Loading...In my previous post I started to discuss the eschatological implications drawn by Jesus’ followers once they became convinced that he had been raised from the dead. I pointed out that the very fact that they interpreted their visions of him as evidence of “resurrection” shows that they must have been apocalyptic Jews prior to his death (as I have argued on other grounds ad nauseum on the blog!). And I also suggested two of the key conclusions they drew with respect to eschatology (their understanding of what would happen at the end): they came to conclude that Jesus himself was the Son of Man that he had been proclaiming as the future judge of the earth, and they came to believe that they were living at the very end of time.
In this post I am not going to talk about Jesus as the Son of Man – that will require several posts that I will take up soon. But I do want to talk about this business of Christians thinking that they were living at the end of time.
I sometimes ask my students what they think is the significance of Jesus’ resurrection. And I get all sorts of answers, some of them not very well thought out, even among students who are long-time church-going Christians. For some of them Jesus was raised because that was predicted in the Bible (my response is: but why was it predicted? What was it to accomplish?); others that it was to show he was the messiah (my response: but why didn’t any Jews believe that the messiah had to die and be raised?); others that, well, it was to show that you can’t keep a good man down (my response: well … there is no response…..)
It’s an interesting question what….
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How were the religious leaders able to keep this thought going for over 2,000 years that the end is very near and will happen in “our” lifetime? And educated people continue to believe it?!?
Clearly the idea appeals to people and their understanding of the world (possibly: that this surely can’t be what God has in mind!)
I have noticed that the Old Testament says very little about heaven. Did Jews of the first century, by and large, believe in a heaven in addition to an earthly apocalypse? After the coming of the earthly apocalypse, was everyone going to live on earth forever and ever and was this supposed to be heaven or were people going to go to a heaven after spending some time on post-apocalyptic earth?
I hope you have a good and productive coming year and thanks for your many contributions to my understanding of how the world works. With the help of your books, your website, your Teaching Company classes, and your youtube debates, I have finally reached some conclusions about the world that seem pretty basic and reasonable. The details of these conclusions may change here and there as I learn more, but I think the basic gist, thanks to your help, has now been formed. That is no small contribution considering the conservative small town, south Texas environment which shaped my early life. Thanks.
I’ll devote a couple of posts to heaven and hell soon!
If the authors of — and the audience for — the gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth were apocalypticists in the early going, they changed course before too long because there’s no mention in those writings, as I recall, that Jesus’ resurrection was an “end of days” indicator.
James does not seem to have been an apocalypticist — at least not in the long run — because his thirty plus years as leader of the Jerusalem church seems to have yielded a well-organized and well-planned ministry. His leadership produced a church that survived even though its close connection to Jesus would have made it — and James — likely candidates for reprisals. James was not recklessly drawing the same sort of attention his brother Jesus drew, which indicates to me that his work had an earthly focus as opposed to Paul’s, whose message was apocalyptical through and through.
If we can believe Josephus’ account of James’ death, it does not seem that James’ followers were apocalypticists either. Those followers rose up against the high priest Ananus who put James to death. James’ followers sought redress — and they got it when on their appeal Ananus was removed from power by the Roman authorities.
The here-and-now concern of the James ministry does not seem to indicate a “the end has come” mindset.
I realize the apocalyptic message of the four gospels diminished proportionally as the 1st Century drew to a close. But doesn’t it seem that at least some of the earliest Jewish adherents of Jesus (especially James’ group) were not apocalypticists?
I’m not so sure. The authors of Thomas, Philip, and Truth were writing in the second century (the latter two in a late part of it); we don’t know anything about James’s changing beliefs, but it’s perfectly possible to be head of a church and still think the end is coming soon. I’m not sure we can have any access to his “here and now” thinking (since he never wrote anything!) Josephus was dead set against apocalypticism and can’t be used to know what James’s followers were saying. So I think we really need to stick to our earliest and best attested sources for knowing about the earliest Christians.
Did gospel of thomas came many years after book of John? Or was it written almost same time as Mark? I read somewhere that Mark could have copied some of the verses from thomas?
Mark is usually dated to around 70 CE; John to 90-95 CE; and Thomas in its final form to 110-20 CE
Mr. Ehrman.
Regarding Isaiah. I want to show something the early Christians must have noticed.
Isaiah 63:12
“who sent his glorious arm of power
to be at Moses’ right hand,
who divided the waters before them,
to gain for himself everlasting renown,
13 who led them through the depths?”
“The arm of the Lord” divided the waters before Moses!?
Combine this With Isaiah 53:1
“Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
In this way could the suffering servant – or the arm of the Lord – also be interpreted as Yahweh from the Exodus.
And what about the beginning of Isaiah 53:1 “Who has believed our (good) Message”. This is in fact equivalent with ;”Who has believed or gospel…
Dr. Ehrman, I think that the concept of an end times resurrection actually originated in the Babylonian Exile period, which can be seen in an inchoate form in Ezekiel 37:1-14. This passage, I think, is fundamental to understanding the origins of the Mass Resurrection belief. Even though within the passage itself the prophet is stating that the reincarnation of dead bones is merely a metaphor for the re-establishment of Israel as a nation and as a people of God, it’s quite easy to see how this metaphor could be taken to mean a literal mass resurrection. If we simply start with this resurrection notion and add on top of it subsequent periods of subjugation, oppression and domination by the gentiles (e.g. Alexander’s conquest, Antiochus’ forced Hellenization, Roman hegemony, etc.) we can see how this notion of revitalization would be appealing to the Jews. Add on top of that the Platonic-Pythagorean ideal of an incorruptible, unchanging heavenly realm taking over the corruptible, mutable earthly realm, we have a union between the Jewish concept of resurrection and reincarnation with the Platonic concept of revitalization via heavenly emanation (e.g. Plotinus’ Enneads). Christianity, in essence, is the result of this union.
