There is nothing better than a guest blog post that flat-out disagrees with me!  And here we have one.  Is it plausible that Jesus could have had large crowds gathering together to hear his preaching in rural Galilee?  I say: Not really.   Platinum blog member Doug Wadeson says: Oh yes!

As you may know, blog members on the Platinum Tier are allowed to write posts for other Platinum members.  (Nice perk!  If you’re not a platinum member: take a look at it and see if you’re interested.  Just click JOIN [even if you belong already] and scroll to Platinum Tier and see).  Every few weeks other Platinum members vote on which recent Platinum post should be posted on the blog at large.  Doug’s won the prize.  

Here’s his post.  What do you think?

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On those few occasions when I have challenged something Dr. Ehrman has said he can usually shoot me down pretty quickly based on his range and depth of knowledge.  But I am going to try again.

Dr. Ehrman has suggested that one reason the stories of Jesus attracting and preaching to large crowds are unrealistic is because most people were too busy during the day eking out a living to be able to spend time listening to his sermons.  I have also heard him suggest that Jesus would have been too busy working as a laborer in Nazareth to have the time to travel to the city of Sepphoris, about 4 miles from Nazareth.  The significance of Sepphoris is that some speculate that if Jesus worked in that city he would have been exposed to more advanced culture and philosophy and that could have influenced his teachings.  So, did people have time to listen to Jesus, and did Jesus have time to visit places like Sepphoris?

The idea of preaching to large crowds did not start with Jesus, but with John the Baptizer: “And ALL the country of Judea was going out to him, and ALL the people of Jerusalem…” (Mark 1:5).  Let’s allow for some exaggeration here, but the idea is that large numbers of people went out to hear John preach.  The gospels continue that image with Jesus, as in the Sermon on the Mount: “Now when Jesus saw the crowds…” (Matthew 5:1), and particularly in the tales of his preaching to and then feeding large groups of people: “There were about five thousand men who ate, besides women and children” (Mathew 14:21), “And those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children” (Matthew 15:38).  Again, let’s allow for some exaggeration of the numbers but the idea is clearly that Jesus sometimes preached to large groups of people.  Is this realistic?

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