Loading...QUESTION:
If the pre-‘resurrection’ Jesus and, later on, his earliest (Jewish) followers had declared Jesus to actually BE God then wouldn’t they have been kicked out of the synagogues from the start because of blasphemy? But since that did not happen (Jesus preached in synagogues and his disciples continued to go to synagogues after his ‘resurrection’ for a while) doesn’t that indicate that the earliest Christian belief did NOT contain the claim that Jesus actually was God?
RESPONSE:
This is a very interesting question and it has made me think for a bit. As I look over all the material that we have, it appears to me that the early Christians *were* regularly kicked out of the synagogues for their claims about Jesus, but that Jesus himself never was. First let me give the evidence for all that, and then deal with an important and related second issue about what those claims were exactly (this is where I’m still feeling my way a bit).
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” It’s true, there is a lynch-mob scene in Nazareth (Luke 4); but I think that is probably a Christian looking back on things fifty years later claiming that it happened, rather than something that actually happened. I have reasons for thinking that, and if anyone wants to know, I can devote a post to it”
PLEASE DO!!
Interesting stuff. Gospel Of John in particular reads like a bitter screed against Judaism by apostates–that book is so anti-Jew it’s nuts. It almost reads like the writer(s) were turning Jesus’ divinity up to 11 JUST to piss off Orthodox Jews.
Off-topic question: What’s the deal with certain Bible translations (like the NASB and the KJV) being so dishonest about the dating for the Gospels, and other things that scholars have agreed on for a long time? The NASB Study Bible actually tries to shrug off the Documentary Hypothesis and says that “more evidence is coming forward that supports Mosaic authorship” and then it never presents what that evidence is.
Are these scholars more concerned about going after a certain demographic of conservative evangelicals than about being honest about what scholars know about The Bible?
Wow. Yes, they’re catering to the conservative evangelical crowd. But they themselves are part of that crowd. I don’t think they’re being cynical: they probably really believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch! (!!)
That bring up a question that you’ve probably answered in one of you books, but I”ll ask here. Who wrote or compiled the gospels. Were the writers mostly diaspora Jews who were disgruntled by the ostracism they received from their fellow Jews, and therefor the anti-jewish themes? Or were the writers likely gentile converts? I realize that the four gospels each have their own degree of anti-jewishness, but I”m trying to understand how the gospel writers viewed themselves and their message in relation to the jewish community and religion.
Yes, I’ve dealt with this a bit on the blog. Short answer: Mark and Luke were almost certainly Gentiles; Matthew was probably though not certainly a Jew; John I’m not so sure about. What we do know is that they were Greek-speaking Christians who were highly educated living outside of Palestine — that is they were not the disciples of Jesus or close companions of the disciples. And they were living in a time of real tension between believers in Jesus and non-Christian jews.
“I have reasons for thinking that, and if anyone wants to know, I can devote a post to it;”
I have an inquiring mind and I want to know. 😎
One thing I find odd through out Acts is that they seem to be driven by the Holy Spirit to convert and it only works sometimes. Likewise they would perform miracles that only brought conversions sometimes. Seems inconsistent.
Sorry to be such a pest, Bart, but what you call “clear evidence” or rather “all the evidence,” is more like “reading between the lines.” I’m surprised you consider flimsy literary narratives written by anti-Semitic religious authors so long ago to be proof of anything, let alone something so inherently speculative as the persecution of so-called “Christians” by Jews. Rather than go into more detail here I will simply say that “all your points in evidence deserve a verdict of NOT GUILTY!” As some might put it, what you offer as proof is far from it — pretty thin and full of holes. 🙁
Uh, well, I wasn’t really trying to write a scholarly piece to convince anyone….
So, a typical scholarly narrative is that the *reason* these authors are anti-Jewish (I don’t think “anti-Semitic” can be applied to the ancient world; it’s based on views of race developed by 19th century anthropologists) is precisely because they ahve been widely rejected by Jews. (If they had been welcomed with open arms — where would the animosity come from?). The narrative works like this: believers in Jesus are newcomers. They proclaim that Jesus is the Jewish messiah. Most Jews think this is a crazy idea and reject it. Christians press the issue. Animosity arises. The majority persecutes the minority. Anti-Judaism resultes. The authors of the NT participate in this anti-Jewish sentiment. The evidence is Paul, the Gospels, and Acts.
