godspell said
The internet, useful as it surely can be, is not the answer to all questions. I have an unfair advantage, in that I work in a university library, and can (when properly motivated, and not too busy) make use of our rather large collection of biblical scholarship. Including a book containing three articles by Roger David Aus, the last of which is entitled “The Release of Barabbas Revisited,” which in my opinion comes up with a credible potential explanation for why the Barabbas story is in all four gospels, and why it is not remotely based on anything that happened at the time Jesus was crucified, but is rather drawn from an earlier event.
It’s an involved argument (thankfully well-written and not over-laden with scholar-ese, so within my limited power to comprehend).
Essentially, Aus is saying that when Mark wrote this part of his gospel, he was editing an earlier manuscript (see? you weren’t entirely wrong!), but not Matthew or Luke–a passion narrative we no longer have, by a Palestinian Jewish Christian, that was popular among literate Christians then, but is now lost, and composed in Aramaic. (a language we can reasonably assume Mark knew, since he includes Aramaic phrases in his own gospel, and explains their meaning to his readers).
(Aus, like most scholars, believes Mark wrote the earliest surviving gospel, but drew upon earlier written sources as part of his research preparatory to writing it.)
My first objective was to try and clarify the language Mark uses regarding Barabbas. Aus is very clear that Mark is the most ambiguous about Barabbas’ guilt, and “at least here in Mark it is not expressly stated that Barabbas himself committed murder(s).” Luke does state this clearly. John (the least historical of the gospels) refers to him in language that could be read either as ‘revolutionary’ or ‘bandit.’ Matthew refers to him as a ‘prominent prisoner’, which Aus suggests is because the original source (which Matthew might also have read) was related to a prominent Jew involved in a much earlier uprising, but not himself a murderer.
Luke and John were probably not familiar with this lost narrative, but the story of Barabbas was popular among Christians when the four gospels were written, so all include it.
Mark is not more ambiguous than Matthew. Matthew is a “noted” “well-known” or “prominent” prisoner. Matthew is neutral on his guilt. Mark is most probably suggesting Barabbas is one of the insurrectionists – if he’s wrongly in prison why not say so?
There’s a textual variant in Mark 15:7 I believe, stasiaston or sustasiaston; insurrectionist or fellow-insurrectionist. Either way Matthew is the more ambiguous on guilt.
This is the scholar whose work I’m (badly) explaining here.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
So to continue, Aus thinks that this unknown Palestinian Jewish Christian, writing in Aramaic, not long after the crucifixion, did what many writers in the Haggadic tradition did, and ignore conventional chronology. In this case, to take an earlier incident involving the Herodians’ conflict with the Temple authorities in Jerusalem, from about 4AD, and put it into the passion story, as a way of filling one of these gaps, and expressing his anger at his fellow Jews for failing to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah.
Christians knew almost nothing about Jesus’ trial, if you even want to call it that. None of them were present for it, no official Roman account was ever published, because why would it be? The story they had was incomplete and unsatisfying, from a devotional standpoint, or even from the standpoint of good storytelling, without which a new religion has a hard time getting noticed. They looked for ways to fill the gaps, and give the threadbare narrative what they considered a proper meaning. They were writing about historical events, but not from the perspective of historians. (None of this should be news to any reader of Bart Ehrman.)
Herod the Great’s son, Archelaus, is related by Josephus to have released two men taken prisoner by his late (and largely unlamented) father, in response to demands made by the populace of Jerusalem. These men had removed the figure of a golden eagle Herod had placed over the Temple, and hacked it to pieces, seeing its presence as blasphemous.
Aus finds many parallels between this story and the later stories of Barabbas. Archelaus released these men in part because he needed to make peace with his countrymen, after having killed 3,000 of them who had risen up in revolt against his family.
