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Loading...Yesterday I dealt with the issue of anonymous writings in antiquity, what we know about them in general. Today I deal directly with the question about why the Gospels of the New Testament were all written anonymously, with the authors giving us no indication of who they were. I have a theory about that, a theory that I’ve never heard or seen before. Here is how I lay it out in my trade book Forged.
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It is always interesting to ask why an author chose to remain anonymous, never more so than with the Gospels of the New Testament. In some instances an ancient author did not need to name himself because his readers knew perfectly well who he was and did not need to be told. That is almost certainly the case with the letters of 1, 2, and 3 John. These are private letters sent from someone who calls himself “the elder” to a church in another location. It is safe to assume that the recipients of the letters knew who he was.
Some people have thought that the Gospels were like that: books written by leading persons in particular congregations who did not need to identify themselves because everyone knew who they were. But then as the books were copied and circulated, names were still not attached to them. As a result the identities of the authors were soon lost. Then later readers, rightly or wrongly, associated the books with two of the disciples (Matthew and John) and with two companions of the apostles (Mark the companion of Peter and Luke the companion of Paul).
Another option is …
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In the modern era, we are obsessed with authorship. Everybody dreams of writing something that becomes acclaimed, famous, influential, popular–and in so doing, their name becomes immortal. Most of us never get close to that dream, but it’s a very common dream, and it motivates a great deal of writing.
However, there is still a great deal of writing done under pseudonyms, particularly online, but some very fine (and popular) professional authors also use them. The truth is, writing under your own name can be limiting–there’s a self-consciousness there that is hard to escape. Writing under an assumed name–or, one might argue, no name at all, if that were an option–can be liberating. That’s why people do it. (Well that, and they’re afraid their boss will find out what they’re doing when they’re supposed to be working.)
All the more true for people who really did want to believe they were, in some way, channeling the truth of God into the words they wrote. That they were conduits for something greater than themselves. We should all be able to understand this, whether we have any defined religious faith ourselves or not.
If the gospel authors lived long enough, they lived to see their words influence a whole generation of Christians, take hold in a way that perhaps they could not have done if they had put their names on them. It’s a fine thing to have your name live on–but to have your words, your ideas live on? I’d say that’s better.
Obviously this is less of an option when you’re writing scholarly works.
(Have you ever fantasized about writing something anonymously, Bart? Let it all hang out? Now I think on it, have you actually done that? Never mind. I withdraw the question.)
To be clear, I meant writing scholarly works under a pseudonym. Not that scholarly works can’t live on in the public mind, though to be sure, most of them were never there to begin with.
I’ve thought about writing something under a pen name. IN fact, my idea was to write two articles, arguing the opposite side of an issue, under two differetn pen names. But I was urged by those close to me not to do it….
How about a dialogue?
This, then, begs the question as to why later church fathers felt the need to attribute them? I understand that they may well have wished to lend them authority in the face of heretical counter views but surely they should have been satisfied with the tradition that books were often anonymous when relating God’s story.
It was because all those years later, with so many Gospels in circulation, with a wide range of varying views, they need to have “authoritative” texts to trust, and for them authority was related to authorship.
“I have a theory about that, a theory that I’ve never heard or seen before. … Another option is that the authors did not name themselves because they thought that their narratives assumed greater authority if told anonymously. … In all four Gospels, the story of Jesus is presented as a continuation of the history of the people of God as narrated in the Jewish Bible. The portions of the Old Testament that relate the history of Israel after the death of Moses are found in the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. All of these books are written anonymously. … And so it makes sense for these Gospel writers to remain anonymous, as the writers of biblical history were almost always anonymous.”
Is this your view or have you yet to explain your view perhaps? I’m would be very surprised if you have never seen this theory before. Though I’ve never researched this question, I’ve always assumed this must be a rather common view. Here’s what I found as the very first hit on a quick Google search:
“Armin Baum has argued that the historical books of the New Testament (gospels and Acts) were intentionally written as anonymous works in order to reflect the practice of the Old Testament historical books which were themselves anonymous (as opposed to other Old Testament writings, like the prophets, which included the identity of the author).[1]
Thus, the anonymity of the Gospels, far from diminishing their scriptural authority, actually served to increase it by consciously placing the Gospels “in the tradition of Old Testament historiography.”[2]
[1] Armin D. Baum, “The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books: A Stylistic Device in the Context of Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern Literature,” NT 50 (2008): 120-142.
