(17 votes, average: 4.65 out of 5)
Loading...During the earlier parts of this thread on the Trinity, I kept thinking that by the time I got to the Holy Spirit there wouldn’t be much to say: it’s all about the Father and Son. And even as I started planning this final part on the Spirit, I thought I would do it in a post, maybe two. But now that I’m digging into it, I’m realizing that the one-or-two post thing doesn’t make sense without a lot of background. Now I’ve decided I need to take the long path to get there. Consider it the scenic route.
I’ve been talking so far about the Spirit in the Hebrew Bible – from Genesis 1 up through the prophets. The Spirit is far more important for early Christianity, and hence for the New Testament, than for ancient Israelite religion (and hence the Old Testament), but I don’t believe I’ve ever articulated the reasons fully, either in writing or speaking. For a long time, I’ve thought it works like this, in a nutshell. (This may seem a bit circuitous until I tie it together at the end of the post!)
The very earliest Christians we know about believed that they were living at the end of time, as predicted in the prophets. They thought the messiah had come in fulfilment of Scripture. He had died as predicted (remember: non-Christian Jews did not agree that the “predictions” were actually about this; but the followers of Jesus came to be convinced that they were). And he had been raised from the dead – again according to how Jesus’ followers came to read Scripture. For the concise summary of this statement, remember how Paul recalls the message he proclaimed to the Corinthian community when they had been pagans and he was working to convert them (this is my somewhat idiomatic translation):
For I delivered over to you the message that was most important, that I myself had also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with what is taught in Scripture, and he was buried; and that he was raised up on the third day in accordance with what is taught in Scripture, and he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve….
To make sense of this message, it is important to remember that even before Paul was a follower of Jesus, he was an apocalyptic Jew who believed that God was soon to intervene in worldly affairs to reassert his power over this wretched world. Everything and everyone who opposed God would be wiped off the map; only those on his side would survive and be rewarded with Paradise on earth, the Paradise God had originally intended for humans before they made a mess of things. God’s people would return to paradise.
In the view of Jewish apocalypticists like Paul, this climax to human history would come not just to people who happened to be alive at the time, but to all people who had ever lived. There would be a resurrection of the dead. Dead bodies – all of them – would have the breath of live breathed back into them and they would be restored to the land of the living for a time of final judgment. Most would be punished for opposing God. These would be shown the error of their ways and be cast out of his presence, subjected to a horrible destruction (they would live again only to die again; thus Daniel 12:1-3 e.g.). The righteous would be raised and brought into the utopian kingdom.
The resurrection, in other words, was the final thing to happen in the history of this world. After that, all would be radically different forever more. New life would begin for the righteous and it would never end. The resurrection was to happen at the very end of time.
When Paul came to believe he saw Jesus alive again after having been dead, he explained his vision in light of his own (and only) understanding of how someone could be alive if they had died. We ourselves, today, if or when we should have such a vision, would interpret it to mean that Jesus’ spirit must have lived on and appeared to Paul, even though his body had decayed and ceased to exist. That is to say, today, when someone sees their grandmother three weeks after she died, they don’t think she’s been raised from the dead bodily; they think they’re seeing a spirit/soul.
Not ancient Jews. They didn’t have the *idea* that the spirit/soul would survive the death of the body. The spirit was not some kind of entity hidden away or trapped in the material prison of the flesh. The spirit was the “breath” that made/kept the body animate. When the spirit/breath left the body, it didn’t “go” anywhere – just as for you, when you die, you don’t think your “breath” goes anywhere. It disappears and your body eventually will as well.
For apocalyptic Jews, the only way for a person to come back to life was to have the breath return to the body. That would happen at the end of time, at the resurrection.
Paul firmly believed that. And then he came to think that Jesus had come back to life. That meant, necessarily, that Jesus had experienced a resurrection. And that meant the resurrection of the final time had come. Paul came to think, then, that the resurrection of the dead … of *all* the dead … had started. First was the messiah. Then would come everyone else.
That’s why Paul calls Jesus the “first fruits of the resurrection” (1 Cor. 15:20). When the farmer begins to gather his harvest, at the end of the first day he and his family, friends, and neighbors celebrate the in-bringing of the first fruits. And when do they gather the rest of the harvest? Starting the next morning. If Jesus is the “first fruits” of the resurrection for Paul, then he thinks that everyone else is coming next, very, very soon. That’s why Paul and other Christians talked about living at the end of time. They thought everything else was soon to follow. Right away.
