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Loading...Jesus never laughs in the New Testament Gospels. But he does get angry.
In my previous post I tried to show that it happens in the “original” text of Mark 1:41: when a leper asks him to heal him, he (Jesus) gets angry. Later scribes, understandably, changed the verse to say Jesus felt “compassion.” But if Mark actually said he got angry, uh …. what was he angry about?
To answer the question we need to consider a feature of Mark that very few readers have ever noticed. Unlike in Matthew, Luke, or John, Jesus gets angry on several occasions in Mark’s Gospel.
How do we explain that?
Scholars have sometimes noticed that it happens in Mark. But rarely has anyone pointed out that in every instance it appears to involve Jesus’ ability to perform miraculous deeds of healing.
In Mark 9 we find the account of a man pleading with Jesus to cast an evil demon from his son, since the disciples have proved unable to do so: “Often,” he tells Jesus, “it casts him into the fire and into water to destroy him; but if you are able, show us compassion and help us” (9:21-22). The man, in other words, asks for compassion. Strikingly enough, Jesus replies not with compassion but a rebuke: “If you are able?! All things are possible to the one who believes.” (9:23). The man then continues to plead:
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“This proves to be too much for the Pharisees; they leave to make common cause against Jesus with the Herodians”
1. Who were the Herodians?
2. Would the Pharisees have joined with the Herodians, or anyone, in order to kill someone?
3. Would the Herodians want to kill someone like Jesus?
1. It’s a Jewish group that sided with King Herod. 2. We don’t have any record of that. Pharisees themselves had very little political clout, historically, and are not recorded as having much of anything to do with Jesus’ death. 3. We actually have almost no mention of the Herodians in ancient sources.
This seems to be another example of the author of Mark expressing negative feelings toward the Pharisees that represent feeling from his time, not Jesus’ time.
Why do you think the author had the Pharisees hook up with the Herodians?
It’s usually thought to be teaming up of unfriendly rivals for a mutual cause of opposing their joint enemy.
Hi Dr Ehrman have listened to one of a series of three talks you did ages ago about how Jesus became God and have also read other things you have written concerning this topic. From reading these I was under the impression (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here 😂) that you thought Jesus and the son of man are two different people but then in ‘Matthew 17:8 it says:
“And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.””
However surely it would make more sense considering Jesus himself ressurects later on on in the gospel for him to be the son of man. This is unless you don’t think this was an actual saying of Jesus that he spoke and if not am curious if you wouldn’t mind explain what makes you think that?
Yes indeed, the Gospels are quite clear that Jesus — in their narratives — identifies himself as the Son of Man. My argument is that this is a later understanding of Jesus put back on his lips, and that Jesus himself did not call himself that. He considered the Son of Man as a future judge of the earth to be expected soon — and that it was not himself (as in some *others* of his sayings).
All three have “I am willing be you cleansed”
But whereas Matthew follows with “immediately was cleansed his leprosy” and Luke follows with “immediately the leprosy departed him”, Mark has the awkward double “immediately departed from him the leprosy and he was cleansed”.
Isn’t this a clear indication that Mark is conflating Matthew/Luke?
As you might imagine, I think the answer is absolutely yes. 🙂
Maybe I’m misreading this. He is asking whether “Mark is conflating Matthew/Luke?”
Isn’t this the opposite of the standard interpretation that Matthew and Luke both conflate Mark and other sources, such as Q?
But you agreed with him. I thought you held to the idea of Markan priority.
Ah, sorry, yes, that owuld be confusing. It was an inside joke. He and I have gone back and forth on this issue for years, and whenever he comes up with an example of when he thinks Mark must have used Matthew and Luke I disagree and show that it doesn’t show that at all . So its a repeated pattern over and over again. This time I was just being ironic, realizing he knew I wasn’t being serious. I probably shouldnt’ have done that!
Hi Bart, Can you comment on how you are able to be so productive? How do you manage your time?
Ah, maybe I’ll post on that. Short answer: I don’t watch TV (except sports, which this time of year makes life difficult with the NFL!); I’m very disciplined, I focus unusually well, I don’t waste time, and I’m often not pleasant to be with. 🙂
Justin Sledge on his Esoterica youtube channel makes the case in one of his videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6xCyFJ1Ro) that the Apostle Paul received his visions of Jesus via the practice of Merkabah mysticism. He also cites these sources of scholarship in support of this:
Tabor – Paul’s Ascent to Paradise – 979-8676875725
” – Things Unutterable – 978-0819156440
Morray-Jones – The Jewish Mystical Background of Paul’s Apostolate Part 1 & 2
Segal – Two Powers in Heaven – 978-1602585492
” – Paul the Convert – 978-0300052275
The case he makes seems quite compelling to me, but appears to be a minority view among historians. Curious if you’ve seen this theory before, and what you think of it.
Well, maybe. But all we know is what he says, and as you can see, he doesn’t say anything about it. There are other kinds of mystical experiences and practices beside Merkabah.
Jesus getting angry doesn’t make sense. Would He pretend to be angry? Would Jesus have a hissy fit if a strap on His sandal broke at an inconvenient time?
I don’t know, but I would. And I like to think I’m a lot like Jesus….
Hi Bart. Quick question: reading on the different criteria used in the quest for the historical Jesus I came up with the criterion of embarrassment. I have read people mention that it is basically used by Christian apologists. Its definition sounds very similar to the criterion of dissimilarity as I’ve heard them from you.
Are there any differences between both criteria? Thanks!
Some people differentiate between the two, but I subsume embarassment into dissimilarity. It’s one of the ways a tradition about Jesus can be dissimilar to what his later followers would have wanted to say about him.
