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Loading...In my recent posts I have argued, against the Mythicists, that the idea of someone (or lots of someones) inventing Jesus as a crucified messiah does not seem plausible, given the fact that no one expected a messiah to be crucified. If you were to invent a messiah, it would not be one that was completely different (opposite, actually) to what anyone expected.
In response to these posts, several readers have asked why, then, Jesus’ own followers thought he could be the messiah while he was alive: the historical man himself, as reconstructed by contemporary scholars, also does not seem to be like what anyone would have expected the messiah to be. He too was not a warrior-king, or a cosmic judge coming on the clouds of heaven, or a mighty priest (he was not from the priestly line, for one thing). So why would anyone think a lower-class itinerant preacher from the rural backwoods of Galilee was the messiah?
It’s a great question, and obviously a completely fundamental one. The followers of Jesus did think he was the messiah. And they must have thought that before he was crucified (for a reason that I’ll explain in a moment). So what would make them think so?
My short answer is that …
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I agree Jesus’ disciples thought of him as Messiah before his death. I agree he told them things that helped lead them to that belief. I’m not convinced he ever said, in so many words “I am Messiah!” I think he was ambivalent on that point, and I think he was cryptic, and I think they read into what he said, and he allowed them to do so. And the difference may be academic, but an academician should have no problem with that. 😉
A couple of thoughts I have had on this topic is that many believed the Messiah was going to deliver Israel from foreign oppression and be their priestly-king. Correct me if I am wrong on that. In that way of understanding Jesus he must have been a very charismatic individual in the way someone like Gandhi would become centuries later. That would allow his followers to consider him to be the Messiah.
Another way Jesus could be seen as the Messiah would be because of the miracles that have been alleged to occur. Did the Jews expect their messiah to be a miracle worker? I understand that the study of miracles are beyond the purview of empirical study and therefore cannot be historically verified. My question then becomes how and why did miracle stories become associated and connected to the historical Jesus and is their any grain of truth behind them or are they merely symbolic?
There are some traditions about the messiah being a worker of miracles. But so were lots of others.
Excellent. And of course one of the best scholars is norsk!
“They had thought, before his death, that he was the messiah. It is the only reason they could have thought so after his death.”
“The crucifixion completely and utterly destroyed all the hopes that the disciples had about the future, the identity of their master jesus
and their own roles in the future state of Israel. Nothing could have destroyed these hopes more thoroughly or convincingly. The execution of jesus was not simply an awful tragedy for him personally – an unspeakable tragedy – it was the death knell for everything he proclaimed and stood for, that the powers of evil were soon to be destroyed and a utopian kingdom would come with him at the head of it. So much for *that* idea. It not only didn’t happen. It was shown to be what it was, a chimeric vision of a weak creature brutally destroyed by the powers whose demise he had predicted.”
1. the pre-crucified jesus did not think that he was going to die and god would intervene anytime soon. repent for the kingdom of god is at hand.
2. the pre-crucified jesus thought that his disciples will get rewarded here on earth
since this was all false, did the disciples become like modern day apologists and try to reconcile pre-crucified and post-crucified jesus?
this was a messiah making false predictions .
Yes, I think they did.
I don’t agree with Bart on this point. I think Jesus told his disciples he was going to die, and I think he intentionally arranged things so that he would die, and when he told them he was going to die, they refused to believe it, and got angry with him.
It just doesn’t make sense to me that the gospel writers would make up stories where the disciples, notably Peter, berated Jesus for refusing to live up to their expectations.
Yes, they did have to justify the fact that he believed the Kingdom of God was coming soon, and it didn’t. Retroactively, they had to come up with ways to explain that. But I do not believe Jesus thought he was going to reign over an earthly kingdom. I think he believed he would have to sacrifice himself for the Kingdom to come.
mark has a need for jesus to die
so do the other writers.
did the historical jesus have a need for himself to die?
mark has always put peter as one guy who doesn’t get that jesus needs to die. did the historical peter think that jesus needed to die?
I would say that the gospels had an ex post facto need for Jesus to die, since he DID die. I don’t think the disciples at the time were expecting it.
