he believed the coming of the kingdom of God was at hand, and therefore people who wanted to be a part of that kingdom needed to start behaving correctly. I think you can call this “repentance.” Is this consistent with your understanding of the situation? (Just signed up for your seminar at UNC in April!)
The relationship between John and Jesus is a huge, complex topic. Certainly, in the Gospel of Matthew, there is a complete parity in what they are preaching. But Matthew represents a certain expansion of what’s found earlier in Mark with regard to repentance and the end time, so the situation is complex. In short, I think that, at early hypothetical stage, it seems quite likely that the sense was of simply an end coming. This end was arriving independent of any particular change of behavior. Furthermore, whether you were in the kingdom or out didn’t necessarily depend on your transforming yourself morally as much as fate and belonging to the right sect.
You stated in an earlier post that repentance was more of a physical act than an attitude change but what about Isaiah 55:7? “Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts.” That seems to indicate that the return to the Lord begins in the mind.
Also, before Jesus’ ministry begins in Mark, John the Baptist is preaching repentance. After he’s put in prison, we read that Jesus’ first message is about repenting and believing the good news. If repentance wasn’t already an accepted concept, what was the point in John baptizing people?
Good question about Isaiah 55:7! This is another issue of translation. The Hebrew for “thoughts” here actually means something like “plans,” as in plots to destroy other and wrongfully appropriate their property. So these are concrete plans that are already out there and present in the world. It’s not simply an issue of intention or mind.
The baptism question is great too. It turns out that baptism most often, from Qumran to Paul, is associated not with repentance but with the concept of divine re-creation of human nature that I discussed. The waters change who you are. It’s only a later rationalistic interpretation that suggests that it’s really your intention that changes you and the waters are *just* symbolic.
So if “Apocalyptic-minded Jews favored instead the notion that, at the end of days, there would be a divinely-orchestrated transformation of human nature, ” to whom did this transformation occur? As I understood apocalypticism, after the end times there were two sets of people: 1) the faithful enjoying Gods Kingdom on earth and 2) the rest who are wherever teeth gnash a lot. Were the faithful transformed or was there to be an in between category?
I think the members of a sect, like the one we know of from the Dead Sea discoveries, believed that they alone would participate in this transformation. Indeed, they believed that they would attain a status close to that of the angels. The rest of Israel and non-Israelites just wouldn’t be a part of that process. That’s right.
Another thought-provoking post. Thanks. I assume that your contention would be that when the Jews in the Old Testament are repeatedly described as straying from God and being punished by God and then being given another chance that this had nothing to do with repentance. Interesting. It is certainly clear from Dr. Ehrman’s upcoming book that an author’s or reader’s view of the past is influenced by his/her present views.
Exactly. Our reading of the Hebrew Bible and other texts are colored by our own theological and moral commitments to the concept of repentance.
“22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”
Doctor Ehrman
can you explain the difference between “as one having authority” and “authority from my own self”
the words i have put in quotations cannot be conflated right? this verse is used as evidence that jesus = yhwh because jesus is teaching from his own authority, but i don’t see how “as one having” authority means “his own authority”
in other places , jesus say,
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
that does not mean that our “perfect” is 100% identical to the fathers ” perfect,”
right? so how can “as one having authority” mean “jesus’ authority”
This series takes for granted that repentance is important in post-Biblical Christianity, but to what extent is that really true? Repentence in Christianity is often understood in terms of submission to the transformational power of God, rather than in terms of vigilent conscious effort to learn from past mistakes as in the quote from Plutarch. Arguably, the more that repentence has to do with conscious mental vigilence, the less it has to do with religion.
David writes that Jesus is not very interested in “leveraging [the Kingdom’s] arrival for the purpose of moral renewal”. This rubs against the grain of much of what Bart has said about the historical Jesus, and I wonder to what extent David and Bart are in agreement here.
If I understand DAvid’s words quoted here correctly, then yes, I disagree. I think the imminence of God’s kingdom was precisely a ground for moral renewal.