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Loading...In a previous post I argued that Christians invented the idea of a suffering messiah. Because Jesus was (for them) the messiah, and because he suffered, therefore the messiah *had* to suffer. That was clear and straightforward for the Christians. They backed up their newly devised theology by appealing to Scripture, finding passages of the Bible where a righteous person suffered but was then vindicated by God, passages such as Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Psalm 69 and so on. They reinterpreted these passages (where the messiah is never mentioned) in a messianic way, and they were massively successful in their reinterpretations. Many Christians today cannot read these passages without thinking (knowing!) that they refer to Jesus, the suffering messiah.
But why would the messiah have to suffer? Yes, for Christians, it was because it was “predicted.” But why would God predict it? That is, why would he want his messiah to suffer? This is where Christians came up with yet another innovation, the idea that the death of the messiah brought about the salvation of the world.
It should be fairly obviously from what I have said before that since there were no Jews who thought that the messiah had to die, there were also no Jews who thought that the messiah had to die for the sins of the world. So why did Christians think so?
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Thank you Mr EHrman, you have shed a lot of light in helping my journey with religion. I feel sad the way religion scares people into believing what they say is true. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I started researching for myself and finding out all the lies. It’s something how people would rather some on else take the blame for what we do ourselves. Thanks for sharing what you have found. Millie
You can very easily see that the new salvation narrative is just a flawed human effort. When you’re desperately twisting the Old Testament scripture to justify your belief in Jesus, the mouldy fruits of desperation can show.
They felt that by hanging on a tree, Jesus became accursed by God due to Deuteronomy. But this is absurd.
God speaks of those who have committed a sin, a crime against God that’s worthy of death. If they forcefully and wrongfully hangs person X on a crucifix, the crime is committed by those who wrongfully hung someone on a tree.
To make matters worse, look at John 8 to get an example. Jesus refers to the Jews as ‘sons of the devil’ because they reject Jesus. The true Father of the Old Testament is the God of Jesus now. Jesus apparently worked miracles by the permission of God. So the Jews forcefully put the sinless Jesus on the cross and he all of a sudden is cursed by God? God is no longer on the side of the Jews, but the Jewish Christians now.
Necessity is the father of invention, lies included.
How does the Christian application of the sacrifice of animals to Jesus’ execution work with the civilized idea that human sacrifice is wrong? I am assuming that most “civilized” communities in the first century had done away with human sacrifice. But for Jesus’ death, they explain it needing to happen because of the need for a human sacrifice due to the sins of all other people.
I guess the idea is that you shouldn’t sacrifice another human, but humans do sometimes sacrifice themselves.
in other words god so loved the world that he did what any other human would do. in other words god is just like a man. thinks like a man and does what a man does.
Rich feast mentioned in Isaiah 25 is about jesus death, it also says that he is the yahweh. Abraham believed human sacrifice. He believed that issac is the god choosed human sacrifice.
I’ve come to believe that the idea of the atoning messiah perhaps came as a reasult of the destruction of the Temple ca. 70 AD. The death of Jesus was then interpreted as the ultimate sacrifice.
The problem is that Jesus was understood to be an atoning sacrifice decades before the Temple was destroyed. (See, e.g., Romans 3, written 15 years earlier or so)
Yes. I realized that the minute I wrote the comment 🙂
What I should have said is that the destruction of the temple reinforced, among Christian jews, the interpretation of the crucifiction as an atoning sacrifice.
Wow. Your most likely last post of the year quite possibly your best post of the year!
“In terms of eschatology, the resurrection of Jesus showed that the resurrection expected for the end of time had already started. And so Christians thought they were living in the last days, with just a short time before the cataclysmic break in history was to occur and God’s kingdom was to arrive on earth.”
But they’d already believed they were living in the last days, right?
While I understand what you’re saying about “atonement,” I think it’s strange that they felt they needed an explanation like this for Jesus’s suffering and death. His supposed “resurrection” was hailed as the beginning of the *general* resurrection – proof that it was really going to happen. And there might have been doubts that he’d ever *died* if he hadn’t been executed – in the most public, attention-getting of ways.
My point is that they originally thought the end was “near” and when they came to believe in the resurrection they thought that is was “here” (i.e. now beginning)
But the main point I was trying to make was that if his supposed resurrection “proved” that, they should have been able to “see” in retrospect that it had been necessary for him to *die* – and die in a very public way, so his *having been dead* couldn’t be disputed. So there was no real need to come up with another explanation (the “atonement” idea) for his death by crucifixion.
