(7 votes, average: 4.86 out of 5)
Loading...I’ve received a number of interesting and important questions from readers over the past couple of weeks, and would like to devote a couple of posts to airing my answers to everyone.
QUESTION:
I have a question for Bart. Every year right before Christmas we get numerous claims that Jesus was a Palestinian or a Palestinian Jew. As far as I know it’s not true but if you have academic evidence it’s true I will change my mind.
RESPONSE:
It’s a tricky business. The areas of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea were together renamed “Palestine” in 135 CE. In Jesus’ day they were called by their separate names. They were not called “Israel.” In two of the Gospels, Jesus is born in Bethlehem of Judea; does that make him a Judean? Normally yes. But he is raised and ministers in Galilee. Does that make him a Galilean? Normally yes. Today we usually refer to both areas as Israel, as it was originally called. Should he be called an Israelite?
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Okay, hmm…. In response to Question 2. I’ve always looked at that verse from more of the positive side. Many Christians I’ve known have followed Matthew 6:5-6 to the letter, and they are not at all showy, and have lived their lives by those two verses. I honestly don’t think a selfish person could actually abide by or is capable of living by those two verses for any long period time during their life. Those two verses would seem to separate, so to speak, “the men from the boys.”
Dear Prof. Ehrman,
I’m a graduate student in the history of mathematics, and I have a rather unusual request for you, so I pray that you bear with me.
I am currently trying to make sense of some lines of text by the great French 19th century mathematician Augustin Cauchy. These were private notes made by Cauchy while he was working on what he thought would culminate in a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Because he was worried some other mathematician might see his notes and steal his ideas (indeed, if he had been successful in proving Fermat’s Last Theorem, that would have been QUITE the achievement) he wrote in an “encrypted” format. Specifically, he wrote in Italian, but using Greek letters.
I am struggling to make sense of this, on account of Cauchy’s handwriting being so difficult to read.
Then I remembered your podcasts on the Secret Gospel of Mark, and Greek paleographers. Hence my unusual request. Do you think you could recommend or put me in contact with someone in the field? The amount of text is a mere 7 lines, and much of it is already decoded, albeit with a few words here and there missing.
Sincerely,
Makemakean.
Ha! It reminds me of when I was in graduate school. My best friend at the time and I used to pass notes to each other during a graduate seminar, but we didn’t want anyone to know what we were saying, so we wrote them in German but used Greek letters! Guess we didn’t come up with that, huh?
It’s probalby dead easy for someone to decipher if they know Greek; I suppose they should know some Italian too to make sure it’s makin’ sense. You might try Jason Staples over at North Carolina State. If he doesn’t want to take it on, he could probalby suggest someone else.
Hello Bart. I had a question about Paul and the relationship with the Gospel of John in the new testament if you don’t mind. I was basically wondering if you think there may be a closer relationship than some scholars recognize? Perhaps some direct line since John is clearly a sophisticated Greek author and Paul primarily preached in Greece.
I feel like there is more similarity between John and Paul than first appears. Both John and Paul have an extreme atonement theology (unlike Luke and is downplayed in Matthew who raises up the idea of keeping the Jewish Law).
Both also seem to preach an annihilationist view of the afterlife with Paul never mentioning Hell (Contra the Synoptics with Gehenna and especially Luke).
Finally both have a very high Christology with specifically recognizes Jesus as a preexistent agent of creation (Contra Mark, and most likely Luke and Matthew) they recognize Jesus as divine with Mark saying he had the power of the Holy Spirit at the baptism but don’t seem to imply he was an agent of creation.
Just wondering if you think I’m onto something and you’re thoughts on this. Thank you for all your time and thoughtfulness.
