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Loading...I have been discussing various ways that Paul understands the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus for salvation, and have focused on the judicial and participationist models – mainly because these are the two that Paul most frequently appeals to (without calling them the judicial and participationist models!). I need to clarify a few points before moving on to speak of yet other models that Paul appears to use.
First, over the years when I’ve discussed these models in a public forum, people have asked me about my personal views of these models. Several have asked how I could possibly believe such a thing. And one has asked what right I have to talk about “sin” if I’m not a Christian and so do not believe in sin. So let me clear: I’m not affirming or denying anything Paul says in any of his writings. I’m simply describing what it is he says. Some people have trouble understanding the difference between description and prescription, but there’s a big difference.
I remember back when I was a conservative evangelical at Princeton Theological Seminary having exactly the same problem of not recognizing the difference. My church history professor, Karlfried Froehlich (who, by the way, for what it’s worth, was the most erudite scholar I have ever known) one time was describing
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How do you respond to those who argue that 3:22 should be translated “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe”?
Do you mean “faithfulness” of Christ? Or do you mean “the faith that Christ had”? Either way, I disagree. I think it is an objective genitive, not a subjective. The difference: If I say, “the love of my mother guides my life” I could either mean my mothers’ love for me (she’s the subject of “love” so it’s a subjetive genitive) or my love for my mother (she’s the object of my love, an objective genitive). The only way to know which is meant is by seen which makess the best sense in the context of the statement.
On another topic: I’m starting to do a study on the textual variants within the NT. I’ve heard you say, “The earliest scribes ‘intentionally’ changed the words of the text”. Can you lead me to the evidence of this?
How can one ‘prove’ intention? Thanks
PS: Huge fan of your writings
I have a discussion of the issue of “intention” as a problematic catgory in the opening chapter of my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Short story, I argue for a functionalist understanding of intention. ANd importantly I differentiate intention from motivation.
Reading your brief description of the redemption model, I thought of the Jewish tradition of pidyon haben, in which first born sons must be redeemed with a contribution of five shekels. Is there any chance that Paul was referencing this concept?
Grat question. I don’t know. For one thing I don’t know how old the tradition was.
Bart,
I have a question slightly off topic.
It’s the statement:
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Is this accepted by scholars as coming from the historical Jesus? It seems to fit criteria of multiple attestation, early documentation from Paul, embarrassment as it implies cannibalism, etc.
Does this point towards a Eucharistic tradition prior to the gospels then, instituted by Jesus?
Many scholars do accept it for the reasons you cite. Others think that it’s a very old tradition that was widely known because of the early Christian’s eucharistic practices, but that it doesn’t go back to Jesus himself, since it presupposes a later Christian understanding of the atoning significance of his death. I hold this latter view myself.
What models to obtain salvation did Paul oppose? Observance of the law of Moses? A metaphorical, spiritual resurrection already in this world? The models Paul objected were probably the mainstream approach before he began preaching his own gospel, right?
I’d say he opposed just about every one he doesnt mention! Once could think of dozens (hundreds?) of other models. (I knew a fellow who said that if a person was not baptized in his own local Baptist church they couldn’t be saved. OK then. Paul wouldn’t buy that one, e.g.,)
I am wondering why you refer to these points of view as models. Would it be more accurate to call them metaphors? Do you see quantitative/qualitative differences between model and metaphor?
I guess a see a metaphor as a single expression (You are the light of my life) and a model as a complext network of interworking concepts.
Is the idea that a messiah was crucified and resurrected to pay for your sins based on the Old Testament? What if the Second Temple was not the Jewish Second Temple? Cyrus the Great (Syria) built the temple and High priest Joshua helped.
Christ means anointed… such as a king or high priest. What if the stories in the Old Testament were meant to make Cyrus/Joshua the saviors of the Jews?
If the Second Temple is not the Jewish second temple, do the messianic prophesies even matter?