And what does this have to do with the Spirit?
The end didn’t come right away. And yet for Paul and other Christians, history had changed with the death and resurrection of the messiah. The followers of the Messiah were living in some kind of new age. But it wasn’t the final age because sin, pain, misery, suffering, and death continued in full force. What is this period – however short it is – between the beginning of the end and the culmination of the end?
It is the age of the Spirit. It is a short period where God is present here on earth in a way like never before, living among his people in and through his Spirit, guiding them, encouraging them, protecting them, helping them in this short interim before the day of judgment.
For Paul and his communities, the Spirit was all-important. This heightened emphasis on the Spirit will eventually lead to the third member of the Trinity. I’ll explain more about that in posts to come.
“Paul firmly believed that. And then he came to think that Jesus had come back to life. That meant, necessarily, that Jesus had experienced a resurrection. And that meant the resurrection of the final time had come. Paul came to think, then, that the resurrection of the dead … of *all* the dead … had started. First was the messiah. Then would come everyone else.”
James, Peter, etc. all believed this as well, correct?
Almost certainly yes.
If Paul thought the appearance of Jesus meant Jesus had to have been physically resurrected and not just a vision, would not others of his countrymen have thought the same of their visions and dreams of their own family members? Psychologists tell us people often have such visions.
That is, wouldn’t other people have thought their relatives were resurrected already, as the beginning of the final resurrection?
I wish we had ways to answer questions like this!
“The end didn’t come right away. ”
Since the end did not come right away, did that cause some Jewish Christians and some Gentile Christians to leave this movement?
Almost certainly yes, but none of our records (by those who stayed) say that explicitly.
excellent post! it gets to the very heart of Paul’s foundational thinking.
This spirit was also a big deal to others in the Old Testament. From memory David himself was concerned that God would take his ‘holy spirit’ from him after he raped Bathsheba and murdered her husband.
He knew Saul lost this spirit.
Isaiah was one early prophet who spoke of the Holy Spirit resting upon the Messiah.
It could have been this holy spirit which told Paul that the end times would not come until there was a ‘falling away’ (ie our age) and man “opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” That’s definitely our age too.
Paul often speaks of the “Spirit of God” and/or the “Spirit of Christ” (e.g., Romans 8:9), as if it was not separate from God or Christ, but later in the chapter he seems to speak of the Spirit as its own entity (e.g., v.26). Clearly by the time John was written the Spirit is spoken of as its own being, but do you think Paul saw the Spirit as its own entity, or more as just a manifestation of God, like the “breath” of God?
I’m not sure. I think in some sense it’s both for Paul.
A little off topic. According to Paul, Jesus was said to be raised up on the third day. Any thoughts on where the third day part came from? If we reject the tomb burial story, we would have to look elsewhere for its origin.
It’s often thought to have been seen as a fulfillment of prophecy, Hosea 6:3 (or possibly the book of Jonah: three days and nights in the belly of the fish.)
i don’t see Hosea 6:3 as much as I see Jonah as the source of the raising up on the third day. The connection to Jonah is mentioned in Matthew 12:40.
Yes, certainly that’s where the later Christians turned the most. The question is whether the story would have been taken as predictive in the weeks after Jesus’ death. Hos. 6:3 does at least read as more predictive….
I’ve heard some say that between Jesus raised from the dead, and everyone else, raised or raptured, there is an “age of churches”. And so they say, we live in the age of churches, and that age has been extended indefinitely so that many can be saved. Creative, yes? And hard to falsify, if you’re already willing to play fast and loose with your holy book. And history. And archeology. And science. And anything else that might not be compatible with your beliefs. Welcome to the age of churches!
As one theologian wryly put it, Jesus preached the Kingdom but what he got was the Church.
“It is the age of the Spirit. It is a short period where God is present here on earth in a way like never before, living among his people in and through his Spirit, guiding them, encouraging them, protecting them, helping them in this short interim before the day of judgment. For Paul and his communities, the Spirit was all-important.”
This is brilliant stuff, Bart.
A reservation though for me, is your term ‘interim’. Paul expected the time to the day of judgement to be short, but defintiely not an interim.
