Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet

Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet

For over a century, scholarship on the origins of Christianity has been dealing with a fundamental issue – the Jesus in the earliest Christian texts is presented as preaching an eschatological message about an imminent apocalypse. Despite ongoing rearguard actions, the idea that the historical Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet remains the most likely interpretation of the evidence.

apocalyptic prophet

A Galilean Peasant’s World

If in the early first century AD a preacher appeared in a Galilean village proclaiming repentance in the face of an imminent cosmic apocalypse, most listeners would have been familiar with his message and many would have welcomed it. Devout Jews in this period had inherited a theology whereby they were the Chosen People of God who lived in the Promised Land granted to them by him. But by the time Herod Antipas came to rule Galilee, these ideas were difficult to reconcile with the realities of the average Jewish peasant’s existence.

To begin with, life for our peasant was hard. If they were the head of a household, it was difficult enough to scrape a living for them and their family by farming, herding or fishing, but they also had to pay heavy taxes to the Tetrarch Herod, who was the son of the hated King Herod the Great and, like his late father, a puppet ruler for the Roman Empire. This meant our peasant not only had to pay enough tax to keep Herod Antipas in luxury in his newly built capital of Tiberias – which he had named after his Roman patron, the emperor Tiberius – he also had to pay still more tax for Herod to pass on to his Roman masters. As a result, it is estimated a Galilean Jewish household handed over more than one third of its income and production in taxes. Not surprisingly, these taxes were resented and those who made a living collecting them were despised as corrupt quislings. The burden of heavy taxation meant that an increasing number of peasants had to give up farming their own land and take up day labour on that of others. In good seasons things were hard and in bad ones they could be deadly.

Herod Antipas had been granted rule of Galilee and the more southern territory of Perea on the death of his father Herod the Great. His brother Herod Philip ruled a wide territory to the east, including Batanea, Trachonitis, and Auranitis. And his older brother Herod Archelaus had ruled Judea, Samaria and Idumea to the south, until the Romans had decided he was incompetent and removed him, installing a Roman prefectus in his place. Just as under old Herod the Great, these men held their petty kingdoms as clients of the Roman emperor and were hated for it by most of their subjects. They were also Idumeans: only recently converted to Judaism and regarded as worse than gentiles by many devout Jews. Herod the Great’s sons were well aware of their unpopularity and also inherited their father’s talent for repression – spies were active, uprisings were crushed and troublemakers were dealt with swiftly and painfully.

But our peasant would have known that things had not always been this way. The scriptures he and his neighbours heard read and discussed each sabbath emphasised the ideas already mentioned – that as Jews they were God’s chosen and living in the land he promised to their ancestors. But in the period since the Jewish people had been conquered, dominated and often oppressed by a succession of foreign powers. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Ptolemaic and then the Seleucid kings and finally the Romans had all ruled over the supposed Promised Land, and for many this constant foreign domination had become increasingly difficult to reconcile with the idea of somehow being God’s chosen people.

Traditionally, this foreign domination had been explained as the sign of God’s displeasure with his people and as punishment for straying from his Law. This had certainly been the message of many of the prophets and the remedy was to repent, avoid foreign ways and worship and turn back to God. But in the two centuries before our Galilean peasant’s time a new cosmology had developed in Judaism – one which offered both an explanation for and a solution to the oppression under which our peasant suffered.

The Apocalyptic Cosmos

In the centuries between the composition of the last books of the Jewish Bible and the first texts that were to make up the Christian New Testament there was a massive shift in the Jewish conception of the world. Concepts and figures that would come to dominate Christianity and play a significant role in rabinnical Judaism and the emergence of Islam first appeared or fully developed in this “Intertestamental Period”. The concept of Satan as an rebellious opponent of Yahweh rather than one of his servants, along with the idea that he led an array of devils and demons who were eternally at war with the heavenly host of God’s angels begins to appear in this period. The idea of a coming Messiah develops in various directions out of a general concept of a future king who would restore the lost independence of Israel and taking on a wider, cosmic dimension – with the Messiah even pre-existing in the heavens. Ideas about Yahweh fully move from a form of henothesism – the idea that other gods exist but that this one is the most important – to full monotheism. At the same time, the conception that aspects of God – called hypostases – were distinct from him even to the extent of being seen as almost separate beings also developed. Sometimes these beings were seen as angelic celestial entities or even referred to as “gods”. Finally, the idea that there was a Hell, reserved for the punishment of the wicked and the ultimate punishment of Satan and his rebel demons also began to develop, in several forms.

As Philip Jenkins details in his excellent recent survey of these developments, Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World:

During the two tempestuous centuries from 250 through 50 BCE, the Jewish and Jewish derived world was a fiery crucible of values, faiths and ideas, from which emerged wholly new religious syntheses. Such a sweeping transformation of religious thought in such a relatively brief period makes this one of the most revolutionary times in human culture. 

p. xv

This revolutionary change in the Jewish conception of the cosmos had many origins. Domination and continuing influence by the Persian Empire meant that Persian religious ideas increasingly permeated Jewish theology, so many aspects of the angels, demons and cosmic warfare that emerges in Jewish texts in this period of change have obvious Persian antecedents. But later and increasing influence from Hellenic culture also wrought other changes: solidifying Jewish monotheism in the face of Greek polytheistic paganism on one hand, while also adding sophisticated philosophical layers to Jewish theology on the other. The influence of Platonic thought, in particular, can be found in the increasing conception of the material world as a reflection of a perfect heavenly exemplar, along with the idea that the Temple, the Torah, Jerusalem and the Messiah all had or have a celestial existence or pre-existence.

Of course, the other major influence on this cosmological revolution was the history of conquest and domination of the Jewish people by a succession of foreign powers already noted above. For our Galilean peasant, most of these new cosmological ideas would have been accepted as having always been part of Jewish belief and many of them would have come together, both to explain the opppressive circumstances that he and his people lived in and to give hope that one day, perhaps one day soon, God will act to relieve their oppression and restore Israel to the Chosen People.

So the idea of a return of the Jewish king of Israel became entangled in these cosmic ideas about a war between God and Satan and an angelic, pre-existent Messiah who was coming to earth to save God’s people. God had withdrawn most of his active power from the material world and it had become the domain of demons and their earthly servants; the Romans, the Herodians and the unrighteous Jews who collaborated with them. But the day was coming when the Messiah would arise, God would intervene in the world, the angels would defeat the demonic forces, the dead would be raised to life and everyone, living and dead, would be judged by the Messiah, sitting at God’s right hand. The unrighteous would be cast into Hell and the righteous would enjoy a restored world, with all nations under Israel and the Messiah ruling as God’s anointed one. Our Aramaic-speaking peasant would have referred to this coming time as the “malkutha d’bashmaya“. In Greek it was ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ – the “kingship/kingdom of God” and any preacher who came to our peasant’s village declaring that it was coming soon would likely have, at very least, found an interested audience.

Jesus’ “Good News”

The first words presented as being spoken by Jesus in the first chapter of the earliest gospel are:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in this good news.”

(Mark 1:15)

The writer of gMark does not depict Jesus explaining what he means and expects his audience to understand – here Jesus is proclaiming that the expected end time had come, that the kingship of God was close and that those who believed this and repented would join the righteous when the imminent apocalypse arrived. Far from being a prophet of doom, Jesus is depicted proclaiming this imminent event as “good news” – the relief from oppression, both human and demonic, was almost here. And this succinct summary is effectively the whole of his message in this and in the other two synoptic gospels (gMatt and gLuke); the word “gospel” literally means “[the] good news”.

One of the key elements of this message was its urgency and immediacy; in these earliest texts Jesus is not depicted as proclaiming that this world-changing event will happen some time in the distant future, but that it was happening soon. Very soon, in fact. This is something that the synoptic gospels generally emphasise repeatedly:

“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

(Mark 9:1; cf. Matt 16:28 and Luke 9:27)

Later, after predicting the fall of the Temple, detailing the End Times tribulations and the subsequent arrival of God’s cosmic intervention, Jesus is depicted repeating:

“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

(Mark 13:30)

And the writer of gMatt also emphasises the imminence of the coming apocalypse in a reported saying that seems to be even more urgent:

“When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

(Matt 10:23)

This Matt 10:23 saying may reflect an insistence by the historical Jesus that the apocalypse was coming any day, with the “this generation” sayings noted above reflecting a later reaction to the fact that decades had passed without the “kingship” arriving. But all of these reported sayings reflect an emphasis in urgency and imminence; as do many other elements in the synoptics. When we turn to the parables that Jesus is depicted telling in the synoptic gospels, once again we find that not only is the coming apocalypse their central theme, but its imminence is repeatedly emphasised. For example:

“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

(Luke 12:39-40, cf. Matt 24:48-50)

Likewise, Luke 12:45-46 (cf. Matt 24:48-50) has a servant misbehaving and carousing while his master is away and warns “the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful” (v. 46). Similarly, the parable of the bridesmaids ends with the warning:

“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

(Matt 25:13)

Then there is a similar exhortation in Luke 12:36:

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”

This emphasis on the imminence of the coming apocalypse is, again, not unique to the reported teaching of Jesus. We find it in other, earlier Jewish prophetic and apocalyptic works. For example:

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:3)


I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. (Isa 46:13)


The age is hurrying swiftly to its end … judgement is now drawing near. (4 Ezra 4:26, 8:61)


The advent of the times is very short … the end which the Most High prepared is near. (2 Bar 85:10, 82:20)

Of course, nothing in the Judaism of this period was uniform and there are other traditions that do imply the kingship of God is a more distant eventuality or are far more ambiguous about when it will come about. But in the synoptic gospels, and most clearly in gMark and gMatt, the emphasis is very much on urgency and the imminence of the coming transformation of the cosmos.

Another consistent theme in the reported teaching of Jesus in the synoptics is the idea that the coming apocalypse will be cataclysmic, painful and violent:

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places …. For at that time there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be …. ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of heaven will be shaken’.”

(Matt 24, cf. Mark 13 and Luke 21) 

Again, this passage draws on earlier prophetic literature and is paralleled in other Jewish apocalyptic works:

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light…Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt (Isa 13:10; 24:6)


There shall be a time of suffering, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. (Daniel 12:1)


The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast…a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements…in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth. (Zephaniah 1)


Noises and confusion, thunders and earthquake, tumult on the earth!…every nation prepared for war, to fight against the righteous nation. It was a day of darkness and gloom, of tribulation and distress, affliction and great tumult on the earth! (Greek Esther 11:8)

But the emphasis in the reported teaching of the synoptic gospels’ Jesus is that the coming apocalypse is “good news”. Why? Because it represented a solution to all the problems of people like our early first century Jewish peasant.

“The First Shall Be Last”

Probably the best known passage from the gospels is the prayer attributed to Jesus and now prayed, usually without much thought to its meaning,  by Christians around the world. It is known as the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread [or “our bread for tomorrow”].
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

(Matt 6:9-13; cf. Luke 11:2-4)

Everything in this prayer fits Jesus’ reported apocalyptic theology. God is king in heaven, but the prayer looks forward in hope to when his rule once again extends fully to earth as well. It urges mercy by invoking the forgiveness shown to others. And it asks for short-term sustenance and pleads to be rescued from Satan’s dominance of the earth.

As already noted, for our hypothetical first century Jewish peasant, that Satanic dominance was not some abstract theological principle – he would have seen it as manifest in the oppression he and his community suffered under the Herodians and their Roman masters. This is why, for all the pain and horror the coming apocalypse would bring (the “the birth pangs” of Mark 13:8 and Matt 24:8), the coming kingship of God was “good news” indeed. Because the kingship of God would bring a reversal of the current situation – a world turned upside down, where the humble are lifted up and the oppressors are humbled.

All Christians and even most non-Christians are familiar with “the Beatitudes”: a sermon by Jesus reported in Matt 5:3-12 and in a variant form in Luke 6:20-22 which celebrates this cosmic reversal:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven

(Matt 5:3-12)

These blessings are usually taken by modern Christians as general words of comfort, but in the context of Jesus’ reported apocalyptic preaching they are a prophecy that underpins the “good news”. Those who mourn now, will be comforted when the kingship of God comes. Those who thirst for “righteousness” (i.e. δικαιοσύνη – justness, divine justice) now, will receive it then. Less well-known and less emphasised by Christian preachers is the subsequent passage in the Lucan version of these blessings, that call down corresponding “woes” on the unrighteous:

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

(Luke 6:24-26)

Anyone who heard this sermon and were poor, hungry, mourning and reviled would likely be glad to hear their rich and powerful oppressors would not be laughing when the apocalypse came. This was “good news” indeed to a peasant audience in first century Galilee who had almost certainly done their share of mourning.

Again, this cosmic reversal is a key element in Jesus’ reported apocalyptic preaching:

“But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

(Mark 10:31; cf. Matt 20:16 and Luke 13:30)

And, again, this theme of a reveral of the current order is a theme found other Jewish apocalyptic works:

And those who died in sorrow shall be raised in joy; and those who died in poverty for the Lord’s sake shall be made rich; those who died on account of the Lord shall be wakened to life (Testament of Judah, 25:4)


Those who are on top here are at the bottom there, and those who are at the bottom here are on the top there. (b. Pesah, 50a)

As uncomfortable as it may be for many modern liberal Christians and those with a post-Christian conception of Jesus as some mellow hippy teacher, this reversal also involved judgement and punishment for those deemed unrighteous:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left …. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life

(Matt 25:31-33, 46)

The reported teaching of Jesus in the synoptics is quite clear that part of the whole point of the coming apocalypse was the eternal punishment of the wicked and the oppressors and the references to this, both explicit and in parables, are many: see Luke 16:23, Mark 9:43, Mark 9:48, Matt. 13:42 and Matt. 10:28.

As satisfying as this idea of his oppressors and enemies being punished eternally while he and his loved ones are rewarded may have been, our Galilean peasant would be aware that generations had lived and died under the earthly domination of Satan and his human minions. But the apocalyptic theology of the time had developed the idea of a general resurrection of the dead when the kingship of God came, so that everyone – living and dead – could be judged and given their just desserts. Again, this idea was well established long before Jesus’ time:

… the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting life, because we have died for his laws… (2 Maccabees 7:9)


Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky… (Daniel 12)


You have redeemed my soul from the pit. From Sheol and Abaddon You have raised me up to an eternal height…The perverse spirit You have cleansed from great transgression, that he might take his sacred with the host of the holy ones, and enter together with the congregation of the sons of heaven. (1QH 11:19-22)


… now you will shine like the luminaries of heaven, you will shine and appear, and the portals of heaven will be opened for you…And the righteous and the chosen will have arisen from the earth, and have ceased to cast down their faces, and have put on the garment of glory. (1 Enoch 104)

It needs to be emphasised again that none of these ideas were universally accepted by Jews in this period and it is unclear exactly how widely accepted any of them were. This conception of a coming general rising of the dead in particular seems to have been contentious, and Jesus is depicted debating the Sadducees on this very point (see Mark 12:1-27). But the idea was clearly well-established and believed by enough people for it to be a key element in Jesus’ reported teaching – see Luke 14:14 and Matt 22:30; cf. Luke 20:34-36, Mark 12:22-25. And in the Jesus traditions, as in earlier Jewish apocalyptic texts, this judgement was to be made by the Messiah, called the “Son of Man”:

And he sat on the Throne of His Glory and the whole judgment was given to the Son of Man and he will cause the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from the face of the Earth. And those who led astray the world will be bound in chains and will be shut up in the assembly-place of their destruction, and all their works will pass away from the face of the earth.
And from then on there will be nothing corruptible. For that Son of Man has appeared, and has sat on the Throne of His Glory, and everything evil will pass away and go from in front of Him; and the word of that Son of Man will be strong in front of the Lord of Spirits. (1Enoch 69: 27-29)

But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. (Mark 13:24-26)


Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. (Mark 14:61-62)

There is a vast scholarly literature on the intricacies of Jewish expectations about the Messiah in this period, how common and widespread such expectation was and where and how the Jesus depicted in the gospels fits into it. The title “the Son of Man” has whole shelf-loads of books on it, along with a debate about whether it can always (or even ever) be applied to the Messiah or even if Jesus applied it to himself as a claim to be the Messiah. It is not clear whether the historical Jesus did indeed see himself as the Messiah, whether he came to do so over time, whether this was the “secret” referred to several times in gMark, or whether Messianic status was something imposed on him by his followers in the wake of his sudden execution as a way to make sense of his death.

All that aside, regardless of whether Jesus declared himself to be the Messiah/”Son of Man” (which is the climax of gMark in Mark 14:61-62 and Mark 15:39) or if he saw the Messiah as someone else (as implied by a saying preserved in Mark 8:38), the Messiah was also central to the reported teaching of Jesus in the synoptics.

“I Watched Satan Fall from Heaven …”

If most non-Christians were asked to mention any of the alleged miracles of Jesus they would usually choose one of the more spectacular wondrous deeds referred to in the gospels: feeding the five thousand or walking on water etc. But the majority of the miracles referred to in the gospels, often almost casually and in passing, fall into two broad categories: healings and exorcisms. To the synoptic gospel writers, these acts were clearly integral to his ministry and directly connected to his message of the coming kingship of God:

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.

(Matt 4:23-25)

These healings and exorcisms are not simply displays of his power or of the power he has through the agency of God as God’s Messiah, rather they are explicitly stated to be a sign of the imminence of the coming apocalypse and a prefiguring of the kingship of God. In Luke 7:18-23 the imprisoned John the Baptist is depicted as sending disciples to question Jesus:

So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’”

(Luke 7:18-20)

Jesus’ response is very specific:

Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

(Luke 7: 21-23)

This is a direct reference to two texts from Isaiah which were taken to be prophecies of the coming kingship of God:


Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert

(Isaiah 35:5-6)


The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners

(Isaiah 61:1)

So what Jesus is claiming is that the kingdom of God is very close because these things that are attributed to it are being foreshadowed through his miracles. His ministry is a foretaste of what is soon to come. The exorcisms are something modern Christianity tends not to emphasise, but which were integral to the gospel depictions of who and what Jesus was. Not only is Jesus depicted casting out demons, but they are depicted as recognising who he was and what his presence meant about the coming kingship of God:

When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

(Matt 8:28-29)

And, again, Jesus is depicted as stating that the defeat of demons is another sign that the kingship of God is imminent:

But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered.

(Matt 12:28-29)

Here the “strong man” is Satan and his “house” is the world. The power Jesus has over demons is another inversion of the current order and a sign that when the apocalyptic kingdom comes the rule over the world by Satan, his demonic servants and their human quislings will come to an end. This is why the demons of Matt 8:28-29 (above) and its synoptic cognates ask him “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” The demons know that their time is up and when the kingship of God is fully established they will be vanquished.

The idea that the earthly realm was dominated by demonic powers was widely held by Jews in this period, as was the idea that the coming kingship of God would see these powers defeated. One of the Dead Sea Scroll texts associates the coming of the apocalyptic kingship with the defeat of demonic powers:

By the spendour of the swelling of the glory of his kingdom…I proclaim the majesty of his beauty to frighten and terrify all the spirits of the destroying angels and the spirits of the bastards, the demons, Lilith…

(4Q510, 1.4)

And Jesus is consistently depicted as noting that his coming and the power he and his followers have over demonic forces are signs of the fulfilment of prophecy about the coming final victory. In Luke 10 Jesus is depicted sending out seventy of his followers to spread his message. Later, they return to him:

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.

(Luke 10:17-19)

Again, for our Galilean peasant, someone who proclaimed the coming apocalyptic kingship of God while seemingly displaying power over demons through exorcisms would be making a significant statement. For our peasant, the power of demons was not only demonstrated through the affliction of people with epilepsy and mental illness, but also through the oppression of “the poor” (another consistent theme in Jesus’ preaching) by tax collectors, by the Herodians, by aristocratic Jewish quislings and by the Romans who dominated them all. To our peasant, these were not just political or socio-economic forces of oppression, they were expressions of Satan’s dominance over the world. And someone like Jesus would have be a sign of hope that, one day very soon, that dominance would be overthrown, the earth would be renewed, the dead would rise, “righteousness” would be established and the Messiah would rule at the right hand of God over a re-established twelve tribes of Israel in a perfected world. This was a powerful message.

From Apocalyptic Prophet to Divine Saviour

There is a consistent pattern to the apocalypticism in the New Testament texts – it is clear, emphasised and consistent in the earliest texts and then is toned down or almost completely removed in most of the later ones. As can be seen above, the depiction of Jesus as a eschatological prophet of the coming apocalypse is at the core of the earliest gospels – the synoptics gMark, gMatt and gLuke. But it is also to be found in the authentic Pauline material. Indeed, the text that is likely to be the very earliest Christian work we have – First Thessalonians – is explicit in its eschatological expectations. Paul is certain that the risen Jesus was to undertake a παρουσία: (parousia) a technical term which does not just mean a “coming” or a “presence”, but which was used to refer to a royal arrival or visitation. And for Paul this “coming” was going to accompany the coming of the kingship of God. Jesus was God’s “son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead … who rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (1Thess 1:10). He prays for the Jesus Sect community in Thessalonica so God will “strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (1Thess 3:13). And he is clear that this apocalypse (“the wrath that is coming”) and Jesus’ royal parousia is coming very soon:

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

(1Thess 4:14-17)

This is an encapsulation of Paul’s eschatology, with its heavy emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection as a precursor to the general resurrection that will come with the arrival of the kingship of God. But the point to note here is Paul is certain that this will happen very soon, and refers to “we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord”. He believes this will happen in his lifetime and that of his audience in Thessalonica. This is not some event in the distant and undefined future. And it is not some spiritual or psychological state. For Paul, it is an event that will happen and will happen very soon.

As already noted above, this idea of the imminence of the apocalypse and the urgency this engenders is a consistent theme in the earlier gospels.
Mark 14:62 has Jesus proclaiming himself as the Messianic “Son of Man” and predicting that the high priest will “see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.”

But by the time gLuke was written, however, some of these earlier statements about the imminence of the apocalypse seem to have become awkward and we see the Luke-Acts author tempering them somewhat. So in gLuke the prediction that the now long-dead high priest would see the Son of Man come in the apocalypse is changed:

They said, “If you are the Messiah, tell us.” He replied, “If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I question you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”

(Luke 22:67-69)

The gLuke version shifts the imminent apocalyptic parousia of Jesus as the Messianic “Son of Man” from being an event that the high priest will live to see to a more mystical cosmic state of affairs that would happen “from now on”. Similarly, in a pericope unique to gLuke, Jesus is depicted as saying the kingship of God is, at least in some sense, not a coming event but a fulfilled state of affairs:

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among [or within] you.”

(Luke 17:20-21)

These changes in emphasis seem to reflect changes in expectation and interpretation as time went by, the “this generation” of Mark 9:1 aged and died and the expected apocalypse did not arrive. We see further signs of this in the latest of the gospels, gJohn. There the whole emphasis on the coming kingdom, which is central to the eschatological theology of gMark and gMatt, or even the return and apocalyptic παρουσία of the risen Jesus that is cental to Paul is toned down and almost completely replaced by a new focus. For the writer of gJohn, the centre of Jesus’ message is Jesus himself.

While all of the earlier texts clearly see Jesus as a saviour, in gJohn his coming and redemptive death do not herald the intervention of God in the world, they are that intervention. In the last gospel, Jesus is divine and it is his coming and his death that is the fulfillment of God’s promises to man. So the emphasis in gJohn shifts almost completely from the imminent coming of the apocalypse to the realised arrival of Jesus as divine saviour and redeemer. This is how he is presented in his very first appearance in the gospel:

The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ …. And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

(John 1:29-34)

gJohn still has residual mentions of a “kingdom of God” (e.g. John 3:1-10), but they seem to be references to being saved and redeemed through belief in Jesus rather than a coming apocalyptic event. Another residual apocalyptic element in gJohn is the odd reference to how “the rumor spread in the community that [the beloved disciple] would not die” because Jesus reportedly said to Peter about him “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (John 21:22-23). But the gospel writer is quick to note that “Jesus did not say to him that he would not die” (v. 23), implying that by the time gJohn was written the disciple in question was indeed dead and Jesus’ coming had not occured.

gJohn effectively removes the heavy emphasis on not just the imminence of the coming apocalyptic kingship of God, but on the whole apocalypse. And this shift away from the idea of the kingdom of God as a soon to come cosmic event is found throughout most of the later New Testament and non-canonical texts. By the time we get to gThomas, the transition from a cosmic to a spiritual and internal expectation of the “kingdom” is complete:

“Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you,” and “is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it”

(Thom 3, 113)

Of course, this does not mean apocalyptic expectation disappeared from early Christianity – the existence of the book of Revelation makes it clear that it did not. But it remained an element of the faith that sometimes did not sit well with the idea that Jesus was the divine Redeemer and the apocalpse and Jesus’ “second coming” to this day are often shuffled off to a distant or at least undetermined future time, with emphasis placed on reported sayings of Jesus about how “that day and hour no one knows” (Matt 24:36). Certain sects and branches of Christianity have always and continue to make apocalyptic expectation central to their theology, but most Christian theological emphasis has been more Johannine, with the synoptics usually being interpreted through and reconciled with the Redeemer theology of gJohn. As a result, Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is usually barely noticed by Christians today, despite his prominence in most of their gospel materials.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

Resisting the Kingdom

That the historical Jesus was most likely a Jewish apocalyptic prophet preaching the coming kingship of God to fellow Galilean peasants is an interpretation that has dominated the study of the origins of Christianity for over a century. In his 1910 masterpiece The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer traced the scholarship on who the historical Jesus was from the eighteenth century attempts at gospel harmonisation to the Historical Jesus Quest his own day, and decided that the idea of Jesus as an eschatological prophet preaching a coming apocalypse was the inevitable conclusion that had to be drawn. He gave a ringing endorsement to the views of his contemporary Johannes Weiss, who had independently come to the same conclusion:

[Weiss’] ‘Jesus’ Proclaimation of the Kngdom of God’, published in 1892, is in its own way as important as Strauss’ first Life of Jesus. He lays down the third great alternative which the study of the life of Jesus had to meet. The first was laid down by Strauss: either purely historical or purely supernatural. The second had been worked out by the Tübingen school and Holtzmann: either synopic or Johannine. Now came the third: either eschatological or non-eschatological!

Schweitzer, p. 198

Weiss and, after him, Schweitzer threw down the gauntlet to other historical Jesus scholars: they had to account for the clear evidence that Jesus was an eschatological prophet proclaiming the imminent coming of an apocalypse and the kingship of God. This was awkward for many of their colleagues and remains awkward for many today because it cuts against the person many people would like Jesus to be.

Obviously, a Jesus who was an apocalyptic prophet who proclaimed the kingship of God as coming in his lifetime or that of his listeners does not fit well with orthodox Christian beliefs, so conservative scholars have to work to explain all the evidence above in a way that somehow maintains the idea that Jesus was “God the Son” and a deity in human form – no small task. Others who want to see Jesus as a wise teacher and preacher of social justice or personal transformation also have a problem with the apocalyptic Jesus, as a message of coming judgement and hellfire does not fit well with their conception of him either. And the current crop of fringe Jesus Mythicists also dislike the idea of Jesus as an eschatological prophet, as this makes him rather too much a man of and in his time and so makes his historicity uncomfortably likely for these contrarians. Now, as in Schweitzer’s time, almost all historical Jesus studies is either an endorsement of or a rear-guard action against the unavoidably powerful idea that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

Most of those who reacted to Weiss and Schweitzer took an angle still used by more conservative Christian scholars today – the idea that Jesus himself represented God’s intervention in the world and that all references to the “kingdom of God” are to him and his arrival. This “realised eschatology” is most closely associated with J.A.T. Robinson and C.H. Dodd and a form of it is still used by current conservatives like N.T. Wright. But Schweitzer laid out the arguments against this tactic back in 1910 and more modern attempts to prop up this idea do not have any more strength than they had a century ago. As many of the gospel texts cited and quoted above show, Jesus is consistently depicted as declaring the kingship of God as something that is “close” or “draws near” and is “coming”. As we have seen, it is only in the later texts that this gets replaced by the idea that it is “among you” or is embodied in the Redeemer Jesus.

