Now my final plank.
I’ve argued that an author like Mark despite his distance from the events, might well have had access to some historical narrative elements. I then argued that the major public events in Jerusalem leading up to the crucifixion, as related by Mark, are historically plausible.
Now, would preserving actual tales of what happened to Jesus fit with Mark’s project?
I do think it’s a mistake to imagine the narrative details of the gospels as distorted memories. . . . There is a creative author at work here. Not simply a collector of tales. . . . They read like they’re being written by someone who already knows how the story ends. Someone filling in the blanks.
Yeah, I agree that Mark is being creative and writing literature. I agree that he is filling in blanks. Certainly he is not a mere collector of tales of redactor.
But I don’t see need to draw so stark a dichotomy which makes us pick a Mark who is simply repeating stories he has been given and a Mark who invents everything from whole-cloth.
I’m happy to say that Jesus’ words before the high priest at the trial were invented. I’m happy to say the transfiguration and empty tomb were invented, likewise the splitting of the temple veil. That doesn’t necessarily mean that events like the triumphal entry or the betrayal by Judas were entirely fabricated.
If I looked for an analogy, I might propose someone like Shakespeare’s Roman plays. They are based on real characters and the major events are in the history books. But the final work is very much a work of creative literature, though it was based on true events.
Now, if that was was Mark did; If he was writing a creative theological history that was based more or less loosely on and inspired by true events, how might we identify which of the events he narrates are true and which are not?
It is tricky and speculative, and I know the reasons won’t be conclusive. But the simplest thing is just to consider the plausibility of what is related and its explanatory power on a naturalistic reading.
The events I’ve singled out are–I’ve already argued–entirely plausible, and they cohere as a purely natural story, where everyone’s motives are clear and their actions are intelligible. A charismatic and popular preacher and reputed wonder worker comes to Jerusalem for Passover with a band of loyal followers. As the pilgrims descend on Jerusalem from all over the world, his reputation spreads among them like wildfire. People want to see him. Some of them believe he is a messiah–a new Judas Maccabeus. Some are cautiously optimistic–could he be for real? We’ll need to go and see. Some are just curious–they don’t know if he is the real thing or not, but if there is going to be a scene (whether it is a miracle or just a Galilean peasant telling off authorities to their face) they want to be there to see it; I’m reliably informed that the selection on cable TV was pretty limited in first century Palestine. He is emboldened by the apparent support, and goes on to do a number of confrontational things–but always with a big supportive crowd at his back, a crowd that stays the authorities’ hand. He took care to slip away into the crowd, and go into hiding before the crowd dispersed.
The authorities–both Roman and Jewish–are concerned. They know how dangerous big crowds can get around Passover; they know what they expect of a Messiah. They want to neutralize him but they do not want to risk sparking a riot. If only they could take him into custody when there is no crowd. They turn to their spies and informants.
Meanwhile one of Jesus’ intimates has lost faith in him. Maybe he has seen one to many failed healings. But he realizes he is in too deep to just quietly leave and go back to his former life. Things have gone too far. If Jesus is not a divine messiah, this is going to end very badly for Jesus’ followers, and depending on how far it goes, maybe also for the nation as a whole (consider what happened in the Jewish wars). The only way to save himself, and perhaps tens of thousands of other lives, is to take the terrible step of turning Jesus over.
By the time the news spreads and crowd assembles the next morning, Jesus is in custody, humiliated. The authorities have taken the initiative tactically, and are much better prepared to handle the crowed. Most of the crowd writes him off–just another false messiah. His most loyal followers are thrown into confusion. They have no leader, they are scared for their own lives, their own faith in him as a messiah is wavering or even crushed. The mood has changed dramatically: The crowds that once seemed so supportive are now openly derisive: fueled by a mixture of schadenfreude and anger at being lied to.
All this makes sense. It is not simply that each event taken in itself is plausible, but that they hold together as a series of events, each even locks in with the others. Everyone’s actions follow from entirely relatable human motivations.
