(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading...I’ve had several people ask what I’m working on, now that How Jesus Became God has come and gone from. The answer is: the very next thing! And it’s something that I’ve gotten really excited about, as excited as I was about How Jesus Became God. For some reason, when I was doing that book over the past couple of years, I thought that it was going to be the climax of my trade book publishing career, and that everything would be downhill from there. I was completely wrong about that. I’m now just as passionate about the next project.
I mentioned the book earlier on the blog, before I decided for sure that it was going to be next. But it definitely is. It will be about the oral traditions of Jesus in circulation in the years before the Gospels were written.
So, just to give a bit of background — a review for some of you and new information for probably some others. Scholars have long held that Mark was the first of our Gospels to be written, and that it probably appeared sometime around the year 70 CE. Some scholars think it might have been a bit before that (I used to think that); more scholars think that it might have been a bit after. But almost everyone agrees that Mark dates to around the end of the Jewish War (66-70 CE). The only ones who consistently have argued otherwise are fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals, who very much want Mark, our earliest Gospel, to be closer to the time of Jesus.
Maybe some time on the blog I’ll explain why 70 CE seems like a plausible date. For now, let’s just say that this is the virtually consensus view among critical scholars. The last Gospel has traditionally been thought to be John, and it is normally dated to 90 or 95 CE. Matthew and Luke then were probably somewhere between these two (since they used Mark and must date after 70 CE, but seem to be older than John and so must be earlier than 90 CE) – so say 80 or 85 CE.
What is striking, and what I have long emphasized in my writings, is that time gap between the death of Jesus in 30 CE and the first accounts of his life in 70-95 CE. It’s a gap (for those who are mathematically challenged) of 40-65 years.
And so the question is, what was happening during all those years to the stories being told about Jesus? The Gospel writers themselves do not claim to have been disciples of Jesus, and do not claim to be eyewitnesses of the events they narrate, and do not claim (contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, largely by not reading the texts in question carefully enough) to have derived their stories directly from eyewitnesses. The Gospels were written anonymously, in different parts of the world from where Jesus lived, in a different language from the one Jesus used, four and more decades after Jesus died. So where did they get their stories?
They got them from oral traditions about Jesus that had been in circulation over all that time, in different languages (at least Aramaic and Greek) in different places in different contexts.
All that is well known, and I’ve written about it before.
But what I’m interested in now is…
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Sounds interesting. I do hope you tackle some of the ideas presented by scholars like Richard Bauckham. I’m half-way through his ‘Jesus & the Eyewitnesses’ at the moment. Struggling to get through it because, although he makes the occasional noteworthy point, much of it seems very speculative and dressed up to be more than it is – e.g. at one point he suggests that the reason Lazarus wasn’t mentioned in the synoptics was because the gospel writers were concealing his identity operating under some kind of witness protection program! It was at that point I realised I was reading apologetics, not cautious scholarship.
I also recently watched a debate between Richard Carrier and Zeba Crook on the historicity of Jesus. A question came up in the Q&A about the validity of the use of pre-gospel ‘oral traditions’ in attempting to reconstruct the past. Predictably, Carrier dismissed the use of oral traditions as completely untrustworthy speculation. But I was surprised that Crook too basically agreed – that even if there was a colorful oral tradition behind the gospel stories, that we really don’t have any reliable way to access them and as such it’s more or less a wild goose chase that requires a dose of circular reasoning just to get started…
The position about the complete untrustworthiness of oral tradition seems to also imply the complete untrustworthiness of the gospels (which I don’t think Zeba holds!), since the gospels are based on that oral tradition (unless one argues that Mark, for example, completely made up the stories he wrote or based his account on eyewitness testimony).
I think it is too much to say they are “completely” untrustworthy. If the oral tradition involved inventions of episodes and sayings of Jesus,and the alteration of historically accurate material, the task is to try to establish what is historically accurate. (Well, that’s one task, anyway)
Awesome.
Ok, so the next Clash of Titans will be Ehrman vs. Bauckham 😉 Looking forward to it !
Some quick considerations about your interesting post: an early dating of Mark is not only supported/proposed by “fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals”, unless you want to count Casey (RIP) and Crossley among them.. and I don’t think it’s the case 🙂
Mark gospel likely used some written sources, and Luke has been explicit about such existing written material circulating at his time, moreover some scholars propose an early composition date for the core Passion’s account: these things may challenge the assumption that oral traditions have been the only/main channel for tradition. Finally, I know that scholars like Anthony LeDonne recently explored this very interesting field of studies (memory, perception, tradition) that can actually challenge the “traditional approach” of Historical Jesus scholarship. So, once again you are going to give your contribute to a modern, fascinating topic ..
Looking forward to reading more on this blog! 🙂 Regards
Your new project sounds fascinating.
Are you going to try to tie it in with other cultures with oral traditions? I understand it was quite strong in the Celtic peoples, which was roughly the same time and a lot of legend is attached to their methods.
Yes, the current plan (it may change!) is to talk about what we know about oral cultures from anthropologists (and others).
How will your book differ from the work of the Jesus Seminar, which attempted to determine the actual words of Jesus? I find this topic you’re taking up of supreme importance because the words of Jesus are at the core of my faith, rather than the second- or third-hand stories ABOUT him.
Our concerns and interests are broadly similar, but the Jesus seminar never produced a book about the oral traditions per se.
Their analysis (in various colors!) of the Four Gospels and Thomas in “The Five Gospels” were close to that, though. I do wish there was a book with a detailed listing of the Logia or Sayings of Jesus that are considered “authentic” and reasons WHY they are considered so. Perhaps that will be part of this effort?
I also really, really enjoyed your translations of the non-canonical books in your “Lost Scriptures” books and wish you’d tackle the Gospels themselves (highlighting the Variants, which NO Bibles currently do) unless you feel one or more versions “get it right,” or “close enough.”
For those of us waiting for these books, can I suggest two books on this topic that I’ve found both immensely informative as well as great reads (that is, “recommend” to my fellow readers; I’m sure Dr Ehrman doesn’t need any help in this area).
The first is Walter J Ong’s classic “Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word”. This book serves as a great introduction to current thought about what the transition from purely oral cultures to literate ones means. The book discusses the (often significantly) different ways by which each collect, maintain, and transmit historical and cultural information; the different views each has on what “factual truth” can mean; and, perhaps most importantly, offers insights into how our assumption about, and answers to such question –and our understanding of their importance– that we share in a modern literate society, is very much an artifact of our belonging to such a society.
