Loading...Weren’t Jews trying to make converts? Did Christians really do it mainly by telling stories about Jesus through word of mouth? And what did Jesus mean when he was talking about the Son of Man? Here are some of the excellent questions I’ve been asked by readers recently.
QUESTION:
Bart, My understanding is that Judaism WAS a proselytizing religion between about 150 BCE and 100 CE., which spread Judaism all around Mediterranean and parts of eastern Europe. I got that understanding from the book Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (2010) by Michael F. Bird. Michael Bird is apparently a well-known New Testament scholar in Australia. Are you familiar with him or with that book? What is your rationale for thinking he is incorrect?
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Did the Israelites ever worship these ‘lower-case’ gods instead of the ‘upper-case’ God? If so, were they ever rebuked for these actions?
One of the big issues for writers of the Hebrew Bible was that Israelites had turned to worship other gods (along with Yahweh)
Thank you for this very helpful explanation. Your point that the earliest Jesus traditions must have circulated primarily through oral transmission seems historically unavoidable. Similar patterns can also be observed in other religious traditions, such as early Buddhism.
I am curious, however, about the model of memory implied in the “telephone game” analogy. Much of the analogy seems to assume transmission primarily through individual memory. Yet studies of oral cultures and social memory often suggest that traditions are maintained within communities that implicitly regulate and stabilize important elements of shared narratives, even while allowing variation in wording, emphasis, and even the understanding of Jesus.
From that perspective, how do you see the role of communal memory in the transmission of the Jesus traditions? To what extent might early Christian communities themselves have shaped, stabilized, or filtered the stories that circulated before the Gospels were written?
Yes, in my book Jesus Before the Gospels I deal at length with social memory and with oral cultures, as studied by sociologiests and anthropologists, who regularly show that communal memory is not necessarily accurate and, in fact, is quite often as inaccurate as indivicual memory, sometimes for different reasons.
An off-topic question…
Hi Bart! As a former Christian and now an atheist, I rarely attend church, but today I attended an Easter service out of curiosity. The sermon made me think of historical accuracy and, therefore, of you, and I have two questions:
1. In 1st Corinthians, Paul writes, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”. If Corinthians was written before the gospels, then Paul cannot be referring to anything in the New Testament. What scriptures is Paul referring to here? The closest I can come up with is Jonah’s 3 days inside the whale. Your thoughts on this?
2. Paul claims to have “met” Jesus on the road to Damascus. Here in Corinthians, he seems to know a lot about Jesus and the whole business of sin and redemption. Where did he learn this stuff? Could he have heard this from Peter and James? Feels odd to me. Thoughts?
Thanks for your good work, I visit the blog every day!
– Don Rowlett
1. It is better translated “in accordance with the Scriptures.” Paul may be thinking that the resurrection was anticipated by Hosea 6:2 or the book of Jonah — or possibly both.
2. He indicates that “God revealed his son go me” and says that he “saw” Jesus, but he does not indicate Jesus directly spoke with him or taught him anything. Paul had been previously persecuting Christians for saying that Jesus as the crucified and resurrected messiah — and those two things (crucifixoin and resurrectoin) are what Paul talks most about. He says very little else about the life of Jesus, oddly enough. (reports only two of his ethical teachings, e.g.: pay your preacher and don’t get divorced!)
