It is precisely the intricate and complete intertwining of (what we would call) “religion” and “politics” in the ancient world (see my previous post) that explains why Jesus’ forthright views about God and understanding of himself as God’s spokesperson let to his arrest and execution, as well as, ironically, his indifference to the governmental and cultic status quo. His revolutionary views and yet indifference can be illustrated by his two incendiary actions near the end of his life and, oddly, his two discussions of taxation.
I will deal with the first of his two actions, typically designated the “Triumphal Entry,” in two posts.
The Triumphal Entry refers to Jesus’s coming into Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover Feast riding on a colt (according to Mark and Luke) or a small donkey (according to John) or both a colt and a donkey (at the same time! According to Matthew), to the acclamation of the crowd of Jewish pilgrims, who welcomed him as the one who was bringing in the Kingdom to Israel (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19).
Despite
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…a festival in Jerusalem in which thousands of Jews (those who could afford it)…
How could poor Jesus and his poor followers afford it? Plus leaving their families to fend for themselves back at home?
Yup, that’s one of the issues I’ve been addressing in this thread.
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman.
Yes you definitely said the Lazerus story goes back to Jesus itself. You even clarified that point by stating the story would have been told during Jesus ministry in Galilee. In case you question my sincerity you can find our brief exchange on your post from January 24, 2026, called
” Authors, Authorities, and Who Gets To Write the Bible”
On your new point: isn’t the “five brothers” detail itself the hint? It serves no purpose otherwise. Combined with the purple/linen (the high priest’s garments in Exodus) and the Sadducean denial of resurrection, those look like coded clues. If a later author wanted to attack the priesthood subtly, wouldn’t they hint rather than name explicitly?
Doesn’t that make the theory at least plausible? Thanks.
I won’t be looking it up, but (I don’t have an index of titles) but if you send me the link I’ll take a look. I either mistyped something or you interpreted something differently from what I said. I’m giving it a 50-50 chance either way! And no, I don’t think the five brothers thing is evidence.
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
Here is the link
https://ehrmanblog.org/authors-authorities-and-who-gets-to-write-the-bible/#comment-164520
How weird. I don’t know what I meant. I think the word “don’t” must have been edited out of my comment (“I don’t think”) since for roughly 30 years I’ve said, taught, and written that the story in its current form does not go back to Jesus himself (because of its assumption that someone HAS been raised from the dead and Jews still don’t believe)
Hi Dr. Ehrman! If scholars think that Jesus is reprising the story of Marduk and Tiamat in Revelation, why can’t he be reprising the Passion of Marduk with the Triumphal Entry in the Gospels?
The Passion of Marduk/Marduk Ordeal even ends with “Go and tell the Good News”! It seems to be a line-for-line reenactment with palm frond waving and everything syncretized into the Jewish mileu. The triumphal entry of the Son of God [Nabu, Son of Marduk] occurs in Nisan 4 or so? of the Akitu festival and in the Gospel narrative, seems to then abut a Sar Puhi ritual ahead of the lunar eclipse of April 3, 33.
Just put the Mesopotamian lens you put on Revelation and Enochian literature on the Gospels, too, and it makes sense.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you think it’s even likely that there were enough Jews in Jerusalem to actually form a crowd who a) had even heard of Jesus, and b) believed he was the Messiah?
Oh yes. OUr ancient sources (esp. Josephus) indicate that many tens of thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem for Passover.
If I had grown up in a non-Christian culture and then heard the Jesus story for the first time, I think I would initially wonder whether Jesus had been grandiose and delusional, maybe even psychotic.
Btw, John the Baptist’s followers the Mandaeans call Jesus “Nabu” and “Mercury” (Nabu’s planet). Also they call him Orpheus.
I think that Jesus, in order to be relevant to the world, is reprising aaall the cultural diffusion iterations of the original Sumerian The Living One water ablution savior religion, which is revived in the 4th C BCE Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid Uruk.
Mesopotamian direct line: Anu> Enki > Ea > Asar/Asarluhi > Marduk > Nabu
Egyptian Fork: Asar (original name of Osiris), Osiris-Iah/Yah (Ea in the 28th day of Sin), Osiris-Thoth/Thoth-Iah, Serapis (Osiris, Apis, Ptah, Dionysus and other Creator Gods).