Aus believes this explains why we have no record of any significant uprising from around the time Jesus was crucified. It was in fact an earlier uprising, only indirectly against Roman rule. It would have been well-remembered among Jewish Christians at the time Mark’s original source was written. Gentile converts would have been less likely to understand the reference being made–or to understand the non-chronological tradition the original author was writing in, where events taking place at different times can be made to resonate together.
How does anyone know if a later christian was present at the trial of Jesus? How does anyone know if they needed to fill a gap in the story?
The account in Josephus is Archelaus being asked to release many prisoners of Herod. The men who took the eagle had already been killed by Herod. So I dont see much of a parallel here.
Obviously neither of us is an expert here. You would have told me if you knew Greek. I respect your devotion to this cause of yours, that we both know is not going to change the scholarly consensus that Mark came first. I wouldn’t be much of an Irishman if I didn’t appreciate a good bit of contumely.
However, you are somewhat careless with regards to your use of the word ’embellishment.’ All embellishments are not created equal.
Mark likes to explain why the people he’s writing about did something–not adding to the story, so much as fleshing it out–his explanations may differ from those of other gospel authors, they may come from sources he’s using, or be his own opinion, but when you take away these interpretations, and compare them to Matthew and Luke, it’s pretty clear they’re drawing for the most part on his version of the story.
That is on a different order from doing what Matthew does in this story, which is to give Pilate a wife who has a prophetic dream, who is not mentioned in any of the other accounts, and who wouldn’t have been mentioned in the source Mark drew upon to write his version of the Barabbas incident. This is a pagan story, equivalent to Calpurnia warning Caesar of her prophetic dream.
Matthew is bothered by the poor motivation Pilate has for wanting to free Jesus. In the original story this all hypothetically came from it makes sense, because Archelaus had a somewhat tenuous grip on power, and needed to conciliate the populace in Jerusalem who wanted these men freed for an act of symbolic rebellion against his father, Herod the Great.
Pilate was in no such danger. So why would this notoriously ruthless pagan governor behave this way? Because pagans have a superstitious belief in prophetic dreams. Matthew writing a story pagan converts to Christianity would understand, and not at all concerned with what Jews thought of it.
This embellishment does change the story. Doesn’t prove Matthew invented it (he would have had other sources as well). But why would Mark edit it out, if he’s just copying Matthew? Mark likes to write about why people do things. The reason is that he never read Matthew, never heard of this story, because he was writing at a time when the Matthew gospel did not exist. Q.E.D.
Whether Mark edited Matthew or Matthew edited Mark they have decided to keep some and remove some of the original work. It wont always be possible to say why this was kept or that was removed. If Mark wrote first why did Matthew remove “This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” from his demon-possessed man story?
Any answer would be pure speculation.
Better to concentrate on simple objective observations of differences. Like the early introduction of Barabbas in Mark and the line “for he knew it was out of envy … ” used in both but only making sense in Matthew. Here speculation is kept to a minimum and objective reasoning can be maximised.
I raised a lot of points in those posts you’ve quoted above (made by a qualified scholar, which you are not), and I don’t see you really responding to any of them. The discussion was about Barabbas, you chose to enter it, and now you want to stray off elsewhere. Which makes me think you know the facts here don’t remotely support your case for Matthew being first. No diversions. Let’s stick to the topic at hand, and we can talk about other things elsewhere.
There simply isn’t any serious possibility any follower of Jesus was present for his trial–and again, I think even calling it a trial is misleading. A brief interrogation, at best.
Why did Matthew and ONLY Matthew, include a story about Pilate’s wife that simply could not be historic? (Nobody believes Calpurnia really warned Caesar he was going to be assassinated).
Matthew is trying to fix a story that has already been told, but not to his satisfaction. He wants to make Pilate look better and the Jews look worse–to intensify the condemnation of the Jews, in a way Mark and his presumed earlier source would find excessive. His gospel is filled with deep personal rage against those who refuse to agree with him. It is useful in that it preserves some important material that might otherwise have been lost, but Matthew, whoever he was, has utterly failed to understand Jesus’ message. He is possessed by hate.