[2] Baum, “Anonymity,” 139.
https://www.michaeljkruger.com/did-the-gospel-authors-think-they-were-writing-scripture/
Roland Deines also points to this view being defended for Matthew by D. Moody Smith, When Did the Gospels Become Scripture? , Journal of Biblical Literature 119 (2000) 3-20 and Martin Huneburg, ‘Das Matthausevangelium als heilige Schrift. Vom Anspruch eines Textes‘, Quatember 71 (2007) 144-155.
https://www.academia.edu/16364510/Did_Matthew_Know_He_was_Writing_Scripture
Interesting. Well, prepare to be surprised. No, I hadn’t seen either of these when I came up with my view (in the mid 2000’s). Well, OK, some minds think alike!
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you might have been aware of this view being already held by others. My surprise was merely that this was not a more commonly held view.
It makes sense that such authors would see this story as being more important than themselves and thus want to put the focus on the story rather than the writer. I think this holds true even though each had his particular slant to circulate.
wouldn’t the gospels get some name, even if incorrectly, at the latest as soon as two of them were available to single a congregation?
in what year do you think there existed a christian congregation possessing more than one gospel?
Not necessarily. Justin knows multiple Gospels but doesn’t identify them by name. What mattered for most of these early church father is that the Gospels explained what Jesus said and did. It didn’t matter (for them) who wrote the accounts. The accounts were simply “telling it like it was.” Later that changed, with circulation of still other accounts.
Jesus’ disciples were probably illiterate, but even if not, they had no need to write a history of Jesus since they expected Jesus to return soon. So, I guess it makes sense that later disciples would start to write down the stories that had been passed along without putting their names on the documents, since they weren’t really writing an original story, they were just writing down what people already knew. However, if one of Jesus’ Twelve did take the time to write down his story, I would think he would put his name to it, to prove it was by an eyewitness who was close to Jesus, and I’d expect some first-person narrative, instead the consistently third-person perspective we find in all four gospels. So, I would think their anonymity still argues against authorship by one of the Twelve.
Dr Bart, I was in an argument with a friend over what the Bible says about homosexuality. My question is this: Did the Bible forbid homosexuality?
Secondly, Is homosexuality not the reason why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Thanks
It depends completely on what you mean by “homosexuality.” The ancient world didn’t have a conceptoin of “sexuality” at all, if by that we mean something like “sexual orientation.” All of that is post-Freudian. The Bible of course can’t condemn something it doesn’t know about. It does, however, condemn same-sex sexual relations (men with men; women with women). But it’s views of *WHY* that was wrong do not coincide with the modern views. If you want to read up on that, one place to start is Jeffrey Siker’s collectoin of essays, Homosexuality in the Church.
Where does the bible forbid same-sex relationships between women?
See Romans 1:18-32.
Ah yes. You know, from the very start, nobody agreed on what Paul meant by that.
Augustine thought it referred to anal and oral sex between men and women.
“But if one has relations even with one’s wife in a part of the body which was not made for begetting children, such relations are against nature and indecent. In fact, the same apostle earlier said the same thing about women, “For their women exchanged natural relations for those which are against nature.” quoting Romans 1:26 (Marriage and Desire, 20.35)”
Given how unequivocal the proscriptions against male same-sex relations are (here and in Leviticus), and that this is the only potential proscription of lesbian sex anywhere in the bible (and as such, invaluable to modern Christians who want to prove lesbians are sinners too)–and is most unclear, even when read in context–I don’t think we can make any definitive statement here.
It’s a phallo-centric culture. If there’s no phallus involved, no man present, the general attitude is not to care that much about it, correct?
Paul was condemning all sexual behavior that isn’t ‘natural’–ie, geared towards producing children within the bounds of marriage. ‘One man and one woman’ isn’t good enough for him. And of course, best of all to refrain from sex entirely, but if that isn’t possible, marry so as not to burn.
