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Another Mythicist View of Jesus’ Brothers
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Another Mythicist View of Jesus’ Brothers

Historical Jesus

Another Mythicist View of Jesus’ Brothers

In my previous post I pointed out that mythicists have a real problem on their hands when it comes to insisting that Jesus didn’t exist (well, they actually have a *boatload* of problems; but this is one of them): Paul actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother, James. It’s hard to say that Jesus never lived if he in fact had a brother…. It doesn’t solve the problem to say that this was in fact Jesus’ cousin, since, well, he would still then be the cousin of (the real) Jesus (!) (plus the word Paul uses is “brother” not “cousin”) and it doesn’t work to say that he is Jesus’ brother meaning he is a member of the Christian church (since Paul differentiates him from himself and Peter by calling James the “brother” – and both Peter and Paul were also members of the church!). Mythicists have tried other approaches, including the one I discussed yesterday, of trying to claim that there was a group of fervent missionaries in Jerusalem called “the brothers of the Lord,” [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-12T17:21:29-04:00October 17th, 2023|Historical Jesus|

New Policy on Platinum Guest Posts

Dear Platinum Members, We have had a slew of terrifically interesting Platinum Member guest posts over the past year, and such a slew that we (we being me and my blog advisory committee) have decided we need to limit the quantity of the submissions. Keep on sending ‘em in! BUT, we would like to limit each participant to one guest post submission within any two-month period. If you haven’t ever submitted one before but art tempteth, go for it! And if you have submitted one (or some) and art still tempteth, you too go for it!

BDEhrman2023-10-16T10:22:16-04:00October 16th, 2023|Public Forum|

What the Jesus “Mythicists” Say About the Brothers of Jesus

Ten years ago on the blog when I was discussing the Proto-Gospel of James (the current subthread within a thread), I received an intriguing question about this issue, addressed in the previous post, about the brothers of Jesus and how "mythicists" -- those who claim there never was a historical Jesus whatsoever but that he was completely made up (a "myth") -- dealt with them. Here's the question and my response. QUESTION: Since you’ve brought up the subject of Jesus’ family perhaps it won’t be too far off the subject to ask this question. Mythicists are forced by their arguments to deal with Paul’s encounter with Peter and James in Galatians 1:18–20. They claim that when Paul refers to James as “The Lord’s brother” he does not mean that James is Jesus’ biological brother (which of course would mean that Jesus actually lived) but that he was using the word “brother” in the sense that all the disciples were “brothers” i.e., metaphorically. What about this? Is the word translated as “brother” in English that [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-04T10:33:44-04:00October 15th, 2023|Historical Jesus|

Were Jesus’ Brothers His … Brothers? The Proto-Gospel of James

In the Gospels conference a few weeks ago (New Insights Into the New Testament; see New Insights into the New Testament: A Biblical Conference for Non-Scholars (bartehrman.com), Candida Moss gave a fascinating presentation on (the historical) Jesus' actual family. That is a major issue in the non-canonical Gospel I have been discussing just now in this thread, the Proto-Gospel of James. This Gospel was very popular in Eastern, Greek-speaking Christianity throughout the Ages, down to modern times; and a version of it was produced – with serious additions and changes – in Latin, that was even more influential in Western Christianity (a book now known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew). In some times and places, these books were the main source of “information” that people had for knowing about Jesus’ birth and family – more so than the NT Gospels. The idea that Joseph was an old man and Mary was a young girl? Comes from the Proto-Gospel (not the NT!). The view that Jesus was born in a cave? Proto-Gospel. The [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-21T10:34:10-04:00October 14th, 2023|Christian Apocrypha|

Misquoting Jesus Podcast: Special One-Year Anniversary Edition

As some of you know, I do a weekly podcast (unrelated to the blog) called "Misquoting Jesus." My co-host is Megan Lewis, a terrific interlocutor who is an expert on ancient history (she's actually an Assyriologist! And trained in classics), who asks terrific questions. Basically, she interviews me on a different topic each week, the sorts of issues we deal with here on the blog, but in a recorded interview style. You can get it on Youtube (to my surprise, that's where by far most people get it) or on any podcast app. This coming Tuesday, October 17, will be our one-year anniversary of doing the podcast, and I thought you might be interested in knowing about it. This time rather than a back-and-forth with Megan it will be a live Q&A, with previously submitted questions by listeners. Megan will MC it, but the questions we have selected will actually be asked by the person who proposed them. If you're interested, check it out live or catch it later, either on Youtube or wherever you [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-13T11:44:28-04:00October 13th, 2023|Public Forum|

When a Gospel Meets the Twilight Zone: As Time Stands Still in the Proto-Gospel of James