He knows Pilate was not a merciful man–he knows about Pilate’s oppressive and insulting behavior towards the Jewish population in Palestine. So why would he treat Jesus any better? He doubtless was asked this by many. The Barabbas story was popular among Christians, but it’s not a factual story. There was no Barabbas. He wants to tell this story. He wants to intensify it. But he knows that it makes no sense that Pilate would be so desirous of saving Jesus’ life.
He provides an explanation–possibly cribbed from some lost source, but just as possibly made up out of whole cloth. His wife (who history does not attest to anywhere else, and hard to say why she’d be in Jerusalem for the Passover, instead of safe in Caesarea) frightens him with a prophetic dream, presumably sent by God (though why God would interfere with His own divine plan for Jesus to suffer, die, and be resurrected is hard to say).
To some extent, all the gospel authors are trying to justify stories that make no sense. But here, Matthew is including a story that doesn’t seem to have its source either in Mark, or any earlier source. A story that reeks of pagan origins. But one that Mark surely would have included if he’d been copying Matthew, since Mark also likes to provide motivations for the behavior of the people whose actions he is relating.
You don’t have to accept my explanation, but you really should at least try to provide one of your own.
Since we are here, in this less monitored forum, let me ask a few questions that might be out of place in the main forum.
1)Do you accept that the synoptic gospels all have sources that have not survived, and not necessarily just ‘Q’?
2)Do you believe the author of Matthew was a witness to anything he writes about? (For the record, I don’t believe any of the gospel authors were eyewitnesses to any aspect of Jesus’ life, and probably had little or no contact with those who were, though they certainly had some information that came from secondhand oral sources).
3) Why are you so intent on Matthew being first, and Mark being third? You must know this will never be the scholarly consensus?
4)To what extent do you believe the gospels–any part of the gospel story–is literally true? Obviously all of it can’t be, since there are multiple contradictions.
I certainly believe some of the stories are based on fact. It might interest you to know that Roger David Aus believes the story of the woman taken in adultery, inserted into the John Gospel, is a fairly straightforward account of a real event that took place shortly before Jesus was crucified. Made a rather clever argument for it, I thought. He says Jesus was writing the first few words of Jewish religious texts saying that only those who are not guilty of adultery (or adulterous thoughts) have the right to pass judgment. The more educated leaders of the mob recognized these verses, and were abashed, causing them to walk away. She was, he thinks, not threatened with stoning for adultery, per se, but adultery with a Roman pagan, which is why the man isn’t there–they just barely can get away with stoning her, and only if they do it right away. They saw Jesus as they took her to the place of stoning, and figured they’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Force Jesus into a contradiction. And he beat them at their own game.
I think we have problems understanding each other, because things you find fascinating are to me little more than trivia. They provide no light into who Jesus really was, and that’s really all I care about. That’s why I’m here.
I’ve read that the story of Barabbas was a parallel to Yom Kippur, when the High Priest would take two goats. One was imbued with the sins of the populace (this is Jesus Barabbas – Son of the Father) and sent into the wilderness. The other was sacrificed as an atonement for those sins (this is Jesus Christ).
godspell said
I raised a lot of points in those posts you’ve quoted above (made by a qualified scholar, which you are not), and I don’t see you really responding to any of them. The discussion was about Barabbas, you chose to enter it, and now you want to stray off elsewhere. Which makes me think you know the facts here don’t remotely support your case for Matthew being first. No diversions. Let’s stick to the topic at hand, and we can talk about other things elsewhere.There simply isn’t any serious possibility any follower of Jesus was present for his trial–and again, I think even calling it a trial is misleading. A brief interrogation, at best.
Why did Matthew and ONLY Matthew, include a story about Pilate’s wife that simply could not be historic? (Nobody believes Calpurnia really warned Caesar he was going to be assassinated).