In the mid 20th century and earlier, it was widely simply assumed that John had been influenced by Paul. The problem is that when you look more closely at what they actually say, they are so very different. Just on the matter of believing in Jesus for salvation. That idea is not found in the Synoptics, but is prominent in Paul and John. But *what* you are supposed to believe is quite different. is it in the death and resurrection (Paul) or is it in Jesus as the one who has come down from heaven to reveal the truth (John). Paul thinks eternal life won’t start until Jesius returns; John thinks it’s in the present. Paul believes in an apocalyptic end of history; John rejects the apocalyptic view in favor of a heavenly existence being now. There are in deed lots of similarities between the two; so a judgment has to be made about whether there is any “borrowing.” My sense is that so many ideas floating around in different Christian circles were so similar, while many were quite different, that similarities of thought in and of themselves normally don’t demonstrate dependence, especially if so many differences are also there.
Hi Dr.Erhman, I had a question, do you think that any single text of the new testament teaches some form of multiple hypostasis-single essence theology such as trinitarianism or binitarianism? Or do you think such a notion can only be said to be “taught by the new testament” if we are viewing the text with a pressupisition of innerency and univocality (that the new testament cannot be in error or contradict and that all of the authors agree)
Also this was a great article! Thank you for all the work you do Dr. erhman
No, there aren’t any NT passages that unequivocally teach the Trinity or the … what, the Duality? These views come by taking one passage and combining it with another — for example, one that clearly states that God is the Father and that Jesus his Son is also God and that, if trinitarian, another saying the Spirit is God. That does not require an inerrantist view of the Bible, simply an acknowledgement that each of these verses is giving true informatoin.
Hello Bart. Sorry I had one more question. This one’s about the understanding of atonement across the gospels. Specifically why does Matthew and John think Jesus specifically HAD to die in your view? Especially Matthew since he is the one i struggle with most.
Luke famously doesn’t have atonement and thinks he had to die to bring people to repentance. I think Mark is a Pauline Gospel so it has his theology of Jesus death being a ransom for gentiles in mind.
Matthew and John are the ones that i struggle with most though. I think John says that it is meant to glorify God and provide proof of his mission.
Matthew I think understands Jesus’s death as opening the door to the gentile world but NOT being a ransom to absolve them of following Jewish Law (unlike Mark and Paul). I think the parable of the wedding feast is good evidence that he thinks that Jesus must first proclaimed in Israel (Matthew 10:16) but then after his death the disciples are now allowed to preach to the world in preparation for the end times due to the crucifixion (Matthew 28:18-19). Do you think this is right? Thank you.
I think Matthew pretty much has Mark’s view. It too, for example, has Jesus say that he has come to “give his life a ransom for many” and has a similar Last supper pronouncement that Jesus death is “for many” and has the temple curtain ripping at the time of death.
John’s view appears to be that Jesus had to die “for others” (Good shepherd discourse in ch. 10 e.g.) and that he was to “lay down his life” for his followers; and he portrays Jesus as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” He appears to think that the Passover lamb slaughtered on Passover was an atoning sacrifice (even though it wasn’t) and that Jesus was the lamb (that’s why he dies on the same day and the same hour as the lamb in John’s Gospel only). But why that is necessary is confusing, since throughout his ministry Jesus teaches that eternal life comes to the one who believes he is sent by God into the world in order to teach the “truth” (not that it comes to one who believes in his death and resurrevtion.” And the “truth” he describes as … that he has come from above toe reveal the truth! So why does he need to die? My guess is that John is wrestling with two ways of understanding how Jesus brought salvation (incarnation and teaching vs. death and resurrection) and includes them both without realizing they are in tensoin. But it’s hard to say.
I would not say that Luke “famously” doesn’t have an atonement. Most NT scholars don’t seem to realize that. I’ve spent about 20 years trying to convince some of them!
