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Loading...Did Jesus feel deep agony in the face of death, in virtual despair up until the end? Or was he calm and collected, confident in both himself and God’s will? It depends which Gospel you read.
And that is one of the reasons (not the only one, as we will see!) that the textual problem of Luke 22:43-44 – the passage that narrates the “bloody sweat” — is so important. If the verses were originally in Luke, then Jesus in Luke, as in Mark, is in deep agony looking ahead to his crucifixion. If the verses were not originally in Luke, then there is no evidence of any agony in Luke’s entire account. Just the contrary. So were the verses originally in Luke or not? It’s a question that really matters.
It is worth stressing what I showed yesterday, that in this passage, Luke has changed Mark (his written source for the account) in significant ways. Many of these changes achieve one overarching purpose: Luke has eliminated every reference and hint to Jesus’ agony. No longer does the narrator say that Jesus was deeply distressed; no longer does Jesus say that he is grievous unto death; no longer does he fall on his face to pray in agony (he instead takes his knees); he prays only once, instead of three times, that God will remove his fate from him; and he prefaces this prayer, unlike Mark, by saying “if it be your will.”
Moreover,
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And I’ve often wondered while reading that passage if anyone ever has bloody sweat.
For some reason one particular Sunday School lesson from my Evangelical days always stuck with me, where our youth leader taught us that Jesus was experiencing hematidrosis, “a very rare condition in which a person sweats blood, possible caused by extreme stress”, so yes, people have 😛
Something that fascinates me is the way Christianity itself has been torn between these two conflicting images of the Passion–Jesus in both physical and emotional agony, and Jesus awaiting his fate with calm assurance.
See, Jesus is supposed to be fully human, as well as fully divine–human beings feel agony–divine beings, probably not.
If Jesus knew he was going to suffer a short time and then ascend into heaven, did he really suffer as a man would suffer? But if he didn’t know this, how could he be divine?
It’s a tension that can never be resolved, but I think, strangely enough, that it’s part of the enduring fascination of the story, and it certainly led to some immortal art being created.
Obviously Jesus could have been terribly afraid, cried out in agony and despair, and still found away to compose himself–we’ve seen human beings in similarly horrible situations do this–many of them were thinking of Jesus’ agony when that happened. It’s been a source of enduring strength and inspiration, across the centuries. Martin Luther King Jr. was drawing on that spirit when he gave his final speech, before his assassination.
But Luke fails to convey that tension, and I don’t find his account of the Passion convincing–or inspiring. His Jesus just isn’t human, somehow. And it’s the human Jesus who matters.
If a god has no human nature to begin with became human, then doesn’t that mean the divine god experienced through his divinity finite human nature? I don’t think christians should separate /disunite the two natures, they should say that their god in his divinity became afraid and suffers emotional agony. You see , if one minus divine nature then god is no longer god , but strangely christian s when cornered seem to plug in the word “god” in to divine and human nature.
I’m not sure I understand your question. To me, Jesus was a human being. I believe he was born because two people had sex, that he had finite knowledge and understanding, that he did not have supernatural powers (though he must have had extraordinary personal charisma and conviction).
I also believe that he never thought of himself as divine–as having a special divine purpose, certainly. As having been chosen by God to deliver a message of the coming Kingdom of God, and possibly to have some great role in that kingdom, that he believed would come in his lifetime, or very shortly afterwards.
But the problem for Christians was that the kingdom never came. The decades passed, the generations changed, the numbers of the new cult grew, but the world remained very much as it had been before, though perhaps more bearable for the believers, because their beliefs had given them purpose, and a community of fellow believers that offered comfort and strength in times of trial. They genuinely did try to live as Jesus had commanded them, and this attracted more adherents to the new cult. But the promised kingdom never came. Jesus had been wrong–about that, at least.
So they had to gradually reinterpret the message Jesus had given them–and who Jesus had been. They couldn’t say he had been wrong about something so important and still believe in him (even though the most important things he said could never be disproven). No longer was he a man chosen by God, but God himself. His kingdom was all around them, and they only had to enter it by believing in him, and that he had saved them through his sacrifice.