If I was there, I would not have believed “Saul of Tarsus”. Too sketchy. I have been around too many fraudsters and scammers. There are too many in the pulpits, today. But, Peter and James (brother of Jesus) accepted Paul. Peter and James might have disagreed with Paul’s message. A very unique message that he did not learn from anyone except through supernatural visions from Jesus Himself!!! Jesus went from town to town teaching the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul went from town to town teaching the New Covenant. The Kingdom of Heaven and the New Covenant is the same thing. “Covenant” has multiple meanings. It is similar to the U.S. Constitution being the “Law”. “Kingdom” meant political jurisdiction. Jesus taught that “Heaven” had jurisdiction on believers and unbelievers. The New Covenant is the Finished Work of the Cross. It supersedes and transcends SPACE and TIME. In the second (2nd) chapter of Romans, Paul said that many unbelievers are “acceptable” in the New Covenant. No evangelism is required. Faith is not required. NO PLAN OF SALVATION. NO ORGANIZED RELIGION. The “Unforgivable Offense” and “Blaspheming the Spirit of God” is the same thing, also. Paul taught a different criteria.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. Some fascinating questions and answers. I would suggest however, concerning the first question, that the Graeco-Roman mystery cults did engage in some limited proselytising, albeit not on the same scale as Christianity. Some cults had wandering priests who attempted to attract new devotees. The considerable growth, in particular, of the cults of Isis and Mithras, in the Roman Empire, could only have been achieved, I would contend, through some proselytisation.
Response 3: “I mean that it he (the Son of Man) is a divine being, not God himself, but a messenger of God sent to bring God’s judgment…” “He is “divine” being because he is not a mortal (who lives and dies).”
I have only started reading you because I confined myself to primary sources, not trusting anybody like you. And this is why. These are theistic statements. Atheists love you which mystifies me when I see things like this.
The synagogue setting in the early spread of Christianity seems to be Paul (among other) teaching blatant and mean-spirited apostasy (a ritual meal symbolizing blood and corpse of crucified former conservative leader). Conservative Jews obviously would have a response to this claim. We see this clearly in Revelation, which I think was written by actual Jesus team members, of which Paul was not one.
I agree that “Pharisees [were] trying to make other Jews accept Pharisaic views” (response 1, and basic gospel story plot) but Paul’s rival teaching of blatant apostasy in synagogues directly violated Torah and was becoming popular. This would have seemed like an emergency to conservative Jews so they would have increased their opposition missionary efforts.
Sorry, I don’t know what you mean that those are theistic statement. They are historical claims based on a detailed study of primary sources. Paul’s views were directly in contrast to the Torah depending entirely on whom you asked and on what issue.
This atheist reads Bart because I want to learn what we can KNOW about early Christianity, in light of what I was taught to BELIEVE (without evidence) as a child in Evangelical Sunday school.
My biggest take-away is that there are many religious teachings, many from the Bible itself, that cannot be trusted to be true.
I am grateful to have Dr. Ehrman’s work available to me and others who desire historical truth in their religious studies.
‘Son of Man as a divine being sent from heaven in judgment on the earth, as in the teachings of the historical Jesus, I mean that it he (the Son of Man) is a divine being, not God himself, but a messenger of God sent to bring God’s judgment — destruction for those opposed to God and salvation for those he favors.’ brings to mind a world-wide system of networked computers that controls mankind. It has just enough realism to be frightening.
To my understanding the Book of Mark is considered the earliest gospel and therefore the one closest to the actual life of Jesus. And as It contains no Virgin Birth or Resurrection, isn’t it safe to say that probably none existed; especially, as it was considered written right before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (70 CE). And since the next two gospels, chronologically, Mathew and Luke, were both written after the Romans solidified their conquest of Judea, and both have the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection narrative, Isn’t it obvious that the two events, Virgin Birth and Resurrection, never happened, but were added on to those gospels, either by Roman writers in an effort to “Romanize” Jesus in accordance with Roman pagan constructs, or by Jesus’s own Jewish followers, who were trying to fend off persecution by the Romans, by making Jesus more “Romanesque” and thereby, maybe fending off any persecutions by the Romans for not adopting their pagan Gods.
Reasonable?
Mark does have the resurrection. What he doesn’t have are the appearances of Jesus to any of his followers.
The fact that one account does not have a particular story, even if it is earlier, does not prove it didn’t happen. It only shows that the author either had not heard the story or did not, for reasons of his own, decide to include it in his account. My guess is that Mark had not heard it and possibly it wsa not even in circulation yet, but there’s no real way to know. I don’t think either of these stories would have been written to fend off persecutions, since they are never used so far as we can tell to that end, and almost certainly the Gospels were not meant for non-Xn readers (including persecutors).