Is that view what we would consider the traditional “orthodox” view or is it a more contemporary theology (200 years or so old) idea, and how does the Platonic view of “going to heaven” or hell at death instantly, which seems to be the fundamentalist and evangelical American popular belief, fit in to all of this?
So, 3 ideas…1) early view as expressed in the Apostles and Nicean creeds or 2) “end of times” movements over the past couple of centuries such as Millerism or 3) an instant trip to heaven view….how do they all fit into this notion of an afterlife ?
Thank you for a comment.
I’ll deal with the heaven and hell issues soon!
Job is one of your favourites? I hate Job. It’s a terrible story (or combination of stories). If I kill your daughter does it make it ok if you then have another to replace her? Ecclesiastes is good though.
I don’t like it’s *message* either (either the prose story or the poetry); but it’s a gorgeous book filled with powerful rhetoric (I don’t like the message of Atlas Shrugged either, but think that it’s an amazing book)
Wow, it all makes perfect sense. And so the disciples waited, and waited and waited, and nothing happened. Jesus did not return as the son of man. God did not wipe out the forces of evil, and commence judgement day. And the disciples started to die one right after the other, and after 20 years, most assuredly they were all gone ( life expectancy was quite short as you know), but they manage to convince enough of them to carry the torch. So when does Paul come along and “buy into” apocalypticism of Jesus? Certainly within the disciples lifetimes, right? Ah, then he carries the torch further and “reinterprets” Christ’s message and off we go….does the apocalyptic view of Paul die out before he is dead? I imagine it did. Boy, it’s tough to get all the pieces together. I’m getting there.
Isn’t the depiction of Hades in early Greek mythology also a place where everybody ends up and which is boring but not really a place of punishment?
Yes, the place of the dead is often portrayed that way.
YOUR COMMENT:
Before the book of Daniel, the final book of the Hebrew Bible to be written, there is no sense at all that people will be physically raised from the dead.
MY COMMENT:
NOTE: Ezekiel was before Daniel…
Ezekiel is prophesying about what God will do when he returns. Believe it or not, It’s literal, not a metaphor. . Jesus did the same for Lazarus in the account in John where Jesus calls Lazarus out from his grave.
Ezekiel 37:11-14
11-Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’
12-“Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.
13-“Then you will know that I am the LORD when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people.
14-“I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’”
Bart: what exactly did those Jews believe would survive after death in Sheol then? A soul? A spirit? Couldn’t have been the physical body, right?
“It’s simply the rather dull place that people go when they die.” > what exactly is meant with ‘people’ here?
It’s hard to know what they thought. When Samuel comes up from the grave he comes as en embodied figure (the Witch of Endor incident in 1 Samuel 28). “People” = all human beings.
Bart:
1 Samuel 28: The woman replied to Saul, “I have seen one like a god coming up from the ground!” He said to her, “What about his appearance?” She said, “An old man is coming up! He is wrapped in a robe!” Then Saul realized it was Samuel,
Interesting story! I wasn’t aware of that one. And interesting words: ‘one like a god coming up from the ground’ … and Saul not immediately recognizing who this was supposed to be … reminds me of another story …
““People” = all human beings.” > yeah, but ‘people’ (as in person with physical bodies) do NOT go to Sheol since their corpses are obviously staying behind. so who or what did they think would ‘go to Sheol’? The spirit or soul of a person? How did they imagine the dead in Sheol? As kind of ghosts?
I wish we knew. I’m not sure they put much thought into it….
but if we don’t know this then how can be sure what some of the first Christians (Peter, Mary, Paul) really meant with Jesus being ‘resurrected’?
what is the actual evidence then that THEY meant ‘recalling the soul/spirit from the realm of the dead and reconnecting it to a reanimated and healed corpse’?
what is the evidence against ‘resurrecting’ meaning here ‘recalling the soul/spirit from the realm of the dead down below and clothing it with a new, spiritual, heavenly body’ (which Paul clearly contrasts to, and differentiates from, the old, earthly body)?
1 Cor 15:44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is ALSO a spiritual body. (so it’s not the same body, not even the same body transformed)
1 Cor 15:49 And just as we HAVE BORNE the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven. (the ‘image of the man of dust’ is replaced by the ‘image of the man of heaven’)
I think we’ve had this conversation before….
Bart: Yes, we did. But what I don’t really understand is that if it’s not clear what concept like ‘realm of the dead’, ‘death as sleep’, ‘resurrection’ etc meant at the time then how can one draw conclusions from them or built theories around them?
You question and challenge a lot of religious status quo (and rightly so), so why not also in this case?
Sometimes the status quo is right!
How do you know? If it’s not actually known, as you seemed to admit, what the earliest disciples really thought a ‘resurrection’ was supposed to be?
And the ‘resurrection’ that Paul speaks of is very different from the one in Maccabean!