Loading...I have spent a few posts explaining the overarching views of the ancient Hebrew prophets; in this lecture I want to explain how a very different “apocalyptic” view — one embraced by Jesus, John the Baptist before him, and the earliest Christians after him — emerged within ancient Israel. It has to do with how historical circumstances forced thinkers in Israel to re-evaluate what the prophets had said. Here is the simple version of the story, as I lay it out in my textbook on the Bible, edited a bit.
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The Prophetic Perspective
We have seen that the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible differed from one another in a number of ways, in the historical contexts that they addressed, in their manner of addressing them, and in the specifics of their messages. But there are certain common features that tie all the prophets together, especially with respect to their understanding of God, his reaction to Israel’s failure to do his will, and the coming disasters that will occur as a result. If you were to ask a prophet like Amos, Isaiah, or Jeremiah why it is the people of God suffer, they would have a clear and ready answer. They suffer because
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I love this discussion! Are you still resisting the older consensus of Persian influence contributing to the origins of and eventual flowering of apocalypticism within Judaism? I think there’s a couple of problems with attributing Jewish apocalypticism solely to the Maccabean crisis. The oldest parts of Enoch seem to predate this crisis, and the solar calendar used in the apocalyptic writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls may also betray Persian influence. I certainly commend your efforts to understand the rise of Jewish apocalypticism as a Jewish phenomenon, but some consideration of Persian theology and cosmology influencing this development is still attractive. It would not have been a whole-sale imposition of Persian ideas, but rather exposure to foreign ideas from a largely benevolent former Persian empire percolating, taking root, and eventually flowering in a useful Jewish theological evolution helping to understand this much more evil and insidious new empire. Thoughts?
Yes, I’m still not confident that Persian influence was significant — mainly because I’m not sure we can date the relevatn Persian texts that early. It’s a sticky business and I’m no expert. But yup, I now think the Maccabean period saw the rising popularity of apocalyptic thought, but not the beginning, for just the reason you give: the Book of the Watchers.
Dear Bart,
In your 1988 NTS article, Jesus and the Adulteress, you argue (p.30) that Didymus the blind knew of the pericope adulterae (PA) from the Gospel of John and the Gospel according to the Hebrews (GHeb).
However, in your (and Plese’s) 2014 book The Other Gospels, you do not include the Didymus PA account in your list of GHeb passages.
I appreciate a lot of time elapsed between 1988 and 2014, so I’d like to ask if you changed your mind over this passage, or if there were other reasons for omitting it?
We don’t include it because Didymus is paraphrasing the story, not quoting it, and because he doesn’t attribute it to the GHeb. The identification (GHeb) seems likely to me but not certain.
Many thanks. I notice that against Gregory (2017) but with Klijn (1992) you attribute the Ps. Origen quotation from Matt15 to GNaz, rather than GHeb. I assume this is due to the synoptic nature of the quote?
As you probably know, it’s a terribly thorny situation, trying to figure out what is what among the “Jewish Gospels,” in partiucalr because our sources themselves can be shown to get them all confused. But yes, the Synoptic nature suggests it was from GNaz instead of GHeb.
This makes perfect sense from a boots on the ground, social psychology standpoint. It is still a major shift in worldview (from God is in control of everything to Satan is in charge of this world), so I am curious whether there is any surviving apologetic type literature that attempts to justify the shift on theological grounds?
If I recall correctly, Satan is mentioned only 3 times in the Old Testament, outside of Job, all in an accuser type role, which underscores how big a change this was.
Were there other ancient Jewish writers who wrestled with the problem of good people suffering and came up with solutions other than apocalypticism?
Oh yes. My book God’s problem talks about the prophets, Job, Ecclesiastes, and other writings of the Bible with different views.
Another explanation, though I don’t know if it was used at that time, is that God was testing the faithful to see if they would remain so. This definitely became a Christian argument: When Catholic (French) missionaries converted some Hurons in Canada, and they began to suffer while the heathen Iriquois prospered, the priests explained that this was a test of their faith, and that while the Iriquois were happy in this life, they would suffer in the next one.
I wonder how the prosperity gospel folks would deal with that.
Some of them would say they passed the test!
In the Gospel of Luke, I was led to believe that repentance is critical to salvation, to the point where an atonement for sins isn’t required in Jesus’ death. If that’s the case in Luke, what is achieved in repentence, and does that have any impact on individual suffering? … Or am I missunderstanding Luke? Thanks!
