(18 votes, average: 4.89 out of 5)
Loading...Some years ago, after I had written my book How Jesus Became God, I was asked to write an article for a journal to explain why, if I’m an atheist, I’m so interested in Jesus. Some nine or ten years later, I still get asked that a lot. Twice this past week!
Here’s the article I wrote, called “Why I Am Obsessed with Jesus”:
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I finally figured out why I’m so obsessed with Jesus.
It makes sense that Jesus mattered to me when I was young. I was raised in a Christian household, we went to church, we revered the Bible, and Jesus was God.
It makes sense that Jesus mattered to me as a late teenager, when I had a born-again experience and became a conservative evangelical. (What I converted from to “become a Christian” continues to puzzle me.) At that point Jesus became not only my Lord and Savior, but also my best friend and closest ally.
It makes sense that Jesus continued to matter to me as I moved away from the evangelical camp to adopt what struck me at the time as a more reasoned, intellectually defensible, and emotionally satisfying form of the faith, as a
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Why would a Jew become obsessed with Jesus?An early childhood persistent traumatic experience did it for me.
I’m 5 years old.Sitting in my little chair in front of the TV,watching a movie about a good guy.He performs magical cures,has lots of friends and everybody loves him.At some point I don’t understand the events,but I can see familiar Jews,dressed like at school plays,but these Jews look
ugly,mean.Suddenly,like a blow,there’s this huge cross on a distant hill,the good guy hanging from it,so tenebrous in Black&White.
First,a shock of horror.Jewish little kids are never exposed to such violent,bloody images.A terrible sadness follows.I’m choked up,battling tears.All the while,the Jews laugh.
My dad and hero is having dinner,reading the paper.I turn to him holding back tears-dad dislikes crying-and ask”did the Jews do this”?He glances at the screen,sees what I see,looks at me with a smirk and a contempt he never had for me before,and asks,reproachingly “what?!Does it *bother*you?”.And turns back to his paper.I know I’m being chastised for trespassing and feel ashamed.Still,I insist”but did the Jews do this”?
Dad emphatically denies it.
At least….that.
I hope that, still watching that sorrowful moment, I might also have witnessed the Resurrection.
So here I am today,still sitting there,horrified,heartbroken,
contemptuously chastised,guilty of sympathising.
Learning about Jesus is slowly therapeutic.
And wait until I tell you about my grandfather….
I’m also an atheist, although I’d say I’m only semi-obsessed with Jesus. And only the historical Jesus. Why? Bart’s first answer fits me: simply that Jesus is the most important figure in the history of Western Civilization. And yet very few people know or have any interest in the real man, who lived, walked, sneezed and gazed up at the moon. And that fascinates me!
A very inspiring post. I had made a brusk comment on another post regarding what I call the “whack-a-mole” problem where it seems that many people want to “beat down” the prevailing ideology with “their” ideology. And I would have expected that your “obsession” with Jesus involved a simple intellectual curiosity. If I interpret your post correctly you are saying that we actually have a pretty good civilization thanks in large part to the belief that Jesus was not only the Jewish Messiah, but God incarnate. So, I guess I should retract my accusation that you’re just trying to “beat down” Christianity.
I sent Diane a proposed guest post titled “Bart D. Ehrman: Apostle to the Atheists,” which you might find amusing.
“Apostle to the Atheists” … I sometimes think of many of the members here as refugees from Christianity who just can’t quite shake the “spell”. I remember time among Unitarian Universalists” where the phrase “half-way house for atheists” surfaced from time to time. I wonder… are there any half-way Muslims in the midst?
“If I interpret your post correctly you are saying that we actually have a pretty good civilization thanks in large part to the belief that Jesus was not only the Jewish Messiah, but God incarnate.”
Dr. Ehrman doesn’t say that explicitly, but I’d agree he seems to be implying that is the case. I am a pessimist, can’t help it. that’s just the way my brain works. One positive trait of us gloomy-Gus pessimists is we tend to be more realistic. Are you implying the majority of the rest of the world, those with the ‘wrong’ religion, and usually far poorer and less developed, are that way because they didn’t choose Jesus? Counterfactuals are impossible to prove, and I sure won’t try, but maybe the ‘pretty good’ civilization we have is more like in spite of Christianity, e.g., the huge push for enlightenment by the church/christian religions. Or, maybe it ain’t so good considering the devastation of nature largely due to those ‘Christian’ developed countries and the wars fought in its name. Lets see how they treat the ‘least of us’ countries getting fried in the coming climate crisis those pretty good civilizations caused.
I don’t think I would ever say that the world is necessarily a better place because of Christianity or the doctrine of the incarnation. I just don’t think there’s anyway to know.
Looks like the link no longer exists. Is this published elsewhere online? By the way, what are the rules for sharing the content of one of your Blog posts on our own sites, such as a Facebook post?
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying you don’t have access to the post? If so, then click help and ask support. It’s OK with me if you share posts, so long as you fully acknowledge where they came from.
I too, can’t see this whole post. I tried other posts without a problem. This post stops after “and emotionally satisfying form of the faith, as a ” I wish I could read the whole post.
I’m enjoying your podcast. Thanks!
Click “Help” and ask Support for some help. Almost always this invovles either a browser or a membershp issue and is easily resolved.
I have a different view about Jesus that I would like to present here. It is about Jesus being a footnote or a chapter in history if Christianity didn’t become universal. To make it more formal: was Jesus a simplistic person that was coincidentally caught in some events that made him famous or was he truly an extraordinary man!
In order to answer this question, we need to solve the following puzzle:
## Jesus missionary lasted for about 3 years. So, how Jesus teaching did manage to flourish from its local domain (the Jewish Community in Palestine) to a foreign domain (the Greek world) in less than 20 years, without any political support?
