Loading...In a previous post I discussed the prophet Joel, who used a disaster that had struck as the occasion to make his proclamation about the will of God. A horrible plague of locusts had hit the land of Judah that had decimated the crops and food supply; Joel proclaimed that it was a warning from God that if his people did not return to him, matters would get worse – they would be invaded by a foreign army from the north (the Assyrians) and face massive destruction. This would be the “day of the LORD,” which was not to be seen as a happy prospect.
But as with many prophets of coming destruction, Joel also indicated that God would have pity on his people if they would turn to him in repentance. After the horrible events to come, God would bring salvation to Judah, removing the foreign threat and restoring the earth; there would be abundant rain, plentiful crops, productive livestock. The years of drought, famine, and military invasion would end, and all would be good.
And the blessings would not be only material. God would
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Mark 16:17-18 speaks of signs that will accompany those who believe – are these signs that the Spirit has come upon them or is Mark not talking about the Spirit?
It’s hard to know. He doesn’t menaiton the Spirit. (Of course, these verses were later *added* to Mark; they aren’t original. But whoever wrote them doesn’t stipulate that the signs will be empowered by the Spirit)
Dear Bart, in Acts according to F.F.Bruce, the author a few times identifies the spirit with the angel of the Lord.
An OT parallel of the “lord” Elijah ascension and gift of the spirit to his successor disciple/servant Elisha, among wind and fire implies angelic presence.
Jewish tradition has considered Gabriel as the spirit/wind prince of fire who taught Joseph the 70 languages of the heathens.
Do you think Luke has some angelic (fire and wind) activity in mind when he depicts the gift of the spirit in Acts?
I”m not sure which passages Bruce has in mind. My sense is that Acts sees the Spirit as a more exalted entity than angelic. Angels do carry out God’s will, but they are servants/ministers, whereas the Spirit in Acts is more like God’s own presence among his people.
I realize this is somewhat off-topic, but is there a basic history of ancient Israel/Judah that you would recommend as an introduction?
You might check out the books by William Dever.
How should we reconcile the pentacostal event account in Acts with John 20:22 in which the Holy Spirit is received in his first resurrection appearance? Same “entity”? With all the various incantations of the “Holy Spirit” it’s hard to keep track. In John 14: 26, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a person or personal God. In Matt. 13: 16, the Holy Ghost becomes a spirit. In Acts 2. I, the Holy Ghost is averred to be “a mighty, rushing wind.” Luke 2: 26, the Holy Ghost is the author of a revelation or inspiration. And on and on. Such are the ever-shifting scenes presented in the Scripture panorama of the Holy Ghost. Looking forward to your next views on Trinitarian development (BTW….just finished Lost Christianities – Excellent!)
My sense is that they are at odds with each other.
Thank you Bart; this is gripping stuff. There are lots of accounts of how Christology developed in Christian communities (from you amongst many others); but I have not seen nearly so much attention to the development history of Christian understandings of the Holy Spirit.
One question is prompted; and I look to hear your views on it.
You state: “The Spirit is God’s presence on earth. It provides peace and assurance among those who are the followers of the messiah; it *works great miracles*; it proclaims God’s word and his directions through dreams, visions, and prophecies; and it spreads the news of salvation throughout the world”
Paul says (I Corinthians 12:28). “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then *deeds of power*, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues.”
Am I imagining things: or does Pauls’ understanding of the ‘Gifts of the Spirit’ reckon ‘deeds of power’ with a rather lesser degree of importance than do other New Testament writers?
‘Miraculous powers’ appear to be in the fourth grade on Paul’s priority list – just ahead of healing, assistance, leadership and tongues.
Yes, I’ve often wondered what this “first, second, and third” was all about. Is it a set of priorities? Seems like apostles would indeed be at the top of such a list. But I don’t really know. Possibly the list is meant specifically to minimize the importance of the opponents in Corinth who are emphasizing their greater spiritual powers and tongues-speaking ability, and Paul is saying that apostles (of which he is one!) are really the top of the line?
Yes, Bart; I am sure you are right that Paul presents the ‘gifts’ in *his* ministry as ‘higher’ than those claimed by his Corinthian opponents.
Earlier – at 1 Corinthians 2: 10-13 – Paul makes a clear distinction between ‘the spirit of the man’ and the ‘Spirit of God’. My understanding is that Paul sees this distinction continuing in the life of believers; their individual gifts ‘in the Spirit’ are not actions of their own powers augmented by the Spirit; but rather the single power of the Spirit working variously within individual believers acting collectively for the service of all. (I Corinthians 12:7). Whereas, as I understand it, Paul acuses his Corinthian opponents of regarding spiritual gifts as enhanced personal qualities.
For Joel – and arguably in Acts at Pentecost – the Spirit is primarily evident in outpoured prophecy, but for Paul it is in power and capability; albeit a power that paradoxically is currently only accessible through individual weakness, as in 2 Corithians 12:10 “whenever I am weak, then I am strong”. Christ, through the resurrection, has ‘already’ passed through weakness to strength, but for believers, ‘not yet’.