The problem is why he couldn’t simply die. (Which, btw, the messiah was not supposed to do) Why be humiliated and tortured to death?
We’re at a point where Jesus’s followers have convinced themselves he’d risen from the dead in a “glorified” body…that told them the “general” resurrection was beginning…and since they’d already been sure he was the Messiah, they now “understood” that the Messiah’s role had always been meant to include his resurrection.
Obviously, they were “stuck with” the manner of his death. But death by crucifixion should have been easier to explain than death from, say, pneumonia. How many people would have witnessed a death from natural causes? How many would have seen the dead body? Horrible as it was, death by crucifixion ruled out any possibility of opponents’ being able to argue that the man hadn’t really been dead. So that could explain why – as those early followers thought – God, and Jesus himself, had made that choice.
Someone who loved complicated theories undoubtedly did come up with the “atonement” notion. I’m just saying it wasn’t necessary.
From the Torah, it would seem that God abhors child sacrifices (Deut 12:31-32), each person is responsible for their own sins (no substitutions allowed, Deut 24:16) and even a blood sacrifice was not an absolute requirement for the forgiveness of sins, at least for the poor (Lev 5:11-13).
With these in mind, wouldn’t the idea of Jesus being an atoning sacrifice have been nearly as offensive to most Jews back in the day as the idea of an executed Messiah?
These early Jewish Christians sure didn’t seem to have much of a marketable platform, at least among their own people.
You make a good point, Jim, as it is my understanding that God abhorred all forms of human sacrifice, and punished the Israelites for the practice, accusing them of following “pagan” gods in so doing.
It is also my understanding that blood sacrifice isn’t what brought about atonement/forgiveness of sins; rather the repentance that preceded the sacrifice that did. Considering the near entire book of Leviticus, in particular, as well as the book of Jonah, I have come to believe that like baptism, blood sacrifice served as a sign of one’s having already repented, either individually or collectively.
As a Christian, as most Christians are, I was taught and fully convinced that blood sacrifice was necessary for atonement, based on such passages as Leviticus 17:11 and that Jesus’ death and resurrection put an end to the need for animal sacrifices, once and for all, which made little sense of the numerous passages that make it quite clear, blood sacrifice is not required.:
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [Psalm 51:16-17]
and don’t forget that god never makes a sacrifice for humans. sacrifices, according to the torah, are for god. in christianity it is reversed.
Thank you for another great post Dr. Ehrman. What are your thoughts on Simon of Peraea and the Gabriel Revelation stone? They seem to predate Jesus and also refer to a suffering Messiah. If this stone is in fact authentic, and if it does predate Jesus, could it not have influenced Jesus and his followers perception on the idea of a suffering Messiah?
The problem with the Gabriel Stone is that the key word involving suffering is not actually on the stone but has to be reconstructed (the inscription is faulty at precisely this point); most scholars appear to think that we can’t use it as evidence, for that reason.
And I still think they couldn’t have made such an abrupt hairpin turn without Jesus preparing them in advance. Telling them he was going to die. Because he’d despaired of changing the world any other way.
And it’s impossible to prove either way.
I agree that Jews before Jesus’ time did *not* believe scriptures such as Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and Psalm 69 referred to the coming Messiah. But are there any current Christian “scholars” who claim that Jewish people *did* believe before Jesus’ time that those scriptures referred to the coming Messiah?
I imagine many evangelical scholars think this.
DR Ehrman:
I don’t believe the sacrificial system was instituted by God. The only feast where a lamb was sacrificed and was eaten was the Passover lamb to remind the Jews of how God delivered them from death in Egypt. All the other sacrifices and the book of Leviticus was The priests idea, not God’s. Note what God says to the jews gathered at the Temple through Jeremiah and Isaiah the prophets.
Jeremiah 7:21-Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 22-“For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.
23“But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24“Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25“Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. 26“Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.
Isaiah 1:11“What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?”
Says the LORD.
“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
And the fat of fed cattle;
And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.
Dr. Ehrman, can it be argued that the entirety of the Gospel of John is essentially a soteriological justification for Jesus’ death and resurrection? The Gospel narrative itself literally begins with John the Baptist calling Jesus the “lamb of God”. And the Passion narrative at the end is altered from the synoptic consensus of the day after the Passover seder, to the day OF the Passover seder, implying that Jesus was being slaughtered along with the animals at the Temple–a juxtaposition that futher reinforces the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death. I can imagine that early christians were strenously trying to reconcile Jesus’ (seemingly inexplicable) death with the redemptive act of cultic sacrifice, and they found a rationalization in seeing Jesus, literally, as the most perfect sacrifice possible–the most unblemished animal possible, Jesus the man. It’s almost brilliant the way the early christians were able to rationalize and justify such a disgraceful and ignoble death that until today remains totally unredeemed (assuming the End of Days doesn’t arrive before you read this comment).