This is an extraordinary phenomenon that didn’t happen before Jesus and didn’t happen after him. So, this is a serious puzzle and it is not theological but a historical one, therefore, there should be a historical solution. I am not sure if there have been any suggested solutions for this puzzle. I did suggest a solution for it, but there is one serious problem here, we don’t have any data for the first 20 years after Jesus. Nothing, totally a blank period in Christian history.
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However, any solution cannot escape the assumption that Jesus was highly-charismatic, because in order for the teaching to be firmly established in a foreign domain then there need to be a sufficient momentum from the local domain. This momentum can easily be explained by assuming that Jesus had high charisma that was sufficient to keep his teaching and saying memorable and alive within his followers with high enthusiasm that was sufficient to influence the foreign domain.
This momentum did make a high impression to many Greeks in the first 20 years, to the point that many Greeks went into circumcision, which I assume would probably be a painful experience for a grown-up man. But this how serious these Greeks were.
Notice that charisma is not “the solution” for this puzzle, it is just an essential factor in it. For example: Apollonius of Tyana was highly charismatic with presumed miracle-works but no religion has been established in his name.
Now … there are many minor religions in the word and their founders have distinctive chapters in history. So, even if Christianity didn’t become universal, still we have here an amazing puzzle that would give Jesus a distinctive chapter in history.
No. This “extraordinary phenomenon” has certainly occurred before and after Christianity. There are many examples of religions that have grown quickly in multiple domains as fast as the original Christianity. If you need examples from before Christ, look at the constant OT problem of Hebrews turning to paganism. Since Christ, look no further than Mormonism or Islam. And the growth of Christianity doesn’t require that Jesus was particularly more charismatic than other religious leaders. It may have been followers like Paul that had more charisma (and charisma is hardly the only factor). It took centuries before Christianity became the largest religion in the world, and – of course – some religion has to win that lottery.
Give me a detailed example to see if it can fit the puzzle!
For Islam: Islam went into quick extraordinary political expansion, then came the conversions. Therefore, Islam is not exactly an equivalent example for the puzzle.
For Mormons: did “Joseph Smith” spend 3 years in preaching (or let us say 10 years) then he left the scene,, and in just 20 years, his teaching and religious thoughts managed to expand and flourish in foreign domains without any political support!
Notice that the Mormons did have the political power in Utah.
Let me highlight more layers in the puzzle:
# Jesus preached starting about 30AD
# Jesus left the scene about 33AD.
# In about 53AD, The movement of Jesus started to expand and flourish in the nearby foreign domains.
# In 70AD, the temple was destroyed, and the gentile churches gained independence from the central authority of the Nazarenes in Jerusalem.
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# In about 100AD, “Christianity” was firmly established as a name for the Gentile followers of Jesus.
Surprisingly, The Christian Arabian tribes in the desert adopted the Trinitarian doctrine, but they continue to call themselves the original name of the movement: the Nazarenes until the time of Islam (In Arabic, plural: Nasara, singular: Nasrani).
Also, in Kerala (south of India), the Christians adopted the Trinitarian doctrine, but they continue to call themselves the Nazarenes (Nasrani) until today.
This will give you an idea about the quick propagation of the movement into many foreign lands even before the adaptation of the name “Christianity” for the gentiles.
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So, this is a quick and serious propagation that started from a 30 years old unmarried Jewish man that preached for only 3 years and ended up being nailed to the cross, then brought down and buried in a tomb that was empty after three days, and from the scientific historical perspective, his corpse is still missing.
So, the main center of this propagation is this man …. and you are telling me that there is no puzzle here!!
Well you’ve certainly listed elements that are peculiar to the beginning of Christianity. No two religious movements are alike. They are all unique.
But to the question of whether there have been religious movements that grew as fast or faster than early Christianity, the answer is – of course! And my examples still apply quite well.
Read Bart’s Book Triumph of Christianity Answer: Miracles
Its shocking from a Christian point of view that an Atheist comes to this conclusion. Its astounding.
Similarly its shocking science has determined the universe started with a BANG.
You write: “So, how Jesus teaching did manage to flourish from its local domain (the Jewish Community in Palestine) to a foreign domain (the Greek world) in less than 20 years, without any political support? ”
The answer is that it didn’t. The Jesus Movement originally concentrated on their fellow Jews, and when that proved unfruitful, started missionizing to the Greek world, but that movement started slowly. We don’t have solid numbers for that period of time, but best guesstimates that at the end of the first century, there were at most 7,000 to 10,000 followers of Jesus in the entire Roman Empire (which was something around 50 to 70 million), in other words, 0.02% of the empire. Hardly flourishing.
Allow me to disagree with you. I don’t think James the Just made any effort to convert the Greeks. I think it was clear to the Nazarenes that Jesus was a Jewish prophet for the Jewish people. But what can they do if the Greeks came in asking to be converted!
I also don’t agree with the numbers. In about 110AD, the Christians became very troublesome to the Roman authorities, and I don’t think 10k Christians in the whole empire could cause such troubles.
James didn’t – but Paul did. So did Peter and a few others, but it was mainly Paul. And what is your evidence that “Greeks came in asking to be converted” in the first and second centuries CE?
Also, Christians were only vaguely troublesome to the Roman authorities in the early second century; in fact, it’s clear they had only started to hear about them and had no idea what to do with them. Even into the third century, the authorities largely wished Christians would just go away and stop being a nuisance. Only around 250 did the empire start to seriously worry about their numbers.
1# I assume you think Paul was an influential figure at his time, but I think this is inaccurate. He tried to push a liberal interpretation to the faith, but no one could favor him (that time) over James. After the destruction of the temple, the Greek churches gained independence from the Nazarenes and they started to move toward the liberal from of the faith, and here, Paul’s letters became very attractive.
However, they were Greek Christians before Paul and without Paul. For example, the church of Rome was established without Paul.
