I continue to receive significant questions from readers on key issues connected with the study of the New Testament. Here are three of them with my responses:
QUESTION:
Wouldn’t you agree that Jesus’ teaching is deeply rooted in Israel’s prophetic tradition, where judgment and restoration regularly unfold in stages rather than as a single, instantaneous event? Historically, these stages often span decades or centuries. If Jesus located his ministry within that prophetic narrative, why think there’s a contradiction between announcing an imminent judgment on Jerusalem and envisioning a kingdom whose growth and worldwide restoration would take time?
The Gospels preserve both emphases. Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem within “this generation,” yet he also compares the kingdom to a mustard seed, leaven, and harvest that matures over time. Rather than dismissing one set of traditions as inauthentic because they don’t fit a predetermined model, isn’t it equally plausible they reflect different stages of the same prophetic drama?
Don’t you worry that the criterion of automatically assigning “delay” traditions to the post-Easter church risks becoming circular? If one begins assuming Jesus expected the end of history immediately, then every saying implying development will inevitably be judged inauthentic. But if Jesus expected an imminent covenant judgment inaugurating a longer process of restoration, then those same sayings fit within his own teaching and require no appeal to later ecclesiastical invention.
RESPONSE:
- Yes,
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What’s your overview of how many people get saved and become eternal according to the bible?
Is it everyone, most people, 50-50, a sizeable minority, or not many at all?
Thanks
A small minority. “The way is narrow that leads to life, and few go that way”
For some reason I’ve been getting a lot of articles and videos sent to me about Near Death Experiences (NDEs). I guess if you click on one or two, AI or something starts sending you a whole bunch of them. What I find amazing and encouraging is that almost everyone goes somewhere peaceful, blissful, and absolutely wonderful. A good half or more of these people aren’t believers of one sort or another, and they all seem to be pretty ordinary people.
I put some store in people’s individual spiritual experiences. I think this is what the first Christians had, (though they weren’t about NDEs), before there was any book or organized church leadership to control them and tell them what to think.
I guess I put as much store in people’s personal spiritual experiences as I do in the bible or in the messages and words given by church leadership. Perhaps sometimes more.
I’m thinking that I think that the bible might be wrong about only “a small minority” getting saved and becoming eternal.
If you were a believer, what would you think?
If I were a believer I would probably love the idea of universal salvatoin. Get punished for your sins for a year or two, and then enjoy the glorious realms God created for people….
Thank you, Dr Ehrman. At church this morning, the Gospel was Matthew 20:1-16 (the Parable of the workers in the vineyard) and the priest, in his sermon, suggested that the unequal pay issue was all about accepting the Gentile newcomers into the early Church on equal terms with the existing Jewish Christians. As this parable only appears in Matthew, and Matthew’s Gospel tends to favour a more Jewish approach to Christianity, I’m not sure that the priest is correct. What do you think, Dr Ehrman?
I think it probably is that, and also the idea that those who convert late in life are not going to receive less of a “reward” in the life to come.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. But how does that square with earlier passages about Jesus’s mission being ONLY to the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 15:24)? Matthew must have known that Jesus’s mission to Israel had failed whereas the Gentile mission had traction but I would have expected the narrative to have reflected that. As it stands, it makes Jesus’s mission look uncoordinated and messy.
Like Paul and others, Matthew wants to insist that God sent his salvation “to the Jews FIRSt and THEN to the gentiles.” And so he sets it up that Jesus’ mission goes only (virtually) to Jews. But after that it would go to the gentiles. But that doesn’t relate to the quesiton of the meaning of the parable — whatever his views of Jews/gentiles, the point seems to be that *individuals* who come on board late get the same rewards as those who come on early.
How do we know Jesus had lamb at the Passover? Some groups did not eat lamb (like the Essenes). If at the Last Supper there was lamb then why didn’t Jesus pick up a piece of the lamb and say, “This is my body” instead of using bread? It seems strange he would use bread if an actual sacrifice was sitting there which would better represent his point. It is possible Jesus used bread instead of lamb as a protest against the Temple sacrifice system that he saw as becoming corrupt or errant. I don’t think we should assume Jesus had lamb at his Passover observances as we have no such record. (Granted, an additional difficulty is that the Gospel writers were not there to know what Jesus really said or did at his Passover meals. But assumptions are tricky.)