No, the OT doesn’t have any concept of a dying and rising messiah. (But I don’t believe Cyrus was involved in the building of the Temple, and he wasn’t Syrian)
When we see the word “saved” in the New Testament… Does it always refer to being saved from some kind of Destruction? For example, could it refer to being saved physically, when others around you are dying? Could it sometimes refer to someone’s “soul’ being saved, like many Christians today believe? Do you think Paul and Jesus (and maybe even other New Testament writers) meant the same thing when they used the term “saved?”
IN Paul it almost *always* refers to what will happen on the day of judgment when everyone else is destroyed. Some will survive with divine help; i.e., they’ll be delivered or saved from the coming destruction.
When did the concept of heaven arise? As in a spiritual heaven above the clouds?
That’s the topic of my book Heaven and Hell. Belief in heaven itself has been around as long as there have been believers i superhuman gods (that’s where they live); the idea that exceptional humans can go there is found in ancient mythologies. The idea that i’s one of two choices for the afterlife of souls is intimated in Greek thought centuries before Chrsitianity. It was not the view of the OT or of Jesus, but became a Christian view some time in the second halv of the first century, and the dominant view by the second century or so.
Thanks for your explanation! I have nearly finished watching a talk between you and Laurence Brown, a Muslim convert, on the Blogging Theology YouTube channel. Pretty intense!
Dr ehrman I want to ask about misquotation or misused old testament passage in new testament by Paul and by gospel writer are their misquotation only become False when you compare them by Masoratic text in our bible or their misquotation also Apply in septuagint also, because im afraid when you compare them to septuagint it can be proper since NT writer They use septuagint
Like isaiah 53 and psalm and many other quotation or prophecy
It’s interesting that no author of the NT (including Paul) ever quotes Isaiah 53 to show that the messiah had to suffer.
Wouldn’t 1 Peter 2:21-25 be an example of the NT applying the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to the Messiah?
“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you…When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats….’He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed….'”
1 Peter *may* be thinking of Isaiah 53; but he doesn’t quote it so it’s hard to say. Oddly Isaiah 53 is never quoted in the NT to show that the messiah had to suffer.
I don’t mean to push the point too hard; I just thought it was obvious that Peter IS quoting Isaiah 53 throughout this whole section, and applying it to Jesus:
“To this you were called, because Christ SUFFERED for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ (Isaiah 53:9)”
“When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he SUFFERED, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ‘He himself bore our sins’ (cf. Isaiah 53:12) in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’ (Isaiah 53:15)”
I’m sorry if you meant something else….
Right! I figured that. But no, it’s not obvious to me. You don’t have the kinds of data that would make it obvious — an indiction that the idea comes from Isaiah, an actual quotation of a passage, a set of verbatim overlaps, etc. But I”m not against the idea. I just don’t think it’s obvious, and can imagine that in fact these kinds of views of Jesus’ death are what made peole suddenly think of Isaiah 53 (instead of hte other way around)
I wouldn’t say they are misusig or misquoting the Bible; I’d say they are using ancient ways of interpreting texts and are basing their interpretations on the reek version.
Regarding salvation: Since I deconstructed my religious beliefs, one of the doctrines I find odd is that God would somehow be appeased for mankind’s sins by killing his own son. However, if Jesus was actually God incarnate, who lived as a human and suffered and died as a human, then it would actually make more sense to me that God shared our humanity and our suffering in an act of self-sacrifice, and thus was able to forgive us. In your studies do you get any hint that this was part of the reasoning for elevating Jesus to be one with God? Or was it simply that they wanted Jesus to be a superior god and inferior to none?
That God shared our humanity and suffffered for us is an early view. The trick is how that connects to forgiveness. EArly on the connection was that humans killed God (so that he suffered as a human), but once they realize what he has done adn what they have done — they repent and that’s why he forigives us.
