Loading...We are in that part of our tour of Israel – getting near the end – when everything more or less melds together and you can’t remember what you did when or where. These trips involve some serious sensory overload.
Today we did some amazing things. First we went to the Western Wall, probably the most sacred spot for Jews in Israel. Years ago people referred to it as the Wailing Wall, but no longer. It is what remains of the wall surrounding the Temple compound back in the days of Jesus, the wall constructed at the time of King Herod. It is most sacred because it is the spot that remains that is closest to what was at the time the Holy of Holies within the temple itself (i.e., it is not a wall of the temple, but of the temple complex). The Temple complex was enormous – large enough to fit 25 (American) football fields (which, among other things, makes it very hard indeed to think that Jesus actually shut down the entire Temple service by overturning a few tables and leveling charges against those selling animals; the Gospels surely exaggerate at that point….)
In any event, anyone can go up (or rather, down) to the wall; men on one side, women on the other. One doesn’t have to be Jewish, but one is to have a head covering if a man. People do pray standing right up against the wall, and many write prayers on small slips of paper and place them in cracks in the wall. It is popular to have bar mitzvahs there; last time I was here I saw one there, the young boy reading the Hebrew Torah in front of him with stunning fluency.
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I know you once said that not many scholars take Talpiot seriously, but wouldn’t that make a great tour stop? “…and here ladies and gentlemen is where the actual bones of Jesus Christ, his mother and girlfriend and some brothers and disciples were found back in the eighties…” I mean there’s no authenticating the tourist spots that get shown to people, so why not add a juicy one like that? It would annoy so many people that are fun to annoy.
What I like about what you mentioned in your post, regarding the different churches battling over holy sites and about the lost books ( such as the Gospel of Judas) is that there was not just one Christianity, but many, each holding to their view of truth. I think that’s OK…diversity is good.
I guess I’m reluctant to believe someone in the early Christian community would have made up the empty tomb story, knowing it was an out-and-out lie. If they had, wouldn’t it have been likely that a later denial (by Peter or James) would have circulated, and there’d be some record of it?
If those women really were shocked at finding an empty tomb, the explanation could be that Joseph of Arimathea had never meant to keep Jesus’s remains there permanently, just till after the Sabbath. Hirelings of his might have removed the remains, to take them (let’s say) to Jesus’s kin in Galilee. Perhaps they couldn’t find the kin in question, and were told (rightly or wrongly) that they wouldn’t want the body. So it was buried – secretly – in Nazareth, perhaps with the assistance of a local rabbi.
In that scenario, Jesus’s actual disciples really would have been left believing his body had mysteriously “vanished” from the tomb. And the few people who knew otherwise would have kept their mouths shut, letting them believe in their “miracle.” Joseph of Arimathea wouldn’t have set out to deceive anyone; when a misunderstanding came about, he might have concluded it was the will of God.
Yes, interesing points. I’ll be interested in seeing how you like my explanation in my book. (I argue that there were very good reasons indeed for someont to make up the story; but the thing about legends is that no one has to “lie” for them to come into existence. They just sort of appear. Happens literally all the time.)
Hi
my understanding is that it wasnt the early christians that made up the empty tomb,
Its briefly mentioned at the end of Mark which was written around the year 80 so after the death of all Jews involved in the jesus movement.
It then gradually evolves as a story specifically in Luke and John which were both written after 95 CE.
So I dont think any of the disciples actually witnessed an empty tomb. I think if there was a tomb it was a remote pit of some kind (Roman) and only the family knew of its location and perhaps the remains were buried secretly or never fouind but certainly there is no evidence of an empty tomb – I think it is a myth circulated circa 95 CE onwards by the redactors of luke and John.
thanks
Sam
Wilusa: I’ve heard about that theory too and it looks quite probable to me.
Especially since it’s partly supported by (or based upon) the Gospel of John that indicates that Jesus’ corpse was put into a tomb nearby SIMPLY because Passover was approaching fast and this tomb happened to be nearby and empty. And the women would only have witnessed the laying of the corpse in this tomb but not its move, by JoA’s helpers, into a new tomb. The women, being lower class Galileans, wouldn’t have had a chance to get more info about its whereabouts.
I have been re-reading the “long ending” of the Gospel of Mark. The fascinating thing in this (probably fictitious) ending is that the apostles never visit the empty tomb. They dismiss Mary Magdalene’s story and the Emmaus-style vision reported by two other disciples. Only after Jesus appears and rebukes them for lacking faith do they believe in the resurrection.
