(12 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)
Loading...Here are some of the intriguing questions I’ve received recently, and my attempts to answer, on the consistency of Mark’s Gospel, scribal changes of 1 Corinthians, the problem of suffering, and how to study the NT without knowing Greek.
QUESTION:
Mark has his Jesus explaining and predicting that he will be betrayed, handed over to his enemies, greatly suffer and be killed. And he tells his disciples several times that all these things must come to pass.
But then when Jesus is handed over, suffers and is rejected Mark has him cry out “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!” Whether this is a reference to Daniel or not, Mark clearly seems to be portraying Jesus as having genuinely felt forsaken and abandoned. But how can he when he knew this was all going to happen and that it was necessary to fulfill God’s will?
Was Mark just hoping we’d forget about an earlier part of his story? Was he making a point other than Jesus psychological state? Was the climax of his story more important to him than continuity?
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Such great questions and answers! I really love this blog.
Thanks! Spread the word!!
The “fourth” gospel’s version of Jesus’ passion has his arrest, trial and crucifixion on Thursday, the Day of Preparation, instead of Friday, the day of Passover, as reported in the Synoptics. Does that mean that Jesus spent part of Thursday, all of Friday (Passover), all of Saturday (the Sabath), and at least part of Sunday in the grave – rising on the FOURTH day instead of the THIRD day?
It may seem that way at first. But in John, the Day of Preparation is on Friday and the Passover is on Saturday (starting Friday evening). That’s why in John it is called a “Great Sabbath,” because the sabbath holiday is also, that year, the Passover holiday. So in all the Gospels Jesus dies on Friday but is raised on Sunday.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. An excellent selection of questions. The one from the blog member who had suffered three personal tragedies struck me most deeply and I do admire that person for keeping their faith. I have friends with similar experiences who still somehow attend Church despite all they have been through. I constantly wonder about the question of suffering, as brilliantly discussed in your book God’s Problem. Recently, it occurred to me that perhaps God is a loving God but that his powers are limited in some way. I know this cuts across orthodox theology but it is the only possibility that makes sense to me.
It’s the view others have as well, probalby most famously Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Bart,
Do you have any sense of the reception among biblical experts to Tucker Ferda’s 2024 book “Jesus and His Promised Second Coming,” which basically argues that Jesus predicted his own messianic death and resurrection at the general resurrection?
I’m afraid I haven’t heard of it (let alone read it!). (It would mean, I suppose, that Jesus thought the general resurrection was going to occur on the third day after his death; interesting idea… You’d have to show that he knew he was going to be executed long in advance, though, and that’s where critical scholarship starts having problems with his Passion Predictions)
I think Ferda considers himself a critical scholar and his book has a long list of glowing scholarly endorsements including Dale Alison who writes, “one of the best and most important books on Jesus in the last quarter century” (https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-His-Promised-Second-Coming-ebook/dp/B0CTK2NRMY/). I think Ferda aims to overturn the scholarly consensus that Jesus never predicted his death. I guess the scholarly back and forth never ends, but I hope there’s other critical scholars who will take his arguments seriously and make corrections if needed.
I understand why the problem of evil makes belief in God difficult. When you look honestly at suffering, it weighs heavily. I don’t think that should be dismissed.
But I wonder… if the existence of evil counts as evidence against God, are we accounting for the existence of beauty/goodness?
Why does self-giving love move us so deeply? Why does forgiveness feel noble? Why does injustice disturb us so profoundly?
And what about beauty… music that stirs something almost sacred in us, acts of courage that restore our faith in humanity, moments of kindness that feel bigger than mere biology?
If suffering makes us question whether a good God exists, could goodness point in the opposite direction?
I’m not saying this solves the problem of evil. It doesn’t. But I do wonder whether we weigh only the darkness and forget the light.
Maybe there’s something else to consider too: when we respond to evil by creating goodness (loving/forgiving/helping/building) are we participating in something deeper? Almost as if we’re aligning ourselves with what is most real.
This isn’t an argument meant to corner you. Just as a question worth holding alongside the others. Are we accounting for the existence of beauty?
