I have received some more interesting questions in the comment section of the blog, and thought I should published them more broadly, along with my responses.  Here goes!

 

Question:

What are your views on what Jesus is communicating in the ‘Whose Son Is the Messiah?’ story in the synoptics where Jesus references Psalm 110:1.

 

Response:

It’s a great passage (Mark 12:35-37). It occurs in the midst of a series of dialogues/controversies Jesus is having with his Jewish opponents in Jerusalem, in which Jesus repeatedly confounds and maligns them. In this one he does so by asking them a question that he knows they won’t be able to answer without contradicting something they already think.

He asks them how “the Christ can be the son of David if in Psalm 110, written by David, he says “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand….”??

That is, if David calls the messiah “My Lord,” then how could he be his “son”? The scribes are apparently flummoxed and can’t answer, and the crowds all marvel.

The passage is often taken by scholars and others to mean that Mark is claiming that Jesus was *not* the descendant of David  But I think that’s a misreading. I see this as the kind of discussion you get in ancient dialogues between opponents: the superior person in the dialogue questions his adversaries until they can’t respond.  That happens a lot with Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues (e.g. the Euthyphro of the Gorgias): he confronts people who think they know answers to complicated topics – for example, “what is justice” by asking them a series of questions that all build on one another and in the end force them to contradict themselves and admit they actually don’t know.  He himself is superior to them, he says, not because he knows the answer but because at last he admits he does *not* know!

I think that’s what Jesus does here.  But in this case I think Mark actually does have an answer in mind, even if he doesn’t come out and say it. In his view (as implied by the passage) the Jewish opponents don’t “get it” because they don’t realize the true nature of the messiah. He is indeed a descendant of David. But because he will be raised from the dead to rule over the world, he is also the Lord of David (and of all else).  Both son and Lord.

I should stress, I think that is Mark’s view; I’m not saying it’s the view Jesus himself had.  I’d be surprised if the conversation is historical (see the next question!)

 

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Question:

You state that Jesus didn’t expect that he would be crucified, as he thought he was the messiah and would reign on earth. In the synoptic gospels, didn’t they say that he claimed that he would have to be crucified and resurrected? Are we to assume that those passages do not express his own beliefs?

 

Response:

Yes, the Gospels definitely do say that.  In Mark he predicts his passion explicitly three times (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34) and implicitly refers to it repeatedly elsewhere.  Same with Matthew.  Luke has him predict it four times; and he does so in various ways throughout John.

The question I’m dealing with is not whether the Gospels portray Jesus as anticipating his death, but whether Jesus himself actually did so.  The Gospels are written by believers in Jesus’ death and resurrection living 40-65 years later and basing their accounts on the stories about Jesus that had been in circulation for all that time.  There are many things recorded in the Gospels that almost certainly did not happen and sayings of Jesus he almost certainly did not actually say.  Historians have to figure out which is which.  Which passages record what actually happened and which are based on later stories about Jesus?

It’s a difficult business, but it’s what all historians do for all historical figures for whom we have written accounts (for Julius Caesar, Constantine, John Wilkes Booth, etc.).  When the Gospels are studied not only to see what they are trying to say about Jesus’s words and deeds, but also to see which of those words and deeds actually go back to him, these Passion Predictions seem most likely to be ways of showing that as the Son of God Jesus knew all along what was going to happen at the end of his life.  He was not taken by surprise!

 

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Question:

I speculate that Jesus thought he was the Davidic messiah because of an auditory hallucinogenic experience during his baptism. While seeing a dove, he heard an auditory hallucinogenic voice telling him he was chosen by God for this role.

He told his followers about this, and they all believed they had special protection from God until the imminent apocalypse happened after they arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Under this theory, Jesus really thought he was the Davidic messiah, and he was stunned, and felt forsaken, to find he had no special protection from the Romans. That would explain why Jesus may have said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and it explains his boldness during his final week.

So, Bart, I think the baptism story is another reason for thinking Jesus thought he was messianic and I’m wondering if you agree.

 

Response:

Yes, that’s a theory that has sometimes been floated about, and it certainly makes sense of a lot of what happens in Jesus’ life based on the Gospels. My view, though, is that it presupposes that the narratives of Jesus’ baptism are essentially historical, whereas I think the vision, the voice from heaven, the dove, etc. are literary constructs of the Christian story tellers meant to show that Jesus’ ministry began with divine sanction and authorization.  I do not think that we need to have a naturalistic explanation that what really happened was a hallucinatory event.  (In other words, that explanation assumes something like this did happen, but it was a natural, not a supernatural, event.

In addition, I don’t think we have any way of knowing what Jesus actually said on the cross; the idea that he felt forsaken is also first found in Mark, who gave us the original baptism theme, and it is meant to be a closing bracket of what happened at the outset — it begins with God coming upon Jesus at the baptism and ends with Jesus feeling forsaken by God.

Interestingly there are clear connections between the two passages in Mark.  The word SCHIZO “to rip” occurs only twice in Mark, when the heavens rip open at the baptism (showing that God is present in Jesus) and when the curtain rips at the crucifixion (showing that now people have access to God’s presence, otherwise hidden behind a curtain in the temple).  In both a voice declares that Jesus is the Son of God (the voice from heaven at the baptism; and the centurion at the crucifixion).

This latter point is notable since no one in this entire Gospel calls him that except divine beings:  God at the transfiguration and demons when cast out.  But now finally a human “gets it”! It’s not a follower of Jesus, however, but the Roman soldier who has just crucified him.  In part this appears to show that even though Jesus was not understood by his followers during his lifetime, he would be understood but later (pagan) converts after his death.

In short: I think these stories of Jesus’ baptism and his crucifixion have non-historical elements, literary inventions, trying to make a point.  These are not events that happened in some way or another but were misunderstood and so need to be given naturalist (i.e non-supernatural) explanations..