The second is “Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything” by David Bellos. The title is a touch too cute for my tastes, but this book provides a fascinating and highly enjoyable introduction to the issues involved in translation. While not directly focused on questions of literacy, it offers many insights into the technical, linguistic and cultural problems involved in transfering “meaning” from one language into another.
I’m excited to read your work on oral history. You state that the oral tradition was THE source for the gospel writers: “So where did they get their stories? They got them from oral traditions about Jesus that had been in circulation over all that time, in different languages (at least Aramaic and Greek) in different places in different contexts.” Of course I agree with you that much of their sources were oral but you’re not discounting written tradition, are you?
No, of course not! But even with earlier written sources (Q, e.g.) one has to ask: whence did they derive their materials? From the oral traditions!
How do you prove that conclusion? How does anyone know for certain that no one wrote down what Christ said immediately upon hearing his words?
History is a matter of probabilities, not certainties. Given what we know about literacy in Roman Palestine, it is *extremely* unlikely that Jesus’ followers could write. And given what we know about ancient speech writing, it is extremely unlikely that the later accounts of Jesus’ words were produced from hand-written notes.
“The assertion that Jesus is God is arguably the single most important development in Western civilization.” Dr. Bart
I think history is fixed. I believe you are right that history is also probabilities. We simply can’t look back and see everything.
Pretend jesus was god for a moment. It is probable he would make certain his message would become available to as many as possible and that it would be presented accurately. Look at the great mind of that little old S.O.B. saul/paul. What a complete jerk! Yet, he was brilliant, educated, articulate and was prolific, There is no evidence that among his many followers, no one besides him could write. Dr. Bart, if he had chosen you to follow him, wouldn’t you somehow find the means to record his words? I do not think it is an intellectually sound position to take that no one recorded what he said soon after he spoke. They gave up their lives for him/his cause. They valued what he said and did more than their own lives and the lives of their families and loved ones. They weren’t dull. They knew, obviously, that they had to preserve his teachings, his sermons, his parables if they were to advance his cause for future generations. How could they possibly not know how critical that was?
But Dr., look at what you’ve just said here. “History is a matter of probabilities, not certainties.” Then, “Given what we KNOW about literacy in Roman Palestine, it is *extremely* unlikely that Jesus’ followers could write.” You’ve just said we can’t “know” and then add, what we “know”.
“And given what we KNOW about ancient speech writing…” same thing.
We can know probabilities. You can “know” that if you sit down in your favorite chair, it won’t collapse and kill you. But in fact it’s only a probability.
Paul wrote and he could read. If he could, I think it is highly likely others who were very close to Christ could read and write, as well. I don’t think it is a stretch. Paul wasn’t exactly corned beef, either; he was a brilliant writer up there with guys like you. How could he do it and the probability that no one else could be “extremely” unlikely?
Yes, he was one of the urban educated elite among the early Christians. Unlike, e.g., Jesus’ disciples, who were rural illiterate peasants.
Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there” (15:40-41).
We do know that some folks contributed to Jesus and his disciples. Luke tells us that certain wealthy women helped them out: “some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means” (8:2-3).
Where do we find that none of his followers came from urban areas? Let’s keep open minds. If only 1% of that population was literate, that is a thousand people-based on a pop of 100,000.
“string theory” which is supported by many top physicists, requires more than 10 dimensions to work. Let’s not limit our mindset to the mundane. God, if he exists, can do miracles
I don’t think any of those women were educated — very few women were, even if they married rich husbands. And the men were drawn from rural areas.
Say it was extremely unlikely, it was possible. Not all of his followers were rural, either. Thousands followed him. Thousands heard him. Multitudes ate food prepared miraculously by him. Some drank superb wine he made on the spot. Many were healed. He brought the dead back to life– right before their eyes. Kings wanted to meet him.
It did not require a genius to write and to record the words someone spoke. Btw, the jews were and are the smartest, most gifted people intellectually ever, anywhere, bar none.
“Given what we KNOW about literacy in Roman Palestine…” Dr. Bart.
What we don’t know is how many of his disciples were from the cities. We don’t know that every rural follower was incapable of writing.
What we know is that there is no proof that his disciples didn’t write the original documents that became the new testament. The odds are excellent that they did. They died, willingly, because they knew him and his cause and they were responsible for ensuring the world heard it. They would not give up everything for a walk in the park. Remember, too, that they thought his second appearance would occur any moment and they were instructed to go into every corner of the world with his message. Any way they could reach humanity with his message was utilized.
Only 60 years later, somebody wrote those things, according to criticism. What changed so drastically in 60 years, you know?
“Some women were watching from a distance” pp
“I don’t think any of those women were educated — very few women were, even if they married rich husbands. And the men were drawn from rural areas.” Dr. B.
They could afford to hire those who could record what he said. pp
“Unlike, e.g., Jesus’ disciples, who were rural illiterate peasants.” Dr. B.
That is not a statement of fact. Some peasants could read and write and not all his followers were peasants.
Malcolm X taught himself to read in prison by memorizing a dictionary.
The novelist Nicholas Delbanco taught himself to read at age six during a transatlantic crossing by studying a book about boats
Fermi initially chose mathematics as his major, but soon switched to physics. He remained largely self-taught, studying general relativity, quantum mechanics, and atomic physics.
Walter Pitts was an important logician and mathematician who made significant contributions to the cognitive sciences, psychology, artificial intelligence, and the generative sciences. As a boy growing up in Detroit, Pitts read works like Principia Mathematica to learn logic and math, and he also taught himself Greek and Latin at just 10 years old.
George Washington never went to school but was taught by his brother and father at home.
Truman Capote
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (Gauß) (April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer and physicist with a very wide range of contributions; he is considered to be one of the leading mathematicians of all time.
Gauss was born in Braunschweig, Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (now part of Germany) as the only son of lower-class uneducated parents.
Why don’t you read about what we know about literacy in the ancient world? I think I’ve already indicated the books that represent the best scholarship.
“Unlike, e.g., Jesus’ disciples, who were rural illiterate peasants.”
Dr., as we pursue truth with all we are capable of, this, your airtight conclusion, isn’t indicative of your best scholarly reasoning, imo.
I am reading Dr. I am. I am. And you are an amazing writer. So easy and enjoyable to read. So articulate. So knowledgeable. So good at making the complex understandable to your average boob like me.
I don’t think a wanna be writer of a gospel omitted his name, like Jehoshaphat, because he was concerned about a lack of name recognition. At that point, who knew who Paul, John, Luke, Mark and Matt were? Nobody.