Matthew is trying to fix a story that has already been told, but not to his satisfaction. He wants to make Pilate look better and the Jews look worse–to intensify the condemnation of the Jews, in a way Mark and his presumed earlier source would find excessive. His gospel is filled with deep personal rage against those who refuse to agree with him. It is useful in that it preserves some important material that might otherwise have been lost, but Matthew, whoever he was, has utterly failed to understand Jesus’ message. He is possessed by hate.
He knows Pilate was not a merciful man–he knows about Pilate’s oppressive and insulting behavior towards the Jewish population in Palestine. So why would he treat Jesus any better? He doubtless was asked this by many. The Barabbas story was popular among Christians, but it’s not a factual story. There was no Barabbas. He wants to tell this story. He wants to intensify it. But he knows that it makes no sense that Pilate would be so desirous of saving Jesus’ life.
He provides an explanation–possibly cribbed from some lost source, but just as possibly made up out of whole cloth. His wife (who history does not attest to anywhere else, and hard to say why she’d be in Jerusalem for the Passover, instead of safe in Caesarea) frightens him with a prophetic dream, presumably sent by God (though why God would interfere with His own divine plan for Jesus to suffer, die, and be resurrected is hard to say).
To some extent, all the gospel authors are trying to justify stories that make no sense. But here, Matthew is including a story that doesn’t seem to have its source either in Mark, or any earlier source. A story that reeks of pagan origins. But one that Mark surely would have included if he’d been copying Matthew, since Mark also likes to provide motivations for the behavior of the people whose actions he is relating.
You don’t have to accept my explanation, but you really should at least try to provide one of your own.
Well the scholar’s claim was that the barabbas story was based on one from Josephus. But as I said the story in Josephus is just the release of many prisoners by a newly appointed authority – its not the men who stole the eagle, they had already been killed. So I dont see much of a parallel.
John’s gospel tells us of a pharisee Nicodemus listened to Jesus teach – the other gospels tell us he had some support among the pharisees. So I dont think we can say there’s no serious possibility of a later christian being at the trial. Even if no supporters of Jesus were there one can hardly expect the goings on to remain secret when Jesus is is carted off to Pilate and executed in the morning.
I think you’re wrong about hatred in Matthew -“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is Matthew not Mark.
And I think you’re wrong about Pilate. Philo tells us Pilate liked to antagonize the Jews and tells us Tiberius warned him to stop doing it. This fits well with the gospels account of Pilate reluctantly conceding the chief priests demands. Josephus gives us an account of Pilate ordering caesars effigies into Jerusalem but then relenting when the Jews offer themselves up for death rather than accept them into the city. So the image of a bloodthirsty tyrant incapable of mercy or compromise should also be abandoned. Josephus tells us of another Jesus ben Ananias given to up the Romans for trial by the Jewish leaders; and whom the Romans find no fault and let go. So the idea of Jewish leaders sending a Jew to the Romans for trial and not being summarily executed such also be considered historically plausible.
Matthew is a Jew writing to fellow Jews who thinks the world will be ending soon. He wants them to repent before the second coming. For Matthew Judas is originally responsible for betraying innocent blood. But he repents and throws the money into the temple. Pilate is warned by his wife to stay away from this righteous man and pilate declares himself innocent of Jesus’s blood. The responsibility then passes to the Jews who accept it. Matthew wants them to repent of this before its too late.
Mark doesnt care about any of this and removes these parts about Judas, Pilates wife and Jewish responsibility. These arent of interest to the new gentile christians that Mark is writing for.
Also the prophetic dream is common in the old testament so dont think we should say Matthews account has pagan origins.
godspell said
Since we are here, in this less monitored forum, let me ask a few questions that might be out of place in the main forum.
1)Do you accept that the synoptic gospels all have sources that have not survived, and not necessarily just ‘Q’?
2)Do you believe the author of Matthew was a witness to anything he writes about? (For the record, I don’t believe any of the gospel authors were eyewitnesses to any aspect of Jesus’ life, and probably had little or no contact with those who were, though they certainly had some information that came from secondhand oral sources).