2# The evidence is the Jewishness of the Nazarene sect, as Jews they don’t preach the gentiles for converting them. Therefore, if there were Greek converts then it is highly assumed that the initiative came from these Greeks.
3# You regard the things happened in 110AD to be nuisance, but I truly don’t think so: Christians started to be executed or seriously threatened for it, and this cannot be just a nuisance.
However, the Christian numbers through the years couldn’t be properly estimated without understanding the dynamics of the Christian propagation. But this dynamics cannot be understood without solving first the previous puzzle.
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Quick reply to #3: Rome used to execute people all the time for things we would regard as barely a nuisance, such as disturbing the peace. So yes, from the Roman authorities’ point of view, Christians were a nuisance, but nothing more.
Reply to #1: The idea that Paul was not influential in early Christianity is so off the wall that I’m not sure how to even respond. How about this: Show me an NT scholar who argues that.
Reply to #2: Most Jews did not preach conversion to the Gentiles; in fact, they were enjoined by imperial decree from doing so (see Josephus on Claudius). However, the Jesus Movement did do just that – preach to the Gentiles – and got in trouble for doing so. Further, in order for the Greeks to take the initiative, they would have to have heard about an obscure Jewish preacher whom the Romans had executed in a small insignificant province on the edge of the empire. How could they have done if Paul and a few others had not been spreading that word in the Greek world?
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I suggested a solution for this puzzle (Chapter 6 in the article, linked at the end).
In a nutshell, I suggested that the momentum of Jesus was sufficient to attract few ascetic Greek philosophers. By converting to the Nazarene Jewish sect, they added two things to their toolkit: an agreed moral set that was the nucleus for their unity, and spirituality. These things with their argumentative skills, and their career of preaching (once a preacher always a preacher),, they were able to make a strong group. Furthermore, the commons in the Roman cities were hungry for spirituality (if it was presented to them) due to their hardship there.
So, we have a suggested magical recipe for a quick propagation of the Christian faith, specially that there was no competition for this group in the Roman world at that time.
There is no proof for this solution. Actually, there is no proof for any solution, so the value would be: how many questions the solution can answer satisfactory.
However, the solution here doesn’t need to be totally accurate, as it is an attempted solution. Therefore, it will be useful for the next attempt.
The article (see chapter 6):
https://omr-mhmd.yolasite.com/resources/54.01-PuzzlesOfECH-22.pdf
Sorry Dan, I just put this reply in a different slot, rather than immediately after your reply just to make more space. This is a reply to the reply of 3#.
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Maybe. But I don’t feel that this is right, because (to my understanding) the Romans had a clear concept of how to make the empire stable; which is through a stable relative legal justice. Without this system, the empire would have collapsed.
I acknowledge that the Roman military leaders had a flexible hand in their judgments, but I don’t think the civil governors had this flexibility. So, I don’t really think that it was easy for the judge or the governor to issue the death sentence for nuisance matters. I do acknowledge that there might have been some exceptions, but these are just exceptions.
So, I don’t feel that the execution of the Christians in 110AD was for nuisance matters, and I don’t think that these executions was issued by the governors alone, I seems to me that they had the greenlight from the high-level in the top.
But I don’t have the needed data. So, I cannot make a strong argument for it.
So, maybe.
You are correct; you don’t have the needed data. Start with Josephus’s description of the Roman civil governors in Judaea. Also check Cook, John Granger. 2011. “Crucifixion and Burial.” In New Test. Stud. 57, 193–213. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, and many other scholars of the period. Roman civil governors had two main responsibilities: collect taxes and keep the peace. As long as they did that, Rome allowed them a great deal of leeway. Unless the offender was a Roman citizen (and thus entitled to a trial in Rome), Roman law gave governors the power to execute anyone for breaking any number of laws, even ones that we today would consider trivial. They didn’t need approval from a higher authority. When Pliny the Younger wrote to Trajan asking what to do with some few Christians who were being a nuisance, he wasn’t asking for approval to execute them; he just wanted to know what imperial policy was.
For 3# It is still doesn’t feel right. If the civil governors were executing people for silly nuisances then the empire couldn’t be stable, and it would have collapsed.
Now … the references you mentioned were related to issue of the Christians, but the Christians are the argument here and you cannot use the argument as an evidence at the same time.
So, do you have general data about the civil governors’ judicial practices? Did these governors execute European pagans for nuisance matters? How about the pagans in north Africa, the Canaanites, the Arabs: have they been executed for nuisance matters?
The requested data above can be used to form the general conclusion, then we can apply it to the specific subject (i.e. the Christians), and not the other way round.
Aslan in his book (Zealot) did imply that Pilate have sent thousands and thousands of Jews to the cross, but this claim has been refuted because there is no sufficient data to support it.
The civil governors had in their disposals many penalties to impose on silly nuisance matters other than the execution, and I don’t think these governors were acting as a cruel dictators. It doesn’t feel right.
You missed my point. We might consider disturbing the peace (se turbulente gessere) a silly nusiance; the Romans did not. The governors’ job was to collect taxes and keep the peace; anything that threatened that peace was dealt with swiftly and harshly. Far from upsetting the stability of the realm, Rome used executions and fear of executions (and other punishments) to keep its subjects in line.
Josephus describes a number of mass crucifixions and other killings of Jews by several governors, not just Pilate. Governor Varus executed thousands in the unrest that followed Herod’s death in 4 BCE. During the Great Revolt (66-73 CE), Jews who managed to escape Jerusalem (meaning that they weren’t caught by the Zealots inside the city) were routinely crucified, both to instill fear in the city and because it was too much trouble to feed them. I don’t know about Aslan’s specific claims, but as far as I know no one has disputed Josephus’s accounts.
I’m still on vacation and away from my research materials, but, again, you should read Cook’s research.
Sorry Dan, I didn’t miss your point, I am focusing on it directly.