Do you have an alternative narrative? And some evidence to support it?
Okay, I await your scholarly treatise and I agree that “anti-Semitism,” as a term, is less appropriate than “anti-Jewish” for what was going on back then. (As a side note, however, I don’t think there’s much in the way of a substantive difference.) But to say that the Book of Acts, the Four Gospels and Paul are our best “historical” sources for “persecution of Christians by Jews,” seems more than a stretch — it’s a slander! — the sort of irrational appeal fundamentalist pagan Christians often resort to in denigrating Jews as an ethnic group, not merely based upon their ethnicity, but their religion, too, and almost always supported by anti-Jewish-pro-Christian biblical references.
Your narrative, at least as see it, is more than flimsy, it’s a straw-man argument. The Jesus Movement carried on quite successfully for some forty years under the leadership of James the Just, and the rest of his family, plus a sizeable number of Nazarene disciples who thought their Master Teacher would indeed be returning soon. They were all held in high regard, apparently even by the Romans. Neither they nor their faith was “Christian” in any meaningful way, just one of many Jewish groups fully engaged in pre-Talmudic -Temple-worshiping Judaism of the 1st century. How do you explain that?
These same covenantal Jews did not back away from their apocalyptic views, or that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. At best , the New Testament sources came later, and they were not/are not written as fact-based journalistic accounts.
When you say, “believers in Jesus were newcomers,” I would like to hear, “how new?” When you say, “Most Jews” thought proclaiming Jesus as the Jewish Messiah “was a crazy idea,” I would ask, “what was so crazy about it?” Were there not many other messianic claimants in those days and did not Gamaliel (at least according to Luke) speak on behalf of these same early believers? And even if it was a minority opinion, where’s the credible evidence of synagogue persecution? besides, of course, the obvious suspects and the biased testimony you seem to have embraced.
In any event, Jews were not in the habit of persecuting one another for their sectarian disagreements (heresies?), though they often competed for control of Jerusalem and its Holy Temple. That’s what the internal rivalries were always about, locally speaking . Moreover, Rome would not have indulged such behavior, unless sedition was involved. Granted, after the war (66 to 73) and more so after the other two Roman/Jewish wars, there was escalating empire-wide competition between Pharisaic/Rabbinic Judaism and Gentiles in general. This was only natural in that everyone had to accommodate Rome in order to survive. But you seem to be arguing that a majority of Jews persecuted minority Christians very early on. (BTW, if you think it’s okay to dismiss what happened to Jesus in Nazareth as in interpolation, what makes the other incidents any more reliable or less fictional?)
I do agree that there was no widespread rejection of Jesus or his teachings by ordinary people during his lifetime, any more than there had been angry Jewish crowds crying out for his crucifixion. Those sorts of tales were added belatedly. Neither do I see his loyal followers being condemned by other Torah-observant Jews, whatever their numbers.
Anyway, that’s my take on the subject given the limitations of hindsight.
OK, so give us your own narrative to explain the data I’ve mentioned.
OK, will do. But you really haven’t provided much in the way of “data,” nothing convincing anyway, other than a few references to statements made by Paul, the Gospels and a historical invention called Acts.
As a preface to my own narrative I will mention a few foundational points worth noting. First off, I’m glad to see you have a sense of humor. It’s a miracle unto itself, because as a rule people tend to take these kinds of discussions too seriously. Even secular scholars like yourself frequently want to be right, almost at any cost, despite evidence to the contrary. And real evidence is hard to come by. For example, so-called eye-witness reports from New Testament writers was (and still is) anything but reliable testimony. In a court of law their “stories” would not only be thrown out as hearsay, but those doing the testifying would be subject to charges of perjury. Of course, there’s no denying they are our primary sources and for that reason just about everyone gives them undue credence. My point is that what makes them “the best” also makes them “the worst.” If anything, it puts them on a religious (or scholarly) pedestal as “the Word of God” or “the Wisdom of Experts.” (By the way, I think you belong in the latter group.)