Since “Paul uses the judicial, participationist, redemptive, and sacrificial models at one and the same time,” do you think that these were clear models (categories) in Paul’s mind? In other words, would Paul have been able to categorize these models of salvation (using analogous terms) if someone would have asked him what the types of salvation there were or did he not differentiate them and just spoke them by happenstance?
No, I don’t think so. They are a way for readers to disentangle what he probably (I would think) saw as *one* thing (as do many Christians today).
Bart, I’m not sure if you touched on this elsewhere, but how does Romans 9 fit in with your understanding of Paul’s salvation models? In that chapter his theology seems to go off the deep end. God the “potter” creates people to be either vessels of wrath or vessels of glory, “so it depends not upon man’s will or exertion” for which path we take. Paul does see the problem with this view: if one’s path is the will of God, then “how can he (God) still find fault… ?” But Paul’s answer is rather unsatisfying, in effect “you can’t talk back to God”.
Elsewhere Paul says we must accept the gift of the resurrection of Jesus to receive salvation. But isn’t accepting an act of the will? It seems clear that Jesus would have thought so, “Enter by the narrow gate”.
Romans 9-11 takes Paul’s message of salvation as laid out in Romans 1-8 and applies it to the central question he has driving at all along: what is the place of the Jews, God’s chosen people, in the history of his salvation. The “potter” talk is not about individual predestination but about whether God has chosen others besides Jews and whether he has foresaken his original choice of the Jews. These three chapters are pretty complicated to understand!
My reading is that Romans 9 is Paul’s digression, expanding on his thoughts of predestination clearly stated in 8:28-30. He seems to be talking about individuals, Esau and Pharoah given as examples. Some Jews are “called” to accept his gospel while others are not, God having “hardened their hearts”. God has placed a “stumbling stone” for his own “purpose of election”. Paul’s counter question seems the clincher that he is discussing individual predestination, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” His answer is basically, “God can do whatever he wants”. Only then does Paul attempt to explain how Gentiles will be called: grafted onto the olive tree, making Jews jealous so they would return and be re-grafted.
Elsewhere of course, Paul acts as if people do have free will. When exhorting the Corinthians about their behavior, he assumes they can make either good or bad choices. But in discussing the big picture in Romans, will or exertion are of no avail; only God’s election matters, which brings “fruit” of the spirit. Paul seems unaware of the inconsistency. Really much like our own: in everyday matters, even diehard determinists tell their children to choose wisely.
Hello Dr. Ehrman. Do you have or know of any writings on what other authors in the bible thought about salvation? I would like to compare and contrast them. Did they agree with Paul? Did they think something entirely different?
On the blog before I’ve talked about how Luke does not have a doctrine of the atonement, and I’ve talked about the difference between atonement and forgiveness. These seem to me to be the biggest issues. If you do a word search for “atonement” you’ll see a post or two on it.
I wonder if Paul would have agreed with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception…if Mary was sinless, did she require salvation? Did she need baptism? How about the Assumption?
He would have probably found it remarkable. He doesn’t even say anything about the Virgin birth….
I understand it was probably not Paul, but I’ve read how some scholars believe that 1 Tim 1:4-6 refers to the Jesus birth stories, derided as “myths and endless geneologies which promote speculations”, distractions from the true faith. What do you think of that hypothesis, Bart?
It’s a great question; I think I’ll post on it. The main thing is to read the verses in the wider context of 1 Timothy (and Titus — same authors, dealing with similar problems). These appear to be *Jewish* myths and genealogies rooted in the Old Testament; and so they may be elaborate expositions of passages to support heretical views. Nothing in the text itself connects them with the birth narratives.
Glad you like the question 🙂 A source advocating that view which used to be mentioned in Wikipedia is Barrett, J. Edward (1988). “Can Scholars Take the Virgin Birth Seriously?” Bible Review, October, pp. 10-15, 29.
“… they may be elaborate expositions of passages to support heretical views.” Well, the Matthew birth narrative might resemble that remark… ?