That way they could keep all they had gained–but of course they lost something as well. They lost part of the humanity of Jesus, and they lost his most important message–that God is in all of us. That idea never completely died out–it’s still there. But because Christians are taught that Jesus was God, it’s hard for them to see that when he said anyone with faith could work the same miracles he was believed to have worked, he was saying that the power never came from him. He was just a man who saw a little further than most. Anyone could be like him.
And so few ever are.
what i was trying to say is that why do the christians make jesus “godless” every time he does human like things?
if a god in his spirit became man, then god became man and experienced what it is to be a man. why make a separation between the divine nature and human nature when god, who has divine nature, became man?
so christians should believe that their god suffered agony , lack of knowledge, pain and suffering in his divinity.
That is, in fact, standard orthodox Christian belief, and has been since the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325
The Christians who said Jesus was an entirely divine being who only appeared to suffer were the Docetists, were rejected as heretical, and I BELIEVE Bart has referred to them here, and certainly elsewhere.
What gave you the idea that Christians reject the dual humanity and divinity of Jesus?
james white says that his god “added” on human nature
so god added on weakness to himself
he , in his debates , says ,” was that the deficiency of the divine nature or human nature”
what i don’t get with christians like james white is that why does he say “god walked the earth”
why doesn’t he say, ” flesh nature walked the earth”?
christians like him always say that their is no mixture/dilution between unseen god and his CREATED human nature.
one then wonders what does incarnation even mean?
You know, it’s not only fundamentalist Christians who can be hopelessly literal at times.
Dr. Ehrman,
This is slightly off-topic, but I was reading an article in the new Biblical Archaeology Review where a scholar was arguing that the Book of Genesis actually states that Eve was taken from Adam’s baculum (penis bone) rather than his “rib” as it is traditionally translated. This issue made me think that maybe the line you’ve been drawing between textual criticism and exegesis or interpretation is not quite as clear as you’ve made it seem (which you may have been doing just to clearly explain the difference between the two). But it seems to me the relationship would have to be fairly dynamic if one was going to get to the bottom of a passage’s meaning as written by the author. I mean, taking your focus today, what if we were not sure that the Greek phrase translated “bloody sweat” really meant that or just meant “copious sweat” or something. Wouldn’t that potentially shift the probabilities for your textual analysis?
Or is it just that scholars have a better grasp of NT Greek than they do of OT Hebrew?
Textual criticism would be interested in establishing which Hebrew word was originally used in the story; translators would be interested in determining how that word should be rendered into English.
Dr. Ehrman, Please indulge me, I know this is off subject, but don’t know where else one can post questions…..
First, I really enjoy your work. You answer many questions I’ve had throughout my life, but didn’t have the freedom to ask. I too am an agnostic. I was formerly 35 years in the Evangelical Church, (now in recovery). The one thing my Christian friends debate with me, and I have no real answer to:
What accounts for the radical change in the disciples and Paul’s life. The scriptures show these men going from wishy-washy cowards, in Paul’s case, murdering Christians, to men be willing to be martyred for the cause of Christ. Something life-changing must have happened to them. Or has it been constructed in the scriptures to give that appearance? Thank you.
I think the answer has to be made in the context of other “conversions.” What accounts for those who “convert” to be a Hari Krishna? Or Muslim? Or orthodox Jew? Or Marxist? Or radical atheist? Something certainly happens! Scholars have long discussed the issu. A classic is William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Again (see a previous similar comment), one of many possible “somethings” is the effect of brain damage in general, and epilepsy in particular. Reference (among others): Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1987;50:659-664.
Did Saul of Tarsus “have” temporal lobe epilepsy? Some believe so. If he did, a. did his conversion experience on the road to Damascus represent a type (“semiology”) of epileptic seizure? b. Was his letter writing, (essentially) disavowal of sex, rigidity, cosmic concerns, spirituality, irritability, etc. collectively an exemplar of the “interictal syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy”? Many believe so. Can any of this be proven? Guess.
There’s no question that religious conversion can inspire people to acts of great courage. But that’s true of other belief systems besides Christianity.
