Loading...The intriguing questions keep coming. Here are some more that I’ve received. And BTW, if you’re not a Gold Member on the blog you might consider moving up to that level: one of the perks is that I do a live Q&A every month with Gold Members, which is recorded and then distributed to them. It’s a terrifically fun event and I get very good questions to address.
But for now, here’s some that I’ve addressed in writing:
QUESTION
This question is about the understanding of atonement across the gospels. Specifically why do Matthew and John think Jesus specifically HAD to die, in your view? Especially Matthew since he is the one I struggle with most.
Luke famously doesn’t have atonement and thinks he had to die to bring people to repentance. I think Mark is a Pauline Gospel so it has his theology of Jesus death being a ransom for gentiles in mind.
Matthew and John are the ones that I struggle with most, though. I think John says that it is meant to glorify God and provide proof of his mission.
Matthew I think understands Jesus’s death as opening the door to the gentile world but NOT being a ransom to absolve them of following Jewish Law (unlike Mark and Paul). I think the parable of the wedding feast is good evidence that he thinks that Jesus must first proclaimed in Israel (Matthew 10:16) but then after his death the disciples are now allowed to preach to the world in preparation for the end times due to the crucifixion (Matthew 28:18-19). Do you think this is right? Thank you.
RESPONSE:
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While many Christologies have been proposed, the one that I find intriguing is the one that taught that Jesus was an angel. Those who hold to this view cite Galatians 4:14. “And though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” For them, the Galatians received Paul as they would an angel and THAT angel was Christ himself. Recent proponents of this view are Charles Gieschen’s Angelomorphic Christology, Susan Garrett’s No Ordinary Angel, Andrei A. Orlov’s The Glory of the Invisible God Two Powers in Heaven Traditions and Early Christology, and A. F. Segal’s, Two Powers in Heaven.
James Dunn is representative of those who hold to the majority view. In his Christology in the Making, he writes, “So far as we can tell, then no NT writer thought of Christ as an angel, whether as a pre-existent divine being who had appeared in Israel’s history as the angel of the Lord, or as an angel or spirit become man, or a man who by exaltation after death became an angel” (emphasis his).
I side with Dunn. Jesus was no angel.
I disagree that Jesus thought of the Son of Man as some future cosmic being. Yes, he speaks of the Son of Man in the third person, but I think those are instances of Illeisms.
Bart’s view about suffering has stuck with me. I mean, suffering is preventable by an all-powerful God, isn’t it? In today’s NYT Peter Wehner interviews Nicholas Wolterstorff, who “is among the most prominent Christian philosophers of the 20th century”. In the interview, Wolterstorff says this: “I suppose the most powerful case against Christianity is the problem of evil.” Evil vs. suffering. Evil isn’t preventable because God gave us free will, but suffering is preventable. I see a very big difference. Does Bart?
It’s all a matter of how we define the terms “evil” and “suffering.” They could be synonyms. They could be related terms. I’m not sure how Wolterstroff is defining it. Just now I’m trying to think of some kind of evil that I’m concerned about (or even any that I’m not conerned about) that isn’t involved with the suffering of human creatures. But I can think of suffering that is not necessarily evil. Sometimes suffering in the end leads to a greater good, for example. If I hadn’t gotten hepatitis when I was 16 I never would have become a scholar (complicated story). So, well, I say: Thank God for (my) hepatitis!
Mr. Ehrman, it would be great if there was a vault on this blog where Gold & Platinum members can easily find the recorded Q&As. I couldn’t attend the last one, and now I cannot find it. It’s the best thing on this blog! Maybe next to “Recent Posts”?? You have to gather ’em all and put them somewhere together. They are a treasure of knowledge!
Ah, I need to look into that. Thanks.
In Revelation 3:12, right after the “new Jerusalem” (written in the feminine) the author switches back to the nominative. Our bibles say “which” or “that” comes down from etc. A Greek Classist who teaches biblical Greek says “ because of this switch back to the nominative and due to the bad grammar on the part of the writer, it actually reads “The one descending from” He goes onto say, “ It would be better if he (author) wrote “which” is descending, but he (author) goes back to the nominative with a participle (present tense)
It is not my intention to pin you too against each other in any way, I was just asking based on your extensive knowledge if you would you agree with him that [ ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ ] Should actually read (present tense) “ The one descending out of heaven from God.” I am not concerned with what is proper, just the way it is actually written, bad grammar, mistakes, correctness, are not my concern in this regard just how it was really actually written. Thank you so much for your time.
It’s a little hard to answer your question because it is not bad grammar but incorrect grammar, and so since it’s incorrect there’s not actually a correct way to read it. The only way to make sense of it is to revert it to something like correct grammar, that is, to guess aht he was trying to say. I think that is pretty clear. He uses “Jerusalem” as an indeclinable proper noun (fair enough) but it is the object of a feminine genitive article. That’s absolutely fine. The problem is that since it is indeclinable, both the genitive and nominative look the same. The participle that modifies it, though, is in the nominative rather than what is required, the genitive. It’s an understanddable mistake, and not as bad as some others he makes (as in 1:4, where he uses an article to modify an indicative form of “to be” which litarlly can’t work.) So in this case, the nominative participle is modfying the genitive substantive (!) and meand “Jerusalem, the one that descends” (or “is descending”). I’m not sure if that answers your questoin.