The liberal Christians of the “Jesus Seminar” have attempted a large-scale assault on the idea of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, preferring to see him as a “aphoristic sage” preaching social and moral reform. Marcus Borg has been at the forefront of these arguments, attempting to argue that Jesus may have made eschatological statements about a future apocalypse, but it was not central to his message and he did not believe it to be coming in his lifetime or that of his listeners. The arguments of Borg and his followers are complex and they and the responses to them can be found in Robert J. Miller (ed.) The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate (2001). A fundamental problem with Borg’s contention that the apocalyptic sayings about the imminence of the apocalypse are later ideas and not genuine indications of the historical Jesus’ preaching is they can be found in an “apocalyptic sandwich”. As noted by E.P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, 1985, pp. 91-95) and many before him (e.g. Bart Ehrman, James D.G. Dunn and Klaus Koch), Jesus’ position between John the Baptist, for whom the imminent judgement was reportedly central, and the early church as reflected in Paul’s letters, who longed for the apocalyptic παρουσία in their lifetimes, means a Jesus who also expected the apocalypse soon makes most sense.

Of course, Borg has counter arguments to this and other reasons to think Jesus was not an apocalyptic prophet, but none that can be said to carry the day (for a summary of his arguments and a rebuttal to each of them, see Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet, 1998, pp. 102-113). Despite the rearguard actions of conservative and many progressive Christians, the conception of Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic peasant preacher is accepted in some form by many or even most non-Christian and even some progressive Christian scholars (e.g. Allison). Bart, Ehrman, E.P. Sanders, Paula Fredricksen and many others fully accept this reconstruction of the historical Jesus and, despite a lot of media publicity for their “findings” against an apocalyptic Jesus, the Jesus Seminar scholars have failed to shift the balance toward their alternative.

Of course, one of the strengths of this view of the historical Jesus is that it avoids the problem that plagues so many conceptions of him. It is often noted that reconstructions of the historical Jesus tend to reflect the scholar doing the reconstructing. So Catholic scholars find a Jesus who establishes institutions, iniates sacraments and sets up an ongoing hierarchy of authority. Liberal Christian scholars find a Jesus who preaches social justice and personal improvement. And anti-theistic Jesus Mythicists find a Jesus who was never there at all.

But Jesus as an Jewish apocalyptic prophet does not represent any wish fullfilment by the scholars who hold this view or reflect anything about them or their view of the world. On the contrary, the Apocalypticist Jesus is in many ways quite alien, remote and strange to modern people. He is firmly and often uncomfortably a man of his time. Which is why he is most likely the man who existed.

Further Reading

Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet, (1998)

Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (2010)

Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (1999)

Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ (1988)

Robert J. Miller (ed.) The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate (2001)

E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (1985)

E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993)

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1910)

321 thoughts on “Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet

  1. A nice counter to those who claim you are a closet christian. Perhaps you could have taken more time responding to counter-claims (particularly those by Christian apologists and preterists such as NT Wright)

    Most of what I know about this I know from Thom Stark’s Human Faces of God, a nice introduction to critical scholarship (though he is a Christian himself)

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    1. If I took more time on all the counter-claims the and the arguments against them I’d … end up writing a book. Which is why I linked to books instead.

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      1. Thank you for the long and thoughtful response, by the way. It’s a lot to digest and I’m still going through it. I guess I “get it” about how this organic rise of Christianity from one charismatic leader and his tragic death is the most parsimonious explanation, for the most part. Like I say I’m still working through it but I guess most of my questions kind of boil down to this part.

        “These elements are therefore likely to be historical and thus so deep in the traditions about Jesus that the gospel writers could not simply remove them – ”

        What “traditions about Jesus”? It all stems from this one guy who came out of Nazareth but he was only on the scene for three years before his untimely death. I guess he could have been laying groundwork throughout his twenties but apparently his “small sect” had congregations scattered in towns around the sea of Galilee. With strong enough faith already and strong enough local leadership to not only survive his death but evolve into the church infrastructure that Paul was writing letters to with congregations throughout the Empire?

        If there were other competing miracle working messianic preachers or other sects with leaders who didn’t get crucified it just seems like they would have cleaned up Jesus’ followers then and there…

        I’m not saying that Jesus never existed but this whole story just seems so strange to me. I appreciate the help but I may never wrap my head around it so I’ll understand if you give up trying to help me.

        1. “What “traditions about Jesus”?”

          In NT studies the word “traditions” refer to various strands of stories about Jesus which seem to have evolved out of a period of purely oral exchange of ideas, sayings and anecdotes about him.

          “I guess he could have been laying groundwork throughout his twenties but apparently his “small sect” had congregations scattered in towns around the sea of Galilee. With strong enough faith already and strong enough local leadership to not only survive his death but evolve into the church infrastructure that Paul was writing letters to with congregations throughout the Empire?”

          I still can’t understand why you find it so hard to accept that his sect survived his death, even though it was very small. There are still people who think David Koresh was the Messiah, 26 years after his death. Years after the execution of John the Baptist Paul found people in far off Greece baptising in his name. There is nothing remarkable about this.

          “If there were other competing miracle working messianic preachers or other sects with leaders who didn’t get crucified it just seems like they would have cleaned up Jesus’ followers then and there…”

          That doesn’t follow at all. Quite the opposite would be expected, in fact. If someone else predicts the coming of the apocalypse and declares they are the Messiah and then they fail to make the walls of Jerusalem fall or part the River Jordan as promised, it makes sense that their sect would die out. But the Jesus sect reinterpreted his crucifixion as a redemptive sacrifice and said he had gone on to heaven and would return. This meant his sect had a way of seeing his death as a victory and hold out hope for the final chapter in his story. The fact that this is still working today, 2000 years later, shows exactly how powerful and durable this idea was and is.

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          1. Following on Frank’s link, there’s a very good article by Kris Komarnitsky about how cognitive dissonance is likely to have shaped the beliefs about Jesus after his death. It’s published by the Jesus Seminar, but because it’s about Jesus’s resurrection rather than his life, it doesn’t clash with what Tim has said here. I hope I’m not going too far off-topic by putting this link here, but it lays out the relevance of cognitive dissonance to early Christianity better than anything else I’ve read.

            https://www.westarinstitute.org/resources/the-fourth-r/cognitive-dissonance-resurrection-jesus/

            Together with Bart Ehrman’s reconstruction of how belief in the resurrection began (which he has probably published somewhere but which I encountered near the end of his debate with William Lane Craig in 2006), Komarnitsky’s article and this one by Tim pretty much sum up my view of how the first form of Christianity emerged, and what a product of its own time it really was.

    2. Not sure how you figure this counters claims of closet Christianity. This whole article would seem to be right up the alley of someone like Mike Pompeo.

      And that’s really my main concern about this type of stuff. That it might reinforce the idea that their functionally mythical Roman loving, water walking, demon exorcising “Jesus” has any worthwhile historical connection to a 1st century jew who was executed by those same Romans.

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      1. You make absolutely no rational sense.

        This article makes a strong case for Jesus being a mere mortal human. And shows how the message attributed to him shifted from a forthcoming apocalypse to Jesus being a god who was the salvation (when the apocalypse never eventuated).

        How logically does that not take a sledgehammer to Christianity and Christian beliefs?! How does it possibly reinforce and not if anything destroy any consideration of “their functionally mythical Roman loving, water walking, demon exorcising “Jesus”?!

        No this article would be hated by most Christians and pretty much shoots down these infantile, irrational ideas that mythicists indulge in of Tim O’Neill being any “closet Christian”.
        I know this might be a personal insult/attack but if you’re “not sure” of that; you have issues with critical thinking.

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      2. Oh, you’re funny. You use exactly the same non-argument as fundagelicals and then you mirror it.
        Fundagelical: Íf Jesus was historical hence divine.
        You: If Jesus was historical then was divine too; as he wasn’t divine he was mythical;
        Rational: Jesus was historical, but that doesn’t mean he was divine.

        “any worthwhile historical connection”
        The idea that Jesus’ fanboys and -girls a couple of decades after his death began to promote the superstition that a historical guy walked water and exorcised demons is apparently is beyond your closet-fundagelical imagination. Or worse, you’re guilty of

        https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/26/Appeal-to-Consequences

        No, we cannot accept something correct if some christian fools will feel that their silly belief is confirmed. The very idea!

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        1. I didn’t explain myself very well, let me rephrase. It sounds like Tim O’Neill is saying that if you strip away the miraculous and contradictory and just take what the four canonical gospels agree on you’ll get a fairly biographical look into the ministry of this Jesus Christ character.

          What I’m saying is that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense. Without the miracles there is no ministry. Without the healing there’s no reason to follow Jesus over the next messianic rabbi. And regardless of how good your witch magic or powers of suggestion are you can’t likely convince the blind you’ve healed their sight.

          We’re told that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence because Jesus was a dime-a-dozen apocalypse preacher in some backwater Roman province and if that’s true it should have been the end of it but here we are 2,000 years on still hearing about the guy.

          Just seems like a slippery slope toward divinity once you start conceding the new testament as biographical. I mean what actual overlap on a Venn diagram would there be between Jesus Christ and Christus? They were both executed by Pontius Pilate? They were both messianic apocalyptic preachers? They both hated divorce?

          Did the “historical” Christ ask the apostles to follow him and “become fishers of men?” Did he “predict” the fall of the temple in Jerusalem? Did he do or say much of anything as depicted in the bible?

          Without the miracles and divinity what reason is there for people to keep moping on about this one, out of many, apocalyptic preachers for 40-50 years before gMark started writing about him?

          I get history is a long and winding road but if Nero was trying to wipe out some small sect there wasn’t really any good reason to be a member of then why are there Christians?

          Sorry if I’m dumb or come off like an asshole or just generally don’t write very well but I just don’t get this shit and I’m so sick of it. And yet I can’t get away from it. I’ve got Trump as my president because the evangelicals think he’s God’s Anointed Tool and I just think if …i don’t know …fuck it. Sorry to rant thanks for reading if you did. Go easy but do critique this shit, I am trying to learn.

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          1. ” It sounds like Tim O’Neill is saying that if you strip away the miraculous and contradictory and just take what the four canonical gospels agree on you’ll get a fairly biographical look into the ministry of this Jesus Christ character.”

            First of all, when talking about the historical Jesus I am not talking about any “Jesus Christ character”. The word “Christ” is a title – it’s a claim, not a name. Only people who believe he was “the Christ” – the Messiah, the Anointed One” – call him “Jesus Christ”. Secondly, no that is not what I am saying at all. You could strip away the contradictory and the miraculous and still come up with a figure somewhat close to the Jesus of faith but probably quite a distance from anything historical.

            The narrative elements in the gospels fall into three main categories:

            (i) “Unlikely to be historical” – Here I would argue we find most of the miracle stories and the supernatural claims. This is not simply because I don’t happen to believe in the supernatural and so think any such claims need a far higher standard of evidence than accounts in clearly biased first century texts could ever provide. It’s also because many of these elements are (i) obviously plot devices or metaphors, (ii) likely not even meant to be read as literal events or (iii) clear parallels to elements in earlier stories of Old Testament prophets and meant to be read as such. This is why even many of the more liberal Christian scholars dismiss many or even all of these elements as not historical. There are also other non-supernatural elements in the gospels which are likely to be non-historical on other grounds: e.g. Pilate’s supposed custom of releasing a dangerous prisoner in the hothouse atmosphere of Passover or several elements in the dubious census story in gLuke.

            (ii) “Possibly historical, but we really can’t assess if it is” – Here we find most of the gospels’ reported actions and words of Jesus. After all, most of the gospels consist of “then Jesus went to this place and told a parable” or “then someone asked Jesus this and he replied” or “Jesus journeyed from X to Y”. Most of this stuff may be historical or may be later invention or may be created by the gospel writer to give other elements context and structure – we have no clear way of determining whether any of this stuff happened. Most of it is fairly mundane, but it also includes many of the miracles. After all, most of the reported miracles are not spectacular walking-on-water or raising-the-dead-to-life stuff, but healings of simple physical ailments and exorcisms of “demons”. As I note in my article above, the healings are meant to be seen as a pre-cursor of the coming kingship of God and a sign that Jesus is the prophet of this coming apocalypse, and the exorcisms are, similarly, shown as a prefiguring the coming defeat of Satan and his forces in the world. But this does not mean that the historical Jesus was not a faith healer and exorcist. In a culture which saw sickness as either demonic affliction or a punishment for sin, the touch of a holy man is likely to have had as much a psychological and psychosomatic impact as it often has today, if not much more. But there is no way of telling how many of the healings etc. are historical and how many are rhetorical. I would only say that there must have been a reason Jesus came to be seen as more than a prophet and a reputation for some kind of miracle working may be it.

            (iii) “Likely historical” – This is the smallest group, but it is not determined by “stripping away the miraculous and contradictory” and accepting what’s left. It’s established by looking at elements that clearly seem awkward to the gospel writers, but which they clearly felt they needed to include somehow anyway. So Jesus coming from Nazareth poses a problem for the writers of gMatt and gLuke, so they have to come up with elaborate stories to “explain” how someone who was the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, as the Messiah was supposed to, but ended up living in Nazareth. Similarly, the baptism of Jesus by John was awkward for the writers of gMatt, gLuke and gJohn, so they all come up with variants of the story to get around the fact that Jesus was meant to be John’s superior and yet was having his sins forgiven by him. All of the Crucfixion narratives are clusters of Old Testament quotes and allusions to try to make the case that this rather awkward event was, somehow, all part of the plan. These elements are therefore likely to be historical and thus so deep in the traditions about Jesus that the gospel writers could not simply remove them – they had to find ways to work them into their theological narratives.

            “Without the miracles there is no ministry. Without the healing there’s no reason to follow Jesus over the next messianic rabbi.”

            See above. At least some of the “miracles” are likely to be historical and about what we would both expect from someone like Jesus in his culture and also what we have reported of other faith healers in this period.

            “We’re told that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence because Jesus was a dime-a-dozen apocalypse preacher in some backwater Roman province and if that’s true it should have been the end of it but here we are 2,000 years on still hearing about the guy.”

            Yes, but for reasons that have very little to do with Jesus himself. We’re “still hearing about the guy” because his Jewish sect survived the catastrophe of the Jewish War by adapting to the non-Jewish world, then became a dominant Roman faith because it was adopted by a Roman emperor at a critical point, then became the dominent western religion more by accident than design and then got exported to the world thanks to colonial expansion that had little or nothing to do with Christianity. All these later accidents of history had nothing much to do with who the historical Jesus was.

            “Just seems like a slippery slope toward divinity once you start conceding the new testament as biographical.”

            No, it isn’t.

            “Without the miracles and divinity what reason is there for people to keep moping on about this one, out of many, apocalyptic preachers for 40-50 years before gMark started writing about him?”

            Because a small group of people continued to believe he was a miracle-worker (see above for why) and that this was because he was the Messiah (though not divine). That’s all it took. I fail to see how this is somehow unlikely.

            “I get history is a long and winding road but if Nero was trying to wipe out some small sect there wasn’t really any good reason to be a member of then why are there Christians?”

            I’m afraid I don’t understand that question.

            “Sorry if I’m dumb or come off like an asshole or just generally don’t write very well but I just don’t get this shit and I’m so sick of it. And yet I can’t get away from it. I’ve got Trump as my president because the evangelicals think he’s God’s Anointed Tool and I just think if …i don’t know …fuck it. “

            It sounds like you have some emotional motivations for rejecting Christianity wholesale and saying it is all totally wrong and there was no historical Jesus. Emotions are bad motivations for the analysis of history

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          2. In addition to ToN above, who explains it better than I ever could:

            “Without the healing there’s no reason to follow Jesus over the next messianic rabbi.”
            This would make sense if Jesus was the only messiah claimant around then and there. He wasn’t. Understand Jesus as a jewish preacher, put him in his historical, geographical and cultural contexts and there were plenty reasons to follow him without healing and miracle working actually happening. Some of them even apply today. From my native country:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomanda

            “I’ve got Trump as my president because the evangelicals think ….”
            All the more reason not to think as a fundagelical.
            No, you are not the a**hole. Rather I am the one, because I get tired of nonbelievers who claim to be oh so rational and to be committed to science and scholarship and then argue (or even behave) exactly like the fundagelicals they claim to criticize. You give a pretty good example yourself:

            “Just seems like a slippery slope toward divinity ”
            Ie Jesus was historical hence divine; it’s exactly the argument of consequences I referred to. This is a betrayal of rational thinking, ao because you don’t believe in Jomanda’s divinity either, even if she definitely is historical. So we can add ad hoc arguments to the list of your fallacies as well.
            I react like a jerk because somehow I keep on hoping that unbelievers like you not only scrutinize the thinking of dumb fundagelicals and other christians, but also the thinking of themselves. And I really know better from first hand experience.

          3. You still don’t seem to get it.

            To point out how the mundane facts that can be ascertained about Jesus paint him as a mere mortal apocalyptic preacher is extremely damaging to Christianity.
            No there’s no “slippery slope” because a mortal Jesus completely shatters the entire religion of Christianity to it’s core. And the basis of this is not merely highly plausible but very well grounded.

            You seem to be trying to apply a sort of “no true scotsman” fallacy and make it a case of mythicism or bust. I find that stance both passive-aggressively pathetic and stupid. A merely mortal Jesus is no less an anathema to Christianity than Mythicism is and unlike mythicism it has a solid grounding. Mythicism is not only a fringe theory whose conclusions run counter to the evidence but it’s also too far-fetched to be entertained by most people.

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          4. “We’re told that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence because Jesus was a dime-a-dozen apocalypse preacher in some backwater Roman province and if that’s true it should have been the end of it but here we are 2,000 years on still hearing about the guy.”

            The obvious difference between Jesus and other preachers is that Jesus was repackaged by the early Christians as the ACTUAL Messiah. Many prophets had been predicting a Messiah but weren’t able to produce one. With Jesus promoted as the Messiah himself, they had a much more powerful basis for a new religion – “The Messiah has come! – but sorry, you just missed Him! Because the Romans crucified him, then he went back to Heaven blah blah blah.”

            So the fact that people are still “hearing about the guy” has little to do with the guy himself, and everything to do with a cleverly constructed cult established and expanded after his death.

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          5. @Bubblecar:
            Actually Jesus wasn’t the only messianic claimant of his time. We know of others who claimed to be messiahs and who even also had followers and posthumous veneration such as Simon Magus.

            I’m pretty sure that the reason for the Christ cult continuing is that they opened the cult to non-Hebrews and further fashioned Jesus into the saviour of all mankind and a manifestation of this one true god himself.

        2. “‘Without the healing there’s no reason to follow Jesus over the next messianic rabbi.’
          This would make sense if Jesus was the only messiah claimant around then and there. He wasn’t.”

          No, it only makes sense BECAUSE there were other messianic claimants around. Go follow one of the other ones who’s followers Nero ISN’T murdering. That’s what I’d do.

          And it seems you guys are all saying basically what I’m saying: Whether there is some actual Emmanuel, or Elazar, or Jesse, or Jesus who was the seed for some of these stories “Jesus the Christ” as depicted in the new testament is a mythical formulation.

          1. “And it seems you guys are all saying basically what I’m saying: Whether there is some actual Emmanuel, or Elazar, or Jesse, or Jesus who was the seed for some of these stories “Jesus the Christ” as depicted in the new testament is a mythical formulation.”

            No, you are misusing the word “mythical”. Many of the stories about Jesus are clearly legends and not historical, but the figure is not “mythical” if it is based on a recent historical person. And that’s what all the evidence indicates. It also make no sense for you to add in “Emmanuel, or Elazar, or Jesse” when all the evidence indicates the stories are based on one person – this Jesus – and not only any other person.

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          2. ”That’s what I’d do.”
            Unfortunately for you you (and I) are not exactly the standard for the behaviour of jews who lived in the Levant about 2000 years ago. Where you consistent you would argue that either all the other messias claimants are unhistorical or that they all performed miracles. You would argue that for instance Saint Nicholas of Myra is ahistorical because of the myth that he rides a gray horse on the roofs in The Netherlands (about Saint Nicholas of Myra possibly more myths are told than about Jesus, especially when we also count his spinoff Santa Claus and his rendeers). But JMs you are as unlikely to be consistent as creationists. Where would you remain without special pleading?

          3. “No, it only makes sense BECAUSE there were other messianic claimants around. Go follow one of the other ones who’s followers Nero ISN’T murdering. That’s what I’d do.”

            You really not fathom that Christianity is not rational and that the early Christians REALLY deluded themselves that Jesus was the messiah?! They were willing to even die for this delusion! They really thought that the apocalypse was about to occur and that if they got killed; they’d soon be experiencing heavenly pleasures anyway.

            “And it seems you guys are all saying basically what I’m saying:… …Jesus who was the seed for some of these stories “Jesus the Christ” as depicted in the new testament is a mythical formulation.”

            Yeah. That’s what Tim and tis entire article and this entire blog site has been saying all along! In multiple articles!
            Because that’s the consensus of scholarship.

            Jesus Mythicism on the other hand hold fast to an idea that Jesus was an entire fabrication, not a mythologising of an actual mortal person.

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    3. I guess what I’m getting at is preaching what’s personally profitable isn’t something that started in the 1980s but Jim and Tammy Faye Baker had plenty of Jesus Traditions to draw on for their bullshit. What motivation was there in 35 CE to continue Jesus Traditions rather than try to usurp the Christ mantle for yourself?

      Or how do you maintain being a true believer while you yourself are massaging the details of the story to fit the messiah narrative like the author of gMatt (whoever that was) did with the Bethlehem birth explanation?

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      1. “What motivation was there in 35 CE to continue Jesus Traditions rather than try to usurp the Christ mantle for yourself?”

        Why would people who genuinely believed that Jesus was special “try to usurp the Christ mantle”? Why is it so hard to believe these people were quite genuine in their beliefs?

        “Or how do you maintain being a true believer while you yourself are massaging the details of the story to fit the messiah narrative like the author of gMatt (whoever that was) did with the Bethlehem birth explanation?”

        Because they did not think they were writing documentary journalism. By depicting Jesus being born in Bethlehem or having his infancy parallel that of Moses or Samuel, they were saying “this is who and what this man was”, not “these things actually happened exactly like this”. Unfortunately many modern unbelievers still read these ancient texts written in ancient modes of communication the way modern fundamentalists do – as literal narratives of fact. They are much more complex than that.

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        1. “I still can’t understand why you find it so hard to accept that his sect survived his death, even though it was very small. There are still people who think David Koresh was the Messiah, 26 years after his death. ”

          This is the perfect analogy. In another two generations that number will drop to zero. In 2,000 years no one will be talking about David Koresh.

          1. Big deal. No-one is saying that in 2,000 years people will still be talking about David Koresh. Stop shifting the goal posts and try to focus. You claimed that people would have abandoned belief in Jesus as soon as he died. The Koresh example, and hundreds of others, shows that this does not follow. People are perfectly capable of accepting a setback like that and maintaining their original belief – there are actually strong psychological drives that allow them to do so. All the Jesus sect needed was to survive long enough to evolve into something more durable than a Messianic sect. Which it clearly had done by the early second century, by which time it had become a largely non-Jewish saviour cult with far wider appeal. Then it was on track for the long term survival it managed to achieve until the late fourth century when it became the state cult of the largest Empire in that part of the world. The rest is history.

            So your claim that it somehow should have died out immediately is plain wrong. Sects like that actually have powerful psychological drivers that make them highly resistant to reality. The classic 1954 Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter psychology study When Prophecy Fails examines these dynamics in detail.

            And, as others have noted, it’s ironic that you keep using weak fundamentalist Christian arguments to try to dispute a historical, human, ordinary Jesus. The claim that his followers should have abandoned faith in him when he died and so the fact they didn’t is “proof” he rose from the dead is a Christian apologist argument. It’s remarkable how many of those Mythicists recycle because they have never gained a more sophisticated grasp of the material than the comic-book level ideas they had when they were Bible Christians. Fundamentalist Christianity and Mythicism are weird mirror images of each other.

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          2. Okay then Cameron Ramey.

            If you dismiss David Koresh as an example with the confident prediction that the remnants of his branch divisions will be gone in two generations.
            Then how about the Bab of Bahai’ism who not only suffered a similar ignoble fate to Jesus in the 19th century but whose worshipping cult very similarly initially declined but then resurged with his being martyred and his life being also mythologised?
            Or how about Joseph Smith of Mormonism who was ignobly murdered by a mob and whose worshipping cult also very similarly initially declined but then resurged with his being martyred?

            Are you going to also maintain this ridiculous stone-walling an strawmannirg with these two?

        2. Thanks for all the great examples, guys but all I can think for each given one is that in cases like that wouldn’t there be more existent evidence for the analogous “Jesus” than the analogous “Paul’s?”

          Take Koresh for example. Wouldn’t there be reason for these people who believe in his divinity 26 years on to hold on to and pass on actually keepsakes of his life? Or someone mentioned Elvis. There’s a Graceland for crying out loud. Isn’t it more likely an actual memento from Elvis’ life will survive in 2,000 years than one from the life of whoever curated Graceland in 1982?

          As for all these other cult leaders whose cults survived to become religions: they all piggybacked on existing Christ mythology expect Hubbard who created an extraterrestrial origin. None of them claimed divinity for themselves. Why wouldn’t it be likely that the creators of Christianity did similar?

          1. Isn’t it more likely an actual memento from Elvis’ life will survive in 2,000 years than one from the life of whoever curated Graceland in 1982?

            I genuinely don’t understand this question. We don’t have any “memento” from either Jesus or Paul, so what are you talking about?

          2. “wouldn’t there be more existent evidence for the analogous “Jesus” than the analogous “Paul’s?””
            “wouldn’t there be more existent evidence for the analogous “Jesus” than the analogous “Paul’s?””

            The historical Jesus lived 2000 years ago in a time where iterate was rare and from which little of anything survived until today.
            Jesus and the apostles were both very probably illiterate. The sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels have clear aramaic roots, and mistranslations to Koine greek underline that. These saying are were probably maintained via oral tradition amongst the near-universally illiterate early Christians. Yes they were likely corrupted to some extent in this “Chinese whispers”, but this is nonetheless a “memento” that you seek.
            And I’m not sure what you mean by this “analogous Paul”.

            “As for all these other cult leaders whose cults survived to become religions: they all piggybacked on existing Christ mythology expect Hubbard who created an extraterrestrial origin.”
            And the early Christians “piggybacked” on existing Judaic mythology.
            What does this prove? That cult leaders will shoehorn themselves into the familiar religious beliefs established where they operate. Pretty much what anyone would expect, isn’t it?

            “None of them claimed divinity for themselves.”
            And most scholars believe that neither did the historical Jesus, and that divinity was attributed to him in the late 1st century.

          3. Cameron Ramey says:
            Thanks for all the great examples, guys but all I can think for each given one is that in cases like that wouldn’t there be more existent evidence for the analogous “Jesus” than the analogous “Paul’s?”

            What sort of memento? Jesus may well have been illiterate, and seemed to focus primarily on teaching orally. Are you expecting a voice recording?

            Take Koresh for example. Wouldn’t there be reason for these people who believe in his divinity 26 years on to hold on to and pass on actually keepsakes of his life?

            Do they? Some religions actually discourage memorabilia.

            Or someone mentioned Elvis. There’s a Graceland for crying out loud. Isn’t it more likely an actual memento from Elvis’ life will survive in 2,000 years than one from the life of whoever curated Graceland in 1982?

