with much reluctance, let me posit a reason Dr Ehrman thinks Jesus believed in annihilation
Dr Ehrman believes (and has for a long time) the Kingdom of God that Jesus felt was near is a transformed earth where there is No death, No disease, No hate, No earthquakes, No Hunger, No floods, No bad stuff. In other words he thinks Jesus believed in a fairy tale earth, He also does not appear to think that Jesus believed in heavenly realm of the deceased, what we now refer to as “Heaven”, And so all the righteous, including even physically resurrected righteous, reside eternally on the transformed ‘fairy tale’ earth, not in “Heaven”, in Dr Ehrman’s understanding of Jesus.
if that is the case, that no eternal heavenly spirit realm for ‘good’ human beings exist, then well, it would not be reasonable to think or imagine Jesus envisioned an eternal hellish spiritual realm for the bad guys. and so the only destiny for sinners, as they most certainly cannot remain on this beautiful fairy tale planet earth planet, must be annihilation.
let me repeat that this is my pure speculation, if I have misrepresented Dr Ehrman’s personal views or Dr Ehrman’s portrayal of Jesus’ view, my apologies
If I ever find myself intending to communicate the deepest, most impactful truths on which humanity’s eternal fate hangs, I must make a note for myself: “Avoid cryptic, truncated illustrations which can easily be interpreted in mutually exclusive ways by intelligent and earnest people.”
Hngerhman said
If I ever find myself intending to communicate the deepest, most impactful truths on which humanity’s eternal fate hangs, I must make a note for myself: “Avoid cryptic, truncated illustrations which can easily be interpreted in mutually exclusive ways by intelligent and earnest people.”
And then ask, “Why would I use text?”
Hngerhman said
“Jesus didn’t deny the dietary laws–he just felt that they were overemphasized.”Got it. Agree
“Paul certainly used his leverage–his talent for expanding the flock–to ‘win’ the argument…”
Agree
“…I think it’s pretty clear he had the conditional blessing of hng: [Peter?] to go ahead, and James probably didn’t have any real influence outside Jerusalem.”
Agree – and I think it points up where precisely we may be slipping past each other.
Agree that Paul likely had some kind of buy-in from Jerusalem, for many of the reasons you cite – plus the fact that he agreed to help support them financially via the collection. They presumably lived off that kind of support. So, for all these reasons, they clearly tolerated him enough such that they didn’t try to shut him down totally (there’s not evidence they tried to totally shut him down). But they (or someone he thought was them) did try to materially alter beliefs in his congregation about keeping the Law.
James’s influence, such as it was in Jerusalem early on, might have been antithetical to certain aspects of Paul’s gospel, but it was clearly of increasingly less influence as time elapsed. The question (for me) is why? There is evidence in Paul (esp Galatians) that there was some legitimate influence from James early on (folks were getting circumcised in adulthood, and major apostles were removing themselves from table); and then later on (but still early-ish), there’s someone who felt James was sufficiently influential to rebut what they viewed as Pauline excess through pseudepigraphy. So, why was there some influence, but not ultimately enough? I currently think it’s those reasons mentioned before which cohere with a differential compounding explanation.
Do you see this differently?
“But Paul very quickly proved it went a lot faster if you didn’t insist that new Christians also become Jews.”
Couldn’t agree more.
I haven’t read much about James, and truthfully, there’s not that much to read. We know he existed, was a leader in Jerusalem, Paul met him, and he was killed. His connection to Jesus gave him prestige, but could it be he simply wasn’t as charismatic as his brother, or as capable as Peter and Paul? Jesus doesn’t seem to have chosen him as a disciple (or maybe he wasn’t willing to follow his brother at first). There’s so much context missing.
The growth of Christianity is a minor subplot in Palestine during this time period. The main story is the increasing unrest among Jews forced to live under Roman rule, leading to the uprisings, that brought about massive reprisals from Rome. At which point, the last thing any gentile wanted was to convert to Judaism. James was probably killed by his fellow Jews, furthermore–the bad feeling between Jews who believed in Jesus and the great majority who considered him a renegade criminal, kept increasing.
James was perhaps a more reliable conduit for Jesus’ ideas than Paul, but Paul was better at theology, proselytization, and for want of a better term, politics. And he was mainly away from the powder keg that was Jerusalem.
I likewise appreciate your comments
Hngerhman said
If I ever find myself intending to communicate the deepest, most impactful truths on which humanity’s eternal fate hangs, I must make a note for myself: “Avoid cryptic, truncated illustrations which can easily be interpreted in mutually exclusive ways by intelligent and earnest people.”
and if God were to ask us vote for a ‘messiah’, I would choose someone with similar attitude
Lazarus & Dives certainly can’t be a story Jesus told–at least not in that form.
You do not have to be a traditionalist to think Jesus told some of the others, and maybe Luke polished them up a bit. Bart is hardly a traditionalist these days, and he’s never suggested they’re Luke’s.
Okay, so now critical theory and methodology are a sort of attenuated traditionalism? No, don’t tell me–you never said that. I know. I know. 🙂
And where did I say that I exclude the possibility of authorial creativity? Somebody had to get creative at some point in time. Luke was damned creative with that Nativity story.
But if he liked writing parables so much, why not put a few into Acts?
I think most of his gospel is drawing on earlier sources, and the earliest is Jesus. Who we know told parables, and he was damned good with those. Or there wouldn’t be any Luke.
Anyway, it’s nice to see you being so creative.
(Even though you’re quibbling a mile a minute when I make far less radical suggestions.)
“It’s fine for me to cast doubt on Bart’s conclusions in an area where he is one of the leading experts, and vastly more qualified than me, but how dare you suggest he’s not an expert on Roman crucifixion policies after he told us he never even read what he admits is the definitive work on the subject?”
Is that the kind of nonsense you mean?
🙂
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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