Loading...I’ve recently answered some queries from readers and thought that the questions were too good not to post for all to see. They are all on different topics, but interesting ones, and they required different lengths of answer. Here they are, four of them, a blog Q&A.
Question One:
I am writing a blog about how Christians defend biblical inerrancy and I came across an on-line article with this quote.
“You have searched the Scriptures, which are true and given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or counterfeit is written in them.” —Clement of Rome, letter to the Corinthians, first century
Two questions: Was there really a Pope in the first century? What kind of “scripture” could he possibly be referring to in the last decade of the first century?
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Good stuff, professor,
Why are the designations BC (Before Christ, English) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin). Wish I knew…
Maybe ante christum sounds too much like anti christ? Coram Domino would have worked though.
Okay, here’s a question I’ve been sort of waiting for an appropriate moment to raise. So here goes:
Many evangelical Christians distinguish between ceremonial, civil, and moral laws, when it comes to the Law (Torah). My question is, how valid is that?
Did ancient Israelites think in terms of such categories? Such that, if pressed, one could discount a ceremonial or civil law, but not a moral law?
Here’s a common “fer instance.” God said not to eat pork or shellfish, or wear clothes that mix wool and linen. He also said to keep the Sabbath holy (however interpreted).
Many evangelicals eat pork and shellfish, and wear mixed-fiber fabrics, and even go to work on Sundays. (Sunday/Sabbath is another topic, but then they often work on Saturdays too, so there’s that.)
So why is it now okay to breach those rules, but not other rules (like how to treat slaves, or stone unruly kids)? Sometimes they try to boil it down to just the Ten Commandments, but even that brings up the Sabbath thing… ?
(And of course they try to make such rules universal/full time when it suits them, such as the whole anti-gay “lay with a man” thing.)
Yup, that’s a modern, Christian set of distinctions. I think you could argue that some of the NT authors (Paul/matthew) implicitly distinguished between what we would call ethical and cultic laws (though not between civil and ethical). But it’s only because Christians insisted gentiles did not have to be circumcised and keep kosher and sacrifice etc. to follow Jesus but were to follow the laws of how to relate to one another. I don’t know of any Jews who made those kinds of distinictions. The law was the law. But maybe someone else on the blog knows of ancient instances outside of Xty.
BC vs AD – good question. Or, as a well-known scholar said, “an interesting random question.”
When did BC become common? When was English used for bible commentary?
I wonder if AD was common when “everyone” [who cared about religion] spoke Latin and the New Testament was their main focus, and BC was used when common people became concerned about the historicity of the Hebrew bible. (If scholars were talking about it, I’d expect the abbreviation to be from German. Or maybe it is? What’s the German word for before?)
I’m just rambling out of sheer ignorance.
Bart, is there a way to change my default to “Notify me of replies to my comments”? Right now I have to remember to change it before I post anything.
I don’t know. Zap a query to Help and see.
How about presenting us with another Greek lesson today.
I did raise my thoughts previously (in your post dated May 8, 2024) about the possibility that John 1:1-34 were inserted later to the original document. However, this thought is very resent, but the trigger for it started long time ago from John 8:58: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am”.
There is something odd in this verse, and I do remember that I raised this matter in one of my first questions here in the blog about 2 years ago.
I think that there is here a grammatical error in English and I assume it is based on a grammatical error in Greek (surprisingly, the verse in the Arabic-Gospel is almost like: before Abraham was, I was,,, because “am” has no direct translation).
Now … the standard interpretation here is that Jesus is presenting himself as being Yahweh (or at least equal to him). However, there are serious problems for this interpretation:
1# This verse was probably written about 100AD, and I don’t think that anyone at that time regarded Jesus to be Yahweh or equal to him. These ideas needed another century to appear.
—–>
—–>
Therefore, this current interpretation cannot be the one intended by the original author.
2# There is a jumping logic here: If we say {A is B, B is C, therefore A is C} then this is a straight-forward logic. But if we say {A is B therefore A is C} then there is a jump in this logic.
So, the first premise in the interpretation is that “I am” refers to Yahweh, so how we went from this premise to the conclusion that Jesus claiming to be Yahweh!
3# The context of this verse (John 8:21-59) doesn’t suggest that Jesus is claiming to be Yahweh or claiming to be equal to him.
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This verse is a true puzzle. However, this verse also presented me with a possibility that its original author was sincere, meaning that he recorded what he heard without altering or modifications, otherwise he would have altered this verse to be (at least) grammatically right. But he heard it this way, and he recorded it as-is.
So, my question here …. are there other verses in John with “puzzling” grammatical errors? Are they many or few? And if they were just few, then can we have a list for them?
Jesus definitely does not claim to be Yahweh in this verse. The verb is plural “are” one. There are two of them. They may be equal (in some way) but they are NOT identical.
Care to do some literary criticism?
Let’s say that Christianity had not become a world religion but that we still had all the writings that make up what we now call the New Testament, although not considered scripture, and judged only by their literary merit.
1. Give a couple examples of books you think would now be obscure, of interest only to the specialist.
2. Give a couple of examples of books that would now be considered fine enough literature that they might be of interest to a non-specialist.
3. Is there anything in the NT, judging by literary merit alone, on the level of the best of the OT?
Thanks!