            I don’t think we can calculate such a likelihood, but I would say that anything in the Graceland museum is an artifact of both Elvis and the curator who thought it important enough to save.

            As for all these other cult leaders whose cults survived to become religions: they all piggybacked on existing Christ mythology expect Hubbard who created an extraterrestrial origin. None of them claimed divinity for themselves. Why wouldn’t it be likely that the creators of Christianity did similar?

            They did. They piggybacked on Jesus’ teaching and assigned divnity to Jesus rather than themselves.

      2. “What motivation was there in 35 CE to continue Jesus Traditions rather than try to usurp the Christ mantle for yourself?”
        Why did nobody try to usurp the Joseph Smith mantle for himself? The Karl Marx mantle? The Ron Hubbard mantle? The Sun Myung Moon mantle? The Adolf Hitler mantle?
        Because in terms of power it’s more profitable to claim that you’re is true apostle of course, that you are the keeper his flame, are his rightful heir and carry on his set of ideas and beliefs.
        The correct question is: why do you expect people 2000 years ago to behave according to your personal expectations and think that those expectations are the standard for the entire human species?

      3. “how do you maintain being a true believer while you yourself are massaging the details of the story to fit the messiah narrative”

        You can find the answer to that by observing contemporary delusionals. Such as the members of heavens gate who didn’t commit suicide, people who still revere L. Ron Hubbard, people who still revere the aforementioned Jim Bakker despite him being convicted for fraud, people who revere Kent Hovind despite him being convicted or fraud or people who still revere Ken Ham despite his ark encounter park falling to pieces before everyone’s eyes.
        Or you could observe supporters of current POTUS Donald Trump delude themselves that he’s a god-fearing Christian (and/or an actual billionaire).

        And there’s plenty of people who mythologise sportspeople, an example being those who still refuse to entertain that O.J Simpson could’ve been guilty of murder.

        Or I could use an example of just about anyone who becomes idolised.

        There’s always an element of humanity that’s delusional and which believes what they want to. The followers of Jesus would’ve idolised him. When he got executed; those who couldn’t move-on and accept this ignoble fate instead had to communally indulge in mutual mythologising of him.

        These tangents you’re attempting run counter to just common sense.

        1. Just to be clear when I mentioned “mementos” I was basically referring to Paul’s letters. Of course it is possible Jesus was illiterate but I’ve always heard him described as a kind of child prodigy of Judaic law so I kinda figured that’d be about as likely as Josephus being illiterate…

          1. It’s not just “possible” he was illiterate – it’s almost certain. He was a peasant from a tiny and impoverished village. There is a reason there are high status people in the gospels called “the Scribes”. Because most peasants were illiterate, there was a literate class that read the scripture to them and provided commentary on it. Jesus and his pals were not in that class and the gospels reflect a level of resentment against it.

            Paul, on the other hand, was by his own description, in that class and a student of a highly respected Pharisaic scholar. So we have writings by Paul but not by Jesus. Exactly as we would expect.

            He is only “described as a kind of child prodigy” in one story in one gospel and in its “infancy narrative” that is almost certainly not historical at all. You need to stop reading the sources like a Christian and learn how to sort out what is later embroidery and what is likely to have some historical basis. Too many Mythicists come to garbled conclusions because they still read the gospels like they did when they were fundies.

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          2. Cameron. Jesus almost certainly barely had a pot to piss in. He would have been lucky to have a single spare set of clothes. Your claim that there should be “mementos” in circulation is utterly bizarre. Cleopatra was rich, powerful and famous yet we don’t have her bed pan, comb, bra strap, ear rings or any other such “mementos either”. I gather from the naivety of your comments that your 18 years old or under. You have a lot to learn. Good luck with that,

        2. I’m really more of an extreme skeptic than a fundie. I’m skeptical of any “official” story that smells at all “fishy.” I’m a 9/11 skeptic as well so I’m sure I’ll get shit for that too. But, really, I never believed in God or the bible as far back as I remember. Hell, I stopped believing in Santa around 4 or so. Speaking of I guess this is kind of what I’m stuck on:

          “You would argue that for instance Saint Nicholas of Myra is ahistorical because of the myth that he rides a gray horse on the roofs in The Netherlands (about Saint Nicholas of Myra possibly more myths are told than about Jesus, especially when we also count his spinoff Santa Claus”

          So do we consider “Santa Claus” mythical? Or historical? Or some mixture?

          And I think maybe it does just come down to motivated reasoning as you say. I really don’t want to believe people could be this delusional…

          “Or you could observe supporters of current POTUS Donald Trump delude themselves that he’s a god-fearing Christian (and/or an actual billionaire).”

          …without some kind of coercion or esoteric mind control conspiracy.

          Anyway thanks, Tim, for the patience and free education.

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          1. I’m really more of an extreme skeptic than a fundie. I’m skeptical of any “official” story that smells at all “fishy.” I’m a 9/11 skeptic as well so I’m sure I’ll get shit for that too.

            Skeptics, especially the extreme ones, follow the evidence. The skeptical approach to the Twin Towers incident is to follow the evidence, which indicates the damage was done by the planes flying into the buildings and their subsequent architectural failures.

            So do we consider “Santa Claus” mythical? Or historical? Or some mixture?

            Santa Claus is a mythical being with a historical basis. Jesus the God-Man is a mythical being with a historical basis of Jesus the apocalyptic preacher.

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          2. “So do we consider “Santa Claus” mythical? Or historical? Or some mixture?”
            A mythical character based upon a historical one, via quite a few twists and turns. It’s pretty simple. “Jesus lives” is nonsense, except as an expression of a certain sentiment. “Jesus lived 2000 years ago is something entirely different. You should apply your “extreme skepticism” to your own thinking, really, especially to all conspiracy theories. Until then you shouldn’t call yourself a skeptic.

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          3. ‘I’m really more of an extreme skeptic than a fundie. I’m skeptical of any “official” story that smells at all “fishy.” I’m a 9/11 skeptic as well so I’m sure I’ll get shit for that too.’

            That’s not skepticism, that’s just contrarianism, and it’s an offense against rationality.

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    4. I am a professionally trained theologian who has spent four decades studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and apocalyptic Judaism. I am overwhelmingly pleased with this brilliant and accurate presentation of just the “tip of the iceberg” evidence for an apocalyptic preacher who stood at the historical foundation to the composite character of Jesus that was portrayed in New Testament literature.

    1. The (intentional?) flaw of this article is that it presents Jesus as a unique phenomenon.

      I do exactly the opposite – I show he was very much a man of his time and a Jewish preacher of a kind that we know existed.

      Were he a jewish preacher indeed we would, given the political, cultural and religious circumstances, expect more guys like him.

      And, as I state quite clearly, the reason our Galilean peasant would already be familiar with his message is that there were more like him.

      Unsurprisingly he wasn’t.

      You seriously think I could study this period and this topic for over 30 years and not be aware of those other guys?

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  2. Very interesting! As conservative christian, it is very difficult for me to accept THE APOCALYPTIC PROPHET JESUS. But as a student who like studying theology, I must buy and read the books you recommend.
    Comparing James D. G. Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Larry Hurtado and Dale C. Allison, Bart D. Ehrman, I am expecting to find new knowledge concerning Jesus.
    Thank you very much, Tim.

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    1. You might want to consider adding to your list:

      “The Last Days according to Jesus: When Did Jesus Say He Would Return?” by R. C. Sproul, and

      “The Future of the People of God: Reading Romans Before and After Western Christendom” by Andrew Perriman.

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      1. I’ve just added in my Amazon list. If they were translated in korean, I will check and buy them.
        Thanks for your kindness!!

  3. “The influence of Platonic thought, in particular, can be found in the increasing conception of the material world as a reflection of a perfect heavenly exemplar, along with the idea that the Temple, the Torah, Jerusalem and the Messiah all had or have a celestial existence or pre-existence.”

    Platonic thought certainly shaped the direction of this, but the idea of a heavenly pattern being imitated predates this, if Mircea Eliade is to be trusted; he talks about Babylonian precedents to this idea, where cities are patterned after stars.

  4. “So the idea of a return of the Jewish king of Israel became entangled in these cosmic ideas about a war between God and Satan and an angelic, pre-existent Messiah who was coming to earth to save God’s people.”

    There is also Babylonian precedents to the _Chaoskampf_ theme here; I don’t contest Persian influence on it to shape it into the form you state, but I do contest such a genesis; Jon Levenson has a book titled _Creation and the Persistence of Evil_ that covers some of the Baylonian precedents to this theme and the afterlife it has in Rabbinic Judaism.

  5. “All that aside, regardless of whether Jesus declared himself to be the Messiah/”Son of Man” (which is the climax of gMark in Mark 14:61-62 and Mark 15:39) or if he saw the Messiah as someone else (as implied by a saying preserved in Mark 8:38), the Messiah was also central to the reported teaching of Jesus in the synoptics.”

    I loved Dale Allison’s explanation about Jesus’ understanding of “The Son of Man” as his heavenly doppleganger, and this being the reason for his third-person references to “The Son of Man” that seem to be talking about himself; he covers this in his _Reconstructing Jesus_. Strongly recommended; would love to hear your evaluation of that book, and that particular argument.

  6. Sorry to comment as I was reading through the text (I see that you’re familiar with Allison and the very texts I commended to you — they appear in your Bibliography!); very good synopsis of the evidence and current scholarship, or at least an excellent entry point into it. Will certainly be sharing; thank you.

  7. Another great article Tim. You are quickly becoming my favorite blog to read. I dare say, I am enjoying yours even more than Ehrmans in some respects.

    My question is, why do you think some of these elements that caused embarrassment to early Christians were kept in the synoptic tradition? Especially in luke/matthew. Why not remove all messages of the quickly coming apocalypse?

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    1. gMatt seems to have been written when the references to “this generation” seeing the apocalypse was still valid. gLuke seems to tone down that stuff precisely because by the time it was written it was becoming awkward. But keep in mind that when you question Christians today about those passages, they have various ways to explain them away – the argument that Jesus’ transfiguration or his resurrection were fulfilments of that prophecy are typical tactics here. So once the traditions started to become awkward that kind of exegesis would kick in.

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      1. About 40 years ago on Patmos, I heard the story that John was still there, hanging on till the Apocalypse as a living member of the generation in question.

  8. Good stuff but I still don’t get how our Galilean peasant doesn’t take the murder of a million of his fellow Jews and the destruction of his temple at Jerusalem as a sign of the fruition of this coming apocalypse.

    Or why an apocalyptic messiah Jesus ends up telling his Jewish listeners to render unto Cesar, carry a Roman soldier’s pack twice as far, and heals a centurion’s servant.

    Also how a religion spread among Jews by Jews has led to so much anti-Semitism…

    It seems like the hijacking of this apocalyptic preacher by the Roman Catholic church was already taking place in the earliest editions of New testament gospels?

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    1. Sorry, but it makes no sense to talk about the “Roman Catholic Church” in relation to any form of Christianity before the Great Schism of 1054. Mark 13 contains a “little apocalypse” in a reported sermon by Jesus which is clearly referring to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, which is the main reason most scholars regard gMark as having been written fairly soon after that event. But the sermon also says that the final apocalypse will happen soon after the fall of the Temple. It may be that this sermon does reflect something Jesus said about how the Temple was going to be destroyed and then renewed (an apocalyptic theme), but it seems the writer of gMark did not see the fall of the Temple in 70 AD as the “fruition” of the apocalypse, but it’s precursor.

      This writer also seems to be writing at least in part for a non-Jewish audience – probably a substantially Roman one and possibly in Rome itself. If this gospel was written in the wake of the Jewish Revolt, it would make sense that the gMark author would be keen to distance Jesus from the Jewish rebels and present Jesus as more politically neutral than a crucified Jewish Messiah might imply. This seems to be why there are so many Roman-friendly elements in this gospel and its synoptic sequels. The “render unto Caesar” story and the other elements you mention seem to be part of this. Note also the way Pilate – a brutal man who we know would execute and kill without hesitation – is depicted as being reluctant to execute Jesus and is bullied into it by the Jewish leaders and the mob. And note that the person who declares “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39) at the climax of the gospel is the Roman centurion at the foot of Jesus’ cross. This is the source of the pro-Roman and anti-Jewish elements in the gospels, though it is really more “anti-Jewish leaders and rabble rousers” than anti-Semitic per se.

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      1. Ok but then it seems were no longer talking about an “historical” Jesus but a revisionist Jesus used as a vehicle to deliver the theology of the authors of gLuke. The “historical” Jesus having been executed by Pilate around “a generation” before the destruction of the temple?

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        1. Pardon? What we’re actually doing is looking at the various “revisionist Jesuses” of the gospels and Paul and extrapolating from them to work out who and what the historical Jesus was.

  9. I’m interested in what you said about parousia. I recently read a Mythicist list of questions which included the question of why Paul always talked about the ‘coming’ of Jesus rather than the ‘return’ of Jesus, and I didn’t have an answer (beyond ‘Hmmm, well, don’t think the answer can be “Because Jesus never existed” given the evidence that he did exist.)

    Do those statements of Paul use the word ‘parousia’ in the original Greek? If so, seems to me that would certainly explain it, since Paul could easily have felt that Jesus’s former visit to Earth as a lowly peasant wasn’t a royal coming.

    1. Hello Sarah. Yes, the word Paul uses is παρουσία – see 1Cor 15:23, 1Thess 2:19, 3:13, 4:15 and 5:23. Of course, the word doesn’t only mean “the arrival of a king” and Paul also uses it to simply mean someone “arriving” (e.g. 2Cor 7:6 on “the coming of Titus”). But the technical sense of παρουσία as the formal arrival and receiving of a ruler explains why Paul and gMatt (see Matt 24:3, 24:27, 24:37 and 24:39) use it to refer to Jesus’ full revelation of himself as God’s Messiah in the Last Days. This undercuts the Mythicist argument that they use the word “coming” because this would be his first manifestation in any form on earth.

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    1. another big factor in the 2000-year interpretation “gap” is that Jesus was also one of the first rabbis, a core part of the process being described in this article: he was a commoner preacher, putting out needling, niggling questions that’d get all the hearers conversing

  10. The idea that Jesus was a mortal prophet is completely untenable when you actually look at the real facts.

    See my recent article here that directly addresses this issue: http://www.decipheringthegospels.com/beyond.html

    The case put forward here, like much of Bart Ehrman’s work, is essentially just a rehash of conservative Christian biblical assumptions. I always find it funny that Bart Ehrman uses methodologies that come straight out of divinity schools that are actuality much more conservative than even other Christians working in his field.

    1) There is nothing in the pre-Gospel writings that presents Jesus as a prophet or even as a person of any kind. At best there are a few vague statements such as him being “born of a woman” (which is clearly allegorical). But there is no description of Jesus as a person at all. And yet, there are dozens upon dozens of “teachings” presented in the pre-Gospel writings, without any of those teachings being attributed to Jesus.

    2) The idea that the Gospels represent any form of history is laughable. The Gospels are, in fact, some of the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus (which is why my book is titled Deciphering the Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed).

    Serious analysis of the Gospels plainly shows that the the whole narrative is derived from literary references and was created after the war, and that every single story about Jesus is derived from the Gospel of Mark. Talk about “corroboration” between the Gospels is foolishness. It’s one story and multiple copies of it with doctrinal revisions. There is no corroboration, there is just copying of a single fictional narrative.

    And here I’ll use a specific example from your article, and even one that I don’t use in my book.

    You discuss the exortation to “keep awake”:

    “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matt 25:13)

    Then there is a similar exhortation in Luke 12:36:

    The scene about keeping awake originates in Mark:

    Mark 13:
    32 ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

    This scene in Mark is derived from the writings of Paul:

    1 Thessalonians 5:
    1 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 When they say, ‘There is peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; 5 for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. 6 So then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; 7 for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night.

    The person who wrote the Gospel of Mark was a follower of Paul and was using Paul’s letters as the basis for the character and dialog of Jesus. The writer of Mark put Paul’s words into Jesus’ mouth. Everything else then copied from Mark. The “Keep Awake” scene is just one of dozens of examples like this. You state that there is a “similar exortation” in Luke, well yes, because Luke is just another copy of the main narrative. In all we have the statment made in a teaching by Paul which is copied into Mark which is copied into Matthew and Luke. And what all of this shows is that the Gospel narrative is literary invention that was credulously copied by everyone else who ever wrote about Jesus because no one knew anything about Jesus other than what was written in Mark.

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    1. The idea that Jesus was a mortal prophet is completely untenable when you actually look at the real facts.

      Yet, strangely, virtually every scholar on earth, including almost all non-Christian and Jewish scholars, somehow manage to accept this suppsedly “untenable” idea. And are inexplicably unaware of these “real facts”. Even more strange – the idea that he wasn’t a human being at all is the preserve of fringe contrarians, self-published nobodies, unemployed bloggers and barking mad crackpots. Yet we are supposed to believe that all these scholars, incluing hundreds with no alleigence to any kind of Christian belief, are completely wrong and the amateur enthusiasts and cranks are the only who have managed to work all this out. What are the chances of that being true? I’d say “minimal to none”.

      The case put forward here, like much of Bart Ehrman’s work, is essentially just a rehash of conservative Christian biblical assumptions.

      I’m sure conservative Christians would be quite startled to learn Ehrman, Allison, Fredriksen, Sanders, Casey etc are suddenly counted in their ranks. I imagine Ehrman et. al. would be surprised and amused to be informed of this as well.

      There is nothing in the pre-Gospel writings that presents Jesus as a prophet or even as a person of any kind.

      Well apart from where Paul says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother and born a Jew (Galatians 4:4). He repeats that he had a “human nature” and that he was a human descendant of King David (Romans 1:3) of of Abraham (Gal 3:16), of Israelites (Romans 9:4-5) and of Jesse (Romans 15:12). He refers to teachings Jesus made during his earthly ministry on divorce (1Cor. 7:10), on preachers (1Cor. 9:14) and on the coming apocalypse (1Thess. 4:15). He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1Cor. 2:8) that he was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2 Cor 13:4) and that he died and was buried (1Cor 15:3-4).And he says he had an earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met (Galatians 1:19). So apart from all that, no, he makes no reference to Jesus as a person at all.

      At best there are a few vague statements such as him being “born of a woman” (which is clearly allegorical).

      And this is one of several things you claim are apparently “clear” and “plain” and yet which are not recognised by scholars at all. How strange, given that these things are apparently so “clear”. “Born of a woman” is actually a common Jewish idiom meaning simply “a human being”, used to emphasise someone’s human nature. It is found in various Jewish texts, including Job 11:12, 14:1, 15:14 and 25:4 and in Sirach 10:18 and then Luke 7:28 and Matt 11:11 as well as in the DSS in 1QH 10:23 and in the Talmud in Tractate Shabbath 88b. All these examples either emphasise human frailty or contrast someone’s human aspect with something or someone non-human. Paul’s use of the phrase belongs to this family of phrases. The argument that it is somehow not related to these cognates and is somehow allegorical because of an allegory involving a woman representing Jerusalem later in Galatians 4 is the kind of contrived and desperate eisegesis that makes Mythicism the object of mild scorn. Especially when MYthicists try to bolster this weak stuff with bombastic language about how “clear” their contorted contrivances are.

      The idea that the Gospels represent any form of history is laughable. The Gospels are, in fact, some of the strongest evidence against the existence of Jesus (which is why my book is titled Deciphering the Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed).

      Yes, your little self-published booklet: the second you have produced since – strangely – your first self-published book inexplicably failed to turn the study of the origins of Christianity on its head and overturn the massive consensus that Jesus existed. This is very odd given that, apparently, the consensus is “laugbable”, your conclusions are “clear” and you have now even “proven” Jesus never existed, no less! Why can’t these foolish scholars abandon their “laughable” ideas and accept the “proof” of a pompous self-published amateur nobody? Does their foolish arrogance know no bounds?

      Serious analysis of the Gospels plainly shows that the the whole narrative is derived from literary references and was created after the war, and that every single story about Jesus is derived from the Gospel of Mark.

      Ah – “serious analysis”. Clearly all those thousands of non-Christian scholars simply have not been “serious” enough in their analysis, otherwise they would have seen this thing that is , supposedly, so “plain”. Perhaps they were distacted by all the stuff in the gospels which, contra your brave assertions, actually … ummmm, isn’t derived from Mark. Like all the Q material. Or most of the Johannine material. What fools they are.

      But luckily we have self-published amateurs to rescue us from the foolishness of these thousands of non-Christian and Jewish scholars and to show us the truth. Lucky us.

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      1. I notice that you didn’t address the concrete example I provided, which shows that what you labeled as “dialog of Jesus” is really a re-cast dialog of Paul, first put into narrative form in Mark then copied into Matthew and Luke. That’s a fact.

        Are you going to say that Mark Goodacre is “just some hack”? His case against Q, showing that the material of the synoptics is all derived from Mark is highly regarded: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Studies-Priority-Synoptic/dp/1563383349

        The claim that the Gospel of John is independent is not even a majority position among Christian scholars. The idea that the “signs narrative” can be traced back to some early pre-war narrative is completely without evidence, it’s just wishful thinking and I provide a full case against in my book, which is just one among many such cases by multiple scholars.

        But most of all, the idea that the Gospel of Mark is a post-war invention isn’t a fringe idea, its solidly supported by evidence for which many highly respected books have been published on the matter.

        Both of the following show that the dialogs of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are all derived from the letters of Paul:
        Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels; David Oliver Smith, 2011

        Mark, Canonizer of Paul: A New Look At Intertextuality in Mark’s Gospel; Tom Dykstra, 2012

        The following show that the Gospel of Mark is a recasting of the Elijah / Elisha narrative:
        Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark; Wolfgang Roth, 1988

        Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Considering the Practice of Greco-Roman Imitation in the Search for Markan Source Material; Adam Winn, 2010

        Again, this isn’t fringe nonsense, these are respected works from credentialed, and in same cases Christian, scholars.

        I’m a data analyst with a background in text mining. What I show in my book is that there are even more literary references in the Gospel of Mark. I provide the literary references for essentially every single scene in the Gospel of Mark, showing that basically every scene is constructed from literary references. The literary references are real. If you would like to address them, please do.

        I provide an example on the book’s website here regarding the temple cleansing scene: http://www.decipheringthegospels.com/examples.html

        This shows that the temple cleansing scene is a completely fictitious literary concoction.

        If you want to address the real evidence, by all means please do.

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        1. I notice that you didn’t address the concrete example I provided, which shows that what you labeled as “dialog of Jesus” is really a re-cast dialog of Paul, first put into narrative form in Mark then copied into Matthew and Luke. That’s a fact.

          It isn’t “a fact” – it’s merely your rather unconvincing interpretation. That both Paul and the writer of gMark use some similar figurative language is not enough to support the claim that the latter derived his dialogue from the former. The parallels between to the two texts you quote are far too diffuse to come even close to supporting a claim that one is derived from the other and this shared imagery makes just as much or more sense if this metaphor was common in the teachings known to both Paul and the gMark writer even if this was not because it derived ultimately from a remembered teaching of Jesus.

          Are you going to say that Mark Goodacre is “just some hack”? His case against Q, showing that the material of the synoptics is all derived from Mark is highly regarded

          But most scholars regard it as wrong. Most of those who accept Goodacre’s stuff are conservative literalists who don’t like the idea of Q because it means a work that was supposedly the inspired word of God got lost. The rest are, of course, part of the Mythicist fringe. People without these ideological biases don’t find Goodacre’s arguments convincing at all.

          The claim that the Gospel of John is independent is not even a majority position among Christian scholars.

          It is sure as hell more widely accepted than Goodacre’s attempt at dismissing Q. And even those who think the gJohn author was aware of the synoptics generally don’t go so far as to claim the Johannine material is somehow substantially derived from them. That would be absurd, given how few the parallels between the fourth gospel and the first three are.

          But most of all, the idea that the Gospel of Mark is a post-war invention isn’t a fringe idea, its solidly supported by evidence for which many highly respected books have been published on the matter.

          Garbage. That gMark is a post-war construction out of earlier traditions and materials is a wholly mainstream idea and one I fully accept. But to pretend the idea it is a wholesale “invention” is somehow a respectable idea is pure bullshit. That’s a Mythicist fringe idea and rightly derided as such.

          Both of the following show that the dialogs of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are all derived from the letters of Paul

          Er, right. One by a retired lawyer with a forward by Mythicist Bob Price and the other by a guy with a doctorate in Russian history. Okay.

          Again, this isn’t fringe nonsense, these are respected works from credentialed, and in same cases Christian, scholars.

          THey are not “respected” and their credentials are not relevant to the field. Speaking of which:

          I’m a data analyst with a background in text mining.

          Perhaps you should stick to that. Go peddle your silly little book somewhere else.

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          1. Sorry, not sure how to quote.

            “That both Paul and the writer of gMark use some similar figurative language is not enough to support the claim that the latter derived his dialogue from the former.”

            This is at least a point that can be reasonably debated, but the issue is that this isn’t an isolated example. There are over 20 such parallels between the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul, many much more direct than this one. And again, this isn’t just something I’m pulling out of thin air, these are findings published by multiple scholars.

            “how few the parallels between the fourth gospel and the first three are”

            These are the scenes that are shared in common between all four canonical Gospels and which can be shown to have originated in Mark from literary references:

             Jesus and John the Baptist
             Jesus feeds five thousand
             Who is Jesus?
             The triumphal entry
             The cleansing of the temple
             Anointing of Jesus
             Getting ready for the Passover
             Jesus’s betrayal foretold
             Jesus says Peter will deny him
             The betrayal and arrest of Jesus
             Jesus is taken before the high priest
             Peter denies Jesus
             Jesus is taken before Pilate
             Crucifixion of Jesus
             The women find the tomb empty

            This doesn’t even count scenes that are shared just between John and only one synoptic, of which there are many (such as the walking on water). Or scenes that are shared but not based on literary references. To claim that John doesn’t share it’s core narrative with the rest of the Gospels is nonsense. The entire core of all the Gospel stories is exactly the same. The fact that John uses some different language and doesn’t copy everything word-for-word is hardly cause to say that it wasn’t based on the others. If John were published today the author would be sued for plagiarism.

            “Er, right. One by a retired lawyer with a forward by Mythicist Bob Price and the other by a guy with a doctorate in Russian history. Okay.”

            Address their content. The material speaks for itself. Do a review of their books, point out the fallacies.

            “They are not “respected” and their credentials are not relevant to the field. ”

            Really, Adam Winn isn’t respected? The guy is an Evangelical 🙂

            Do you really think that all of the work showing that the Markan Narrative is a re-casting of the story of Elijah and Elisha is nonsense? It’s plain as day. It’s laid out right in the text for you to see for yourself.

            Do you really think that the invention of the crucifixion scene from Psalm 22 is nonsense? It’s been recognized since the 2nd century!

            If the main plot of the story is based on Elijah/Elisha and scenes like the crucifixion and the temple cleansing are based on psalms, etc. exactly what do you think is traced back to some “pre-war” oral tradition that no one has ever been able to produce any evidence for?

            The word-for-word parallels between the dialog of Paul and the dialog of Jesus in Mark, nah, let’s ignore that. The fact hat John the Baptist is cast as Elijah and Jesus as Elisha, let’s ignore that. The fact that the crucifixion itself is based on a psalm and every single account of the crucifixion copies this psalm-based motif, nah, let’s ignore that too. Surely, despite all these things, surely whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark was just some field reporter diligently writing down what the friend of a friend of a friend who saw Jesus told him.

            No, he couldn’t have been writing an allegory (despite the fact that there a dozens of biblical scholars who see Mark as just that), no he had to have been recording oral statements, dozens of which just happen to line up exactly with passages from the scriptures and the letters of Paul.

            Yep, that make sense!