Levant Fork: Yahwism under Seth Baal (so Ea in the 28th day of Sin in the Babylonian hemerologies). Then at the time Seth Baal falls, and Israel + Judaea + Edom unite, the new titulary deities are: Yahu (Yahwism for both Israel + Judaea), Ha (obscure new Lord of Foreign Lands that replaces Seth Baal) + Lahmu.
Phoenician-Greek fork: Orpheus?
Speaking of implausibility:
Finally getting to Misquoting Jesus (I know; better late than never, but I do regularly reference Metzger’s textual commentary from my wife’s seminary days) and on page 20 you say, “He [Jesus] read these scriptures, studied these scriptures, interpreted these scriptures, adhered to these scriptures, and taught these scriptures.” But later in Ch.1 you discuss literacy in Roman-occupied Palestine. Seems we’ve got some conflict here as in, Jesus was more than likely illiterate. How would a Galilean peasant have had the resources (time, money) to have learned to read Hebrew (or Greek if Jesus “read” the LXX) so he could have digested the Hebrew Bible? And then there is access to the scrolls themselves. Does the historical record show the presence of a synagogue in Nazareth? And, if so, could some regular guy (remember, Jesus didn’t consider himself “special”) have been given special access to Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim? Or is it the case that what we have in the Gospel accounts is the writers, with their knowledge of the LXX, putting these words/deeds in the mouth of Jesus.?
I don’t think I said in that book that Jesus was illiterate? I’m not sure either way. But if he was — by which I mean, if he could not read words on a page — he coulsd STILL “read” and “study” and “teach” the Scriptures. For most people in the ancient world “reading’ meant listening to someone else pronouncing the words on the page, kinda like today when someone says they “read” a certain book but actually mean they listened to it in on Audible. He would have “read” it either way in Hebrew and would not have known Greek.
No there was not synagogue building in Nazareth at the time. But a “synagogue” in that period did not usually refer to a building but to a gathering of worship; it required the presence of ten Jewish men (adults) to be a synagogue.
J
What seems unlikely about a “Triumphal Entry” is that Jesus could have escaped from such a public episode unmolested by the Romans. But this would be just as true of some sort of “demonstration” in the Temple. Either would function perfectly as opportunities for the historical Jesus to have been arrested by the Romans and be charged and executed as an agitator if we are willing to question the historicity of the Jerusalem narrative as recorded by the gospel writers as a whole.
The “trials” before the Sanhedrin and Pilate seem awfully suspect, and some even question the betrayal by Judas. What we can be pretty sure of is that Jesus went to Jerusalem and was destroyed by the Romans. One can imagine a Messianic pretender boldly marching into Jerusalem expecting some imminent divine intervention. As you point out, the task of the historian is to attempt to establish likelihoods and very little of the Jerusalem narrative seems likely just as written.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe that the Roman authorities didn’t immediately descend on an unarmed crowd of peasants cheering for one of their own as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, arresting or killing everyone involved. Responding that heavy-handedly to what was, at least outwardly, a peaceful public demonstration would have been far more likely to provoke a riot than to prevent one.
The more prudent course of action was exactly what the Romans appear to have done: remain on high alert, closely monitor Jesus and his followers, and intervene only if the situation escalated into a genuine threat to public order.
The turning point came later, when Jesus caused a public disturbance in the Temple by driving out the money changers. From the perspective of both the Roman authorities and the Temple leadership, that dramatically raised the stakes. After that incident, Jesus was effectively a dead man walking.
Could many of Mark’s “sources” come from Israeli prophetic writings, specifically the book of Isaiah? It looks like Mark is using stuff from Isaiah, and other Hebrew bible documents, to create stories that allegedly happened in the life of Jesus.
In Mark 4:11-12 Jesus deliberately confuses crowds, speaking strangely, so that they don’t understand and can’t get forgiven. It seems like Mark is saying that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 6:8-10: “And he said, go and say to this people: keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds and turn and be healed.”
