Robert said
Neurotheologian said
.. Coming back to my Question 3. ‘Did you somehow know in advance that you were going to be crucified, if so when?’, I have come across a few more verses in Mark which, although could be interpreted as after-the fact ‘distorted memories’, are nevertheless encouraging: Mk 10:33 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles; Mk 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many; Mk 14:41 And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
The repeated death and resurrection predictions are usually seen as a Markan literary motif, ‘though of course no one can deny that the historical Jesus should have been able to see the writing on the wall at some point. Perhaps the single most crucial point is the last supper. It is the oldest extant narrative we have about Jesus, being found already in 1 Cor 11, but I suspect the majority of critical scholars probably tend toward scepticism about its historicity. Bart has said he goes back and forth on this question. It illustrates the difficulty with all attempts at reconstructing an historical Jesus. The very earliest accounts are already imbued with the theological reflections of the post-Easter communities. The Jesus traditions that survived are all mediated to us through these churches and their views. To some extent at least some of these communities were formed or at least influenced to some degree by a few people who had actually known Jesus. Paul did not know Jesus personally, but I believe the communities and the charity they practiced for each other and others were to some extent intended to carry on some of the basic ethical teachings of Jesus. This is probably a more important implicit legacy than the theologicizing contained in much of Paul’s letters. One can still find hints of Jesus’ own teachings in Paul, but they are nearly totally eclipsed by Paul’s own teachings about Jesus.
I’m skeptical that the Last Supper happened exactly as described, but c’mon, they had to eat. And he had to know his time was nearly up. The interesting question is whether he and Judas had some arrangement the others weren’t in on (Jesus taking control of the narrative, trying to make sure the Passion Play was stage-managed correctly), but that does seem like the kind of twist a writer would dream up. Of course, so does much of what’s going on in the world now.
It’s not the most important thing. We have the essence of his teachings, and they are just as meaningful today as they were then if not more. And we’re just as reluctant to follow them, if not more.
But isn’t it more likely that the so-called “Last Supper” was simply a Passover Seder which was mythologized in consequence of later events? I think it’s safe to say that all pre-Easter memories of Jesus were filtered through the consequence of later events. Which is why the occasional outlier sticks out like a sore thumb. Take the story in Mark of Jesus sending out the disciples two by two to preach and teach. What exactly were they preaching? Not the salvation through Jesus’ death because he hasn’t even told them about that yet. No, they were calling for repentance in light of the imminent Kingdom of God. Here we have a glimpse of the pre-Easter historical Jesus.
I’m not Jewish, but I live in New York, and my impression is that most Passover seders get mythologized to a certain extent. 😉
Again, I agree it was mythologized, but I think Jesus probably began that process himself, quite consciously, because he could see the walls closing in on him.
There are too many instances of Jesus referring to his impending death before the Last Supper to be just mythologizing. And there are many instances in modern history of people foreseeing their deaths–Martin Luther King Jr, for example. “I may not get there with you.” That was filmed. But if the film were lost, and people read about it a thousand years from now, I’m sure there would be those saying it was just too much to believe that he’d said those words the day before he was shot. Doesn’t mean he knew it would happen at that moment. But he could feel something coming. And he’d read the gospels many times.
Jesus didn’t know exactly what would happen. He knew something would. He was maybe starting to feel doubts about the Kingdom coming on schedule. So maybe he painted himself into a corner, just to see if God would intervene–or if his death would bring about the transformation (Passover is about offering a sacrifice to God).
The least likely alternative is that he expected to do what he did in Jerusalem, at Passover, and walk away unscathed. He was daring them to come get him, and they did.
Robert said
Stephen said
But isn’t it more likely that the so-called “Last Supper” was simply a Passover Seder which was mythologized in consequence of later events? I think it’s safe to say that all pre-Easter memories of Jesus were filtered through the consequence of later events. …That’s the main problem with trying to reconstruct an historical Jesus. Everything we have is mediated through post-Easter communities. Trying to get back to earlier views of Jesus, either his own or those of his contemporaries is very speculative.