We know so little about these men, we can’t really say how much they changed–the stories written are written specifically to inspire, usually by people who did not witness the events in question. So of course the change in these men is accentuated, their courage is explained by the fact that the Holy Spirit is moving within them. But Peter had already been inspired by Jesus when he denied him three times. Did it happen that way? Or is that story just a way of expressing the fact that Christians were often horribly afraid, in the face of sporadic persecution by the state, and from their neighbors? The point of that story is “If even Peter could be afraid, you shouldn’t feel like there’s something especially wrong with you because sometimes your faith isn’t strong enough. Everyone doubts.”
I think it was probably shame over having abandoned Jesus that inspired the first Christians to such heights of achievement. He must have been a truly remarkable man, and they couldn’t let go of him, couldn’t accept that the only meaning of his life was failure and death. They decided it meant something else. And in so deciding, changed the course of history.
But others have done this. So it doesn’t prove Jesus was God. It proves God is inside all of us.
Good insight, Godspell. You and Dr. Ehrman make good points about various belief systems that elicit life-changing inspiration in people, for good or bad as well. Karl Marx certainly inspired people and changed the course of history.
Yeahhh, but even as a person of the left, I am not comfortable with that analogy. Marx’s only sacrifice was to sit in the British Museum for long hours, thinking about how he was going to make those bourgeois bastards pay for his carbuncles. He fathered an illegitimate son with a chambermaid and refused to acknowledge him. A great thinker is not necessarily a great man. Marx was not a great man, in my estimation. And his legacy looks a lot smaller now than it once did–and crueller–more people were killed in his name in a hundred years than in Jesus’ name in millennia. Das Kapital isn’t holding up nearly as well as the gospels. But I agree with your point–you don’t have to believe in God to have an impact on history.
But for a barefooted itinerant rabbi in a provincial backwater to do it–when he was executed as a criminal in his 30’s, and hardly anyone had even heard of him by that time–it’s a bit more impressive.
Ah, I just commented how Marx changed the course of history and influenced/inspired people-for good and bad. I wasn’t comparing the two.
Thanks for another very interesting series of posts. You use Jesus’ prayer that the Father forgive those who crucified him in support of the overall theme of Luke, that Jesus is in control. Yet, my understanding is the Luke 23:34 is a contested passage that does not appear in important early manuscripts (e.g., Codex Vaticanus). Am I right about this? If so, where do you fall on the issue, and how does that (if at all) influence your reading of the bloody sweat passage? Thanks!
Yes,it’s a key issue. I think the verse is original. maybe I’ll deal with that in a post. (I don’t think it affects the bloody sweat passage)
This seems to suggest that Luke may support a docetic christology…if I’m describing…and spelling those terms correctly. And also that the scribal changes were an attempt to render the Gospel of Luke pallatable to an Orthodox…or proto-orthodox as it were…Christology. This stuff is fun!
I wouldn’t say it is docetic. He is not portraying Jesus as a divinity who cannot suffer. He’s portraying him as a human who is calm in the face of death
Doctor ehrman. Is mark portraying a divinity who can suffer?
Yes, to some extent. The question is always: in what *sense* is Jesus divine (for Mark)?
Ah yes…thanks for that clarification.
Awesome. I’ve been reading the blog for several months. That was the best exposition on a significant difference in NT accounts I’ve ever read. Clear, simple, forthright, and persuasive. Thank you.
A stray thought…about those disciples’ “falling into temptation.” If Jesus was a decent man, and thought he was about to be arrested and possibly executed, he would have *wanted* his supporters to scatter, not risk their lives as well!