In my previous post I mentioned one of the most significant passages of the Proto-Gospel, where the midwife Salome doubts that a virgin had given birth (note: she does not doubt whether a virgin could have *conceived* [although no doubt she *would* have doubted it!]; what she doubts is that a woman could give *birth* and still have her hymen intact. That, obviously, would be impossible), and gives Mary a postpartum examination only to find that in fact she really is still a virgin (i.e., “intact”). Immediately before that amazing scene is another that I find at least as entrancing. In it, Joseph himself describes – in the first person – what happened when the Son of God came into the world. This was such a cosmic event, that time stopped. And Joseph describes how, by explaining what he saw at that moment. Every time I read this passage I think of a Twilight Zone episode that I saw once where everything slowed down to a virtual standstill except the main character, who observes everyone [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-12T16:42:39-04:00October 12th, 2023|Christian Apocrypha|

The Gospel Before the Gospel: The Proto-Gospel of James

In this thread I've been talking about some of the more famous Gospels that are not in the New Testament. I move now to one that I've talked about on the blog before, but it's been a few years so it's worth talking about again. It is arguably the most influential Gospel outside the canon: the Proto-Gospel of James (which scholars call the Protevangelium Jacobi -- a Latin phrase that means “Proto-Gospel of James,” but sounds much cooler….). It is called the “proto” Gospel because it records events that (allegedly) took place before the accounts of the NT Gospels. Its overarching focus is on Mary, the mother of Jesus; it is interested in explaining who she was. Why was *she* the one who was chosen to bear the Son of God? What made her so special? How did she come into the world? What made her more holy than any other woman? Etc. These questions drive the narrative, and make it our earliest surviving instance of the adoration of Mary. On the legends found [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-04T10:55:14-04:00October 11th, 2023|Christian Apocrypha|

But If It Didn’t Really Happen, Who Cares?
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But If It Didn’t Really Happen, Who Cares?

Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus

But If It Didn’t Really Happen, Who Cares?

Whenever I have talked about the story of Jesus and the leper in Mark 1:40-44 on the blog -- most recently a week or so ago -- I have gotten a number of comments from readers that made me realize that I wasn’t being at all clear about what I was talking about. These comments came from people who appear to have thought I was talking about a historical event that really happened, one way or the other, and that I was trying to figure out which it was. Did Jesus really get angry or did he really feel compassion? In response to my view that Mark 1:41 originally indicated that Jesus got angry, some comments stressed that what really mattered was not his emotion but the fact that he did what he did. Others wanted me to know that it didn’t matter to them which emotion was ascribed to Jesus, because in their opinion the whole thing never actually happened at all. Both of these views (they’re obviously at the opposite ends of [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-12T10:55:17-04:00October 10th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Is Christ Merely the “Adopted” Son of God?

If Jesus wasn't God from eternity past, but was "adopted" to be the Son of God at some point of his existence, wouldn't that be a pretty watered-down understanding of his divinity? A lot of people find this kind of "adoptionist" Christology (Christ wasn't "inherently" God but "made" divine by adoption) completely unsatisfying and, well, pretty wimpy as far as Christologies go. I mentioned in the previous post that one could well read Luke as adoptionistic, and as I reflected on it some more, I recalled that the first time I wrestled seriously with the issue was ten years ago, when I was doing my research for my book How Jesus Became God. Here's what I ended up thinking about it, and saying about it in the book. And in case you wonder -- mirabile dictu! -- I still think the same today! ****************************** Part of what has convinced me that an [adoptionistic] understanding of Christ should not be shunted aside as rather inferior involves new research on what it meant to be “adopted” [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-03T09:55:59-04:00October 8th, 2023|Early Christian Doctrine, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

If Luke Didn’t Originally Have a Birth Story — Then What?

In my previous post, ostensibly on the genealogy of Luke, I pointed out that there are good reasons for thinking that the Gospel originally was published – in a kind of “first edition” – without what are now the first two chapters, so that, after the Preface of 1:1-4, the very beginning was what is now 3:1 (this is many centuries, of course, before anyone started using chapters and verses). If that’s the case, Luke was originally a Gospel like Mark’s that did not have birth and infancy narratives. These were added later, in a second edition (either by the same author or by someone else). If that’s the case then the Gospel began with John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus, followed by the genealogy which makes better sense here, at the beginning, than it does in the third chapter once the first two are added. But is there any hard evidence that a first edition began without the first two chapters? One of the reasons it is so hard to say [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-03T09:55:20-04:00October 7th, 2023|Canonical Gospels|

Did Luke Originally Have the Birth Narrative (chapters 1-2)?