3) Why are you so intent on Matthew being first, and Mark being third? You must know this will never be the scholarly consensus?
4)To what extent do you believe the gospels–any part of the gospel story–is literally true? Obviously all of it can’t be, since there are multiple contradictions.
I certainly believe some of the stories are based on fact. It might interest you to know that Roger David Aus believes the story of the woman taken in adultery, inserted into the John Gospel, is a fairly straightforward account of a real event that took place shortly before Jesus was crucified. Made a rather clever argument for it, I thought. He says Jesus was writing the first few words of Jewish religious texts saying that only those who are not guilty of adultery (or adulterous thoughts) have the right to pass judgment. The more educated leaders of the mob recognized these verses, and were abashed, causing them to walk away. She was, he thinks, not threatened with stoning for adultery, per se, but adultery with a Roman pagan, which is why the man isn’t there–they just barely can get away with stoning her, and only if they do it right away. They saw Jesus as they took her to the place of stoning, and figured they’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Force Jesus into a contradiction. And he beat them at their own game.
I think we have problems understanding each other, because things you find fascinating are to me little more than trivia. They provide no light into who Jesus really was, and that’s really all I care about. That’s why I’m here.
1) no I dont think Matthew had any written source (oral possibly)
2) I think Matthew and John were eyewitnesses (though they may have had help writing their gospels)
3) Because its the only Matthew Luke Mark is the only order which makes sense. If thats true it will eventually become the scholarly consensus.
4) I think Jesus being from Nazareth, being baptised by John, getting a modest following through preaching, being known as a healer, going to Jerusalem and being tried and executed by Pilate are all true. And that it was a group of women being first to claim Jesus was resurrected. (possibly just Mary Magdalene on her own). I think the specific stories preaching and parables are all impressions of the kind of things he did and said. The parables would be a good indication of what he thought and taught.
I think the woman taken in adultery is original to John’s gospel – though possibly too good a story to actually be true. I think Jesus challenging the religious authority of the pharisees/chief priests and pharisees testing Jesus in front of crowds is probably true.
The micro-observations/trivia are interesting only in helping to decide between Matthean or Markan priority – and they always point to Matthew.
AstaKask said
I’ve read that the story of Barabbas was a parallel to Yom Kippur, when the High Priest would take two goats. One was imbued with the sins of the populace (this is Jesus Barabbas – Son of the Father) and sent into the wilderness. The other was sacrificed as an atonement for those sins (this is Jesus Christ).
It could well be, but that would only work for Matthew’s account. Only in Matthew is the choice presented by Pilate as either Barabbas or Jesus. In the other three gospels Barabbas’s name is just called out by the crowd. Any prisoner could have been called for.
So if the Yom Kippur parallel is correct it points to Matthew being first.
brenmcg said
1) no I dont think Matthew had any written source (oral possibly)
2) I think Matthew and John were eyewitnesses (though they may have had help writing their gospels)
3) Because its the only Matthew Luke Mark is the only order which makes sense. If thats true it will eventually become the scholarly consensus.
4) I think Jesus being from Nazareth, being baptised by John, getting a modest following through preaching, being known as a healer, going to Jerusalem and being tried and executed by Pilate are all true. And that it was a group of women being first to claim Jesus was resurrected. (possibly just Mary Magdalene on her own). I think the specific stories preaching and parables are all impressions of the kind of things he did and said. The parables would be a good indication of what he thought and taught.
I think the woman taken in adultery is original to John’s gospel – though possibly too good a story to actually be true. I think Jesus challenging the religious authority of the pharisees/chief priests and pharisees testing Jesus in front of crowds is probably true.
The micro-observations/trivia are interesting only in helping to decide between Matthean or Markan priority – and they always point to Matthew.
brenmcg said
1) no I dont think Matthew had any written source (oral possibly)
2) I think Matthew and John were eyewitnesses (though they may have had help writing their gospels)
3) Because its the only Matthew Luke Mark is the only order which makes sense. If thats true it will eventually become the scholarly consensus.