My point would be that whomever added this ending to Mark did not feel that Peter and John witnessing an empty tomb was necessary to the credibility of the resurrection. In fact, the stress in both reports is given to Mary and the pair of disciples “seeing” Jesus, not on the absense of a body from a grave. It would seem that the tomb story was not universally considered essential as late as the writing of Mark’s Gospel (as later amended!)
You are reacting as though the gospel writers were there to record what happened like modern journalists with tape recorders and movie cameras. Nothing could be further from the truth. What was written down came many decades after-the-fact, as literary creations, from foreigners with anti-Semitic religious agendas.
I’m not sure if this comment is directed toward me or someone else! I certainly don’t think that the gopsle writers were like htat!
No, no, not at all. It was just a reply (more like a knee-jerk reaction/response) to the comments of someone else. My own view is that the gospels are a literary genre unto themselves, a mostly fictional enterprise with a dash of history mixed up with hefty doses of religion plus anti-Semitic authorial biases using heavily fabricated characters and dialogue. That’s all.
The part about the temple being too large for Jesus to have closed it all down is quite interesting.
What is the likelihood that Jesus would have been buried in a private tomb? Isn’t it more likely that all crucified would have been buried in some common burial site together?.
Yes, that would have been far more likely.
if they were buried at all! its more likely that the bodies hung on the cross for days for predators to pick at and it was up to the Romans as and when they removed the carcass.
Bart, taking the above into account is it possible that the body wasnt removed from the cross the same day? that the stories of the breaking of legs of the other victims were made up in order to fulfil theology as was the day of the crucifixion ie passover? Is it possible that the crucifixion was not at passover at all and that it was made up for theological reasons? sorry if this is jibberish but I have just come back from a 3 hour exam on the OT answerinbg questions on documentary hypothesis, Exodus 1-15, Amos and deutero Isaiah for my divinity degree here in London!
cheers
sam
Yes, my sense is that the burial on the same day is part of the legendary aspects of the story, not historically certain information. (so too with the breaking of the legs, etc.)
so would the passover date also be made up for theological purpose do you think or does that have more historical reliability? thanks Sam
I think John’s dating of Jesus’ death to the Day of Preparation for Passover is definitely theologically driven, not historical (if that’s what you’re asking.)
Bart,
The best thing is to read Eisenman’s New Testament Code. He pretty much
explains everything there.
>For starters — “[Robert Eisenman] was the leader of the worldwide campaign
of 1987-92 to break the academic and scholarly monopoly over the Dead Sea
Scrolls..As a consequence of this, he was the consultant to the Huntington
Library of San Marino, California on its decision to open its archives and
allow free access to the Scrolls.” (from a bio-lead in to THE CUP OF THE
LORD, THE DAMASCUS COVENANT, AND THE BLOOD OF CHRIST)
Here’s a small sampling of what he wrote about people and events in the
NTC Preface:
>”[I]t is the DSS that have, as if by some miracle, changed everything. They
have given us the native Palestinian documents that did not go through and
were left , as it were, untouched by the editorial processes of the Roman
Empire (either the reason or the result, obviously, of their having been put
in caves in the first place), again an ancient ‘time capsule’ – Palestinian
Messianism’ before it went overseas and became Hellenized.”
>”.I felt obliged to try to break the academic and scholarly monopoly and the
literal stranglehold over the publication and interpretation of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (in fact, ever since ‘the International Team’ took over
responsibility for their publication). The only way to do this was to allow
any interested person to approach all the documents that existed in a
totally free manner, independent of mind-numbing academic analyses – and I
put this forth in the Introduction I did with Professor James Robinson of
the University of Claremont (one of the key individuals in breaking the Nag
Hammadi logjam, the partial reason I invited him to participate in the
parallel campaign to help break the monopoly over the DSS, though we were of
totally different mindsets) to the Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea
Scrolls.”
>”Of all the disappointments I have experienced in Qumran Studies – and their
have been many – and mistakes I made in the struggle to free the Scrolls,
E. J. Brill’s sudden cancellation of the Facsimile Edition, which James
Robinson and I had prepared for them in April, 1991 (after dissension broke
out at the ‘Official Team”s Madrid Conference the preceding month), ten
days before the planned date of publication and then turning to this same
‘Official Team’ to do what amounted basically to the same publication the
next year, was another. This had the effect of depriving Professor Robinson
and myself of a chance to break the monopoly a full six months before the
Huntington Library stepped in.”