Paul is no longer an ‘apocalypticist’; he does not now understand the present age – the age of the Spirit – simply as tribulation, a time of waiting for the real deal to come from heaven. Rather the present age, however short, is the race itself (I Corinthians 9:25, Philippians 3:14), and as such the purpose destined for full human maturity from the beginning. With the end-time comes the prize, and Paul runs the race to win that prize; but just as without the race, there would be no prize; so, without the participation of the nations, there would be no end-time.
You wrote recently that for the ancient Jews, their God was only the god of the Jews and that they knew other nations had their own gods. (I hope I have that right.) How, then, could the ancient Jews imagine an apocalypse that would resurrect “all people who had ever lived,” as you write here? Wouldn’t Yahweh be spoiling for a fight with the gods of the other nations?
It appears that for some apocalypticists those who had done what was right would be raised by the God of all, even if they had worshiped the wrong gods.
So they believed in a “God of all.” If that was Yahweh, wouldn’t that mean the ancient Jews believed he was the God of all nations and not just of the Jews? And that his commandments applied to all peoples? If they were to have no other gods before him, did that mean they believed there were no other gods or they believed that those were lower ranking deities?
Sorry if I come across as an ignoramus in these matters. I’m just trying to get a sense of a world with Yahweh, Baal, Marduk and the many other divine beings of that time.
Yes, he ultimately was the God of all nations; but his commandments applied only to Israel, his chosen people. And “no other gods before me” almost certainly suggests henotheism, the idea that other gods existed but were not to be worshiped.
Doesn’t Isaiah at several points emphasize “other gods” don’t even exist?
Isaiah 44:9-20
The Absurdity of Idol-Worship
9 All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame. 10Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? 11Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human. Let them all assemble, let them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame. 18 They do not know … for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. 19No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, ‘Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?’ 20He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?’
Yup, that’s definitely the authors view of *idols* – that they are not actually gods. Whether the author thought gods existed apart from idols is impossible to say.
*Impossible to say*? Here’s more from Isaiah 44 and 45… 44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,their protector,7 the Lord who commands armies:“I am the first and I am the last,there is no God but me.44:7 Who is like me? Let him make his claim!845:5 I am the Lord, I have no peer, 8 there is no God but me.45:14 This is what the Lord says:“The profit38 of Egypt and the revenue39 of Ethiopia,along with the Sabeans, those tall men,will be brought to you40 and become yours.They will walk behind you, coming along in chains.41They will bow down to you and pray to you:42‘Truly God is with43 you; he has no peer;44there is no other God!’” 46:9 …for I am God, and there is no other” I am God, and there is none like me.
Ah right. Sorry, of course. I was lookin only at the passage; yes, of course, 2 Isaiah is indeed firm on the topic.
Bart, this explantation of the apocalyptic mentality explains the urgency embedded in the expectation of return, and laissez faire approach to organization and other practical matters.
Just as scholars can detect diverging Christologies in our NT sources do we also find diverging Pneumatologies as well?
Yup, but not so prominently, since the Spirit is not a focus of attention for the most part. As a result, there are differences but very few discrepancies that I can think of…
I get it that first century Jews (at least some of them) looked forward to a bodily resurrection. But apparently they (at least some of them) also believed in ghosts (Mt 14:26, Lk 24:39). Even in the Old Testament there’s Saul consulting the spirit of the dead Samuel (1 Sam 28). Do you have any insight into how that fit into their worldview?
I’d say some Jews probably did, since most of them lived in Gentile lands and grew up in Gentile environments. I would not say that the Gospel references prove it, though, since these accounts were themselves probably written by Gentiles and those in those environments. The dead Samuel is an interesting case in point, but the text actually doesn’t call him a ghost; he appears to have come back bodily somehow (wearing his same clothes!); that is, he was temporarily made alive again, and did not much appreciate it….
Great stuff, Bart. But the whole Trinity thing is hard to grasp. How can the Gospels declare that Jesus, the son, is seated at the right hand of the father, God, and still decide that they are all one?
That’s what I’ve been posting on; you might check out the posts I’ve done on the Father and Son back in April.