In other words, the historical Jesus never said anything like 4:11-12 and the book of Isaiah is the source for the story, not some oral or written source coming to Mark from Christian circles. There are lots of other examples of this kind, see my link below. Do you think that many of the stories in Mark were invented based on alleged prophecies in Isaiah and other writings?
https://ntstudies.org/f/why-marks-gospel-has-its-content
Yes, Isaiah shows up a good bit in Mark and in the other Gospels as well. It was apparently a popular text. As such, there’s no particular reason (that I can think of) for thinking that Jesus too many not have been influenced by it. He certainly would have known many of its key passages, I should think. But I absolutetly don’t think that Jesus saw himself or John the Baptist fufilling prophecy. That was a later idea afte rhis death. It may be that Mark was the first to come up with it, but given the fact that there were thoussands of people telling stories about Jesus by that time, ti seems unlikely to me that we just happen to have the smoking gun…
Dear Dr Ehrman-It has always truck me as interesting that Isaiah is present throughout the Passion narratives. If I may ask, in your view, is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (whether Israel or an exalted individual) in fact described as genuinly dying in the narrative of the chapter?
Do you mean in chapter 53 of Isaiah? Isaiah explicitly identifies the Suffering Servant (twice) as the nation of Israel; it “died” in the sense that it was destroyed.
Reading both Jewish and Christian history from a historical perspective, I am struck by what seems to be an extraordinary succession of cognitive dissonances. The people chosen by God become slaves in Egypt, are later conquered by Assyria and Babylon, their holy Temple is destroyed, rebuilt, and then destroyed again by Rome. Likewise, Jesus does not become the royal Messiah his disciples appear to have expected; instead, he is crucified, and that apparent defeat is reinterpreted through the proclamation of the resurrection.
Setting aside my own faith for a moment, I wonder whether one of the remarkable features of both Judaism and Christianity is their repeated ability to reinterpret apparent failure without abandoning their core convictions. Rather than collapsing under disconfirmation, these traditions seem to transform defeat into a deeper theological narrative.
This raises a broader historical question. Is there any limit to the amount of cognitive dissonance that a religious movement can absorb? Or is the capacity to reinterpret failure itself one of the principal reasons why certain religions survive while others disappear?
It’s a great question, and it applies to individuals as much as to “nations” (more, actually, since natoins don’t think per se) (though “social memory” is a real and very important thing). And in either case, it depends from one individual/natoin to the next. It’s often amazing how nations continue to tell myths to themselves when it’s clear as day that what they say/think is not at all true, and repeatedly falsified….
I have an alternate hypothesis. The social phenonenon, JOHN’S BAPTISM, was much bigger than the authors of the Gospels depict. John was older (20+) than Jesus. Jesus emerged as John’s young protege at the Samaria site on the Jordan River. This arrangement continued for 10+ years. Jesus was the logical “heir” and successor after John’s beheading by Herod Antipas. Jesus relocated to the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus took JOHN’S BAPTISM to the cities. The people received him as the spokesperson of JOHN’S BAPTISM. The Pharisees was a political system that was conceived by Hillel the Elder as a PSYOPS to control the Jews when Herod returned to Jerusalem in 37 BCE with a mercenary army and a decree from the Roman Senate that he was the King of the Jews in the Roman Empire. The Pharisees opposed JOHN’S BAPTISM simply because it broke the Pharisee PSYOPS. When rumors reached the High Priest in Jerusalem that Jesus was the Messiah, the High Priest promised to arrest Jesus (prelude to execution) if he came to Jerusalem TO REMOVE THE HIGH PRIEST. The crowd happened as written. The donkey entrance? Did Jesus walk from Galilee?
John the Baptist was less than a year- closer to 6months older than Cousin Jesus; as Elizabeth was pregnant and so was Mary when the latter sought refuge.
Greetings. As I said, it is an alternate hypothesis. Thank you for reading and thank you for responding. This alternate hypothesis shifts the emphasis to Jesus of Nazareth and from the New Testament Gospels as reliable historical sources. The Gospels became myths that surrounded a historical person. The Synoptic Gospels were NOT the testimony of the disciples who accepted the leadership of the Twelve Apostles. I propose that another group existed in Jerusalem. I propose that this second group split from their parent group: the Essene community.
Therefore, the social phenomena was HUGE.
Let me introduce you to the videos of a deceased married couple who were Christian evangelists: Harland and Diana Hay. Their focus was on JESUS and not on the BIBLE. They said, “The Bible is an idol.” I don’t agree with everything, but reportedly a ghost showed up. Harland simply told the ghost to leave.
Let’s explore the idea of the massive social phenomena that splintered the Essene community. This is the Essene community of Josephus and of Dr. Norman Golb. Dr. Golb wrote a book that the Dead Sea Scrolls were not written at the Qumran site nor written by the Essenes. God bless you.