I’m reluctant to use the criterion of embarrassment. There are a lot of problems with it, but I can’t help but see this narrative as embarrassing to Christians. Start with the betrayal by one of the twelve. The ancients were concerned–deeply concerned–with his motivation. They were not just happy to say, well he was a betrayer, end of story. The early Christians worried how anyone could have witnessed all the miracles that Mark says Jesus did, and then turn him over to be executed, so they tried to come up with plausible motivations (e.g., he was trying immanentize the eschaton, by forcing a confrontation between the Son of Man and the authorities.) Now, you can say that this wasn’t a concern of Mark, who was perfectly happy to portray the disciples in a bad light, even showing them as super-humanly stupid at points.
But in reply, consider his treatment of the Sanhedrin. Mark is at pains to show that the Sanhedrin acted unjustly in condemning Jesus, and yet the inculpation rests lightly on the narrative. Looking just at those public events (those I identified based on objective criteria as plausibly historical and plausibly preserved for Mark) the Sanhedrin’s actions are perfectly understandable and arguably just. Jesus entered town in a way that everyone understood to be a direct challenge to Roman authority. He then created a very serious disturbance at the temple–surely that would not have been lawful, and surely it would not have been tolerated, especially not during Passover. His actions would have been understood by all as transparently fomenting insurrection. And his being executed mockingly as “King of the Jews” would have been the expected response.
But Mark wants to portray it as a gross miscarriage of justice. And he does that in the spaces in the narrative where he almost certainly had no reliable historical information, like what transpired overnight, after Jesus had been taken into custody. That is where Mark is filling in the gaps. Again, Mark wants to portray Jesus’ crucifixion as part of the plan all along, but he does that by adding material in the gaps, for example, Jesus’ interpretation of his anointing at Bethany, or Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane–when there would have been no witnesses. That, I’d suggest, is where Mark is taking the known elements of the historical narrative and adding material that fundamentally alters the significance of those events, by filling in the gaps.
Hoo boy. I’ve been a…uh, hip deep in Enoch but this is one of my favorite subjects.
Ok I want to first clarify my earlier post so there is no misunderstanding. When I say that Mark is a creative composer I am not saying that he has no historical understanding. I would regard Mark 1,14-15 as one of the most firmly historical claims in the text.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” -NRSV
Of course Mark has a first century historical consciousness. Theologized narrative? At any rate he is interpreting events. Events that have significance for him. What actually happened at the crucifixion? How would he know? So he interprets the existential fact of the event through Psalm 82. He wants to portray the significance of the Resurrection. How to conceptualize it? You could go the way of Jesus eating fish or showing his wounds, but Mark leaves that to later, lesser artists. Mark creates an iconic image that interprets the significance of the Resurrection. The grave is empty. The response of the women is simply in keeping with a theme he has presented all through his gospel.
Of course there was an oral tradition. These were oral cultures. I imagine Mark had what Paul had. …For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received… But Paul could write Romans and the Corinthian correspondence without knowing most of the “biographical” details we take for granted from the gospels. I think Mark knew the frame of the story. He is filling out the story with events that interpret the significance of that frame. Jesus was remembered as an exorcist and healer. So we have stories about exorcism and healing. The idea that it is necessary to think these stories were passed down for decades by word of mouth ultimately to be put to pen just seems unlikely. Mark drew from a deep well of both pagan and Hebrew miracle stories to construct his narrative.
Ok, responses. It’s seems unlikely that an event like a “triumphal entry” could take place at Passover without drawing an immediate response from the Romans whose reactions to ostentatious political displays at sensitive times were notoriously unsubtle and free from nuance. As far as the crowd reaction, it is Mark who portrays the journey to Jerusalem as a singular event in Jesus’ ministry. How could Jesus have had a widespread following available to riot for him? Josephus records that at Passover the population in Jerusalem swelled to upwards of 3 million people. I suspect Jesus and his following, what, twenty to forty people? would have the opposite problem, that is, attracting the attention of anyone else at all. The supreme irony of all this may be that at this fateful time the vast majority of the Jews present in Jerusalem were never even aware of Jesus at all. The Romans could have rushed in, put a bag over Jesus’ head, and hauled him off without a blip.
My problem with Judas stems from the lack of circumstances present that would have been required for a betrayal to be necessary in the first place. It goes against the other information we are provided by Mark. So we are forced to make decisions about which parts of the story can be historical and which can’t, a point you’ve made Porphyry.