Yes… a bit of a problem isn’t it…. that is why there are a few of us unitarian heretics running around…we read what the fellows wrote and it just does not jive with the later evolution…:-)
Sorry for the off-topic question Dr Ehrman but who do you think Jesus is referring to in John 10:8 (all who came before me were thieves)? I can’t find a convincing explanation online and I assume Jesus didn’t mean Elijah, Moses etc. Thank you. I’m very much enjoying these Trinity posts
It’s a terrific verse and rather strange! One thing to note is that the term used here is “lestes,” which can indeed mean “thief” but also means “guerilla bandit.” The only other time it gets used in the Gsopel of John is in Jesus’ trial, where Barabbas is called a lestes (unlike the Synoptics). The point is very clever. Once *more* Jews preferred the military warrior to the true savior. In John 10:8 it probably means something similar. Other messianic figures simple were not the kind of savior God was sending to his people. Jesus is the real solution, not military but spiritual.
How do we know that Paul was an apocalyptic Jew prior to his conversion?
One reason for thinking so is that he was a Pharisee, and they were apocalypticists. Another is that when he had a vision of Jesus he interpreted it specifically as a *resurrection*. Non-apocalypticists would not do that. (If your neighbor sees her grandfather alive two weeks after he died she doesn’t immediately think, “Oh! He’s been physically raised fromt he dead and now will ascend in his body to heaven!” That’s because her view of the afterlife is not apocalyptic. Any apocalyptic Jew from antiquity, though *would* understand it that way.
If a guy is a Pharisee, what is his wife? Guest priveleges? And also a bit off topic, what do you make of Act’s mention that Paul has a sister in Jerusalem and a helpful nephew?
You know, off hand I can’t remember if women were ever considered Pharisees…. And which verse are you referring to?
Acts 23:16 But when the son of Paul’s sister heard about the ambush,61 he came and entered62 the barracks63 and told Paul. … with a narrative following.
Ah, right! Yes, Paul says nothing about that. It’s a curious incident. I wish we know more about Paul’s family situatoin and, especially, his upbringing!
In the mid-16th Centtury, The Reformation, the debate about The Trinity seemed to erupt again, with a breakaway group of “non-Trinitarians”. What was that all about and what remains of it?
James H. Williams, PhD,MSW
Tacoma, WA
I”m afraid I don’t know.
Do you still hold to the position that early Christians thought Jesus bodily assumed into heaven? How can someone be bodily assumed into heaven if they’re dead? How accepted among scholars is this idea?
Yes, they absolutely did. They talk about it a good deal. The earliest Christians thought this because they believed Jesus had been brought back from the dead. God breathed life into him just as he did to “dead” Adam in the beginning and as he would do to all dead people in the End.
Interesting. How did this view persist and change over time? Sorry if this is too outside the time range you study
That’s the theme of my book Heaven and Hell. Basically, when the physical resurrection of the dead, expected to happen very soon, never happened, Christians turned from a Jewish idea of a bodily life after death to a Greek idea that hte soul would live on after the body dies and decays. Enter the idea of a heaven and hell for souls after death (the view of most people still today)
What is the unique characteristic/attribute of the Holy Spirit that led Jesus to state: “Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven”?
In Matthew’s account he goes on to specifically note that “whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.” In Thomas he distinguishes BOTH of the other persons in the Trinity: “He who blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and he who blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven.” Either way the gospels concur that Jesus concluded by warning: “But he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.”
So what is it that distinguishes the Holy Spirit from one or both of the other persons in the Trinity such that this blasphemy — and ONLY this blasphemy — is the one unforgivable sin?
In fact if the three persons are, nevertheless, one God, how is it even possible to blaspheme one of them without necessarily blaspheming the other two? Or is this simply another conundrum for which we are supposed to be satisfied with the dismissive “It’s a mystery” non-answer?
Jesus, of course, did not have a doctrine of the Trinity, so I don’t think we can phrase the blasphemy against the Spirit — at least the way Jesus was speaking of it — as a sin against a member of the Trinity. The key is to read the passage in its context. Matthew (I don’t think this is something Jesus himself really said) indicates that anyone who attributes the work of Jesus inspirted by the Spirit (his miracles) to the Devil has sinned against the Spirit, and that cannot be forgiven. Why? Because it means precisely rejecting Jesus and thinking he is empowered by the forces of evil rather than by God. Do that and it’s cookies.
Thanks for the objective and thoughtful (as always) assessment — which I should have anticipated. My bad. Clearly, Jesus could not have taken account of church doctrine that wouldn’t arise until centuries later. What I meant to ask was how Trinitarian apologists address the difficulties this passage creates for their Christology.