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          2. this isn’t an isolated example. There are over 20 such parallels between the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul

            The problem remains – it is very difficult to make the leap from mere parallels to actual derivation. Apart from the fact that parallels are often in the eye of the beholder, you are still left with the problem that none of the parallels in question can be better explained by direct derivation than by the idea that both Paul and the writer of gMark were working in similar belief contexts and drawing on similar if not the same traditions about Jesus’ teaching. So of course there are going to be parallels.

            These are the scenes that are shared in common between all four canonical Gospels

            You think I’m not aware of this? Big deal. Given the number of reported stories about Jesus, that is actually a remarkably thin list. And most of them come from the Passion Narratives – if we look at the rest of the stories of his life the overlap is even thinner. Which means, however you cut it, there is a whole mass of material from gJohn that is NOT found in any synoptic and so can’t be said to derive from gMark. The only way Mythers can deal with that hard fact is to assume their conclusion and say the gJohn writer just invented all that material for purely theological reasons. But there is no way to conclusively demonstrate that ad hoc solution.

            To claim that John doesn’t share it’s core narrative with the rest of the Gospels is nonsense.

            To claim that gJohn shares a core narrative with the rest of the gospels because it is derived from them can’t be demonstrated. Again, if Jesus existed and they are all telling their own theological versions of the memories of his life, of course we’d see this kind of shared core narrative then as well.

            Address their content.

            See above. This is yet more Mythicist parallelomania in a different form. Fringe theorists seem to love leaping from “parallel” to “derivation” – it’s a common theme across all kinds of pseudo historical crackpottery.

            Adam Winn isn’t respected? The guy is an Evangelical

            I was referring to the other two guys, the retired lawyer and the Russian history guy. Winn’s stuff is uncontroversial, but – again – doesn’t work support your ideas over the mainstream views. Over and over again you guys peddle interpretations that are more easily explained other ways or don’t disturb the view that there was a historical Jesus.

            Do you really think that the invention of the crucifixion scene from Psalm 22 is nonsense? It’s been recognized since the 2nd century!

            Wrong. That the scene is clearly drawing on Psalm 22 is, of course, well known. That is part of gMark trying to justify the awkward reality of Jesus being crucified by roping in OT exegesis to “show” it was part of the plan all along. The thing that is nonsense is you pretending this means the whole thing was “invented” and then pretending this is somehow uncontroversial. That is garbage.

            The word-for-word parallels between the dialog of Paul and the dialog of Jesus in Mark, nah, let’s ignore that.

            Why do we need to ignore that? What we can ignore is your conclusion that this necessarily means one is derived from the other. Because that is not the only or even the best interpretation of why those parallels exist. See above. And the same goes for the other things you say we have to “ignore”. We don’t. All of those things sit perfectly well within the mainstream view and that view is not riddled with the problems and weak suppositions that make Mythicism such a uncompelling thesis. This is why almost no scholars accept Mythicism and it’s left mainly to hobbyists and online cliques of narcissistic contrarians with delusions of significance and competence. Speaking of whom, give Ol’ Grandpa Godfrey and the other sneering jerks at his Treehouse Club my regards.

            And if you just come back with more repetition of the weak arguments above, I’ll be your comment to the trash. You’ve been given two chances to make your and case and you’ve proven that – yet again – Mythicism is feeble stuff propped up by motivated reasoning and uncompelling arguments about elements more parsimoniously explained in other ways. Your arguments don’t get better with vehement repetition.

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      2. Robert M Price should sue this Denizen of Dimwitted Doggerrel lest readers confuse the two.That anyone could spend the time writing a book, let alone two on this gobbledygook is surely a sign of the apocalypse.

        1. Bob Price not only isn’t suing the other Price, he’s even written a preface to his namesake’s latest self-published book. So you can get two Prices for the price of one. A bargain at any price.

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      3. I think my big issue is the certainty claim (that Paul certainly believed Jesus would return in his lifetime which you’ve retracted).
        1 Thess. 5:10 states “Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him,” that Paul also considered it quite possible that he and his readers/hearers would all be dead by the time Christ returned” and when noting this makes it a possibility that Paul is referring to being saved from the final judgement which of course ties in with the second coming.

        I think the tektonics link lays out a pretty good case. They even talk about Paul regarding this here:
        http://www.tektonics.org/esch/paulend.php

        1. (i) That 1Thess statement is simply a standard first century Jewish apocalyptic statement, applied to Paul’s acceptance of Jesus as a Messiah who died to usher in the kingship of God – that he died for both the living and the dead and both would be saved.

          (ii) What do think I’ve “retracted”? I have only ever said Paul believed and hoped the coming of the kingdom was to be very soon, possibly even in his lifetime.

          (iii) Tektonics is a highly conservative apologetics site devoted to getting anything and everything to somehow conform to the most orthodox reading possible. That page simply takes a number of Pauline statements that actually make it clear he did believe in the near imminence of the coming of Jesus and tries to find ways to read them otherwise and get around the fact Paul was wrong by about 2000 years. Mostly rather strained and unconvincing ways. If you find that specious crap convincing then I suspect there is not much I can do to help you.

      1. Biosaber

        Are you arguing that RG is just a screen name for Robert M Price?
        What exactly is crackpot about saying Dr. Price should sue?

    2. I got as far as the following:
      “The case put forward here, like much of Bart Ehrman’s work, is essentially just a rehash of conservative Christian biblical assumptions. I always find it funny that Bart Ehrman uses methodologies that come straight out of divinity schools that are actuality much more conservative than even other Christians working in his field.”

      Oh yeah that makes total sense (en sarc). Prof. Bart D. Ehrman who’s published books on:
      1) how Jesus couldn’t have been divine
      2) on how he got elevated in the late 1st Century to become divine
      3) how much fo the NT is forged or misquotes Jesus
      4) how there were many different (and now gone) Christianities in the 2nd century and how they were based upon Christian texts not in the NT Canon.
      5) how Christianity doesn’t make much sense.
      Is somehow rehashing “conservative Christian biblical assumptions”.

      Given that you also seem to think that Prof. Ehrman is a Christian (when he clearly hasn’t been for an awful long time); I can safely assume that you have no remote clue about what Ehrman’s research and books even are.

      And what is with this calling him “conservative”. Are you getting this all confused with politics or something?

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        Late first century?
        Think you need to reread HJBG: Ehrman realized that early Christianity was not linear in its development, that there were various
        gradations and that high christologies were very early as in the pre Pauline Philippines poem
        Of course, mythicists have to describe the opposing side as conservative otherwise they have to concede that there’s merit to “historicism” and then the dam would break and they would realize how much tinfoil is in their hat.

  11. Great introduction to the explanatory path of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.

    What piqued my interest, aside from the issues that strictly pertain to Jesus, is that the description of the contemporary world of Jews as exploited and conquered by Romans, and previously by other more powerful states, a world which became a fertile soil for an apocalyptic prophet of ‘good news’, the salvation of the oppressed and the punishment of the oppressors, is at least weakly consistent with Nietzsche’s views about the origin of Judeo-Christian morality as put forward in his 1887 book ‘Genealogy of Morals’. There, Nietzsche is interested in the origin of the morality that favours the meek over the strong, the slave over the master, which he saw as a reversal of an earlier moral code–think of Roman military virtues or, more starkly still, of the ethos of Homeric heroes.

    No doubt this association with Nietzsche has been made in the literature countless times, but I’m a newbie to the topic of Jesus scholarship. Nonetheless, you’ve given me something to ponder, ironically, over Christmas.

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  12. A very interesting article!

    “The title “the Son of Man” has whole shelf-loads of books on it, along with a debate about whether it can always (or even ever) be applied to the Messiah or even if Jesus applied it to himself as a claim to be the Messiah. It is not clear whether the historical Jesus did indeed see himself as the Messiah, whether he came to do so over time, whether this was the “secret” referred to several times in gMark, or whether Messianic status was something imposed on him by his followers in the wake of his sudden execution as a way to make sense of his death.”

    What do you think of the argument that Jesus did not see himself as this ‘Son of Man’? I find it difficult to accept in light of the many passages that speak of the Son of Man suffering (and the title seems to go back to Jesus himself, seeing that it wasn’t popular with the early Church) and in light of passages such as Matthew 19:28/Luke 22:30 (if the disciples sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes than wat is Jesus doing?), especially combined with Mark 10:35-40.
    It might be objected that the passages that speak of the Son of Man suffering are not historical, but Craig A. Evans has argued that they might fit into a Jewish context. See for instance 4 Maccabees 6:25-29, describing the death of Eleazar:

    “There they burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down, and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils. When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, “You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.””

    And of course the Last Supper (described by not only the Gospels but also Paul) mentions how Jesus spoke of “the new covenant in My blood” (1 Corinthians 11:25)

    1. I’m more inclined to the view that he did use this title of himself, but – as with so much on this and related subjects – it is very difficult to be sure.

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  13. Thank you again, Tim. Another very interesting article.

    For what little my 2 cents are worth, I’m inclined to believe Q was originally an Aramaic “sayings gospel” penned by Matthew as he followed Jesus around, which was incorporated into the gospel he later wrote in Greek. As such it wasn’t be “lost” so much as superseded.

    Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet I can certainly see. Obviously not “just” an apocalyptic prophet from a Christian perspective, but he did fit into that role within his culture.

    Merry Christmas, Tim.

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  14. I’ll start over with a plainer assessment of your explanation here.

    How on earth would Jesus fit the bill of a leader against Rome anyway? The first Gospel presents Jesus not as a champion of the Jews, but rather as a champion of the gentiles! There is really only one Gospel that presents Jesus as a potential champion of the Jews, and that is Luke.

    And with all the discussion about taxes, we have both a Jesus and a Paul telling the Jews to just pay their taxes!

    Why would people looking for a leader against Roman oppression gravitate to an illiterate homeless prophet who curses the Jewish leadership and foretells the destruction of the Temple?

    The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as someone that all Jews fail to understand, especially his most direct followers, and who is only recognized as the Son of God by a Roman soldier. How is this Jesus someone who the Jews worshiped because he was recognized as their messiah? The whole point of GMark is that the Jews DIDN’T recognize Jesus as the messiah.

    That GMark is a post-war allegory written from the perspective of a Pauline follower makes far more sense. Paul was preaching harmony between Jews and Gentiles. The writer of Mark was a follower of Paul who saw in the outcome of the war the evidence that the Jews should have listened to Paul.

    The writer of Mark used Paul’s teachings to write an allegory about how the Jews brought the war upon themselves by not heeding Paul’s message of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. The story is a polemic against the pro-Jewish leaders of the Jesus movement, James, John and Peter, which is why they are all portrayed poorly in the story. James, John and Peter are clearly meant to represent the James, John and Peter that Paul constantly railed against in his letters. All the other Gospels are just copies of this allegory with minor tweaks.

    And beyond all this, if Jesus were some human prophet, then why don’t any of the pre-Gospel writings, of which there are almost a dozen, describe him as such? All the pre-Gospel writings describe Jesus as “the Lord Jesus Christ”, whose importance is that he will judge the world at the end of days, he will raise the dead, he has offered himself as a final heavenly sacrifice to end the need for the temple, and most important, that he overcame death, the “first fruits” of the coming mass resurrection.

    These are the ONLY reasons given for worshiping Jesus prior to the Gospels. There is no talk at all of Jesus being a prophet, instead Jesus is said to be revealed by prophets. Why did the writers of James, Jude, the letters of Paul, the pseudo-Pauline letters and Hebrews all ignore Jesus the rabble-rousing man?

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    1. How on earth would Jesus fit the bill of a leader against Rome anyway?

      Where the hell did I say he was “a leader against Rome”? I see that your fellow reflex contrarian, Ol’ Grandpa Godfrey, has gone on another of his straw man beating frenzies, indulging in a crazed pummelling session about how prevalent armed insurrection was in this period, and seemingly thinking this is somehow making a point against … my article here. Poor old Grandpa – he gets confused so easily these days. Perhaps you should not emulate him and actually pay attention to what I do say rather than some imagined and therefore irrelevant position.

      The first Gospel presents Jesus not as a champion of the Jews, but rather as a champion of the gentiles! There is really only one Gospel that presents Jesus as a potential champion of the Jews, and that is Luke.

      They all present him as a champion of “the poor” and “the righteous” over the unrighteous. And gMark in particular extends that to righteous gentiles as well. So? My article is about how Jesus’ apocalyptic theology arose out of Intertestamental Judaism. Paul and the gospel writers extended that theology to encompass righteous gentiles as well, and gMark et. al. projected that back onto Jesus. And this was in keeping with the way forms of Judaism was already finding ways to accommodate “God fearers” among the gentiles. There is no problem here at all.

      And with all the discussion about taxes, we have both a Jesus and a Paul telling the Jews to just pay their taxes!

      Yes. Why not? We have various references to meekly abiding the current circumstances and awaiting the parousia and apocalypse when all would be made right. “Give us this day our bread for tomorrow” etc. Again, no problem here.

      Why would people looking for a leader against Roman oppression gravitate to an illiterate homeless prophet who curses the Jewish leadership and foretells the destruction of the Temple?

      I make no mention of any “people looking for a leader against Roman oppression”, so you are pummelling a straw man there, much like poor ol’ muddle-headed Grandpa Godfrey. People looking for divine cosmic intervention to put the world right would gravitate to an illiterate homeless prophet who seems, by his exorcisms and faith healing, to show this intervention was imminent. And decrying the corrupt Jewish quislings and predicting the fall of the Temple was all par for the course for this kind of prophet. Note the later message of Jesus ben Ananias. This was standard prophetic stuff. Again, no problem.

      The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as someone that all Jews fail to understand, especially his most direct followers, and who is only recognized as the Son of God by a Roman soldier.

      Yes. Gosh, it’s almost as though that gospel was written for a Roman audience …

      How is this Jesus someone who the Jews worshiped because he was recognized as their messiah? The whole point of GMark is that the Jews DIDN’T recognize Jesus as the messiah.

      First of all, gMark does not have anyone “worshipping” Jesus. Secondly, the whole point of gMark is that most Jews didn’t recognise Jesus as the Messiah, until some of them (his followers) finally did. And yes, it has Romans catching on faster – see above about the probable intended audience of that gospel. Again, you swing and miss.

      That GMark is a post-war allegory written from the perspective of a Pauline follower makes far more sense.

      Yawn. That gMar is a post-war reworking of earlier traditions about the historical Jesus that reflect a similar inclusive theology to that of Paul makes the most sense. Swing -> miss.

      And beyond all this, if Jesus were some human prophet, then why don’t any of the pre-Gospel writings, of which there are almost a dozen, describe him as such?

      Because they were written after the conception of Jesus had gone from him as a prophet to him as the Messiah and even as the pre-existent Messiah incarnated on earth. You keep muddling up who the historical Jesus was with how he came to be seen.

      All the pre-Gospel writings describe Jesus as “the Lord Jesus Christ”, whose importance is that he will judge the world at the end of days, he will raise the dead, he has offered himself as a final heavenly sacrifice to end the need for the temple, and most important, that he overcame death, the “first fruits” of the coming mass resurrection.

      Yes. All completely in keeping with Messianic expectations. So? You keep failing to come up with a problem.

      There is no talk at all of Jesus being a prophet

      See above. And did you miss the bit where Jesus gets transfigured and is presented as the equal of Moses and Elijah? What do you think that was all about?

      Why did the writers of James, Jude, the letters of Paul, the pseudo-Pauline letters and Hebrews all ignore Jesus the rabble-rousing man?

      Why does 1Clement and 2Clement make almost no mention of him as a man at all? Theology. Over and over again you try to raise objections that crumble to nothing at the first contact with the evidence. No wonder you hang around with the uncritical and generally clueless peanut gallery of Ol’ Grandpa Godfrey’s “Fortress of Contrarian Fatuousness”. You guys are hilarious.

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      1. The funny thing with JM’s is that their best arguments actually argue for a historical Jesus used to push an agenda – something very common back then. And of course in our enlightened modern times such thing never happens. Cf Marx, Lenin and Mao (/sarcasm).
        JM: the art of formulating non-problems iso answering questions like “who exactly developed the myth, why and what evidence confirms this?”
        In the meantime they do exactly what most christians love: making the character much important than he actually was.

        1. Indeed. “Making the character more important than he actually was” is a common trait of many beliefs that reject the mainstream Christian perspective.

          There are people out there nowadays who have adopted Gnosticism, or at least who sympathize with it, and the Gnostic perspective makes Jesus just as important as mainstream Christianity does but says the mainstream version of his message is all wrong. Jesus-bloodline believers defy the mainstream tradition that Jesus was celibate while making him the focus of the biggest conspiracy in history. Jesus mythicists defy the whole of mainstream doctrine but require a higher standard of proof for his existence than for the vast majority of individuals we know of in the ancient world. All these people want to be hip and contrarian but fall into the most fundamental of all Christianity’s faulty assumptions: that Jesus was hugely important.

  15. More problems for this thesis you’ve laid out. It’s very clear that the Jesus character of the Gospel of Mark is not intended to be a Jewish savior and isn’t someone who would ever be confused by Jews as a messiah.

    Let’s look at the big picture we get of Jesus from GMark.
    1) Jesus’ followers don’t understand him. They fail to comprehend any of his teachings, they fail to recognize him as the messiah, and ultimately they all abandon him. The Jews as a whole reject him and are fearful of him.

    It is a gentile woman that first really understands him. It is a Roman solider that declares he is the son of God.

    This is a very odd story about a man that somehow persuaded a bunch of Jews to worship him as the eternal son of God who would usher in a new perfect world with the overthrow of Roman rule!

    2) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is one of the clearest pieces of symbolism in the whole story. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants is a literary allusion to Isaiah 9, but it is clearly, both directly and as a literary allusion, an allegory against the Jewish people.

    “Mark 12:
    1 Then he began to speak to them in parables. ‘A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watch-tower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. 5 Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 7 But those tenants said to one another, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” 8 So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this scripture:
    “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
    11 this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes”?’
    12 When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away”

    To quote myself from my book:
    “The meaning of the parable is fairly basic and self-explanatory, though it is further explained via the literary allusion. The vineyard represents Israel or Jerusalem, and the man who planted it represents God. The tenants are the Jews, and the people that the man sends to collect from the tenants are supposed to represent various prophets. The “beloved son” whom the man eventually sends of course represents Jesus. The conclusion of the parable is that the “owner” will come to destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others, of course meaning, in this context, that God will destroy the Jews and give their land to the Romans.

    I highlight this parable for obvious reasons. The parable lays out the basic course of events that essentially explains the entire Gospel of Mark. The Jews kill Jesus; therefore, God destroys the Jews. This is the summary of the entire allegorical story. The subtext and deeper meaning behind it deal not with Jesus but with the perceived corruption of the Jewish people, who are believed by the authors of both Isaiah and the Gospel of Mark to have brought destruction upon themselves.”

    How can you glean Jesus being a sought after champion for the Jews from the Gospels? There is really only one Gospel that can give this impression and that is the Gospel of Luke, which clearly is just a revision to the Markan narrative meant to re-cast Jesus as a more Jewish friendly figure. In Mark and John especially Jesus is clearly strongly against not just the Jewish leadership, but his own followers and the Jewish people as a whole.

    Matthew is a bit more neutral and Luke turns Jesus against the Romans to put him on the side of the Jews.

    But as I lay out in my book, the best explanation of GMark is that it is a story written by a follower of Paul. Paul’s message was against the law, against many aspects of Jewishness, he was against the pro-Jewish leaders of the Jesus movement (James, John and Peter). Paul told his followers that the law was overthrown (not a message that was welcome to Jews at all), that there were no differences between Jews and Gentiles, and Paul railed against Jews who tried to push Jewish practices on Gentiles.

    These are ALL of that exact same characteristics we see in the Jesus of Mark.

    But GMark and Paul also tells us why a real person like this would never have been even considered a leader or messiah among Jews: the Jews rejected Paul! Again, we see in GMark Jesus as Paul. The Jews reject Paul, the Jews reject Jews. The crucifixion of Jesus is the figurative crucifixion of Paul that Paul talked about so much in his letters. But any real Jesus in the likeness of GMark would have been rejected by the Jews for the exact same reasons that they rejected Paul, in that the Pauline message was anathema to Jews, which Paul himself admitted!

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    11
    1. More problems for this thesis you’ve laid out.

      *Chuckle* Says the guy whose attempts at finding “problems” so far has been a laughable failure.

      It’s very clear that the Jesus character of the Gospel of Mark is not intended to be a Jewish savior and isn’t someone who would ever be confused by Jews as a messiah.

      gMark presents Jesus as a Jewish saviour because he is ushering in the kingship of God, so that first claim makes no sense. And the paradox that Jesus did not seem like a “proper” Messiah to many Jews and yet he was exactly that (and was recognised as such first by gentiles) is one of the key themes of the gospel. So your second claim is gibberish. You’re not off to a flying start, Problem Man.

      Let’s look at the big picture we get of Jesus from GMark.

      Everything you say is accounted for by my summary above. Swing -> miss. Again. How long do you intend to keep up this futile snivelling?

      How can you glean Jesus being a sought after champion for the Jews from the Gospels?

      How can you not grasp that the Jewish Messiah IS “a sought after champion for the Jews”? Perhaps you need to go away and think about this a bit more.

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    2. “More problems for this thesis you’ve laid out.”
      Thanks for confirming what I’ve been suggesting for quite a while.
      JM: a historical Jesus has problem X, hence he was mythical.
      Creacrap: Evolution Theory has problem Y, hence goddiddid.

      Serious research doesn’t work that way.

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      1. “JM: a historical Jesus has problem X, hence he was mythical”

        It’s actually worse than that. The problem “X” that the JM mentions actually isn’t a real problem 9 times out of 10, and they’re just clueless.

  16. Tim, what you’re failing to grasp is that the Jesus cult clearly started out as a Jewish cult. The Jesus of this cult had to be a figure who appealed to Jews. The Jesus of the Gospels is already a fictional character meant to appeal to Gentiles. This figure can’t possibly have anything in common with the Jesus that initiated the worship of the cult.

    We know exactly what happened because we have an account of it in Paul’s letters. The Jesus being worshiped by the founders of the cult was a Jewish savior figure, like Melchizedek, like the predicted messiahs in the line of David or Aaron. Then Paul came along and started espousing his Gentile version of Jesus. Paul argued with the Jewish leaders, told people not to follow them, and tried to convince his followers that he actually knew more about Jesus than they did.

    This Gentile-friendly-Jesus of Paul is the Jesus we are presented with in the Gospels.

    Now, in reply to my question about why don’t the early epistles talk about Jesus the man, you say, “Why does 1Clement and 2Clement make almost no mention of him as a man at all? Theology. ”

    Really, theology? But let’s look. The Epistle of James is a very Jewish letter, that has about a dozen places where we would expect the author to talk about Jesus, yet he never does.

    Example #1:
    “James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

    Right out of the gate. Why no discussion of Jesus’ trials and tribulations? Why not use Jesus as the example. Surely it would be fitting. > Whenever you face trials, remember Jesus and all that he went through, yadda, yadda…

    “James 2:2 My brothers, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”

    Wow, perfect place to talk about how the Jewish leadership didn’t believe in Jesus and thus killed him. But no, instead we get a discussion about how you shouldn’t shun the poor. Why not address the fact that many people failed to recognize Jesus as the messiah here? What about all the other non-believers who scoffed as Jesus? No mention of any of that.

    “James 2:21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

    Wow, now we are talking about the importance of works. What better example to give than the works of Jesus himself! Surely the author will point the example that Jesus set for us to follow! Nope, the author points out the deeds of Abraham and then the prostitute Rahab. If you are looking for someone to emulate, looks to Abraham and prostitutes. Our Lord Jesus? He proved no examples.

    “James 5:15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.”

    Ahh… here we see talk about the Lord (Jesus) raising the sick, but this is achieved through prayer! And how does the author convince his readers of the power of this prayer? Through the example of Elijah! This would be the perfect place to pass on a story about the real human Jesus healing people with the power of prayer, but no…

    And we are assured that “humans like us” can wield the power of prayer. Not with Jesus as the example, but with stories of Elijah from the ancient scriptures.

    And to top it all off, we have the ultimate example:
    “James 5:10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful”

    Yes, brothers, when it comes to enduring suffering, look to the prophets of old as your example, never mind our “glorious Lord Jesus” who was tortuously crucified to death in a public spectacle!

    How does someone who knew of Jesus as a person who was going around shouting apocalyptic teachings, who was rejected by most Jews, and who was killed by the Jewish leadership write this letter?

    They don’t. This letter can only be accounted for by disregarding it or coming up with weak rationalizations. Certainly the clearest interpretation of this letter is that it was written by a Jew who only knew of Jesus as a heavenly savior that had been revealed by prophets, not as a real person who was himself a prophet. There is no attempt in this letter to assuage people’s doubt or fears about Jesus. There is no need to convince them that, despite the fact he was killed by the leaders, he was relay a good guy. There is nothing like that. Nor does Paul engage in that either. Why didn’t Paul need to address widespread fears about Jesus being a false prophet? Because there was no Jesus who was ever perceived as a false prophet, that’s why. But the Jesus of the Gospels, the only Jesus ever presented as a prophet, is someone that Paul and James would surely have to address. The idea that such a Jesus man could just be ignored by the early proponents of the cult is ludicrous.

    If the Jesus cult began with the Jesus of the Gospels the early epistles would have to have been constantly addressing that person and dealing with the existing fears and doubts that existed among the people about him. Yet the rabble-rousing prophet who spoke against the leadership and the temple is totally ignored, as is nothing he did had ever happened. Well, that’s because it didn’t.

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    1. Tim, what you’re failing to grasp is that the Jesus cult clearly started out as a Jewish cult. The Jesus of this cult had to be a figure who appealed to Jews.

      You’re commenting on a 8,000+ word article that shows how the Jesus Sect did start out as a Jewish cult with a figure that appealed to Jews – a prophet who foretold the imminent kingship of God and came to be seen as the Messiah himself.

      The Jesus of the Gospels is already a fictional character meant to appeal to Gentiles. This figure can’t possibly have anything in common with the Jesus that initiated the worship of the cult.

      Garbage. The gentile-friendly Jesus retains enough elements of the original historical Jewish prophet for us to see how the former evolved out of the latter. And the two are not as incompatible and mutually exclusive as you make out anyway. You use the narrow-minded and absolutist language of many ex-fundamentalist Mythers, who can still only see things in black or white.

      We know exactly what happened because we have an account of it in Paul’s letters.

      Paul refers to Jesus as a human being many times, as I’ve already explained to you. Your feeble argument that “born of a woman” was metaphorical collapsed at the lightest touch of evidence. Like most fanatics, you only see the evidence that fits your silly theory.

      This Gentile-friendly-Jesus of Paul is the Jesus we are presented with in the Gospels.

      Yes, both Paul and the synoptics conceived of Jesus in a way that was gentile-friendly. That does not mean that your silly conclusion that Jesus was theorefore wholly “invented” somehow follows. Over and over again you present evidence that is fully compatible with a historical Jesus, and which is better explained by that more parsimonious idea.

      Really, theology? But let’s look. The Epistle of James is a very Jewish letter

      Yes, theology. My point in noting the conspicuous lack of references to any historical details in the Clementine letters seems to have eluded you. If this emphasis on the theological meaning of Jesus in this kind of text means the writers didn’t believe in a historical Jesus, why are late examples of this kind of text as free of historical allusions as the early ones? More so, actually, since the Clementine epistles contain no historical allusions, while the Pauline ones contain plenty (dismissed by Mythicsts using pathetic eisigesis like Carrier’s hilariously bad “cosmic sperm bank” idiocy). Similarly, plenty of other second century texts which were written when people had, according to Mythicism, come to believe Jesus was historical contain no historical allusions to him at all. Some don’t even use the name Jesus. So your desperate insistence that James “should” have done so fails – if these much later texts concentrate on the theology of who he was rather than what he did and where he was from, why is it a problem that James does the same? It isn’t.