>”Hershel Shanks’ own addition of a highly unusual and cartoon-like
‘Publisher’s Foreword’ to the Facsimile Edition, Professor Robinson and
myself had previously prepared to the E. J. Brill publication, thereby
undercutting it and bringing upon ourselves a series of interminable
lawsuits which took years to settle, rank a very close second and third..
>”On the other hand, it was a proposal [to pay for a new round of carbon
testing] I knew would be eagerly taken up by Hershel Shanks, the Editor of
the Biblical Archaeology Review, who would immediately see the public
relations possibilities inherent in it – just as he had two years before
when he had taken up the Facsimile Edition of the previously-unpublished
Qumran photographs Professor Robinson and I had prepared for Brill, though
not before delaying three or four months…, so that once again, we missed
the chance to be first to break the monopoly, and involving us in a lawsuit
that took almost ten years to sort out – and, as he had two years before
that, when he restarted his campaign to help free the Scrolls after I sent
him a copy of the computer printout of all the unpublished Scrolls held by
the Israel Antiquities Authority at the Rockefeller Museum.”
Hope this helps! Remember, these few quotes don’t tell the full story by any means.
You can discover the truth for yourself by listening to some of his recorded lectures,
or by reading his books. When you’ve digested the material, let me know what you think.
All Best,
D.C. Smith
Thanks for this. Very interesting. A genuine question: does any one else assign a leading role in the affair to Eisenman (i.e., other than himself)? I really don’t know!
The easy answer is “Yes, of course.” On the other hand, I’m not comfortable naming people who might object. Just being named in lawsuits (an arena I know quite a bit about) indicates he was not a peripheral player.
Remember, the plight of the documents started with a “consensus clique” and most of the players are dead. Even Hershel was an outsider back then. Now, he’s the ultimate insider with considerable control about who gets noticed, not so much for freeing up the documents, that’s been done, but rather the interpretation of what they mean, all of which includes the critical role of carbon 14, something that ought not be ignored and something many translators/interpreters do not understand or fully appreciate. Here’s a direct quote from James Tabor who, I hope, won’t mind my using it here.
The word on the street is that the results of C-14 dates are just about as close to a “Divine fiat” as a Baptist with the King James Version. This latest editorial suggests they could be off by 80 years or so, at least in the Iron Age, so one wonders about the 1st centuries BCE/CE. Could they be off perhaps 40-60 years? That would put many of the DSS C-14 dates into the 1st century would it not–as Eisenman and others have suggested on internal content grounds.
I guess you might start with Jim. In many ways he got started where Bob left off, archeologically speaking.
Two genuine suggestions: Don’t take everything HS says at face value and read at least some of RE’s books, especially The Dead Sea Scrolls & The First Christians, James The Brother of Jesus and The New Testament Code.
Third suggestion/question: Why don’t you consider doing your own tour with Blossoming Rose? The Scrolls and the caves could be a big part of it & you could go free.
J T is planning one for November.
Enjoy the remainder of your trip!
D.C.S.
Did Helena play a key role in convincing Constantine to become a Christian? I thought Constantine’s conversion might have been more a factor of politics than piety? What do historians think?
I don’t know! In the biography on Constantine by Eusebius the conversion was based on a vision that the emperor had going into battle, when he saw a cross in the sky on which were written the words “by this conquer.” He had the sign of the cross placed on his soldiers’ shields, he won the battle, and that sealed the deal.
Bart: yet there are NO crosses on Constantine’s gate in Rome, one of the panels depicting exactly that battle! Why wouldn’t he have put them on it if he was at the origin of that story??
Seems someone else made it up later on. Constantine wasn’t a true Christian.
I’m not sure what you mean by “true Christian”! I’m always reluctant to use that language, since it tends to mean “Christian in the way that I think a person ought to be Christian”
Constantine did not, in his own accounts of the events (as represented on his triumphal arch in Rome), credit his victory to the Christ. There are no Christian symbols on it or any other of his monuments. But why would that be the case if he was a Christian indeed (at that point in time)? Wouldn’t he have glorified his new god all over the place?