For literary afficianadose you mean? Then 1. All of them; 2. None of them; 3. Most of them
I get a kick out of people using Rev. 3:20 to suggest the Sinner’s Prayer because in the passage Jesus is knocking on the door of the CHURCH of Laodicea asking the CHRISTIANS to let Him back in! He’s not appealing to nonbelievers!
Right!!
Love this – please do more!
Since you brought up random questions, it inspired me to ask you one myself regarding an ostensibly random verse in Matthew: what are your thoughts on 27:19? It seems to me like a too random verse, and that’s why I think there must be some interesting background with respect to Pilate’s wife that I am not aware of.
It is usually thought to be emphasizing Matthew’s point that everyone knew Jesus didn’t deserve to be killed and that Pilate — who knew his innocence — was driven to condemn him because of hte Jews. It’s another bit to show that he did’t want to do it.
This doesn’t quite answer your query but, my research (aka googling) suggests that Dionysus Exiguus in the 6th century coined “anno domini nostri Jesu Christi” which was shortened to “anno domini”, then in the 8th century St Bede came up with “ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus”, but seemingly, as that is a bit of a mouthful, it was subsequently translated into English as “before christ”. I suppose it could easily have been AI?
I guess so!
This doesn’t quite answer your query but, my research (aka googling) suggests that Dionysus Exiguus in the 6th century coined “anno domini nostri Jesu Christi” which was shortened to “anno domini”, then in the 8th century St Bede came up with “ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus”, but seemingly, as that is a bit of a mouthful, it was subsequently translated into English as “before christ”. I suppose it could easily have been AI?
In Mark, Jesus is brought before a council consisting of the high priest, all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes, and they all condemn him to death. Would anybody on this council have an apocalyptic theology? I ask this because Mark says Joseph of Arimathea was on this council and it says he was “waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God” implying that he had an apocalyptic theology. If the council was entirely Sadducean in its theology, then I’d expect none of them to have an apocalyptic theology.
It’s usually thought that council was made up mainly (entirely?) of Saduccees, who famously were not apocapyticists..
In looking through the Wikipedia page on the different meanings of the word `logos’ it seems that popular Christianity has the wrong exegesis of John’s gospel. For example, the Christian world interprets John 14’s “No one comes to the father except through me” to mean that only Christians are, or can be, saved or allowed into heaven, or avoid hell. But if, for example, logos means the ordering principle by which anything happens then “No one comes to the father…” can’t mean what the Christian world thinks it means. That meaning of logos says that the ability to think, walk, speak, brushing one’s teeth, etc., all happen through the logos. Under that meaning we could say “No one can brush their teeth except through me” and it would be wrong to interpret that to mean that only Christians can brush their teeth. John 14 could mean that everyone has access to the father through the logos. Suddenly all the “I am” statements make sense, like “I am the vine, and you are the branches…without me you can do nothing”. Bart, what do you think of all this and what meaning of logos do you think applies in John’s gospel?
Logos is a very complicated term with lots of different nuances in Greek philosophical discourse, not a word that means one thing to all authors everywhere, wehther philosophically trained or not. I’m afraid it’s not the kind of thing you can get a grasp of on a Wikipedia page. There are entire volumes written on what John means by it, including the question of whether we should think of Stoic (or other philosophical) influence, or Septuagintal. I do think there was some phiulosophical influence on John — esp. Stoic — but that many of the resonances go back to the “word” God spoke in Genesis 1. etc.disabledupes{93ee8cc36434bf9f85ded008d471c386}disabledupes
“and (in Greek) adding what is otherwise a preposition to it at its beginning to provide a different meaning, nuance, or emphasis.”
Along this line, why is “g” silent in “gnostic” but pronounced in “agnostic”? Is it because “a” is a preposition? Or would the classical or koine Greeks have pronounced it, and we have just Anglicized it for English speakers?
Well, it was supposed to be. But somehow the video file got corrupted and we can’t retrieve it. Erg….
Bart – Please correct me if I am wrong. Jesus preached only to Jews. He came to seek the lost sheep of Israel He directed his disciples not to preach etc. to the gentiles. The kingdom of God was for Jews alone.Non Jews unworthy to receive his teaching. Non Jews were regarded to be like dogs and swine.No sermons, preaching or teaching to gentiles.Never taught his disciples to interact with gentiles.Jesus wanted only Jews in his grouping. Is this view erroneous?
His ministry was almost certainly to Jews, yes. But he clearly thought that gentiles who lived as the God of Israel demanded by careing for those in need would enter into the kingdom, whereas many Jews would be left out. Think: Matthew 25:31-46, which is probalby authentic.
AD was Dionysius Exiguus and BC was Bede of Northumbria.
YOu sure? Did Old English use the words “Before Christ”?
AD — After Death …
Right! Then we’re missing 30 years in our calendar!
Will the new insights to the new Testament class that was held in September be made available as a class to purchase for those of us who weren’t able to attend the one in September?
Oh yes. Just go to my webside http://www.bartehrman.com/courses
I have read secular historical accounts of early Christians (0 – 200) written by people who lived in that period that said they could not understand how the followers of Christ were giving up their material belongings to a community and living together in harmony. Some of these secular historians said it made no sense to them but they admired them for their commitment. The Polska Briacy were also recorded by historians of that time as being similar.
I don’t believer there are any such accounts, are there?