This is the problem with the entire field of historical study. Not just Jesus. We read what we know happened later into what happened earlier. Teleology. Don’t make it just about religious people. It’s everybody. It’s you and me.
Huh–look at the origins of Mormonism and Scientology. How far do you think we’ve come? Doesn’t seem like progress to me–Jesus wasn’t in it for the money (or extra wives). Not the worst examples I could name.
The point of religion is never objectivity. 25 years after Jesus was crucified, most people had forgotten him, if they ever knew about him to begin with–meaning that the only people telling the story are those predisposed to believe in the miraculous (though to some extent, everyone back then was).
Paul was probably responding to what he’d heard from Christians, some of it probably while he was still trying to whip up opposition to them. It would have been nice if he’d mentioned some of the books he’d read (that we don’t have now). Clearly the story was still in flux, since he speaks of hundreds of people seeing Jesus resurrected. Paul’s opinion of Jesus being a divine pre-existent being was not, I believe, the majority view at the time he wrote, which is attested to by the synoptic gospels.
It’s not such a big chasm when you consider that Plutarch is seriously considering whether Romulus and Remus were suckled by wolves. (He never seems to seriously ponder whether they existed at all.)
Don’t view early Christianity in a vacuum. The ancient world was not a hotbed of documentary realism. And we are, after all, living in the age of ‘Fake News.’ 😉
I don’t think you got any of my points–we’re talking about historical veracity, and as Bart has repeatedly stated, we have a better than average amount of information about Jesus and early Christianity for this time period.
I didn’t take it as criticism of early Christianity. But since nobody except Christians was paying much attention in the early stages (Paul was, but we have no writings of his from before his conversion), we’re left with a lot of gaps, since it’s better to have multiple sides of the story. That’s the problem. That only Christians cared, and anti-Christian thought didn’t have enough of a base to generate enough copies of their books to survive the ages. Anyway, those books came so much later, they wouldn’t tell us all that much.
The historical Jesus, you say? People still debate who the historical LINCOLN was. I work in a library, remember–the books cross my desk all the time. He was great, he was awful, he was racist, he was anti-racist, he knew just what he was doing, he was making it up as he went along. You have no idea. Because believe it or not, modern historians don’t make a reputation by saying the same thing as everybody else. Ya gotta have a gimmick, like the strippers said to Gypsy Rose Lee. Nothing ever gets resolved for good. Ever.
If the goal is to know beyond a doubt what he said and did–then the goal is silly. We don’t know that much about anybody. You get a ballpark idea, and you work on it. In the meantime, has anybody found Augustus’ memoirs? You’d think somebody would have saved a copy.
Because there’s still a lot we don’t know about their origins, even though they originated in modern times, in the midst of modern journalism.
Lincoln was mythologized just as quickly as Jesus, if less completely–as was Washington–and they are pretty much treated as pre-existent divine beings, particularly when it’s time for stores to move a lot of merchandise. 😉
The difference is that we do have writings from them, and people who knew them. They were famous in their own time, not just afterwards, and in a time when literacy and libraries were common.
And yet, so many gaps–Lincoln’s boyhood is pretty much a blur, which various early biographers tried to fill, creating more dubious stories. Lincoln did not choose to write a great deal about his origins (though his collected writings are voluminous).
How many Roman emperors were worshiped as gods? You want to say they didn’t take that literally? Tell that to Christians who didn’t want to sacrifice to them. Alexander the Great was creating the idea of himself as a god while he was still alive. EVERYBODY believed in the supernatural, and blurred the lines between mythology and reality.
Again, projecting modern ideas of historical objectivity and scientific materialism backwards in time, where they didn’t exist yet.
Well yes, we’re agreed that the things we don’t know remain unknown. Good point. 🙂
Bart would say, I think, that while there’s much we can only speculate about, and will go on speculating about for the forseeable future, we have increased our understanding of him by seeing the divinization process more clearly, and in seeing it, we are better equipped to allow for it. It didn’t happen all at once, and we can see the stages his followers and their successors went through, as they looked for answers of their own. Because his life was a mystery to them as well, can’t you see? They were trying to figure out what had just happened, even though they were there to see it. And then others continued their quest for understanding, without having personal memories of the actual Jesus to work with.