If you haven’t already, let me recommend that you try Don Diego Cigars. At 14, when my folks took off for the shore, (I would swipe a handful from Dad’s humidor) immediately half the town raced up our driveway. I called the liquor store where they had an account, try to imitate my father and order gallons of vodka. “Oh, and if no one’s home when you get here, just leave the boxes under the light between the 2 garages.” It worked brilliantly until they handed me the bill.
Ah, the bill. I used to sneak my dad’s cigars too, but now I know they were truly awful. Marsh Wheelings. Wouldn’t touch them if they were the last cigars on earth…
Ah, the bill. I used to sneak my dad’s cigars too, but now I know they were truly awful. Marsh Wheelings. Wouldn’t touch them if they were the last cigars on earth…
As a man who seems to enjoy a fine cigar, I thought a Don Diego might hit the spot.
I love this topic idea, as difficult as it sounds to execute. There seems a tendency to treat that 30-40 years as a black box in which all manner of things are happening to reshape the tradition without any clear idea of the historical context in which various actors were doing the reshaping.
For a comparative perspective, you might consider getting to know Sean Anthony, a historian of early Islam who works with similar issues in a very different source environment – later sources, but much more knowledge of the historical context and agents shaping them. I blogged about his dissertation book (http://bjulrich.blogspot.com/2012/07/tales-of-ibn-saba.html) concerning the evolution of an account of Shi’ite origins following the death of Ali, which represented a failed apocalyptic hope. He’s also worked on the material surrounding the life of Muhammad and published a book on crucifixion in Late Antiquity.
BrianUlrich, “There seems a tendency to treat that 30-40 years as a black box…” We treat that period of time as if we know for certain that none of Christ’s words had been recorded immediately after he said them and therefore no copies of those non-existent original documents were made and circulated.
We don’t know that. There is no scientific proof of that. Common sense dictates that a number of people likely began writing down his words right after he spoke them. His followers were eager to spread the news about this guy long before he was murdered. He had to tell them over and over not to tell others about his miracles (he could have been crushed by the enormous crowds before completing his work). Yet, they did anyway. (So much for the “no free-will” argument.) Many people may have recorded those events through various time periods of his ministry which may have been combined later. Some may have been used as a source to write a portion of Q. Others for john. We just don’t know; we cannot state as factual, precisely, what took place.
Verse 1. – Forasmuch as many have taken in hand. The Greek in which St. Luke’s Gospel is written is generally pure and classical, but the language of the little introduction (verse 1-4) is especially studied and polished, and contrasts singularly with the Hebrew character of the story of the nativity, which immediately follows. St, Luke here, in this studied introduction, follows the example of many of the great classical writers, Latin as well as Greek. Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, for instance, paid special attention to the opening sentences of their histories. The many early efforts to produce a connected history of the life and work of the great Master Christ are not, as some have supposed, alluded to here with anything like censure, but are simply referred to as being incomplete, as written without order or arrangement. They most probably formed the basis of much of St. Luke’s own Gospel. These primitive Gospels quickly disappeared from sight, as they evidently contained nothing more than what was embodied in the fuller and more systematic narratives of the “four.” Of those things which are most surely believed among us. There was evidently no questioning in the Church of the first days about the truth of the story of the teaching and the mighty works of Jesus of Nazareth. It was the incompleteness of these first evangelists, rather than their inaccuracy, which induced St. Luke to take in hand a new Gospel.
Pulpit Commentary
Luke, 1 “Seeing that many did take in hand to set in order a narration of the matters that have been fully assured among us, who from the beginning became eye-witnesses, and officers of the Word, — it seemed good also to me, having followed from the first after all things exactly, to write to thee in order, most noble Theophilus, that thou mayest know the certainty of the things wherein thou wast instructed.” Young’s Literal Translation
@prestonp
“We don’t know that. There is no scientific proof of that. Common sense dictates that a number of people likely began writing down his words right after he spoke them”
First there’s no need for scientific proof of something that seems to be; particularly since the
person in question seems to be offering his personal opinion.
Why the switch, Prestonp? Why does Brian’s opinion require scientific proof while yours only requires “common sense” Why is it that someone in a largely illiterate society would find it
common sensical to do something literate? And to steal from Bart, if it was comon sensical for
people to begin writing down his words right after he spoke them, why didn’t common sense dictate
their preservation?
In Islam you don’t have ambiguity regarding what is happening since day 1 of the Islamic Calendar. Even if you were to exclude rigorously authenticated hadith, we still have non-Islamic sources to confirm the events of Islamic history and the existence of important figures. For example, I share with you a Coptic Account of Amr ibn Al-As , (a DIRECT companion of the Prophet Muhammad):
https://islamicarchives.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/amr-ibn-al-as-the-liberator-of-the-coptic-people/
(A little long, I apologize)
When Amr took full possession of the city of Alexandria, and settled its affairs, that infidel, the governor of Alexandria, feared, he being both prefect and patriarch of the city under the Romans, that Amr would kill him; therefore he sucked a poisoned ring, and died on the spot. But Sanutius, the believing dux, made known to Amr the circumstances of that militant father, the patriarch Benjamin, and how he was a fugitive from the Romans, through fear of them. Then Amr, son of Al-Asi, wrote to the provinces of Egypt a letter, in which he said: “There is protection and security for the place where Benjamin, the patriarch of the Coptic Christians is, and peace from God; therefore let him come forth secure and tranquil, and administer the affairs of his Church, and the government of his nation.”
Therefore when the holy Benjamin heard this, he returned to Alexandria with great joy, clothed with the crown of patience and sore conflict which had befallen the orthodox people through their persecution by the heretics, after having been absent during thirteen years, ten of which were years of Heraclius, the misbelieving Roman, with the three years before the Muslims conquered Alexandria. When Benjamin appeared, the people and the whole city rejoiced, and made his arrival known to Sanutius, the dux who believed in Christ, who had settled with the commander Amr that the patriarch should return, and had received a safe-conduct from Amr for him. Thereupon Sanutius went to the commander and announced that the patriarch had arrived, and Amr gave orders that Benjamin should be brought before him with honour and veneration and love. And Amr, when he saw the patriarch, received him with respect, and said to his companions and private friends: “Verily in all the lands of which we have taken possession hitherto I have never seen a man of God like this man.” For the Father Benjamin was beautiful of countenance, excellent in speech, discoursing with calmness and dignity.