# We are arguing if the number of Christians in 110AD was 10K, and I told you that 10k isn’t right; because Christians started to be executed that time, and this cannot be just for nuisance, but for serious troubles, and 10k in the whole empire cannot cause these troubles.
So, you are arguing that civil governors have the authority to execute people for nuisance matters, and I am telling you: it doesn’t feel right. Governors have many serious penalties that can be imposed other than executing. This doesn’t feel right.
# For Varus and the other examples: I did acknowledge that military leaders have the flexibility of judgments, and your examples here are related to military activities (in this case, confronting rebellions), therefore, it is not part of our subject here, as we are speaking about civil governors in peace times, and the execution for the Christians happened at peace times.
Varus was a governor, not a military leader. The problem after Herod’s death wasn’t open rebellion so much as a breakdown of authority. In addition, other governors executed bandits.
Your argument about 10K being too small assumes that Christians were executed for being Christians. This is not correct. Rome didn’t care what its people believed, so long as they honored the state gods. (Rome believed that the state gods granted victory in return for being honored, so a refusal to do was a form of treason.) So yes, it is extremely reasonable that some local Christians would have been executed for it. Trajan’s letter to Pliny says that these Christians should be offered a chance to sacrifice to the state gods; if they do so, Pliny should let them go. Trajan also cautioned Pliny not to seek out Christians, nor act on rumors, but only if they came to his official attention.
(Continued) Very few Christians came to the authorities’ attention in the late first and early-mid second century. (Christians like to play up martyrdom, but the fact is that very few were executed or persecuted prior to 250 CE; the Church Father Origen said in 247 that the number of Christian martyrs were so few they “can be easily numbered.”)
Your feelings are not historical evidence. Nor can you project modern sensibilities and practices onto historical events. You have to examine a historical period according to what the people of that time thought was proper, not what you think (or feel) is proper. What you may see as a nuisance (disturbing the peace), they saw as serious business.
# I have read your comment and I am still saying that this doesn’t feel right.
Civil Governors cannot just kill people for nuisance matters, otherwise, the empire would have collapsed. These governors have in their disposal many serious penalties for these nuisance matters other than killing people.
Also, there are no general data that we can use to show that civil governors did kill people for nuisance matters (as I have discussed before),, and the Christian matter cannot be used as an evidence because this matter is the argument (the problem of discussion).
Therefore, our feelings here are important because there is no sufficient data.
Therefore, when the civil governors start killing people for their faith then I can expect that these people became serious problem for the state.
# I agree with this. There were riots and breaking of authority. But his required the army to leave the camps and deal with it. Therefore, it was a military action.
# Bandits accusation is a serious matter and not a nuisance one.
Maiestas (https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100127113;jsessionid=29918121939F8D6082AFD7FE2262F482): Originally meant ‘the diminution of the majesty of the Roman people’. ” By Tiberius’ reign prosecutions for maiestas might be brought before not only the quaestio maiestatis (see quaestiones) but either the senate, sitting under the presidency of the emperor or consuls, or the emperor himself. Convicted persons were increasingly liable to the death penalty with no opportunity given to retire into exile. . . . Charges of maiestas were increasingly frequent under Tiberius and after ad 23 disfigured his reign. Many were made on apparently trivial grounds or as a complement to other charges, esp. extortion and adultery.” [emohasis added]
What does this paragraph prove?
It does prove that civil governors were able to kill people for treason. I think that the trivial grounds (as extortion and adultery) were not part of the treason charges but were additional ones (I don’t think you are telling me here that the civil governors were killing adulterous by using this law).
Also, I do understand that if the authority wants to kill an individual then they are able to use the loopholes of this law to do so.
However, this paragraph doesn’t prove that civil governors “”were”” killing people for nuisance matters. And it doesn’t make sense to say that they were, because if they really were killing people for nuisance matters then the empire will never be stable, and it would have collapsed. The stability of the state requires relative justice.
I did say previously that “there might have been some exceptions, but these are just exceptions”.
But the main point here is that it doesn’t feel right to conclude that civil governors were killing people for nuisance matters, and there is no sufficient data that demonstrate that civil governors were doing such things as a general practice.
I realize that English is not your native language, but I really feel you continue to miss my point. Let me try one last time:
We consider acts such as disturbing the peace to be a nuisance charge. To the Romans, it was a serious offense, because it threatened the peace and stability of the province, or city, or region. Rome ruled by fear, and allowing a disturbance to go unpunished would diminish that fear.
Furthermore: “A provincial governor was not limited by the statutory offenses governing the courts in Rome. During the Republic, he could try on any pretext and inflict any penalty he wanted to maintain order in his province. His power was not significantly changed in the early Empire, but the rules were somewhat different, depending on the type of province.” https://carolashby.com/crime-and-punishment-in-the-roman-empire/ [emphasis added]
Sorry Dan, I not missing your point at all, but I just don’t agree with it.
When civil governors started suddenly to execute people for their faith rather than using other serious penalties then this does indicate that these people became serious trouble to the state. This is because it doesn’t make any sense to me to conclude that civil governors were killing people for things that are not serious.
This is not a problem of my English to understand you. This is not fair: my English is good for understanding others. My English would be an issue when I am trying to explain things. Therefore, I do understand your point exactly, and I don’t agree with it, and I truly think that your point is inaccurate, and I did clarify my reasons for this conclusion in many of my previous replies.
However, if you are convinced with your point then go for it. But I am not.