Hi Bart,
I am going to include here my comment (regarding the name “Palestine”) in the previous post (Dated December 16, 2024), but in a short-version due to the word-count restriction, then your reply, and then I will include here a new comment:
### My Comment shortened: This part of the world has been referred to as Palestine (Παλαιστίνη) even before 450BC as mentioned by Herodotus in his famous book (see Histories 3.91):
ἔστι δὲ ἐν τῷ νομῷ τούτῳ Φοινίκη τε πᾶσα καὶ Συρίη ἡ Παλαιστίνη καλεομένη καὶ Κύπρος: νομὸς πέμπτος οὗτος.
Also, there are evidences that this land was called Palestine by the Assyrians much before the Greek. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine
The Roman in 135AC didn’t invent the name Palestine for this land, but they just erased the name Judea, and replaced it with “Syria Palaestina”. Notice here that this name includes two known names that were in use much before the Roman: Syria and Palaestina.
### Your Reply: I think the question is what the land was called in the time of Jesus (less than what it was called centuries before or a century later).
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### My New Comment here:
This land (from the river to the sea) represents one geographical unit, therefore, it is logical to be referred to with a single name, and there are evidences that probably the Assyrians and most likely the Greek did refer to this land as “Palestine”.
Furthermore, there are some references (check the wiki link above) that this name (Palestine) was used by Philo of Alexandria and Josephus for this land, and both are just few decades after Jesus.
Furthermore, the Roman didn’t replace Judea (in 135AD) with Syria or with Palestine, but they replaced it with “Syria Palestine”, which does indicate that the names Syria and Palestine were in use before that time.
So, I think it is a valid conclusion that this specific unit of the world was called at the time of Jesus (in some circles and groups) as “Palestine”, as this was the name that was used for this land through so many centuries before.
Regarding pronouns in that John passage: it’s always struck me as odd that we take a brief detour from cosmic pre-existence to mention the comparatively marginal figure of John in 1:6-8. To my completely untrained eye, this seems like a candidate for interpolation (perhaps to lend credence to John’s authorship after the book was attributed to him?). In English at least, it muddles the pronouns in the following verses that the reader resolves to “Logos” via context clues (eg. no one thought the world came into being through John). Is this a case where Koine grammar squarely connects the “he” that begins 1:10 squarely with “the true light” of 1:9, or is it rather messy?
Yes, good observations. Scholars have long maintained that the prose elements of the prologue, both of which involve John the Baptist, were later inserted into the previously existing poetic passage about the Logos (i.e., they were not original to the passage, creating some problems); some have suggested that the insertions were made to make it perfectly clear that it was not John himself who was the Logos become flesh. Interesting idea! It would mean that there were some of John’s followers floating around who really did think he was “The One”
I’ve commented b/4 on this curiously accepted theological concept of the pre-existence of *the Word/Jesus* in the NT. (through whom all things were made, etc.) Don’t recall getting any feedback or comments. This seems to make the whole Garden of Eden-Eve’s Sin story ridiculous. Obviously, it was a setup. God, being all knowing, knew Eve would eat the fruit, in fact created a snake to tempt her into doing it. Plus, no one seems to have a problem with the fact she couldn’t *know* it was wrong until AFTER she ate the fruit! Still, Jesus has to die on the cross to *Atone* for this grievous *sin*? The creation of humanity, all the suffering and death of billions, was God’s *plan* all along – for the glorification of the Son. (Peter1:20,21/1Corinthians2:7/Ephesians1:4,5/Romans, chapters 8 and 9 go on and on about it!) What do people think the terms *PREDESTINED, FOREKNOWN, PREORDAINED* mean? Those words make a lie to any concept of *free will*, sorry, Augustine. Nope, just doesn’t get me all warm and cuddly about Christianity. Wrote a Kindle e-book on this but it got stuck in the middle of Christian fiction, so not a big seller. Ha!
I don’t think the Prologue actually mentions the atonement or a sacrificial death for sin (or Adam/Eden/etc.)?