I’m not convinced he even knew there was any such thing as a lesbian. I mean, how experienced do you think he was?
Augustine was REALLY experienced (even Jimi Hendrix would be impressed)–one might go so far as to call him a leading authority on unnatural acts–and he thought it referred to anal and oral sex. I think we must all bow to his superior expertise. 😉
Good point; the Old Testament does NOT.
Good point; the Old Testament DOESN’T.
If you read the CONTEXT of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is clear that the REAL sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality to guests and travellers.
The Jewish midrashic literature is far more explicit than the Bible on this matter.
Basically, the crime of Sodom was that they hated strangers, and did their best to discourage any visitors to their city. Homosexual rape was a MEANS to this end. The purpose of homosexual rape was NOT because the people were sexually hungry, for the Midrash makes it clear, even old people participated in the assaults too, whom are not ordinarily suspected of having an excess of sexual energy..
Homosexual rape was the MEANS to the end of discouraging visitors. It was not in itself the reason why they did it. But if you were a stranger passing through and had been subjected to rape solely because you were a stranger, very likely you’d never visit Sodom ever again!
According to the Midrash, other methods also were used to discourage visitors.
One method was a Procrustean bed, in which guests were placed in beds, and if they were too short to fit into the bed, they were stretched on a rack; and if they were too tall for the bed, enough of their feet were cut off to make them fit.
The moral purpose of the stories is to contrast the inhospitality of Sodom v. the great hospitality and kindness that Abraham the Patriarch was known for.
So in summary — no, Sodom was NOT destroyed, per se, for homosexuality.
Sodom was destroyed for offending against a basic obligation to provide hospitality to strangers, by using homosexual rape, among other things, as a method in their sin.
Obviously there are no surviving Sodomites to inquire about this alleged practice (if you happen to pass any pillars of salt, you could always query them), but I agree that inhospitality is certainly part of what they’re condemned for. However, we can’t very well ignore Leviticus. Men having sex with other men was condemned in all circumstances, consensual or otherwise. Which was fairly unique in that part of the world, at that time.
(A lot of the man/boy love among the Greeks that some modern gay men look back on nostalgically could be categorized as rape today, certainly exploitation–standards change. It was never about sexual preference, since only adult males, and probably just those with some property, got to exercise their preferences with impunity. Standards of behavior change over time. And never stop changing. Let’s not pretend it’s just the ancient Jews who don’t match up with our present-day standards. Nobody from that time would understand us.)
How likely is it that you’d march into any city at that time, and people with no proclivity to anal sex would say “Hey, strangers! Let’s rape them to make them go away”? This is a myth, obviously. But like all myths, it’s got a point, and the point is that unpleasant people often engage in aberrant sexual practices. That people who are inhospitable may also be pederasts.
I do see some slight indication in the first Book of Samuel, that love between men of high rank with some romantic component to it was not unknown among the Israelites either.
I’m guessing it wasn’t unknown anywhere.
The question is, is the story of the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah historically true, or is the story itself a sheer myth?
Did the author of Genesis record a real historical event, or did he invent a myth, a legend. And if so, why? Did he do it to tell a parable about Abraham the Patriarch?
The Jewish Midrashic literature is very interesting and informative. It first of all, and much more than the actual Bible text, makes it plain that the sin of Sodom & Gomorrah was NOT homosexuality per se; rather, the REAL sin of Sodom & Gomorrah was that they were enemies of hospitality, and used homosexual rape as a MEANS to show they meant business when they discouraged visitors from ever visiting their fair city.
The Midrashic literature paints Abraham as the epitome of gracious and kindly hospitality.
So what better way to illustrate and proclaim this personal quality than to contrast it to the story of a city which was totally the opposite of Abraham?
THIS may be the reason why the story of Sodom makes its way into the Bible — as a propaganda device to promote and extol the virtue(s) of Abraham the Founder.
So the story might not have really happened at all.
And even if it did, the purpose of God’s punishment of Sodom was NOT to punish them for gay sex, but rather for the REAL sin of not extending hospitality to strangers.
I think it’s maybe a little less mythical than the Book of Jonah.
But not much.
(Jonah is one of my favorite bible stories. Jesus reportedly enjoyed it as well. Viva myth!)