(Further) “Aside from these financial duties, the governor was the province’s supreme judge. The governor had the sole right to inflict the death penalty and capital cases were normally tried before him. Appeal was not impossible, but getting to Rome and an audience with the Emperor was expensive. Appeal was unlikely to change matters anyway, as a Governor wouldn’t generally take the chance of convicting someone who the Emperor would not like to be convicted.” [emphasis added] https://www.unrv.com/government/provincialgovernment.php
From John Granger Cook ( “Crucifixion and Burial.” In New Test. Stud. 57, 193–213. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press) on the governor’s authority to order a crucifixion: “They could classify the disturbances as seditio, or troublemaking (se turbulente gessere), or simply actions against the quies (quiet) of Judaea.” Regarding Cook, one reviewer has written: “Cook’s work on this score is likely to become the long-standing reference work and starting point for any future research on the subject [of Roman cruciifions].”
OK Dan, if you are convinced with this then go for it. But I am not. And my reply here is exactly the same as the previous one: What does this paragraph prove and what does it prove not?
This paragraph doesn’t prove that civil governors “”were”” killing people for nuisance matters ……..
For 1# Paul thoughts, concepts and letters were very influential after the destruction of the temple (70AD). He wasn’t influential at the time of James. At the end, Paul went to Jerusalem in a hope to make amends with James, but Paul failed. Also, it doesn’t seem that the Gospel of Mark, Matt or John are influenced by the concepts of Paul.
Paul was influential in the Greek world of his time, both in the communities he established (Athens, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, etc.) and ones where it’s not clear if he was the founder (ie, Rome). James confined his efforts to the Jews and to Judaea, and was never influential elsewhere. The Synoptic gospels don’t seem to be moved by Paul (though Acts, written by the author of Luke) is largely about Paul (and sometimes conflicts with Paul’s letters). John does expand on Paul’s position, though whether he was directly influenced by Paul is something I haven’t looked into.
For 2# I disagree. Paul did try to convert the Greeks, but there were already Greek converts before Paul and without Paul. It does seem that Paul regarded himself to be Greek more than Jewish.
But neither James nor the Nazarenes around him did try to convert the Pagan, not at the time of James, not after James, and not after the destruction of the temple. They were an isolated Jewish sect. For sure they taught the Greek converts, but I don’t think they started the missionary of converting the Greeks. However, The Nazarenes did probably have many arguments with the Rabbinic Jews, and I assume that the Karaites were the outcome of these arguments: It seems that some Jews agreed with the Nazarenes about the issue of the man-made laws, but they couldn’t accept Jesus to be a prophet from God, therefore we have a new Jewish sect (the Karaites).
As for the Greeks, I am suggesting that Jesus created sufficient momentum that attracted some of the Greeks. There were Greeks living in Palestine, and there were Greeks passing through Palestine. This is actually part of my suggested solution of the puzzle.
Paul was not the only missionary to the Greek world, but he was most likely the major one. He himself said that he spoke as a Greek to the Greeks and as a Jew to the Jews, though the degree to which he thought of himself as more Greek than Jewish is still a matter of huge debate. It was thus Paul, not Jesus (who once said his mission was only to the Jews) who created or at least nurtured the initial momentum among the Greek world. Greeks may have passed through Judaea (it wasn’t called Palestine until 135 CE), but it is highly unlikely they would have heard of or taken notice of what by your own admission was an internal Jewish dispute.
You are using Paul to prove Paul. However, we have no other sources for analysis, therefore, this is an accepted method, but still we need to remember this matter in the background.
But, looking at the whole picture, we see that the Pauline concepts are in direct conflict with James and the Nazarenes, and James (at his time) was the undisputed leader of the movement of Jesus. Therefore, it is reasonable to claim that Paul wasn’t influential at James time.
If this was an accepted logic, then I can say that Paul wasn’t the major player in the Greek Christianity ““at the time of James””. Another indicator for this conclusion is that Paul went to Jerusalem in the hope to make amends with James. And I can assume here that this was a disparate move from Paul, and Paul failed.
James was not the “undisputed leader” of the Jesus Movement, only the head of the Jerusalem church. While that gave him some standing, it did not give him control, certainly not over any actions outside Judaea. In any case, Paul and Barnabas received “authority” from James to preach to the Greek world. (Gal 2:9)disabledupes{1171f34df51dc8d2b2f0174546aeda50}disabledupes
How did you come up with this conclusion (that James was not the undisputed leader for the movement)! Who opposed (openly and publicly) the leadership of James! Who was disputing James leadership!
I think Paul did criticize Peter openly and directly, but he never did criticize James openly and directly. And even indirectly, Paul wasn’t disputing the leadership of James, but he was (indirectly) criticizing James ideas.
Also (as I have mentioned before), Paul needed to go to Jerusalem in the hope to make amends with James, but he failed.
So, I am assuming that the “null hypothesis” here should be: “James was the undisputed leader for the movement at his time”. Other alternative hypotheses need to be supported by sufficient data.
“Not the undisputed leader” does not mean that someone disputed his leadership. It means that he was not an absolute ruler. This is an English language subtlety. And why do you say that Paul failed to reconcile with James, since Paul himself says in Galatians that Peter (Cephas) and James agreed to the division of labor that Paul proposed?
OK, then let us agree that: no one disputed the authority of James over the movement.
For Paul issue: I think the Galatians letter was about 50AD while the Jerusalem matter between Paul and James was about 57AD.
The message of an imminent apocalypse is very attractive to a weary population and that has to be one of the reasons why the Jesus and John the Baptist’s movements were so popular. In Jesus day, there was enormous poverty throughout the Galilee, and elsewhere, so the idea that a better world is just around the corner is very attractive. Lots of Romans were probably fed up with the enormous political corruption throughout the empire. The humanitarian appeal in those movements would have been very attractive to people of different social classes too. It is hard to assess all the reasons for the spread of various religions because the full cultural contexts are not known. Islam and Buddhism also spread like wildfire when they first appeared. It’s also hard to know why people are so interested in trying to connect to Jesus; perhaps the subconscious mind is trying to find `truth’ or `God’, or whatever.