Yes, it’s a good argument and many people find it persuasive. My problem is not the simple fact of the existence of evil; it is the massive suffering in extremis. I’ve had a good deal of bad in my life, but certainly not “my share” in comparison with the vast majority of the 115 billion homo sapiens who have been on this planet over the past 300,000 years, the majority of whom have had a wretched existence (massive starvation, deprivation, incurable and excruciating illness, wounds, birth defects, on and on and on). If everyone had my share of badness and that was all, I’d certainly continue to believe in God. And I revel in the goodness as well, and stand amazed at it. But I don’t think it requires a belief in God to accept it. But I do think the horrible pain of billions of peole does call into question the idea of a God who is loving and in control.
This is a big ask.. but imagine yourself unaware of suffering/evil. Suppose you retained all knowledge you currently have, except any awareness of pain/suffering has been erased from your memory.
Would you then find yourself inclined to believe God? Would the beauty of the world (and perhaps considerations like fine-tuning, origin of the universe, or other features of reality) lead you to think something like an omnipotent personal agent is at work behind the scenes?
As a follow-up: if “yes,” let’s continue the thought experiment.. Imagine you now have some concept of “sin” (though still unaware of the full magnitude of suffering). Instead, you simply recognize a general sense that humanity, through its own actions, has become estranged from the personal agent behind the universe.
Within those constraints, would you find the core Christian message compelling.. that God acted in history, somehow overcoming death through resurrection in order to resolve the problem of mortality/restore humanity to himself, and this took place in the person of Jesus?
In other words, if the problem of evil didnt weigh so heavily on you, might you be open to affirming at least the central claims of what is often called “mere Christianity”?
I don’t know. The problem is precisely that the problem of evil *does* exist.
In my view, the understanding of quoting the first line of the 22 Psalm flips on its head if one considers it to be including the entire Psalm by reference, since the ending of the Psalm is a triumphant entry into “the assembly”. And that reading of including more than just the first verse by reference has textual support in the various elements of the first part of the Psalm appearing in the passion narrative, including the casting of lots for his clothes.
Understood that way, the triumphal part resolve the tension at the seeming original end of Mark, if the triumphal entry into the assembly is understood by an early believer to be the ascendance into heaven to sit at the right hand of God.
However, that interpretation of the line fits most easily in a late Adoptionist Christology, where adoption at the Baptism is akin to being recognized as a candidate for ascension and ascension after accepting crucifixion is actually taking his place, which is a reading which does not sit as comfortably with an Incarnation Christology, so it understandable that it was an interpretation that faded away in what became the Nicene Creed faith communities.
Yes, that’s a common way of reading it. I’ve always been reluctant to move that way because it robs the passage of its deep pathos to comfort a reader into thinking, Hey, it’ll all be all right, and Jesus knows it. I think the point is he doesn’t know it, even though the read does (because of what happens in the next verse).
I’m pretty sure Jesus really said this —because it’s so inconvenient to Mark’s narrative! And it must therefore have been an essential part of the oral tradition that preceded the writing of Mark’s Gospel.
I also think it’s perfectly possible for Jesus to have predicted his crucifixion and death, and then to have felt abandoned as he feels himself really, truly dying. I don’t find there to be any contradictions here. To have been truly a man, Jesus must experience death from the POV of a mortal man. Of course, Mark never addresses the subject of Jesus’s supposed resurrection, and ends his Gospel with Mary and Mary Magdalene’s experience of the Empty Tomb. This is, of course, the archetypal ambiguous ending.
Therefore, I think Mark felt an obligation to relate every part of Jesus’s life and death that the narrator believed to be true —and this obligation transcends the narrator’s obligation to be “consistent” in his portrayal of Jesus.
Isn’t the author of Mark doing something rather sophisticated from a literary point of view by focusing his account of the crucifixion, otherwise rather bare bones, through the lens of Psalm 22? Psalm 22:1 is a cry of despair, of course, but it doesn’t end there. How could it? Psalm 22 recounts the journey from despair to hope. Isn’t this part of Mark’s project of reinterpreting the concept of the Messiah from traditional triumphalism with the insight that triumph comes but only by a journey through despair? The Messiah will rise but first he must be crucified.
In keeping with your statement above “…when it comes to anything involving religion/Bible/etc. it sometimes helps to consider whether the author has any personal stake in the matter. If two “experts” disagree on…..[an issue]….. that may weigh in a bit on your judgment… it should at least be taken into account”, and with respect to the upcoming New Insights Into the Hebrew Bible, it would helpful to include information about the speaker’s faith practices in their bios. Believers/non-believers, practicing/non-practicing.