But while I agree that Jesus wasn’t expecting to die, I still don’t understand how he thought he could get away with disrupting the Temple during the most volatile time of the year, and not be stopped and probably executed. Vermes writes that as long as Jesus stayed in Galilee, the authorities could ignore his antics, but not once he came to Jerusalem.
They might not have thought he was going to die for any of the reasons that Christians give by use of prophecies. But, if they knew anything at all about the fate of Judas the Galilean and the way the Jewish quislings of Roman rule, along with Pilate, might react to someone people were calling “the king of the Jews,” they must have been worried that Jesus might be arrested and executed.
To SBrundey091941: Which is why he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone he was claiming to be the king of the Jews. Of course, that raises the question of how Pilate found out about it, possibly from Judas, but it does explain why Jesus would neither admit nor deny it.
As for Judas the Galilean (not to mention John the Baptist), Jesus and his disciples had been getting away with their activities in Galilee for somewhere between 1 and 3 years at this point, and the authorities had not stopped them, so they probably though they could safely go to Jerusalem. I’m pretty sure they were not aware of the political tensions there, or that the governor would be in J’lem to keep order.
These comments are approaching the topic from the wrong perspective. The gospel diarists portrayed Jesus as (among other things) an apocalyptic preacher or a Zealot. Any one of those could safely bet that they would be executed by Rome. That was by far the most likely to happen at Jerusalem during Passover. The diarists needed to explain why a good person would be executed by Rome. So they portray him as an apocalyptic preacher in Jerusalem during Passover. Then they portray him as falsely accused of being a Zealot, acquitted of that accusation, but still executed to prevent a riot. An innocent man (or god or god-man) being killed. That could be a worthy universal sacrifice.
They synoptic authors also had various explanations for why the ideas of Christianity were unknown during his lifetime. They surely couldn’t admit that they were invented after his death. But they could say that he told his disciples not to tell anyone. Or say that the disciples were dense. Or say that it was hidden from them. They did all of those.
It does strike me as a logical conclusion that, given the beliefs about what a messiah would do, Jesus must have been seen as the messiah before he died, in order for him to be seen as the messiah afterwards. However, the beliefs and conclusions of human beings are often not logical. Is there any hard evidence of this?
I’m not sure what you’re asking!
this is an excellent topic, I look forward to your next posts
I suppose this question could fill a book, if you are in search of new ideas for books.
Bart, you are the master of the intellectual cliff-hanger.
Got it. There are some HEB words involved also in these ideas:
1) MASHIACH (Mesiah) means anointed, ie Kings with oil, such as David was, anointed by God, and humankind.
this is derived from the root word Mem Shin Chet which means to paint.
the Mashiach was to issue in the exiles back to Judea and rebuild Jerusalem (the Temple) reinstate the Law
****2) MOSHIAH means “savior,” and some gentiles may have confused the 2 words. (In Paul’s teachings?)
3) Olam Ha Ba is the Messianic age of peace to come and it does also refer to the afterlife as a world of peace, justice, obedience to the Law, the age to come the Jewish people today still expect.
Resurrection – is the Greek, Anastasis, rising again, as in rise up from a seat, a bed. Idiomatic meaning – to turn the tables, the chair over, becoming Anastemi, figuratively, a moral recovery with a new “foundation.” A new outlook, or way of viewing the truth. Resurrection to life, from death. It pertained to “judgement” as well in John’s writings, or those attributed to him. 11:25: “die, yet live.” Die to the old way, born again to the new. Born from above, not below, regeneration. Anastatoo was the religious word – just meaning to have a new insight IMHO. Change religious errors – resurrect the truth from error. Messianic age – an age of truth and peace and justice.
Also back to the 3rd Day – it just meant in a short while, to be raised up from a bed on day 3, or in a short while, was to be healed shortly – by a Rabbi and blessed to return to work. A raising up might have just been to be healed before death occurred…Peter raised Tabitha, maybe Jesus too? Or he raised himself with his wisdom….we have applied new meanings over time to all of this….all good…but possibly all new in our own Era. k
WRT #2: Can you spell out the Hebrew letters? Transliterations are not reliable for this sort of thing. Also, Paul having been a learned Pharisee probably would not have been confused (unless he was deliberately conflating two words).