As far as I’m concerned, a better whodunit starts with Paul and gets carried on by anonymous gospel storytellers, which is followed up in succession by church bishops, historians, and counsels, and then enforced by Roman emperors, Greek-speaking Gentiles, et al. In other words, the tone was initially set by anti-Jewish pro-Roman literati whose perceptions and judgments all pointed in essentially the same direction, a collective but contrived point-of-view which created an “unlevel playing field” (to say the least), not only for Jews and Pagans, but for Christian Heretics, too. Even artists, minstrels and poets joined the winning team, while alternative narratives were either marginalized or destroyed.
The historical narrative, however, actually started with James the Just (or the Righteous), his family, and members of the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem. The data in support of the corrected storyline is available and can be found within the works and writings of people you must certainly know about, Bible aficionados like Paul Winter, Hyam Maccoby, E.P. Sanders (who I think agrees half-heartedly with you about there being “some” evidence of Jewish-Christian persecution), Roy Eckhart, Robert Eisenman, Barrie Wilson and others….
Here’s the basic outline of what I think happened.
*Jesus was the recognized leader of a messianic movement, as was John the Baptist (and many others).
*He was executed by the Romans for sedition, but his earliest followers were not rounded up or singled out for persecution. Quite the opposite.
*The Jesus Movement carried on as normative Temple-worshiping Jews, led by James, the brother of Jesus, who was a well-respected Nazirite of considerable religious influence.
*By in large, the group was made up of Torah-observant apocalyptic Jews who practiced their faith peaceably as they awaited their Master’s return. (from the Book of Daniel & the Gospel of Thomas 12).
*They really believed the prophesies of Zechariah (and others) and their faith was in no way a separate religion.
*But James was murdered by jealous rivals, precipitating unrest inside Israel, which in turn led to the first Roman/Jewish War, not to mention anti-Jewish sentiment throughout the empire.
*Of course, everything changed after that , including the “new testament” spin about James, Jesus, Peter and Paul.
According to this narrative, much, if not all “the good news” was soon slanted away from James and the Jesus Movement toward Paul and the Christ Movement, a storyline that was started by none other than the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Here’s what he wrote to the Thessalonians long before the rest of the N.T. was pieced together, even before James was killed. “When you suffered at the hands of your fellow countrymen you were sharing the experience of the Judean Christian churches, who suffered persecution by the Jews. It was the Jews who killed their own prophets, the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus, and the Jews who drove us out, his messengers. Their present attitude [remember, this is within two decades of the crucifixion] is in opposition to both God and man. They refused to let us speak to those who were not Jews, to tell them the news of salvation. Alas, I fear they are completing the full tale of their sins, and the wrath of God is over their heads “(14-16)! Thereafter, even Jesus himself was portrayed as anti-Jewish and pro-Roman. “O faithless and perverse generation, how long must I be with you” (Lk. 9: 41)? “When the Judgment comes, the Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation, and she will condemn them…because this is an evil generation” (11: 29-31). “Woe unto you…ye who build tombs of the prophets whom your fathers murdered” (11: 44-47). And, “There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people” (21:23).
So I guess my question is this: WHY KEEP DEALING FROM A STACKED DECK?
Prof. Ehrman:
“This is where it gets tricky, and I can’t do justice to the topic here – but I do deal with it at greater length in my book. The deal is this. By the time all these things are happening to the Christians, Jesus is obviously no longer around”
I think we deserve to be told which book? .. I looked at the ones I have but it’s not there.
My new book How Jesus Became God, due out next April.
Almost totally unrelated, but here goes anyway. You mention “The only narrative we have of earliest Christianity … is the book of Acts…”. Although it appears to be a community training manual, the Didache has been dated by some to around the third century. There are others however who feel the document originated from a time when the separation of Christians from the larger Jewish community was taking place and propose a date to sometime after Matthew to near the end of the first century (J-P Audet; T. O’Loughlin).
This document offers nothing to the discussion on synagogues as these Jesus followers seemed to be an isolated community. However, I’m wondering if it is plausible that this document could be from around the time of Luke/Acts and from a Jewish Christian community no longer attending the synagogue.
The Didache is normally dated today to around 100-120 in it sfinal form, though its sources are earlier. The srouces definitely go back to a jewish Christain community and they definitely have their own services of worship!