Orthodoxy is, I suppose, off the hook WRT whether the unforgivable blasphemy does or does not extend to both Father and Son in as much as popes and their Vatican City Cardinals college team never blessed the Gospel of Thomas with “inerrancy.” But they did, of course, bestow this magical property on the Gospel of Matthew. Thus, they cannot cordon off the Holy Spirit from ANY of the other members of the Trinity by simply repudiating the authenticity of the saying.
So to clarify: How does Trinitarian Christology deal with Jesus’ pronouncement of blasphemy against one person of the Trinity as being unforgivable without the consequences perforce extending to another third (indeed, the other two-thirds for those of us who don’t discount sources on the basis of church approval) of the triad?
I suppose trinitarians would say that each member of the trinity, even though of the same essence and fully equal, nonetheless plays different roles in administering the divine will, and that one role the Spirit plays is convincing people that Christ is the incarnate Son who manifests the Father on earth. So anyone who rejects that view rejects specifically what the Spirit is teaching and therefore rejects that salvation with God provided by Christ.
I was taken aback by your parenthetical remark that the “blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven” warning is NOT “something Jesus himself really said.” My tinnitus must be getting worse because for me this saying has, not a mere ring, but a resounding peal of authenticity!
It is not only in Mark/Matthew, but independently attested in Thomas. Further, the explicit contradistinction of “whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him” creates obvious and inescapable theological problems — making it dissimilar to the Christian agenda.
Inerrancy apologists often attempt to “interpret” their way around a plain reading of such discomfiting passages. Whenever sayings are manifestly at odds with their doctrinal suppositions they resort to consideration of the putative “context” of adjacent pericopes.
But given that each of the synoptic authors exercised his own editorial discretion in making compilations from pericopes that had circulated independently through 4-6 decades of oral transmission, isn’t inferring association based on mere proximity a rather underwhelming argument?
Is a subjective assessment of Matthew’s overarching gestalt really so dispositive that it trumps BOTH of the two, most compelling of objective criteria for authenticity?
I don’t think there are any “objective” criteria for authenticity. If the saying meant something like “You will never be forgiven for rejecting me,” then no, I don’t think Jesus himself said it, but I can certainly see his followrs saying something like that later. That’s not at all dissimilar to what Christians said. It’s in Q and Thomas (two sources, not multiple), as are many other sayings in Thomas.
It appears that Mark inserted another pericope (also independently attested in Thomas) — about the need to restrain a strong man to plunder his house — BETWEEN the “House Divided” and “Unforgivable Sin” passages.
Although the saying about an intruder having to restrain a homeowner before plundering his house also sounds authentic (to me, at least), is it a logical corollary to the internal vulnerability of “a house divided against itself”?
To borrow from Greek mythology, this appears to be a pericope chimera, spliced together in a (dubious) editorial decision by Mark. As a segue into the “Unforgivable Sin” saying it is, if not a discontinuity, certainly more disruptive than illuminating.
Matthew further widens the gulf between the powers of Beelzebul and the Holy Spirit by also interjecting a (necessarily unrelated) Q saying wherein Jesus asserts that those who are not with him are against him and that failing to gather is to scatter.
It is only after taking this double detour that Matthew finally gets to the “Unforgivable Sin,” clumsily inserting a non sequitur “Therefore” as transition — prompting me to ask the question posed WRT another passage by my favorite NT scholar: “What is the ‘Therefore’ there for?”
Perhaps, I should have characterized independent attestation and dissimilarity as the two best and most commonly employed criteria. (I have that on good authority.)
Jesus could not have meant “You will never be forgiven for rejecting me” since he explicitly stated that “blasphemy against the Son will be forgiven.” Likewise, the trinitarian interpretation that “one role the Spirit plays is convincing people that Christ is the incarnate Son who manifests the Father on earth,” is a pretty vacuous evasion for so provocative a saying.
But I was actually invoking the criteria in response to the first of the apologist interpretations you proffered — the ubiquitous: “anyone who attributes the work of Jesus inspired by the Spirit (his miracles) to the Devil has sinned against the Spirit, and that cannot be forgiven” because it insinuates that “he is empowered by the forces of evil rather than by God.”
I had intended to pile on with Luke. But the question of what Jesus meant by “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is moot, if he never said it.
Have you written at greater length on Mk 3:28-29//Mt 12:31-32//Lk 12:10 (with or without consideration of Th 44)?
Not in a publication no.