How did Jesus get on the radar of the authorities in the first place if he had never been to Jerusalem before? An “incident” in the Temple seems a perfect candidate. But how could there be an incident in the Temple and Jesus get away? If he was arrested outright at the Temple, as seems logical to me, then there is no need for a betrayal. Mark has other reasons to create this episode. (Notice the episode that occurs in ch14 immediately preceding Judas’ decision to betray Jesus. Makes you wonder if Mark intended us to assume an association.) In order for there to be a need for a betrayal Jesus has to get off the Temple Mount after an incident during the Passover. He has to be anonymous to the authorities yet so well known that he can cause a riot if he were publicly arrested. The scribes and priests are already plotting but don’t know what he looks like? Jesus is required to be both famous and not famous at the same time.
The trials are really problematic. The Romans had no legal bureaucracy? Pilate personally interviewed every capital criminal? Good drama. But It’s more likely the historical Pilate simply pencil-whipped a death warrant and never laid eyes on Jesus at all. I am no expert at Jewish legal jurisprudence in the first century but I am informed that the trial before the Sanhedrin violates much of what we know about Jewish practice. Here though I am happy to be educated but how did anyone find out what happened in the first place? After Jesus was arrested it seems likely that his followers were hunkered down in an alley somewhere or on donkeys hauling their butts back to Galilee.
This is how I imagine it went historically. Jesus, an apocalyptical prophet, had a localized ministry in Galilee for some indeterminate length of time. He became convinced of the imminence of the Parousia and that Jerusalem at the Passover was the place to be. So he and an indeterminate number of his followers made the journey. Jesus acted out some sort of prophetic demonstration at the Temple and was immediately arrested by the Temple authorities and turned over to the Romans. Any such incident would have been automatically interpreted as an implicit attack on the Temple system by the Priests and as a political rebellion by he Romans. More than sufficient reason for immediate execution.
Other scenarios are possible of course. But mine seems to be the simplest historically based on what we know about how things worked. Mark’s motivations and reasoning are occluded to us but he is writing thirty years + later and it seems logical he has an agenda that would cause him to manipulate whatever facts he has to his larger theological purpose. (After all, remember John is willing to change the very day of the crucifixion to make a theological point. Why assume Mark would be unwilling to do this kind of thing?)
Ps: It is widely assumed that because Mark is the first gospel that he is closer in some way to the historical events and therefore his account more likely. There are reasons to dispute this. He certainly wrote first – I consider Markan priority a done deal. But he is either a gentile or a hellenized diapsora Jew writing in Rome perhaps. I think the material known as “Q”, whether or not it existed as a separate document, is more primitive. As is probably some of Matthew’s special source, “M”.
I think the rub is whether we think Jesus was an obscure and insignificant figure with perhaps a score of followers, or whether we think he actually was popular.
I am frustrated by the tendency (I’ve seen for example in BDE) to presume that Jesus was basically a nobody: A random guy with a dozen or two followers but no reputation that would draw a serious crowd. I’m frustrated by it because it seems unfounded. It may be uncharitable of me, but it seems like it is motivated by a knee jerk tendency to minimize the historical Jesus instinctively.
It is not that I know he was popular, but I don’t see any reason to start from the presumption that he wasn’t. There were popular apocalyptic prophets at the time, who could draw 1000’s of loyal followers, ready to take up arms on their behalf. Why presume that Jesus, whose movement turned into the largest world religion, was far far far less significant in his own life? I just don’t see any basis for that.
Now, you do cast doubt on his fame by noticing that the soldiers needed Judas to pick him out.
In order for there to be a need for a betrayal Jesus has to get off the Temple Mount after an incident during the Passover. He has to be anonymous to the authorities yet so well known that he can cause a riot if he were publicly arrested. The scribes and priests are already plotting but don’t know what he looks like? Jesus is required to be both famous and not famous at the same time.
A few things need to be said. First, a bare betrayal may have been needed if the authorities were worried about sparking a riot, and Jesus was in hiding when he wasn’t surrounded by a boisterous and supportive crowd.