Yes, in a sense *all* the Gospels are in fact explanations for why Jesus died. (Mark has often been called “A passion narrative with a long introduction”; the same applies to John)
Let me see if I have this straight, the triune God who is the omnipotent, omniscient creator of all sends himself to earth as a human to suffer and die to atone for the sins of everyone else? Everyone else that he also created in forms that would sin, knowing they would sin (he’s omniscient) when, being omnipotent, he could have created them without sin? And, this was his plan all along to change his relationship with his creations and bring salvation to them from himself? Rather than just forgiving them for sinning, or forgiving himself for creating the sinners..?
1. You said, “obviously, for the Christians, Jesus was God’s loved one” but why would that have been obvious–as if no one had performed miracles? Because no one had been as wise or as loving and forgiving–i.e. they loved his love, loved him, and loved his teachings and therefore he must be God’s loved one?
2. Then you say “Clearly, for them, Jesus was not being punished for something he did wrong, for any sin(s) that he himself committed. What sins? He was God’s special chosen one, the most righteous man who had ever lived.” Why would they have believed that? King David was no angel yet God loved him and he was anointed. “Messiah” did not imply “without sin.” Why do you think they believed this about Jesus–because of knowing him, witnessing him and his goodness? Even so, how could they know he was “the most righteous man who had ever lived”?
3. You pointed out, above, that sometimes humans sacrifice themselves. But Christians believed this sacrifice was part of God’s plan. So it wasn’t just Jesus’ initiative; God intended it.
1. I said “obviously” because they were following him as opposed to someone else; 2. I’m not sure why they believed he was righteous, but the certainly did. I assume it’s because he was a holy man. 3. Yes, God intended it and Christ did it (in the view of the early Xns)
What about Mark? Doesn’t he make it seem like Christ never intended it? He seems in such despair throughout the ordeal….not the attitude of one who knows it is part of a plan.
Yes, Mark is ambivalent: Jesus does predict his coming death and resurrection three times, but when it comes to the moment, he doesn’t seem to understand what is happening to him.
“Rather than just forgiving them for sinning, or forgiving himself for creating the sinners..?” Yes, as Jews say, “Why go through a middle man when we can go straight to the top!?”
Christianity is a racket . It creates phony PROBLEM and offers phony SOLUTION.
You are all born sinners, PROBLEM.
Christ is the only way you may be saved, SOLUTION.
This would make a great trade book topic…
This reminds me of last year in December when I was researching the reign of Christ during the millennium. I came across a website that said animal sacrifices would resume. I thought it was a fluke, but then I found scriptures supporting it and other sources stating the same thing. It was one of the things that made me question the bible’s divine inspiration. I don’t know why certain passages in the bible disturb me now but didn’t bother me before. It’s like I was comatose and just woke up!
Also, the Bible never claims to be the Word of God.
Bart, what do make of the assertion by Senior Fellow Israel Knohl of Hebrew University that a suffering messiah and subsequent resurrection (or a sign) after three days is a motif that was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story? Knohl says there is a growing body of evidence to this effect, including the Jeselson Stone (also called Hazon Gabriel or Gabriel’s Revelation) which attributes this narrative to a Jewish rebel named Simeon, killed in 4 BC by the Romans.
The problem is that the inscription on the stone is missing precisely the word that relates to the question of suffering!
Check out the webpage of DR. VICTOR SASSON regarding the Gabriel Stone. His Blog: Hebrew and Aramaic Epigraphy. Sasson deals with Israel Knohl’s interpretation of the text.
The Vision of Gabriel and Messiah in Mainstream Judaism and in Christinaity: Textual, Philological, and Theological Comments
”What has been said so far in this essay is relevant to the question whether or not there could be mention of a dead and a risen messiah in the Vision of Gabriel. Mainstream Hebraic/Jewish thought – based on the Hebrew Bible – would have entertained no such reference to, or belief in, a dead and risen Jewish mashiah. A Jewish mashiah would bring life and hope and a new era of near utopian prospects, not idealized suffering and death as portrayed in Christianity”.
http://victorsasson.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/vision-of-gabriel-and-messiah-in.html
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Richard Dawkins:
” Among all the ideas ever to occur to a nasty human mind (Paul’s of course), the Christian “atonement” would win a prize for pointless futility as well as moral depravity.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7007065.ece
(sorry, link won’t work without a subscription to The Times…….)