In my previous post I pointed out that some scholars, myself included, think that the original Gospel of Luke did not have the birth narrative recounted in chapters 1-2 (the annunciation of Mary's virginal conception, the trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth, the worship of the shepherds, etc. etc.). In this view the Gospel started with what is now 1:1-4 and then the next verse was what is now 3:1, and the Gospel went from there. I posted on this issue some years ago, but I think it's worthwhile addressing it again in the context of the current thread, on just how "messy" the situation was in the first couple of centuries when different Gospels were all in circulation (not just our four), saying different things, and sometimes in different versions themselves. What's the evidence that there was an earlier version of Luke without the familiar birth narrative (which, in case you don't recall, differs hugely from Matthew's). One place to start to explain the matter is with what comes *after the birth narrative in [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-03T10:01:01-04:00October 5th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Early Gospels in Circulation: An Even Messier Scenario

When it comes to the early Christian Gospels, most people simply assume that there were four Gospels from the first century (those in the NT), and no others, and that they were written as they are found now, and that they circulated in that form, and that later Gospel writers (say in the second century) who used earlier written sources about Jesus must have borrowed their stories from those Gospels. Their other stories they just made up, or heard about from oral traditions, or both. In my last post I suggested why I don’t think that view is particularly plausible, and tried to imagine something a bit more realistic; there I proposed a “messier scenario" in which there were numerous early Gospels, some earlier than others (e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the earliest that survive, but that doesn’t mean they were the earliest). In this view, Gospels later than the canonical four (e.g., Papyrus Egerton 2) may or may not have used the canonical four for their information (with additional legendary materials); [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-03T10:11:18-04:00October 4th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, History of Biblical Scholarship|

Reading the Bible in a Secular Age: Guest Post by Prof. Julius-Kei Kato

I am pleased to publish this guest post by Dr. Julius-Kei Kato, a scholar and professor of New Testament (and other things!) at King’s University College at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, and, luckily for us, a member of the blog. You can learn more about him here: Dr. Julius-Kei Kato (uwo.ca) Just over a month ago Julius-Kei published a book of relevance and surely of interest to members of the blog: Reading the Bible in a Secular Age: The New Testament as Spiritual Ancestry (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023). I asked him to write a blog post about it, to explain what it is and to indicate where, if you're interested, you can get a copy. He has happily complied, and here is his post. If you have any comments/questions, he will be happy to reply. ****************************** The burning question of this book is: Why still read the Bible in a secular age? My answer, briefly stated: For us who are located in the West, the Bible is an important part of our “spiritual ancestry,” [...]

BDEhrman2023-09-18T10:06:15-04:00October 3rd, 2023|Book Discussions, Public Forum|

The Creation Stories in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis!). A Lecture You May Be Interested In

Are you interested in the Creation account in Genesis 1? Did you know there are *other* creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible? Different ones? Want to hear about them? And about how they relate to other creation accounts in the ancient world? On October 19, 8:00 pm, my colleague Joseph Lam, professor of Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East will be giving a remote public lecture: "Beyond Genesis: The Many Creation Stories of the Bible." Below you will find a short video that I did with Joseph to explain the event, and a link to sign up for it. This lecture is NOT related to the blog, but it IS a fundraiser for my department (I'm mentioning it here on the blog only because many of you are interested in the topic). The donations will go to the departmental efforts to fund graduate students for research trips for their dissertations and professional conferences to present the results of their research. Both are crucial features of a graduate education, unusually important for anyone who wants [...]

BDEhrman2023-10-03T11:55:52-04:00October 2nd, 2023|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|

Proposed Solutions For the Four Metaphysical Puzzles Related to Jesus From an Islamic Perspective From Omar Robb

Here is an intriguing look at the life and death of Jesus from a Muslim point of view. Many of you will not grant the first of these four puzzles, but the others you may not find problematic. But look at it from a Muslim point of view instead of yours. How can these puzzles be resolved? Platinum member Omar Robb attacks these issues in this post. ****************************** Omar Abur-Robb omr-mhmd.yolasite.com This is a brief summary of an article with the same name, and I will provide the link for the original article at the end. There are 4 puzzles related to Jesus that are really interesting: Jesus didn’t die on the cross (as per the Quran). So, was Jesus nailed to the cross but didn't die there, or was he not on the cross at all? Jesus missionary lasted for about 3 years, and we can conclude that he finished his mission. So, what was this mission? Why Jesus ascended to heaven and why is he returning back? Why not just die [...]

Diane2023-09-29T14:19:16-04:00October 2nd, 2023|Public Forum|

The Messy World of the Early Christian Gospels. Who Is Copying What?