Then Amr turned to him, and said to him: “Resume the government of all your churches and of your people, and administer their affairs. And if you will pray for me, that I may go to the West and to Pentapolis, and take possession of them, as I have of Egypt, and return to you in safety and speedily, I will do for you all that you shall ask of me.” Then the holy Benjamin prayed for Amr, and pronounced an eloquent discourse, which made Amr and those present with him marvel, and which contained words of exhortation and much profit for those that heard him; and he revealed certain matters to Amr, and departed from his presence honoured and revered. And all that the blessed father said to the commander Amr, son of Al-Asi, he found true, and not a letter of it was unfulfilled.
So exciting! Can’t wait – great choice of topics!! Clearly this gap between Jesus’ death and our first surviving records is key. Hopefully you might touch on whether you find evidence for whether there were non-surviving written records during that period too.
In same period, I am thinking a lot about the importance of Paul on Christianity as a whole and the fact that he tells us he didn’t speak to any apostles or eyewitnesses for many years, but somehow formed a very full belief and understanding of what he felt was proper doctrine regarding Jesus. As perhaps the most important early mover in Christianity – it seems he pulled his entire teachings from his revelation (which he never mentions) and presumably from other early Christians he spoke to.
I wonder if you have thoughts on h
Whoops sorry – to continue: I wonder if you have thoughts for a post on this topic of how Paul almost single handedly left us with the earliest Christian doctrine? Thanks again!
I believe I’ve posted on that before!
I would like to know more about how Paul went from persecuting Christians to becoming one. Was Paul responsible for anyone getting crucified? How many Christians died on account of Paul? How long did it take for Paul to convince the remaining apostles that he had converted? I get the impression in Acts that other followers of Jesus were rather cool towards Paul. (Which is quite understandable.) What happened on the road to Damascus? Heat exhaustion, hallucinations, extreme guilt? Was Paul really a “tent maker?” This sounds like a rather mundane job for someone who basically created a religion based on the life of Jesus. How likely is it a tent maker would be literate? Maybe Paul owned a tent making company instead of doing the work himself.
I’d suggest that you read some books about Paul, maybe starting with the recent one written by my friend Albert Harrill.
Paul was certainly in contact with other Christians from the very beginning, and that must have been his source of information. He did not meet up with any of the other apostles for three years, that’s true; and by then he evidently had a clear idea of what the crucial Gospel message was. But I don’t think he made it all up himself.
So it looks like your going to be right up against Bauckham and Jesus and the Eyewitnesses on this one then. Will look forward to that.
Usual 2 years before sales though?
The *plan* is to have it appear in about two years from now, assuming I can write it by then!
Fantastic!! I share your excitement. Once again, as with “How Jesus Became God”, you have put me in a position of feeling as if I were again a child anticipating Christmas, feeling as if an eternity spans now and that time. This is yet another of those periods of some mystery which I have wanted more color to be added to the sparse bits that I know. As a non-scholar, I don’t really have reasonable access to what has been written about this as little of it trickles into popular publications and I only ever end up reading a very tiny handful of books meant for scholars and none of the journals (though would any of these be worth my while to subscribe to? I’d love to know).
Suggestion — the recently late Maurice Casey might be one of the very few non-fundamentalist/non-conservative/non-evangelical scholars who propose relatively early dates for Mark and Matthew — though he remains mainstream for Luke and John. He has a chapter in his final book, “Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?” laying out his argument. He may simply be reiterating the arguments of James Crossley (he mentions Crossley a few times) — and Crossley has advocated early dating on the same basic premises and has written at least one book on it which I haven’t read. I’m thinking Crossley isn’t a conservative either, having been another to have debated William Lane Craig on the resurrection. In short, while I’m not sure what to make of this particular argument for early dating (I accept the mainstream dating but see this argument as interesting), I’d really love to see a more qualified critical treatment of it.
This is a fantastic next book idea! One of the most interesting things I found in some of your books are about the oral tradition. In one you talked about Paul’s earliest letter, 1 Thessalonians, and although it was written around 50 (?) there was a part that was likely in oral tradition for at least a decade before.
Please stress the fact that although those gospel’s date to 70-95 we don’t have those originals. The earliest copy on the Gospel of Mark is from about 250 CE. For some reason I think people believe we have the original copies!
Sounds great. I like to think of things like this in terms of a kaleidoscope where the parts are the same but change around to form different patterns. I think this happens with language, with ideas like religious ones, and well, with life itself. I’m so glad you are here doing the work Bart.
Regarding you proposed book on oral tradition…that issue is perhaps the #1 topic of interest to me. I will look forward to your book and hope you will share some of its progress as you research and write it. Thank you.
Another book I look forward to!
“But almost everyone agrees that Mark dates to around the end of the Jewish War (66-70 CE). The ***only ones*** who consistently have argued otherwise are fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals, who very much want Mark, our earliest Gospel, to be closer to the time of Jesus.”
Maurice Casey must be rolling over in his grave right about now. Obviously, practically no critical exegetes agreed with him, but Maurice was certainly no evangelical fundametalist.
“Matthew and Luke then were probably somewhere between these two (since they used Mark and must date after 70 CE, but seem to be older than John and so ***must*** be earlier than 90 CE) – so say 80 or 85 CE.
There’s a growing view among scholars that Luke might have been considerably later and Brent Nongbri’s work on p52 has eliminated a frequently misused reason for dating of the gospel of John to the first century.
yes that is very important
like for example if it was written by the wittness them selves there would be no confusion from
when jesus was with them he can say one thing with body language but the author has written or displayed
different from the true positive intention. and as well as text take out the emotion of what jesus what feeling, but by words we are to interpret what he was saying words that trigger emotions
lets take the last supper have not researched ” the disciple ? that stated ” surley you don’t mean me ”
ok if jesus was looking at him he found out then,
and we would know thee true story just off that one line by adding body language and emotion.
and we wouldn’t need to have found the jospel of judas just another example of why it is important that we interpret thee closet we can to the original wittness accounts
I wonder how much accurate info about Jesus survived, given that most of his ministry was in small towns, there were no microphones to help people hear what he was saying, and probably few who saw and/or heard him thought at the time that he was a prophet, much less the messiah. And it’s doubtful that anyone was taking notes at the time. Altho I wonder when someone first began writing down info about Jesus’ life and teachings (as opposed to writing about theology – he died for our sins, he rose from the dead, he’s coming back, etc.).
In “telephone” the message (or “signal”) gets passed linearly from ear to mouth to ear to mouth. Forty years of that would lead to enormous changes in the signal text as anyone who has played “telephone” will attest. This probably isn’t a good analogy though because the first century traditions came from multiple sources – there were many competing signals.