Rather than pointing fingers at the NT writers regarding ‘moral depravity’ – methinks it would be much more profitable to realize that their flesh and blood sacrifice theology is just that – theology or philosophy. Within that context, an intellectual context, sacrifice, death and resurrection of ideas has ‘salvation’ potential. Translating that theology into a context of real flesh and blood is, as Dawkins so rightly said, ‘moral depravity’. Context matters – what works for theology, what works within an intellectual context, does not work, has no value, within a context of real flesh and blood. The NT writers were not anti-humanitarian – no Jewish writer is going to find value, salvation value, in human sacrifice. The human mind sings a very different tune to that required for living humanely. 😉
John 1:29 (vulgate) agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi
(Usually written as ‘qui tollis peccata mundi’) lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world
Christianity: A pagan death cult, pure and simple.
But what music has been set to these words! To die for!
How much were the original Jewish Christians influenced by the mythologies of surrounding pagan cultures, if at all? While early Christians looked to the Hebrew Bible for confirmation of a suffering Messiah, the description of a dying and resurrected god-man certainly resembles pagan mythologies such as those of Dionysus or Osiris. It seems that the early Christians intended to cover all bases and appeal to both Jews and pagans.
It’s hard to know about the first followers of Jesus; my guess is that as Palestinian Jews from the rural hinterlands, they knew very little about pagan religions and culture.
A terrific and very helpful post. I see the making of another good Ehrman book: This one about vicarious atonement. It could be titeled: “The Atonement: How Jesus Became the Savior”
I have understood that NT has around 10-30 greek words translated to sin. None being the literal greek word for sin i.e. alitros. The most frequent word used for sin i.e. “hamartia” actually meaning “to miss the mark”.
> Jesus “must have died for the sins of other people”
– Did our concept of sin belong in the doctrine of apocalyptic Jews and the followers of Jesus?
– I have assumed that NT translations are intentionally supporting latter Christian doctrines about sin, hell, etc. Wouldn’t your theory require that the proto-orthodox Christian doctrine was already quite developed around the time of the crucifixion?
– Did Jesus die on the cross (in the original manuscripts) for all the various greek words translated to sin or only for hamarmatia or maybe for something else?
1. Yes, apocayptic Jews had a strong sense of sin; 2. Parts of the p-o doctrine indeed fell into place early on; but the development was spotty and uneven over the years/decades; 3. I don’t know of 10-30 Greek words for sin in the NT.
If they did have a strong sense of sin, can we tell if it was of their own personal sin as well as the sin of Israel? And, even if they did, didn’t they consider God the only Savior, not the messiah?
I’m not sure there was a solitary consistent view among Jewish apocalpyticists (any more than there is among American Christians!).
So what would have happened if Jesus did not get crucified?
Well, for one thing we wouldn’t have Christianity!
So the belief in crucifixion and revival are the 2 beliefs that set off the chain motion of Christianities development in understanding God, the endtimes and final day, and how to be right with God when that final day comes.
It is pretty amazing to think about it.
I am wondering where we can historically pinpoint belief in Paradise and fire because it certainly at on point became a consensus of Christians that there is eternal joy and pain.
I’ll get to that soon.
“Christians began, early on (again, before Paul) to think that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice for others.”
What is the direct evidence for earliest Christians’ thinking that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice for others? Or is the evidence mostly a matter of inference?
“The reason most people today have trouble getting their minds around that idea is that most of us have nothing to do with animal sacrifice and we simply don’t ‘get’ it. Why would a living being have to be sacrificed to appease a god?”
Nevertheless, contemporary, orthodox Christians totally depend on Jesus’ death and resurrection for the atonement of sins, and ultimately their salvation. 21st Century Christians’ wholesale acceptance and glorification of human sacrifice is even more mind-boggling.
What do Christians you encounter say when confronted with their reliance on human sacrifice?
The earliest author, Paul, holds to this view (Romans 3:23-28), and he indicates that this is the view he first preached to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:3-5), in a passage which he claims was “handed over to him” by those who were before him. That is usually taken to mean that this was the standard preaching of his predecessors before he began his missionary journeys — so back in the early to mid 30s.
How did Jesus’ death save the human race, and from what? God’s wrath? It appears to be Old Testament thinking.
How did he “take away the sins of the world” when we have had evil ever since he died?
How did he save the world? From whom?
This sacrifice thing is just a Mark Twain “stretcher ( an exaggeration of the truth, or a lie). Did Jesus know he was being sacrificed? Not really ( the historical Jesus). Jesus was planning on reappearing as the head of the Jews ( qualifies as delusional, so Jesus could have been mentally ill?)
