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QUESTION:
If the strongest explanation for Luke’s alteration/omission of the centurion’s declaration that Jesus was the Son of God at the crucifixion is that he wants to anchor Jesus’s divine sonship at least as early as his birth, then why does he later associate that same divine sonship AND innocence with Jesus’s death and resurrection in Acts 13? Luke is combining a variety of early traditions that are at odds at WHEN it happened in order to stress that he really WAS the Son of God. (Similar problem in Luke-Acts with other titles for Jesus as well: Christ and Lord. He gets *made* those at the resurrection but is *already* those before he dies!)
RESPONSE
Yes indeed! It’s one of the major questions to be addressed about Luke’s Christology. Why does he state that Jesus became Son of God at his conception (1:35); at his baptism (3:21 – that’s the wording of the original text, probably); and at his resurrection (speeches in Acts). I deal with the issue in Orthodox Corruption in my discussion of the textual variant of 3:21.
Luke would not have denied that Jesus was Son of God at his death but his account is different from Mark’s. In Mark the confession of the centurion is the point at which someone *realizes* Jesus is the son of God: until then it’s been a secret; that’s not the case in Luke who has removed a good bit of Mark’s messianic secret. His emphasis is less that Jesus’ death shows he was the son of God than that he was wrongly executed, since he was completely innocent. You can see that emphasis especially by comparing carefully Mark and Luke’s trials before Pilate, where the innocence is unmistakably heightened in significant ways.
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QUESTION:
I am unable to wrap my wits around one fundamental question about Jesus’ three-year ministry: why did his disciples, his main followers, stick around month after month? The answer is not obvious. If the historical Jesus were in no way a miracle worker, then how did he establish his bona fides with them? Given that Jesus was very smart, very astute, intense, straight-shooting, a strong personality with lots of charisma, it still does not ring true that a young person would drop everything to follow this man not just for a week or a month or two, but for years. The fact they did follow suggests deep conviction and solid commitment, which seems way way too much of a personal investment for what appears to be on offer. Sure, the kingdom of God was a wonderful promise, but it was just a bunch of well-fashioned words that tell of a future event. Is your view that Jesus did in fact make such a compelling case that, all by itself, could have earned this kind of ‘all in’ commitment of his followers?
RESPONSE:
Part of the problem is that we don’t know how long Jesus’ ministry was. In Mark it begins in the summer when fields are ready to be harvested (ch. 2), and everything after that happens right away (“immediately,” “immediately,” “immediately” — one of Mark’s favorite ways of staring his stories); Jesus goes to Jerusalem in the fall (Passover feast). It appears that in this earliest Gospel, Jesus’s ministry lasts only a few months, half a year or so.
People believe the ministry lasted “three years” because in John’s account Jesus celebrates three separate Passover feasts (it’s an annual event). I don’t know if that’s historical, but you don’t find it in any of the other Gospels.
Apart from that,, there are many religions in the world in which people have abandoned everything to follow a teacher — apart from society and experiencing hardship — for years! The key is that they consider the message true and trust messenger.
QUESTION:
Let us at least consider the implications of four gospels circulating anonymously before they are each eventually assigned an author by the time of Papias. Most scholars hold that “Matthew” and “Luke” relied on “Mark”. But for the theory of anonymity to work this must mean that two people relied on a gospel they knew not who wrote it. Yet they both considered it authoritative. This is very strange if they had no idea who wrote it. Had it already become “textbook” gospel? But why?
Again, how does a book even circulate anonymously? Are we to imagine a “Mark” laboring late at night, concealing his project from family and friends (Christians), then dropping his final draft at some door of some primitive house-church and stealing off into the night?
I wonder what would happen if we applied this degree of skepticism to other works. Does Plutarch announce himself as the author in the “Lives” attributed to him?
RESPONSE:
I don’t think Matthew and Luke necessarily did consider Mark “authoritative.” It provided them with a number of their stories with wording they often thought was satisfactory. But the fact that they changed it so extensively shows they didn’t think it was authoritative per se.
You’re right that when we say Mark was circulated anonymously we’re not saying that his original audience didn’t know who he was. The key point is that when it got copied and taken to other places, his identity was soon forgotten. That happened a *lot* in the ancient world, even with numerous classical authors, not just, famously, “Homer,” but all sorts of writings which were later attributed to someone who obviously did not write them.
As it turns out, there there is an entire field of scholarship devoted to this issue, scholars figuring out who wrote all those anonymous writings back there that eventually were attributed to Socrates or Plato, or, in the Christian realm: Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Hippolytus, etc
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“…there are many religions in the world in which people have abandoned everything to follow a teacher — apart from society and experiencing hardship — for years!”
I can attest to this; it is not something out of the ordinary. I also think that the limited access to information Jesus’ followers had was a big factor in their conviction. The same reason why high control groups flourish today.
In addition consider that cultures during ancient times were rife with mythicism, mysticism, superstition, magic. Abandoning everything because people believed a ‘teacher’ who was charismatic and performed some magic tricks is consistent with the pervasiveness of these features.