WRT #3: ‘olam haba in Talmudic times means “the next world” – that is, after death. I’ve never seen it used to describe a messianic era on earth; do you have a citation?
If we accept that Jesus’ followers thought that he was the Messiah before his crucifixion, how do we explain why later converts would take their word for it knowing that Jesus was killed by the Romans? We know many Jews saw this as a “stumbling block”. What convinced others to step over the block and not stumble?
Ah, big topic. In fact, it’s the topic of my new book, just finished, and hopefully to be published next year at this time! The followers of Jesus did things to convince others they were right!
Do you think it likely that, as Rodney Stark suggests, the Jesus movement was more successful among the Hellenized Jews, who were sometimes not so well-grounded in their tradition, than among the Jerusalem Jews, who knew very well what a messiah was supposed to be? (I’d add that the Galilean Jews, even if not hellenized, were also not as knowledgeable.) I note that Paul, who claimed he was on a mission to the Gentiles (Gal.), spent a lot of time in the synagogues of Asia Minor, which makes me wonder just how much “gentile” missionizing he was doing.
My sense is that it was more attractive to Jews in the Diaspora than in Judea, but that on the whole it was not all that attractive to Jews at all, for the most part.
I suggest two reasons for the lack of attraction: First, it went against the Jewish understanding that the messiah had to be alive (and not dead and made alive again), and second, there was (and is) a strong Jewish prejudice against sacrificing a human being, plus everyone is responsible for their own sins. So “Jesus died for your sins” is not going to appeal to Jews. I’d be interested in your thoughts, especially on the second point.
I’d say there is a strong prejudice against human sacrifice among both Jews and gentiles!
Granted there is a prejudice against human sacrifice among gentiles as well (though the dionysian rites come to mind, even if they were using goats by this time), how do see the line “Jesus died for your sins” appealing to the Greek world but not the Jewish? My problems are, first, the Greek world did not have the same problem with sin, and second, following from that, they did not have the same need for expiation.
I can also see an additional reason why the Jews generally did not accept this argument: Second Temple Judaism was generally heading away from communal responsibility for sin as seen in the Scripture and more toward individual responsibility (hence Ezekiel and Jeremiah each announcing that the sins of the fathers will no longer fall on the children. Thoughts?
With most gentiles, evangelists built a case not from “need” (sin) to “solution” but the other way around: “solution” (Christ died) to “need” (because you sinned)
Polytheists definitely believed in sacrifices, but didn’t say they were for sins. Most didn’t have the concept of sin since their religion didn’t include a moral code. They would have no problem with a god, a god-man, or a demiurge being offered as a universal sacrifice. It was the region’s first free religion. The challenge was getting polytheists to agree that the gods wouldn’t be angry if people stopped offering them sacrifices. Acceptance of that idea didn’t happen in big numbers until Constantine.
Israel had their own exclusive contract with the God of Israel (Mosaic Covenant). It would be hard to convince them that their god would accept the same universal sacrifice that all the other gods accepted. That’s why Christians worked so hard to convince Jews that Jesus was God, but specifically the same god as the God of Israel. It’s why they wanted to show texts from Tanakh as predicting Jesus. I don’t think they were ever very successful in convincing Jews, but Christians still believe that today.
I wish we had more writings from that era. Perhaps more will be discovered some day. To offer sacrifices was a need that was universally perceived. I think the earliest suggestion of Christianity was that the universal sacrifice of Jesus removed the need for anyone, anywhere, to offer any sacrifice to any god for any reason. That was the groundbreaking idea. In all of western civilization, I think no religion requires sacrifices.
Now you’ve got me curious about Nils Dahl. And that’s a good thing.
I know I’m blathering about things you’ll surely address, one way or the other, further on. But here goes…
These particular people believed in both God’s coming “Kingdom” and a “Messiah.” Given that, it’s plausible that they thought the Messiah could come from a humble beginning, and eventually – after he’d won followers through his preaching – be recognized and exalted as the future King, to reign after God had established His Kingdom.