That’s how I understand Luke too. I’m not sure how the views affected his understanding of suffering.
Many Christians today want it both ways: when a big tragedy occurs, like 9-11 or Hurricane Katrina, it is because God is chastising us for our sins (more accurately, the sins of those sinners, not me!). But when tragedy occurs to a fellow church member who is known to be a good believer, it is Satan and the fallen world causing the problem. Didn’t early Christians do the same? The destruction of Jerusalem was God’s judgment on the Jews, but their own persecution was due to Satan, as in Revelation?
Yup, good point!
Re: “if you do what is wrong you will suffer but if you do what is right you will prosper”
Isn’t this attitude behind the disciples’ astonishment when Jesus pointed out how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom? So Jesus himself is depicted as critiquing the prophetic point of view as part of his apocalypticism?
Yup, I thinik so.
Do any of the apocalypticists ever suggest a reason why God would, even temporarily, let the forces of evil have control?
Some thought it was the faulty of humans who introduced evil into the world; others (more?) thought it was becausee of angels who sinned. God let the maters take their course.
I think the new testament writers adopt the sovereign view of God found in the Prophets but within an apocalyptic framework. E.g Acts 4.28 – the evil powers conspired to kill Jesus but they were carrying out what Gods ‘hand’had decreed.
So why does god let the forces of evil have control? For his purposes, whatever they are.
It’s a mystery!
If I properly understand your contrasting prophetic views/traditions, one is face with on one had a interventionalist, judgmental God, who rewards righteous Behaviour and punishes, perhaps for corrective purposes, bad behavior and aloof God, who consciously allows bad things to happen to good people for a set period of time and then acts in interventionalist ways to end or relieve the suffering.
Either way, we are trying to explain the problem of obvious suffering in this world.
I would agree that the above fairly accurately describes the thinking/conclusions of the ancient world as represented in our biblical sources.
If one does not believe in a either God, is there perhaps another answer – perhaps not in antiquity. But within present contemplative spirituality. What about a God who is not so interactive as needing law obedience or sacrifice. A god of intimacy and relationship and unconditional love. A god who yearns for mutuality in relationship of total freedom, of total vulnerability, and unconditional love.
Dr Ehrman,
1. Does it not seem to be that the time period of Seleucid King Antiochus IV is also the time period of emergence of Jewish Gnostic sects which later evolved into Christian-Jewish Gnostic sects?
(everyone is trying to solve the answer to random human suffering coming up with different solutions/religions/mythologies?)
2. “If you were to ask a prophet like Amos, Isaiah, or Jeremiah why it is the people of God suffer, they would have a clear and ready answer. They suffer because God is punishing them for their sins. ”
Could Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah be called reciprocalists? ( in contrast to apocalypticists prophets)
Or any better term you can suggest?
1. I don’t think so. We don’t have any evidence for Jewish Gnosticism until several centureies later. 2. I’m not familiar with the word reciprocalists, so if it’s in use, I don’t know if it’s appropriate or not!
What strikes me Is not that Ancient people believed these explanations, but that So many modern people still do…
Was the apocalyptic view a repudiation of the prophetic view or just another explanation for suffering? In other words, was the apocalyptic view a claim that the prophetic view was wrong and never applicable or just not applicable in this case?
We don’t have any record of apocalypticists saying that the prophets before them were wrong, no.
I read the above. I remember the gist of it from one of your Great Courses.
God was not at fault, his enemies were. … God had relinquished control of this world to evil forces. That almost sounds like the Gnostics.
QUESTION #1: Given the historical challenges to the prophetic perspective, were there two responses: Apocalypticism where God relinquished control to evil forces and Gnosticism where the force had been evil all the time? Did Gnosticism originate before, at the same time, or after the Apocalyptic Alternative?
QUESTION #2: With Jesus being an apocalyptic prophet, should he be less tied to the Prophetic Perspective than to the Historical Challenges to the Prophetic Perspective:
Apocalypticism where God relinquished control to evil forces
and
Gnosticism where the force had been evil all the time?
All of Jesus’ ministry is not tied to Gnosticism
All of Jesus’ ministry is not tied to Apocalypticism
because in the first part of Jesus’ ministry, God had not relinquished power to evil: Go tell John [basically, the Kingdom of God is at hand, the Son of Man is here, etc.]. It wasn’t until Jesus himself saw his Heavenly Father relinquishing power to the evil of “the wicked tenants killing the messengers and the son.”