Similarly I think why the disciples did not abandon their belief in Jesus after his crucifixion is because this was psychologically threatening, i.e. the disciples would have to admit they were silly, irrational, etc. to have followed him in the first place. Can’t prove this is the reason but modern examples exist, e.g. people who have predicted the end of the world by a certain date – but it did not happen, and people who predicted aliens would visit the earth by a certain date – but it did not happen. They and their supporters adjusted their positions to rationalize their beliefs. Place Charles Manson and his supporters in this category, unfortunately.
Although the NT claims that Jesus was completely innocent and should not have been crucified, it seems this idea is one of perspective. He was sentenced by Rome, ostensibly, for fomenting insurrection – which if he was claiming to be king of the Jews, even in private with his disciples, seems to fulfill the elements of the offense – whatever they were. While the Jewish leadership may have had a religious reason for wanting Jesus dead, the Romans had a completely different perspective. Clearly, execution for what Jesus was accused of doing was harsh and offends our 21st century sensibilities, but it was the Roman law. It seems that Jesus’ innocence was a religious claim, not a legal one. I would love to have your comments.
Yes, that’s pretty much my view. With maybe one proviso: Jesus would literally have been innocent in the sense that he was not claiming to be about to foment a military rebellion against Rome. He wold be the king because God would destroy the Romans. So Jesus was not planning to engage in the capital offense of insurrection.
In a recent conversation with an AI, I was able to appreciate another perspective. The High Priest was suspicious of the intent of Jesus in Jerusalem during Passover with a significant following. If Jesus’ disciples attempted to oust the High Priest by force, it would appear as an insurrection against Imperial Rome. Pontius Pilate was in Jerusalem to prevent an insurrection during Passover, so he was triggered already. 300,000 Jewish pilgrims could be slaughtered as Pilate summoned Roman legions to suppress the insurrection. Pilate was triggered. The High Priest was triggered. Indeed, the Jerusalem crowd was triggered to receive Jesus as the Messiah. Judas Iscariot’s secret meeting with the High Priest lit the fuse. In my personal opinion, Judas was not the traitor as portrayed. Judas considered himself as a “fixer”. All that was required was for Jesus to “infiltrate” the building. Then, GOD will take over. What if Judas was an assassin who was hired by the Zealots’ High Command in Damascus to monitor Jesus and, if necessary, to kill Jesus? Judas “infiltrated” the inner circle. What if the cold hard heart of the assassin was changed? Instead of stopping Jesus, Judas was facilitating (so he thought).
“In Mark it begins in the summer when fields are ready to be harvested (ch. 2), and everything after that happens right away… Jesus goes to Jerusalem in the fall (Passover feast). It appears that in this earliest Gospel, Jesus’s ministry lasts only a few months”…
Is your thought that Jesus’ ministry likely only lasted a few months?
My view is that we don’t know. Mark portrays it as a few months; John as a few years; and I’m not sure how either of them would have good information about it.
Concerning your last question about the four Gospels: the questioner wrongly assumes Papias had something to say about all four of the Canonical gospels. He doesn’t. It’s doubtful the Mark and Matthew he references are the same as what we have today. Marko Marina’s article really nails it. https://tragoviproslosti.eu/2022/08/28/in-the-quest-for-the-historical-jesus-the-evidence-from-papias/
Yup!
Beyond Homer and attributed/pseudepigraphic letters, what other writings do we have the author’s name seem to only be invented by a later community?
Well there are lots: the Homeric Hymns, Cadmus of Miletus, Aristaeus of Proconnesus, Chionides; Philo, Clement, Barnibas, Tertullian, Justin. Not to mention Moses, David, Solomon, and so on.
I’m interested in how people got “saved” before Jesus came along. Luke 11:52 sounds like they had the answer on their bookshelf before Jesus got there. What was the “key” that they already had?
It would depend which early Christian you were talking to. Many eventually thought that no one wsa saved before Jesus, but that he saived the saints (or maybe even everyone) who died before his crucifixion.
You have already pointed out that Matthew and Luke probably did not regard Mark as authoritative in the later canonical sense, since they changed it so extensively. That makes me wonder about the next stage in the process.
If Mark was originally treated as a useful but editable narrative source, how did it later come to be preserved as an authoritative Gospel in its own right? Was this mainly because it was eventually connected with Peter through the tradition about Mark as Peter’s interpreter, or were there other reasons that made Mark worth preserving even though Matthew and Luke had already reworked so much of it?
In other words, how did a text that early Gospel writers felt free to revise later become a text that the Church felt obligated to preserve?
The short answer is that as time went on, Christians realized they needed written authorities for their views, and they knew there were lots of writings out there, and so they decided which books were the most authoritative. These “most authoritative” books came to be revered as divinely revealed. But there needed to be grounds for considering *these* books authoritative rather htan others, and so the Gospels came to be attributed to apostolic authorities and to be considered inspired by God.
“People often assume Jesus’ ministry lasted ‘three years’ because John’s Gospel mentions three separate Passover feasts — an annual observance.”