Another way the Midrash says the (literal) Sodomites tortured their guests was for the guests to be tied to anthills and them smothered in honey.
Is there any source/book that critiques all the gospels for which parts of the texts were from the original authors and which parts were added/redacted later?
Nothing that is really useable for general readers. One reason is that the analyses have to be quite detailed and technical, and there is literally *NO* agreement among scholars concerning which is which.
Dr. Ehrman,
I know the gospels do not mention an author within the pages and therefore anonymous within the biography itself. Why do scholars think that titles (like the ones we have today) would not have been on the gospels proclaiming an author? If the earliest copies are just fragments then the earliest full copies actually have these titles……then why not assume the earliest versions (even the autographs) would have had these titles?
Best
Ah, it takes a long answer. I think I’ve posted on it, but I’ll look it up and see, and add the question to the mailbag. (One short answer: no one calls their book “According to Mark” — that is someone *else* telling you whose version of the story it is)
I think of the issue of Anonymity like this —
I was once a member of various symphonic orchestras. Our Uniform of the Day was ALWAYS a black tuxedo, a white shirt, and a black bow-tie.
It could not have been more unlike popular rock / pop musicians. With THOSE guys, it’s all about having a spectacular VISUAL show — the more whirling lights, the more decibels, the more outrageous the costumes, the more amazing the stage choreography, the better. Because those artists WANT EVERYBODY to know EXACTLY who they are! The shows they do are all about THEM as performers.
It was just the opposite with us orchestral players. We all wore drab black because who WE were as persons and performers was totally unimportant and irrelevant. It was what we DID that was important. So our task was to be as unvisual as possible and let our music speak for us.
It may be the same way with the anonymous gospel writers. By remaining anonymous, in effect, they were trying to say, I PERSONALLY am NOT important. It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is what I’m saying about Jesus.
So they remained anonymous, the better to let the reader focus on Jesus, the point of the entire exercise.
“This biblical history includes a promise to the first truly great king, David, that he would always have a descendant on the throne ruling Israel (2 Samuel 7:14).”
This brings me to a great peeve of mine — one of the reasons why, in fact, I left Christianity.
The whole point of the gospels, all of them, is to argue that Jesus is this descendant, and this is why all people should follow him. The whole point of the story of the Triumphal Entry (whether Jesus actually did this or not) is to emphasize that a) Jesus claimed to be such a descendant of King David, and b) the adoring crowds heard this claim, understood, and accepted it as true.
This in particular is the point of both of the New Testament geneologies. Matthew especially even attempted to trace Jesus’ ancestry through all the Kings of Judea.
Except…BOTH geneologies stipulate that while JOSEPH WAS such a descendant in the male line from King David — JESUS WAS NOT REALLY HIS SON!
If Jesus is not Joseph’s son, then he CAN’T be the Son of David!
Christians will say, that’s OK; Jesus is really the son of God the Father, so he can be the Son of David too. Well, it’s NOT OK. EVEN IF it is true that Jesus is God’s only begotten son, he STILL isn’t a descendant in the male line from King David, because GOD HIMSELF is NOT a descendant of King David!
A couple of weeks ago, a Christian who understood this argument told me, God the Father must have used half of King David’s own exact DNA genome when He impregnated Mary, thereby making Jesus not only the Son of God, and not only a linear descendant in the male line from King David, but also quite literally and genetically, King David’s ACTUAL son.
(Sigh). What can I say to THAT nonsense?…
Other Christians who also understand that Jesus’ genetic connection to King David was broken because Joseph was not Jesus’ actual father will often tell me that MARY was a direct descendant from King David, thereby fulfilling the condition that Jesus must be a direct descendant of King David.
To that, I tell those Christians 2 things. 1) There is not a shred of New Testament evidence to support that claim. Believe that if you want, but if you do, you are now becoming a Catholic, or like a Catholic, creating your own unwritten tradition, and if you’re a sola scriptura kind of Christian, this is not allowed.
2) And even if Mary were such a descendant, it too would be IRRELEVANT, because regnal succession in Judaism runs SOLELY through MALES. By being female, Mary is disqualified from passing along Davidic descent to her son.
