Robert: Thanks for your response. Would it make sense for a high priest to connect the ideas of Messiah and Son of God? It is plausible to ask if someone thinks of themselves as the Messiah, but connecting that to Son of God seems a stretch. The point of the question is that if it makes little sense for the high priest to have asked the question in that way, then it seems it less plausible that the encounter happened as described.
I apologize for not being clearer. If we understand “Messiah, Son of the Blessed One” to mean, essentially, Messiah, a lineal descendant of David who has come to restore Judea and bring not only Jews but the ethne to God, I completely agree with you. That would be standard Judaic eschatology, at least as I understand it. My impression, though, is that Mark intends a more direct sense of son of the Blessed One, more in accordance with Christian understanding of the relation between God and Christ, albeit a lower Christology than the binitarianism (sp?) espoused by John (I read Mark as having an adoptionist Christology, but that’s another conversation).
If we accept that there was an historical Jesus who was an apocalyptic prophet and crucified by Pilate as “King of the Jews,” I think it is entirely plausible (though not certain) that he was interrogated by the high priest. We do not, however, have any reliable evidence of what either side said in this interrogation, so Mark (and the other gospel writers) use the occasion to put theological claims in Jesus’ mouth.
Robert said
That both Mark and Matthew endorse the the Jewish foundational confession contained in the Shema suggests that they would also not object to Jesus praying the singular Father without having Jesus also praying to himself. We know this to be true of Matthew and it is thus a reasonable inference for Mark.
Its reasonable to conclude the possibility of Mark including the our father. Its not reasonable to conclude the chance of later writers removing the our father no longer applies to Mark. An editor of Matthew has an extra chance to edit out passages they have an aversion to. Even if they agree with everything the first writer does.
But I did not conclude there was no chance; I merely identified the content of your ‘chance’ possibility to be a hypothesis, not evidence.
We agree there was a tendency towards equalization of praising of the father and son. Does the fact that its reasonable to infer Mark would not object to Jesus praying the our father negate the application of this tendency to Mark?
No – its not Jesus praying to the father that is the problem. Its that Jesus taught that this is the prayer christians should pray (even after he himself has ascended to the right hand of god).
Matthew’s Jesus teaches the prayer unprompted, Luke has Jesus teach only after the disciples ask to be taught in the same way as John the Baptist taught his disciples. Introducing the idea that it might only be a temporary prayer for his immediate disciples.
Nothing, of course, except for what the Markan Jesus actually says: “Why do you call me good. No one is good except one, God.”
Yes he is either denying being good and God, or he is inviting the young man who called him good to confess that he is God.
The issue is not John the Baptist opinion of Jesus or that of the heavenly voice. The is whether or not Mark portrays Jesus as capable of praying to God alone as his Father. Clearly he does as I’ve I’ve already quoted for you Mark’s portrayal of Jesus praying in just such a manner in the garden. This passage also shows the Markan Jesus speaking of God alone as the only one who who is good.
This particular issue is whether Mark has Jesus deny being good. Does Mark have the lord of judgement day who will chose who enters the kingdom of heaven deny being good?
Better to understand it as Jesus giving the young man a chance to reconfirm his claim that Jesus is good, which he declines. (this is the young man who ends up leaving upset).
Read the actual text. He leaves upset because he has many possessions and is not willing to sell all he has.
Right he leaves upset because he can’t give up all to follow Jesus. Why would he have to give up everything to follow Jesus if Jesus isn’t good?
Matthew also has the line “When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” which is missing from Mark.
So?
So which is more likely – the line which suggests Jesus was given the authority to forgive sins was added to or removed from the text that suggests he had that authority by right.
Better to understand this as a removal by Mark so that the Son of Man simply has the authority and wasn’t given it.
Why?
Matthew/ Mark = “the son of man has authority to forgive sins”, only Matthew has “they marveled that God has given such authority to men”
I think we pretty much agree. A very important point, which you made, is that the high priest (and the Temple priests generally) were charged by Rome to help maintain order. I have read that in at least one case during the relevant time frame the high priest was called to Rome to answer for unrest in Jerusalem. If the priests perceived that Jesus was a threat to good order, either because he claimed to be the Messiah or because his followers thought he was, they would have had good reason to report their concerns to Pilate, who then had Jesus crucified as the so-called King of the Jews to send a message to the crowds. John has Roman soldiers participating in Jesus’ arrest, and if that’s true one could argue that a hearing before the Sanhedrin would have been unnecessary.