You’ve repeated here several times what you wrote in Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium: “[I]f Jesus’ followers called him Messiah later, after his death, they must have already thought of him as Messiah earlier, while he was alive” (218). Since (as you also wrote in JAPNM) historians can’t prove what happened in the past but only try to establish what probably happened, don’t the “historical methods” used to explain the experience(s) of Jesus’ early followers that we refer to collectively as “Easter” amount to OUR attempts to understand THEIR various biblical interpretations of Jesus’ death, based on a conviction that everything had happened “in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4)? As you explain what “probably happened” on the way from Nazareth to Nicea (I forget where I saw that phrase), how much will you be saying about 1st century biblical interpretation?
Also, in your account of what “probably happened” during the process that led from Jesus’ followers saying (even before he died), “He’s the Messiah,” to their saying (afterward), “He’s not only the Messiah, but the Messiah is (in some sense) divine,” will you be saying more about WHY you think Jesus’ followers would have thought of him as the Messiah before his death? Your discussion in JAPNM clearly connects Jesus’ death by crucifixion at the hands of Rome with his apparent “messianic claim” to be (in some sense) “king of the Jews.” But what clear evidence do we have about what Jesus’ followers thought before the crucifixion?
My sense is that prior to Jesus’ death the disciples were not using biblical interpretation to understand him, but only afterwards when they more or less had to make sense of everything, especially his death and their belief in the resurrection. And yes indeed, I’ll be devoting some substantial effort to showying why the disciples must have thought of him as the messiah before he died. It’s a nifty argument. I wish I had come up with it. (Nils Dahl did)
Interesting blog… However, I find it difficult for them to find any reason to persecute Jesus ,and his followers for anything other than them calling him the Messiah. I see no reason why his disciples would call him the Messiah after his death, because that’s no where in Hebrew literature. I think Jesus actually claiming to be the Messiah explains why he was crucified better than the other theories. I think the reason they crucified Jesus was because 1. He claimed to be the Messiah, 2. He went against Jewish expectations of the Messiah. 3. They didn’t like his claims so they killed him to shut him up. That’s the only way I see could see it..
P.S Isn’t 1 Thess. 2:13-18, considered a interpolation?
Some scholars have seen it as an interpolation. I myself have never found the view convincing.
I don’t read Greek so I’ll assume the english version I am reading is accurate – I never noticed but it is the only place in Thes. where Paul writes about himself in first person. “certainly I, Paul, did, again and again”
Paul does refer to himself in the first places throughout his letters.
I don’t see any compelling reason to think that Jesus was ever subject to any kind of “discipline” from local synagogues that he visited. It’s true, there is a lynch-mob scene in Nazareth (Luke 4); but I think that is probably a Christian looking back on things fifty years later claiming that it happened, rather than something that actually happened. I have reasons for thinking that, and if anyone wants to know, I can devote a post to it; – could you please devote a post to why you think that these scenes were written retrospectively and were not historical.
thanks
Sam
Hi, I think there is a fourth important historical source (a non Christian source!): Josephus in “Antiquities of the Jews”, XX.200 (a genuine, non interpolated passage according to the majority of the scholars) describes how the high priest Ananus, as soon as he had the chance, assembled the Sanhedrin and put to death James the Just (brother of Jesus who was called the Christ), founder and leader of the first Jerusalem church, together with “other people” (I guess other first “Christians” of the church of Jerusalem) and delivered them to be stoned “as breakers of the law”. This happened in 62 CE.
Do you consider the above historical source as reliable and worth of mention?
In case of positive answer, what aspect of the Law did first Christian communities break??
It should have been something that deserved stoning (as it happened to Stephen and James), but I’m not acquainted with such practices in ancient Judaism.
You provided a definitely valid theological reason to justify persecutions against first Christian communities, but even without complex theological speculations, I think that a simple trigger for such hostility could be the cult reverence devoted to Jesus, whose name was included in liturgical practices alongside God (Acts 9:14 depicts Paul as proceeding against “all who call upon [Jesus] name”).
In my opinion such devotional practices could arose before any educated theological elaboration (first liturgy, then theology). So, do we really *need* a theological explanation, with the risk of applying our modern, post-enlightenment, western cultural and theological views?
Thank you
Good point! (of course, it is not “synagogue” discipline, but it gets to the same point)
Oh, also. I’m not sure if cult reverence to Jesus would have led to persecution if there were not claims that he was the jewish messiah (i.e., if these people weren’t specifically *Jewish*, then they wouldn’t have been persecuted by Jews. But I need to think more about it!