In one way this is far better than “telephone”, because differences in the signal text can be easily picked up by comparison and outlier signals identified and discarded. That’s when the motivation of the receptors is to keep the signal pure. But of course there is a competing motivation which operates to change the signal text even more effectively than “telephone” does. This is the motivation to tell the best possible version of the message, the one which is more persuasive or more dramatic.
In the marketplace of alternative tellings of the story, the “most accurate” account is likely to lose ground to the “most memorable”.
Do you anticipate engaging with April DeConick’s ideas about oral traditions? I found her take on the Gospel of Thomas (“a rolling corpus, or aggregate of sayings that represent different moments in the life and
history of the early Thomasine community”) pretty persuasive. She strikes me as one of the sharpest scholars working in the area.
Yes, I find her views of Thomas interesting as well.
One more question
Was this verse referring to thee ebonite’s beliefs ?
If there is a physical body and then there is a spiritual body
Jesus as a host of Christ right comes and goes when? Is the question ? How is the thee question ?
Heavenly man and earthly man sounds like a host to me
Or possibly or Poseidon and zeus or
Jesus is immortal and Christ comes and goes as mortal lol
Just theories of mine freedom of speech
I believe in zeus I’m just interpreting the authors is all.
question on 1 corinthians 15?
( alpha omega ? ) one stays and one leaves and comes back ? lol )
1 corinthians 15 ? ( as one always stays and one leaves and comes back? alpha omega ?)
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.
I don’t think the Ebionites were in existence at the time that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians.
The church in Jerusalem under James was obviously in existence … weren’t they called the ‘poor ones’ or ebonites?
In the second century there was a group (or more than one group) who called themselves the Ebionites, and they claimed to descend from that church in Jerusalem under James.
YIPPEE! Can’t wait to find out what your thoughts are. Don’t forget to add in what I call the “fiddle factor” – we humans rarely can leave “well enough ” alone. It is why grown women cut up perfectly good lengths of colorful fabric into smaller pieces, rearrange the pieces then sew them back together again losing a quarter inch along each side of each piece to form visually pleasing new fabric. Then they add in “embellishments” like beads, buttons and lace. A whole industry has grown up around this human tendency that had its logical beginning in saving and re-using salvageable pieces of cloth. Yup, I quilt.
Story telling follows similar patterns and seeks agency, preferably magical and mysterious , behind each tale. It is perhaps an instinct to find novel stimulation for our brains. It is why we tell ghost stories around a campfire at night, why fantasy and science fiction are written and read. It is how humans deal with the balance between the desire to be “certain” about how life is to be lived and explained with the desire to go one step beyond and see what happens if a novel thought or process is introduced. It is how people figure out how to get others to go along with them, to take on power over others. How can I get another to do as I wish them to, by reasoning, or by fear and intimidation? How do I best convince others to see things my way or to do my bidding? It is why humans find ritual comforting but still rebel against it. Such a colorful tapestry we humans weave and then constantly revise.
On re-reading my comment this morning, I can see that it appears to be a non-sequitur . I do not have the depth of knowledge that most of the other members have about early Christianity as I have just begun to read about the origins of this religion. However, my comment is based on a lifetime of observation. The gist of the above comment was meant to be that in addition to the problems of accurately repeating oral traditions by multiple well-intentioned individuals is the inclination to “fix” the story to make its points “clearer” to its audience. We all do this, mostly without any intent to deceive. There is no better example of this than the current state of US political discourse.
Fascinating!
With respect to history of oral tradition about Jesus as evidenced in the NT, since Paul wrote before the gospels (it seems a lot of Christians forget this!) a discussion of what Paul knew (and appeared to not know: the many parables in the gospels? the miracle stories? etc.) when he wrote could shed some light on the oral tradition that was circulating in his part of the world. I imagine, given his education and travels, he knew more oral traditions than the average Christian. Yet, what he appears to have known is less than the Gospels and the gospels oral and written sources, which were not written that long after him! Seems like oral tradition was fragmented by time and the space/place they were told. And then there’s the tradition in the apostolic fathers that is not in the NT. Very perplexing stuff!
Your comments about studying memory issues reminded me (!) of a RadioLab I heard on NPR lately. I know it’s not like a scholarly tome, but for a lightweight listen, go to: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91569-memory-and-forgetting/. I found it very interesting; and it challenged many of my views about memory. I was especially struck by the part where they discuss how the more you recall a memory, the more you change it. In terms of the transmission of oral traditions, this might be worth investigating.
Professor Ehrman: This sounds like a fascinating project. I’ve often wondered where the stories associated with Jesus came from–not just those that made it into the Bible, but the nontraditional legends such as the one describing Jesus as a child fashioning birds out of clay and then turning them loose to fly away. Why did that one not make it into the scriptures while other miraculous events such as turning water into wine, healing the sick and raising the dead *were* included?
Good question! (My sense is that that story came to be invented later)
Prof Ehrman
Are you interested in looking at the development of modern messianic movements as part of your research? If so you might find the case of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson interesting. Apparently his followers believed he was the Messiah before he died and since his death in 1994 the messianic fervor has increased and his movement has developed in some interesting ways that even seem to roughly parallel early Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad_messianism
Yes I am! And at Pentecostal faith healers and … others!
So your argument might take the shape of how it is that Jesus came to be “more” than he was given the fact that his was just a historical “blip” on the world of ancient Judea/Palastinia or whatever it was called at the time ( probably two different names given that the Jews had one name and the Romans another)?
More, and different.
Great. I am so glad you are digging into that. Those sections are the best parts of all three versions of “How Jesus Became God;” and it sent me studying up on Philippi, who the people were who lived there and why and how they would have responded to Paul quoting that “carmen Christi.” And I had to read R.P. Martin’s book, and the appropriate pages of the later edition. You are an expensive scout leader, Dr. Ehrman. But it sure is interesting.
John Dash
Fairport, NY
Dr. Ehrman,
Will you be engaging with/critiquing Richard Bauckham’s argument/s in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”? I know his views are not accepted by all scholars, but I have yet to find a sustained engagement with them (thought that may be because I have not looked hard enough).
Yes indeed!!
It is always good to see your passion about “Christianity in Antiquity” and, as always, I look forward to reading what you learn. Considering 40 years of the telephone game in different places and in different languages, it’s astounding to me that the Gospels resemble each other as much as they do. Why? I guess the use of Mark as a source by the other Gospel authors is one explanation and maybe the lack of very many sources is another explanation. I still would like for you to explain the dating of the Gospels.