In Judaism, whether one is born Jewish or not is matrilinear; it depends upon whether the mother is a Jew. But for the two categories of “messiahs,” BOTH of those are patrilinear. By “2 categories of ‘messiah’,” I mean men who either were kings (tribe of Judah) or high priests (tribe of Levi); both were elevated into their respective offices by being “messiahs;” that is to say, by being anointed with oil poured over their heads. In Judaism, one is a cohen or a levi only if his father is one; whether or not the mother has a cohen or a levi as a father is irrelevant. Same thing with being a son of David.
So, even as a boy, I ALWAYS recognized that by denying that Joseph was Jesus’ natural father, the New Testament has thereby FORFEITED it claim that Jesus is a linear descendant in the male line from King David, and therefore CANNOT be the Messiah.
The argument about whether Jesus is or isn’t the Messiah is therefore over before it even began.
Jesus ISN’T the Messiah. He CAN’T be. And the New Testament itself SAYS so!
But having said that, WHY did Matthew and Luke make this error?
It’s because of the MISTAKE they made in thinking that Jesus had to have been conceived of a virgin, and therefore Joseph could not have “known” her before she gave birth to Jesus.
That was based on their ERRONEOUS reading of the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14. They THOUGHT Isaiah said, “Behold a VIRGIN shall conceive.” But Isaiah NEVER said that. The word for “virgin” is “betulah,” and if Isaiah had intended to say “virgin,” he’d have used “betulah.” But instead, the word Isaiah used was “almah,” which simply means, any young woman of child-bearing years, who might or might not be a virgin. Matthew & Luke read the word “parthena” in their Greek translation, thought of the Virgin Goddess Pallas Athena and the PARTHENON built to honor her virginity in Athens, and concluded, Jesus — as befitting the god-like being he is — needs to have been born from a virgin.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Dumb dumb dumb.
And having been dumb, then they got dumber. Because, if Mary were a virgin and God fathered Jesus on her, that of course would mean that Joseph COULDN’T be Jesus’ father. So, they cascaded their own original error and committed a second error and, in the process, contradicted their own claim that Jesus was a son of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah.
Jesus could have also had an illegitimate father who was a descendant from King David. Which would be true to Davidic form. Only in this instance Joeseph/Uriah survives.
There is an anti-Christian legend that the real father of Jesus was a Greek soldier named Pantera who’d been doing guard duty at the Temple when Mary was employed there as a seamstress.
Your theory is that neither God nor Joseph were Jesus’ real father, but instead Jesus was born a bastard from this other fellow. And moreover, was conceived by Mary while she was betrothed to Joseph which, under Mosaic Law, was the same thing as being married to him.
This runs into the problem of momzerus. What is that?
According to the Law of Moses, a “momzer” is the child of an adulterous relationship that his mother had with someone other than her lawful husband.
Such children may NEVER marry ANY Jew of legitimate birth. They may marry only other momzerim or converts.
I once knew a female convert who was offered marriage to a momzer. She was insulted and turned it down. Why? Because HER children would have been momzerim too! And would never have forgiven her for CHOOSING to marry a momzer.
The Orthodox Jewish world works like this to the present day!
In Yiddish, perhaps the biggest insult any Jew can lay on another Jew is to call him a “momzer.”
I cannot see the Jewish people, then or now, accepting any man as a Messiah who was a known momzer.
So for this reason, I respectfully cannot buy your theory.
If you haven’t heard, the “first century” Mark fragment has been published as P. Oxyrhynchus 5345, and has been dated to the second or third century. It contains only 28 letters and has no interesting variants.
https://danielbwallace.com/2018/05/23/first-century-mark-fragment-update/
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/first-century-mark-published-at-last.html?m=1
What a let down!
But no surprise!
From the first link above (Wallace’s blog), where Wallace explains perhaps a failing on his part to exercise due diligence: “But I should have been more careful about trusting any sources without my personal verification, a lesson I have since learned.”
He, Wallace, apologised to Prof Ehrman–good sport.
Nonetheless, if one is to broadcast that a fragment of Mark’s Gospel, possibly from the first century, was found, then another one should think due diligence is obligatory; especially if one’s source of the info demands one’s oath of silence; especially, especially, if one’s source goaded one to announce this significantly important find during a debate!!!