“if these people weren’t specifically *Jewish*, then they wouldn’t have been persecuted by Jews” I fully agree on this point. I just think that acclaiming someone “jewish messiah” didn’t necessarily deserve stoning or persecutions.
I believe there are precedents of messianic movements (Judas Maccabeus, Theudas, Judas of Galilee, etc.) that weren’t persecuted by Jewish religious authorities.
Although Judas and Theudas had probably different kind of messianic claims, such leaders weren’t included in religious practices (prayers and hymn to God) and didn’t get any cult devotion like Jesus. That’s why I’m stressing the “cult devotion” aspect and the power of invoking Jesus name as a distinctive aspect of early “Christian” (messianic) movement within Judaism.
Maybe the concept itself of “jewish messiah” is at stake here..
If the comment on James the Just in Josephus is legitimate ( and I , at least , have not seen it challenged ) and we accept the death of Jesus as circa 33 C.E. with James as being the ” leader ” of the Church in Jerusalem until his illegal murder ( because there was no resident Roman governor present ) in 62 C.E. , doesn’t that strike you as strange ? After all , Josephus has James attending the Temple daily and acquiring the cognomen ” the Just ” due to his exemplary piety presumably in traditional Temple practice . If ” the Jews ” were going stone ” the Christians ” why would take 29 YEARS to get around to the ” chief of the cult ” whom the could have grabbed any day in the Temple ?
I’d say the tensions with Jews happened sporatically in different times and place; and worshiping in the temple is different from proselytizing in the synagogue…
Thinking of 1 Thess 2:15-16, what do you think about the claim that this passage is an emendation to Paul’s letter.
I don’t believe there’s manuscript evidence that this is an interpolation, but the language did strike me as a bit peculiar for Paul
I personally think it’s Pauline, and that scholars have wanted to excise it because it doesn’t fit with their views of Paul.
I’m curious to know what you think of Raymond Brown’s book “an Introduction to New Testament Christology”. He devotes Appendix III to the extent the NT writers proclaimed Jesus to be God.
As with all of Brown’s work, it’s inordinately solid in my opinion.
Bart, but doesn’t that contradict your argument then that the NT authors did not proclaim Jesus to be God (except maybe ‘John’)? Or am I missing something here? Thank you.
That’s what I’ve changed my mind about. Now I think that if you want to say that a NT author portrays Jesus as God, you have to ask “in what sense?” John has a different sense from, say, Mark. That’s one of the main themes of my book.
A very good question with a vey good answer. I always like that you are not dogmatic, but say that our best evidence at this time implies such and such and that you are rethinking this and that. In this respect, you always sound like the scientists around whom I spent my entire adult life rather than like people of “faith” many of whom are always so certain and dogmatic. Thanks again for your blog. Keep going. I would like to hear more about why Luke 4 probably comes from an author looking back 50 years or so after the life of Jesus and “claiming” that so and so happened.. Ron
This may seem like a dumb question, but…what exactly is the field of expertise of a “Johannine scholar”? Does it include all the New Testament and possible other books some people believe were written by the Apostle John, even though none of them actually were?
Not dumb at all. A Johannine scholar is an expert on the Gospel and letters of John — even though, as is usually the case, s/he doesn’t think “John” actually wrote them.