And yes, it’s different from studying other historical figures.
And yet, not so very different, because this is what always happens when somebody makes a sound in this world.
You just see it more clearly here, because a lot of people still worship him.
But don’t we know far more about him than most other ancient religious figures? Buddha–Zoroaster–Lao Tzu–the founders of Judaism and Hinduism are so long ago, we really know nothing about them at all. Muhammad is exceptionally problematic, because Islam has not yet reached the point where it wants to seriously contemplate its origins (may that day someday come).
Because we have so many writings about Jesus from so short a time after his death, we do in fact have a wealth of information. Far more than you’d expect, under the circumstances. But we just keep thinking there ought to be more. Why? Amazing there’s any at all. Amazing we’re having this conversation. He was an obscure penniless self-made rabbi, who never had more than a handful of followers, and was crucified as a criminal.
And he became the cornerstone of western civilization, and is still making inroads in the oddest of places. Did you see Crazy Rich Asians? The male lead’s mother is shown studying the gospels with her circle of friends and hangers-on–in Shanghai. Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds in China–which is bidding fair to overtake the west as the center of world civilization.
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. Faulkner.
Oh, I wasn’t saying watch it. I didn’t watch the whole thing myself. It’s a very cheesy standard romcom, though skillfully executed, in a pan-Chinese setting, which is the interesting thing about it. The bible study meeting is a bit ironic, the participants being crazy rich and all. But Christianity very early on developed this upward mobility contingent–one of the very weirdest aspects of its development, that remains to this day. Rich folks like being told they’re camels trying to get through the eye of a needle. Turns ’em on. Go figger.
I’ve posted a comment on the ‘Plato’s impaled man’ topic stream that attempts to tie the Markian ‘messianic secret’ to my most vexing question to Jesus (Q3: Did you know you were going to be crucified [and die] and, if so, then when [did you know]?) as well as linking it with Judas’s betrayal, to the concept of fullfilling righteousness and to the question of whether we ultimately view the historical Jesus as a failure or as a succcess.
A failure on his own terms, certainly. Christianity is not what he had in mind, and this world is not the Kingdom he imagined. He aspired to more than he could achieve.
And if you look honestly at all the people who left a lasting mark on history, that would be equally true. All of them are failures on their own terms. Because none of them could foresee everything–they spoke their individual truths, did what they thought was right, and died with their most important dreams unfulfilled. (A story of perfect success, you know, is a very boring story. Ask any screenwriter.)
The Jesus of faith wouldn’t exist without the historical Jesus to inspire that faith. If he hadn’t been a remarkable person with remarkable insights, killing him would have meant either his followers drifting apart, or creating a shortlived unimportant cult, like so many others that withered on the vine.
Furthermore, why did John the Baptist’s cult ultimately fail? Wasn’t John the Baptist remarkable too? Jesus found him deeply inspiring, he was probably more famous in their shared lifetimes–but it seems that John didn’t choose his followers as well as Jesus did, nor was his evangel as inclusive, or open to change.
Jesus seems to have had an instinct for picking those with a gift for evangelism. And they in turn found others–and even Paul, whose conversion came as a surprise to everyone, was inspired to convert by the fervor of these early Christians, many of whom had known Jesus. Christianity attracted talented outsiders, without which it would not have survived. It adapted itself to many time and places, mutated into new forms, while still having the real Jesus at its core–where we can still see him looking out at us questioningly, if we look hard enough.
We can’t even know how much of Jesus’ thought came from John, because John’s followers didn’t preserve his ideas. Jesus’ followers did, but with the agenda of promoting their cult at the expense of John’s.
It’s a commonplace to say Jesus was a failure in his own lifetime–and it’s part of Christian dogma–“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Used to say those words in church. And unlike many other words I said in church, I still believe that’s true. And it looks to remain true for a long time to come.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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