One would surmise that perhaps these are not issues to be trifled with.
Were the Gospel authors Jewish themselves or Gentile converts to christianty?
It’s a debated question. My view is that they were gentile converts. Mark and Luke were almost certainly not Jewish. A case can be made for Matthew and John, but given some of the things they say, I don’t buy it.
Hadn’t enough time passed for them to have possibly been the sons of converts? That is, *raised* as Christians?
Possibly so! But from gentile roots.
Some posts on this please!
thx
I CERTAINLY don’t buy the idea that John was Jewish.
His gospel is totally distinct from the other three, and portrays a hellenized Jesus that not only Jesus would not recognize, but none of the other 3 evangelists would recognize, either.
Wouldn’t the ascribing of authorship to the Gospels, as happened, negate the theory of having anonymous writings that portray the story of Jesus as a continuation of the story of the people of God?
And is it possible to give a relatively quick answer for doubting some, maybe all, of the early traditions that try to assign authorship of the Gospels to specific individuals? You mentioned how the Gospels acquired their names in your previous post, but are there reasons for doubting these traditions? You did mention that some were just relating traditions they heard, but some traditions seem to go back to an early date (as in Papias and the “elder” who name Mark as the author of that Gospel). Is it possible that some of these traditions are correct?
Yes, by the late second century readers wanted to know who wrote these things. But the authors themselves, so much earlier, had a different agenda. And yes, lots of reasons to doubt the ascriptions. Among other things, Matthew, Mark, and John were all lower class uneducated peasants from rural Galilee whose language was Aramaic. The Gospels are written in highly literate Greek by highly educated people living outside of Palestine.
Since Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source for their gospels, would their intended audiences (churches) have already had copies of Mark they were using?
Yes, I would assume so.
Not necessarily.
Hmm? A very interesting theory. What do other scholars think of it?
I also think your other suggestions are reasonable. Before the age of computers and emails, I wrote a lot of stuff (letters, drafts of papers, drafts of book chapters) to various people without attaching my name because it was not necessary. They knew me. Now, someone coming across such a draft decades later might have no clue that I wrote the draft or even who I was. I can tell you, for sure, that none of it was inspired.
Someone else has pointed out to me two scholars who have published a similar idea; but my sense is that many (evangelicals at least) don’t think about it because they think the books *were* written by their named authors.
I’ve had that experience as well. I’d write a bit of explanatory text for some activist thing or other I was doing, and it would end up being used by others, and after a while nobody knew it was me. Words move around, just like people do.
Think of all the famous quotes attributed to famous people who never said or wrote them–in modern times, not ancient. You can google–the list is endless. But people go right on attributing this or that pithy saying to somebody they’ve heard of, because we’ve come to associate that quote with that person, and to us that matters more than the fact that either somebody else said it, or we don’t know who said it.
I think there’s a valid analogy to make between this and the misattributed gospels. And eventually some famous scholar will make it, and it will be attributed to him. Feh.
😉
(Of course, maybe some scholar already has made this analogy, and now it will be misattributed to me. That would be nice).
I can see that your theory is almost certainly correct, since the Gospel authors actually refer to the “Old Testament.” But I’m surprised that they were thinking about such things (beyond the bare fact of Jesus having been a promised “Messiah”) at this early date, since they themselves were Gentiles. Later, yes…Christians would claim the “Old Testament” as part of their Bible in order to claim antiquity for their religion.
I’m not sure they were claiming to be writing the Bible — they were simply continuing the story of God’s work among his people.
So, if the gospels were anonymous as a continuation of Isreal’s history, would it also not follow they were written to Jews rather than Gentiles? But, that does not seem to comport with what we believe about at least Luke and John…..
Not necessarily. In fact, they clearly *weren’t* written to Jews — at least Mark, Luke, and John. The Christians *too* had a reason for wanting to think that Jesus was the continuation of the story of Israel.
DR EHRMAN:
Your Comment:
__________________
The Gospel authors, each in his own way, seem to be portraying the story of Jesus as a continuation of the story of the people of God, Israel. He is the fulfillment of all that was anticipated by the authors and prophets of the Old Testament. And so it makes sense for these Gospel writers to remain anonymous, as the writers of biblical history were almost always anonymous.