Do you think Jesus and some of his disciples had initially thought John the Baptist was the Messiah? His death disproved that notion – but might their having thought so much about it have made it easier for them to speculate that *someone else* they already knew might be the chosen one?
Or do you think Jesus had been egotistical enough to think *he* was the Messiah all along?
I don’t think Jesus thought of John as the messiah, but some of his other followers did. And I don’t know *when* Jesus started considering himself the messiah, but he did at some point!
Great! I’m looking forward to that next post.
I’ll make this a separate question. Which of these two possibilities do you think is the more likely?
1. Jesus went to Jerusalem, possibly in 29 CE, for what he expected to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience of Passover Week there. In Jerusalem, he heard for the first time about John the Baptist. He went to hear John preach, was baptized – and possibly was so amazed by everything he’d heard that he decided, on the spot, to “spread the word” by preaching in Galilee.
2. Jesus had already decided, in Galilee, to become an apocalyptic preacher. (So he had learned the basic apocalyptic doctrine, somehow.) He hiked all the way to Judea to be baptized by John the Baptist – whom he’d already heard of – mostly so he could observe and get “tips” from what John was doing.
Either way, he could have made friends among John’s followers, who thought of him again after John’s death…
Neither. I think he decided to become an apocalyptic preacher only after he joined up with John.
Would that be while John was still alive or after Antipas executed him?
He became John’s disciple while John was still living.
Sorry, my question was a bit ambiguous. I meant whether Jesus’ decision to become an apocolyptic preacher likely happened before or after John was executed.
He became an apocalypticist *before*. And he probably started his ministry before John was killed, by at least a bit. (Though one could argue either way)
1. Paul believed Jesus was the Messiah because God raised him from the dead.
2. Since Paul wrote first, it’s likely paul’s writing influenced the authors who wrote the Gospels concerning Jesus being the Messiah.
Do you agree?
I think Paul may have influenced the author of Mark, but not the other Gospels.
Not meaning to offend anyone but doesn’t Jesus thinking he was the messiah and telling his followers that he was the messiah make him delusional? Wouldn’t most Jews of the first century think that someone who was a lower-class itinerant preacher from the rural backwoods of Galilee was out of his mind for thinking that he was the messiah?
If he were a modern person, yes. But an ancient person, no.
Does Mark 3:21 indicate that some people in the first century thought Jesus was out of his mind?
At least his family!
My point is that some ancient people must have thought Jesus was out of his mind at least at some point(s) of his ministry.
Jesus’ brother James did not seem to accept that Jesus was the messiah until after his death and resurrection. Is James an exception to your explanation?
Virtually all Christians came to think of Jesus as the messiah only after the resurrection.
As a side question, since James was not one of Jesus’ original followers, did he become the leader of the Jerusalem church simply because he was Jesus’ brother?
And because he had had a vision of Jesus. The combination of the two factors, I should think.
The only evidence in the Bible for James having a vision of Jesus is from Paul, correct?
Yes, that’s the only direct evidence from the Bible.
Interesting, given that Paul and James were at odds. Perhaps James’ vision was common knowledge to the point that Paul could not leave him off the list?
Paul never actually expresses any animosity toward James in his letters.
Perhaps not animosity, but would you agree that Paul wanted to expand the Jesus movement to the gentiles, to the point of waiving the circumcision and dietary laws, while James nsisted on keeping them? Paul in Rom: 14:3 – “Let not him who eats [anything] despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains despise him who eats…” While James says they “should write to [the Gentiles] to abstain from … what is strangled and from blood.” Acts 15:29. “Strangled” as I understand it is shorthand for any method of slaughter other than that prescribed by ritual. Though even if there is some question about the authenticity of the “strangled” clause, I do not see any arguments about the prohibition on blood.
Paul claims that James was eye-to-eye with him on this one.
I’m reminded of Stephen Covey’s Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Both sides of the historicity argument could use that observation is spades, but I accuse the Mythicist of making it very difficult for others to understand them. Instead of focussed summaries, the main Mythicist players produce complicated tomes, inaccessible to most, with arguments flying all over the place.