Re: Question three
How does the Logos become flesh? Functionally I mean. For Mark, Jesus was adopted as God’s son at his baptism. For Matthew and Luke Jesus was divine at conception. How did John imagine Jesus’ birth as the Logos made flesh? Did the Logos come upon Jesus at some point the way the Holy Spirit was said to come upon Jesus in Mark? Was being the Logos made flesh in any way inconsistent with a normal biological birth? (I note that John refers to Jesus being the son of Joseph twice, once by a friend and once by an enemy.)
I understand John is not clear at all about this. Any intuitions?
Yeah, I wish he would have said! He appears to know that Jesus had a youg life (he came out of Nazareth), so probably he doesn’t imagine him showing up as an adult as Marcion later claimed. Certainly in Greek and Roman myths divine men were literally born; so I suppose that’s my best guess. Not that God got mary pregnant as a virgin but a divine being entered her womb.
Did Jews in Jesus’ day ever use the word “Palestine?” Does Josephus use any particular words to refer to the region?
It turns out to be a tricky issue, but I don’t know of any place where he himself uses Palestine as his designation of the land of Israel; he speaks of Judea and Galilee a lot, and does acknowledge that the land was centuries earlier called Palestine.
No, true, Adam and Eve just had to leave Eden, suffer and die. Atonement was a total NT concept, right? There was no “Hell” before then as you’ve explained. 1Peter1:20 “He was *chosen before the world was created*, but has been revealed in these last times for your sake.” Ephesians 1:4 “For he chose us in Christ *before the creation of the world* to be holy and blameless before him.” Romans 3:25 “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of *atonement,* through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith.” The Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world. When/where did the “sins” begin? If a Creator creates a creature that proves to have a flaw, who’s responsible? Do you blame the “created”? And why chose a Savior *before* you create a world, unless you plan to create a world that needs to be saved? Thus began a whole genre of literature called “Apologetics”.
And thanks for responding Bart, I have no idea how you have time to do it all, but your blog has helped me work thru a whole lot of questions in my life.
There was atonement already in the OT, and in most ancient religions. In Judaism, there was Yom Kuppur, e.g., — the Day of Atonement.
I guess God chooses a Savior before the world because as omniscient he saw how things would go; and in the theological tradition, the “flaw” is not that humans are given the choice to obey or not (which is how they were created) but that they made the wrong choice (which isn’t the creator’s fault). But as you say, it sure seems like these are problematic views…
Sorry, forgot the discussion origin was the Prologue of John, of course the Jews were always big on Atonement, hence the Scapegoat rituals. The point I was trying to make were the *problematic views* in the “theological tradition” that states God is omniscient, yet humanity’s flaw is despite their “free will,” they make “sinful” *choices.* Jesus and NT authors didn’t believed that, obviously, from their statements. In my previous mentioned quotes and the following, WHO is doing the CHOOSING? Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-*not from yourselves,* it is the *gift* of God-For we are God’s *handiwork*, etc. John 6: 64, “Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew which of them did not believe and who would betray him from the very beginning. Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me has *enabled* them. Matt 11:25+ “-no one knows the Father except the Son—and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him to.” Mark4:9+/John12:39- the parables’ were only to edify Jesus’ chosen followers, not those “on the outside”. Jesus believed in “Fate”.
It’s not too hard to use an appropriate description of Jesus’ geographic denomination even if it uses more than one word. The Jews fought to the end, literally, for a land they called…. what? What did the population of Jews called their land? They were the People of Israel. Even Pharaoh Mrneptah seems to have acknowledged that. Jesus is universally known as Jesus of Nazareth, even as Nazareth most likely didn’t have a name, until the hamlet became associated with the “Notzri”, the Sectarian/Christian, Jesus, and took its name. In Hebrew, Nazareth is Natzeret or Natzrat, meaning “the city/place of the Notzri”. Jews call Christians Notzrim. If the name Nazareth had existed when Jesus lived,the inscription ( only) in John, which is unlikely to have contained the name of Jesus’ town, would have said
” Y’shua Natzrati – not Notzri-, etc ( King of the Jews). The INRI inscription refers to how Jesus was viewed as a sectarian.