It does not make sense that there is agony in Luke if there is just that agony and not more as in Mark. It is clear that the writer of Mark wants the reader to know of the suffering and agony of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus is at least part human given that he suffers. In Luke, he is not human until he has the bloody sweat episode, an incongruity. If Luke wanted to show that Jesus was divine and incapable of suffering, then he did a good job until the bloody sweat episode. It appears that the episode was added in my unprofessional view. How you manage to argue that it WAS added is beyond me, other than what you are pointing out about textual criticism—as you say, it is not for the faint of heart—I assume there is quite a bit of bloody sweat poured out to arrive at a conclusion. I am reading your book, but slow going. I keep doing other things like listen to the 12 lectures on Bible as History: The New Testament. I finished those and it appeared to me that Great Courses gave you “the bum’s rush” on that topic given what you have to say about the New Testament—it could easily have gone to 24, even 36 lectures and I would have loved that. Is there any chance they will give you the opportunity to do 12 more for that course?
Ha! No, they never would allow that.
Luke’s reworking of the entire mood of the “passion” seems another step in the progression elevating Jesus from normal human being to virtually entirely divine.
If the “bloody sweat” in Luke is a scribe’s addition and if the famous “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” scene is also a later scribal addition, is Luke’s gospel more prone to scribal free-lancing than others, and if so, why might that be?
That other passage (let the one without sin…) is in mss of John, not Luke.
Oops!
The Mk/Lk contradiction in the actions/words of the crucified thieves is one you don’t bring up as often as some of the others. Thanks for the reminder! On further consideration, it’s kind of hard to imagine someone who has been driven through with nails and then suspended by them having any consciousness of the political/religious standing of someone else nearby suffering the same fate, let alone mocking or suplicating to them.
There may be an issue with your private tags in this post.
I have (finally) started reading The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture because of this thread.
Thank you for all your work on this blog.
I look forward to “the solution.” As always, you think and write clearly which is quite a gift.
Those verses about sweating blood shifted the Mormon doctrine of atonement from the crucifixion to the prayer in the garden. When I was a Mormon many years ago, the crucifixion was treated almost incidentally–as a we to get Jesus dead so he could be resurrected. That may have changed since. I always thought those verse ruined the flow of the narrative.
Does the literary tool of “telescoping” (i.e., condensing the account of an event which took place in two or more stages into one concise paragraph which seems to describe the action taking place all at once) resolve the apparent between Luke’s post-resurrection narrative and Matthew’s account? Likewise, would telescoping explain the apparent contradiction between Luke and Acts regarding when Jesus ascended to heaven? Apologists insist that surely Luke was well aware of the story and would not contradict himself – ergo between Matthew’s nativity and Luke’s nativity? (with Luke’s version being telescoped) Similarly, would Luke’s use of telescoping resolve the problems with his post-resurrection narrative in which his gospel version differs from his later version in Acts and also differs from Matthew’s account?
I’m afraid the issue of telescoping doesn’t really solve all the problems. E.g., Luke is quite explicit that the disciples never left Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension, for over 50 days. Matthew is quite explicit that the first thing they did was leave Jerusalem.
Weren’t the authors of Matthew and Luke aware of Mark’s version? Why would Luke portray Jesus differently? Wouldn’t that seem disingenuous to those who knew of Mark’s account? It seems strange to me that the Gospels portray Jesus both differently and similar. Why didn’t the church fathers question the discrepancies?
Think about it in modern terms. Most people reading Luke nad Mark today don’t even notice the differences! So too in antiquity.
Hi Bart
What’s the scholarly consensus on the possibility that Jesus did in fact utter those words – Why have you forsaken me ? Does the criterion of dissimilarity suggest Jesus may have utterred something similar to this ?
Or is the criterion of embarrassment more applicable ? ( These 2 criterion seem a little similar to me – both are suggesting something out of the expected may be authentic)
It’s generally thought that there is no way we could possibly have any idea what Jesus said in his last moments hanging on the cross. These particular words fit perfectly well with Mark’s own tehological agenda, and so appear to have been his interpretation of what Jesus would have said.
Thanks Bart. So what is the theory on why Mark added this in ? Is it because Mark’s Jesus was clearly sufferring and not in control so he needed to provide some explanation ?
It’s probably because Mark is trying to teach his *readers* something: Jesus did not understand why this horrible thing was happening to him, but it was all for the good — the salvation of the world. The readers may be experiencing something horrible and not understand why. But it is being used by God for the ultimate good — they can trust that.