My theory is that the historical Jesus was immediately arrested on the Temple Mount after some kind of episode and turned over to the Romans by the Temple guard and executed. The trials make good drama but are unlikely from a historical perspective. The simple act of creating a disturbance in the Temple during Passover would have been enough to ensure Jesus’ death. Any such disturbance would have been interpreted as an attack on the Temple system; for the Jews a religious crime, for the Romans a political one. The idea that the gospels present, that Jesus could cause a disturbance in the Temple, and then get off the Temple Mount unmolested, during a season when the authorities were on the lookout for just that sort of thing, seems far fetched. If this is correct then it also casts doubt on the historicity of Judas’ betrayal. Why would Jesus have to be betrayed if he committed such an open act?
TTHorne56 said
That’s an interesting theory. Do you think there is any truth to the King of the Jews “crown” in the gospel stories?
I think the narrative details are Christian inventions. Of course the Christians thought Jesus was the Messiah. The Romans were completely uninterested in the nuances of Jewish theology. Any claim to power apart from Rome would get you killed.
TTHorne56 said
That’s an interesting theory. Do you think there is any truth to the King of the Jews “crown” in the gospel stories?
I believe that Dr. Ehrman’s usual rule of thumb is that the elements that are assumed as invented are generally those that introduce literally supernatural aspects, and those that tend to burnish the story with claims that glorify. That does not include the crucifixion, and probably not the abuse suffered along the way. As has often been repeated the whole idea of that kind of execution was that it was meant to be humiliating and serve as a warning to others. The idea of a crown of thorns for the king of the Jews fits perfectly well within the context. It at least might be true, but it is hardly the most important detail.
Thus there is a good argument that it might be historical and it argues somewhat for the Sanhedrin being involved in delivering Jesus over to Pilate with this accusation.
Well if my speculation about the historical Jesus being arrested directly on the Temple Mount has any merit it would have been the Jewish Temple guards who would have arrested Jesus and then some Jewish authority would have made the decision to turn Jesus over to the Romans. This could be the germ of the story of a trial before the Sanhedrin. My piquant hypothesis could even accommodate the figure of Judas who was arrested with Jesus and escaped by spilling the beans. See, I can play “connect the dots” as well as anyone!
Reviving this dead old thread because the counter revealed 13, count’em, 13 guest bots. Is that as unlucky as the traditional legend of having 13 guests at a dinner? Unlucky for them. Guest bot mothers caution their little bot kids about disobedience with tales of my reign of terror.
I still hold to my hypothesis that on a purely historical level it makes sense that Jesus would have been arrested outright on the Temple Mount and turned over to the Romans. All the subsequent elaborations to the story make good drama. I think the major pushback I will get is from those who want to hold onto the historicity of the story of Judas’ betrayal. I am pleased to find out that Paula Fredriksen questions the historicity of Judas. She sees it as part of an anti-Jewish polemic in the gospels. People ask why you would make up the story of one of Jesus’ disciples betraying him? An argument from embarrassment. But Mark portrays the disciples in a very negative light anyway. Why have Peter deny knowing Jesus? Why have the women at the tomb rush off in terror and confusion at the news of the Resurrection?
It’s l-i-t-e-r-a-t-u-r-e. I’m looking at it from purely a historical pov. We have to get away from the idea that the stories recorded in the gospels are newspaper reportage.
You’ve drawn my attention to what rubs me so wrong in the thesis of dismissing Judas as a mere anti-Jewish polemic.
It is, as you say, literature. And taken as literature the plot twist is bad. Judas, in Mark’s Gospel is a totally shallow villain. If we take Mark at face value, Judas isn’t a believable villain.
I can’t get over the way that Mark’s holy week narrative makes perfect sense if we assume that Jesus was something like a popular insurrectionist and that the story of how he came to his end in Jerusalem–a story known, in outline, to many–is, in Mark, being retold in a way that tries to paper over or explain away the deep and more problematic dynamics that drove the events which culminated in Jesus’ crucifixion.