Suppose there is a country that is rich with opportunities. Therefore, we can expect a lot of rich people there. But if there is one man that is very rich much more than anyone else, then the obvious question would be: why him!
So, you are saying that the environment was ready for a humanitarian and spiritual movement, but still, the obvious question would be: why Jesus!
Now … regarding Islam (as I have said in previous comment): Islam went into quick extraordinary political expansion, then came the conversions. Therefore, Islam is not exactly an equivalent example for the puzzle.
For Buddhism: Buddha spend about 45 years in preaching in India. His movement expanded gradually for about two centuries until it gained the political support. Also, it took many centuries for this movement to expand and flourish in foreign domains. Therefore, this example doesn’t fit the puzzle.
There is a nice video (2:36) in Youtube about the World Religions Expansion, produced by “Insider Business”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvFl6UBZLv4
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I am going here to put an analogy that I used in my article (I did put the link previously, and I will put it again here at the end):
Suppose you were in a hill overseeing a large lake, and suddenly you noticed a wave propagating quickly outward. You will instinctively realize that this wave has originated from its center, and you can probably pinpoint this center with ease by looking at the wave.
However, your eyes will open wildly in astonishment and your scientific mind will turn upside down when you see the wave reaching the shore then jumping to the next lake and start propagating there.
This is going to be a very weird phenomenon. But this exact phenomenon needs to be included in our explanatory models for the expansion of Christianity.
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The propagation of Christianity (with all its positives and negatives, all the good ethics and weird theologies) could not be explained without assuming a sufficient momentum from the center of this propagation.
If this wasn’t extraordinary then we can highlight many true examples similar to it, but if there are no equivalent examples then by definition, this is extraordinary.
The article (chapter-1):
https://omr-mhmd.yolasite.com/resources/54.01-PuzzlesOfECH-22.pdf
As I wrote, my best conjecture for its first century rapid spread was the idea of an imminent apocalypse. An imminent apocalypse is very attractive to a weary population in the face of poverty, political corruption, and general inhumanity. John the Baptist was a “rock star”, so to speak, in his time for the very same reason: he preached that the Hebrew apocalypse is imminent. But also, the cultural contexts are not completely known and so a complete answer to it remains elusive, especially for later centuries. Of course, there are other factors like the extensive network of Roman roads. In the below Wikipedia article Dr. Ehrman’s lists five big reasons that had to be major players in the spread of Christianity. Obviously, it’s a big topic and I’m not completely satisfied with all the proposed answers. The History channel has some great documentaries on it that I’ve seen in recent years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Christianity
https://www.wondriumdaily.com/the-main-causes-contributing-to-the-spread-of-christianity/
https://www.quora.com/What-caused-the-massive-spread-of-Christianity
To make a comparison to your recent posts about Job: Job is a sympathetic figure as he suffers and gets no answer to his suffering, but the fairy tale ending where he gets his health, wealth and even his children back makes it hard to relate to, as life doesn’t work out so neatly. Jesus went about teaching people to do what is good and right and ended up being crucified for it, but the fairy tale ending of him getting up after a two day nap and returning to heaven makes him less human and less relatable. I find the ending of Jesus Christ Superstar more moving than the traditional version of Jesus rising from the dead, which basically erases the tragedy of his death. What if there was no resurrection story? Well, the Buddha and Mohammed, and even Joseph Smith seem to have made quite their impacts without rising from the dead.
There’s a *hint* of a resurrection if you watch the final scene very closely; at the bottom of the screen, very faintly, you can see a shepherd leading his sheep.
I’ve asked myself this question a lot. As someone who doesn’t believe in God, why am I obsessed with Jesus? It’s perhaps even stranger for me because I never have been religious and can’t blame it on my upbringing. I think the answer for me is that there are so many people who consider Jesus fundamentally, life-shapingly important, but—they know almost nothing about him, and 90% of what they do know is wrong! They consider the Bible the word of God, but they haven’t bothered to read it. Jesus is their Lord and savior, but their knowledge of him is a caricature based on a handful of church platitudes and a couple passages from John’s gospel. To me, a historically-informed picture of Jesus is so much more interesting than what’s usually taught in church!
I think you can credit Paul for the popularity of “Jesus”. Paul Hellenized and paganized the primitive Jesus movement that survived the death on the cross. That movement would have died out rather quickly had Paul not seized it and mythologized it, and he did that on the basis of hallucinations, probably while having temporal lobe seizures. The process of dove tailing the Jesus-based “Jesus-as-son-of-god” myth into already existing pagan myth continued with later church fathers. What Paul created was a cult with strong emotional appeal, and it just goes to show how dangerous and destructive cults can be. The Jesus cult destroyed tolerance and reason and shredded a good deal of ancient learning and history. And today it attempts to destroy all remaining vestiges of cultured civilization, with science and history and democracy in the crosshairs. The Romans had to co-opt it in order to try to survive the onslaught, and that really didn’t work very well.
I see your point about the progression of Christianity. It’s like dominoes: first gentiles, then Constantine, and so on. But you say that it all goes back to Jesus declared God. But was that unique? Didn’t lots of religions have similar starting points? After Constantine, sure, Christianity had a good shot at the big time. But Christianity in the 1st century doesn’t seem that special.
I think some of what makes Christianity special (in sense of its success at propagation) is covered in Dr Ehrman’s book “Triumph of Christianity”. In gross oversimplification, Christianity was unique as it was open to all (universalist) but exclusivist to all other religions, unlike other religions at the time that deified humans.
So, even assuming a random walk of conversion to/from Christianity by the pagan population, Christianity’s exclusivist nature results in an absorption wall that results in the religion’s overall continued and significant growth.
Wasn’t the resurrection why and when people starting calling him God Christ, the real reason Christianity emerged universally? Wouldn’t Jesus’ unexplained disappearance from the grave have catapultated many converts to belief from the news and witnesses who saw the empty tomb whether historical or theological ?