4) I think Jesus being from Nazareth, being baptised by John, getting a modest following through preaching, being known as a healer, going to Jerusalem and being tried and executed by Pilate are all true. And that it was a group of women being first to claim Jesus was resurrected. (possibly just Mary Magdalene on her own). I think the specific stories preaching and parables are all impressions of the kind of things he did and said. The parables would be a good indication of what he thought and taught.
I think the woman taken in adultery is original to John’s gospel – though possibly too good a story to actually be true. I think Jesus challenging the religious authority of the pharisees/chief priests and pharisees testing Jesus in front of crowds is probably true.
The micro-observations/trivia are interesting only in helping to decide between Matthean or Markan priority – and they always point to Matthew.
So to be clear, you don’t believe Jesus was God, or God’s begotten son, or miraculously chosen by God? Or do you accept Matthew’s threadbare excuse for why God needs to be baptized? Who do you say he was? I’m a lapsed Catholic, who believes Jesus was something much more important than some Christian comic book superhero. What are you?
And why are you so intent on ignoring what better-qualified people tell you, when you obviously don’t even know how to read these texts in their original languages? Or so it seems, since you’ve refused to answer me when I asked if you knew Greek. I’ve seen you copying Greek words to the other forum–even I can do that.
Why would you believe something so ridiculous as to think Matthew is an utterly original eyewitness text–that says Jesus’ family were living in Bethlehem when he was born? That, again, is his addition to the story, because he’s still trying to persuade the hated Jews Jesus is their Messiah, who has to be born in Judea. Which he wasn’t. He was born in Nazareth, in Galilee, and if that were not the case, there wouldn’t be two different and conflicting nativity stories attempting to place his birth in Bethlehem, by different routes.
And even John knew that saying Jesus was baptized by John was admitting Jesus was subordinate to John, which is why he refused to even talk about the baptism, and went out of his way to say John publicy subordinated himself to Jesus, which can’t possibly be true.
As to the woman taken in adultery, whether that story happened or not, it wasn’t in the original version of John’s gospel. Scholarship has proven that beyond any serious doubt. Why do you need to believe otherwise?
As to the two other posters on this thread, I doubt very much the goat thing is true. There’s an interesting article by a fellow named Aus, that suggests the origin of that story goes back to one of Herod the Great’s sons releasing two men who had been imprisoned for defying his father, after he put down a rebellion against his family’s rule, with great bloodshed. I really don’t feel like typing out a summary again, but it’s a very clever argument–essentially, Mark was copying a now-lost Passion narrative written by a converted Jewish writer, who adapted the earlier story to his own purposes, and that would have been nothing unusual.
Very few Christians had any information about Jesus’ ‘trial’ and execution that didn’t come from their own writings, which were necessarily slanted. The Barabbas story was popular with early Christians, widely known, and that’s why it’s in all four gospels, even though it certainly did not happen. There are, in fact, no rebellions in or around Jerusalem known to have happened around the time Jesus was crucified. But there had been rebellions in the past, and that’s where the foundation of this legend came from.
godspell said
And why are you so intent on ignoring what better-qualified people tell you, when you obviously don’t even know how to read these texts in their original languages? Or so it seems, since you’ve refused to answer me when I asked if you knew Greek. I’ve seen you copying Greek words to the other forum–even I can do that.
Yes I dont read or write Greek. I hope I don’t ignore what better qualified people tell me. I think I’ve always tried to explain why I dont agree with their reasoning.
Why would you believe something so ridiculous as to think Matthew is an utterly original eyewitness text–that says Jesus’ family were living in Bethlehem when he was born? That, again, is his addition to the story, because he’s still trying to persuade the hated Jews Jesus is their Messiah, who has to be born in Judea. Which he wasn’t. He was born in Nazareth, in Galilee, and if that were not the case, there wouldn’t be two different and conflicting nativity stories attempting to place his birth in Bethlehem, by different routes.