He probably gets angered cause he probably can’t really heal anyone, it makes no sense that the Pharisees would want Jesus dead if they actually witnessed him healing someone right in front of them, I think if Jesus really healed a man right in front them, they would done everything possible to protect Jesus not kill him, he been a great weapon. I mean I’m comically why every time Roman’s killed Jew Jesus’s could bring right back to life the Roman’s could never win lol
Why is everyone so interested in Jesus?
If he hadn’t lived and died, the Western world would be unrecognizably different. So even those who don’t believe in him often realize how important he is to our society and culture. Without Jesus, no Christianity. Would we have had a Michelangelo, a Mozart, or a Montaigne?
Dear Doc.
As rather remotely tangential thought, why is it that of all the surviving major religions of today, Christianity is the only one whose founder is considered by his followers to be himself God?
I’m not sure there’s an answer to that — but I’d also say that there is something that is unique to every founder of every religion. There certainly have been religions thorughout history who worshiped their founder as a divine being.
The other thing I’d say is that Christianity is not the religion of the founder himself, who was Jewish and woh did not preach what his followers who started a religion after his death did — so it’s a much debated point as to whether to call Jesus the “founder” since the religion based on him started only when his followers came to think he had been raised from the dead.
Bart:
Your insight about healing and anger in the Gospel of Mark is interesting. However, Mark 11 provides two exceptions to your rule that “in every instance it (Jesus’ anger) appears to involve Jesus’ ability to perform miraculous deeds of healing.” In chapter 11 he first gets angry at a fig tree and curses it (no healing). Then he gets angry at the money changers and overturns their tables etc. Again, no healing.
To me it seems both of these cases are motivated by the same problem. In Mark’s account, the Triumphal Entry fizzles out. Jesus looks around and leaves without teaching anyone or confronting the money changers. Matthew and Luke both place all the action in the same day. I think Mark probably has it right, and the other gospels changed it to make his entry a triumph rather than a flop. In Mark’s version Jesus comes back the next day, cursing the fig tree along the way and then venting his frustration on the money changers. Bottom line: Jesus got angry in both cases because he was expecting a better reception when he entered Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna!
That’s right. I was referring to instances when he got angry with an individual or group of individuals he is personally dealing with (the Temple scene is close to that, of course) (and by the way, the Temple scene and the fig tree scene are *closely* tied together, with the latter usually being seen as a symbolic expressoin of the same sentiment found in the cleansing itself. God will destroy those allegedly on his side)
That’s right. I was referring to instances when he got angry with an individual or group of individuals he is personally dealing with (the Temple scene is close to that, of course) (and by the way, the Temple scene and the fig tree scene are *closely* tied together, with the latter usually being seen as a symbolic expressoin of the same sentiment found in the cleansing itself. God will destroy those allegedly on his side)
Hi Bart thanks so much for taking the time to respond was also wondering then if you think others put this on his lips later on as if Jesus explicitly never claimed to be the son of God why would someone make stuff up about him unless you think it was just something that somehow developed as a result of the problems that come with oral tradition although it still seems quite a significant thing for someone to change when retelling it when they had clear information that he thought otherwise unless you reckon they had malicious intent?
Later followers of Jesus believed he was the Son of God and so reported his saying that he wsa who they “knew” he was.
before reading your post or comments. probably my thoughts-pre 2015. before the time I was introduced to U or Dr Levine- If U Were divine, why would Jesus want to stick around at most 35 years & out of “as one day n God’s time is 1000 years in human” https://biblehub.com/2_peter/3-8.htm
If God repented in Genesis 6:6, there would not be Genesis 8:13 In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was fully dry.
For someone, many folks have declared as Lord & Savior for over 2 thousand years. God reneged. Thanks be that USA founding fathers were if Deists!
In the Jane Roberts Seth Material, a popular internal source in the 1970s and of which I value, Seth makes point that the humor of Jesus was lost in the written gospels. For example, when Jesus said to enter the kingdom you must “love your neighbor”, this was somewhat of a joke, because people in that time commonly hated their neighbors.
The very foundation of Christianity stands on a false premise that hinges on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The conspirators turned against Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy-Caesar seeing he would be heir to the throne of which Octavian was temporarily holding. Octavian had Cleoopatra and her son moved to Tarsus, and her son was given a code name Philemon, for the conspirators had killed her brother in Alexandria believing he was her son. Other’s also took code names. John son of Zebedee took name John the Baptist (in Ephesus) and then Apollos for traveling with Paul. Paul named John Mark Onesimus (“Useful to Me”). The Christian effort was motivated by Octavian and the Sanhedrin working toward a peaceful religion of the Jews. This is how Paul was funded and why the Roman Army commonly arrested him to protect him from Jewis.
In previous post I forgot to mention that Philimon (Cleopatra and Julius Caesar’s son) married a Jewish woman and she had a son: Paul of Tarsus, and he joined his dad in the Roman/Sanhedrin effort to build a peaceful Jewish church. In Ephesus Paul came into contact with followers of John the Baptist baptizing on the Cayster River. The River Jordon was a ruse for explaining where John (Son of Zebedee) had previously been. Baptizment was intended for eliminating circumcision to baptizing as the “covenant”. Cleopatra’s goal was restore the Pharoah’s Dynasty through her son Ptolemy-Caesar (Philimon) and preserve inner knowledge of the Book of the Dead. Name Philimon means “One who shows kindness”. Cleopatra was 1st incarnation of the Godhead in this ne incarnational cycle, her son linked by blood to Paul of Tarsus who built the Christian Churches, her 2nd incarnation Jesus was born in Yathrib Arabia, to be later renamed Medina (“The Enlightened City). Muhammad knew that this city was the city of the birth of Jesus, but his task serveral hundred years after Jesus was was to unify the warring factions: Jews and Christians within and without the Crucifixion narrative.