Bart Ehrman:
What is clear is that Christians took over the idea of sacrifice and applied it to Jesus. It very early came to be thought that Jesus death was “for” others, “for the sake” of his followers, even “in place of” those who were true worshippers of God. Very soon after Jesus’ death and after his followers became convinced of his resurrection, Jesus’ death came to be thought of as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of others, a death that would allow others to be put into a restored relationship with God who would no longer be alienated from them because of their sins.
Steefen:
To take over the idea of sacrifice, one has to take over the Temple where it was practiced and put a stop to it there. We only have AD70 for that, which was not very soon after Jesus’ death.
Now, you say Christians took over the idea of sacrifice and applied it to Jesus: it was not Jesus. If that is the case, not only did Christians comb the Hebrew Bible to build their case, they must have put words into Jesus’ mouth. The Last Supper, then, would not be the words of Jesus but the words of Christians. You are not holding Jesus responsible for any of this?
Bart D. Ehrman: Is this how God showers his favor on someone, by having [Jesus] humiliated and tortured to death? Clearly, for [Christians], Jesus was not being punished for something he did wrong, for any sin(s) that he himself committed. What sins? But if he didn’t die for his own sins, the only conclusion could be that he must have died for the sins of other people. Christians began, early on (again, before Paul) to think that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice for others.
Steefen: Why was Jesus humiliated and tortured to death? For the Temple Authorities and the keepers of Judaism, Jesus was being punished for something he did wrong. Jesus, a religious reformer, knocked out a High Holy Day of Judaism. That High Holy Day was and is Yom Kippur whose central themes are atonement and repentance. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven; go, and sin no more.” When one sinned and repented, one gave a sacrifice on Yom Kippur (kippur means atone in Hebrew). One also fasted, prayed, and spent holy time in a holy place (the synagogue) God was getting sacrifices for sin. But, Jesus took that away from God.
A recitation of the sacrificial service of the Temple in Jerusalem traditionally features prominently in both the liturgy and the religious thought of the holiday. Specifically, the Avodah (“service”) in the Musaf prayer recounts in great detail the sacrificial ceremonies of the Yom Kippur Korbanot (sacrificial offerings) that are recited in the prayers but have not been performed for 2,000 years, since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.
Jesus disrupted the sacrifices to God by turning over the table of the moneychangers. God was getting sacrifices also for the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus’ disruption of the commemoration was a sacrilege and a sin. Jesus’ request that he be remembered by eating his body and drinking his blood, literally or metaphorically also was a sin against God (Leviticus, 17: 10).
While the Temple in Jerusalem was standing (from Biblical times through 70 C.E.), the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) was mandated by the Torah to perform a complex set of special services and sacrifices for Yom Kippur to attain Divine atonement, the word “kippur” meaning “atone” in Hebrew. These services were considered to be the most important parts of Yom Kippur because through them the Kohen Gadol made atonement for all Jews and the world.
God had already ordained Divine atonement for all Jews and non-Jews. So, we must disagree with you, Dr. Ehrman, Christians were quite aware of Yom Kippur: Jesus’ death was not a sacrifice for the sins of others, Jews and the rest of the world. Jesus and Christians came up with their soteriology usurping the will of God with the will of another God.
DR Ehrman:
YOUR COMMENT:
The reason most people today have trouble getting their minds around that idea is that most of us have nothing to do with animal sacrifice and we simply don’t “get” it.
MY COMMENT:
Yes, you’re right, most of us don’t get it: It wasn’t God’s idea for us to sacrifice animals!
Psalms 50:7-13
7-“Listen, my people, and I will speak;
I will testify against you, Israel:
I am God, your God.
8-I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
9-I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
10-for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11-I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine.
12-If I was hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine and all that is in it.
13-Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
As much as I try to understand and internalize this whole idea, I just can’t get my brain to follow along with all of the steps. The jumps in logic, which you highlighted, needed to go from Jesus dying to him becoming the atoning sacrifice for all are impossible for me to follow. I mean I understand them, but I don’t see how they can be accepted as being valid. Especially considering all of the prophecies taken from the Hebrew texts about a suffering messiah are taken completely out of context. I respect the belief though and I find Paul and the early Christians fascinating regardless.