I dont think he was a witness to everything in his gospel – just the ministry of Jesus – he was the tax collector who became a follower in ch 9.
And even John knew that saying Jesus was baptized by John was admitting Jesus was subordinate to John, which is why he refused to even talk about the baptism, and went out of his way to say John publicy subordinated himself to Jesus, which can’t possibly be true.
Yes i think you could be right there.
As to the woman taken in adultery, whether that story happened or not, it wasn’t in the original version of John’s gospel. Scholarship has proven that beyond any serious doubt. Why do you need to believe otherwise?
I don’t think it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt when the best manuscripts are 300 years after the original. I’ve given my reasons for why I think its original here ** you do not have permission to see this link **
As I made clear on the other forum, I don’t know Greek myself (or any language other than English, though I’ve studied four, including Latin–not one of my aptitudes).
That doesn’t mean either of our opinions should be dismissed, but it’s not enough to have opinions. Everybody on the internet does. Most of them aren’t worth the bandwidth they take up.
There is no reason to think any of the gospels were written by the person each is named after, and few serious scholars do think that. Those that do usually have a religious agenda for thinking so. I do not despise religious belief, but would prefer to see it kept at a distance from scholarship. My own faith, such as it is, tends to be less literal. I still can’t say about yours, because you’ve chosen not to respond to that part of my inquiry, which is your right. If you prefer not to discuss it, I’ll respect that.
There are many good reasons why scholars believe the woman taken in adultery wasn’t originally in John (that require a knowledge of Greek to fully understand), but leaving them all aside–it doesn’t belong in John. John’s Jesus is a talker, and the Jesus in that story barely says anything. It doesn’t really fit in there. It’s a story that was preserved, because it was so powerful, but many Christians would have found it embarrassing, believe it or not, that Jesus would defend a woman caught in the act of adultery, and not even ask her to make any act of penance. Jesus was too advanced and subtle in his thinking even for many Christians, and certainly for most men of that time.
Or this.
😐
AstaKask said
I’ve read that the story of Barabbas was a parallel to Yom Kippur, when the High Priest would take two goats. One was imbued with the sins of the populace (this is Jesus Barabbas – Son of the Father) and sent into the wilderness. The other was sacrificed as an atonement for those sins (this is Jesus Christ).
I’ve always suspected the Barabbas story was intended, at least implicitly, as a commentary on the first Jewish revolt. Comparing the crucified Messiah with the revolutionary “Messiah”. The Jews chose political revolt and it led to their destruction. Something like that.
godspell said
As I made clear on the other forum, I don’t know Greek myself (or any language other than English, though I’ve studied four, including Latin–not one of my aptitudes).
That doesn’t mean either of our opinions should be dismissed, but it’s not enough to have opinions. Everybody on the internet does. Most of them aren’t worth the bandwidth they take up.
Yes very true.
There is no reason to think any of the gospels were written by the person each is named after, and few serious scholars do think that. Those that do usually have a religious agenda for thinking so. I do not despise religious belief, but would prefer to see it kept at a distance from scholarship. My own faith, such as it is, tends to be less literal. I still can’t say about yours, because you’ve chosen not to respond to that part of my inquiry, which is your right. If you prefer not to discuss it, I’ll respect that.
I think we should begin with the assumption that second century christian writers had more information than we do today about who wrote the gospels in the first century – then see if we have any historical reason to doubt what they claim. Early Christian writers are unanimous in claiming a tax collector was the first person to write down an account of Jesus’s life and works. On possible explanation for this agreement was that a tax collector was in fact the first person to write down this account. I don’t think there’s any other satisfactory explanation for this agreement.
There are many good reasons why scholars believe the woman taken in adultery wasn’t originally in John (that require a knowledge of Greek to fully understand), but leaving them all aside–it doesn’t belong in John. John’s Jesus is a talker, and the Jesus in that story barely says anything. It doesn’t really fit in there. It’s a story that was preserved, because it was so powerful, but many Christians would have found it embarrassing, believe it or not, that Jesus would defend a woman caught in the act of adultery, and not even ask her to make any act of penance. Jesus was too advanced and subtle in his thinking even for many Christians, and certainly for most men of that time.
