I’m trying to decide whether I believe in the divinity of Jesus or not. I.e whether I believe in the God of the Christian Bible. One of the biggest causes of doubt for me is the idea that Jesus may have wrongly predicted the end of the world during his generation.
Does the following article raise any doubts about Ehrman’s view on Jesus’ predicting apocalypse during his generation? ** you do not have permission to see this link **
And what do you make of the following counter-argument to Ehrman’s view: That the end-times was about the end of the old covenant and the temple rather than the end of the world?
That is a terrible article, written by an unqualified blogger, and he doesn’t seem to have carefully read Bart’s books (assuming he’s read them at all). He mentions Reza Aslan in the same breath, ignoring the fact that Bart has dismissed Aslan’s book as sensationalist nonsense.
Bart did not say Jesus believed God would kill all the Romans. The point is that Jesus believed God (or the Son of Man) would destroy all the people of ill will, the goats, the chaff–whether they were pagan or Jewish–leaving all people of good will (the sheep, the wheat) to live in peace and brotherhood forever.
He believed many among the sheep would not be Jewish. The judgment was based on how you lived your life, nothing else. Seems like Hutchison has a hard time processing this, since he’s been programmed to believe God only cares what church you go to, and whether you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior. Jesus understood very well that even most people in Palestine, had never heard of him, and that there wasn’t time for him to preach the coming of the Kingdom to everyone. But God could know the deeds and character of everyone, everywhere, and that would be the criteria which which each was saved or doomed (not damned, because Jesus didn’t believe in Hell).
The temple wasn’t destroyed when Jesus died, but decades later, by the Romans. How is this a fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy? All the more since there’s good reason to believe that the words attributed to Jesus about its destruction were written after the temple’s destruction. Paul says nothing about this. Mark does have him say not one stone will be left on another–but you only have to visit Jerusalem today to know that isn’t true. There are still lots of stones standing on other stones, and Jews from all over the world go there to pray at the Wailing Wall. If Jesus did talk about the temple’s destruction, he did after all know that the previous one had been destroyed, and he was not a big fan of the Herodians, who had finished building the new one, or of the temple priesthood, who were opponents of his, and instrumental in his death.
His point was that Jewish or Pagan, you had best mend your ways, because the end was coming soon–not of the world. The end of vainglorious empires, and of the evil and powerful preying on the good and meek. The Kingdom of God would be people living on this world, but no longer oppressed and exploited by people of bad character. And no, that did not happen. And if you believe the other version–well, that says Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead, and he clearly didn’t mean thousands of years later. Revelation was written by someone who was talking about events he thought were coming soon as well–and the Antichrist was the Emperor Nero. It is a huge mistake to take this type of writing literally. As the endless failed apocalyptic preachers who have said “NOW IS THE TIME” have proven, over and over again. The world may end before our sun burns out, but if it does, it’ll be us doing it (or possibly an asteroid).
John Dominic Crossan has said “Jesus didn’t ascend to heaven, he was eaten by dogs.” He has unconventional and often interesting ideas (that scholars can respect, even while not being convinced by them), but you can’t quote someone like that to substantiate fundamentalist religious views. It’s dishonest. Crossan would laugh at this man’s ignorance.
When people of this ilk talk about ‘the old covenant’ it’s veiled anti-semitism. The Jews were the Chosen, but no longer, because they failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah. But Jesus’ problem with the religious and secular leaders of his people were quite similar (not identical) to those of the Old Testament prophets–that they were not living as God wished. And if he’d lived to see Christianity (a religion he never set out to create), he’d have said the same about many Christians as well. By their fruits shall ye know them and nothing else.
Whether you believe in the divinity of Jesus or not, you should at least pay heed to his actual words, not the words people put in his mouth, and the false meanings they ascribe to them, in order to justify their own shabby deeds and bigotry.
vt97john said
I’m trying to decide whether I believe in the divinity of Jesus or not. I.e whether I believe in the God of the Christian Bible. One of the biggest causes of doubt for me is the idea that Jesus may have wrongly predicted the end of the world during his generation.Does the following article raise any doubts about Ehrman’s view on Jesus’ predicting apocalypse during his generation? ** you do not have permission to see this link **
And what do you make of the following counter-argument to Ehrman’s view: That the end-times was about the end of the old covenant and the temple rather than the end of the world?
I always interpreted that language as Jesus saying we don’t know when we will die and we will be judged. But I recognize that interpretation has problems.
Generally speaking the gospel accounts are not clear at all on this. Why is the person next to Jesus going to be with Jesus in heaven that day. Was his body resurrected?
The afterlife and the timing of judgement and how that works is far from clear.
Lots of Paul’s writing seems to suggest that he anticipates the resurrection will happen soon.
Regarding what Jesus said to the penitent thief–that’s only in Luke, and it does not sound like a conversation two people dying on crosses would have. It’s a made-up story about something that really did happen (the crucifixion). As it became increasingly clear that the Kingdom was not coming soon, Christians began to think more in terms of the afterlife, but Jesus pretty clearly was not talking about the afterlife. So they told stories that made it easier to explain to pagan converts why they should believe in Jesus, even though his most important prophecy had been proven false. Since pagans already believed in heaven and hell (as Jews mainly didn’t), it isn’t at all surprising that the story got retconned.
Jesus obviously believed heaven existed, and God is there with the angels. Maybe he believed he was going there, but not as a final reward, but rather as a sacrifice–he’d have much rather stayed on earth and gone on living in physical form. Or else why is he praying for the cup to pass him by? Why is he so afraid? Because he’s a man, and he’d like to go on being a man–but he believes he has to sacrifice his earthly life–and give up the Kingdom–so that others may have life and have it more abundantly.
You can interpret it different ways, but it seems pretty clear Jesus believed the Son of Man was going to come in the lifetimes of those he was talking to. When that did not happen, Christians added new elements to the story to explain it away.
As I said I don’t think the gospel accounts are at all clear on how or when this will work. Certain Scholars will of course try to argue that later Christians just made up stories because Jesus did not come. And there are valid reasons supporting that belief.
But if you read Mark 13 you see that many things are said to have to take place and you also read that not even the son knows the time. So the theory is that Mark added many of those things even though he decided to leave in the part of this generation shall not pass away. It is indeed quite a bit of speculation on the part of anyone who claims to be certain that Jesus gave a specific time.
So what you’re saying is we can’t be certain of anything? This does not seem to me a statement of faith. 😉
Jesus is saying that only God knows the exact moment in time the Kingdom will come. Even the angels in heaven don’t know–and ‘the son’ in this context refers to the Son of Man, who isn’t Jesus, but a divine being in heaven, subordinate to God, subject to God’s will. (Did Jesus really go around referring to himself in the third person all the time?)
The Father alone knows, but Jesus believes he has been told the moment is coming soon, within the lifetimes of those he’s talking to. Otherwise his urgency makes no sense. That is made very very clear, and why would those words be in there if he hadn’t said them? Why would they put proof Jesus was wrong into the gospels? They try to come up with workarounds, sure. But they kept those words, because he was known to have said those words, probably many times. It was widely known, and impossible to deny. It was the very essence of early Christianity to live every day as if the Kingdom might come. Because no man knows the hour, but the hour is near. It’s still part of Christianity, to this very day. But only among Christians who still believe the final judgment could happen any day. Even though if Jesus had been right, it would have come a bit less than two millennia ago.
You say scholars are wrong to say Christians made up stories later, but it seems like you’re saying Mark added things as well. (That last paragraph you typed is a bit incoherent). Do you believe there are things in Mark that Jesus did not say, did not do? Are you a smorgasbord gospel reader, joe? 😉
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