I suppose we don’t know for sure, but I don’t think we hear in any of our sources of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the Passover who preferred the vegetarian option. Those who did not eat lamb for Passover would be Jews (such as the Essenes) who did *not* go to Jerusalem, since the sacrifices could be made only in the temple. Eating the passover lamb is not the same as sanctioning the corruptoin of the temple. I’d say since the reason pilgrims went to Jerusalem for festivals in the first place was to celebrate them the way they were celebrated in Jerusalem (tens of thousands of people), if we wanted to claim that someone who went didn’t do so, we’d need some kind of evidence, and I don’t know of any. Jesus is never recorded refusing to follow the teachings of Torah, and those are pretty clear about the passover lamb. He didn’t say the lamb was his body becuase he “broke” the bread to indicate his body would be broken.
I just had an older video of yours autoplay and in it you say “Jesus’ name was just Jesus” in reference to gods having names. While his name was just his name, it wasn’t Jesus. That is a translation of his name into Greek, Latin, and then Anglicized. His name was Yeshua which normally is translated into English as Joshua.
While I fully understand why you don’t generally speak of Joshua or Josh when speaking of Jesus, it seems topical to point out in instances like this the fun fact that his name was Josh. Especially after you expounded upon that to say it was a common name back then, it seems pointed to say it’s still common today. Hell, I bet a bunch of viewers of yours named Josh didn’t know that and it would make their day.
Though I should add that I do think it would be more respectful of Christians to call him by the normal Anglicization rather than what might be called his oppressed name.
So why do you not point point this out when discussing his name specifically?
Well, that’s right, to the extent that David’s name wasn’t David, and MOses’s name wasn’t Moses, and God’s name wasn’t God, etc. I do, of course, explain his name when the need arises.
I don’t think it’s quite right to say that his name was really Joshua. Joshua is an English transliteration of a Hebrew name; which in Aramaic becomes Yeshua, which in Greek becomes Iesus, which in English becomes Jesus. And none of those is actually the name — each of them is using the English alphabet to represent the sounds of the other language. It just reminded me: when I took French in high school my teacher told me my French name was Bernard. OK then.
Is Luke preserving an earlier form of Christian proclamation that predates Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ death, or is he deliberately reshaping Paul to fit his own theology?
He’s probably doing the latter but he’s managed to do it in a way that matches the former.
I have followed your discussions with Dr. Mark Goodacre and wonder if the following scenario is historically plausible in anyway.
By the time John was written, earlier Gospels circulated widely, making close copying more noticeable. Could this have led John to avoid obvious repetition? If his community had its own developing traditions, could he have rewritten Matthew or Luke so extensively that his source use became unrecognizable—perhaps even intending to appear independent, much like different filmmakers adapting the same material in distinct ways?
Furthermore, can these differences be explained by their varying purposes: Mark as a memo-like record, Matthew as a theological treatise, Luke as a narrative, and John as high literary art?
My main question concerns historical method:
1. How can historians distinguish such extensive, creative rewriting from genuine literary independence?
2. If textual dependence cannot be proved, does that justify concluding John did not know the Synoptics, or is suspending judgment more appropriate?
4. Is this scenario a reasonable possibility, and what evidence or methodology would allow historians to assess its probability?
Yup, lots of options, and the nice thing is, in the absence of evidence, many of them are equally probable! 🙂 But your questions nail the issue. My view is that since 99% of all writing is NOT based on copying sources, that if anyone wants to claim that an author is using a source (and changing it, a little or a lot), there has to be solid evidence, and not vague evidence that can be explain relatively easily in other ways. That Matthew used Mark is based on very solid evidence that convinces nearly everyone. We have nothing even close when it comes to John using the Synoptics. Most of the verbatim overlaps — which are few and far between — are very short in extent and consist of the kinds of memorable phrases that would have been simply parts of stories told over and over again in various contexts. I hve a rather large problem with thinking that if we see similarities between Gospels that must mean one copied the other, given the fact that there ewre thousands of people telling similar stories and that there were also lots of Gospels we don’t have. Why should we always think we have “the smoking gun”?