I think the followers of Jesus called him the messiah before his death; and I don’t think the resurrection is why it became the universal reliion. I talk about all that in my book The Triumph of Christianity.
“If Christianity had not been a sizeable minority in the empire by the early fourth century, Constantine almost certainly would not have converted. If Constantine had not converted, the massive conversions in his wake would never have occurred. The Empire would not have become predominantly Christian.”
Did you not change your mind on this? That the empire becoming Christian was inevitable given its growth rate, regardless of whether Constantine had converted?
Whoa. That’s what I get for posting an old post. I haven’t thought that for years.disabledupes{40cb0eb5b5a2b186438fb020f57845f4}disabledupes
If the belief of a number of converts to Christianity was that Jesus was the “the way, the truth and the light,” why did it take twenty to thirty years for the first gospel to be written, thus spreading the message about a person that long dead?
It’s usually thought that its because everyone knew the world was soon to end, and there was no reason to record his life for posterity. Plus, hardly any Christians could rwrite in those early years.disabledupes{6d5384b6adc77853f8acc23cac6f8839}disabledupes
broke link? http://www.faithstreet.com/???
“It is simply that the historical Jesus was not the God-man that Christians said he was. ”
Sorry I haven’t read your book “How Jesus Became God” so you probably answer this question..
How exactly does the historical Jesus fail your God test? Is it because there is no proof of the resurrection? Is there no proof that Jesus said “..before Abraham was I am?” Scripture tells us he was not interested in proving he was God right ph 2:6? Perhaps his main goal for arriving on earth was to die –not declare himself god?
You had an amazing insight into Paul’s mind which I think shows this exact contrast between the historical Jesus and the God-man. Paul meets Jesus, knows he’s alive and blessed by God—yet Jesus is hanged on a tree. Paul thinks: Jesus is Blessed by God but the definition of “hanged on a tree” is CURSED?…from that question comes Christianity.
PHENOMINAL insight— your insight into Paul’s thinking here is just mind blowing. Super fun and shows how the miracle of revelation turns the he historical Jesus into the God-man.
You’re asking why I don’t think Jesus was God? Yes, I deal with that in a number of my books, but for starters, I don’t believe in God so I can’t very well think Jesus is he!
But, did it really begin with Jesus? Perhaps it began with Alexander III of Macedon? Who brought Greek thinking to the Mediterranean world and the Levant and who’s successors pursued the Helinization of their empires. Including the Helinization of Judea and the free thinking of scribes and other literates fostering Pharisaic Judaism. Perhaps without whom we would have not had Antiachus IV Epiphanes to thoroughly irritate all Judea and in response catalyze apocalyptic thought.
I’m obsessed with reading the Bible and I no longer identify as a Christian. I am currently reading the RSV, NRSV, the Jewish Annotated New Testament and the Jewish Study Bible!
Bart –
You write: “Very few people outside the world of the academy seem aware that the majority of scholars think of Jesus as an apocalypticist.” This leads me to wonder how many people in general think of Jesus as an apocalypticist? I would think that at least the millennialists (pre and post) should count.
In a modern sense, yes. But they don’t really hold the ancient Jewish view — or think, e.g., that Jesus himself expected it to be imminent.
From my good and proper liberal Methodist Sunday School and summer camp Christian education, frankly, I do not recall hearing the word. Likely I was a poor student; but if so I was not alone…. Even today , the term elicits the image of a cartoon of some bum on a downtown street corner with a “repent” sign being ignored by everyone.
What all this does is further impress on me my difficulty in understanding 1st Century CE context…
You guys keep up your good work…. There’s a lot of ignorance out here.
Another thought: I agree that if Jesus had not been declared to be God, his sect would have remained a (very small) unit within Judaism – I say that because there were other ideas that the Jesus Movement promoted, such as Jesus as the once and future messiah, that were too alien for almost all Jews.
But I think there’s a piece missing in your presentation: Why should the declaration that Jesus was God appeal to the Greek world? They already had a lot of gods, and the Jesus Movement was asking gentiles to give them all up for a single one, who was Jewish and crucified to boot.
Ah, that’s the issue I address in my book Triumph of Christianity. He didn’t much appeal. But didn’t need to MUCH appeal. It has to do with Christians havin gthe only exclusive religion in town.
On this point
” . . . or they would have continued to revere him as a teacher of the Torah, whose interpretations, for them, were still worth following.”
Is there any evidence that what differentiated the “Jewish Christians” (are the Ebionites an example?) from “orthodox, etc.” was belief in the resurrection?
I have known people who thought the resurrection was myth, but tried to follow the actual teachings of Jesus as they understood them (some called themselves “Jesus People” when I was a teen back in the late 70s).
It is easy to imagine that some who knew Jesus in life continued to remember the ethical teachings he promoted and continued along that way, but faded out as you suggest. Is there evidence of them?
So far as we can tell Jewish Christians all believed in the resurrection.
I would say Jewish Christians believed Jesus was “raised from the death”. That is different from being resurrected. Resurrection is for dead bodies already decomposed, from bones. They need a new body, and that body is somewhat not solid, a “spiritual body”, pneumatic, as in Paul’s mind. For the Jewish Christians, Jesus was raised from the dead, his body intact. God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, like he did to Adam. His body was solid, you could touch it, shake his hand, and he ate fish. But he was special, he could go through walls and closed doors, he would appear and disappear in an instant. He had qualities of a quantum particle.
Hi Bart. I’m interested in the polemics around Paul and his role in shaping early Christianity. Whatever I know of him comes from listening to your lectures/podcast. Any book you’d recommend?