The Mythicist explanation represents a paradigm shift and a strong counter reaction is understandable – and to be expected. It remains to be seen whether the Mythicism explanation will ever gain traction.
Meanwhile, I noticed that my response to the previous posting remains in purgatory. Pure heresy, I know. But I thought it important to produce, in summary form, the alternate Pauline explanation.
I read recently that the crux of Judas’ betrayal was that he spilled the beans to the Jewish authorities regarding the private teachings that Jesus gave to the Twelve. Probably the reveal was that Jesus told the Twelve that he was the Anointed One, i.e. the Jewish Messiah. Or possibly that he said that he was a divinity. Is there any consensus position among NT scholars on this issue?
That’s my view. The majority view is probably that Judas informed them of Jesus’ whereabouts.
Dr. Ehrman, this question as to why anyone would consider a nobody from the backwaters of Galilee to be the Messiah, that is possibly the most nagging question I’ve had to solve in the narrative of my Jesus novel (the others being ones I’ve already mentioned in other comments: namely, did Judas really betray Jesus and, if so, why? And what, exactly, was the role of Jesus’ brother James before the crucifixion?).
I eagerly anticipate your answer to this conundrum.
I have my own theories, which I have worked out for the novel’s narrative, but I’m very curious to see if they line up with yours. In tackling the question of why anyone would think Jesus was the Messiah, I first considered all the figures from that same time period who were considered Messiahs: figures like Yochanan Gush haLav, Shim’on bar Gyorah, Eliezer ben Shim’on, Menachem ben Yehud, Yehud Gamla (Judas of Galilee), Eliezer ben Ya’ir, Theudas, The Egyptian, Shim’on bar Kokhba, Yochanan haMetavil (John the Baptist), and, of course, Yeshu’a haN’azori (Jesus the Nazorean). So I looked for a common thread that linked all of them. First off, none of them, save for possibly John the Baptist, came from priestly lines, as far as we know. None of them, as far as we know, had a clear lineage back to David. So taking those two important criteria off the list, we have to ask what other characteristic they had. Well, first off, most of them were military leaders. In fact, most of them were Galilean military leaders, which I think is an important clue. Second, they had all amassed a significant, some might say dangerous amount of faithful followers who truly believed they were the Messiah.
So other than being Jewish men, what is the one distinguishing characteristic that they all, as far as we know, shared in common? They all believed that the Messianic Age was going to start ASAP, that they were the man who was going to take the lead in the imminent battle between good and evil. The only thing that separated them was HOW they had convinced their followers that the End Times were upon them, and why they each were the true Messiah. And, again, they all shared one thing in common when it came to rising to their respective leadership roles: Tzaddaqah. Now, Tzaddaqah is the Hebrew word often translated as “righteousness”, but it’s a word laden with much more meaning and nuance. At times it could mean “justice” and at times it could mean “charity” and at times it could simply mean “worthiness”. The most important thing is that a leader, any leader worth his salt, must possess Tzaddaqah in order to be a proper leader. If he lacks Tzaddaqah, then he is fundamentally unfit to be a leader.
So how did each of these messianic claimants display their Tzaddaqah? Well, one thing they, most certainly, did was display tremendous piety. They really, really, truly believed in the God of Israel, in the divine words of the Torah, in the important role of the Jews in history. They were through-and-through true believers. And as true believers they were convinced that God was on their side, that God favored them. But they had two different ways of showing that God favored them. For the military leaders, they displayed their zeal and God’s favor of them through military victory. The more battles they won, the more their followers believed “this guy just might be the Messiah”.
But Jesus clearly never fought in any battles, let alone won any. So Jesus probably followed the second option, the option that men like John the Baptist used, and that was to display God’s favor through pel’ot or “signs”. We erroneously call these miracles. A better translation might be “marvels”. “Signs” for ancient Jews could be any number of things that ostenibly showed that God was bestowing some kind of power onto someone. It could be the power to heal, the power the exorcise demons, the power to prophecy (which, in Jesus’ day, would be a sign of the Holy Spirit taking over a person), the power to interpret the Torah (and other displays of exceptional wisdom), the power to control nature. Any and all of these were interpreted as “signs” from God.