I suppose you could find information like that on each one on the internet somehow? I actually don’t know for most of them except my friends and long-time associates. Of the ones I do know, I can’t think of a single position they take academically that is affected by their religious beliefs and practices (Catholics, Jews, Protestants…)
Hey Bart I have a question but first as usual I’ll comment on your post which I appreciate. Feel free to skip to the question.
As a person who rejected a very strange faith tradition i was raised in (A tiny eastern Mysticism cult) at a very young age I really appreciate you being up front with what you actually believe and disbelieve and why. I follow a lot of prominent scholars and I find it interesting how little they talk about that as many if not most seem to be christians but their studies to me at least seem to debunk the faith tradition as just folk tales and legend. I wish more would talk about how they mash that square peg of christian belief into the round hole of the history of the bible.
MY QUESTION: I want a good single volume quick reference on the most accurate up to date scholarly consensus of biblical studies and contextual analysis without spending a fortune on a library of commentaries. I’ve had recommended the NRSVUE Oxford annotated edition bible and the Oxford Bible Commentary. What would you recommend between these or instead of one of these? Thanks again Bart!
I think the Oxford Commentary is good. I prefer the Harper-Collins Study Bible myself, for an annotated Bible.
I have always viewed this question in the context of the eschatological ‘birth pangs’ described in earlier gospel passages (Mark 13:8). The narrative seems to suggest that terrible events will happen to the righteous (exemplified by Jesus in the narrative) prior to glory. Yet the prospect of that glory does not at all lessen the imminent terror and horror of the suffering the has to be endured. This seems also to be hinted at in John 16:21. It is interesting that many women, even those who very much want to have children, face terrible fear and anxiety prior to and during birth. As a former nurse I have seen this often. But after the birth many are so happy that they forget their earlier pain.
Your advice on how a lay person should handle disagreement between scholars makes a lot of sense. Might I also recommend the following, from Bertrand Russell’s essay “On the Value of Scepticism”: “The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.” Would be curious what you think of this advice.
Nice. I agree.
Having been brought up in the Assembly of God church in the 1970’s from birth (1965), I believed almost everything that I was taught. However when it came to only our church having the correct understand with all others on shaky ground in terms of achieving heaven I drew back. As I got in to my teens this made less sense as time went on. Looking around study hall at my friends who went to other churches or no church at all, my concerns weighed extremely heavy on me for a number of years. I had no choice but to leave it all together. Your books, podcast and blog posts have helped me immensely. Thank you. My question is, given all that we can discuss about lost Christianities, disagreements among the faithful, mistranslated passages, changes in the texts, the passing down of stories through oral traditions etc, what was it about Jesus of Nazareth that kept people talking about him after his death in the first place? I would think that Paul would be an obvious place to look, but the stories obviously persisted before him. After all, he was persecuting the people who were transmitting the stories. Kindest regards.
In several of my books (esp. How Jesus Became God and Triumph of Christianity) I argue that it was simply because he was the one whose followers claimed had been raised from the dead, and they managed to convince people. For various specific reasons (I lay them out in Triumph) Christianity ended up taking over the empire, so folk have been talking about him ever since.
Dr. Ehrman, I have a question about the Satan figure Jesus talks about in the gospels. Specifically Mark, which is the one I’m focusing on in my current study time. I wonder whether Satan is a literary figure that represents the “dark side” of humanity (the tendency to choose self over others, to dominate, to choose violence etc.) Do you think that reading Satan this way is a modern way of thinking or could the New Testament authors have understood the figure to be literary/symbolic, and used the character an illustrative tool? Thinking even more specifically about Jesus’ temptation in Mark, I wonder whether this was a time when he had to defeat his own human nature, so that he could fully give himself to his mission to eventually become “a ransom for many?” Would love to hear your thoughts.
It’s really hard to say since we can’t get into the authors or his readers’ minds. But what I think we can say is that when ealry Christians talk about the Satan figure (or demons, etc.) they don’t describe him (them) as a metaphor or a symbol of something else. They really thought there was a being. (As many do now). Later interpreters starting with Origen, though, became much more open to interpreting literally-meant terms/ideas/events as (intentional) metaphors. I don’t think they were right about it, but they were picking that up from Greek philosophers who read the classics and “knew” that there wasn’t really a Zeus, etc.