1. Centuries after. 2. So Jesus had no GNostic influence on him. He was definitely influenced by both the Hebrew prophets and apocalytic thinking.
Because Gospel of Judas dates to 280 C.E.
and Gospel of Thomas dates to … wait a second, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas dates 60 to 140 C.E.
Encyclopedia Britannica
The Gospel of Thomas, preserved in a Coptic gnostic library found about 1945 in Egypt, contains several such sayings, besides some independent versions of canonical sayings. At certain points the Gospel tradition finds independent confirmation in the letters of the Apostle Paul.
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You say centuries after but Gnostic Gospel of Thomas is dated right there with Mark through Acts. Please explain.
Bart D.E.
It has to do with how historical circumstances forced thinkers in Israel to re-evaluate what the prophets had said. Here is the simple version of the story, as I lay it out in my textbook on the Bible, edited a bit.
Steefen
Please confirm which textbook that is.
Is it The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction?
Not The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd Edition
You have written two textbooks (not including scholarly works that can be supplemental texts)?
You have not had to do a second edition of the 2013 Bible textbook?
I have three textbooks, two on the NT and one on the Bible. I was referring to my Bible textbook which came out in a much improved (in my opinion) second edition in 2018.
I found these on amazon:
1) The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (2019) / $55
[Concise version of the above]
2) A Brief Introduction to the New Testament, Fifth Edidtion (2020) / $52 (does not have a Look Inside link to see Table of Contents)
3) The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (2017) / $73 (does not have a Look Inside link to see Table of Contents)
YEs, the third one is the second edition of my 2014 textbook on the BIble.
Dr Ehrman,
1. Who were the first and earliest Apocalyptic prophets of OT?
2. Could Book of Isaiah be hinting to Cyrus the Great? Maybe Book 1 hinting towards Cyrus and Book 2 and 3 towards Cyrus?
3. Could Book of Isaiah be considered most important OT book for Christianity?
1. The only main one is Daniel (chs. 7-12) 2. Isaiah calls Cyrus the Messiah. 3. I’m not sure how that would be decided, but it certainly was highly important.
Just double checking if the Isaiah prophecies for Jesus are misplaced and actually belong to Cyrus.
I don’t think there’s anything to suggest so that I know of.
I don’t think there’s anything to suggest so that I know of.
Isaiah calls Cyrus the Messiah but Christians see Isaiah making a prophecy about another Messiah, Jesus?
They realize that “messiah” simply means anointed one, and that the kings were indeed anointed. But Jesus is the ultimate messiah.
It’s true that “if you do what is wrong you will suffer but if you do what is right you will prosper” — spiritually, NOT necessarily in this world. The reason “economic, political, and military success or failure of the nation appeared to bear no relationship at all to the question of its faithfulness to God“ is because it DIDN”T!
While in this world we are free to “strive for all these things” and “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” One of the things God doesn’t have the power to do is set OUR priorities. But — inevitably — “This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Better to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Wisdom cannot be imposed on us even by God, himself! Whether we bring along enough oil for our lamps is up to each of us.
Maybe virtue is its own reward. But sin is definitely its own punishment — a concept called “karma” that was, even by the time of Jesus, already well appreciated in the more theologically sophisticated east.
People suffer “droughts, famines, epidemics, and military defeats” because learning to deal with these kinds of challenges is the very reason they are here.
Jews completely misconstrued the divine nature — a misunderstanding embraced by their Christian and Muslim theological progeny that continues to this day.
As 17th-century philosopher, Gottfried Leibniz, succinctly articulated the problem: How can an all knowing, all powerful and all good divinity permit such calamities? Reconciling all three is a logical impossibility — a point you well illustrated by noting the Jewish assumption that “God has been trying to get the people to recognize the error of their ways and to turn back to him.”
Trying?? How can an omnipotent being “try” to do anything? How could failure have ever been an option? In the words of the venerable, Jedi master: “Do or do not. There IS no try!”
Neither can an all-loving God be “punishing his people for their sins and unfaithfulness,” nor an all-knowing one somehow change his mind and “relent” to “restore them into a good standing with himself.”
The real conundrum here is: How did Jews manage to develop this manifestly wrong-headed theology when all THREE aspects of it are refuted by their OWN scripture?