If you read it that way–if you read between the lines–the main events in Mark make perfect sense and are eminently believable.
An interesting discussion. Never-ending because we will never have any more information than what we already possess. We are doomed to spend eternity at interpretation.
There is another interpretation of Judas possible. Some have seen in his name Iscariot a possible reference to the Sicarii, assassins associated with the rebellion against Rome. In the Barabbas episode it is often thought that Mark is taking a swipe at the Jews who supported the Revolt, contrasting their militancy with the sacrifice of Jesus. Perhaps Judas is a similar swipe contrasting his duplicity with Jesus’ faithfulness? A bit of a stretch perhaps.
I would note, concerning the thinness of Judas’ character, that ancient writers didn’t share our concern for personal psychological motivation. Characters were defined by their actions. To me this is like Mark not explaining how the disciples knew what Elijah and Moses looked like. Mark is simply presenting Judas as a betrayer, a detail in the story.
I’m happy to admit my own presuppositions. For a while, long before I read Robyn Faith Walsh’s book, I have had trouble with the traditional account of the composition of the gospels. The process described by Prof Ehrman in his book ** you do not have permission to see this link ** is as fine an account of this view as possible. I highly recommend it. The followers of Jesus passed along oral memories until at
some point literate members of these communities wrote them down. These sources both oral and written were organized into the gospels. This view sees the gospel writers as more editors and redactors than as creative composers.
Now these were oral cultures. Of course there were oral traditions. But I suspect what Mark had was something similar to what Paul had. Creedal accounts (what I received I pass along) and most of all praxis, the communal meal, etc. I think Mark had the frame story, a general account of what happened, and he created most, if not all, of the narrative details himself. For example, look at Mark’s description of the crucifixion. … And they crucified him… Mark is starting with the fact of the crucifixion, filtering it through Psalm 82, and interpreting it. We’ll never know for sure but the episodes of the Transfiguration and the Empty Tomb are probably pure invention. Now I certainly don’t follow Walsh everywhere she wants to go but I do think it’s a mistake to imagine the narrative details of the gospels as distorted memories.
Given his christology, Mark is unconcerned with Jesus’ birth and youth. So he leaves it out of the story. The Empty Tomb can be seen as an interpretation of the Resurrection. What represents the living Jesus better than an image of an empty grave? The response of the women at the tomb is totally consistent with the response of the disciples all through the gospels to miraculous happenings. Fear and confusion. There is a creative author at work here. Not simply a collector of tales.
And this is the foundation of my doubt about the historicity of Judas. Given what we do know about historical realities, none of the details between the episode in the Temple and the crucifixion of Jesus seem plausible. The two trials make good drama. But history? . And the betrayal raises so many questions. How did Jesus cause a disturbance on the Temple Mount at the time of the Passover, a time of heightened security on the lookout for just such things, and get away unmolested? When did Jesus first get on the radar of the Temple authorities? So much of these happenings seem to require a knowledge of how things turned out later. They read like they’re being written by someone who already knows how the story ends. Someone filling in the blanks.
Let’s start with the question of whether it is plausible that Mark might preserve history.
If Mark was written c. 70, and Jesus was crucified c. 30, that is 40 years. A long time. Surely a lot of details are not accurately remembered. But not so long that we can simply dismiss the possibility of accurate transmission of some history (more history that a creedal account with only a handful of clauses), especially of the most significant and memorable events (things like a triumphal entry, a cleansing of the temple, and so forth).
For context, that would be like someone telling me a story today of events that took place in 1985. I rather suspect you yourself could tell some stories of events that took place rather earlier than that. So on the one hand that is a lot of time for memories to fade or details to be invented in the retelling, but on the other hand, it is well within living memory.
So it comes down to the mode of transmission.
How might Mark have had access to such stories, and in a reliable form?