Well, he did in lots of ways, no? He built a ton of churches, at great cost, e.g. There are debates about how reliable Eusebius’s Life of Constantine is, but it certainly is worth reading…
So it’s Eusebius who claims that Constantine has built those churches, not Constantine himself? Or are there inscriptions and the like in those churches indicating that Constantine built them?
Fact remains though that there are NO Christian elements on his actual triumphal arch, the scene of that battle with the alleged divine intervention included. Yet if there had been such a divine intervention indeed then why wouldn’t Constantine have depicted it there … ?
correction — I found the quotes in Part I called PRELIMINARIES. Only the very first one came from the Preface.
Bart theres a lot of new scholarship on the Gabriel stone which I have asked you about before, what do make of the commentary below from a piece I read that was published today on the stone, it has an interesting view that suggests that Jesus did not see himself as the messiah of David’s lineage and as this is only mentioned in Matthew and Luke, its their invention completly and a much older millitant type idea of the messiah, this commentary suggests that Jesus expected to suffer,die and rise as that was the ideology – new thinking in his time:
(Mark 12:35–37; Matthew 22:41–46; Luke 20:41–44), Jesus is teaching on the TempleMount. Surprisingly, he
rejects the idea that theMessiah is the son of David: “How can the scribes say,” Jesus asks, “that Christ is the son of
David?” (Mark 12:35).
To demonstrate that theMessiah is not the son of David, Jesus quotes Psalm 110, attributed in the Hebrew Bible to
David himself. As the text of Mark (12:36) recites, David speaks in the psalm: “David himself, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, declared …” Jesus then recites a passage from the psalm:
“The Lord said tomy Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
till I put thy enemies under thy feet.”
Jesus then uses this passage to prove his point: “David himself calls him [theMessiah] ‘Lord,’ so how is he his son?”
That is, David speaks of theMessiah as “my Lord,” rather than as “my son.” TheMessiah therefore cannot be a son of
David. Using Psalm 110 as his proof text, Jesus here refutes the scribes’ view that Christ, theMessiah, should be a son
or descendant of David.
This seems strange in light of the fact that, as I noted earlier, in bothMatthew and Luke, Jesus’ lineage is specifically
traced to David. I am inclined to regard the passage in which Jesus quotes Psalm 110 as a historically reliable passage
in which Jesus rejects the view that theMessiah will be a descendant of David. Not only do versions of this incident
appear in all three Synoptic Gospels, but the very fact that it runs counter to the genealogies of Jesus suggests that this
contradictory versionmust be authentic. Otherwise, the authors of the Gospels would not have included something
that so blatantly clashes with their frequent reference to Jesus as the Son of David.
Some scholars have suggested that Jesus wished to claim that theMessiah is notmerely a son of David but rather has
a superior status—possibly that of the Son of God. However, if this were the case, we would have expected Jesus to
anchor his claim in Psalm 2:7, “You are my son, today I have begotten you,” rather than on the first verse of Psalm
110, which makes no explicit reference to theMessiah as the Son of God.
In citing Psalm 110, Jesus may well be seeking to dispel the prevalent expectation of a triumphal messiah, the
traditional “son of David.”
His ideal messianic model is different. As with theMessiah Ephraim, son of Joseph, Jesus’ Messiah involves suffering
and death.
The new inscription, “Gabriel’s Revelation,” suggests that this different kind of Messiah was evolving at the turn of the
era—different from theMessiah son of David. Instead of a militantMessiah, it envisions a Messiah who suffered, died
and rose. Jesus also understood theMessiah to be a Son of Joseph.
Like in “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also in the saying of Jesus, David is secondary to the other Messiah. In Nazareth, Jesus
was known as the “son of Joseph” (Luke 4:22; John 6:42). Thus it is quite possible that Jesus identified himself as the
Messiah “Ephraim,” the son of Joseph who is mentioned in “Gabriel’s Revelation.”
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any thoughts on this please? – gabriel stone and the theory that Jesus considered himself the suffering servant and not the lineage of the house of David as this seems to be a new idea in the first century `according to the stone discovery and interpretation of the text? thanks Sam
I’m not sure we know what the Gabriel Stone actually says at the key words.
I am new to the site, and just now reading these posts about Jerusalem. I was there in July 2013. Our Israeli cousin hired a tour guide, and we learned that an Arab Muslim family holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Funny.
Also, I did a quick research about the Holy Sepulcher and read that at one time it is thought that the site once housed a temple to Venus or some other Greek or Roman goddess. Not sure if that is historically true or false.