      So another of your arguments collapses. As usual. At what point is it going to dawn on you that most people who are familiar with the evidence and scholarship on this stuff aren’t convinced by your arguments because they simply aren’t very good? Your thesis is contrived crap.

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    2. “This figure can’t possibly have anything in common with the Jesus that initiated the worship of the cult.”
      Modern times exclusivism projected upon Antiquity is more than silly.
      Jewish sects allowed gentiles just fine.

      https://www.oztorah.com/2008/07/jewish-attitudes-to-gentiles-in-the-first-century/#.XCHxypWWzIU

      So why would proto-christianity (ie the jewish sect before 70 CE) be the exception?
      Jews had no problem either to thank Greek gods:

      https://mainzerbeobachter.com/2016/04/16/polytheistisch-jodendom/

      “Praise god for saving the jew Theodotos, son of Dorios, from the sea.”
      Found in a temple devoted to Pan.
      The same for christianity. Around 400 C$ it was totally possible for a pagan to become a catholic bishop:

      http://www.livius.org/articles/person/synesius-of-cyrene/

      Funny that you’re more narrow minded than many people back then.

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  17. Tim,
    I have held for years that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic prophet and Jewish holy man. I appreciate seeing an article like this. I wanted to toss a couple of ideas your way. I know you’re taking a break from mythicism for a while, but, when you come back to it, I have a great candidate for you to review and critique. Robert Price’s book *Bart Ehman Interpreted*. I have an excellent candidate for an article on the “Conflict Thesis” in case you’re interested. Jerry Coyne’s book *Fact vs Faith*. I figure that by now you might be tired of responding to a dishonest dip-shit like Richard Carrier.

    1. Matt:

      Im currently reading Price’s book! Ive been chewing on his claim about Galatians 4:4
      being an interpolation.

      My initial thought was that the Marcionite (docetism?)
      thinking here was nothing new. I dont have any evidence, but we have a movement that, per Friedriksen, was already fracturing bitterly within two decades of its founder’s death. ” One of the issues Paul confronts seems to be doubts about the ressurection so I dont think some variant of docetism is improbable.

      So it was worth the price (a pun?) of admission to see the following in Tims reply to the OTHER price,

      “Born of a woman” is actually a common Jewish idiom meaning simply “a human being”, used to emphasise someone’s human nature.”

  18. I just read Neil Godfrey’s responses to this post … and I have to say, I was stunned by the stupidity. He tries to “dispute” the translation of Mark 1:15, where instead of the verse saying the time of God’s kingdom is here, instead, through a wee bit of theological speculation, can be interpreted as “God the ruler is here”. The poor guy, doesn’t bother explaining how he simultaneously gets around Mark 13:30, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Perhaps it’s just too uncomfortable of a coincidence that these two verses seem to be saying the exact same apocalyptic thing and that each verse would need its own contrived escape hatchet to circumvent.

    Godfrey, in typical mythicist blabber, quotes the ever relevant Mark 4:34 which says Jesus only spoke in parable to a particular audience he was with at the time. Why Mark 4:34 also applies to other speeches Jesus gave to others, however, is left unexplained — but Godfrey attempting to magically handwave away the entire Gospel as parable seems to be his only escape hatchet. Godfrey also tries to say that Jesus’ prophecy that the High Priest will himself see the Son of Man return can’t possibly be apocalyptic, since it would have been a failed prophecy as the High Priest was dead by the time Mark was written! But Godfrey leaves unexplained why this little conversation here with the High Priest doesn’t get to be interpreted a bit allegorically like he wants to do with the rest of Mark’s Gospel. Godfrey’s double standards have always been a useful thing for him …

    Godfrey tries to claim there was no real anti-Roman fervor until like 66 AD, going lengths to explain away Judas the Galilean. Though he never bothers mentioning other anti-Roman insurrectionists at this time like Athronges (Jewish Antiquities 17.278-284) and Simon of Perea (Antiquities 17.273-77). And I guess the revolt in 66-70 AD was just a coincidence of the time and day and was not the result of years of anti-Roman fuming… Hmmm …

    Besides Godfrey’s absurd straw-grasping in his response of his, it’s all a barely coherent clear desperate attempt to try and streak out some alternative possibility then the apocalyptic interpretation. I’ve truly read nothing the guy has written in response to you that in any way could reveal anything but a desperate jack-biased quack.

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        1. “Before I begin, I’ll just note that the Greek word ōphthē, conjugation of ὁράω (horao) which Paul uses to say that he saw Jesus and O’Neill mentions in his case for spiritual resurrection, simply means “to perceive with the eye” (doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with spiritual sight) and so can’t be used to open up the possibility that this was a spiritual vision and, thus, a spiritual resurrection, any more then I claiming to have seen a lion with my eyes implies that I saw a spiritual lion from heaven.”

          You’re missing the point which is that Paul uses the same verb for each “appearance” in the list as if to equate them. Since the appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation (Gal. 1:16), and he makes no distinction (nor gives any reference in his letters to the Risen Jesus being experienced in a more “physical” way), then the inference is that he was saying the others had visions too. Saying someone “ōphthē to them and ōphthē to me also” is exactly what we would expect if someone meant they were the same or similar type of appearances. Without prematurely reading in your belief in the empty tomb or physical appearances from the later gospels you’d have no reason to think the “appearances” Paul mentions were physical real world encounters.

    1. Sorry for the slow response to this, but I have been travelling and only had time to approve comments and make the odd short response. Yes, you’ve pretty much nailed why I ignore Ol’ Grandpa Godfrey. His modus operandi is to take a positon that is somehow contrary to his baroque cluster of fringe ideas or, as in this case, take anything being said by one of the many people he has burning personal vendettas against (i.e. me) and then find any pathetic pettyfogging way to twist it, so that it can seem he is making legitimate arguments against it. So he takes my completely uncontroversial claim that the apocalyptic expectations in Jesus time were driven in large part by resentment at the Chosen People being dominated by foreigners – most recently the Romans – and somehow manages to argue that the fact that the evidence for early and widespread violent resistence to the Romans is overstated means that I am wrong. This is utter gibberish. I’m well aware of the way Steve Mason and others have revised our understanding of revolutionary resistence against the Romans, even if I do think that Mason overstates things the other way to a certain extent – as you say, the early examples of uprisings are difficult to divorce from the later full-scale uprisings and even if the First Jewish War had other drivers, it clearly did have a nationalistic and religious element. But even if we accept Mason fully, this has no impact at all on anything I say in my article above. Apocalyptic expectations can be driven by resentment against the Romans even if that resentment had not yet developed into full scale rebellion. And I not only did not say how widespread that resentment was, but repeatedly stressed that we simply don’t know how commonly held such ideas were and can’t assume they were universal. That doesn’t matter either. Most people in western society today don’t believe the End Times of the Book of Revelation are coming, yet enough groups do for there to be small, fervent and sometimes fanatical elements in even our secular society who form enclaves to prepare for the end or stand on street corners preaching that the rest of us should.

      And yes, his weirdly conservative Christian exegesis on Mark 1:15 ignores a mass of evidence that counters his interpretation and relies, ironically, on apologist arguments that I am well aware of an have rejected, for precisely the reasons you give. I love his smug burbling about how I didn’t consult the Greek on this and other key texts that I cite (I did and have many times over the years). And it’s particularly hilarious that he whines I don’t cite what translation I use when I quote these texts in English. If Ol’ Grandpa had anything like a clue he would know the NRSV is the standard translation used in academic discussion, but bumbling autodidacts like Godfrey tend not to know basic things like that. Basically, these pathetic straw man bashing sessions are to soothe the righteous anger that any opposing idea stirs in the breast of unreconstructed old fundamentalists like Godfrey. He may have left the Woldwide Church of God and found a new faith in his weird contrarian constructions, but the WCG has never left him. He will be in its dogmatic grip until the day he dies.

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  19. Tim, do most scholars conclude that Mark 9:1 is a reference to the Second Coming? Do any of them think it refers to the transfiguration that immediately follows after?

    1. Many scholars believe that Mark 9:1 (perhaps along with 8:38) was an independent saying that was incorporated into Mark’s gospel, and that the author of Mark deliberately juxtaposed it with the Transfiguration.

      That’s of course different from saying that the Transfiguration actually fulfills Mark 9:1 in any way. Most scholars seem to recognize that there’s very little in the Transfiguration that actually matches with the likely meaning of Mark 9:1 — much less 8:38.

  20. Tim, I just wanted to inform you and your fans about the site churchandstate.org.uk which contains a virtual goldmine of new atheist pseudohistory such as medevial flat earth, conflict thesis, Galileo affair, hitler was a devout christian etc etc.
    (It seems to me that all of their writers on history have PHD in something(like philosophy or paleontology) but never history:)

  21. That was very interesting but I had a serious Gell Mann moment from this completely unnecessary and wrong sentence

    “and the emergence of Islam first appeared or fully developed in this “Intertestamental Period”. ”

    I mean, unless you think Islam was the original religion that got corrupted by Judaism and Christianity and then got reasserted in the 7th century when Muhammad started having visions, this is wrong

    1. Try reading the whole sentence:
      “Concepts and figures that would come to dominate Christianity and play a significant role in rabinnical Judaism and the emergence of Islam first appeared or fully developed in this ‘Intertestamental Period'”
      The problem lies in your reading comprehension skills, not what I said.

  22. Is the statement found in Mark 9:1 a reference to the transfiguration that immediately follows, or is it more likely to be referring to the last verse in Mark 8?

    1. I think it is most likely to be a reference to what it says – the coming of the apocalyptic kingship of God. Claims that it is about the Transfiguration are just apologetic attempts at avoiding the clear implications of this verse: tath Jesus made a prediction that was dead wrong. Mark 8:38 is only connected in that it too indicates Jesus believed he was living in the final generation, as were his listeners.

    2. It could be either or neither. It should not be presumed when Jesus talked of the coming of the kingdom of God, he was referring to his personal return to earth. For example, at one point Jesus said “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He is clearly not talking about his return despite using similar language to that quoted in Mark 9.

      I would also add that when Jesus referenced the Son of Man about himself, we should understand his referencing to Daniel’s writing. For example language of the ‘coming of the Son of Man’ in Matt 24.30 would seem to be a direct allusion to Dan 7.13, which refers to the Son of Man coming from the earth to the throne of the Ancient of Days. Daniel is, as far as I know, the only OT book that explicitly references the Messiah. That should also be a clue.

      So it is not as ‘obvious’ as some would have us believe.

      1. ” It should not be presumed when Jesus talked of the coming of the kingdom of God, he was referring to his personal return to earth.”

        The historical Jesus didn’t know of any “personal return to earth”. That was a way his followers tried to reconcile some of his prophecies with the fact that he had died. When the historical Jesus spoke of the coming “kingdom/kingship of God” he was talking about the apocalypse and renewal he thought was about to take place.

        ““But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He is clearly not talking about his return despite using similar language to that quoted in Mark 9.”

        If the historical Jesus said something like this (which is not certain at all), he wasn’t talking about any “return” – see above. The verb used in both versions of this saying (Luke 11:17 and Matt 12:28, which makes it a Q saying) is ἔφθασεν, a form of φθάνω which means not just “to come”, but “to come before another, to preceed“. It is usually rendered simply as “come” in most translations, but it literally means “has preceeded (something else) to you”. This is another reference to Jesus’ power as a prefigurement of the full power that will be revealed and restored in the coming apocalypse.

        1. Not the same person that you’re responding to, but it’s occasionally been suggested that the historical Jesus did expect the imminent eschatological arrival of the Son of Man, which he originally expected to be a separate person; but as the Christian tradition developed, Jesus himself became *identified* as this Son of Man.

          The idea’s not very popular these days, though. Honestly, I’m not sure what *is* popular in this regard. However, I wouldn’t lose any sleep even if I somehow found out that the historical Jesus himself expected his own death and later a return as the celestial Son of Man (which of course never happened) — though I suppose that might have also required some sort of expectation of his own resurrection and a cosmic transformation into the Son of Man (a la Enoch?), too.

          As for your second paragraph, I agree and disagree. The verb φθάνω doesn’t necessarily refer to any sort of preceding — especially not when accompanied by ἐπί as we find it in Luke 11:17 and Matt 12:28.

          In any case, I’ve actually found evidence that these “kingdom has come upon you” exorcism sayings are secondarily derivative of more typical sayings/language which speak of the future apocalyptic coming of the kingdom, having been de-futurized and/or de-apocalypticized to refer to personal miracles. (They appear to have been modeled on kingdom sayings which used the verb ἐγγίζω, which again just originally signified the standard future apocalyptic coming of the kingdom.)

        2. Im not sure about the Greek, so Ill leave that to someone more knowledgeable. But my point regarding Jesus talking about the Son of Man or kingdom of God ‘coming’ still stands – people continue to misunderstand such language as referring to his return, as the angels in Luke’s Acts reference, following his resurrection and ascension.

          ‘When the historical Jesus spoke of the coming “kingdom/kingship of God” he was talking about the apocalypse and renewal he thought was about to take place.’

          – this is what confuses me, why do you contribute such teaching to the ‘historical’ Jesus but cast considerable doubt on his other teaching as written in the Gospels, as you have done with my quote? What criteria are you using to decide?

          – if that is the case why did he say ‘Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” He seems to have viewed the kingdom as already being there, probably brought by his presence (he compared his own body to the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where God’s presence dwelt). But the kingdom has not been fully realised.

          1. What criteria are you using to decide?

            The criteria used by critical scholars as opposed to Christian apologists. We have some reported sayings which only make sense if Jesus thought the apocalypse was imminent and had nothing to do with any “second coming” by him, including some which seem to refer to the “Son of Man” as someone who isn’t him. These make most sense as being authentic representations of or memories of what he said. Then we have others which talk about or refer to him “returning”. These make most sense as stuff his followers retrofitted after his death.

            “if that is the case why did he say …”

            I explain this in my article. That is only to be found in gLuke, written when the predictions of a coming apocalypse in the lifetimes of the listeners is becoming awkward because it clealry hasn’t happened. Millenarian cults always deal with the failure of their prophecies by (a) pushing the timeframe for fulfilment back, (b) making the timeframe for for fullfilment more vague or (c) claiming that the fulfilment has somehow actually accured in some sense. Luke 17:20-21 is a classic example of (c). We find nothing like this in the earlier gospels. Apologists clutch at this and other Lucan passages that present a later “realised eschatology” and ignore the fact that this is clearly a later development.

          2. As I’ve written it before I hope you don’t mind me repeating it:

            “Luke 17:20-21 is a classic example of (c)”
            is way more damning for christianity than a mythological Jesus. The guy was a false prophet. For someone as mean as me it’s funny to hold this against christian apologists.

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  23. Tim, am I reading you right that you think Luke was written later than Matthew? I had previously heard the two dated as being written at roughly the same time. Do you have reason to believe Luke is later, aside from it being less apocalyptic than Matthew? I get that the general trend of the gospels is that they become less apocalyptic as they get later, and that this reflects changes in Christian thinking as it became more clear that no apocalypse was coming, but that process didn’t necessarily happen at the same rate in every Christian community, right?

    I’m realizing I don’t know how historians date the gospels when they do, except that Mark is before Matthew and Luke because the latter two use Mark as a source.

    1. There is a growing number of scholars who place gLuke as late as the early second century. I’m entirely open to that idea, though I don’t see much that compels a date that late. But the parallels between gLuke-Acts and parts of Josephus do indicate that the author used Josephus (or perhaps his memory of reading Antiquities, since he gets some details garbled) as one of his sources. That means a date in at least the 90s AD is most likely. Taken with the less apocalyptic elements in gLuke compared to gMatt and gMark, this means it makes sense that gLuke was written later than gMatt.

      1. This is an interesting discussion about gLuke-Acts possibly being influenced by Antiquities.

        As I understand it: While we have Antiquities as originally published in Koine Greek, Josephus also published the book in Aramaic of which unfortunately no known copy is known to still exist. And at least some scholars believe that the version in Aramaic was significantly different to the Koine greek version we know.

        Perhaps that accounts for the bits of gLuke that are garbled from the version of Antiquities that we know? That its actually what was in the Aramaic version of antiquities and which the author of gLuke sourced (even though gLuke was written in Koine greek).

        1. Josephus tells us that his Jewish War was originally written in Aramaic and that he then translated it into Greek (and apologises that his Greek isn’t very good, though this is probably false modesty), and say she had “certain assistants” to help him with the translation. G.C Richards thinks this means he wrote out a rough Greek translation and then had it revised by these “assistants” (probably Greek slaves at the court of Titus), since the finished product is pretty polished (see “The Composition of Josephus’ Antiquities”, The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1, Jan., 1939, pp. 36-40). Richards talks about the evidence that suggests later revisions, a second edition of the Greek text and perhaps two endings of Book XX that appear side by side in the edition we have, but makes no mention of an Aramaic edition. Where are you getting that information from?

          The garbled elements in gLuke-Acts don’t seem to be explained by this idea anyway. In Acts 5:36-8 Gamaliel is depicted talking to the Sanhedrin and saying that “Theudas (the Messiah/Prophet) came forward” and then ” him came Judas the Galilean at the time of the census”. But we know from Josephus that Theudas was active “while Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judea”. That’s 44-46 AD, and so not “at the time of the census” in 6-7 AD. Acts gets the sequence and chronology backwards. Christian apologists try to make excuses for this mistake, saying either Josephus’ rather more detailed account is the one that is wrong (highly unlikely) or that there was another, earlier Theudas (apologetic wishful thinking with no basis in the evidence). But the most likely explanation is that it’s the gLuke-Acts author who got confused, which may indicate he was working from his memory of having read Josephus, not that he was referring directly to the text.

          1. Apologies. I got it mixed up; it’s indeed the Jewish wars which is considered to have had a now lost version in Aramaic and which many scholars believe was different, not Antiquities of the Jews.

            Is it still a majority view amongst scholarship that gLuke-Acts was written ~80CE? Couldn’t the garbled history in Luke simply be due to the author being uninformed of the history (and nothing to do with Josephus) and the decrease in apocalyptic elements be due to the gospel being more intended for a non-Hebrew audience than gMathew & gMark?

          2. “Is it still a majority view amongst scholarship that gLuke-Acts was written ~80CE?”

            That is still the majority position, yes.

            “Couldn’t the garbled history in Luke simply be due to the author being uninformed of the history (and nothing to do with Josephus)”

            It’s possible, but the parallels indicate that some kind of textual relationship between gLuke-Acts and Josephus is more likely, in my opinion.

            “and the decrease in apocalyptic elements be due to the gospel being more intended for a non-Hebrew audience than gMathew & gMark?”

            That is unlikely. Paul’s audience was highly non-Jewish, yet he retains the theme of apocalyptic imminence. gMark’s audience seems to have been substantially non-Jewish, yet apocalyptic imminence is highly pronounced in that text. The watering down of this theme is best explained by a later date for gLuke. Note the way gLuke changes the story of Jesus’ prediction to the high priest, for example. That makes most sense if the high priest was old but still alive when gMark was written, but long dead by the time of gLuke.

          3. I am not sure why you would presume that Josephus was correct – numerous commentators have shown errors and bias in his recounting of history (an accusation often made against Luke). Steve Mason, considered something of an expert on Josephus, has said he was sometimes sloppy, inaccurate and contradicted himself in his writings.

            As such one should be careful in using Josephus as the yardstick against which all other writings are measured and presumed wrong if different.

          4. “I am not sure why you would presume that Josephus was correct”

            I don’t “presume” it – I conclude it, on a case by case basis. Note the difference.

            “numerous commentators have shown errors and bias in his recounting of history”

            Which can be said about most ancient sources that we can check. Big deal. Historians don’t therefore reject everything an ancient source says, but rather analyses this and any other source critically to see if we have any reason to suspect error or bias on any given point. Most of the bias in Josephus is clear – against the more radical rebels in the Jewish War and in favour of himself. Otherwise Josephus is pretty reliable.

            “Steve Mason, considered something of an expert on Josephus, has said he was sometimes sloppy, inaccurate and contradicted himself in his writings.”

            Yes. See above. Yet Steve Mason still relies heavily on Josephus.

            “As such one should be careful in using Josephus as the yardstick against which all other writings are measured and presumed wrong if different.”

            I am being “careful”. But it seems your issue here is that Josephus is taken as being more accurate than the author of gLuke. There is a reason a historian who gets most things we can check right is taken more seriously on history than a fantastical polemicist who gets many things we can check wrong.

          5. And I’m not sure why PeterC is bringing up whether Josephus is “correct” or not when it’s irrelevant to the topic of whether the author of gLuke referenced it or not.

          6. Fundies don’t like the fact that Josephus is used to show that the writer of gLuke got some history wrong and historians tend to trust Josephus over the gospel writer. So they like to claim that it’s Josephus that isn’t reliable. He’s just parroting that apologist line.

  24. Dan Eyre

    Late first century?
    Think you need to reread HJBG: Ehrman realized that early Christianity was not linear in its development, that there were various gradations and that high christologies were very early as in the pre Pauline Philippines poem
    Of course, mythicists have to describe the opposing side as conservative otherwise they have to concede that there’s merit to “historicism” and then the dam would break and they would realize how much tinfoil is in their hat.

  25. Hi Tim,
    I’m currently reviewing R.G. Price’s book, and one point that comes up is the use of the phrase ‘Kingdom of God’. You say above that this was a common phrase at the time, which is useful information. Have you got examples of other uses of it (prior to the NT) from that time/place?

  26. Of course… If Jesus really did perform bona fide miracles and did rise from the dead, the accounts of that resurrection would look like the Gospels and NT that we have.

    But that can’t be considered now, can it?

    1. Really? You don’t think that like, the post-resurrection narratives might be a little more consistent? (To say nothing of the dating of the Crucifixion — Passover, or the day before?) And similarly the rest of the Gospel stories. Because if what really happened was some guy briefly ran a revivalist cult and got snuffed by the Romans as a shit-disturber, but his followers wouldn’t let it go and started making up stories about him over the next generation or so, then the Gospels and NT are, well, pretty much what one might expect to come out of it.

      1. It really doesnt make sense that Jesus’ followers made up his resurrection from the dead and were prepared to die for that belief which they all knew to be untrue.

        It should also be noted that it wasn’t just his followers who claimed he performed miracles – those in opposition to him (the Jewish authorities) said the same but claimed he was not using Godly power but from another source.

        As for the timing of the Passover/Crucifixion, you shouldnt presume that the Synoptic writers and John were using the same calendars. They weren’t.

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        1. “It really doesnt make sense that Jesus’ followers made up his resurrection from the dead”

          No-one thinks that they simply “made up” the idea he rose from the dead. But the various contradictory stories we get in the gospels and the mentions in Paul indicate that this idea evolved from an idea based on visions and a general concept that he had gone on to heaven and would soon return in glory to the various much more concrete (but differing) accounts involving a physical revived body, an empty tomb, angels, earthquakes and risen saints wandering around Jerusalem. See my detailed article here on how this belief seems to have arisen and developed over time.

          “and were prepared to die for that belief which they all knew to be untrue.”

          See above – any that did or were prepared to die sincerely believed that he rose from the dead and definitely did not make that idea up. But they don’t seem to have believed in the whole story of a physically risen Jesus who left a empty tomb etc. – that developed later. That aside, we only have direct evidence of one of them actually dying for their beliefs about Jesus (James in Acts 12:1-2). There is an early tradition that Peter did also and some references in the gospels could allude to that. The rest of the accounts of the martyrdoms of the disciples are very late, often highly fanciful and generally contradictory, with the same disciple being executed in different ways and/or widely different places depending on which story you read. Most of these accounts are almost certainly later inventions, with third century ideals of martyrdom being projected back onto the first followers. So the idea that “they all died for their belief that Jesus physically rose from the dead” is flawed on two fronts.

          1. Tim, just curious about a strange little claim I recently came across: Is it true that the medieval church burned an old woman at the stake, for revealing heretical views in her deathbed conversation with a priest?

          2. I’ve never heard of that incident. But could you use the “Contact the Author” link for queries that have nothing to do with topic, so we can keep the comments section relevant to the article it is under.

        2. “and were prepared to die for that belief which they all knew to be untrue. ”
          I hope you realize this argument also applies to the Waffen-SS at the Eastern Front from 1941-1945.
          The sad fact is of course that Homo Sapiens is capable of making up all kind of stuff (here I use this expression in a broader sense than ToN) that doesn’t make sense.
          Not to mention that you still have to justify your jump from our concrete world (people believing that Jesus was resurrected) to a supposed divine world (Jesus actually resurrected). You have to formulate a hypothesis – how did it happen? What means were used? Which procedure was followed?
          The 21st Century is the Age of Science. Saying “it just happened” is not enough, unless you’re OK with being a science denier.

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    2. No. Not now, not last 200+ years and not a lot of time from now. Because that ain’t about methodological naturalism. You may try a site on theology instead.
      Hint: the question if he didn’t can’t be considered either, for the same reason.

    3. Should we consider the accounts of the resurrection more or less seriously than the tales of the Buddha’s birth? The Illiad and the Odessey? The stories of Anansi the Spider?

      The gospels and the rest of the NT are quite explicable without there having been any miracles worked, so why would we add them in?

  27. Jesus as a real life apocalyptic prophet?

    I suggest that a real life apocalyptic prophet would not have two trials. That suggests the writers of the gospels/Acts didn’t even know who executed their leader.
    If we’re going to start taking Sunday School so seriously, we have to consider the possibility that it was the dying revelation of Stephen the first martyr that was the true beginning of Christianity.

    John the Baptist was a real life apocalyptic prophet. Thus it is not at all the case that being personally baptized by John the Baptist would be deemed an embarrassment to an apocalyptic prophet. A cult of John the Baptist persisted, so Jesus became the Baptist’s cousin.

    Many of the traits assigned to Jesus in the gospels are to be found in the lives of religious revolutionaries, or of their particular heroes. Judas the Galilean was perhaps the most eminent, and Jesus was from Galilee.

    The Egyptian was from Egypt so Jesus was also from Egypt as well as Galilee.

    Herod was the greatest hate figure of them all, so Herod was the murderous enemy of the infant Jesus.

    David was the greatest king and conqueror, so Jesus was from Bethlehem, as well as Egypt and Galilee.

    The Hasmoneans cleansed the Temple, so Jesus cleansed the Temple.

    It’s bad enough that so very, very much of Jesus biography seems to be references to the scriptures. But even his political biography suffers the same question: Isn’t all this exactly what you would expect if they were just making it up?

    And brings in the other problem, which is who was supposed to be writing this apocalyptic literature, and when, and what their political goals were. Anyone talking about the millenarian prophet Jesus is relying on works that may have been prophetic propaganda in leading up to, during or in response to three major Jewish rebellions. If you don’t even consider the issues raised by this, you can’t really say you’re doing history at all.

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    1. “I suggest that a real life apocalyptic prophet would not have two trials. That suggests the writers of the gospels/Acts didn’t even know who executed their leader.”

      (i) Why would two trials be out of the question? (ii) How does it follow that, even if one or both of the trials in the gospels are embellishments, this means Jesus doesn’t exist? I would suggest your arguments above are a non sequitur.

      “John the Baptist was a real life apocalyptic prophet. Thus it is not at all the case that being personally baptized by John the Baptist would be deemed an embarrassment to an apocalyptic prophet.”

      Another non sequitur. The issue has nothing to do with the Baptist being “real life” and everything to do with Jesus supposedly being the Messiah and therefore the Baptist’s superior. Which made the fact he had his sins forgiven by a supposed inferior awakward for the later gospel writers. Thus the changes to the story to work around this problem.

