Steefen said
Yes, Robert, it is a radical idea and a conspiracy: not one United Methodist Church nor a Baptist Church and probably not a Catholic Church has preached this radical, conspiracy theory.
You have listed three Nicene Creed churches and observe that they do not preach an idea that appears to contradict the Nicene creed.
I mean, of course not? It doesn’t seem like multiplying the number of different Nicene Creed churches attended is going to change the observation. That’s kind of how a Creed works.
Robert:
Second search Bart’s Recent Posts and pull two or three posts he has written about this that you say I missed. We look forward to what you share.
Check out any of Bart’s posts about his book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, or perhaps just read the book itself. Why would I mislead you, Steefen? Have I ever misled you before?
Steefen:
The Search does not work today.
I tried “Heaven and Hell: A History”
I tried “Birth of Jesus”
I’m not getting results.
I tried a different browser with the same searches and nothing works.
Google AI worked when the Search function at The Bart Ehrman Blog did not.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, Bart Ehrman argues that the concept of souls immediately entering heaven or hell upon death was not taught by the historical Jesus. Instead, Ehrman contends that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who believed in a future bodily resurrection on earth.
- Apocalyptic View: Jesus taught that God would intervene to destroy evil, necessitating a resurrection of the dead to live in a restored kingdom on earth, not an immediate transition of souls to a disembodied heaven.
- Misconceptions: The ideas of immediate, disembodied heaven/hell were, according to Ehrman, later developments not shared by the historical Jesus.
- Contrast with Gospels: While the Gospel of Luke depicts Jesus mentioning paradise (e.g., to the thief on the cross), Ehrman generally interprets Jesus’s core message as focusing on the end-time judgment and restoration.
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So Ehrman is making a historical reconstruction claim that says, the biblical Jesus would be wrong to have said: into my Thy hands I commend my spirit, and Jesus would be wrong to have said: today you will be in Paradise when you finally die on the cross.
Bruce, the biblical Jesus said these two things is in the gospels first, not the Nicene Creed.
Bart’s historical reconstruction is NOT being expressed at Christian funerals.
Important nuance most people miss
Even in Judaism, Ehrman’s line isn’t airtight.
Second Temple Judaism already had multiple afterlife models:
- Resurrection at the end (Daniel)
- Souls kept in compartments (1 Enoch)
- Righteous spirits at rest with God (Wisdom of Solomon)
So the idea that no Jew could imagine a soul-conscious afterlife is overstated.
Luke may not be inventing something alien—he may be selecting one Jewish strand and placing it on Jesus’s lips.
Robert said
Steefen said
Important nuance most people miss
Even in Judaism, Ehrman’s line isn’t airtight.
Second Temple Judaism already had multiple afterlife models:
Resurrection at the end (Daniel)
Souls kept in compartments (1 Enoch)
Righteous spirits at rest with God (Wisdom of Solomon)
So the idea that no Jew could imagine a soul-conscious afterlife is overstated.It’s also not a fair representation of Bart’s view. He is well aware of the multiplicity of views existing during the 2nd-temple period. He refers explicitly to 1 Enoch, Daniel, andbl the Wisdom of Solomon. He was attempting to reconstruct the teaching of the historical Jesus, not making pronouncements on what any or all Jews thought or imagined at the time.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you want Bart to say the historical Jesus didn’t say what the biblical Jesus said or you want Bart to say the historical Jesus could have said what the biblical Jesus said.
Robert:
It is the most common opinion of historico-critical scholars. If, for example, you were to read the works of Bart Ehrman, the host of this blog, you would find this to be the common opinion of scholars that he popularizes for non-scholars such as yourself.
This started with you disagreeing that Jesus did not commend his spirit to the Heavenly Father and you disagreeing that Jesus said the crucified bandit/rebel would join him in Paradise.
Why did you disagree with the two gospel quotes?
Because Bart Ehrman revised Jesus from a gospel Jesus to an historical Jesus that was in line with historical criticism. That Jesus would not have had the duality understanding of body and soul only of body. Bodies do not immediately go to heaven.
Then you say it’s not necessarily so that an historical Jesus was locked in only to resurrection of the body.
Either you and Bart are rejecting the duality of the human and I need to read Bart’s book and posts about why Jesus could not have said the two biblical quotes or not. If you and Bart are not 100% rejecting the duality of the human being then your suggestion is not a valid criticism because since humans have spirits that exist after death in the afterlife, Jesus was telling the bandit/rebel that his consciousness/spirit was going to the afterlife where Jesus was going after he died on the cross. Jesus as the Son of God would make sure that he would go to Paradise where Jesus was going in the afterlife.
Steefen
Robert, your comment 16 says:
No, Steefen, this is neither a radical idea nor a conspiracy. It is the most common opinion of historico-critical scholars. If, for example, you were to read the works of Bart Ehrman, the host of this blog, you would find this to be the common opinion of scholars that he popularizes for non-scholars such as yourself.
Steefen
Robert you did not say the common scholarly opinion says there were a multiplicity of views, one of which radically contradictions the bible directly.
Second, you could have said, Ehrman and other scholars would want Christians to be aware of the possibility that the two verses would not have been uttered by an historical Jesus–possibly he did because there were a multiplicity of views and possibly he did not because the historical apocalyptic Jesus only held to the view of resurrection.
Then I could have said, store your treasures in heaven, life is not just earth-bound.
As what happened to Jesus’ contemporaries who would not die before the Son of Man came, they did die before the Son of Man came.
Store your treasures in Heaven beyond the space-time
or
Store your treasures in the future heaven of space-time when the Son of Man comes.
Steefen said
This started with you disagreeing that Jesus did not commend his spirit to the Heavenly Father and you disagreeing that Jesus said the crucified bandit/rebel would join him in Paradise.
Why did you disagree with the two gospel quotes?
No, I disagreed that the question in the gospels, ‘what profits a man to gain the world and lose one’s soul’, if attributed to the historical Jesus, need be interpreted in a dualistic neo-Platonic sense of ‘soul’ in opposition to the Hebrew bible. This teaching could fit well within apocalyptic Judaism with the traditional Hebrew understanding of nephesh.
Steefen:
No? Let’s look at it again, then.
Steefen:
There is at least two things on the lips of Jesus:
1) Don’t go for gains in this world at the expense of losing Heaven2) The soul can enter Paradise after the death of the body.
Robert:
The idea of entering Heaven or Paradise immediately after death was probably not shared by Jesus the apocalyptic preacher/teacher.
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Steefen:
So, Yes, this started with you disagreeing that a person could enter Paradise immediately after death even though by the authority of Jesus it would be so. You expressed a reasonable doubt (probability) and said it was an alternative to what appears in the gospels, common to historico-critical scholars and that I needed to read up on this because it’s in Bart’s book.
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