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Greco-Roman Religions

Did Christians Invent the Idea of “Atonement” / “Vicarious Suffering”?

My textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings is now out in its 8th edition, co-authored with my colleague Hugo Mendez.  One of my favorite features of the book since I first wrote it in the mid 90s is the use of side-bar “boxes” that deal with issues that are – to me – particularly interesting but not directly related to what I’m talking about in the chapter.  As a rule I use these boxes to deal with highly relevant but more “human-interest” kinds of things. For a long time I’ve thought about the Christian idea that Jesus’s death was a “vicarious atonement” for sins.  It’s an unusual view, when you think about it.  Why does God need someone else to die for you to forgive what you’ve done?  Can’t he just forgive you? In one of the boxes in the book I point out that Christians were not the first to come up with the idea.  Here’s what I say there in a box in my chapter 16. ****************************** [...]

2025-01-03T22:52:55-05:00January 7th, 2025|Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

How to be Content with Life Even When It’s Rotten: The Stoic View

How can you be satisfied and content with life?  Even when it seems rotten on the whole?  With this post I conclude my thread on the ancient Stoic view of life and how to live it. Thus, Stoics understood that the way to live – and to live with eudaimonia (recall: that means a kind of “happiness,” in the sense of a full satisfaction and contentment about how one’s life) – was to focus on personal choice, freedom, and avoidance, choosing not to be disturbed by things we cannot control, even if everyone around us thinks that hardship, pain, and suffering create ultimate misery.  They don’t.  Or at least they don’t need to.  In the end, they are not the things that matter. We need to train ourselves to be “indifferent” to them.  And indifference cuts both ways – we should not be wrought by things we can’t avoid and we should not be desperate to obtain what we don’t have.  One of the key terms among Stoics was adiaphora, literally “things that make no [...]

How Not To Be Bothered When Bad Things Happen: The Stoics

Here I continue trying to explain the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, and to show how it related to their views of ethics – especially with respect to questions of altruism. It is a little difficult for many moderns to get their minds around the Stoic idea that “reason” is a divine quality that infuses the world; it is possibly even harder to understand how this divine quality relates to the gods.  Do they “have” it in greater quantity than us?  Is Reason itself actually a distinct divine being of some kind? The problem is exacerbated by the Stoic writings themselves, since often an author, say Epictetus, will speak of “Reason” and sometimes of “Zeus” (the head of the gods) and sometimes of the “gods” -- and in each instance appear to be referring to the same thing.  The “Reason/Logos” that infuses the world can be thought of as the sensibility of the world; it can be “the reason” something is or happens as it does; it can be “human reason”; and it can be personalized [...]

Does this World Make Any Sense? The Ancient Stoics

From my earlier posts on altruism in the ancient world before Christianity, a number of blog readers have asked me to say some things specifically about ancient Stoics.  Didn’t they urge altruistic behavior?  Once again, the answer is, well, yes and no.  This will take several posts to explain. Stoicism was by far the most widespread moral philosophy at the time of early Christianity.  It was named not after its founder (as was, say, Platonism and Epicureanism) but after the place where he taught.  The movement began in the wake of Aristotle, with the teachings of a teacher named Zeno (333-261 BCE).  Zeno regularly gathered his students in the large “painted portico” (= stoa) centrally located in the Athenian forum.  The portico was a long and spacious building open on one side of its length to the outside, lined with columns to support the roof overhead.  Since these philosophers and wannabe philosophers could regularly be seen in the stoa they were called Stoics.  Over time their movement spread throughout the Greek and then the later [...]

2024-11-15T16:22:52-05:00November 23rd, 2024|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

Isn’t It Good Enough to Help Family, Friends, and Community?

I’ve been discussing Aristotle (really, it’s interesting!) and what he thought it took to be “happy” – not the giddy fleeting emotion but have a satisfying sense of contentment and fulfillment in life.  For him, it means having the most “excellent” life you can and that requires being the most “excellent” person you can and that means having full amounts of the various kinds of human “excellences.”  In English translations of Aristotle, "excellences" are usually rendered "virtues" (that's because our English equivalent of the Greek word he uses comes to us from Latin rather than the Greek, and the word "VIR" in Latin means "man."  The excellences of a VIR are his VIRtues). For Aristotle, “virtues” require a good life in community with others. So the virtues involved how to make life good in the socio-political context one inhabits, which for Aristotle was the “polis” – the Greek term for the city (since there were not empires or national governments connected with Greece; it was ruled city states).  And that means that virtues [...]

How Can We Be Happy? An Age-Old Question.