      “Many of the traits assigned to Jesus in the gospels are to be found in the lives of religious revolutionaries, or of their particular heroes. “

      All those parallels indicate, if anything, is that Jesus was a man of his time and regarded as a Jewish Messiah and so had Messianic attributes assigned to him.

      ” Isn’t all this exactly what you would expect if they were just making it up?”

      Ummm, no, actually. If they were “just making it up” we’d expect him to fit the Messianic tropes much better than he does. It’s actually what we’d expect if they were trying to shoehorn a historical guy into those tropes.

      “If you don’t even consider the issues raised by this, you can’t really say you’re doing history at all.”

      I can assure you that all the scholars whose work I depend on here have and do consider that issue. And if your comments above are any indication, I don’t think I need any guidance from you on how to do history.

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      1. “(i) Why would two trials be out of the question?”
        The reasons two (or more) trials are out of the question are straightforward enough. 1)One guilty verdict does the job of getting rid of a real person. 2)For a Roman prefect to leave his authority and jurisdiction open to such question is unduly lax, and also not consonant with the portrait of Pilate from other source, or the known powers and procedures of the sanhedrin. 3)The notion that the gospel writers are reporting on the actual events begs the question of who their sources supposedly are. A source in the prefecture, maybe, though improbable. But also at the sanhedrin, Pilate’s home, Herod Antipas’ entourage? A bunch of unlikely events do no magically add up to a plausible story. 4)In the event you mean “out of the question” to mean “proven impossible,” I can offer the alternative possibility that an apocalyptic writer would imagine a hero who was victimized by all the favorite villains of the time.

        “(ii) How does it follow that, even if one or both of the trials in the gospels are embellishments, this means Jesus doesn’t exist? I would suggest your arguments above are a non sequitur.” You would suggest wrongly. Everybody knows who killed the Bab or Joseph Smith. The only reason it would be different for “Jesus of Nazareth” is…? The non sequitur is everything purporting to be an answer.

        Baptism by the great apocalyptic prophet is like being anointed the successor. Making up a story that you’re promised Messiah was endorsed by a real life hero is not, not, not embarrassing. That’s why making up a familial relationship isn’t embarrassing. Or are you so committed to Sunday School you actually believe Jesus was John the Baptist’s cousin. The only non sequitur is thinking that because in a different, non-revolutionary period a more otherworldly Messiah might need to be affirmed as superior to mere liberation from the Roman Empire.

        The problem is that when you look at which “Messianic” traits can be assigned it dissolves into a morass of scriptural references. For centuries now people have been trying to separate traits drawn from scriptures from the real historical elements. it is notorious that this cannot be done. If you don’t know this you aren’t paying attention.

        Of late, most people trying very hard, mostly of a theological background, but not a political background, have consoled themselves that the political thing sounds like history, not a reworking of scripture. But, as I’ve said, even the political stuff is an amalgam of desirable traits.

        As to the observation that not all the gospels/Acts are compatible with a simple apocalyptic narrative? It is quite clear that the gospels reworked the image as the politics changed. This is easier if there are no real historical facts, witnesses, relatives, heirs, rival claimants to get in the way.

        Paying attention to the relationship between the politics of the time when the gospels were written and how they changed with the times is exactly the kind of serious historical analysis anyone touting the apocalyptic prophet should engage in. Not doing so is incompetent. You really do seem to need some advice. For one thing, you need to address S.G.F. Brandon who actually takes your thesis of a historical political kernel seriously…but is, God bless him, nuts. Or for a general introduction to somebody with a different kind of political sophistication, you should read Karl Kautsky’s The Foundations of Christianity. It is not Jesus mythicist, by the way.

        As to the general notion Jesus doesn’t fit the Messianic tropes very well? Quite aside from the preposterous notion there are “the” messianic tropes, there is the notion that no one faking scriptures has a clue about trying to be plausible. And there is the notion that people who make stuff up don’t put their own spin on it. Like Greek myths or Arthurian mythology (which is still being added to as we speak!) there is never any finished, seamless version.

        I am actually interested in political and social movements and their history, including revolutionary ones. I assure you Bart Ehrman, Albert Schweitzer and E.P. Sanders are not skilled political analysts. You’re just embarrassing yourself by saying they are.

        1. “The reasons two (or more) trials are out of the question are straightforward enough.”

          Ummm, no – those are arguments to support your conclusion that two trials were unlikely and therefore, in your assessment, not historical. But they do not add up to anything like “out of the question”. As with most of our ancient source texts, we don’t know where, if anywhere, the gospels got their information. But that does not lead to the conclusion that what they describe is “out of the question”. There is plenty in the account of the two “trials” that is potentially dubious and that is something that has been recognised for well over a century at least. But I’m afraid you can’t turn “potentially dubious” into “totally out of the question” just because you want to. That is, as I said, a leap of logic that makes your argument a non sequitur.

          “I can offer the alternative possibility that an apocalyptic writer would imagine a hero who was victimized by all the favorite villains of the time.”

          Yes, and that is a viable alternative possibility. Then there is the possibility that later followers of a historical Jesus wanted to shift the blame for their leader’s death from the Romans onto the Jewish leaders in the wake of the Jewish Revolt and so invented or at least exaggerated the Jewish role in the “trial/s”. And there are other possibilities as well. But the fact that possibilities exist that can explain the presence of non-historical “trials” in the accounts is not enough to get you anywhere near “out of the question”.

          “The non sequitur is everything purporting to be an answer.”

          Sorry, but that makes no sense. Again, even if everything in the trial/s narratives were wholesale inventions, it does not therefore follow that Jesus did not exist. Last week I was reading analysis of the sources about the late Roman general Stilicho. The historian I was reading made a strong case that an element in one of the sources was invented to make Stilicho look good and probably never happened. Anyone who therefore concluded that this means everything about Stilicho was invented and he therefore didn’t exist would be totally wrong. That conclusion does not follow. Neither does yours.

          “Baptism by the great apocalyptic prophet is like being anointed the successor.”

          No, it wasn’t. The whole point of baptising was the removal of sins. This is why the Baptist is depicted in gMark baptising many people. Mark 1:5-9 makes it clear that Jesus was just one of many: “Confessing their sins, [all the people of Jerusalem] were baptized by him in the Jordan River … At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Unless you think the Baptist was making “all the people of Jerusalem” his successors, you are simply wrong. Jesus is depicted as a sinner being cleansed, like everyone else. And that is the awkward element that the later gospels struggle to explain.

          “The problem is that when you look at which “Messianic” traits can be assigned it dissolves into a morass of scriptural references. “

          Except when Jews began objecting to the idea Jesus was the Messiah, they seemed pretty clear on the elements that he failed to meet and the ones they felt the Christians had fudged (the Bethlehem origin, his descent from David, his “kingship”). So you’re just overstating the ambiguity here. Jesus rather famously failed to meet most of the key expectations. That makes most sense if Christians were trying to shoehorn a historical preacher into the role.

          “I am actually interested in political and social movements and their history, including revolutionary ones.”

          That’s nice. You don’t seem to understand the apocalyptic underpinnings of the historical Jesus’ small socio-religious movement.

          1. There is no reason to believe there was ever a trial because there is no historical account. Your notion that anyone has to prove it was impossible is absurd. I can’t prove there isn’t a teapot in orbit around Saturn either, but it is still out of the question. You can write “potentially dubious” but that’s rhetoric, of the low, misleading kind. The notion that the accounts of Jesus’ death are historical is poor historical judgment.

            Reading Mark 1:5-9 out of context is also poor historical judgment. In context, Jesus is clearly designated to be the one John supposedly predicted. And yes, being made sinless was not an embarrassment, but a prerequisite, both political and religious. The text you conveniently omit makes it perfectly clear Jesus was to continue the movement.

            The idea that “history” somehow preserved the alleged fact Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist himself, but couldn’t record a simple story of how this supposedly real person met his end is preposterous. Have you no sense at all?

            This kind of thinking reflects a predetermined conclusion that anything you deem might possibly be historical can be ripped out of context and treated as a fact. No, it can’t. You are fond of misusing the term “non sequitur.” It really does not follow that just because some elements in a work of fiction must be fact (because the need for plausibility, impossibility of imagining everything from scratch, desire to seem relevant,) there must be a historical core. Yes, there really were men named Jesus.

            Your position reduces to taking the gospel/Act writers are historical sources. Your problem is they are liars. Unlike your red herring Stilicho, there is no other reason to believe anything told of Jesus is true. If that document with the dubious story was the only document about Stilicho, undermining the story would indeed undermine the credibility of the whole thing. You would be illogical to deny this.

            Jewish criticisms of “Jesus”/Christianity are much later and irrelevant to any misinterpretation of the gospels/Acts as historical documents of any sort. They didn’t know anything about a historical Jesus either, which is still not a point in your favor.

            The conclusion is that there is historical information about Jesus, as arbitrarily pretending some things that might be possible must therefore be true. The insistence that surely, surely, surely saints would not make all this up is nothing but visceral skepticism. You’re not much better than a man trying to find the historical core to The Book of Mormon.

            But perhaps a better example would be looking for the historical core of the King Arthur mythology. I don’t believe there was a King Arthur. Any historical figures who might have inspired the mythology were not “King Arthur” in any significant sense. But many people do still believe there was a historical Arthur. OK, it seems a little crankish. But a believer in a historical Arthur who raved about the dishonesty and incompetence of people who were such fools and dastards as to deny the reality of a King Arthur? That’s a lot crankish. And that’s you.

          2. “There is no reason to believe there was ever a trial because there is no historical account.”

            I’m afraid you don’t get to assume your conclusion that there is nothing at all historical in the trial accounts, for all their potential problems, and thus decide there was no trial. You can’t get beyond saying “there may not have been any trial” or even “I believe it is most likely there was no trial”. The fact remains that there may well have been at least some kind of interrogation by Pilate and, if Jesus was arrested by the Temple guards, a prior questioning of him by the priests. None of that is out of the question. The fact that a full Sanhedrin trial or the depiction of Pilate as weak and reluctant are unlikely embellishments does not automatically mean there is no history in the accounts at all. When we find embellishments it’s usually because there was something there to be embellished.

            “Your notion that anyone has to prove it was impossible is absurd. “

            No, it isn’t. It’s how historical analysis works. You can’t shout that a trial/trials are “out of the question” until you can show definitively that they simply could not have taken place in any way at all. You can’t do that. So all you can do is argue they may not have happened. You can’t go beyond that.

            “I can’t prove there isn’t a teapot in orbit around Saturn either, but it is still out of the question.”

            No, it isn’t. It’s just exceedingly unlikely. And a trial or trials of some kind in this kind of situation are vastly more likely than any orbiting teapot. You really seem to struggle to think things through clearly. Perhaps you need to ponder why.

            “The notion that the accounts of Jesus’ death are historical is poor historical judgment.”

            You keep mistaking “contains elements which are likely historical” for “must be taken at face value as wholly true”. Extremist fanatics can only think in these kinds of absolutes. Rational analysts can grasp nuances. See if you can.

            “Reading Mark 1:5-9 out of context is also poor historical judgment. In context, Jesus is clearly designated to be the one John supposedly predicted.”

            I’m not reading it “out of context” and the heavy implication is that Jesus is meant to be the one predicted, obviously. But the fact remains that in this earliest version, John does not make that clear. He certainly doesn’t hail Jesus as the Messiah here or in the gMatt and gLuke analogues – we don’t get that until the gJohn version. So in gMark Jesus does not become the Messiah until after John’s baptism of him.

            “And yes, being made sinless was not an embarrassment, but a prerequisite, both political and religious.”

            In this culture, you had your sins forgiven by a holy man who was superior to you in spiritual virtue. That is the awkward element in the story for three of the gospels. It’s not awkward for gMark, because Jesus only becomes Messiah after the baptism, when God acknowledges him from the heavens. But it is a problem for the other three who have Jesus as Messiah from conception (gMatt and gLuke) or from the beginning of time (gJohn). So we find them working hard to reconcile this incident with their differing and evolving ideas of Jesus as Messiah. Why? because the baptism of Jesus by John was historical. It happened.

            “The idea that “history” somehow preserved the alleged fact Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist himself, but couldn’t record a simple story of how this supposedly real person met his end is preposterous.”

            That statement assumes your conclusion that there is nothing at all in the story of his death etc that is in any way historical.

            “This kind of thinking reflects a predetermined conclusion that anything you deem might possibly be historical can be ripped out of context and treated as a fact. “

            That is nonsense. You clearly don’t understand what I’m saying at all – largely because you don’t want to understand.

            “Your position reduces to taking the gospel/Act writers are historical sources. “

            They ARE historical sources. They are sources telling us what their authors and their audiences believed. And we can use them to work out how those beliefs arose and if any of them have a likely historical basis. But you have some weird fundamentalist idea that either a source has to be ALL totally historically true or it has to be rejected as “fiction”. This simple-minded naivete means you simply can’t understand how historians actually use ancient sources. Which means your conclusions are nonsense.

            “Unlike your red herring Stilicho, there is no other reason to believe anything told of Jesus is true. “

            Wrong. Again, there are plenty of elements which don’t make sense if the writers of the gospels were writing “fiction” but do make sense if they were trying to shoehorn a historical preacher into an evolving idea of a Messiah, despite elements in his story that don’t fit very well.

            “Jewish criticisms of “Jesus”/Christianity are much later and irrelevant to any misinterpretation of the gospels/Acts”

            Try to keep up. Jewish objections to Jesus as Messiah are DIRECTLY relevant to your claim that there somehow were no clear set of expectations about the Messiah at all. Those consistent objections show you are dead wrong.

            ” I don’t believe there was a King Arthur. Any historical figures who might have inspired the mythology were not “King Arthur” in any significant sense. But many people do still believe there was a historical Arthur. OK, it seems a little crankish. But a believer in a historical Arthur who raved about the dishonesty and incompetence of people who were such fools and dastards as to deny the reality of a King Arthur? That’s a lot crankish. And that’s you.”

            And this is truly hilarious. The reason no-one can object to the idea that there is no historical Arthur in the same way I’m responding to you is that we simply don’t have material on Arthur as close in time or as detailed as the gospels, Acts and Paul. So you’re comparing apples to watermelons. And demonstrating your incapacity for clear thought, yet again. Perhaps you need to go away and think about this more clearly. And with much less emotion.

          3. How many trials have there been in the Roman Empire?
            Have many teapots have been orbiting planets?
            You refusing to understand the difference shows that you are the crank. You don’t even manage to get your comparisons right. You should have chosen a moon in orbit around Venus instead. Of course the inconvenient problem for you would be that a priori a moon around Venus is not out of the question at all.
            Thanks for confirming that you, as creationists also always do, are just arguing for a predetermined conclusion. Don’t worry though. After all your blunders everybody here takes you as seriously as those same creationists.
            Jesus. Can. Shall. Will. Must. Not. Be. A. Historical. Character. Period.
            Everything else you write is nothing but window dressing.

          4. His orbiting teapot analogy was one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a while. But it seems you have posted your comment above in reply to me, not him.

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          5. We have to remember that Steven T. Johnson is in a position to declare that Prof. Bart D. Ehrman is not a “skilled political analyst” (*smirks*)….

        2. “Making up a story …..”
          You don’t explain two trials either. Typical quack-science – “solving” a problem with a solution that doesn’t even address it.

    2. “Isn’t all this exactly what you would expect if they were just making it up?”
      If the authors of the four canonic Gospels had all made it up I would have expected that
      1) they did not contain explicit end-times prophecies (when they were written down it already had become clear that they weren’t fulfilled);
      2) Jesus at the cross had shouted something far more heroic than “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (there is a very simple naturalistic explanation for this, given a historical Jesus);
      3) the Gospels had either far less (because the authors didn’t cooperate) or far more ( conspiracy) in common.

      This list is incomplete.

      1. 1) Aside from the fact that the gospels do not contain explicit end-times prophecies, Daniel and Revelations do, and it hasn’t caused any problems for believers. This is just naive.

        2) As is well-known, this is a quotation from Isaiah, which is generally regarded as full of Messianic “prophecy.” The very simple naturalistic explanation of course is that a writer imagined a suffering Messiah as hinted in some verses in Isaiah would affirm this, and used a verse from Isaiah. A nearly as simple naturalistic explanation is that a competent writer would write dialogue with two meanings, one expressing human emotion and the other expressing Holy Scripture. The first add pathos and the second adds significance. Or are religious writers forbidden to use double meanings?

        3) Given how much of the gospels repeat each other, this is just senseless. If it wasn’t religion, people would be talking about plagiarism. I find it shocking O’Neill would teach you stuff like this. I didn’t know he was this awful.

        1. 1) “it hasn’t caused any problems for believers”
          No, and there is an excellent explanation for it with lots of evidence. It’s called cognitive dissonance. Also we were discussing the Gospels, not other books. I’m rather naive than a quack like you, suddenly changing topic when it suits.
          2) See above. I don’t care about prophecies in Isaiah. I’m evaluating what JM means for our understanding of the Gospels. So this is more quackery of yours.
          3) “Given how much of the gospels repeat each other, this is just senseless.”
          Nice non-sequitur. Also qualify “much”. Ten percent? Ninety percent? What matters of course is that the Gospels contain enough different content to trace them back to two independent sources. Were JM intellectually dishonest it would try to provide an explanation for this, with supporting evidence. All I’ve seen is a vague conspiracy theory not unlike 9/1 truthers.

          “If it wasn’t religion, people would be talking about plagiarism.”
          BWAHAHAHAHA! You could as well complain about the authors of the Gospels not saving their output on USB-sticks.

          “I find it shocking O’Neill would teach you stuff like this. I didn’t know he was this awful.”
          BWAHAHAHAHA!
          ToN didn’t teach me anything regarding Jesus. When I met JM for the first time I was rather sympathetic to the idea. It’s quacks like you who made me recognize how much JM has in common with creationism. I reject both for largely the same reasons. For instance you jump at your predetermined conclusion as quickly and unjustifiedly as say Ken Ham and David Klinghoffer.
          Thanks for excellently confirming my negative judgment of JM. It’s crap.

        2. Ah, typo demon. Please read “Were JM intellectually honest”
          This gives me the opportunity to add

          “A nearly as simple …”
          Not only you don’t offer any evidence for your hypotheses. Instead you ask a loaded question. What I wrote hasn’t anything to do with forbidding authors how to write. Your hypotheses don’t actually explain anything – why would the authors of the Gospels do that? What did they have in mind when using your supposed trick?
          My hypothesis (yup, it’s only one, unlike your non-explanation) is backed up by evidence indeed. Hint: dying at a cross is painful. And again no, it’s not ToN who has taught me this hypothesis.
          Thanks again, this time for confirming that JM falls under Ockham’s Razor indeed.

        3. “the gospels do not contain explicit end-times prophecies”

          Chapter 13 of the Gospel of Mark looks pretty explicit to me…

          1. I think most of Jesus’ words in Mark 13 refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. He uses typical Old Testament language to describe it (unlike Tim Lahaye etc we should know not to understand such language as literalistic). There is a notable change from v32 with ‘peri de’ meaning ‘Now concerning…’ (for some reason this hasnt been made explicit in most English translations). Paul uses the same phrase in some of his letters when introducing a new subject. And note the reference to ‘that day’ rather than ‘those days’ as previously.

          2. “I think most of Jesus’ words in Mark 13 refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.”

            Which he is depicted as following with what will happen next: a period of suffering (13:17-23), the coming of the apocalyptic Son of Man as foretold in Isaiah 13:10 (13:24-26) and the gathering of the Elect by the angels (13:27). So the references that are clearly to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple are presented as immediately preceding (ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις – “in those days”) the apocalypse.

            “And note the reference to ‘that day’ rather than ‘those days’ as previously.”

            The “that day” of v. 32 refers specifically to the future point when “these things” will have all been fulfilled. The earlier “those days” of verses 17 and 24 refer to the period of tribulation, finishing with the sun darkening etc. in verses 24-25. Then we get the actual apocalypse itself (“then they will see the Son of Man … ” etc. in v. 26). So “that day” and “those days” are two separate points in the sequence of events, thus the change in number in the verb ἡμέρα.

          3. How is Mark 13 more “explicit” in its apocalypticism than Daniel? It is known at “the Little Apocalypse” for a reason. It’s obviously shorter and therefore far less detailed than longer apocalyptic works like Daniel and Enoch. But to pretend it’s not an apocalyptic text within the gospel is totally ridiculous.

          4. By ‘steven t Johnson’:
            “The standard for explicit I’m using is Daniel.”

            It’s only my opinion, but to me; Chapter 13 of gMark looks a lot more explicit than the book of Daniel. A lot of Daniel looks to me to be rather vague and open to interpretation.
            Are you sure that you were even aware that the Gospels had any “end-time prophesies”? (*winks*)

  28. Hey Tim,
    I took a shot at defending some of the ideas from your Quora resurrection article against the objections in the response by Jimmy, and the discussion has basically come down to asking which of us has the proper interpretation of the role you were assigning to apotheosis. Care to settle the matter? See the comments here. Thanks.

    1. Your summary of what I am saying is exactly correct:

      “I’m still only speculating on Tim’s behalf so I can’t really say exactly what he meant, but my interpretation of the proposal was not that there was any explicit or deliberate dependence on prior conceptions of apotheosis, but rather that the familiarity with the concept influenced the development of the Jesus narrative (and corresponding Christology) because it was part of the context within which the story was received and shared.”

      I’m not very interested in intervening in that discussion though. I find trying to reason with apologists like him even more pointless than doing so with boneheaded Mythers. And that guy is like the Christian version of Neil Godfrey.

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  29. Hi Tim,

    Just out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts on Rene Girard’s works on the Gospel? The Girardian interpretation of the Gospels ties in well with the idea that Jesus was, in fact, referring to the Kingdom of God coming with his crucifixion; that this singular, divinely intended, event began the process of overturning our inbuilt scapegoating mechanism and so opened up the path to an increasingly tolerant and charitable society that we now live in. As a Christian it seems like an important piece of the puzzle, but it could simply be epiphenomenal. I am open to hearing the atheist point of view and I am simply curious to know what you think about it (if anything at all).

    James

  30. Really well-crafted post. What do you think of the attempts by NT Wright and others to “historicize” the apocalypse and locate it within history (predominantly CE 70)? These scholars accept the immediate and geopolitical nature of the kingdom but reject the notion that its coming would result in the end of history.

    1. Like a lot of Wright’s stuff, I regard that as motivated reasoning bordering on apologism and only convincing to those who want to be convinced. The basic argument is that the references to the imminence of the coming kingship/kingdom refer to things that would happen in the lifetime of Jesus’ followers, like his crucifixion and the fall of Jerusalem. There are many problems with this. For example, the idea that the “little apocalypse” in Mark 13 is only referring to the fall of Jerusalem and the sack of the Temple does not deal with the fact that Jesus is depicted as saying these things are the precursor to the actual end times:

      “But in those days, after that suffering, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
      (Mark 13:24-26)

      So the sequence is the fall of the Temple and people fleeing the city (v. 14), then the days of suffering (16-20), with God cutting short those days (v. 20) and false Messiahs arising (21-23) and only then the final end “in those days” (24-26). There is nothing to indicate some vast gulf of time between the fall of Jerusalem and the final end, in fact the urgent emphasis is on them being close together.

        1. Yes, and I find his reasoning pretty specious. And he has to chop off v. 27 to even try to make that work. Verses 24-27 clearly refer to the final apocalypse, not something that happened in 70 AD.

    1. I will probably address that at some point. The short story is that there almost certainly was some influence, but to leap from that to the claim the whole story was inspired by them is the usual jump too far.

          1. I don’t, because

            “distill accepted principles of evidence from established legal precepts”
            I prefer science. Those distilled principles are not necessarily scientific. The courtroom generally knows only three possible results: true, untrue and undecided.
            Scientific conclusions – including those resulting from historical research – at the other hand are evaluated in terms of probability.
            So I stopped reading.

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  31. I recently had a discussion with E. Michael Jones regarding his book the “Revolutionary Jewish Spirit.”
    In which he argues that the Jews who rejected Jesus as their messiah and called for his crucifixion, were essentially cursed. Because when they rejected Jesus they rejected “Logos” and logos represents the divine order of the universe or something like that. In other words they rejected order, and as a result they became “Revolutionaries” and a Revolutionary according to him is someone who rebels against the social order. Therefore, this is what leads to ideas such as Marxism, Zionism, Bolshevism,Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Gay Rights, etc,etc.
    It’s actually a great book and I agree with much of what he has to say.
    However, I disagree with a fundamental aspect of his analysis, the Jesus aspect.
    I told him that Jesus was no different from any of the other fanatical Jewish revolutionaries running around back then, such as Abraham, Issac, Moses, Jacob/Israel, Joseph, David, Joshua, John the Baptist, Simon of Magus/Paul, etc.
    I said that Jesus was merely the next in a long line of fanatical apocalyptic revolutionaries and false messiah’s intent on destroying Western civilization.
    I actually sent him a paper by Dr. Robert Price, a fairly comprehensive analysis in which he reaches the same conclusion. It’s all based on scripture, and he included the chapter and verse of every example he alludes to.
    However, despite all this detail and explanation, the only line E. Michael Jones was interested in was a line from “Jesus Christ Superstar”. A line Dr. Price used as a way breaking the ice and of introducing a highly contentious and controversial theory.
    Upon reading the article E. Michael Jones said to me, so your theory that Jesus was a revolutionary is based on a line from Jesus Christ Superstar?
    That’s the difference between a historian and an apologist

  32. Hello,

    In Luc, Mary state that : “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” That’s kind strange if one considers the response of Jesus to the Sadducees about Resurrection (after the end of time… no childrens). Do it means that the end of times that would come soon it is not the “final” end of times? Thnak for your response, best

    1. A couple of points here. Firstly, of all the three synoptics, gLuke is the one that tempers the idea of the extreme closeness of the coming apocalypse the most. It seems to have been written last of the three, though by how much is hard to determine with accuracy. But it definitely mitigates and softens the stronger sayings about the imminence of the end in ways we don’t find in gMark or gMatt. Secondly, the “all generations shall call me blessed” reference (Luke 1: 48) comes in the so-called Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) which is one of four “canticles” found in gLuke – the others being (to give them their traditional Latin names) the Benedictus (1:67–79), the Gloria (2:13–14) and the Nunc dimittis (2:28–32). These are patterned on hymns of praise in the Old Testament and are made up of references to or elements from Old Testament texts. In this case, 1 Samuel 2:1–10 but also parts of various other texts, especially from Psalms and, possibly, other texts that were known at the time but are now lost. It could even be that the gLuke author is directly quoting an already known canticle of praise, rather than creating one. So it’s hard to know how literally its elements are meant to be taken, since the theme is the main thing to be noted here: “I have been honoured greatly by God”.

      1. “So it’s hard to know how literally its elements are meant to be taken, since the theme is the main thing to be noted here”.

        Is it so necessary for Luke to put those words in the mouth of Mary? For someone who, as we should believe, it is a crucial matter to convince the audience that is very, very important to believe in a imminent end… is not too much risk to put this sentence in the mouth of Mary only for a question of “tradition” or “poesy”? Thank you for your response

  33. A paper was just published in Novum Testamentum challenging the interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:13-18. Any thoughts on it?

    J. Andrew Doole, Did Paul Really Think He Wasn’t Going to Die?, 2019, 44-59.

    1. I’m not interested in paying €25.00 to read some article by someone on … something. Does it argue anything I should address? Spell it out.

      1. Sorry, I assumed you had access to the journal. The premise of the paper is as follows. The general interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:13-18 is that when Paul talks about the “we who are alive” he is directly talking about himself and indicating that he, along with some of his contemporaries, actually believe they are going to witness the coming of Jesus. Doole writes;

        According to this theory, Paul once thought he would be alive to see the Lord’s coming, here in 1 Thess (1:10; 3:13; 4:15, 17) and also in 1 Cor (7:29–31; 10:11; 15:51–52);4 he later reckoned with the possibility of his own death in 2 Cor (1:8–9; 4:11, 14; 5:1–9);
        and finally came to accept that he would surely die before the parousia in Phil (1:20–24; 2:17).5 1 Thess is thereby an early letter which provides an insight into the initial optimism of Paul.