It makes me wonder exactly what Paul meant by apostle.. he wasn’t one of the 12 so.. could additional others be post-Jesus apostles. Maybe others made that claim but we don’t have their writings preserved. It makes me wonder “how unique was Paul in his claims”? And
How does one get to be considered a post-Jesus apostle? What does history tell us about this, Bart?
Perhaps Paul meant that God specifically works in apostles (however defined), prophets (through mechanisms we don’t understand) and it’s less restrictive on who can be a teacher. Teachers can just learn from Apostles and teach others.
Since “apostle” means “one who is sent” (i.e., on a mission) it’s usually thought that Paul believed that apostles were those Christ appeared to after his resurrection in order to send out on the gospel mission (including himself, he last of the group).
Bart, thank you for providing so much perspective on the beginnings of Christianity and its early development.
Is there any place we can go to find a timeline of what Jesus’ apostles/followers believed about him at various points from the beginning of his ministry (or life) to Pentecost (and beyond)? I understand those beliefs and points would be different for different gospels, letters, and Acts of the Apostles that will complicate the process. I am just trying to find a concise list to show the development. Perhaps there might be columns side by side to compare the points from different NT books. I quite understand that this timeline is likely to differ from specialist to specialist since interpretation of wording is subjective.
It would be also very helpful to have the passages identified that provide us a view of the belief. I know there are books on this including your own works, but I have to admit the amount of information and subsequent discussions makes this a rather unwieldy body of information for the non-specialist to retain. I would appreciate this even for just one book of the NT.
I’m afraid there’s no way to make a time line; for one thing, different disciples may well have believed different things about him. Almost certainly there wasn’t one set of beliefs about Jesus in the year 40 then a different set of beliefs everyone had in 50 then another in 60, if you see what I mean. One big problem is that different people believed different things at the same time; another is that many people changed their minds but in different directions at the same time and at different times….
Spirit in the Dark: Aretha Franklin with Ray Charles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iOMxlf6BoE
Looks like you’ll have copy and paste, and also set aside 8 minutes of your life.
Sorry; I couldn’t resist.
Does Acts make significant use of Joel or is Joel just a starting point (or not at all)?
It’s a starting point.
Hi Bart,
My comment here digresses from his post, but I want to say that merely one week of reading your blog has greatly helped me with my biblical studies, theology, and faith. (I also enjoyed a vacation including 3 days at the beach that gave me some extra time for reflection.)
First, I will mention some of my background. I believe in continuationist Christianity since the fall of 1984. That is, I believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit described in 1 Cor 12-14 and Acts continue through today. My faith evolved way too much to summarize in 200 words. But highlights include incorporating the documentary hypothesis some time back in the early 1990s.
I recently realized that I spent decades stretching hermeneutics and logic to the max to support the full inspiration of the Christian Bible. For decades I worked with full dynamic inspiration and doctrinal inerrancy. But I recently realized that my toeing the line of full inspiration has not been important for my beliefs in the Trinity and Christian redemption. I admitted to myself that I believe in the partial inspiration of the Christian Bible and feel much freer. Thank you!
Mr. Ehrman, my question is a bit (or a lot) off topic. In the Acts (5:16 and I gather in other places as well) and, of course, pretty much everywhere in the gospels, one of the most frequent miracle(?) is the cast out of “impure spirits” (or “demons” like in Mark 16:9, the added verse, where Jesus had driven out of Mary Magdalene 7 of them – by the way, are “impure spirits” and “demons” the same thing?).
I just wonder if, for believing christians (at least, believing strongly in the Bible), there are indeed so many cases of demons possessing people all the time. I mean, if Mary Magdalene, one of -if not THE- the closest companions of Jesus had in her in a random day 7 demons, how many demons are the rest of us suppose to have?
I think the point of these passages is that Jesus associated with those who were deeply troubled, outcast, and considered to be controlled by forces of evil, not the upright and righteous. Her case appears to be unusual but not unprecedented (cf. “Legion”)
Dr. Ehrman,
Interesting post, to say the least. Obviously, as the early Christian church told their story, they did so with the Hebrew Scriptures wide open to define the current and coming age. As we reason with the resurrection, it is clear your position is, at the very least, some early followers experienced a vision or were convinced they did. How about this “extraordinary” Pentecost event? Is this event something early Christians believed in fulfillment of Joel or simply Acts way of reconditioning and reintroducing an Old text to elaborate on the current situation?
I don’t think it actually happened, but that it is Acts way of describing how the Spirit came upon Jesus’ followers and helped them establish the church.
Thank you, once again, for your explanation of scripture. I notice that like many others, you use the term /it/ to describe the Holy Spirit. Did those who wrote in ancient times describe the third Person of the Trinity?
Sometimes even the NT the Spirit is referred to as “he.” The problem is that the word “spirit” in Greek is neuter (every noun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter, sometimes independently of any gender it actually has or if it has no gender at all. Tables and roads, and lamps are all given genders in the LANGUAGE). So Spirit is neuter but sometimes referred to as a He. But more often as an It.
