Loading...I’m catching up on posting some of the very interesting questions I’ve received from blog readers. This will take a couple of posts. Here are three excellent ones, all going to the heart of what it means to engage in a historical/critical assessment of the New Testament.
QUESTION:
Hey Bart, I have a question about the acceptance of the Deutero-Pauline epistles. If they were written while Paul was still alive, it seems like he would have said those weren’t his, and to knock it off. If they were written after Paul had died, it seems like his closest companions would have said that Paul had already died, the epistles were fake, and to knock it off – especially if the epistles were written years after Paul had died. So my question is, why were the Deutero-Pauline epistles accepted?
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I used to think the Gospels got more non-Jewish as you went from Mark to John. But now I’m thinking Mark was already pretty anti-Jewish. Throughout that Gospel none of the Jews understand Jesus, and at his crucifixion it is a pagan Roman centurion (boo!) who acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God. Even when the Jewish women are told of the resurrection they respond with fear and silence. It seems the message is: the Jews didn’t get it! Now it’s up to you Gentiles. Am I being too hard on Mark in this regard? Is the Markan Mystery an anti-Jewish one?
Mark definitely has a strong anti-Jewish strain. Matthew more. Luke more still. John most of all. It does happen to be a chronological sequence, but that doesn’t mean that all early followers of Jesus were pro-Jewish and all later ones anti-Jewish. Just happens that way with the canonical Gospels…
The “ it is a pagan Roman centurion (boo!) who acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God.” part also seems very pro Roman… pro Roman in the sense that it advocates for Roman belief in Jesus deification by featuring the very respected legionnaire at an officers rank…
I have struggled in dealing with the ‘anti-Jewish’ tone in John’s Gospel. It was interesting to read J.S. Spong’s views into the Gospel of John and how Aileen Guilding’s work ‘The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. John’s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System’ influenced Spong to see John as more of a Jewish ‘mystic’ than as one opposing Judaism. The rumblings of the brewing and futile Jewish-Roman war may of added extra negative tones to John’s perspectives on the Jew’s that were desiring conflicts over peace.
Why do you believe in the trial? Other scholars have said there wouldn’t have been a trial because Jesus was a Galilean peasant, a nobody?
When I say Jesus had a “trial” I mean it ver yloosely. He was accused and Pilate ordered his executoin. There was certainly not trial in the modern sense. It may have taken 20 seconds.
Hi Bart — I’m not quite sure where to ask this as a new subscriber, but one topic I’d love to see explored is Mariology and its evolution over the first few centuries. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, I see direct parallels between the increasing exaltation of Jesus over time (even within the relatively short gaps between Gospels) and the exaltation of Mary. I suspect a divergence between the original Jewish communities and Greek/Roman populations, where pre-Christian polytheism may have accelerated or enabled the “veneration” of saints and Mary (veneration in quotes, as the definition on paper always seemed to be at odds with what’s practiced)
In any case, thank you for your work!
Thanks! I’m not an expert on the later periods when Mariology develops significantly, but I have posted on the Proto-Gospel of James where much of the tradition has its early start (you can do a word search to find the posts)
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
1) Is there any way to rewatch the zoom meeting on Sept 14?
2) I asked this then, but how would you respond to Luke’s Parable of the Talents using numbers that only works for Matthew?
If you’re a gold member, you will have received the link to the Gold Q&A on the 14th. If not, reach out to Help.
I’m not sure what you mean about the numbers in Luke and Matthew.
1) Would I receive it if I’m platinum?
2) In the Parable of the Talents, Matthew has 3 workers, but Luke in the Parable of the Pounds has 10 yet only talks about what 3 of them did like it’s Matthew!
1. Yup
Do some consider the Gospel of John to be a forgery? It’s in written in polished, sophisticated a Greek and the author refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Could the author be trying to persuade readers that he either personally knew Jesus or was witness to the events. This book contains different stories from synoptic gospels, including private personal meetings(such as the meeting with Nicodemus). These stories would be harder to disprove because of the lack of witnesses, and seem similar to gnostic texts that claim secret knowledge, such as the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Personally, I’m skeptical about “records” of one on one private meetings with Jesus, esp since all of these records were old by time of publication. Am I right to be skeptical.
Yes, my colleague Hugo Mendez has a book that just came out arguing that. I myself think the author decidedly does NOT identify himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He in fact differentiates himself from him (21:24; he…we)
Sorry, but I’m only seeing the first question, with no answer. Is the page not displaying properly for me?
Contact “Help” and Jen will figure it out for you.
Bart, what is your take on the Shroud of Turin (Fake/Authentic and why)?
Medieval forgery.
I have your book, “The New Testament” Fifth Edition but see that you have a book with Hugo Mendez, 8th Edition. Has there been many changes that I would need to get this book as well? On Amazon it is $80 which is really out of my budget.
The 8th edition has major rewrites especially of the materials on the Synoptics and the Johannine letters. Most of it otherwise is improved and expanded, but not in earth shattering ways.
Hello Bart, I very much appreciate the ability that you provide to people to pick the brain of someone as knowledgeable as yourself.
My question is: We all know that prior to Jesus, it was said that the way for Jews to obtain forgiveness from God was thru sacrifice of an animal, which I personally think is absurd. Obviously Christianity believes that Jesus was God’s final sacrifice, which alleviated the need to sacrifice animals any longer. My question is that since Jews do not believe this of Jesus, how did they ultimately get relieved of the need to sacrifice for forgiveness from God, since they obviously aren’t still practicing this ritual.
God could deal with sins in other ways as well as sacrifice. An atoning sacrifice pays a “price” to God (death of an animal, e.g.). But God could also forgive without a sacrifice (just as we forgive people without requiring some kind of payment sometimes). Jews had no choice in the matter, though. they didn’t decide to have their temple destroyed. When it was destroyed, they didn’t think they now could never be forgiven for their sins. (Most Jews, of course, in the ancient world — the largest number by far — could never ever make it to the temple for a sacrifice anyway; they were in the Diaspora. But they didn’t think they needed a suffering messiah as a result.)
Ive been debating my adult son on the tie between Jer. 7-11 and what Jesus said in the gospels, (the den of thieves bit), all of which are translated to robbers or thieves. Is there a consensus among scholars on what the term used in the original hebrew Jer 7-11 meant prior to the later translations into greek (lestes) and English (robbers). Also Is there any other verse in the Heb Bible where that term was used for a comparative analysis of meaning. Thank you for your insight.
The Hebrew uses a kind of unusual word that means something like “person of violence,” which can be used of a murderer or robber, so literally, I guess, “Place of violent people.” It is used also in Deut. 11:14; Ps. 17:4; Isa 35:9; and Ezek 7:22 and 18:10. No where else, I believe. The Greek translation (the Septuagint) translates it (in Jer 7:11) as a “den of robbers,” using the term lestes. One problem is that lestes sometimes means “bandit/robber/guy who breaks into your house” and sometimes it refers to “insurrectionist, guerilla” to be determined by context (meaning: one might disagree what it means in one verse or another)