        On the other hand, Doole argues that the “We” in this text, as a form of first person plural being used in Paul, should not be understood this way. While not seeking to “exonerate Paul from mistaken optimism”, Doole argues that the first person plural in this section of Thessalonions was a sort of ‘soundbite’ in Paul’s community that was to be proclaimed and circulated. Something like someone saying “We will keep fighting until change comes!” In other words, the first person plural in 1 Thess. 4:13-18 does not refer to any individual claim of Paul or someone else that they will see Jesus return, in his lifetime or whenever, but a sort of soundbite-statement on the part of the community itself looking forwards to when Jesus returned. Doole argues that the section of Thessalonions of which 4:13-18 is a part of is especially reflective of this sort of use of the first person plural. In effect, Doole concludes that while Paul may or may not have believed it, 1 Thess. 4:13-18 does not tell us whether Paul necessarily believed that Jesus would return within his own lifetime. Obviously, this is just Doole’s argument but not the case he lays out for it, which is found in his paper.

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    2. Just read the paper, its author’s suggestion is a modest one, and does not deny that Paul predicted the Lord was coming soon. It merely involves whether Paul thought for sure that he in particular was going to be alive when the Lord came. Even that claim is one the author admits we cannot he sure of. Below is the paper’s “Conclusion”:

      ’The letter of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy to the Thessalonians (1 Thess) is a letter from three colleagues to the community of believers they had recently founded and now seek to support. In general, “we” are writing to “you.” Yet there is a cluster of apparently inclusive FPPs in 4:13–5:11. These appear to be soundbites provided by the correspondents for the Thessalonian community, words which they are to use to encourage and build up one another. These FPP soundbites are therefore by no means evidence that Paul thought that he (and Silvanus and Timothy) would not die before the coming of the Lord. While it does not rule out the possibility that Paul himself did indeed expect not to die, it can not be taken as prima facie evidence, as it is a soundbite for community encouragement and not a claim for himself.’

      1. In other words, the paper is exactly as I summarized it. Paul may or may not have believed that he would be alive when Jesus came, but Doole argues that 1 Thess. 4:13-18 doesn’t tell us the answer to that. The point is not about denying that Paul “did indeed predict the Lord would arrive soon” like you make it out to be, which could be debated from other passages (although none of the ones you quote on your blog say anything about imminence).

        1. No Pauline passages suggest anything concerning imminence? “The night is nearly over, the day is almost here” (Romans), “the Lord is at hand” (Philippians), etc.?

          So, the mainstream scholarly interpretation is totally incorrect? Bart Ehrman, James Tabor, Dale Allison, James D. G. Dunn, and other scholars mentioned in Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Introduction by Frederick J. Murphy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012) are inadequately trained in Greek and first century apocalyptic? As Murphy states, “Many do not realize that Christianity itself is the result of failed prophecy. Jesus apparently expected the kingdom of God to come soon, and this urgent expectation of an imminent end pervades the New Testament.” http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8638 

“Eschatology: Here to Stay,” a marvelously succinct few pages in Dale Allison’s, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009) that can be read here https://www.facebook.com/edbabinski/posts/10155000750086784

          James D. G Dunn in Jesus Remembered, and, The Evidence for Jesus admits that Jesus believed in an imminent eschatological climax that did not happen. “Putting it bluntly, Jesus was proved wrong by the course of events.”

          1. Those examples are definitely clearer. The problem was, reading through your blog, that those two quotes are within a mound of others that need not be imminent. It’s very easy to read past those couple words, especially in the confusing way you’ve arranged it on your blog, i.e. by stuffing it between a bunch of other verses with barely any separation. And not to dispute the mainstream, it amazes me that you would equate disputing the mainstream with saying those scholars are “inadequately trained in Greek”. It would benefit you to stop taking disagreements as personal attacks.

  34. I often ask historicists who think that Paul believed in an earthly Jesus to provide a list containing Jesus’s parables, baptism by John, raising of dead people, cures, exorcisms, conflicts with Pharisees, priests, scribes, family, disciples, his transfiguration, his calming the storm, his miracle at Cana, his walking on water/stilling storms, selection of “the twelve”, his friendship with Lazarus, his long stay in Capernaum, his betrayal by Judas, his trial under Pontius Pilate, etc, etc. No one has ever provided such a list. The epistles cite nothing whatsoever about a historical Jesus, which means either they had no example to cite, or dismissed it for unknown reasons. If Jesus existed, the epistles would mention his ministry and teachings plentifully – just as any book about Scientology would mention founder L. Ron Hubbard, and any book about the Gettysburg Address would mention Lincoln. Not mentioning the historical Jesus in books purportedly founded on his historical existence strongly indicates that they had no historical figure to cite. Carrier makes a lot more sense.

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    1. “just as any book about Scientology would mention founder L. Ron Hubbard, and any book about the Gettysburg Address would mention Lincoln”

      Thanks for demonstrating yet another stupid Myther argument and giving more evidence that Mythers can’t think things through logically. Paul wasn’t writing any “books”, he was writing letters. He didn’t give biographical details in his letters for the same reason I didn’t the last time I wrote to my brother and talked about our late father. See if you can work it out from there.

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      1. . Paul’s writings, most of which we now know were later forgeries, are also coming under increasing question. Even if genuine he only describes James as a ‘brother of the lord’ which was how followers of Jesus were often called in early Christianity, it does not necessarily imply familial relationship. Also Paul never refers to an earthly life or ministry of Jesus. His version of Jesus seems a better fit with the Philoan and Docetic idea of Jesus. The origin of a Euhemeristic Jesus seems to begin with Mark, written decades after the alleged life of Jesus by a non-Jewish, non-eye-witness and earliest version of which did not include the resurrection! Paul does say he met James and Peter but does not describe them as apostles and makes no mention of them knowing Jesus or even Jesus ever having an earthly life or ministry. Paul even says that everything he knew about Jesus came from revelation. Did he not talk to ‘James and Peter’ and get their stories about Jesus? I mean if you were a believer and met with Jesus’s brother and followers would you not want to hear of Jesus’ life and teachings?

        1. “Paul’s writings, most of which we now know were later forgeries, are also coming under increasing question.”

          Utter nonsense. Most critical scholars agree that at least seven of the letters are genuine and even Mythicists like Carrier agree with them. And if we stick to those letters alone we have plenty of references to Jesus that only make sense if Paul understood him to be recent, historical, earthly and human. There is no “increasing question” about his letters – the scholarly consensus on them hasn’t changed much in a century. Stop spouting garbage.

          “Even if genuine he only describes James as a ‘brother of the lord’ which was how followers of Jesus were often called in early Christianity, it does not necessarily imply familial relationship. “

          Yawn. You must be new here. Go read my detailed demolition of that terrible argument. Again, even Mythicists like Carrier have to admit that the term “brother/s of the Lord” in Paul is a very specific one, is different to the less specific figurative use of “brother/s” elsewhere and has to refer to a specific sub-set of believers, not believers generally. You need to educate yourself better.

          “Also Paul never refers to an earthly life or ministry of Jesus. “

          Wrong. He says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother and born a Jew (Galatians 4:4). He repeats that he had a “human nature” and that he was a human descendant of King David (Romans 1:3) of of Abraham (Gal 3:16), of Israelites (Romans 9:4-5) and of Jesse (Romans 15:12). He refers to teachings Jesus made during his earthly ministry on divorce (1Cor. 7:10), on preachers (1Cor. 9:14) and on the coming apocalypse (1Thess. 4:15). He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1Cor. 2:8) that he was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2 Cor 13:4) and that he died and was buried (1Cor 15:3-4). You just don’t know the texts.

          “His version of Jesus seems a better fit with the Philoan and Docetic idea of Jesus.”

          More Myther burble. Philo didn’t have an “idea of Jesus”. And the Docetists beleived Jesus had an earthly and historical career.

          And the rest of your babble is still floundering in your incomprehension that Paul was writing letters, not a biography of Jesus. He does mention elements of Jesus’ life – see above. He just doesn’t detail everything he knows about him because that’s not the purpose of his letters. Now, if you come back here and just burble more Mythicist crap that’s been answered a thousand times, you’ll go straight into the spam file. This is not a platform for you weird fundamentalist cultists. Go away.

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        2. @Someone:
          ‘[…]a ‘brother of the lord’ which was how followers of Jesus were often called in early Christianity’

          If you think that was the case, could you please provide references to writings where early Jesus-followers refer to other Jesus-followers in this way? I know that they would sometimes refer to one another as ‘brothers in the lord’, which makes sense as it’s a good way of describing people unified by a common belief; they pictured themselves as metaphorically brothers of one another, with a bond of shared belief rather than of blood. But I’ve never heard of any situation in which ‘brother of the lord’ was used as a title for a Christian other than those lines of Paul’s that were apparently about Jesus’s actual brothers. ‘Brother of the lord’ means something rather different than ‘brother in the lord’; the person being referred to isn’t being described as a brother of the person speaking, but of Jesus himself.

          I’ve never heard of a religion that described its members as brothers of its divine beings. Children, yes; brothers, no. That implies a level of equality with the divine being that religions don’t normally want to claim for their members.

          ‘The origin of a Euhemeristic Jesus seems to begin with Mark’

          Under your theory, why do you think Mark and the other evangelists wrote gospels about a supposedly human Jesus? I mean, I know it was very common at that time for religions to have stories about how their divine beings visited earth and did things there, but I don’t know of any other cases at all in which the stories were set only a few decades previously (instead of centuries previously) and portrayed the divine being as being born of a human mother, coming from a human village, and experiencing prosaic stuff such as struggling to perform miracles in the face of their (human) siblings’ unbelief.

          Sure, the gospels contain a lot of invented stuff, but it’s easy to see why someone writing about a human Jesus would invent things like ‘and he could walk on the water, miraculously feed thousands, and rise from the dead!’ I don’t see why someone who believed that Jesus had only ever been a divine heavenly being would invent all those ordinary stories about him being on earth.

          ‘earliest version of which did not include the resurrection!’

          Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. Are you saying that at this point Jesus’s followers didn’t believe he was resurrected?

          ‘I mean if you were a believer and met with Jesus’s brother and followers would you not want to hear of Jesus’ life and teachings?’

          Depends why I was believing. If my main focus was how Jesus’s death could save me from my sins and guarantee me eternal life, then quite possibly not; and that’s exactly what Paul believed. (By the way, you don’t need to ask what I would or wouldn’t have done; just look at what actual Christians do. Sure, there are a lot who read the gospels to find out more about Jesus… but it’s hardly uncommon to find people who identify firmly as followers of Jesus when it comes to the ‘saved from your sin’ bit, but don’t have any interest at all in reading the gospels and finding out every detail they can of his life.)

          Paul wasn’t interested in learning what other people had to tell him about Jesus. That isn’t conjecture; we can read what he said in the first couple of chapters of Galatians. He had minimal contact with the other early followers. His focus was on the revelations he believed he was personally getting from Jesus. In seventeen years, he spent barely more than a fortnight with the original community of followers and talked to only two of them, one apparently so briefly that he remembered it only as an afterthought when thinking back on it. That isn’t the behaviour of someone who wants to know everything others can tell him about a subject; it’s the exact opposite.

          1. Dr. Sara wrote:

            … they pictured themselves as metaphorically brothers of one another, with a bond of shared belief rather than of blood.

            The belief includes shared blood, both in communion (John 6:53-54, 1 Cor 11:23-26), atonement (Rom 3:25), and justification (Rom 5:9).

            The practice of communion can be added to the list of what Paul knew about Jesus, since this is mentioned in all four Gospels (albeit indirectly in John), as well as 1 Corinthians.

        3. “Paul does say he met James and Peter but does not describe them as apostles…”

          Hmm let’s see:
          Gal 1:18-19:
          “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.”
          “But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.”
          https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Galatians-Chapter-1/

          Whoops!
          You might want to check what you think you know before posting.

    2. I often ask JMs why Paulus and other protochristians invented a mythical Jesus if there were plenty of messias-claimants around who could have played that role just fine. A similar question is what sense historical apostles make on a mythical messias.
      The silence is even more deafening.

    1. What exactly do you think I’m “making up”? That video is about Buddhism. We don’t have texts that date to about 20 years after the Buddha’s alleged life. We do have those for Jesus. So we can draw conclusions about the historical Jesus in ways we can’t for other figures like the Buddha or Herakles. You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.

  35. Wow. This entire post destroys the idea that you’re a “closet Christian” to pieces. Christians probably would never want to write a post like this, and they certainly would not want to give this view to their audience in Church sermons. I remember David Wood and one of his co-host getting a live objection that Jesus was nothing more than an intertestamental Jewish eschatologist. Instead of giving a meaningful reply, David Wood and his co-host did nothing more than try to rationalize the sayings of Jesus in a twisted and unhistorical way.

    This post is also very important for another reason. It shows Christians that this website is not built around their whims and desires, but only to expose bad history. I’ve seen so many Christians in the comment section around different posts, along with new atheists, trying to object to O’neil’s points when the tide is against their views. But what were they expecting? A lot of O’neil’s arguments for Jesus’ existence have been something along the lines that because these theologies didn’t exist in Judaism, it would have been embarrassing for Christians to make it up, so they had to rationalize it with cognitive dissonance reduction and mental gymnastics. I’ve seen a lot of Christians unhappy with this line of reasoning because it doesn’t fit their ideal that Christianity was rooted in a continuous and conservative Abrahamic tradition.

    And yet here is O’Neil again, tearing apart the idea that Jesus was viewed as a trinitarian God from the beginning. He’s essentially showing Christians that the idea of Jesus being the trinitarian God is a later legendary myth that is not rooted in history. How, except the most liberal Christians, could rationalize this is beyond me.

    Well, I’d have to thank you for this. Caring about accuracy and accuracy only is a great policy. And I’ll definitely be excited for your foture posts.

    1. Yes, that’s the irony. Jesusmythology allows christians to reply “your treatment of the historical evidence is silly, so we are right and Jesus was the son of God”. Instead “Jesus was one of many messias-pretenders, he managed to piss off Roman and jewish authorities alike; he got crucified and later a Roman called Saulus saw its political potential” hurts a lot more.
      However credit were credit is due. JP Meier has provided such ammunition with his A Marginal Jew. And Meier is a professing catholic.

      1. Yea, credit is due towards him. I appreciate Meier’s efforts to prioritize scholarly analysis ahead of his personal beliefs. That’s a true scholar.

        My guess is, however, that he is, like many Catholic scholars and theologians, a liberal Christian who separates his faith from reality. This allows him to do his scholarly work without experiencing a crisis of faith.

        I don’t know if that applies to the average Baptist Evangelical Christian, however. I’ve seen so many Christians on this website object to Tim whenever he contradicts their faith. Like when Tim said that the pseudo-historical nativity accounts of gMathew and gLuke can’t be reconciled, or when he stated Jesus was likely not buried in a fancy tomb , or, like right now, when he’s stating that the trinitarian concept is a later creation and that Jesus was, essentially, not different from those people you see on the side of the road saying that God is going to punish and end the world soon. These individuals want their faith to perfectly match history, and they object when they realize that obviously isn’t possible.

  36. I disagree! I agree with the Jesus Seminar, in their books, What did Jesus Really Say?, that Jesus was likely just some rural/backwoods Jewish Sage who traveled around. Any suppose prophecies were put on his lips after the fact.

    1. The idea that those sayings were added later doesn’t make sense. They are too integral to the overall reported teachings in the synoptics, all of which are consistent with an apocalyptic message. They are also too consistent with Paul’s teachings, which represent the earliest strata of Christian textual material. And they are too consistent with the reported teachings of John the Baptist. So for Jesus to come after an apocalyptic preacher (John) and before another apocalyptic preacher (Paul) but not be an apocalyptic preacher himself simply doesn’t work. Dale C Allison’ detailed rebuttals of the Jesus Seminar arguments make all this and much more quite clear, which is why the Jesus Seminar’s “Cynic sage” idea has little traction in scholarship these days.

      1. Paul was a man with his own ideas about who Jesus was and what he represented. Given that Paul never met Jesus personally and claimed to only know of him through “visions”, this puts his theology in its own separate camp from what the earliest Christians seemed to believe prior to him. Granted, it does not matter to me if Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher since he was a student of John the Baptist. But I just do not get that vibe from him when reading the synoptics or Thomas except maybe a few verse.

        1. Given that Paul never met Jesus personally and claimed to only know of him through “visions”, this puts his theology in its own separate camp from what the earliest Christians seemed to believe prior to him.

          No, that’s not accurate at all. Modern Pauline scholarship hightlights how aligned Paul was with the reported teachings of Jesus and Jewish apocalyptic thought. And he was not some totally divergent and separate entity – he interacted with the first followers of Jesus only seems to have disagreed with them on some points about who was saved by Jesus’ death. There is zero evidence that apocalyptic ideas were ever a point of contention with Peter, James and John.

          But I just do not get that vibe from him when reading the synoptics

          Given every single thing the synoptics have him do and say is purely focused on apocalyptic expectation, from the pronouncements of the coming kingdom, and the miracles to every single one of the parables, I can only conclude you don’t get that “vibe” because you don’t understand what you’re reading.

          1. No, that’s not accurate at all. Modern Pauline scholarship hightlights how aligned Paul was with the reported teachings of Jesus and Jewish apocalyptic thought. And he was not some totally divergent and separate entity – he interacted with the first followers of Jesus only seems to have disagreed with them on some points about who was saved by Jesus’ death. There is zero evidence that apocalyptic ideas were ever a point of contention with Peter, James and John.

            Do you have sources I can read on this? Everything I have read suggests Paul, Peter, and James were all conflicted as shown within Acts and even in Paul’s Epistles he mentions some disagreement. He may have been aligned with the then Jewish apocalyptic thought that was prevalent at the time, but I have not read anything to suggest his views were in perfect alignment with the early Jerusalem church let alone Jesus who did not leave any writings behind.

            Given every single thing the synoptics have him do and say is purely focused on apocalyptic expectation, from the pronouncements of the coming kingdom, and the miracles to every single one of the parables, I can only conclude you don’t get that “vibe” because you don’t understand what you’re reading.

            Now you are just being mean! 🙂 His pronouncement varies from proclaiming the Imperial rule of God is approaching to it already being here but unseen. All of his miracles should be read as purely exaggerations by the authors unless we concede that it is possible to for a man to feed multitudes of people with a single loaf of bread and fish. And his parables are so diverse and vary, that some could be interpreted as apocalyptic with others being morality tales but saying they are all apocalyptic is a bit much.

          2. Do you have sources I can read on this?

            Pretty much any modern scholarship on Paul in his Jewish context makes this quite clear. Paula Fredriksen’s Paul: The Pagan’s Apostle (Yale, 2017) goes into it in great detail.

            Everything I have read suggests Paul, Peter, and James were all conflicted as shown within Acts and even in Paul’s Epistles he mentions some disagreement.

            Not about apocalypticism. You tried to argue that the apocalyptic elements in the early gospels were later additions and not original to Jesus’ teaching. This doesn’t work for a large number of reasons, but one of them is this apocalyptic is found in the early sources and not the later ones. That’s the opposite of what we’d expect if what you claim was true. And it is also found in the Pauline material, which represents the very earliest Christian texts we have. Again, that doesn’t fit what you claim. So you’ve tried to argue that Paul was radically out of step with the earlier followers of Jesus on this. But there is no evidence of that. Those disagreements were on other issues – whether gentiles needed to be circumcised and eat kosher to benefit from Jesus’ salvation. Not apocalyptic ideas. So that argument fails too.

            I have not read anything to suggest his views were in perfect alignment with the early Jerusalem church

            So you need to present evidence that he disagreed with them over this. And you can’t, because none exists. Again, Jesus follows John the Baptist, who is an apocalyptic preacher. He is followed by Paul, who is also an apocalyptic preacher. Paul works with the first followers of Jesus who have problems with some of his other ideas, but not his apocalypticism. Then we get the synoptics, which are apocalyptic from top to bottom. None of this makes sense if Jesus wasn’t also an apocalyptic preacher. We only see evidence of later changes and additions later and they tone down the apocalypticism, they don’t add it. You have things backwards.

            His pronouncement varies from proclaiming the Imperial rule of God is approaching to it already being here but unseen.

            No, it progresses from the former to the latter over time. This makes sense if there was a growing realisation that the promised kingdom had not arrived and was overdue.

            All of his miracles should be read as purely exaggerations by the authors unless we concede that it is possible to for a man to feed multitudes of people with a single loaf of bread and fish.

            Read my article above. Few of the miracles are signs of power. Most of them are directly related to the promised attributes of the apocalyptic kingdom. Again, you don’t seem to understand what you’re reading.

            And his parables are so diverse and vary, that some could be interpreted as apocalyptic with others being morality tales but saying they are all apocalyptic is a bit much.

            The early ones are all apocalyptic. We only get varied moral teachings and parables about Jesus as a salvation agent later – in gJohn. In the earlier texts, they are all apocalyptic. Did you actually read the article you’re commenting on? It doesn’t seem that way. Please do so.

        2. “given that Paul never met Jesus personally ….. this puts his theology in its own separate camp”
          I have never personally met any leader of the political party I’m member of (and we’re talking four decades). According to your illogic this puts my political ideas in a different camp than theirs. That doesn’t make any sense.

          1. You are not claiming to receive visions from this political party member either. Unless we assume he literally spoke to the spirit of Jesus, we have to take such things with a grain of salt.

          2. I actually did read some of your article, but I disagree with it. I could go and pull out what books and articles I have from my college and private studies to offer my claims, but I just do not have the time sadly nor do I have access to the Universities research database anymore. I will have to table this for now.

          3. I actually did read some of your article

            Some“? I usually find it’s best the read ALL of a long and detailed article before commenting on it. Otherwise you end up looking stupid. You clearly didn’t read the parts about the progression from a fully apocalyptic message in the early material, to a modified apocalyptic message in later texts and finally to a non-apocalyptic presentation of Jesus, his parables and his miracles in the latest materials. That only makes sense, taken with all the other evidence, if what we are seeing is a progression away from apocalypticism as the expectations about the imminent coming Kingdom weren’t realised. It doesn’t fit the claim that the apocalyptic material was added later at all – quite the opposite.

            So your claim that “his pronouncement varies from proclaiming the Imperial rule of God is approaching to it already being here but unseen” ignores this progression. It doesn’t just “vary” – it moves from one idea to the other over time for a reason. I explain this in detail in the article you clearly haven’t bothered to read. You also say that “his miracles should be read as purely exaggerations by the authors”. This ignores the fact that in the earlier texts they are not merely exaggerated depictions of Jesus as a wonder-worker. They are particular types of miracles linked to particular aspects of the coming Kingdom. And they are held up as signs of the coming Kingdom, with direct reference to Old Testament texts that were read as declaring what the Kingdom would be like. It’s only in the later, less/non-apocalyptic material that we get miracles presented purely as signs of who Jesus was. Again – progression. Again, progression from early, apocalyptic emphasis to later less/non-apocalyptic emphasis. Again, the opposite of what we’d find if your idea was correct.

            Please don’t comment here again until you can show you’ve actually read my article. Otherwise responding to you is a waste of my time.

          4. @MyronM: from “its own separate camp” to “grain of salt” is a remarkable example of lowering the bar. Btw I don’t believe in telepathy, neither now nor 2000 years ago. So your “not receiving visions”, let me be charitable, is simply irrelevant for the question if Jesus made prophecies. I’m under the impression that you think Jesus 2000 years ago didn’t have any means to pass on his ideas to eg Paulus. Or perhaps you’re view simply is incoherent. Anyhow, your answer still doesn’t make sense.
            So let me make it absolutely clear. Paulus claimed to have received visions, but that’s not how he learned about Jesus’ theology. He learned about it by talking, asking and listening. It may surprise you, but even nowadays (including myself regarding local politics) people do that very often. As Jesus didn’t exactly keep his mouth shut during the last years of his life lots of people in the area had heard about his ideas, including Paulus.
            Paulus’ visions claim was a political trick to get accepted by Jesus’ followers – a clever way to gain credibility.

          5. FrankB,

            Paulus’ visions claim was a political trick to get accepted by Jesus’ followers – a clever way to gain credibility.

            While there’s no way to tell now, in my younger, more gullible days I had a couple of visions. I don’t think we can conclude that Paul did not.

  37. On re-reading this post (because I’m subbed to comments): I am struck by the transition from portraying the Kingdom of God as a literal event in the near future, to a present spiritual state. This is, as I understand it, pretty much what the JWs did: Christ was supposed to return and usher in the Millienium in 1914. When he failed to show up, it was (and AFAIK, still is) claimed that he returned “spiritually”. Seems like a standard maneuver for dealing with failed apocalypses. (And maybe akin to the idiocy as we’re seeing from the more fanatical Trumpoids: he’s really still the POTUS, and having not returned on Jan 6, is now supposed to resume the presidency sometime in August).

    1. It definitely seems to be the pattern across history when it comes to these kinds of prophetic movements. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are certainly a classic modern example. Their founder, Charles Taze Russell, preached an end times message that declared the apocalypse would come in 1914. When this failed to happen, the teaching was adjusted to say that the generation that was alive in 1914 would see the apocalypse. This extended the life of Russell’s teaching and saw great excitement over the imminence of the Kingdom of God in 1975. When that also failed to happen, the “generation” teaching was emphasised again, given that there were, at that stage, still plenty of people born in 1914. But as they died off the teaching had to be adjusted again and in 2010 the whole 1914 idea was officially abandoned. Now the official teaching is that “this generation” did not just mean those alive in 1914, but also that those “anointed with holy spirit during the time that [the 1914 generation] were still on earth and that this second group will not die “before seeing the start of the great tribulation” (see the Watchtower article “Let Your Kingdom Come – But When?” Jan, 2014). So the JWs have bought themselves another generation of expectation. It remains to be seen how they will fiddle things when that generation also dies, but history shows that they will.

    2. “the transition from portraying the Kingdom of God …..”
      I speculate that it’s a case of cognitive dissonance triggered by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The proto-christians (they were initially just another a jewish movement) realized that the prophetized apocalypse hadn’t happened. That motivated them to write the Gospels, for which up to then there was no need.

  38. Either Jesus himself was an apocalyptic prophet, or many of his early followers misinterpreted his message that way.

    The trouble is there’s no external evidence to prove that Matt/Mark are earlier than Luke, Thomas, or John. It’s possible that John or Thomas represent what Jesus actually preached. If for example Thomas is the most authentic, then its presentation of Jesus having secret wisdom that not everybody understood would mean that most listeners thought Jesus was preaching standard Jewish apocalyptic ideas, but really he was preaching a timeless spiritual reality.

    It’s not really possible to say for sure IMO. Also, while Paul does expect Jesus’ parousia he believes it because of his belief in Jesus’ resurrection – just as Jesus rose from the dead, so will we. He never quotes an apocalyptic saying of Jesus, yet he paraphrases Jesus’ teaching on divorce for example.

    So I just don’t know for sure. The apocalyptic Jesus is very likely, but it’s not certain. It’s possible to was an earthly corruption of his true message.

    1. ” … there’s no external evidence to prove that Matt/Mark are earlier than Luke, Thomas, or John … “

      It would be nice if we had such “external evidence” and it would be even nicer if it was so clear that we could actually “prove” the accepted dating of those texts. But we don’t and we can’t. The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of scholars accept that gMark is earlier than gMatt and gLuke and that all three are earlier than gJohn and gThomas. This is for sound reasons that have nothing to do with apocalyptic content, so the fact that the earlier gospels are more apocalyptic than the later ones is significant.