Yes, the issue of sources is the key.
Will you be referencing or addressing the position that Richard Bauckham has taken on this topic?
Yes indeed!
Dr. Bart Ehrman
But what I’m interested in now is getting deeper (and deeper) into the questions raised by this reality that the Gospel writers inherited their stories from people who inherited them from others who had passed along what had been circulating almost exclusively by word of mouth – for decades!
Steefen:
A non-authentic letter of Paul, Ephesians, states “put on the full armor of God.”
There is a coin, possibly of Julius Caesar’s armor on a cross.
Google: Coin of Julius Caesar’s armor then click Images.
Julius Caesar’s death included betrayal by Brutus. Jesus’ death included betrayal by Judas.
We have a template of Jesus, defied, in Julius Caesar, deified.
Rome incorporated other religions into its culture. Rome also got involved with Judaism. When Josephus declared a Flavian family member, messiah and with the Star Prophecy, such a sign of Jesus–with the Star Prophecy usurped by a Roman historian as well as Josephus; and with Vespasian healing a blind man with saliva similar to the way the New Testament makes an account of Jesus healing a blind man with saliva; Clement an apostolic father(?); and Domitian not waiting to be deified after death, hence, the Living God of Revelation, historically associated with the term “Lord and God”, his priests wearing gold crowns and white robes like the saints in Revelation: Rome also got involved with Christianity.
What writings do we have of the cults of deified emperors? As soon as Rome came at the call of Jerusalem, 1st century BCE, it probably saw, with the Maccabes, Judaism needed to become less militant. How did Rome infiltrate Judaism, the religion? Rome’s Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis, regulator of foreign cults in Rome, was a think tank for decades on this problem.
If the symbol on the coin of Julius Caesar’s armor was an icon in the Julius Caesar cult’s rituals or if Julius Caesar’s death was re-enacted by his cult, with Mark Anthony (wait)
In Roman Imperial cult, the flamen Divi Iulii was the priest of the divinised Julius Caesar,[1] and the fourth of the so-called flamines maiores (the archpriests of the Roman flaminates) to be created. The new flaminate was established in by the Roman senate in 42 BC, as part of Caesar’s consecration as a divus (divinity of the Roman State) two years after his assassination. Caesar had, in his lifetime, been the recipient of unofficial, divine cult from his supporters, and had designated Mark Antony to serve as his priest.
with Mark Anthony as the precursor to Mark the gospel writer, then, yes, there was a tradition of a deified man with cross icon, betrayed by a friend, pierced in the side.
Julius Caesar’s cross had armor, Jesus only had cloth around his hips. Caesar’s cross was to hold armor, power, strength.
Sounds fantastic! I have been waiting for a book such as this for a long time!
I seem to have a comment locked in moderation, although I can’t imagine how it could have been deemed offensive or inappropriate!
Really? I’m not sure what the comment was — maybe it disappeared into the electornic stratosphere. Could you try again?
Hi,
In ancient communities, was there a figure specifically in charge of telling stories or was the passing of traditions a more promiscuous process?
Thanks!
No, like today, just about anyone who wanted to tell a story was able to do so.
Something Bauckham would disagree with it seems. The disciples and their disciple were the keeps of the tradition it appears.
Is there evidence to confirm this one way or the other?
Yes, I will be addressing Bauckham’s views head-on!
Ooooops… I don’t know who Bauckham is… I guess I need to find out!
Or not. 🙂
Great. It would be good to see some foretasters of that on the blog perhaps.
It would seem that of particular importance is ‘WHOSE oral tradition’ is acceptable as preserving the teachings of Jesus. As you note the gospel writers did not live in Palestine and wrote in Greek, not Aramaic. In dating the first gospel at the end of the Jewish/Roman war, those who carried the most legitimate oral tradition of Jesus no longer existed in Jerusalem.
The main source of oral tradition available to the gospel writers were therefore among the churches established by Paul. Thus it is inevitable that the stories of Jesus were strongly influencd by the theology preached and accepted by these churches … mostly attributable to Paul who made no secret of his antagonism to James the brother of Jesus who most likely reflected the teachings of his brother.
I have to suspect that many of the stories about Jesus were told to reflect the teachings of Paul. For example the story of Jesus designation the bread and wine as symbolic of his flesh and blood … totally insonsistent with a Jewish Jesus who kept the Mosaic Law. I think that you can add stories of Jesus eating with prostitutes and tax collectors as Pauline influenced. Add to this. the stories of Jesus reaching out to the Gentiles … this is from the oral traditions about Paul whose life work was to reach out to the Gentiles. Jesus was a Jew and I seriously doubt that Paul was. From his own claims he was born a Roman citizen (probably of Herodian lineage) and at best could claim to be a Hebrew or Benjaminite.
If there is any oral tradition that is independent of Paul it probably came from the “Judaizers’ from Jerusalem who visited Paul’s.congregations.
My view is that there was not one or two streams of oral tradition, but thousands. Everyone who told stories about Jesus — which almost by definition would be everyone who talked about him, i.e., every Christian on the planet — was passing along (or inventing) traditions.
I’ve often wondered about the two different “Feeding of the Multitudes” stories in Mark (and also Matthew, the feeding of the 5,000 and the lesser known feeding of the 4,000. I know you wouldn’t say the event happened, but do you think those two stories originally started out as just one story and eventually was passed on enough times that there came to be multiple versions of it, and so Mark was recording two different versions of the same story (possibly thinking they were different stories)?
Side note: if that really was what happened with that story, would indicate that Mark probably heard the story from two different people – each one giving him different details?
Yes, this kind of doubling of a story is known as a “doublet.” It is usually thought that two versions of the same story were in circulation, and Mark heard them both, without realizing they were simply alternative versions of the same thing.
I can’t remember if you included it or not, but if you didn’t, that might have been an interesting point to make in “Did Jesus Exist”. I don’t know how a Mythicist would explain away both feeding of the multitude stories if they assume that Mark was the originator of these stories (though I have to admit, their imagination never ceases to amaze me). Those two stories alone serve as very strong evidence that Mark must have had sources for what he was writing. Is there a Mythicist explanation for this at all even?
I don’t think mythicists have a problem with Mark basing his stories on oral traditions, except if they want to argue (I can remember if anyone does) that Mark himself was the one who made everything up.
I think that Richard Carrier argues that. The way he puts it is that Mark “euhemerized” Jesus the celestial being. His argument is (and I’m not making this up!) that before Mark, Jesus was thought of as a celestial being who was crucified by demons (or the devil) in the lower heavens just below the moon. Mark (he argues) was just writing a historicized version placing this celestial being on Earth and it just so happened to catch on.