You might try the short book on Paul by E. P. Sanders, or the biography of Paul by Albert Harrill, or the one by Paula Fredriksen/
Hi Bart. It’s been a while since I read N. T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God,” but I seem to remember Wright arguing that Jesus’ apocalyptic imagery is not meant to be taken literally in the sense of being about the end of the world; rather, prophets like Jesus used this by kind of imagery to describe geopolitical disasters, of which the Jewish people had a few (e.g., the Babylonian Exile).
What do you make of Wright’s argument? Unlike Crossan, he doesn’t deny that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet (I think he uses the term “eschatological”), but he argues against the idea that Jesus expected the immanent end of the world. Instead, Jesus was warning of a real world disaster if his fellow Jews didn’t turn away from the path of violence. (Which came with the destruction of the Second Temple.)
Read 1 Thessalonians 4-5 and see if it seems like he doesn’t mean it literally… One thing we can say is that early readers of Paul certainly did take him literally, that the end was literally near.
Thanks, Bart. I found Wright’s book to be fascinating, but I also found it difficult to square with the sense of apocalyptic DOOM (I feel all caps are merited here) I detected in Paul. Appreciate the response!
Odd perhaps, even paradoxical, but by no means an experience unique to me, I really became genuinely interested in the figure of Jesus and the Christian writings only after I deconverted and it became not a matter of faith, but of history. Now I can’t get enough.
Ummm, I don’t see a full article here, just a few paragraphs and an unfinished sentence.
That is usually a membership issue; click help and ask support, and someone will figure it out for you.
An apocalyptic belief in the imminent destruction of the world is evident in some of Paul’s writings to Greek Christians. Do you think that apocalypticism was part of the appeal of Christianity to early Greek Christians?
Not really. I discuss what was appealin in my book Triumph of Christianity
Didn’t the early non Jewish Christians who were around before the Trinity teaching see him as god in a different light? That is, didn’t they see him as a deity because his father was God?
There were a variety of views. I lay them out in my book How Jesus Became God. : one, e.g., is that he was a divine man like other divine men — born of the union of a god and a mortal, able to do miracles, and so on.disabledupes{7cfe8da93765a55d49b7a324d026bc5e}disabledupes
Bart, I really appreciate your transparency in this post, how you’ve shared your own struggles in accepting the faith, and your firm desire for truth. I just purchased, and will read, the book you referenced. Your past experiences resonate with members of my own family who have questioned and even rejected the faith themselves. So I continue to read your insights with interest.
But I would note that your objection, “it is simply that the historical Jesus was not the God-man that Christians said he was” is itself a statement of faith. Consider all the conflicting evidence that one must not just doubt, but decisively dismiss, in order to state that the God-man of Christianity did not exist. Does not atheism also rely upon faith to establish its creeds?
Thanks! It’s an interesting and important point. Of course atheists do have faith claims — for example faith that empirical observatoin at the root of, say, chemistry or physics is probative. And faith in, say, our ability to come up with a good semblance of what happened in the past.
In this case I make the claim about Jesus , of course, based on many years of deep historical scholarship; I don’t see it as a faith claim in the normal religous sense but a statement about what we can know about the historical Jesus.
I think my fascination with Jesus is in trying to figure out how and why Jews would declare Jesus God. It goes against everything in the Old Testament about God…that He can not be a man or human. I realize that the resurrection and the miracles were convincing to gentiles but neither of these would lead one to necessarily say GOD. Perhaps Jews back then didn’t have as clear a separation between God and humans (I think they actually did) and I can see calling Him the Messiah but declaring Jesus as God seems a jump I can’t wrap my head around.
You are truly an effective communicator as well as a great writer. The facts that you present I have seen confirmed by other scholars, but, when are seriously engaged in teaching, you are by far tye best. They also display considerable skills. But when contemplating these things, I inevitably find myself thinking along the lines of your explanation.
The ABOVE statement about the profound,,widespread influence of the idea labeled Christianity,is an example of such talent.
I find myself satisfied with describing myself as a Christian atheist. That so little of modern Christianty’s basic tenets reflect the teachings of Jesus likely reflect much of what Jesus’ actual teaching, is mind boggling.
Kud9s on all fronts.
I’m curious about why Jesus was so sure the world would soon end, and you said in an earlier reply here that “everyone knew the world was soon to end”, so I’m guessing it’s just the really ignorant, parochial/myopic view that the world was in such a terrible state, it just had to be ending soon. You can’t blame Jesus or other long-past apocalypticists for their ignorance, but what about those of the last 100 years or so? I just watched your video on the KJV, at the end, you bemoan the willful ignorance of those who hold that version of the bible as the only divinely inspired version, the same could be said about apocalypticists, there’s been SO many of these and not a single one right. There’s real danger in certainty and the arrogance to think only you know the truth. As you said, they should use the brain god gave them. But they don’t, it’s a hallmark of Christian faith–it’s a sin to doubt, to question, even Pope&head inquisitor Ratzinger supported faith trumping reason. Arguably our brain’s are god’s greatest creation, yet, many faithful insist on shutting it off.
I’m very reluctant to say that people with philosophies, world-views, and perspectives are necessarily more ignorant, parochial, or myopic than we are. It would be easy to say *we* are that as well.
The ‘ignorant, parochial, or myopic ‘ was meant to apply to apocalypticists in general, and simply due to the eta they lived in. The comment about not blaming Jesus or others in that time was to contrast that with the modern world and the simple fact that even kids today are far more knowledgeable and ‘worldly’ than even the brightest and most learned of folks 2000 years ago. We have the dox to know how widespread such views were back then and we have the knowledge that out of all of them, from back then until now, 2000 years later NONE of them, not a single one, was right in their looming doom obsessions. It wasn’t in any way disparaging to those of Jesus’ time, but only those of the last 100 years or so, as I said. It was also meant to highlight the real danger of so much certainty in something you only have faith as justification for since it means there’s no error correction available. “The most dangerous people in the world are those who are certain of everything.” – George Bernard Shaw