This a great topic and adds great confusion when you try to understand the mechanics . there are several problems that come up ,
jesus says he’s only come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel . a main theme from the old testament .
jesus also says he’s only come for the lost not the righteous ,does that mean there are some that did not need a suffering messiah or salvation ?
jesus goes out town to town synagogue to synagogue preaching the gospel of the kingdom and the twelve went with him luke 4 then
luke 18 he tells them his death is coming the twelve are confused . Jesus spends his ministry preaching repent .the gospel of the kingdom does not include his death
Passover lamb was redemption for the first born and a wedding covenant …not a sacrifice for sin
three times in Jeremiah God says that sacrificing someone child and burning them had never enter the mind of God ,does that not include his own child jesus and us his children to burn in eternal torment
sacrifice in the messianic kingdom .sin, shame and burnt offerings again ????
Acts 21:6 James the leader of the Jerusalem church tells paul to take a Nazarite vow which includes a sin , shame and burnt offering .this was James idea and Paul is ok with the idea
we just don’t really understand what sacrifice truly meant .and the sheep don’t make the rules
These stories are purely about the human mind. It’s a psychology book, written by Eastern mystics . We are the mystery of the kingdom of God and the stories tell us how to rise above the suffering of the physical and find peace in the spiritual. It’s that simple. The sad part is our refuge is only temporary, and we’ll always fall from grace.
Looking at your question: Jesus says, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Who are the lost sheep of Israel? Are we talking about descendants of Jacob? If you read the bible literally, which Paul says not to do, we may think so. However, I propose an alternative view: The lost sheep are our thoughts (beliefs).
You may think this is an absurd answer, but I encourage you to have an open mind and give me an opportunity to explain.
Our physical bodies are the “house,” and Israel is Egyptian: It’s not Jewish. Israel is made up of three Egyptian Gods: “IS” = “ISIS” the spirit (emotions), “RA” = the mind (father), and “EL” God within you.
The lost sheep are our beliefs. Jesus is the shepherd of our beliefs. We create our beliefs in our mind, which is also referred to as the ego. The good shepherd keeps watch over God’s wisdom and our beliefs. This is why “he only comes for the lost not the righteous.” He says, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
Matthew 13:24-43. The wheat is God’s wisdom and the tares are our beliefs. The story repeats itself throughout the Bible; it’s only told differently, but shares the same theme.
Judges 1:19: Why couldn’t God “drive out the inhabitants of the valley?” We’re talking about the same God who created the heavens and earth in six days, and he was fighting alongside of Judah. However, didn’t Jesus say, “With God all things are possible?” So, what happened here? The “inhabitants” are our beliefs. God can’t force you to practice his wisdom, and your wisdom will always kill the good shepherd, who will lay down his life for his sheep.
Why was God able to “[drive] out the inhabitants of the mountain?” It’s because the mountain is representative of Heaven in meditation. God can only drive out the inhabitants, after you’ve passed through the fire and entered Heaven.
Referring back to the wheat and tares: what does the “householder” say to do with the tares? He asked his servants, to let the wheat (God’s wisdom) and the tares (man’s wisdom) grow together, until harvest. Then he’ll tell the reapers to first bundle the tares and “burn” them.
It’s only when we shut down our beliefs and “take no thought” in meditation, can we be saved (peace). I don’t want to get more complicated. Just remember, it’s all within your head, and the stories explain how the upper (Heaven) can conquer the lower carnal mind through meditation.
Dr. Ehrman,
1) Was this an idea that originated with Jesus’ earliest disciples like Peter and John or was this an idea that originated independantly among other early “Jewish Christian Communities”?
2) Who ever you identify for 1), how did they come up with this idea? Was it from their interpretation of scripture like the passage of the Suffering Servant or was it independent from scripture?
My sense is that it must have started in *one* group or another, probalby very soon after Jesus’ death. So, most likely among his original disciples. It would have been based on their belief that God had favored Jesus at his resurrection, so he must have favored him before, so his death was not an accident but somehow according to the plan of God, and that it must be like the death of others in God’s plan generally, that is, like a sacrifice of animals in the temple.
Dr. Ehrman,
1) Did Jesus’ preaching include a plan of “reconciliation” with God? If yes, what exactly did reconciliation mean to Jesus if reconciliation was part of his ministry? Also, how exactly did this reconciliation come about was it through repentance or latter when the kingdom of God arrived or through some other way?
2) If reconciliation was a part of the ministry of Jesus shouldn’t have the apostles felt uneasy about the contradiction between how Jesus taught on reconciliation and from how they understood Jesus’ death leads to reconciliation?
3) Did salvation and reconciliation mean the same thing to Jesus and the Apostles assuming you answered yes to 1)? If not, how did each interpret salvation and reconciliation differently?