Dr Ehrman, do you think that Paul speaks about a physical or some kind of spiritual resurrection?
In the post you say that for ancient jews “When the spirit/breath left the body, it didn’t ‘go’ anywhere, It disappears ” but then “For apocalyptic Jews, the only way for a person to come back to life was to have the breath return to the body”, but how can return if it disappears? and from where?
When the corinthians asks Paul about the resurrection issue (1 Cor 15:35)he answer in (1 Cor 15:36-58) and he says things like “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable … it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:42-44), so I always considered he speaks about a spiritual resurrection even tough that was not what Pharisees believe in, after all Paul was not just ‘another’ Pharisee …
I’ve posted on this before at length (look up “flesh and blood” or “spiritual resurrectin” etc. as word searches on the blog). Paul definitely thought the resurrection was *physical*. TAht’s his entire point in 1 Corinthians 15. The Corinthians have not yet experienced the resurrection because they have not yet been physically transformed — they are still in the same miserable bodies they’ve always had. The resurrection of believers will be like that of Jesus. He was *physically* raised (Paul insists), but the body that came out of the grave was no simply reanimated. It was *glorified* and made *immortal.* So too will the bodies of believers. The body will rise but will be an eternal glorified body that cannot feel pain, suffer, or die again.
Well, a hard idea to grasp but finally i get convinced, perhaps the key is the metaphor of the seed “When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed,” both, seed and wheat are “bodies” , but differents “bodies” so Paul goes on with the different kinds of “bodies”, earthly,heavenly, etc. Thank you for your answer.
Thanks, Bart, for this very comprehensive overview.
I have a blog-related technical issue. Until very recently, I’ve always received updates about new posts via the blog’s RSS feed (specifically, I use a third-party service that watches the RSS feed and e-mails me a notification whenever new content is posted). This stopped working about a week ago; when I check the service I use, it says the RSS feed can no longer be accessed. I’ve also tried several other services that work in a similar way, and all say the same thing: they can’t access the RSS feed.
I realise you now send out a weekly summary of all new content posted over the preceding week. But it’s much easier for me to read posts as and when they’re published rather than have a backlog to go through at the end of the week. Is there are a way for you (or your tech guru) to look into this RSS issue? And might you consider a “mailing list” whereby anyone who signs up gets an e-mail notification whenever new content is posted? I’m surely not the only one who values being alerted to new content as soon as it’s posted.
Thanks in advance!
First let me suggest you send the note to the Support site (click on Help), since I’m personally hopeless on RSS issues. I will say we long considered a daily email, but with 14,000 members, the cost is (apparently) prohibitive.
Thanks – I’ve submitted a help request as directed.
As for daily e-mails, I suppose I hadn’t considered that there might be a cost involved. We tend to think of e-mail as being free… but then most of us don’t have to manage and send e-mails in bulk to thousands of people at a time!
Yeah, I had no idea either…
Dr Ehrman,
1. Why HS has no “spoken lines” in NT?
2. Is GOD or JESUS used as mouthpiece for HS?
3. Is Matthew 3:17 HS speaking?
Regards,
Kashif
The HS was not understood as a human who speaks, itself or as a kind of ventriloquist.
Dr. Ehrman,
If I want to study apocalyptic judaims around the life of Paul, what books would you suggest?
Kind regards,
Gijs
An excellent resource is the first volume of the Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. The editor, John Collins, is a real expert; see also his The Apocalyptic Imagination.
Thank you!
Hi Dr. Ehrman. At the end of Luke’s gospel Jesus appears to his disciples and they think he’s a ghost until he invites them to touch him and indeed see that he is flesh and blood. You indicate that Jesus’ followers understood him as being physically resurrected and this is juxtaposed with modern people who may understand similar visions of loved ones lost as spirits. However, if the disciples in Luke thought of Jesus as a ghost, doesn’t this show that ancients were capable of seeing the dead as some sort of ethereal spirit like moderns often do?
Yes, if that were historically something that happened, it would probably suggest that. Luke, though, is writing to counter later interpretations of Jesus’ resurrectoin that he didn’t accept, that Jesus was raised only spiritually (a view that came to be condemned as a heresy, but that started out at the end of the first century); his account is meant to show that Jesus really was raised in the body itself.
Dr. Ehrman,
How could Jesus be the first fruit of resurrection if other saints were raised in Matthew 27 before Jesus was?
Paul didn’t know that tradition.