Is it possible this expectation of the spirit, along with the visions and dreams, primed his followers to think he appeared to them? Why does it need to be that they first believed he appeared to them and then later turned to these verses for explanation?
It’s usually thought that the idea the Spirit would come and that this had been fulfilled at some point arose only after the expected imminent return of Jesus never happened; his followers had to account for that, and they came up with the explanation that it was all according to plan, and that the Spirit had been provided to assist his follower in the time before he did finally arrive. That would suggest they were already believers long before the doctrine of the coming of the Spirit was devised.
Indeed Bart; but that presupposes shared experiences amongst the followers of Jesus that they can then articulate as ‘the coming of the Spirit”; or as “the gifts of the Spirit”. The doctrine of the Spirit, in this sense, is not simply a rationalisation of the non-return of Jesus; it is also a way of understanding phenomena that the believing communities are experiencing as real events and transformations in their own lives. These public phenomena appear to include prophecy, tongues, healings, signs and portents.
So Paul, writing to the Galatians, reminds them of “God giving you the Spirit and working miracles amongst you” (3:5). And in Romans 15: 19 Paul writes of what Christ had done through him “By word and deed, by the power of signs and portents, and by the power of the Holy Spirit”.
For Paul, these experiences – God’s gifts of the Spirit – can be seen as a ‘down-payment’ (arrabon) for the promised glory of the resurrection. 2 Corinthians 5:5; “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee”.
I don’t think these experiences were shared by all Christians, no. But I do think there were views held by large groups of Christians, who told the stories. And I agree the views were held because they believed in certain phenomena — much as why Pentecostal Christians today account for the gifts they manifest in their services.
Does this idea – that the coming of the Spirit is a rationale to explain why the earthly kingdom hasn’t arrived decades after the crucifixion – suggest a relatively late dating for Luke/Acts?
It doesn’t require a date in, say, the second century, but it almost certainly suggests some time has passed and the expectatoin of hte imminent end is fading; Luke Acts gives numerous other indications of that.
In this article, you use the word “salvation” several times, seemingly assuming that it means the same to everyone. For most Christians, it has come to mean that they are going to be resurrected to some kind of paradise after death. I think it is important to remember that the first Christians, including those who experienced the events of the Pentecost described in Acts, were Jews who would have understood the word in its Old Testament context. In the OT, the word “salvation” appears 84 times, but nowhere there does it refer to anything that happens after death. Rather, it refers to God’s intervention to spare either individuals or the nation from such threats as sickness, natural disasters, or foreign invasion. The linking of the word to something that would happen after death seems to be something that entered Christianity some considerable time after the events described in the early chapters of Acts.
What has been odd to me about this, is when some Christians started thinking that the Spirit had stopped speaking with Jesus (or at least revealing “important” things), I guess. But while the RC church apparently believed this, at the same time many mystics had and continue to have revelations. It’s very puzzling. If you look at Wikipedia, Charismatics, Pentecostals, Quakers and the LDS believe in continuing communication with the Holy Spirit.. yet others don’t?
Then who are we praying to? Or aren’t we supposed to hear anything back? Puzzling indeed.
Yes, it became a big issue, especially during the Montanist controversy. The big issue was that if hte Spirit could speak to individuals, then there was no way to control what people thought/believed, becuase they could claim the Spirit told them directly. THis may well have contributed to the need to have established, written authorities — that is, some kind of canon of sacred Christian Scripture.
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Acts seems to be a bit of a hodgepodge of old traditions that predate even Paul, and newer theologically driven scenes that lack any historicity. All these elements were drawn together but not seamlessly. If the same person who wrote Luke wrote Acts, that unknown author seemed to lack the sophistication needed to make a more consistent amalgam of the source material available to him or even her. So, if someone wanted to argue that the author of Luke and Acts was guided by a Holy Spirit, that Holy Spirit had definite limitations! Or, couldn’t compensate for the limitations of the author, In which case, what’s the point of invoking a Holy Spirit in the first place? The disciples speak in foreign languages? Fluently? With or without accents? Perfect or imperfect pronunciations? Limited or unlimited vocabulary? Technical questions too easily glossed over strain one’s credulity.
Fluently, no accent, perfect pronunciation, and unlimited vocabulary!
I wish I’d had the Holy Spirit in me when I was studying Latin!
Is your description above what Mark is referring to in chapter 1, where John baptizes with water but Jesus will baptize you with the Holy Spirit? It would presuppose a divine plan of salvation, though it is kind of a clumsy metaphor
YEs, both are referring to how Christ will bestow the Spirit on his followers.
thank you
Do you think that the rising status of the spirit of god as a member of the trinity came about at least in part because Jesus’ failure to return quickly resulted in a reliance on the spirit as a fall back position? In other words, if an earthly kingdom of god was going to take a while, they needed some way to feel the presence of god in their lives until it happened. It’s similar to the way that Jesus’ resurrection snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Jesus died.
In a sense, yes: the Spirit shows that the work of Jesus goes on and that it is all according to plan.
The earliest followers after Jesus didn’t have that idea, since they thought the end would be right away….