In my previous post I talked about whether Jesus could read. I came out with a definitely answer: Maybe. And that brought to mind a related question I often get asked: could Jesus write?
I posted on this a few years ago, and thought it’d be relevant to do it again. This will take a couple of posts. I had been asked about ancient “forgeries” — when authors would write claiming to be someone famous. Do we have any ancient works that claim to be written by Jesus?
Answer this time: Yes indeed, there is a one-time famous correspondence between Jesus and a king who lived in Edessa in Syria named Abgar. I translated it for the book I published (on all earliest Christian Gospels) with my colleague Zlatko Plese, called The Other Gospels. Here is what I say there about the letters (the one from Abgar to Jesus, then his response); at the end of the post I give my new translations of the two letters.
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Jesus’ Correspondence with Abgar
The apocryphal correspondence between Jesus and Abgar Uchama (= “the Black”), king of Edessa in eastern Syria (4 BCE – 7 CE and 13-50 CE) is first mentioned in Eusebius (Church History, 1. 13. 5). Eusebius claims to have found the letters in the archives of Edessa and to have translated them literally from their original Syriac into Greek. The first is a short letter from the king, acknowledging Jesus’ miracle working powers and asking him to come to Edessa to heal him of his illness and, at the same time, to escape the animosity of the Jews in his homeland. In his reply, Jesus blesses Abgar for “believing without seeing” (an allusion to John 20:29), but informs the king that he cannot come because he needs to fulfill his mission, that is, by being crucified. After his ascension, however, he will send an apostle to heal the king.
This is the first instance of an apocryphal letter written in…To see more about this intriguing issue, you will need to belong to the blog. If you don’t belong yet, now’s a good time to join. You get five posts a week, for very little expense. And every penny you pay goes to charity. So why not?? Click here for membership options
There’s also a relic associated with this story called the Image of Edessa, which is a piece of cloth with the face of Jesus miraculously imprinted. In fact, we have two different versions that both claim to be this piece of cloth – one in Genoa and one in Rome.
OT, but I’m posting this here at Bart’s invitation, as I can’t make this Sunday’s lecture and won’t be able to ask it then:
Did the author of Revelation write it to show that the timing of the parousia was based on the Roman persecutions of Christians for their faith – and thus as a way of explaining why it hadn’t occurred right after Jesus’s resurrection?
It’s interesting that in the 3 major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the founders/prophets (in the case of Christianity the Son of God no less) did not leave us any writings, but rather their teachings had to be compiled and written by later disciples. The evidence is against Moses being the author of the Pentateuch. Jesus bided his time for 30 years or so but left no writings with any credibility. Muhammad was said to be illiterate and supposedly dictated to scribes (“Quran” means “recitation”) or the scribes wrote from memory later on. Apparently the gods don’t want us to rely on primary sources for our beliefs! Most curious.
Speaking of primary sources, I just came across this news about the Dead Sea Scrolls:
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-code-dead-sea-scrolls.html
“The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered some 70 years ago, are famous for containing the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and many hitherto unknown ancient Jewish texts. But the individual people behind the scrolls have eluded scientists, because the scribes are anonymous. Now, by combining the sciences and the humanities, University of Groningen researchers have cracked the code, which enables them to discover the scribes behind the scrolls. They presented their results in the journal PLOS ONE on 21 April.”
Hmm… Wonder what that could possibly mean….
I read this just now
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/who-wrote-the-dead-sea-scrolls-digital-handwriting-analysis-and-artificial-intelligence-offer-new-clues/ar-BB1fTXMM?ocid=msedgdhp
It seems the Great Isaiah Scroll was written by TWO DIFFERENT SCRIBES.
Of course, this changes everything.
Interesting. What does it change?
I detect some snark in Poohbear’s comments. But in any case, I also don’t see what the big deal is about discovering different scribal hands at work in the scrolls. Proving one individual copied the whole thing would have been a more remarkable find, imho. The actual lede was that they got the computer to distinguish between two separate scribal hands — which is interesting/impressive, I guess — and the media got a hold of it and was like “OMG! Dead Sea Scrolls Copied By Multiple Scribes!! Stop the presses!” The authors of the article also seemed eager to encourage the notion that this was some kind of huge breakthrough as well, however.
I think the idea in this case is that since the Isaiah scroll is so much like copies of Isaiah a thousand years later, it’s interesting that it was not simply the work of one isolated scribe.
Have you ever heard of Jews for Judaism or Rabbi Michael Skobac? You and he would have a great time together and I’d love to listen to the conversation. He knows the NT very well because the organization is to counter Christian missionary attempts to convert Jews and many of the founders were former Messianic or Jews of Jesus. So, they know their NT well. Pretty fascinating to this little former Baptist boy.
I actually discovered you on the YouTube playlist brought up when I was researching what Judaism teaches from a Jewish perspective.
Learning a lot and having a great time reading what you have to say. Your debates are awesome. Thanks for putting hard things easy to understand to a guy like me.
I don’t recall that I have!
Nothing
I picked up the JPS Jewish Study Bible (the Tanakh they use in the synagogues by at least the reformed, conservative and maybe more orthodox Judaism these days) and the introduction to Isaiah says there was Isaiah in the first part and a person or persons they call “second Isaiah” and possibly a third. That was news to me who only was taught what Jews believed by Christians. They seem to accept it with no problem or questioning of the value of it.
Yes, it’s the standard view among scholars, with very persuasive evidence behind it.
Greetings Bart,
I am not3 going up to this feast,
10 But after ahis brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
quote:
“He doesn’t go up as the Christ but only as a preacher not revealing who he truly is. “
end quote
does “he also went up, not publicly” mean “he also went up, publicly, not manifesting who he truly is ”
apologists want the text to read “he also went up, not manifesting who he truly is ”
can you tell me if the text can be read like this?
Most John scholars consider this to be a problem text that is not really reconcileable. He says he won’t go. Then he goes. You can see why apologists would want to make it mean something it doesn’t actually say.
Sorting out what is fact and what is myth in the Canonical Gospels and the apocrypha is challenging to the critical historian. Of course Yeshua was educated and literate. Had he written to Abgar it would have been in Judean Aramaic in a Herodian hand.
I may be in the wrong area here so I will comment on the Book of John. I have concluded that there was a smaller “proto-John” in Aramaic written in the 40s or 50s. Yes, prior to Mark. If Yohanan Bar Zebedy wrote it can only be conjecture. If he did it had to have been prior to 62 CE when he was killed. I think this book was used as a template in translation to Greek for the highly Christological version in the Canon. Proto-John is still embedded in the Canonical work and began at wahada hy sahadutha d’yohanan which could be where the title came from. The problem with blogs is this would take hours of conversation and a gallon of coffee.
The name Abgar Uchama is similar to the name of an ethiopian king(najashi) Ashama son of abgar. I dont know whats the connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najashi
I think during Jesus peace be upon him mission All jews considered him a Prophet just like any other prophet. however some jews decided to believe in Him and support Him. Some jews decided to not believe in him and accused him and went against him.
Then after jesus peace be upon him ascension. i think People divided into three Groups.
group one said Jesus is God Himself
group two said jesus is God’s son
group three said Jesus is the messiah(Prophet) sent by god just like any other prophet.
Thats why I think Abgar Uchama following statement below is suspicious because he mentioned only two groups so my view is that the letter was written after jesus ascension or Abgar Uchama letter was edited. Because jesus response should include clarification to who he is a son of god or God or both or was just a human prophet sent by God.
“concluded one of two things: either you are God and do these things having descended from heaven, or you do them as the Son of God.”