I don’t know if anyone else argues that. I also don’t know how in the world he reached that conclusion. If you YouTube “Richard Carrier: The Historicity of Jesus”, you can watch him give a lecture in which he over-simplifies complicated matters, quotes passages out of context (or skips over large, important sections), and (in my own opinion) takes advantage of the fact that most people in the audience probably weren’t familiar with the actual details about he was talking about.
Wow. Well, what can I say? Pretty amazing.
Two comparisons which might be relevant to your project (well, the first based on a counterfactual):
https://twitter.com/nonstampNSC/status/498318951676268545
http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/jesus-christ-vs-sathya-sai-baba/
Would you be interested in commenting on the first of them at least, and especially on the statement “the gospels… were written exclusively by Jesus’ supporters”?
Thank you for your attention and congratulations on your stimulating blog.
I’d be happy to address an issue of you want to raise it yourself (I’m afraid I don’t have time to be looking up other blogs/twitters/ and so on . Wish I did!)
“And having gone on thence a little, he saw James of Zebedee, and John his brother, and they were in the boat refitting the nets, 20 and immediately he called them, and, having left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, they went away after him.”
“hired servants” maybe they weren’t as low class as we think
As a pretty awful, underemployed, mistake prone, christian biased troublemaker/scribe, let me change 2 words from Dr. Bart’s original text: “Those of us who do believe in the Bible can still learn from it. It is a book that deserves to be read and studied, not just as a document of faith but also as a historical record of the thoughts, beliefs, experiences, activities, loves, hates, prejudices and opinions of people who stand at the very foundation of our civilization and culture. It can help us think about the big issues of life—why we are here, what we should be doing, what will become of this world. It can inspire us—and warn us—by its examples. It can urge us to pursue truth, to fight oppression, to work for justice, to insist on peace. It can motivate us to live life more fully while yet we can. It can encourage us to live more for others and not only for ourselves. There will never be a time in the history of the human race when such lessons will have become passe, when the thoughts of important religious thinkers of the past will be irrelevant for those of us living, and thinking in the present.”
Dear Bart, I think a book about the oral stories regarding Jesus is a great idea. I read your book “How Jesus Became God” but it left me with a lot of questions. For example you speculate that Peter, Paul, and Mary had hallucinations in which they believed they saw the resurrected Jesus. (Really only two people because Paul had his vision later.) And one of the remaining two was a woman (Mary Magdalene.) In a pre Feminist era it would have been easy to dismiss Mary Magdalene as hysterical. That leaves only Peter. And Peter was rather hot headed himself. So how did Peter convince others that he wasn’t crazy in claiming to see the resurrected Jesus? IMO there was a lot of wishful thinking going on. Jesus’ followers wanted to believe Peter so they chose to do so. But how did they convince ordinary Jews and Gentiles? I think a big factor in the growth of Christianity was just how superstitious ancient Palestine was. I believe Josephus implies there were lots of prophets and crackpots wandering around. One of them he mentions was the “Egyptian.” This would be a good topic to write about in your book on oral traditions.
It’s amazing what people will believe if someone tells them what they saw, with absolute conviction! (Still today)
“IMO there was a lot of wishful thinking going on. Jesus’ followers wanted to believe Peter so they chose to do so.” JRH
Perhaps it is wishful thinking to believe as you do; that they sacrificed their lives based on a desire to believe. If Pete hallucinated Christ, he would have had a sick mind. No indications of that historically. About 500 had the same hallucination and many were alive to discuss it when Luke wrote his accounts.
It requires more faith to believe the new testament doesn’t describe Christ than to believe it does. One has to work extremely hard to try to do away with its claims.
A couple more questions: I have heard that the gospel of Matthew was aimed at the Jews in an attempt to convert some of them. If this is true why was Matthew written in Greek instead of Hebrew?
Also I read a book once called “Dating Acts.” The author argued for a date in the early 2d century for Acts. He basically argued that Christians and Jews are clearly distinguished in Acts and that an earlier date for Acts did not allow enough time for the two religions to separate. What do you think of this idea?
I don’t think any of the Gospels were written for outsiders. These are “insider” books — written for Christians. They were written in Greek because Hebrew was not an active language at the time, and the authors were not living in Palestine in any event.
I think you’re referring to the book by Richard Pervo. He’s very smart and has read everything on the topic. But I disagree on his dating of Acts. I think it is probably first century.
Bart, another idea for your oral history book. Apollonius of Tyana. You mention him in “How Jesus Became God” and note the similarities with the story of Jesus. Given that Apollonius seems to have been born only 20 years after Jesus and lived only a few hundred miles away in Turkey, it would be interesting to know who plagiarized whom. Did the followers of Apollonius steal the myths that grew up around Jesus? Or did the followers of Jesus steal from Apollonius? Or is it possible some of these myths predated both these men? Given that Apollonius lived to around 100 AD, he was around and teaching when the gospels and the letters of Paul were written. In fact Paul probably passed through Tyana on occasion. Why is Paul silent regarding Apollonius and his followers when he manages to write letters to all the other religious groups in the Mediterranean?
My sense is that the followers of both were influenced not one by the other but by the legends and myths in wide circulation in their environment.
“Hebrew was not an active language at the time.” — 75-80% of the Dead Sea Scrolls were in Hebrew. I can’t test the claims, but I keep seeing more indications that the use of Hebrew (at least for Jewish religious dialog) was being revived earlier than most people thought. Bivin and Blizzard, Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus, started me looking down that path. How do you reach your conclusion?
I rely on experts for this kind of information. There’s a different between having a *written* language (Hebrew) and an active spoken language. The spoken language in Palestine was certainly Aramaic.
Bart, You mention in “How Jesus Became God” that most scholars view the first 20 years after Jesus’ death as more important to the development of Christianity than the following two centuries. IMO the first 20 days or 20 weeks were even more important. Somehow we go from a crucified body hanging on the cross to Peter’s hallucination of the risen Jesus. Certainly Jesus could not have still been hanging on the cross when Peter had this vision. Even if the Romans left Jesus hanging there as an example to others, (maybe for three days?) at some point some slave would be tasked with disposing of the bodies for reasons of public sanitation. There is also the problem of all the phenomena mentioned in Matthew that accompany the death of Jesus: an earthquake, the sky darkening for three hours, the torn cloth in the temple, etc. And then there are the sightings of Jesus after his resurrection. Especially noteworthy is the crowd of 500 “most of whom are still alive” that Paul claims saw the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15.6.) Obviously none of this really happened. If it did other historians would have recorded such momentous events. And yet in the first few months or so I assume some of these myths originated. Luke has no problem viewing this stuff as legitimate history when he wrote Acts. And yet Luke was an intelligent, highly literate Greek. All of this would be a good topic to discuss in your upcoming book on how oral stories became the gospels.