My Comment:
_________________
Paul also preached his Gospel and he didn’t remain anonymous!
Paul also claims that there were others preaching a different Gospel, (i.e., a false Gospel)
I have concluded that the Gospel of Mark does not records for us, the “TRUE Gospel of Jesus. The author of Mark was most likely an apocalypticist and practiced asceticism, therefore he portrays Jesus as an apocaplypticist and an ascetic. I don’t believe that Paul’s Gospel teaches that Jesus was an apocalypticist and an ascetic.
Galatians 1:6-8
6-I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7-which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8-But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
Bart, I don’t want to go afield but something in this post has me confused. From you previous articles I had come to understand that the Kingdom of God would be inaugurated by the arrival of the Son of Man, resulting in Jesus’ kingship in an earthly kingdom. In this article you state that Jesus states that the Kingdom of God would be instituted by his death and resurrection. Am I missing something?
One statement has to do with what Jesus himself thought; the other with what the disciples thought after Jesus had died.
“Ehrman and Metzger state in that book ( The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. ) that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare. The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text. The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.
Melinda Penner
Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament
Bart,
Can I get your take on this phrase in Rom 16:25-26: “…according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery…”.
Some people seem to think Paul is saying here that the gospel of Jesus’ vicarious death and resurrection (i.e., 1 Cor 15:3-4) came to Paul by “revelation”, and by extension so too did Peter et al. receive that same gospel through revelation. I am not sure how to answer this. What in your mind is Paul saying in this passage?
Also, what does the word “revelation” in this passage mean? *Must* it mean a divine visual or auditory communication, or can it also mean just an insight that one thinks of but concludes came from God?
“Revelation” can mean any insight sent from God in any medium. Paul’s Gospel is the subject of the entire book of Romans (see 1:16-17), but at the heart of it is how Jesus’ death and resurrection brought salvation apart from works of the Jewish law. He believed this was the mystery that God had waited to reveal until these end times.
Bart,
You said the word “revelation” (in Rom 16:25) means “any insight sent from God in any medium”. I assume visions and dreams and hearing voices are examples of mediums, but are there any others? If not, is Rom 16:25 saying that Paul got his vicarious sacrifice/resurrection gospel in a vision, dream, or from a voice he heard?
Also, what does “the proclamation of Jesus Christ” in Rom 16:25 refer to?
God can “reveal” things by speaking through a prophet, or simply by putting a thought into your head. I’m not sure what you’re asking about Rom. 16:25.
Bart,
A better way to ask my question would be this way. Is Paul having extended discussions with the resurrected Jesus in some kind of vision/dream state? For example, in 1 Cor 11:23-26, Paul says he “received from the Lord” the whole Eucharist ritual, and in Rom 16:25 Paul says “Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel *and* the *proclamation [i.e., preaching]* of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery…”
Could be! He does talk about the Lord speaking to him about his affliction in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12
Bart,
Thanks for the clarification. So if Paul is having extended discussions with the resurrected Jesus in some kind of vision/dream state, does that imply that Peter is too? More specifically, I am thinking that if Peter were *not* having similar super-high-interaction visions/dreams of Jesus like Paul was, then Peter’s authority would have been usurped by Paul. Do you agree with this logic?
I don’t know, in part because I don’t know what either one of them was claiming to their contemporaries.
Bart
I’m a little confused by your answer. Don’t we *know* what Paul was claiming to his contemporaries, i.e., that he was having extended discussions with the resurrected Jesus? If we know this, doesn’t it follow (even though we have no letters from Peter) that Peter *must* have been claiming the same, or nearly the same, thing or else he would not have had any authority in the Christian movement?
No, he never says so.
Bart,
Larry Hurtado mentions “powerful religious experiences” in the early Christan movement (he seems to have in mind experiences like those in 1 Cor 12:1-11 and the vision in 2 Cor 12:1-9 ). When do you think these started, why do you think they started, and how prevalent do you think they were?
I think they started with the visions of the resurrected Jesus, and went from there.