In my previous post I began explaining why I’m calling the teachings of Jesus the “origins of altruism.”  Aren’t people naturally altruistic to some extent?  Didn’t ancient Greek (and then Roman) cultures – the context in which Christianity emerged -- understand how we ought to behave to others, and insist people needed to be “good to others”? I started to answer by discussing Aristotle (don’t worry, it’s not boring), and his point (if you have trouble buying this, read the post!) that what people *ultimately* want is not good friends and family, wealth, meaningful employment, material possessions, or a really good blog; in the end, all of these things are simply means to our ultimate desire, to be “happy.” If Aristotle is right on this point (I happen to think he is), the clear implication is that we need, each of us, to figure out how we should live in the world, what we should do, and how we should be in order to attain that state of “happiness.”  Not in the simplistic, surface sense [...]

What Do You Really Want in Life? And How is that Related to Altruism?

Some readers have wondered why I’m calling my book “The Origins of Altruism: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West.”  (At least I’m calling it that at this point).   Are you saying Jesus invented altruism?  What??  Hasn’t every ethical teacher from the very beginning stressed that we have to balance “what we want” with “what would be good for another”?  And isn’t that always part of religion: behaving well toward others as a kind of divine mandate? Answer: well, yes and no.  This will take a few posts to explain. As it turns out, and to the surprise of many moderns, ethics did not play a large role in ancient pagan religions.  Worshiping the gods normally did not involve any public recognition of bad social behavior or feelings of guilt for mistreating another with requests for forgiveness.  If someone had neglected the god, then apology or confession might be in order; but the gods were not focused on how humans treated one another, not all that concerned about whether you [...]

Were Matthew and Luke Plagiarists?

Were Matthew and Luke plagiarists?  They copied word-for-word passages from Mark, without any indication that they were using someone else’s work.  Today that will get you fired (or, say, removed from the presidency of an Ivy League school).  But what about in the ancient world? Here I continue here with my discussion of plagiarism in the antiquity, citing some sources that talk about the phenomenon only to condemn it, before considering whether Matthew and Luke can be considered culpable. You may be surprised by my answer. First, I give some more ancient  writings, starting with where I left off, with Vitruvius (a famous Roman architect; not a famous volcano) ****************** Elsewhere Vitruvius himself delivers a stringent judgment on those who engaged in the practice of plagiarism: “While, then, these men [viz. Those who left a written record of past events and philosophies] deserve our gratitude, on the other hand we must censure those who plunder their works and appropriate them to themselves” (Book 7, Preface 3).   This attitude coincides with other ancient discourse about [...]

2024-02-09T12:55:44-05:00February 13th, 2024|Forgery in Antiquity, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

Plagiarism! Was It Condemned in the Ancient World? (Is Matthew Guilty of It?)

Just over a week ago I did an eight-lecture on-line course on the Gospel of Matthew, not connected with the blog but with BECO (Bart Ehrman Courses Online); you can find out more about that here: The Genius of Matthew.  Someone who came to the course asked me an intriguing question:  if it’s true that Matthew used Mark for a number of his stories, actually copying his account word for word in many places, wouldn’t he be guilty of plagiarism? Ah – right!  That’s certainly something we would be thinking about today!  Did people in the ancient world think about plagiarism?  There weren’t copyright laws or, in fact, any laws about the theft of intellectual property.  So was plagiarism even a THING? As it turns out, this is a topic that, I venture to say (with good reason), the vast majority of New Testament scholars don’t know about.  My (good) reason for saying so is that you can hear many such-a-scholar say oh-so-wrong things about it, either based on what they assume or what they [...]

2024-02-07T14:25:46-05:00February 11th, 2024|Forgery in Antiquity, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

When Is Forgiveness not Forgiveness?

Does love really "mean never having to say I'm sorry"?  Is "unconditional forgiveness" possible?  Is it even Christian?  Is forgiveness itself always possible, conceivable, feasible, expected, required, helpful?  Actually, what is forgiveness? These are questions people often ask.  When they ask what Jesus thought about the matter they usually get it wrong.  And as it turns out, so did his own disciples.  So I'll be arguing in my book, tentatively titled The Origins of Altruism. Here's another extract from my sketch of the book as it looks at this point in the pre-writing stage.... ****************************** Part Four:  Interpersonal Forgiveness (ch. 6 on Greek and Roman World; ch. 7 on Jesus and his followers) Whereas “charity” is the manifestation of agapē principally to outsiders in need, “forgiveness” is its manifestation principally to those with whom one is in close contact. The importance of “forgoing anger” (a very broad and – as I’ll argue – somewhat problematic definition of forgiveness) was widely acknowledged in the Greek and Roman worlds.  But the conditions under which it was possible [...]