But I wonder whether those Passovers might be read differently. The Synoptics move horizontally through time; John, I would argue, moves in a spiral — returning to the same events and themes repeatedly, each time on a deeper theological plane.
The Temple cleansing may be the clearest clue. John places it near the first Passover reference, even though he clearly knew the tradition that located it near the Passion. Why move it to the beginning? Perhaps because John’s structure is not primarily chronological but cosmological.
His discourses follow the same pattern. Whereas the Sermon on the Mount unfolds linearly, John’s farewell discourses circle back through the same themes again and again, each return deepening the last. This fits John’s larger theological move: replacing a horizontal eschatology (“the kingdom will come”) with a vertical one — fulfillment not deferred into the future, but revealed from above, in a Platonic sense.
Which raises the possibility that John is not describing three different Passovers, but circling repeatedly around the same Passover event.
— David Ourisman
Regarding Q3, Hugo Mendez presented an SBL paper on this and mentions it in his new book, John A New History. He suggests two ways that anonymous, pseudonymous, or falsely-authored books could be published and circulated. They could be sent away to a friend encouraging it to be copied and circulated. Or it could be planted in a library or literary collection, or even appended to a previous work, not unlike Huldah “finding” the book of the Law in the Temple. And Hugo cites examples for each.
Mark especially lends itself to this kind of publication because the first readers would think, Wait, why have we never heard anything about any of this? mighty deeds? teachings and parables? predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem? women at the open tomb? And “Mark” answers these questions in the text with all the emphasis on secrecy and privacy.
Regarding Q1, the centurion’s statement in Mark 15:39 might’ve been an insult, which Mark sees as ironically true. The wording is ambiguous, “Truly, this was the Son of God” (confession) or “Really? This was a son of a god?” (sarcasm and insulting as we should expect a Roman executioner to say).
Nothing in Mark’s narrative should cause the centurion to confess faith. Instead, every action towards Jesus in Mark’s PN is awful, ugly, and negative. Mark could’ve clarified, but he’s intentionally ambiguous to show the irony of the centurion’s insult. And Matthew, who makes it into a confession, provides a reason for the unexpected statement with the earthquake and zombie apocalypse. So Matthew changes it to avoid it being an insult. Matthew 13:53 does the same to two insults in Mark 6:3, “carpenter” (uneducated/illiterate?) and “son of Mary” (illegitimate?) become “son of a carpenter and Mary.”
If Mark 15:39 is an insult, Luke would want to change it. And he does so with two helpful outcomes. He avoids the insult and he adds further Roman acclamation of Jesus’ innocence. So I’m not sure if Luke’s change in Luke 23:47 is due to Luke’s theology of Jesus as son of God.
I think Jesus’ close followers dropped everything to be with him for the same reasons we even see today—the magnetism and charisma of the teacher. As far as teachings, Jesus didn’t seem to be the only one proclaiming the coming kingdom, or the kindness taught by Hillel and others. To me, the power of his presence explains “why” better than any particular teachings Jesus espoused. However, the “how” is a different subject. Jesus had sponsors who supported his ministry. The New Testament says so. If Jesus had 12 constant followers, or whatever number it may have actually been, someone had to cover the cost for those no longer earning a living. I assume that Jesus’ ministry did not begin with all of “the 12” and his sponsors already in place. Although he eventually traveled at least a hundred miles to Jerusalem to end his ministry, how much of the “three years,” that he actually had traveling followers and the sponsors to support that is unclear—maybe not actually quite so long.
Dr. Ehrman, your answer about why people followed Jesus raises, for me, a larger question. Having followed your recent posts on the Mystery Religions and the social profile of early converts, this question only sharpens for me. My sense is that you are exceptionally good at uncovering historical complications. What remains difficult, however, is explaining the extraordinary historical durability of this particular movement. Your explanations are cumulatively plausible, but they seem to face an aggregation problem: each individual element may be explainable, yet the combination (the speed, the geographical spread, the moral structure, and the survival power after catastrophe) appears to ask for more than the sum of the sociological parts.
I remain genuinely curious whether your framework, taken seriously, can ultimately account for this, or whether the residue points beyond it.
Respectfully, Tjalling
I’m not sure I see what you’re seeing as the problem? What about how the religion started would potentially compromise its durability?
Thank you, that helps me clarify the question.
I don’t mean that the way the movement started would necessarily compromise its durability. My question is rather what adequately accounts for that durability. Many movements can arise around a charismatic leader, apocalyptic expectation, social marginality, and intense group commitment, but most do not produce this kind of long-term moral structure, geographic reach, and resilience after the catastrophe of their leader’s execution.
So the “residue” I’m pointing to is not one unexplained element, but the weight of the combination. I’m wondering whether your framework explains that whole pattern, rather than only its individual parts.
My short answer is that belief in the unique powers of the Christian God is what brings people into the movement; and the benefits of the community (spiritual, communal, intellectual, economic, political, etc.) keep them there. Since this was a uniquely world-wide religion (there was no world-wide religion of Apollo, Hermes, Zeus, etc.) the local benefits had incredibly broad range support.