Second, I think it is important to remember that this is a day before photography. Jesus could be known, without being immediately recognizable to any random individual. Even guards who had been set out to look for him at the gates may never have had a good look at his face–it isn’t like the Romans had a good photo of his face they could pass among the troops with an APB.
Third, even if his face was well-known to the soldiers, that doesn’t mean they could pick him out of a milling crowd, especially if the men in the crowd had their heads covered, as might be the case with Jews coming and going from the Temple. It also doesn’t mean they would pick it out of a smaller group, from a distance, at night (as for example, if they were trying to identify ahead of time the person they had to take into custody and ensure didn’t have an opportunity to slip away.)
Finally, as to how the crowd would recognize him, it was probably just a handful of people who did recognizing him setting the word out–look, that’s Jesus of Nazareth! He’s about to speak!–perhaps those people were his own followers, perhaps it was random people who had at another time caught a good look at him, pushed near to front row, who could recognize him on sight.
In other words, I think Jesus may have been known *by name* to many–far more than had ever seen him in the flesh, let alone gotten a good look at him. I think he was known *by sight* to some, but to a much smaller group (and those who did know him by sight would have had various levels of confidence in identifying him–if you see someone at a distance once, you may have a general sense of what he looks like, but have trouble picking him out of a lineup). I think that is to be expected given the situation in an age before photography and printing.
I think the rub is whether we think Jesus was an obscure and insignificant figure with perhaps a score of followers, or whether we think he actually was popular.
I do vacillate on this issue myself. It seems unlikely that Jesus was as popular as the gospels make him out to be. That’s probably a reaction to the continuing popularity of John who still had disciples well into the second century. (And if the Mandaeans can be trusted considerably longer.) On the other hand, Prof Ehrman’s ‘twenty guys in a room’ seems problematic too. I mean, how popular would you have had to be to get on Josephus’ radar? Josephus’ knows of Jesus and his brother at the end of the century.
My take is this. I think Jesus’ ministry in Galilee must have been fairly widespread and he probably left a considerable support network behind among the small villages when he went to Jerusalem. Every capital draws a large group of expats and Jerusalem would have supported a Galilean expat community with lots of back and forth between the capital and home. So there would probably have been some level of support already present in Jerusalem. But if the fateful journey was the first and only time that Jesus went to Jerusalem then it’s hard for me to see Jesus’ fame spreading much beyond the Galilean community. It would have been Jesus’ death that gave him whatever notoriety he came to possess in Jerusalem.
ps: A Galilean expat community in Jerusalem that included members of the Jesus community would also help explain how and why the movement leadership eventually wound up back in Jerusalem.
I think we are making genuine progress, so kudos to us.
I think Jesus’ ministry in Galilee must have been fairly widespread and he probably left a considerable support network behind among the small villages when he went to Jerusalem. Every capital draws a large group of expats and Jerusalem would have supported a Galilean expat community with lots of back and forth between the capital and home. So there would probably have been some level of support already present in Jerusalem. But if the fateful journey was the first and only time that Jesus went to Jerusalem then it’s hard for me to see Jesus’ fame spreading much beyond the Galilean community.
I track with you until the end. I don’t see any reason that an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic preacher, and reputed wonder worker wouldn’t have his fame spread beyond the region where he was active. I see no reason to think his fame might not have spread far beyond the people who had a chance to see him in person. And if his fame spread, I see no reason it might not have been greeted with at least caution optimism.
Indeed, once a reputation begins to spread, it has a tendency to be exaggerated, as it becomes less and less grounded in eyewitness testimony, ever less tethered to facts. That seems to me the simplest way to explain his reputation as a wonder-worker. You get lucky a couple of times and suddenly–they say–you can command nature itself and raise the dead. You command it to rain every Saturday during a drought and one day a sprinkle follows and the next thing you know, strangers have heard that you can summon rain on command. Deeds that are objectively not terribly impressive got more impressive in the retelling. We can find plenty of analogous examples.
I taught in college for a while, and I’ve heard the stories that students passed around about me, even long after I left the college (I’ve heard that you can . . .), and on their telling I am a miracle worker (I do my best not to disabuse them, without lying).
It’s an insignificant example, but that is how legends work. Think of ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
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