Love in Action: Christian Views of Charitable Giving

As I indicated in my previous post, the ethics of Christian love (and the very term used for it) differed from what could be found broadly in the Greek and Roman worlds.  This different understanding of love had concrete practical implications, especially in how early Christians understood charitable giving. That will be the next part of my book, The Origins of Altruism, as I explain here as I continue to extract from the initial sketch of the book I've written for myself. ****************************** Part Three: Charitable Giving (chs. 6, on the Greco-Roman world, and 7, on Jesus and his later followers) Since love in the teachings of Jesus and then agapē in the early Christian movement was not an emotion, connected with personal feelings or passion but a kind of disinterested activity in relation to others, including strangers, its most concrete manifestation involved providing resources for those in need. In the broader Greek and Roman worlds, virtually all the discussion of personal resources (money and goods) focused on the very wealthy.  Moral philosophy was written by elites [...]

Is Christian Love Different from Love?

One of the most talked about and least understood teachings within Christianity is the idea of love.  Do you want some evidence of the misunderstanding?  Read 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter," in its original context (coming between, well, 1 Corinthians 12 and 14!  A little consideration almost no one has thought about!), and then consider it in relation to the 498 times you've heard it in weddings.  I'm all for it's being read at weddings! But, uh, is Paul talking about marital bliss?  Uh, nope, not at *all*..... I am in the middle of a thread excerpting a sketch of my book (which I'm still researching; won't start writing for a while).  So far I've talked about what it's about.  Now I'm getting into some detail, by describing the book chapter by chapter -- including the opening bit about Christian ethics and the opening section that deals with love in the Christian tradition. ******************************  The book will comprise an Introduction and four main parts containing two chapters each. Introduction (ch. 1) I’ll [...]

The Origins of Altruism: My Next Book as It Stands Now

My book I'm working on now has gone through significant transformations since I first conceived of it a few years ago.  I am at the stage now (finally!) where I really think I know what it's going to be.  It started out as a book dealing with the history of charitable giving, morphed into a book on the broader subject of ethics as taught by Jesus, moved onto the specific question of how the Christian concept of "love" differed in significant ways from what could be found generally in the Greek and Roman worlds, shifted to add a discussion of how the Christian idea of "forgiveness" also differed fron what was found elsewhere and ... and ended up where it is now.  It is really a book about altruism in the Christian tradition and its effect on the ethical views and practices of western culture. My tentative title is:  The Origins of Altruism: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Conscience of the West.  As always, I have no idea if my publisher will go with it or [...]

Is Christ *Merely* the “Adopted” Son of God?

If Jesus wasn't God from eternity past, but was "adopted" to be the Son of God at some point of his existence, wouldn't that be a pretty watered-down understanding of his divinity? A lot of people find this kind of "adoptionist" Christology (Christ wasn't "inherently" God but "made" divine by adoption) completely unsatisfying and, well, pretty wimpy as far as Christologies go. I mentioned in the previous post that one could well read Luke as adoptionistic, and as I reflected on it some more, I recalled that the first time I wrestled seriously with the issue was ten years ago, when I was doing my research for my book How Jesus Became God. Here's what I ended up thinking about it, and saying about it in the book. And in case you wonder -- mirabile dictu! -- I still think the same today! ****************************** Part of what has convinced me that an [adoptionistic] understanding of Christ should not be shunted aside as rather inferior involves new research on what it meant to be “adopted” [...]

Is It Better to Follow Christ or to Live a Contented Life? Paul vs. Epicurus

What would other deep thinkers in the ancient world have thought of Paul’s teachings?  Short answer: not much. Earlier this year I posted on one of my favorite Greek philosophers, Epicurus (341 – 270 BCE).  Epicurus acquired a bad reputation already in antiquity, and still has one among many people today, mainly because his views are widely misunderstood and often simply misrepresented.   As it turns out, he advocated views that have widely become dominant in our world, and for good reasons.  For that reason I’ve always read him as remarkably prescient, entertaining ideas that would not become popular for two thousand years. And they stand precisely at odds with the views of the apostle Paul.  I’ve recently begun to think about this more deeply -- especially since they talk about the same *topics* but take completely different stands on them.. Unfortunately, we do not have very many of Epicurus’s writings.  In fact, the most important sources we have are simply three long letters, quoted in toto by a significant but little-read author named Diogenes Laertius, [...]

Does Archaeological Evidence Show that Jesus Was Buried on the Day He Died?