Yes, that is a great answer to my question, thank you. This verse (the grammar) caught my attention, then I began imagining “someone” Standing in front of the Philadelphia “church” reading aloud this letter form John, and saying to them, “The New Jerusalem the one (“that is”, present tense) descending out of heaven from my God, and my new name.” Like, it is just then being realized (becoming fact, a reality) at that exact moment in time when it’s being read. Kinda almost like what happens in Luke 4:21, except the message comes from God and is read by, we don’t know. It seems like you may agree with the quoted statement to the Philadelphia church, but the rest, and the Luke comparison I don’t know, any thoughts?
I understood your comments, but don’t know what you’re asking.
In Luke 4:21 Christ reads from Isaiah and then declares, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” With that in mind imagine someone standing in front of the Philadelphia “church” reading this part of the letter form John (Revelation 3:12), and saying to them, “The New Jerusalem the one (“that is”, present tense) descending out of heaven from my God, and my new name.”
Does this part become fulfilled (New Jerusalem descending) at that very moment it is being read to them?
If someone reads a passage that says “Jerusalem is now descending from heaven” and then declares “This is happening right now,” then yes, he would probably mean this is happening right now.
Well that is what I don’t understand. How could someone 2000 years ago say the New Jerusalem is now currently descending from heaven, Jesus obviously hasn’t returned yet still today? What do you think is happening here in the end of Revelation 3:12. I don’t recall reading about it in your book Armageddon.
It’s amazing the things you find the author of Revelatoin saying….
Bart – What do you think of the view that Matthew’s original copy identified Barabbas as ‘Jesus Barabbas’ (Jesus the Son of the Father)? My suspicion when I learned this was that, if so, it was an allusion to Yom Kippur (Lev. 16). I discovered upon further digging that this interpretation was at least as old as Origin. But which was the sacrificial goat, which the scapegoat? Considering the ways in which (I think) the YK symbolism permeates Mt’s Passion narrative, it seems that Jesus Barabbas was the scapegoat – hence, the one who carries away the sins. That makes JC the one whose death pays the ransom. There is no evidence that Barabbas was also a Jesus in the other Gospels. So they might not have liked the idea, had other axes to grind (e.g. that JC accomplishes both purposes with his death/resurrection), or (e.g. Mark) just not have thought of it).
Also, I’ve seen the claim that Jewish holidays – and so Passover – were also sabbaths. If that’s right then you can get two Passovers (Friday and Saturday).
It’s debated (obviously!) It’s found in only a few manuscripts, but their combination is usually something that needs to be taken seriously. My sense is that it is a secondary addition by a scribe meant to make the Jewish crowds choice even more dramatic. The name Barabbas literally means “son of the father” and so the choice in all the Gospels is, which Son of the God do you want, a military insurgent or messiah willing to die for the sake of others. But calling both of them Jesus it heightens the irony/choice.
Also, I don’t see why there should be any difficulty over Christ being an angelos; after all, he becomes “inhabited” by the HS, which is, both in the Hebrew Bible and the NT (e.g. in Jn. 14) where, inter alia, the disciples are commissioned as messengers, and so also are endowed with the HS. In the Hebrew Bible, the HS is functionally God’s messenger and bringer of sanctified religious status-change (to, e.g., a sometimes predestined prophet or king).
Also, why should there be any fundamental (ontological) conflict between Jn. 1 – the pre-existing Christ (a role, signified by acquisition of a titulus), and the baptismal elevation of Jesus who consequently is sanctified by becoming the “flesh and blood” residence of the HS? At the ontological level, it seems to me that there’s no basic conflict between low and high Christologies. What were the issues that created this division, in your understanding?
I think people consider it just too low-level to thing of Jesus as a pre-existent angel; but the most popwerful angel in Judaism would have been the second most powerful being in the universe. I’m not a philosopher, as you will have noticed, but there does seem to be an ontological difference between an pre-existent divine being who created the universe and a human hwo is elevated to divine status, a kind of difference in their essence and capapacity for it to change.
There would certainly be a difference. The question is: of what sort? You will agree that ‘Jesus’ is a personal name; ‘the Christ’ denotes, not a person but a personage – a social role or position. If you agree (as I mostly do) with Walton that Genesis 1-3 is not about physical cosmogeny but about the establishment of a social order, then such a title would be potentially immortal and could be conceived to be a role in the primeval order that defines Israel – i.e. always present in God’s plan. One can go further: the Holy Spook is certainly an angelos, who transmits the divine presence to humans, authorizes kings and prophets, etc. Biden was the President and is no longer – he will presently die, but the Presidency will march on (I hope). All this obliterates the high/low distinction, if right. Prophets and kings can also be known to God before born. It also happens to explain the ontology of both the Trinity and the Incarnation, without retreating to paradox or some such. The ontology of social roles is, indeed, of great interest to me.