Clearly, Jesus had convinced his followers that he was someone exceptionalvia some display of “signs” of power. Maybe he did really heal lepors. Maybe he really did exorcise demons. Maybe he did display a tremendous amount of knowledge and wisdom. Maybe he really did prophesy the coming apocalypse. Maybe he really did turn five fish into five thousand. I mean, I don’t believe he did, but he may have convinced others that he had done these things, and merely convincing them is enough. As we know from watching present day charlatan faith healers, faking exorcisms is really easy. As we know from magicians, faking nature “miracles” is also easy. As we know from modern charlatan “prophets,” from Joseph Smith to J. Z. Knight, it is REALLY easy to fake being a prophet. The point isn’t whether Jesus was legitimately doing any of these things. The point is he managed to convince enough other people that he was doing these things, and that’s what led them to believe he was the Messiah.
Yes, I think pretty much along the same lines. (And I know J. Z. Knight by the way!!)
I know. I’ve watched the lecture you gave at the Ramtha campus (if I remember correctly, about the Gospel of Judas?). I can only imagine how urreal that felt for you. One day you should write a post about your experience there.
Yeah, had dinner with her and Linda Evans. Quite an experience!
Oh yeah, I forgot Krystle Carrington was a votary of Ramtha!
And possibly one of the “greatest” works of modern “prophecy” (I use the word “greatest” very, very loosely) is the Urantia book, which is supposedly the work of several mysterious individuals from the 1920s and 30s, who “received” much of its text via prophetic trance techniques. Have you read any of the Urantia book, Dr. Ehrman? It may be only a work of spiritual fiction, but at over 2,000 pages long, it’s a great example of the limitless possibilites of the human imagination.
I tried reading it once, but couldn’t get very far….
Dr Ehrman
Who, in your opinion, were the followers of Paul in the house churches he established? Could they have been God Fearers – Pagan followers of Judaism?
And by extension, who would have been the followers of the Jerusalem Church? Jews?
They almost certainly were former pagans, since Paul talks about them as former worshipers of idols.
Agreed, but was it that made them followers of Paul’s religion?
Sorry, I don’;t know what you’re asking.
Oh, what a tease this post is…
What is your reason for believing Genesis was influenced by Enûma Eliš and the flood by the Epic of Gilgamesh, but the mystery religions could not have influenced Christianity? A part of me thinks if the Jews could borrow religious ideas once or twice, then it could happen a third or fourth time!
I’m not saying they could *not* have influenced Christianity. I’m saying that we have the Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh and can compare what they say with what Genesis says. We do not have any texts from the mystery religions to compare with Christian texts. They don’t exist.
Ok, i have two questions for you Bart, one is did Paul speak Aramaic?(probably dumb question). The second question is, did Paul believe in the demonic entity called Satan? I know its mentioned in the other parts of the new testament but not sure if Paul ever mentions it.
1. It’s debated. My view is no. 2. Yes.
Why would Paul not have spoken Aramaic? It was the common language of Judaea. While Paul was clearly fluent in Greek, that would not have been useful in daily life. Also, he studied under Gamaliel, and they would have used Aramaic, with Hebrew (the holy language by then) reserved for citations.
I don’t think he was from Judea and I don’t think he actually studied with Gamaliel (that is found only in Acts; Paul says nothing about it)
But he certainly studied with somebody. “I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people…” (Gal. 1:14). (I don’t know the original Greek, but I suspect that “Judaism” is not the right word, but a modern emendation; I’m using the RSV translation here.)
Aramaic was the usual language Jews in Judaea and Galilee spoke, including teachers of the law (though they would have interspersed it with Hebrew). I suppose Paul could have found a teacher who used Greek; is that what you are proposing?
He didn’t live in Palestine. He was a highly religious Diaspora Greek-speaking Jew (like most Jews). I don’t think there’s any indication in his letters that he know Hebrew or Aramaic.
Given that the Pharisees were very keen on study of the law (and they didn’t accept the Greek translations). I think it likely that anyone claiming to be a Pharisee (and not challenged on it) would know Hebrew, the language of the law. Also, Paul went to Jerusalem a couple of times to meet with Peter and James, who probably only spoke Aramaic. Granted, there could have been a translator (Luke?), but I think the simplest explanation is that Pail could speak their language. He wouldn’t have mentioned it in the letters because there was no need to do so.