I’m a little surprised to read you downplaying that Jesus preached an imminent-coming kingdom (Q1, pt2). Mark is written 40 years after Jesus is gone, so of course Mark knows the kingdom doesn’t come quickly in Jesus’ time. So it’s not surprising to read that the Markan Jesus talks about a time gap (Mk 2:20; 10:29-30; 13:10; 14:7-8; 14:9) between Jesus and the end, or that the Markan Jesus preaches that the kingdom has “neared” (Mk 1:15). Mark is looking back and knows that at least 40 years pass before the end comes. The time gap in Mark is redactional. It’s Mark’s explanation the end doesn’t happen immediately. There’s no reason to think the historical Jesus was preaching anything but an imminent end. Apocalypticists don’t preach the end is coming in a few decades. They preach it is now. Thoughts?
Ah, sorry, I didn’t know that I was downplaying Jesus’ proclamation of the imminent kingdom. I’ve never done so intentionally! I absolutely think he thought it was imminent. But “this generation will not pass away” is not the same as “tonight”
Throughout history and certainly in modern times, I’d say that most apocalypticists think the end is coming very soon, but not today (unless they set a date and after a number of years, that date is now — as for example William Miller, Hal Lindsay, Edgar Whisenant, and…. on and on)
Oh, ok, maybe I misunderstood that first sentence of part 2 in your first response.
I think “this generation” is part of the time gap that Mark is including. It stretches the timing of the imminent kingdom from Jesus’ time to 40+ years beyond it.
True, Miller, Lindsay, Whisenant were not saying literally today or tomorrow, but within a few years. But they also weren’t saying 40+ years from now. Not much urgency if the end is that many decades away. That’s my point with the time gap in Mark between the presence of Jesus and the return of the son of man. Mark is an eschatological update for readers who might be disillusioned that after 40 years, the kingdom had still not come.
Maybe I can catch up with you in November and explain what I’m seeing in Mark that I don’t see others talking about.
Well, Miller wsa predicting 25 years in the future (1818-1843). So you think Mark is saying “this generation” to his own generation. OK, may well be. But the historical Jesus was talking about his generation.
Yup, it’d be good to catch up!
I think Mark has the Markan Jesus say “this generation” (Mark 13:30) for those living in Jesus’ day, so it would extend 40 years to Mark’s time (ca 70 CE). Same with Mark 9:1. By the time Mark writes ca 70, he knows there are at least four decades between Jesus and the end so he makes sure that Jesus in his gospel speaks that way.
Ah, got it. I wonder if Mark knew when (about) Jesus died. We tend to think he did, but I wonder….
I’ve wondered similarly. Mark’s chronology with death on Nisan 15 on a Friday seems off because there wasn’t such a year under Pilate (26-36 CE), except 27 CE but that seems too early. And possibly that’s one factor (along with Lamb of God theology) why the Fourth Gospel has Jesus dying on Nisan 14, not 15. Possibly a correction of Mark’s chronology so then 30 and 33 are possible under Pilate.
I’m not sure Mark knows who was high priest so the HP is nameless. Granted, it was a bit confusing to remember precisely which member of Annas’ family served at which time. And maybe that’s why Mark speaks vaguely of the “high priests” (plural). (Fwiw, I hate it that English translations render that “chief priests.”)
I think we sometimes underestimate how influential Mark was to the Jesus traditions. The whole reason we call the lake “Sea of Galilee” is because of Mark. And possibly Judas as “Iscariot” originates with Mark. And possibly Nazareth originates from Mark’s use of “Nazarene” (4x), which might refer to something other than an unknown town in Galilee.
Things that make me go, hmmm. 🙂