I have a question for any of you guys, sorry if this is an inappropaite place but I couldn’t find any other public forum here and it seems like a hodgepodge of questions are already being discussed in the comments anyways. I’m a very armchair researcher of the Bible, but one thing I noticed reading through the Johnannine epistles is that they do not seem to reference anything of the Gospels (much like the argument about the silence of Paul). Over and over the author explains how he knows Jesus is God (I John 1:5, 2:3, 4:12-14, etc. 2 and 3 John contain zero testimony on how John knows Jesus is divine. Despite all the miracles the Gospel John allegedly witnessed to, none of them make their way into how the writer of the epistles knows Jesus is the Son of God (who seems to refer to him strictly as the Son of God, with God always being God the Father)
However, the most critical part of these observations is something pretty major imo; throughout all 3 of these epistles, absolutely nothing seems to remotely indicate that Jesus is alive or resurrected in anyway. The general theme is that the Son of God died on the Cross for our sins so we could have eternity, but there is absolutely no mention of that Son of God coming back, still being alive, a resurrection, ascension etc. Even in verses where it seems like it would be worth mentioning, and really some passages where it seems like you would have to go out of your way to avoid mentioning it if you didn’t know; for example see 1 John 1:2 or 5:20. It seems like only slight differences in verbiage would needed to falsify this premise, so the fact that it seems to elude this in so many instances all in all seems to be evidence of this position, imo. But in 1:1 he does in fact claim that he witnessed who Jesus was, so doesn’t this prove a couple things? that A) the epistles were not written by the Gospel author John and that B) that several facets of the Gospels, including the Resurrection/Ascension were in fact nothing but legend. I would even argue that 2 John might be a response to people extrapolating on Jesus’ teachings (such as Pauline letters, it seems like John tends to be very reflective of actual teachings of Jesus of how to live, repentance, etc. and where there’s room for interpretation on a teaching of Jesus it seems like an area he does not enter into).
I also noticed that throughout Acts they baptize in Jesus’ name instead of the trinity’s. However, Luke’s Gospel never mentioned the ascension at all (as you noted in Miquoting Jesus, Mr. Ehrman, this wasn’t added until centuries later), and further more Acts 1:2 says his previous works absolutely did include the ascension, with the final instructions. I think this also proves a couple other things 1) Luke did not write Acts 2) The ascension story also goes through cultural evolution as bits and pieces of the legend are twisted
Anyone on the blog is welcome to respond!
Bart, thank you for addressing the question.
As for your answer: so what you’re saying is that, according to the accounts in the NT, the early Christians got persecuted by the Jews and kicked out of their synagogues because they claimed that Jesus, despite being executed, IS the Messiah?
So it’s indeed not because they claimed, from the start, that he was/is actually God/YHWH?
Yes, that’s my view.
However, I do not believe the original apostles saw Jesus as God, in any sense, other than as a Messiah (which Jews NEVER expected to be God incarnate or a demigod) and as a Prophet and moral teacher who believed himself sent by God to preach repentance. But I suppose that’s different from saying that no NT author wrote such a thing.
While John 1 may call Jesus in some sense divine, or even pre-existent, the fact that “John” or some anonymous editor tacked this hymn onto the Gospel doesn’t mean that reflects the first disciples who walked with Jesus or the “original” text, which is of course lost. So, I continue to disbelieve that many of these scriptural allusions to equality with God or “some kind of” divinity are either 1) interpolations 20-30 years after the fact (or even much later) or 2) may be contested on textual grounds, perhaps as scribal errors.
Is this your view, Dr. Ehrman, or do you now believe that the ORIGINAL disciples and Apostles somehow saw Jesus as divine or in some real way as part of God? And if so, how on earth do we prove such a thing?
You’ll need to read my book! That’s what it’s all about. (And you can get a sense of my views from posts on the topic from a month or so ago). (I don’t think these passages are scribal errors though; and they aren’t interpolations. They are simply later developments written in later Gospels)
I’ve had this question on my mind for quite some time. I couldn’t imagine that Jesus would publicly profess his own divinity; his mission wouldn’t last the afternoon before he’d be stoned to death. I took it as a given that the original claim was that Jesus was the messiah, and it was for THIS reason that he got into trouble during his own lifetime. I wasn’t sure exactly how the claim to divinity came to be, but I think your explanation makes the most sense. It seems to be the simplest explanation: the essential claim doesn’t change, but the change in the circumstances implies something else, entirely.
would pagan greeks love stories about gods coming down and suffering?
I suppose different Greeks enjoyed different things!
Do we know if Gnostic or non-Proto Orthodox sects were subject to the same persecutions that regular Christians were, not just from Jews but from the Empire?
Yes, most of them were.
1)?Do you think Paul’s persectuion, especially in 2 Cor 11:23-28 is historical? He doesn’t seem to be making up a story, and there would be no reason for him to lie…
2) Acts recounts Peter, John and James going under persecution. Being jailed and James being executed. Do you think this is historical?
Reasons for both of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Again!
1. Yes. 2. I doubt if the details are, but there’s nothing particularly implausile to them rousing opposition.