1) I’m not sure he used “reconciliation” language; rather it was “repentance and forgiveness” — returning to God with a pure heart and living as he required in the Torah; 2) the apostles almost certainly didn’t see any contradiction between their views and his 3) But it depends which apostles you mean. We don’t have any writings from any of Jesus’ own disciples, so actually we don’t know what they thought or taught.
Dr.Ehrman,
1) So what you are saying is that the Apostles, that is the early disciples of Jesus like Peter and John, would have understood the teachings of Jesus on “repentance and forgiveness” to have the same reconciliatory function of restoring a broken relationship of God as to the sacrificial death of Jesus?
2) Could you please explain how they would not have found this in any way contradicting what Jesus taught?
3) Did these same disciples after the death of Jesus continue to teach the same “repentance and forgiveness” of Jesus message along side the “reconciliation through Jesus’ sacrificial death” message? Because I don’t see any reason why they would have if all that mattered in getting right with God was done through the death of Jesus. If they thought that the death of Jesus also had the reconciliatory nature of Jesus’ message shouldn’t have THEIR message solely have centered on the death of Jesus like Paul?
We don’t have any way of knowing exactly what Peter and John thought. But for nearly 2000 years there have been people who have understood Jesus to teach things that are in fact at odds with what he taught.
Hi Bart,
Jews today generally don’t believe in the concept of Original Sin and some claim that animal sacrifice was only for UNintentional sins rather than intentional ones (where repentance alone is sufficient for atonement). Do you think the Jews in 1st century Palestine (as well as Jesus himself) would have agreed with this concept? Do you think Jesus thought of himself as a sin offering or would he have even believed in blood sacrifice for atoning sins? Thanks
Original Sin is a Christian teaching; it has never been within Judaism. But of course God did forgive intentional sins in Judaism (think: Old Testament) and some of hte sacrifices (not all or even most) were indeed atoning sacrifices. (not the Passover lamb, interestingly)
Prof. Ehrman,
In one of your remarks early in this thread you noted the apparent soteriological ambivalence in Mark.
This gospel plainly recounts Jesus predicting his imminent death and resurrection — on three, separate occasions! Certainly, a self-aware Messiah would know of both his looming fate and its necessity for salvation. Yet, as you observed, “when it comes to the moment, he doesn’t seem to understand what is happening to him.”
Might these death and resurrection predictions, presumptively from the author of Mark, have actually been later insertions by a fervid copyist? This does seem like the very kind of Easter Lily-gilding one might suspect of an especially devout scribe.
Assuming these prediction passages are not too perfunctory to be susceptible to scholars’ redactional repertoire, has there been any suggestion among your colleagues that the prophecies may not even have come from Mark’s stylus?
The passages are central and even fundamental to Mark’s Gospel and its narrative, so they almost certainly were not added by someone else later. One of the very major points of the narrative is that Christ kept saying he had to die and no one could understand what he was talking about. Take that out, and you really don’t have a Gospel of Mark.
My bad. I should have thought to compare the three death and resurrection prophecies in Mark with what can be found in Matthew and Luke. Having done so now (belatedly, sorry), it is clear by the close parallels in wording that both incorporated all three of the predictions per Mark into their own accounts. The mere 15 years or so between the composition of the first gospel and its two, plainly dependent, successors could hardly allow for a redacting intermediary. Not to mention the improbability of both subsequent authors independently ending up with the same altered version of what became their primary source.
So Mark can’t escape responsibility for the implicit — but inescapable — contradiction created by attributing to Jesus clear foreknowledge of his Messianic fate (explicitly conveyed to his disciples three times!), followed by seeming befuddlement at its realization.
Do scholars have any hypotheses on how or why Mark could have been oblivious of such an obvious problem?
Also, Matthew uniquely adds a fourth passion prediction (Mt 26:2). Is there any way to know whether this came from his M source material or was simply creative license taken by that author?
Yes, this is a standard issue for interpreting Mark, for which you don’t need Matthew and Luke. IN Mark Jesus makes three very clear passion predictions (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34); on each occasoin the disciples immediately show they don’t “get it.” But then at the end, Jesus asks to be delivered of his fate and at the very end does not seem to understand what is happening. Interpreting Mark involves explaining that. Mark almost certainly had something in mind. Readers have thought and talked about it for a long time, and most do not see it as a contradiction. My view is that Mark really did want to have it both ways: he had very clear reasons for wanting to Jesus to know ahead of time he was to die and very clear, but different, reasons for wanting Jesus to appear not to understand why at the end. I invite you to try to figure it out! If you do, you will not be far from the kingdom! 🙂
From your keyboard to God’s Inbox (not spam filter!) 🙂
I share your affinity for Mark’s gospel — in terms of Christology, that is, as I can’t imagine a Jesus without the incredibly powerful and profound parables provided by Luke and Matthew. I guess I was hoping to let the author off the hook for including the implausible death-and-resurrection predictions he attributes to Jesus on the way to meeting his horrifying (albeit, probably inevitable) fate at the hands of Jewish and Roman authorities.