What makes you think they didn’t accept Greek translations?
Only Acts mentions Tarsus or Saul. In Gal 1, perhaps Paul greatly exaggerates his Jewish background. His writing shows no evidence of it.
In their book Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus, Bivin and Blizzard make a very good case that Jews in Palestine had already reverted to Hebrew, at least for religious discussions. They show how the gospel sayings attributed to Jesus seem to be hasty translations from Hebrew. Most of them could have been translations of sayings of Hillel. As a member of elite society outside of Palestine, professional-grade Greek (quality Koine Greek) was likely his native language. He shows no evidence of knowing any other.
He may have been a Pharisee in the same sense (philosophically) that I may have been a Republican. That would mean my ideas tended to align with Republican ideas, not that I was Mitt Romney.
I don’t have specific citations any longer, but in my studies of the Talmud I recall that the rabbis were not overly thrilled even with the Targum, the Aramaic translation(s), because they felt the Law could only be understood in the original. While Pharisaic interpretation was not as advanced as Talmudic, it still depended on the meaning of the words in the original, on nuances of vocabulary and occasionally grammar that simply do not translate (perhaps into Aramaic, but not into Greek). Given their strong emphasis on the need to study the law in detail to extract every particle of meaning, I have great difficulty in visualizing a Pharisaic teacher of that time accepting a student who could not read the Law in the original. Granted that it is possible, and granted also that the ability to read/understand the original text does not necessarily confer a conversational fluency, I still think that the most reasonable position to take is that Paul, whose boasts of being a learned Pharisee appear to have gone unchallenged, probably knew Hebrew. “The Pharisees … are supposed to excel others in the accurate knowledge of the laws of their country.” (Josephus, :Life, 191)
Did he know Aramaic, then? That was the lingua franca among the Jews in Galilee and Judaea (Hebrew being considered too holy for regular use by then). Again, the question is: Where did Paul get his Pharisaic training? And again, given the small number of Pharisees at that time, and their preference for living in God’s Holy Land, I have trouble visualizing a Pharisee instructing Paul in Greek elsewhere. So it seems reasonable that Paul probably knew Aramaic.
The alternative, as I see it, is to argue that Paul fabricated, or exaggerated, his Pharisaic learning. But according to Acts 23:9, the Pharisees on the high priest’s council accepted him as one of them.
The other alternative is that there were Pharisees outside of Palestine. We know very little about the Pharisees. We con’t have a single Pharisaic author writing before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE — except Paul!! So our knowledge is highly limited.
I find in your book How Jesus Became God, 223, your discussion of Paul’s use of a semiticism, in saying “Spirit of Holiness” rather than “Holy Spirit.” This seems to me to indicate that Paul knew Hebrew, as do his frequent quotes from Scripture.
Ah, precisely the opposite was my point. That semitism is found in a fragment of an older tradition that Paul was *quoting* (in Romans 1:3-4), not in one that he composed himself.
Bart
Since in our own time we have seen modern versions of messiahs that had devoted followers, I find it very conceivable that Jesus portrayed himself as the Messiah and his relatively small band of followers believed him. What I can’t grasp is how Christianity became all it did and is. I have read you book on how Jesus became God but I still am amazed how vast it became. Although I do wonder about the if, how, what, why, etc regarding god in general, if god was to reveal himself he would do so to all and from the beginning of time. It wouldn’t be done as an informational/religious virus.
I thought we knew quite a bit about the Pharisees, even aside from NT texts. While we don’t have direct writings by them, the teachings of Hillel and Shammai were very influential in rabbinic Judaism and its pre-70 incarnation. The teachings attributed to Jesus could well have been translated sayings of Hillel (except for divorce, then Shammai). All the arguments in the gospels between Jesus and other Pharisees could well have been between those two. The subjects were their major debate topics. If I were writing a bios narrative about Jesus 4 decades after he died, with no access to anyone who met him, I would select topics from rabbinic debates of the day. A field trip to Yavneh would easily provide me all the material I needed to create brief snippets of the popular topics.
one more question
is it true that later writers in the new testament do not believe in restoration of israel and think that the new inheritors of gods kingdom are the christians?
are the later writers thinking that christians are “the new chosen people ” of god?