Yes there are many good reasons why scholars believe the story was not original to John – but there are also many good reasons for thinking it is.
Yes John’s Jesus is a talker – but chapters 5,6 and 7 all begin with an account in which Jesus says only a few lines before moving on to lengthy discourse. If we include the pericope adulterae chapter 8 would follow that pattern nicely.
Also if you agree many Christians would have found the story embarrassing you should consider it likely to have been removed from early copies.
Robert said
It may make sense to you, but it has already been considered as an option by the scholarly guild and almost universally rejected by critical scholars. The tiny minority who still follow this model are not leading scholars. They are sometimes influenced by other nonscholarly interests and opinions such as your very early dating of Matthew’s gospel and your belief that both Matthew and John were eye-witnesses. Sorry, but it will never become the scholarly consensus.
If its true it will eventually become the consensus – if its not true it wont.
The Griesbach hypothesis matches up nicely with early christian tradition – two non-eyewitnesses closely copy the work of an eyewitness, and a second eyewitness lastly writes his own independent account.
Second century Christians disagreed with each other so much of the time, it’s hard to see any consensus, other than “Jesus is cool.”
Matthew was accepted as the first gospel for a variety of reasons (that had little to do with actual chronology), but they wouldn’t have had any proof of which was written first (no copyright notice sin ancient books), nor would they have known for sure who wrote it, because of the way books came out then. Books got written in the tradition of someone, then later audiences (lacking the sophistication of the original audience) took the attribution literally.
Matthew is clearly written after the great uprising in Palestine. Mark probably before. Matthew is much more concerned with separating Christians from Jews. You want to believe Mark is more embellished, but that’s clearly not true, and you have to bend over backwards to make that argument. The longer gospel with more stories nobody else has is clearly not the first. Nor does it make sense that the first synoptic gospel would have a nativity story.
You keep saying Mark edited out this or that–why? If he strongly disagrees with the virgin birth, why would he copy Matthew at all? If he believes Jesus is Messiah, as clearly he does, why would he not want people to know Jesus was born in Bethlehem?
To me, looking at the way the story develops, it’s very clearly Mark, Matthew, Luke, John. John going off on his own tangent, and not copying much if anything from the synoptics. And not putting in that story about the woman taken in adultery, because it’s just not his style. He wouldn’t even like that story.
As to your consensus comment, bren–let’s be real. There are still people saying Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare. There are still people saying global warming isn’t real. There are still people saying the earth is flat. There are still people saying Jesus didn’t exist at all.
You don’t want to be one of those people, do ya? 😉
One more thing–Mark’s gospel is problematic in a lot of ways. It doesn’t have the nativity story, nor is there any reason at all to think Jesus was born of a virgin, or born in Judea. It doesn’t attempt to explain away Jesus’ baptism by John, that the others either change or ignore to make John subordinate to Jesus, when the opposite was clearly true. The original version ended without the risen Jesus appearing to any of his followers. Not hard to see why 2nd century Christians, while still revering it, would want to believe Matthew came first. (They never said anything about Mark just editing Matthew though, since they believed Mark was an eyewitness as well–if you’re going to believe them, you’d best be consistent about that).
If Mark disagreed that much with Matthew and Luke–why did he copy them? There were other sources available to him. You believe Matthew could have written it all from scratch (which is most unlikely, but you still believe it). We know there were other sources, because there are a lot of stories not in Matthew. And if he’s just copying their superior Greek–why is his so bad? I think he’s the better writer in terms of storytelling, mind you–but you and I both suffer from a problem in that we can’t read the originals. It’s widely agreed that Mark’s grasp of Greek is the weakest, but that makes no sense if he’s just editing.
Your argument isn’t even a three-legged stool, so it keeps falling over.
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