I don’t think he’s right aboout that — if he means passages of the Goepels. If he means passages of Jewish Scripture, then yes, that’s often considered to be right.
Dr Ehrman’s soteriological posts packaging the historical contextual melting-pot of salvation into models should be required reading for blog subscribers! He writes: “In both models a person has to appropriate the benefits of Christ’s death..” For fun, pretending to be a litigious lawyer perusing legal documents, I recently scanned the entire New Testament looking for specifications of how the reader may be granted salvation, or be infused with eternal life, or be admitted to the kingdom of God. Evangelicals, ignoring contrasts between the apocalyptic teaching of Jesus and Paul’s redemptive gospel, seem to consider these three outcomes synonymous. My cursory scan counted over 100 diverse New Testamentary instructions for the would-be seeker of salvation. A few differing examples are: John3:16, John6:53, Rom10:9, Acts3:19, 1Tim2:15, 1Pet1:5, Rev20:12. Scriptural instructions for acquiring salvation seem as dismayingly multifarious as Paul’s modular concepts of salvation. Furthermore, none specifies any metric of effective compliance, making a specific individual’s salvation, present or future, additionally difficult to self-verify objectively. Can Dr Ehrman comment, please, on what, if anything, persuaded historical individual Christians of their seemingly joyful, convinced assurance of high-stakes salvation or is personal assurance of salvation an anguished, difficult ideal of modern American evangelical piety?
I’d say that the fervent hope for salvation has been with Christians for as long as there have been Christians, even if they understood different things by it and different mechanisms to get to it.
dr bart when the interpolation in the bible were added like most of them whos the first person who relized it and try to correct it among this differences ?
It depends which one you’re referring to. They were not all done or recognized at the saem time.
what is the interpolation in the nt that believe to be part of the bible for longest time and widely attested until scholars found earliest manuscript and found that verse was fake?
I don’t know.
In this cavalcade of Paul’s hypotheses on the nature of the salvation that Jesus brought the “participationist” model is as close as he gets to placing any responsibility AT ALL on the individual seeking “to inherit eternal life.”
Even then the only requirement seems to be baptism, apparently notwithstanding the frequent cautions Jesus gave against over-emphasizing ritual. All of his other models — judicial, reconciliation, redemption, sacrifice, rescue — are mere reformulations of the “substitutionary atonement” concept.
To borrow from my favorite scholar: “Where is the evidence?”
If Jesus ever hinted at anything remotely like this anywhere over the course of his entire ministry, I must have missed it.
I recall him telling the rich young ruler that salvation comes from following the commandments, the Pharisees from love of God and neighbor, everyone from forgiving trespassers and responding to slappers by turning the other cheek. And those are just his admonitions that come immediately to mind!
The common thread through all Jesus said about salvation is that it depends ENTIRELY on how we live our lives — something which each of us must necessarily do for ourselves.
When did Jesus ever even IMPLY that we can fob off our responsibility onto him?
If salvation comes exclusively and entirely from the death of Jesus in one (or some combination) of Paul’s half-dozen versions of “Substitutionary Atonement,” why do we even bother with the gospels?
The only thing that matters is the justice/reconciliation/redemption/sacrifice/rescue accomplished by the human sacrifice Yahweh made to himself — and, perhaps, our participationist submission to a one-time, ritual ablution.
If it is “by grace you have been saved through faith,” it follows that everything Jesus said and did during his ministry is irrelevant.
Of course, that would actually be a good thing since he was obviously wrong about inheriting eternal life by following the commandments, or even by selling everything you have to give the money to the poor and then adopting his pacifist, luftmensch lifestyle. That would still be “your own doing” and attempting to attain salvation for yourself as “a result of works” (no matter how boast-worthy.)
It’s a good thing Paul did, at least, believe in the Resurrection. If Jesus had stayed in his grave, the church that was founded in his name would certainly have him turning over in it!