Well, look: We know that Peter and John along with James the Brother of Jesus remained active in Christianity after the crucifixion; we know they were headquartered in Jerusalem (where these very public events took place). In fact, we know they were referred to as pillars, suggesting that they were viewed as authorities or touchstones. Moreover, we know that Peter sometimes traveled personally to visit Christian communities outside of Judea, and that James would send emissaries to Christian communities outside of Jerusalem. We also know that at least some Christians from outside of Judea would occasionally send emissaries to the Jerusalem Church. In short, it is entirely within the realm of possibility not just that there was an oral tradition but that the line of transmission was relatively short, and had opportunity to self-correct by going back to one or more early sources. Further, it seems entirely within the realm of possibility that someone may even have committed to paper–not a Gospel–but the basic series of events at some point: by the 50’s there were enough Christians that some were literate, hence why Paul was able to stay in contact with his communities via letters.
I’m not arguing that that did happen (not yet, that is), I am saying that we should not dismiss as unlikely the possibility that a literate Christian far from Jerusalem had access to more historical details than merely “and he was crucified” buried in a creedal formula.
More to come.
So far I have argued–rather persuasively, if I may judge my own argument–that a Christian author outside of Judea, writing in around 70, might have had access to some historically reliable information of the main, public events leading up the Jesus’ crucifixion.
Now ask, are the main events we see recorded in Mark plausible in themselves?
this is the foundation of my doubt about the historicity of Judas. Given what we do know about historical realities, none of the details between the episode in the Temple and the crucifixion of Jesus seem plausible. The two trials make good drama. But history? . And the betrayal raises so many questions. How did Jesus cause a disturbance on the Temple Mount at the time of the Passover, a time of heightened security on the lookout for just such things, and get away unmolested? When did Jesus first get on the radar of the Temple authorities?
Let’s consider the main public events recorded in Mark between Jesus’ entry and crucifixion:
Triumphal Entry (Mk 11:7-11)
Cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11:15-17)
There are then a series of trips into Jerusalem, when he teaches at the temple and enters into disputes with various groups. In this I think the general gist could be taken as a public event–Jesus came to the temple and taught over several days, leaving the city in between.
We then have a series of private events: The anointing at Bethany, the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, culminating in Jesus’ arrest. (Mk 14) These are private events–thus the only source would be the people who were there and their testimony would unchecked by any other witnesses.
Next we have the trial before the Sanhedrin, though I think that too should be reckoned a private event. Indeed, I don’t think even those disciples who were present that night would have any accurate information about what happened after Jesus was taken into custody by the temple authorities.
New we have the Trial before Pilate. That might very well have been public. It is uncertain to me that Jesus’ disciples would have shown their faces at a trial.
Finally we have his crucifixion, which was by design very public (although it is not clear to me whether Jesus’ most intimate followers would have stuck around for it and might have relied on reports from others to know what happened).
So of these major events that I’ve labeled “public”, the only ones that seem at all problematic are the first two (The Entry and Cleansing) especially followed by multiple public appearances at the temple. Wouldn’t Jesus have been immediately arrested and summarily executed?
Well, surely that is what the authorities would have wanted to do. But Mark gives us a perfectly plausible reason that they might not have: They feared the crowd would riot (Mk 11:18, 12:12, 14:2).
Precise numbers are hard to get, but during Passover the population of Jerusalem would swell into the hundreds of thousands. The governor would relocate troops to maintain order, but even with the added personnel, his force would have been very small in comparison–maybe one thousand, at most a few thousand. And those troops were not the best, they were mainly auxiliaries. Despite their preparations, the Romans were vastly outnumbered. A sufficiently wide-spread popular uprising could overwhelm them. Their real trump card was the legions in Syria, legions that would not arrive until well after the Praetorium had been stormed and the governor’s body dragged through the streets. It was a genuinely delicate situation. We know this because it happened at Passover in 66. We also know that there was a Passover riot under Pilate, which was successfully put down only because Pilate had somehow anticipated it and devised an usual, clever surprise intended to cause panic and disorient the rioters.
If this charismatic preacher and alleged wonder-worker could draw a big enough crowd, and if that crowed appeared to be supportive of him (regardless of how deep their conviction in him and loyalty to him actually ran), the authorities would have had good reason not to drop a match into the tinderbox by arresting him while he was surrounded by a supportive crowd. Arresting him at night, when he was in hiding, alone with only an a small group of intimates, is exactly what they would have tried to do.
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