Of course, Mark wasn’t there. He could only report the stories he heard. I’m sure that by the time he wrote his gospel the passion predictions were so integral to the legends of Jesus in oral circulation that he could hardly have left them out.
FWIW if I believed the “Father” of Jesus was the vindictive, psychopathic, genocidal Yahweh, I would also share your atheism.
But my own ‘Born Again’ encounter (also as a teen BTW) was with a “Lamb of God” who was guileless, compassionate, “gentle and humble in heart,” rather than a blood sacrifice to the twisted, vindictive god of a primitive, animal-sacrifice cult.
My own experience of ‘finding Jesus’ was more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e15EoYeo9ms&list=RDe15EoYeo9ms&start_radio=1
Dear Ehrman,
I have read your article and your comments, but I do not fully understand why you say that the original belief of the Apostles was atonement.
The information that Jesus’ death was an atonement comes from Paul. Paul speaks in Romans 3:23-28 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 that Jesus’ death was an atonement.
However, as you say, there is a possibility that Paul did not get the information in 1 Corinthians from the Jerusalem Church. Also in Romans, Paul explains hisself’s theology.
Perhaps the idea that our sins would be forgiven by the death of Jesus did not even cross the minds of the Apostles.Isn’t that a possibility that should be taken seriously?
Best Regards.
The earliest view of the earliest apostles appears to be that Christ died “for our sins.” That suggests atonement. Paul does explicitly say that they all agred on that part.
Dear Ehrman,
You gave me an answer like this:
“The earliest view of the earliest apostles appears to be that Christ died “for our sins.” That suggests atonement. Paul does explicitly say that they all agreed on that part.”
I looked at Paul’s letter but didn’t see it. Where exactly does Paul say this?
Kind Regards
1 Cor. 15:3-5; Romans 3:21-25; etc.
Dear Ehrman,
You told me that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 and Romans 3:21-25 that the Apostles all believed that the messiah died for our sins.
However, I think one important point should be noted. Paul does not say in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 and Romans 3:21-25 that the apostles believed in such theology.
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul does not say from whom he received this information. So yes, some people believe in atonement, but Paul does not say that these are the Apostles.
In Romans 3:21-25, Paul talks about the theology of atonement, but does not say that the Apostles believed in this theology. He just says he own believes. He is not referring to someone else’s faith.
Dear Ehrman, please help me understand. Where does Paul say that the Apostles believed in atonement?
Kind Regards.
If you’re looking for words in Paul that explicitly say “the apostles before me believed in the atonement” then no, you won’t find it. But he insists that the apostles agreed with his gospel message (Galatians 1-2) and he indicates what that gospel message is in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 3.
Hi,
I would find it very interesting and highly informative if you could comment on the relationship between Soteriology, the Trinity and God’s omni-attributes, and specifically the possible contradictions here, namely:
1) The passion and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was the ultimate/only sacrifice that could atone for the sins of humanity / fall of Adam, and thus allow humankind to be reconciled with God.
2) The doctrine of the Trinity states that God is One – manifested in three forms; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
3) The omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent attributes of God.
If all are theologically true, then why was a sacrifice needed and to whom?
– Logically, God would not have to sacrifice himself (Jesus), to themself (God), to atone for the sins of the creatures that God created?
– Otherwise, this implies that the passion of Jesus was to pay a debt to a higher power, which thus negates the idea of the omni-attributes.
Whilst the Gnostic interpretation provides a hypothesis, I still can’t find a Christian explanation for the above. I’m not being facetious here; it is just that I have never heard a reasonable explanation for the above.
Thanks
Yup, the doctrine of the atonement is highly problematic. Why would God need an atonement? Why couldn’t he just forgive sins? I’ll be dealing with this a bit in my next book. The traditional Christian explanation, though, is that sin needs to be *dealt* with and *covered over*. Until modern times theologians never much appear to have asked “Says who?” It’s just the way it is. (You see this, btw, even in C.S. Lewis, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Why does Aslan have to die? Because of the “Deeper Magic.” Well, who made the magic??)