[Note: this post originally appeared in 2014; since then the skeletal remains of another victim of crucifixion have appeared in England; to my knowledge, the new discovery does not affect either Craig's argument or my response here] ****************************** I plan to make this the last post responding to Craig Evans’s article, “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right,” in which he attempts to refute my argument in How Jesus Became God, that Jesus was probably not given a decent burial on the day of his crucifixion. I have dealt with a wide range of Craig’s arguments, and have saved his two strongest arguments for last.  In my last post I dealt with the claim of Josephus that Jews (always? usually? sometimes?) buried crucifixion victims before sunset, and I showed that as a general statement it simply isn’t true, and argued that in any event it would not have applied to a case such as that of Jesus, one who was crucified as an enemy of the state.   Today I deal with the second argument that [...]

Josephus’ One Statement About the Burial of Crucified Victims in Judea

We come now, at last, to the best argument in Craig Evans’ arsenal, in his attack on the views of Jesus’ burial that I set forth in in How Jesus Became God.   Tomorrow I will deal with the second best – an argument from archaeology.   Craig makes a somewhat bigger deal of the second best; in fact he throws off this, his best argument rather quickly.  But it’s the most important point of the many (many!) issues he raises.   The argument is this.  In one passage of Josephus’s writings, in an extremely brief few words (it’s only half of one sentence) (this is the only half sentence in the entire corpus not only of Josephus’s 30 volumes of writing but in the entire corpus of pagan and Jewish literature of all of antiquity that makes this claim) he explicitly indicates that Jews buried victims of crucifixion before sunset.  Craig’s commentary on the passage amounts only to two sentences. At the end of the day I don’t find even this piece of evidence persuasive, and [...]

Did Jews Always Bury Their Dead on the Day of their Death? Was Jesus Buried Then?

I have not covered all of the points that Craig Evans makes in his essay “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right,” which is his response to the position I stake out in How Jesus Became God.  My view is that Jesus probably was not given a decent burial on the day of his death by the otherwise unknown figure, Joseph of Arimathea.   In this thread I have tried to focus on Craig’s main points.   In my judgment, despite all the various issues he raises there are really only two of that are directly relevant and that need to be taken with utmost seriousness:  Josephus appears to say that Jews were allowed to bury their dead (Craig makes two arguments about this) and we have the skeletal remains of one crucified victim from Judea at about the time of Jesus. First I’ll be dealing with the evidence from Josephus.  My view is that of the two arguments Craig makes, based on Josephus, the first also carries almost no weight and the second cannot mean what [...]

2023-08-29T07:17:45-04:00August 29th, 2023|Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

We Have Crucifixion Nails! Isn’t that Evidence for Jesus’ Burial?

I have mentioned a couple of times that at the end of this thread I will be discussing the two arguments that Craig Evans marshals that strike me as interesting and to be taken seriously.  These are (1) the general claims in a couple of passages of Josephus and (2) the discovery of the skeletal remains of a crucified victim.  Even though these are, in my opinion, good arguments, I will explain why I do not find them persuasive.   Up till now I have been dealing with the arguments that Craig advances that I do not find at all convincing  -- for example, that Roman governors on rare occasions showed clemency for lower level crimes and that Pilate was not the kind of person to offend Jewish sensitivities.  I have one more argument of this sort to deal with.  It is one that may sound highly convincing to someone who has only Craig’s summary at hand but who does not know the facts of case. This argument does not involve historical literary sources (Philo or [...]

2023-08-18T11:30:28-04:00August 12th, 2023|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus|

Were Roman Leaders Told to Provide Decent Burials for Crucified Victims? (Really?)

In my previous post I tried to show why Craig’s argument that Roman governors on (widely!) isolated occasions showed clemency to prisoners (those not sentenced to death) has no relevance to the question of whether Jesus, condemned to crucifixion for treason against the Roman state, would have been allowed a decent burial, contrary to Roman practice.   The “clemency” argument – even in the sources that Craig himself cites, only seems to show that in cases that were completely unlike that of Jesus himself, Roman governors could on rare occasions be merciful and/or bribed. Craig goes on to say that this clemency was extended to the burial of executed criminals.  Now in theory, this should be relevant to the question of whether Pilate showed mercy on Jesus by allowing his body to be buried on the day of his execution.  But when you actually look at the evidence, once again it is not just irrelevant to Craig's argument, it actually supports the *opposite* view that is opposite to the one Craig wants to argue.  See for [...]

2023-07-28T10:55:42-04:00August 6th, 2023|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture, Historical Jesus|
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