Interesting points!
This is a follow up to my previous post wondering about the first days and weeks after the death of Jesus. As others have noted, the stories that grew up around Jesus could have gotten started like the gossip game “Telephone.” I would like to add that the Eastern Mediterranean in ancient times was fertile ground for mythology. Just a few hundred miles from ancient Israel was Greece. Educated Jews must have been familiar with the Greek myths. In fact one could argue that Greek paganism with their quarreling family of less than omnipotent gods offered a better explanation for the chaos in the world than the omnipotent, benevolent God of the early Christians. The Hebrews had their myths too. The creation story in Genesis is a pretty good guestimate for an ancient people ignorant of cosmology and evolution. And to the east there was Babylon with the Epic of Gilgamesh. So when early Christians starting embellishing (or even inventing) stories about Jesus, they had a rich tradition of mythology to imitate.
“Obviously none of this really happened. If it did other historians would have recorded such momentous events.”
That cannot be stated as fact.
Well how about this one then: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Matthew 27:52.
So nobody noticed all these zombies wandering around Jerusalem? Somehow it just didn’t get recorded outside of the Bible? I think it’s safe to say this never really happened and that can be stated as a fact.
I sent to you an email this weekend outlining how I’m doing my best to counter the mythicist argument that Jesus never existed. I’m seeing this mindset rapidly spread particularly in my area, but a few are dis-crediting your works and asking for ‘references.’
The email is long-winded and even if you don’t have time to respond, I at least want you to know I’m doing my part to battle the mythicist mindset.
Many thanks for all your work!
I wish I had the hours in the day to answer all my email! So, sorry if I haven’t replied.
I’m sure you receive an enormous influx of emails between fellow scholars, students, and independent researchers (as myself). -Thank you for going back and responding to my needs. Much appreciated!
I see you will be in Roanoke VA November 6th and will do my best to be at this venue (autographs, etc.).
-Tom
Tom:
I don’t think DJE (or any of the rest of Bart Ehrman’s work) can be discredited. There’s a difference between claims
of discrediting something and actually doing it. Mythicism is catchy because it’s an amateur’s ideology. They seem to use their lack of expertise as a justification for inventting things. IF the question is about a historical Jesus then one needs to apply the standards historians apply (The key for you is to make sure you understand them very well and call mythicists out when they drop them in favor of whatever nonsense they are peddling: The one’s used in DJE. One doesn’t get to introduce opinion polls etc in their place.
If you carefully follow their arguments, you’ll see they lead no where.
I tend to think insinuation is the mythicists tactic of choice
@ Tom
Your best bet is to ask them to make the case from primary sources. The typical mythicist is not likely to know what a primary source is nor is he willing to actually do any legwork. That’s boring!
This approach has several advantages. First it should be very easy to see why primary sources
are the best sort of evidence. Two it will probably shut the mythicist up for a few minutes
as he tries to think of a way to change the subject ( or waits for someone else to comme along) from primary sources to some variation of the wake up and smell the coffee argument.
Another advantage is this will help you see right away whether your “opponent” is serious or not. Most of them will probably tell you to go look it up. It’s their argument, if they haven’t done the leg work, they don’t know wth they are talking about. How can you not know the evidence for your own argument?
The typical mythicist likes to paddle on about how there were (whatever number they want to toss out) God’s in the Med that were born on Christmas; yet the bible (If it can be considered a primary source) says nothing about Jesus being born on Christmas. So right at the opening Salvo, you sank their battleship!
Its also instructive that Paul has such a hard time convincing people of the very idea of ressurection in an area of the world where ressurection, if you believe mythicists, was
the order of the day because, apparently people once thought vegetaion was a dying and
rising god and thus became carnivores lest the Saviour be made into a salad.
The new book idea sounds facinating. My guess would be that while Mark was based mostly on oral storytelling traditions there were probably also written sources being passed around as well at the same time. Possibly mostly sayings. Someone had to be writing something about Jesus and the movement during those 40 years. But how can we even guess about something like that?
Prof. Ehrman, what do you make of the late prof. Maurice Casey’s work? He was non-religious and yet he dated the Gospel of Mark to the Caligula “threat” of erecting a statue of Zeus in the Jerusalem temple. (If I remember correctly about 45 CE). It seems to me, though I didn’t find it clearly stated in the two books I have read, that he used a strong literary paradigm, which is obviously necessary if you want to trace certain gospels back to Aramaic sources. Some of his Aramaic reconstructions are quite convincing, it is at least on par with the reconstructions and reverting of the Gospel of Thomas back to Greek and the International Q-Project. Yet, it seems some of his views did not gain wide acceptance. Do you think that there is any value in the process of conjecturing because it seems to cross a line at some point to become speculation? How is your current research on the oral tradition going? I think it is a fascinating topic, but it seems to me that a hybrid approach to literary and an oral transmission process is just as viable and indeed possible as to just accept that transmission of the gospel tradition was reverted to writing from 70 CE. What do you make of Q for instance in relation to Mark? Is Mark a good oral text but a bad literary text? These are just some of the questions that comes to my mind. The water from 35 (or what ever date Jesus was crucified) to 65/70 CE seems quite murky. It seems for instance Rudolf Bultmann and the Form Critics are out, but what is in? The way we understand the oral/literature tradition of the “lost” years of the church (though we have at least Acts as a seemingly legendary account and Paul’s epistles to Galatians and 1 Corinthians) seems to affect the whole way in which we reconstruct the historical figure of Jesus. It affects some of the tools of the trade, such as the criteria of authenticity we use. Should one become like prof. Luke Timothy Johnson and only through your hands in the air and say that you can’t trace the historical Jesus? How would you respond for instance to Hall Tausig’s book “In the beginning was the Meal” where he argues that at love feasts or at least meals during the symposium early Christians performed the euangellion (good news) or something like it? Surely it is a bold project you are taking on, I wonder how to you conceptualise it. Good luck!
He was a brilliant if somewhat idiosyncratic scholar.
I’d be happy to deal with your questions, but I can really only handle one at a time. If you want to raise one in particular with me, I’d be happy to address it if I can.