“Let there be no fruit from thee henceforth for ever” (Mt. 21:19)
“The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Mt. 21:43)
later christians are imaging that god forsook israel? ?
Yes, Christians are the newly chosen. Some ealry Christians thought the Jews had been abandoned. Others strongly disagreed.
Do we not have a difficulty in deciding the difference between “A” messiah and “THE” messiah..after all there are many christs, some false and some anointed by G-d , like Cyrus (My messiah) So Jesus claims may well have been true, “The Spirit of G-d is upon me because He has anointed me to…… and then there follows a list , none of which is to establish an everlasting kingdom, indeed it looks like His anointing is only for a year. But now due to the resurrection and sitting at G-ds right hand, and having all authority placed upon Him , He has now changed from “A” messiah to become “THE” messiah and at His return He can be all three interpretations of what His rule will be like.
I would differentiate between what the historical Jesus thought about himself and what Luke suggests Jesus thought about himself.
Dahl’s argument is compelling, but ideas do occur to me in dreams and a semi-waking state that I doubt would occur to me in a fully onscious state. Paul seems to have derived some fairly original ideas about Jesus the Messiah from his vision, which I should think would, by definition, have occurred in an altered state of consciousness. Paul’s private revelation has become part of the Orthodox account. Couldn’t one person (Peter, James?) have had such an insight, when not fully conscious, after Jesus’s death and reported it to others, who found it convincing? Do any scholars argue along that line?
none that I know of.
Some of your readers make detailed comments to which you don’t respond, as they are not asking a question; but, sometimes, I wonder if they know what they are talking about. Is there a way, without berating those like me who have no bona fides, that you could tell us to whom wie might want to pay attention when they expostulate?
Not that I know of!
Another cliff hanger ! … 🙂
I was reflecting on this last night Dr. Ehrman … wouldn’t Christ’s thinking that HE was the Messiah been extraordinary? As a Jew he wouldn’t he have been aware of the grandeur of the historical expectation? And he was poor. I admire your scholarship .. sifting through an historical event that was later tailored by who knows how many to fit an Old Testament prophecy for the sake of legitimacy and probably power.
Yes, it would have been unusual — but not unheard of.
All of these arguments presume facts not in evidence. We don’t know what Jesus or his disciples believed. We have only the portrayals of anonymous diarists. Even Paul didn’t talk about what Jesus believed, only what he did by being the universal sacrifice. The synoptic authors wrote to be inclusive. If you believed Jesus was a Zealot or a prophet or a sage or a magician, you can find texts to identify with. Any Zealot with a brain would predict his own death (if he failed, and all did). These authors also went to great lengths to explain why the ideas of Christianity were unknown during the lifetime of Jesus. You can find texts portraying Jesus as saying that he will be in charge in the kingdom of God (politically independent Israel), and that one disciple would be in charge of a tribe of Israel. I find it highly implausible that Jesus said that.
The strongest synoptic portrayal of Jesus is as an apocalyptic preacher (like John the Baptist), exhorting non-practicing Jews (sinners) to repent, then resume the practice of Judaism. If Israel did that, then God would keep his end of the bargain in the Mosaic Covenant, and defeat the enemies of Israel (Rome). John the Baptist would have been a messiah, had he succeeded in doing that. Every Zealot leader wanted to be a messiah, but following the path of David, military conquest. Israel applied the title messiah only to someone who had successfully filled that role. Like Cyrus.
Ἰουδαϊσμός in Galatians 1:14 is transliterated as Judaism. It was the name for the religion of the Jews. Paul bragged about his advancement (progress) in that religion, though he rarely if ever shows any Jewish ideas in his writings.
In the greater Roman Empire, the educated, the elite, spoke Greek. Even the Jews, which is why they have a translation of Tanakh into Greek (Septuagint). Tarsus was thoroughly hellenized by the first century.