I suppose because it’s worth knowing something about the person who saved you.
dr bart is it true that only levite poeple who can write or transmite a scripture, because septuagint were translated by all clan representatives , so is that not violated god law?
No.
dr bart why god would translate his holy langauge from hebrew to greek like septuagint because , the hebrew people prohibited by god to enter egypt after exodus also only Levites that could write torah , i think the whole greek translation is just violating god law , and then new testament people use it, amd do you know where nt writer wrongly used the faulty translation of septuagint that completely render the meaning like in revelation in septuagint said rule by rod of iron but in masoratic break by rod of iron or something like that ,what scholars position on this
God didn’t translate the Bible into Greek. (Just as Allah didn’t translate the Qur’an into English)
dr bart in luke jesus quotes isaiah but he read it in hebrew bcz he in synsgogue but the nt wrote it from septuagint thats why they have recover sight of the blind but they miss the phrase heal the broken hearted, and in great isaiah scroll dss it didnt have recover sight of the blind , so who actually corrupted torah ? is the septuagint insert taht to justify NT later ? but NT miss some phrase and not verbatim, did the jew somehow change the Dss isaiah scroll to deny jesus recover sight of the blind before publicate it or what? can you straighten it here ?
We don’t know if the incident really happened, but probably not. Luke, who records it, would have known Isaiah only in he Greek translation.
dr bart people said the dss more agree with masoratic in its meaning right? not just merely its also written in hebrew ?
We can’t say what the *meaning* of the HB was in the Masoretic text or the Septuagint; we only know which words each used. Most scholars tend to prefer the MT on the whole.
dr bart what is that 1 percent of textual problem that unresolved by textual criticism?
I didn’t know there was 1%. Not 5%? Not… some other number? I’d suggest you ask the person who came up with the number since, frankly, they’re just making it up! And let me know what they say.
dr bart when was mark longer ending was added ? how early ?
and i see alot of thing thats not suppose to be in original so what is the earliest interpolation and what is the later interpolation ? how long the average time they stay in the text? and when serious and capable scholarship actually get rid of it, what is the later addition that was taken out of the bible bcz we only found the earlier manuscript just relatively in recent time?
The first manuscript to have the longer ending is Codex Alexandrinus, around 400 CE. I don’t know the answers to the other questions.
dr bart why sometimes translation are dishonest when translating the old testament? bcz they didnt follow what masoratic said or even septuagint, so this newer bible translation is change the contradiction in old testaemnt so it will have no problem like dan wallace NET bible said in 2 Samuel 21:18–19 its rendered just like kjv which used masoratic but dishonestly change “elhanan killed THE BROTHER of goliath” they put the word the “ brother” right there unlike any other modern translation like NRSV and other modern translations to remove contradiction who killed the goliath, kjv is absolutely render it, and in luke 10:1 its said “after this the lord appointed seventy” in nrsv but in other translation like NET it said seventy two, are they confused about which reading is right? because as i know nrsv is pretty accurate scholar translation why did they evenly divide the translation?
I’m not sure. You’d need to ask the translators.
dr bart i really need clear answer for this , so i want to know an example of NT interpolation taht stay inside the bible for centuries and spread in every bible in the world as regular reading until scholars take it out in scholarly era after found the earlier reading and manuscript, please give me example and how many of them?
The woman taken in adultery and the last twelve verses of Mark.
Dr. Ehrman (BDEhrman) What do you think of Paul’s Christology? Did Paul see Jesus as God or as a mere man? Very specific, regardless of authorship, do you see Colossians 1:15 “firstborn of/over all creation” as saying Jesus is part of creation?
Long answer ot that one (I devote a good amount of space to it in How Jesus Became God). Short answer: Phil. 2:6-11 shows that Paul thought of Jesus as a pre-existent divine being who came to earth and then, because of his obedience by dying for others, was exalted by God to a position equaly to his (God’s) own.