Many people who think about how the Gospels circulated in early Christianity have a pretty simple -- or rather, overly simplified (in my view) -- understanding of how it all worked. I include among those "many people" a number of Gospel experts. In fact, including a lot of the top experts. The issue is this: what earlier accounts of the life, sayings, deeds, death, and resurrection were in circulation and used in the production of later accounts (say at the end of the first and into the second century). I’ll talk about it here with reference to Papyrus Egerton 2, about which I’ve only said a few things. Scholars have traditionally thought of the four canonical Gospels as THE Gospels that were available, so that when a new Gospel like the Unknown Gospel in Papyrus Egerton 2 appeared the question always was: WHICH of the canonical Gospels was the author familiar with (and which did he use). I challenged that view in my earlier post. We shouldn’t think that there were basically FOUR, and everything [...]

BDEhrman2023-09-29T14:12:06-04:00October 1st, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Christian Apocrypha|

Why Would Jesus Get Angry at this Poor Leper?

So far in this thread I have argued that Mark 1:41 originally said that Jesus got angry when the leper asked him to heal him; and I have shown that elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel Jesus gets angry in context involving healing. And so: if Jesus got angry when the leper asked for healing in Mark 1:41 – what exactly was he angry about? Over the years numerous interpretations have been proposed, and some of these explanations are highly creative. Some interpreters have argued that Jesus became angry because he knew that the man would disobey orders, spreading the news of his healing and making it difficult for Jesus to enter into the towns of Galilee because of the crowds. The problem with this view is that it seems unlikely that Jesus would be angry about what the man would do later -- before he actually did it! Others have suggested that he was angry because the man was intruding on his preaching ministry, keeping him from his primary task. Unfortunately, nothing in the text says [...]

BDEhrman2023-09-18T10:18:09-04:00September 30th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Did Jesus Think He Was Going to Atone for the Sins of the World? A Platinum Post by Manuel Fiadeiro

I'm pleased to publish this interesting Platinum Guest Post by Manuel Fiadeiro; it's dealing with an unusually important question: who was the first to come up with idea that Jesus' death was an atonement for sins? Was it ...? Remember that you too can submit a Platinum post for other Platinum members. Why not give it a shot? ****************************** Did Jesus think he was going to atone for the sins of the world? We don’t know what Jesus thought. We don’t have texts before Paul. The best we can do to figure out what Jesus preached is to try to understand the beliefs of the Jesus Community in Jerusalem under James and the apostles. One of the scholars that studied thoroughly the Jewish Christian community is Hans-Joachim Schoeps. In “Jewish Christianity” (English translation copyright 1969 by Fortress Press) he wrote: "Jewish Christianity clearly knows as little of a supernatural birth as of a soteriological interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross, such as the view which regarded Jesus as a vicarious atoning sacrifice. Since [...]

Diane2023-09-28T18:05:22-04:00September 29th, 2023|Public Forum|

Why Is Jesus So Angry?

Jesus never laughs in the New Testament Gospels. But he does get angry. In my previous post I tried to show that it happens in the "original" text of Mark 1:41: when a leper asks him to heal him, he (Jesus) gets angry. Later scribes, understandably, changed the verse to say Jesus felt "compassion." But if Mark actually said he got angry, uh .... what was he angry about? To answer the question we need to consider a feature of Mark that very few readers have ever noticed. Unlike in Matthew, Luke, or John, Jesus gets angry on several occasions in Mark’s Gospel. How do we explain that? Scholars have sometimes noticed that it happens in Mark. But rarely has anyone pointed out that in every instance it appears to involve Jesus’ ability to perform miraculous deeds of healing. In Mark 9 we find the account of a man pleading with Jesus to cast an evil demon from his son, since the disciples have proved unable to do so: “Often,” he tells Jesus, “it casts [...]

BDEhrman2023-09-18T10:26:35-04:00September 28th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

Jesus and Another Leper: Getting Angry at the Poor Fellow?

In my previous post I mentioned the interesting story found in the Unknown Gospel (as it is called – even though part of it is now known...) contained in the second-century manuscript Papyrus Egerton 2. There’s an intriguing aspect of that story that I wanted to post on today, but I realized that first I need to discuss a bit of important background. So here’s the deal. There is an interesting textual variant in Mark’s story of the man cured of leprosy by Jesus – that is, some of our textual witnesses have one way of reading one of the verses, and other textual witnesses have a different way. And it really matters. Here is the passage (Mark 1:39-45) in a literal translation. The textual variant I am interested in is in v. 41 (there are lots of other textual variants among our manuscripts in this passage; this particular one is the only one I’m interested in here): 39 And he [Jesus] came preaching in their synagogues in all of Galilee and casting [...]

BDEhrman2023-09-18T10:44:24-04:00September 27th, 2023|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

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