Jesus was from the land of Israel.
Even Josephus made it clear ” Palestina” referred to the strip where the Philistines lived. Calling the land Jesus lived and belonged to ” Palestine” is not only anachronistic. It is wrong.
Calling the land of Israel ” Palestine” perpetuates the malice Adrian exhibited when he eliminated Israelite denominations for the land ,as the area became Syria-Palestina, in order to kill the Jews’ identity in their land and their connection to it. It was the cruelty of Pax Romana. It describes irrefutable genocide, oppression, utter destruction and enslavement of an entire people, because they rebelled.
Let’s not do that ourselves if we say Jesus was from Palestine.
As far as this idea of ‘free will’ as mentioned by a previous poster on this thread, I was always mystified as to just what this actually means. If ‘free will’ actually was ordained by God, it certainly wasn’t ordained in a very fair, loving or merciful manner. Does a Downs Syndrome child with a 40 IQ have the same ‘free will’ as an Einsteinian genius or even as a person of normal intelligence? Does a person born with no legs or dysfunctional legs have the same ‘free will’ as a non disabled person? In any case, does this totally invalidate the idea of a merciful, loving God who ‘wishes that none may perish?’
My sense is that when people claim humans have a free will they don’t mean that they can freely will *everything* in their lives, just some things (and the fact that they can freely choose to do anything at all is remarkable, given the rest of what makes up the universe)
In response to the question about Predestination: Adam and Eve, the origins of sin and related issues, I always wondered how anyone could accept any of that–since what these fables actually say is that all suffering and evil originated because of the first two human beings. Wouldn’t the logical thing have been for God to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden and take two others to fill their places? This is especially contradictory when you read some Old Testament writings to the effect that “the sins of the parents shall not be visited upon the children or the children’s upon the parents.'” I believe this alluded to in the Torah and also in Ezekiel.
I would think that the reference to “Palestine’ as a site of Jewish suffering as Josephus is summing up, Antiquities Book 20 section 259 in the version (Giese) available on the Perseus website, is very close to an acceptance from Josephus’ own mouth that “Palestine’ is, as far as he is concerned, the internationally accepted name – he uses it somewhat unselfconsciously, I think.
There seems to have come a time when ‘Canaan’ became obsolete or archaic. From then on I think everyone called it Palestine until 1948
Hi Dr. Ehrman: You wrote in response:
If free will involves consciousness and ability as well as intellect, then how much free will does one really have when they lack the education, intellect or physical ability to even consider doing something–either good or evil–when they can’t really be said to understand what is going on?
Can you tell us more about the concept of ‘Logos’ in the greek world at this time? Do you think ‘the word’ is a good translation at the start of John’s gospel? I’ve heard others say it could be related to ‘the mind of God’ or ‘the powerful force of God’. What should we understand by this concept? I’ve heard others say it is untranslatable! Thoughts?
Logos is a word that can mean “word” “speech” “thought” “reason” — a flexible word. It was widely used in philosophical thought, especially by Stoics, who maintained that “reason” infuses all of reality – that is that this world ultimately makes sense. In John 1 Logos is probalby best translated as Word since it is alluding both to the one who made and is in all things (God’s Word) and the way all things came into being (as God “said” “Let there be light”) The Word in John is the expression of God that reveals who he fully is. It became a human at the incarnation.
Hello. What do you think about Lactancio and Constantino ?
I’m not sure what you mean? I don’t have an opinion per se. Lactantius was a Christian philosopher/theologian who became tutor for Constantine’s oldest son, and later wrote an account of Constantine’s conversion. If you’re asking whether I think Lactantius’s version is reliable, it’s hard to say. It conflicts in places with what both Eusebius later and the anonymous panegyrist earlier said about the conversion, os it’s difficult to know. Lacantius, of the three, knew him best.