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Loading...I’ve started posting questions and responses from readers. Here’s another set of particularly good ones.
QUESTION:
I recently read your book Jesus Interrupted and have become interested in your work. In it you discussed the potential forgeries contained in the Pauline letters and New Testament but it didn’t seem to mention much about the Old Testament. I noticed you did say that the New Testament was your specialty but was wondering if there was any evidence you were aware of that the Old Testament contains similar situations and which books.
RESPONSE:
Yes, my book was just about the NT, not the entire Bible.
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Professor Ehrman, might there be a connection between the tradition we see in Luke of the story of Lazarus and the rich man and the (most probably) later story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus in John’s gospel? In other words- do you suppose the account in John represents a theological response to/development of the tradition we find in Luke? Or is Lazarus just a common name and the two are wholly unconnected?
I suspect the parable of Lazarus was floating around and John took it as a basis for his story of the raising of Lazarus.
On what basis do you say that Peter and James (which James?) “clearly believed Jesus was raised from the dead and was now in heaven.”
“James Tabor brings up the idea that the Eucharist as presented in John and by Paul was not the original ceremony.”
I agree with Tabor.
It’s true that in the Didache “does not indicate that the prayers.. were what Jesus himself said when instituting the meal” and
“the passages in the New Testament are not prayers to be said at the meal”.
But the key point is the symbolic value of the wine and the broken bread, regardless of whether they are presented as Jesus’ own words or as part of a prayer.
Let’s look at the case of the bread:
Didache – The bread as the gathering of the Church (original Greek: “assembly”):
“Father, even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills,
and was gathered together and became one,
so let your Church be gathered together…”
(Didache 9:4)
Paul – The bread as Jesus’ body and the “union” between Jesus and the Church:
“…the Lord Jesus… took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said:
‘This is my body, which is for you.'”
(1 Cor 11:22–24)
Interestingly, Paul himself merges both meanings:
“The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? ( Jesus’s body)
Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body,
for we all partake of the one bread. (Churh gathering)”
(1 Cor 10:16–17)
So, did the Didache writer forget or omit the meaning of the bread as Jesus’ body in the prayer?
Was he perhaps unaware of that interpretation?
Or did Paul (or someone before him) add that “new” meaning—so that the broken bread came to represent not only the gathering of the faithful but also communion with Jesus himself?
In other parts of the Didache we also find passages that clearly relate to New Testament texts, particularly the Gospels of Matthew and Luke:
(Didache 16:1 ↔ Luke 12:35, Matt 24:42, 25:1–13; Didache 16:3–4 ↔ Matt 7:15, 24:10–12, etc.)
Once again, did the Didache writer simply forget to say that those were Jesus’ own words?
Or were the Gospel writers the ones who placed on Jesus’ lips what they had inherited from the Didache and other (now lost) early Christian texts?
You mentioned that the only OT documents “that actually claim to be written by someone who didn’t write them are Ecclesiastes . . . and Daniel.” Isn’t Isaiah another example, or at least a partial example, with parts having been written by the actual prophet Isaiah and then parts written later by other authors?
They don’t claim to be written by someone named Isaiah. They are misattributed, not forged.
Dr. Ehrman,
No need to post this.
I very much like the 4 posts per NT book. And I am aware you are a NT scholar.
What about asking some of your scholarly cohorts who are OT scholars to provide to the blog 4 posts on OT books in their specialty? I for one would be as interested in parts of that as I am in your NT posts.
Thanks for considering.
Great idea!
I watched your 7th lecture of Luke’s Maverick Gospel last night. If it says anywhere in Luke that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of mankind, then the assertion was added later? The only parts of the bible I have read were for the required old and new testament courses that were required to graduate from the methodist institution I attended, Centenary College, and I didn’t read most of the assignments.
I’m not sure what you’re asking? Luke never says Jesus died on the cross for the sins of humanity.
In Stephen’s speech in Acts, does he mean in verse 7:42 that when other gods were worshipped by the Israelites, they were actually worshipping divine beings in the host of heaven? It’s interesting because when I grew up fundamentalist, we were always taught that pagan deities were demons.
Yes, it seems to mean that. The stars etc. were often thought of as divine beings in antiquity.
Is it more plausible that other preachers in Pauls day did claim to have seen the risen Christ and were ignored/shunned, or that for whatever reason it was generally accepted that the appearance to Paul would be the last such appearance? Or maybe that’s an unanswerable question?
If the latter I wonder why that would be; I feel like I could throw a dart out the window today and hit a preacher who spoke to Jesus last week.
We have no clear evidence of others claiming to have seen Jesus in Paul’s day. “Speaking” to Jesus is very common though — billions do it still.