      “Also, while Paul does expect Jesus’ parousia he believes it because of his belief in Jesus’ resurrection – just as Jesus rose from the dead, so will we. “

      Sorry, but you can’t just ignore the fact that this belief in a coming general resurrection was a standard apocalyptic idea and so pretend that this belief of Paul’s is not an apocalyptic expectation.

      ” He never quotes an apocalyptic saying of Jesus, yet he paraphrases Jesus’ teaching on divorce for example.”

      We only have seven letters of Paul’s corpus and that teaching on divorce is one of the very, very few times he cites a teaching of Jesus on anything. So the fact he doesn’t refer directly to any apocalyptic teaching of Jesus’ means nothing in this context. The fact is that everything Paul says fits apocalyptic beliefs. And Jesus was preceded by another apocalypcist – John the Baptist. So he is preceded by one apocalyptic preacher (John) and followed by another (Paul). This means it makes little to no sense that he wasn’t an apocalyptic preacher also.

      “The apocalyptic Jesus is very likely, but it’s not certain. “

      People who like things which are “certain” should avoid NT Studies completely. Or ancient history for that matter. Nothing can be “certain”.

      “It’s possible to was an earthly corruption of his true message.”

      Lots of things are merely “possible”. This particular one is highly unlikely given the evidence available. This is why most non-Christian critical scholars (i.e. the ones not encumbered by a need to accept Jesus as being right about everything) conclude he was an apocalyptic preacher.

  39. There’s problems I have with this hypothesis that make me uncertain of it.

    First, there’s the fact that scholars debate about what the “kingdom of God” even is, Jesus gives multiple terms and definitions for the Kingdom of God.(Matthew 13:31, Luke 17:21, Mark4:30-32, John )Jesus never gives a clear definition to the Kingdom of God and refers it to multiple things(Mustard Seed). Which means verses like Mark 9:1 could just be referring to something entirely different from the Kingdom of God.(ex. Heaven) The theory relies on a specific definition for “the Kingdom of God” as the coming of the son of man

    Second, is that I haven’t seen any concrete evidence in Mark:13 that every single thing mentioned is supposed to happen in quick succession with the destruction of the 2nd Temple. There are some reasons to doubt that all signs were supposed to happen at once. Jesus’s statement in Mark 13:30 “all these things” repeats the Disciples’ “all these things” in their question. Matthew’s version the Disciple’s question replaces “and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” with “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age” which can imply two separate events. The phrase “but concerning that day” implies the destruction is separate from the end of the world(mentioned by another commenter). Before I end this paragraph I will mention a single verse that’s implies the end was to happen in the end. “For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be”(spoken very shortly after Jesus tells people to flee to the mountains after the abomination)

    Another verse I will point out in your article that is more for your case is Revelation 22:10. The prophecies were not meant to be sealed up, because they were about to take place soon. Contrasting Daniel 12:4. I’m surprised the verse was not even mentioned.

    1
    2
    1. ” … scholars debate about what the “kingdom of God” even is … “

      Most of that “debate” consists of efforts by scholars, mostly Christian ones, trying to avoid the awkward implications of this phrase referring to an imminent apocalyptic beginning of the “rule of God”.

      “Jesus gives multiple terms and definitions for the Kingdom of God”

      Everything Jesus is depicted as saying about this “kingdom/kingship” in gMark and gMatt fits the apocalyptic interpretation. Ditto for most of what he is depicted as saying about it in gLuke, since most of that is straight from either gMark or the Q material. Luke 17:21 is an exception, marking a need to begin to avoid the implications of the continuing non-arrival of the promised apocalyptic kingdom. Then we see this even more so in gJohn, where the “kingdom” takes a back seat to the fulfilled coming of Jesus himself. So it’s not good enough to simply gesture to these differing ideas of the “kingdom” and claim that it is not defined as one thing. You’re ignoring the progression of the concept away from the original apocalyptic conception to ideas that were more easy to conform to the fact that the promised apocalypse continued to not arrive.

      “There are some reasons to doubt that all signs were supposed to happen at once. Jesus’s statement in Mark 13:30 “all these things” repeats the Disciples’ “all these things” in their question. ”

      Jesus predicts the fall of the Temple, they as when “all these things” will take place. He gives his sequence of events leading up to the coming of the kingdom of God and says “all these things” would take place before they die. Nothing implies that he is only referring to the fall of the Temple and not everything else he details as well.

      ““and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” [is replaced] with “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age” which can imply two separate events. “

      How? They refer to the same thing.

      “The phrase “but concerning that day” implies the destruction is separate from the end of the world”

      Another strained reading.

      “I’m surprised the verse was not even mentioned.”

      My article never claimed to be comprehensive. There are whole books on this stuff.

      1. Thank you for responding.(seriously, thank you I am not trying to be rude.) I will clarify some on some of my statements more.

        Matthew 24’s version of the Disciple’s question: “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
        “When will these things happen”(the destruction of the temple)” and “what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?(the end of the world)”. The disciples saying “these things” and then going on to ask a question that isn’t related to the destruction of the temple(“your coming”) implies that they are two separate questions about two different things. It isn’t the same in the other versions of the Oliviet Discourse(the disciple’s question doesn’t even mention the coming), but the fact that the questions are different at all can add more clarity to what Jesus is prophesying about in that passage. Also, it also synergizes with what I’m going to say in my next paragraph.

        When I was talking about “concerning that day” I was quoting another commenter who said that the greek Jesus uses, “peri de”, is used to introduce a new subject(forgive me for not using quotes or directly referencing it). After Jesus says “but concerning that day” He says: “no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come”. The greek Jesus uses to introduce something separate from Mark 13:30 implies that it’s different from the destruction of the temple. This also fits in with Matthew’s version of the disciple’s question, where Jesus is answering about the destruction of the temple and then answers them about the end of the world.

        There are some arguments to what I have clarified on. Mark and Luke’s Oliviet discourse talking about the temple, doesn’t have “what will be the sign of your coming” combined with Mark’s higher authenticity. Jesus speaking of many signs that are also brought up again in Revelation. A lot of debate surrounds Mark 13, and a lot of it is dependent upon what exactly “all these things” means. People focus on “this generation” for some reason

        There is something I would like to ask. Which books listed in your article go into more detail about the Kingdom of God having a set apocalyptic definition and Luke 17:21 being a coping verse rather than an authentic saying of Jesus?

        1. ” … the fact that the questions are different at all can add more clarity to what Jesus is prophesying about in that passage. …”

          Which is putting a hell of a lot of weight on the fact that a single simple and extremely common word (the demonstrative pronoun ταῦτα – “these [things]”) is used twice in the same passage. Far too much weight to sustain an argument.

          ” The greek Jesus uses to introduce something separate from Mark 13:30 implies that it’s different from the destruction of the temple. “

          Yes. Because it is. The destruction of the Temple is a precursor to the final revelation of the Kingdom of God. I can’t see how that helps you.

          “Mark and Luke’s Oliviet discourse talking about the temple, doesn’t have “what will be the sign of your coming” combined with Mark’s higher authenticity.”

          I can’t work out what you’re arguing here.

          ” A lot of debate surrounds Mark 13″

          Of course there is. Because Christians have to try to find a way for Jesus not to be wrong about the imminence of the apocalypse.

          “Which books listed in your article go into more detail about the Kingdom of God having a set apocalyptic definition and Luke 17:21 being a coping verse rather than an authentic saying of Jesus?”

          All of them.

  40. I have tried and failed to understand what exactly a greek demonstrative pronoun is and what it implies in Mark 13:30. (haute). I’m guessing it’s not a word used for future tense (because “those” is used elsewhere in the verse) and it implies a more present demonstrative(as in, the one standing right in front of me here) rather than something about the future.

    “Yes. Because it is. The destruction of the Temple is a precursor to the final revelation of the Kingdom of God. I can’t see how that helps you.”

    Where does the verse or Bible say that? Especially since Jesus is introducing the end of the world as a new subject in Mark 13:31 It would be really weird to introduce a new subject, have it separate from the previous subject, say He doesn’t know when the new subject will happen, and that indicated it was to come after the end of the world. I don’t know where it says that the end of the world was to follow shortly after the destruction of the temple or it being a precursor to the kingdom of God.

    One thing I forgot to ask in my last post, what are your thoughts on Michael Heiser’s article on this topic(“Was Jesus a Failed Prophet?” is the title of his article)? He argues that prophecy is conditional(ex. Jonah and Nathan.). and that eschatological delay is normal in the Old Testament. to quote his article:

    “Here’s the short answer to ‘Was Jesus a failed prophet?’ Yes, if you don’t understand the idea of conditional prophecy, which occurs frequently in the Bible, and therefore read the New Testament deficiently. (Even shorter: Yes, if you’re ignorant).”

    I do not think it’s really a bad position to have, as there are plenty of prophecies in the Old Testament that change according to the behavior of others. My question is: where is the end of the world implied to change according to others behaviors. Especially since Christianity wasn’t widespread during that time(Not many people changed their behaviors). If you don’t think it’s worth your time to look at his article, you don’t have to, as his arguments are detailed by three scholarly essays he links to.

    Anyway, I guess I should start reading those books soon.

    1. “I have tried and failed to understand what exactly a greek demonstrative pronoun is”

      In Greek, as in any language, a demonstrative pronoun is one that points to specific things: e.g. “this”, “that”, “these”, and “those”. You’ve taken the fact that the one used here – ταῦτα – is used twice in Mark 13 and so decided that this somehow means the things it refers to is the same in both cases. That is not sustained by the grammar. In both cases it simply refers to the things just mentioned. So in v. 4 it refers to the destruction of the Temple that Jesus has just mentioned and in v. 30 it refers to the sequence of events leading to the final apocalypse and last judgement.

      “I’m guessing it’s not a word used for future tense”

      It’s a pronoun, so it has no tense at all.

      “Where does the verse or Bible say that? “

      In the sequence of events Jesus details. His reference to the βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως (Abonination of the desolation/desolating sacrilege) in v. 14, along with the author’s note “(let the reader understand)” is a veiled reference to the Romans profaning the Temple by sacrificing to their legionary standards there after the fall of Jerusalem. Then we get the sequence of events leading directly to the final judgement.

      “Jesus is introducing the end of the world as a new subject in Mark 13:31 ”

      Pardon? No, he isn’t.

      “what are your thoughts on Michael Heiser’s article on this topic”

      Heiser is a Christian who believes Jesus was God Incarnate. So he has to find a way for Jesus not to be wrong. Handwaving about how “conditional prophecy” is common in the OT isn’t exactly convincing. Of course “eschatological delay is normal in the Old Testament”. That’s because these prophecies have an inconvenient habit of not coming true and so have to be fiddled with to try to preserve them. This is normal for all prophecies, given that they usually fail. This is also what Christians try to do with Jesus’ reported prophecies in the earliest texts, because if they admit he was wrong, they have to admit he wasn’t God and was just another Jewish preacher. And then they have to abandon their faith completely. Most people can’t bring themselves to do that – thus all the pretzel logic and text twisting we see to try to get around this problem. I suspect that’s your motivation as well.

      1. I read Bart D. Ehrman’s: “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium” recently and I was going to state my thoughts on the hypothesis, however the comment ended up being too long and I wanted to put my questions here. I have made a Pastebin of my thoughts if you or anyone else is interested in it. The The short version is: that: with what little info we have outside the gospels, I think that cherry-picking scriptures, sayings of Jesus, to make a character of Jesus outside of the gospels, epistles, while lessening other things Jesus said, doesn’t make as much sense as what is traditionally understood about Jesus. The most notable part is where I say Luke has verses that could be interpreted as being more apocalyptic(Luke 21:20 and Luke 23:29), so I don’t think the evidence is strong enough for Luke 17:21 not being an authentic saying of Jesus (at least according to this book). Thoughts on the Book? Pretty good intro to historicity of Jesus, even though I don’t completely agree with the later parts of the book. In a nutshell. The hypothesis is pretty much what Jesus preached minus Himself claiming to be the Son of God and other things.
        (Pasebin) https://pastebin.com/ffiSewwq)

        I now consider false prophecy of the end of the world to be one small part of the overall the apocalyptic Jesus hypothesis. false eschatological prophecy does point to apocalyptic, but it doesn’t tell you the big picture about who the historical Jesus was outside the gospels. The New Testament does not contain direct prophecy on exactly when the 2nd coming is supposed to happen. Mark 13 is probably the only passage in the entire New Testament that could imply a direct date for the end (you could argue for Mark 9:1, but he was only talking to His disciples and the transfiguration happened to those He was talking to afterward so that’s another can of worms. Matthew 10:23 is and odd verse to argue and apocalyptic Jesus because Jesus tells His disciples in Mark 13:1 that “the gospel must first be published among all nations.”). It is difficult to call Jesus and the early Christian writers false prophets when none of them actually state when the end is supposed to happen, they just say it will happen “soon”. What I was trying to say in my original comment(not very well) was that it’s not clear which parts of Matthew 24’s prophesies are about the temple, if they’re about the apocalypse, both, or that they’re about the temple, but the second coming was just thrown at the very end. if most of the prophesies are about the temple and not about the apocalypse. you can’t call Jesus a false prophet since the temple was destroyed like He said it would and if He knew neither the day nor hour (looking at Mark 13 again, in verse 24 Jesus says: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,”. so i think what matters now is if the abomination was related to the destruction of the temple and “that tribulation” is talking about the destruction of the temple or about something that comes later after the temple. In your Your 3rd response to me you said that the abomination plus the note (let the reader understand) is referring to the Temple’s’ destruction are there any resources on this?).

        What gives more authority for Mark 13 being a false prophecy over other people stating it is not? To say it another way, what makes the false prophecy view more accurate than something like R.C. Sprouls’ view that Jesus was professing judgment toward the Jews and that the Jewish age would end soon and that the time of the Gentiles would come in its place. Or this person’s alternative translation for Matthew 24:34 He translates “until all these things take place” to actually mean “until perhaps all these things take place”. That person can translate the scripture to say that, but that doesn’t mean that is what the scripture actually says. (the video In case you’re curious /watch?v=RpG55aPV9BA)

        Are there any books or scholarly works about Mark 13 that addresses apologetic reasons and/or gives stronger evidence and for Mark 13 being a false prophecy?

        Since you mentioned Daniel, Daniel has confused me ever since I read the whole book from start to finish in one sitting. There are so many specific local prophecies that only apply to the time Daniel was written(“As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia.” for example). If I remember correctly, there are not any world ending events prophesied until the very end of the book with Michael and the resurrection of the dead in Daniel 12 linking to Daniel 11. It’s hard for me to tell if the prophecies in Daniel were trying to say that the world will end around when it was written, if some of them were eschatological like Daniel 7:13-14, but not all of them. or if the prophecies are just things that must happen to lead until the end, or about things that will lead to the time of Jesus. It’s also hard for me to tell if every single prophecy was intended to be local. My question is, if someone thinks that Daniel is about how the world is going to end when it was written, how do people come to that conclusion? In Daniel 12:7’s “time, times and half a time.” isn’t very specific.

        A bit off topic but, I asked about Revelation 22:10 and how it linked to Daniel 12:9 and the answer I got was, pretty much “Yeah, they’re linked, but Revelation was written for theopolitical reasons.” I never got an answer on whether or not the phrase “don’t seal up these words” implied that Revelation was going to happen very shortly. Daniel 12:9 implies that the prophecies we’re to be sealed up until the end, yet Revelation 22:10 says not to seal them up. So I’m even more confused about eschatology and what people think of those two books.

        I want to understand and learn more about eschatological prophecy My first comment talking about “the sign of your coming” and “all these things” being two separate events based solely on Matthew’s version isn’t very good. Me giving Matthew higher authority than other gospels can also be used against it with verses like Matthew 16:28: “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”. Arguing that Matthew has the “right” version while not applying the same principal to that verse can create a double standard. My original argument about the Mount of Olives prophecy is about a very tiny part of the overall prophecy and context. If I’m wrong or misunderstanding anything I would like to know and be corrected.

        1
        1
  41. ‘So the idea of a return of the Jewish king of Israel became entangled in these cosmic ideas about a war between God and Satan and an angelic, pre-existent Messiah who was coming to earth to save God’s people.’
    This confuses me. I know that the jews had many different views about how their messiah was supposed to be. But I thought they always viewed him as a man. A special man (king, warrior, prophet, priest,…) indeed, but a man. I was not aware that some viewed him as some kind of real celestiel being that was pre-existing in the heavens and that came to earth from the heavens. Could you shed some light on what is you source for this. honest question.

    1. There is clear evidence of Jewish beliefs in the heavenly pre-existence of many things, including the Torah, the Temple and even, in some traditions, all people who will ever exist. The evidence that some expected the Messiah to also have a heavenly pre-existence is very clear and extremely well known. In 1Enoch, for example, the writer talks of seeing the Messiah in heaven and being told “Before the sun and signs were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits” (1Enoch 48:3). For a detailed discussion see George A. Barton, “On the Jewish-Christian Doctrine of the Pre-Existence of the Messiah”, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1902, Vol. 21, No. 1 (1902), pp. 78-91

  42. I appreciate the work you’ve done, but I still feel the same way I felt when you visited FreethoughtBlogs: while “Jesus mythicism” as a movement described by that label may be perpetually and badly in error in many of their arguments, historians such as yourself are failing in what I see as your ethical duty to make clear that the Jesus worshipped by Christians today **is** a myth.

    You take pains to point to a Jesus that preached imminent apocalypse. Accepting that as true, Jesus was a false prophet: his apocalypse did not arrive. To focus on random mythicists as historically misguided without making clear that critiquing the movement is not critiquing the idea that the worshipped Jesus is a myth seems to me to be quite reckless. It is not, after all, the Jesus mythicists who are writing laws based on ethical systems entirely unjustifiable unless so-called Jesus mythicism is true. Yet we live in an age of theocratic movements, such as the USA’s Christian Nationalism which depend for the justification of their legal discrimination of others on the existence (and supremacy) of a Jesus who can only be a myth, assuming your scholarship is correct.

    I don’t begrudge you your hobbies, and if anti-theists annoy you and you wish to focus your scholarship on their mistakes, so be it. But discipline of history owes much better to the world than it has given on this issue, and I encourage you to more accurately represent the state of scholarship as disproving the worshipped Jesus. For instance, your section, “The Great Myths” as near as I can tell never mentions the irreconcilable disparity between your apocalyptic Jesus and the worshipped Jesus. Why is the myth of the first century existence of the 21st century worshipped Jesus not worthy of mention, when that myth is far more damaging to discourse itself as well as to society more generally?

    Again, I do not begrudge you your freedom to determine the focus of your own inquiry. Instead, I am merely using you as an example to make a more general point about the field of historic inquiry into the person of Jesus and early Christianities.

    The myth of Jesus must be debunked by someone because of the damage that it continues to do. If not by you, then who?

    =================
    The main point out of the way, I quote this small bit of your writing:
    “All Christians and even most non-Christians are familiar with “the Beatitudes”: a sermon by Jesus reported in Matt 5:3-12 and in a variant form in Luke 6:20-22 which celebrates this cosmic reversal:”

    I do so only to say that “even most non-Christians” seems horrifically over broad in a world of nearly 8 billion people. You sure you want to stick with that?

    1. “Historians such as yourself are failing in what I see as your ethical duty to make clear that the Jesus worshipped by Christians today **is** a myth.”

      We don’t say that because, unlike you, we know how the relevant terminology is used.

      ” I encourage you to more accurately represent the state of scholarship as disproving the worshipped Jesus. “

      What the hell do you think the article above is doing?

      ““The Great Myths” as near as I can tell never mentions the irreconcilable disparity between your apocalyptic Jesus and the worshipped Jesus. “

      Because they are the “Great Myths” of ATHEIST bad history.

      “The myth of Jesus must be debunked by someone because of the damage that it continues to do. If not by you, then who?”

      Yes, maybe I could – oh, I don’t know – WRITE A WHOLE DETAILED ARTICLE ON HOW JESUS WAS A FAILED APOCALYPTIC PREACHER? Something like that maybe?

      “I do so only to say that “even most non-Christians” seems horrifically over broad in a world of nearly 8 billion people. You sure you want to stick with that?”

      Yes. Take your snivelling attempts at nitpicking somewhere else.

    2. “I see as your ethical duty to make clear that the Jesus worshipped by Christians today **is** a myth”
      The only ethical duty historians have is telling as accurately as possible what happened. Now even historians are more than just historians, so ToN might have other ethical duties as well (though I think it utterly arrogant when strangers like you and me try to tell him which ones). But then he’s not doing history anymore.
      Given this quote you think propaganda more important than science. So you should think about your own ethical duties as a self-proclaimed rationalist first before criticizing others.

  43. Hey Tim quick question. You say that the idea of hell seems to have developed around the intertestimental period. Do you think that since Isaiah 66:24, when it talks about the righteous going to look on the dead bodies of the wicked, was probably composed after the Babylonian exile, and thus most likely during the inertestimental period, do you think this is addressing the changes that were going on in Judaism at this time period. And also, the author of 2 Peter, in 2 Peter 2:4 states that God sent the angels who sinned into chains of darkness in hell. Now the word for hell in this verse actually is the word Tartarus in the original Greek. Do you think this is evidence that the author drew on this concept from Greek Mythology?

  44. Hey Tim, this isn’t really that big of a deal but some of the Jewish works that you cited like 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, or the Testament of Judah I’m pretty sure date to after 70 ad and possibly even later, which is long after the gospels were written, so I can’t really see how that’s “earlier” than the gospels as you say but if I’m missing anything at all, feel free to correct me. I only think this is worth mentioning these texts would have been written after Christianity got going so they have may have been independent of the gospels or other early Christian literature or they may have been dependent on them in some way, so I can’t really how these texts are “earlier” as you seem to put it. But again, I might be missing something so if I am, feel free to correct me.

    1. Yes, those works post-date the beginning of the Jesus Sect. But they are included because they reflect the apocalyptic context in which the Jesus Sect arose and the well-established, earlier Jewish apocalyptic tradition. And no, the idea they were influenced by the tiny sect that was, later, to become Christianity is unlikely to the point of being not worth considering.

    2. After 70AD is not “long after the gospels were written
      2 Baruch seems roughly within the range of Luke Acts
      4 Ezra seems to be withing earshot of Matthew, Luke, John and Revelation

  45. Oh so you’re basically just saying that they’re independent of the Christian literature but they still reflect the older Jewish traditions about the apocalypse? And also, would it be fair to say that the vast majority of Jewish apocalyptic works come from AFTER Christianity began because aside from a few, like Enoch, Daniel, Josephus, or the Dead Sea scrolls, we don’t really have much. The vast majority of Jewish apocryphal works don’t really talk about the apocalypse at all as far as I can tell, and neither does the vast majority of early Christian literature, so how widespread was the idea? And you said that it’s unclear how widely accepted these theories were but how would a Jewish peasant from Galilee of the lower class even be aware of these ideas? Where would he have gotten them from?

    1. Oh so you’re basically just saying that they’re independent of the Christian literature but they still reflect the older Jewish traditions about the apocalypse?

      Yes. It ‘s not like they sprang out of nowhere. And we have older Jewish texts that show us this is the case. This is the apocalyptic context in which Jesus operated and out of which the Jesus sect arose.

      And also, would it be fair to say that the vast majority of Jewish apocalyptic works come from AFTER Christianity began because aside from a few, like Enoch, Daniel, Josephus, or the Dead Sea scrolls, we don’t really have much.

      No, not the “vast majority”. Especially since we can’t really start talking about anything called “Christianity” (as opposed to varying forms of the Jesus Sect), until the mid second century.

      The vast majority of Jewish apocryphal works don’t really talk about the apocalypse at all as far as I can tell, and neither does the vast majority of early Christian literature, so how widespread was the idea?

      Fairly widespread, but not the only Jewish tradition there was. And ALL of the very earliest Christian literature is apocalyptic.

      And you said that it’s unclear how widely accepted these theories were but how would a Jewish peasant from Galilee of the lower class even be aware of these ideas?

      I explained how – they were common enough at the time and particularly appealing to Jewish peasants in the early decades of the first century.

      Where would he have gotten them from?

      From apocalyptic preachers. Like John the Baptist. And – lo and behold – that’s exactly what the gospels depict.

  46. Well as far as I can tell, the only Pauline epistle that is genuinely apocalyptic is 1 Thessalonians, the rest of them just talk about the resurrection and how Christians should live their day to day lives. It seems very weird because the gospels are full of apocalyptic expectations and we can clearly see this evolving in the process however the Pauline epistles, which were written before the gospels, barely place any emphasis on it at all. That’s weird. And are you basically saying that ALL Jewish preachers from this time would have bad access to these ideas, even ones like Theudas, the Egyptian prophet, Honi the circle drawer, Judas of Galilee, the Samaritan, etc.? And we we’re not really sure if 1 Thessalonians was written first; some scholars suggest Galatians was written first.

    1. Well as far as I can tell …

      Then the problem here seems to be your lack of understanding of the material. ALL of the seven letters of Paul are fundamentally apocalyptic. !Cor 15:51-57 is an apocalyptic summary, for example. But Paul’s main emphasis was on Jesus’ resurrection as a prefigurement of the coming apocalypse and the general resurrection of the dead. So everything he says about that only makes sense in an apocalyptic context.

      the rest of them just talk about the resurrection and how Christians should live their day to day lives.

      Yes. Until the imminent apocalypse comes. See above.

      That’s weird.

      No, you just don’t understand the material. Read Paula Fredriksen on Paul in the context of Jewish apocalyptic.

      And are you basically saying that ALL Jewish preachers from this time would have bad access to these ideas, even ones like Theudas, the Egyptian prophet, Honi the circle drawer, Judas of Galilee, the Samaritan, etc.?

      Yes. That doesn’t mean all of their messages were apocalyptic – Judaism in this period was pluralist and eclectic. But what little we know about Theudas and, particularly, the Egyptian indicate they too were apocalyptic preachers.

      And we we’re not really sure if 1 Thessalonians was written first; some scholars suggest Galatians was written first.

      So? Both are completely apocalyptic works.

      1. Hey Tim, I know I’m a little late, but when you said “Read Paula Fredriksen on Paul in the context of Jewish apocalyptic”, were you referring to her book, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle?

  47. Tim I would like to ask you what you think of the Corinthian passage 1 in which it is said that Jesus died and rose after three days according to the scriptures. I have come to understand that many critics believe that Paul had a vision and that since he compares his vision to that of Peter and the disciples before him, theirs should also be a vision. But my doubt arises from the fact that 1 Corini says that three days after the burial he was resurrected. If it was just a vision that everyone mentioned had why did you write that after three days of burial he was resurrected? Doesn’t that prove it was a physical resurrection? I ask you to remove this doubt that I have. Thank you

    1. But my doubt arises from the fact that 1 Corini says that three days after the burial he was resurrected.

      How does this counter the idea that his “appearances” were visions? Paul says nothing about an empty grave or tomb and gives no indication of the resurrection as the physical revivification of a corpse. And 1Cor 15 is a long discussion of how the physical body will be left behind and give rise to an exalted “spiritual body” the way a seed dies to give rise to a new plant. Nothing indicates that Paul thought Jesus came back to life in his old body and left his grave.

      1. >>And 1Cor 15 is a long discussion of how the physical body will be left behind and give rise to an exalted “spiritual body”

        Well, doesn’t that beat all!

    2. Not speaking for Tim,

      I would say a couple of things
      Note that in Acts(10)Peter goes into a trance and has a vision. His famous kill and eat vision. Paul, likewise, is depicted (Acts 22:1) as saying he “fell into a trance” and had an exchange with Jesus. Clearly, if this happened, it is not just Jesus appearing, but perhaps a ritually induced trance leading to these “visions”
      Also noting that Paul said Jesus rose on the third day is not evidence of a physical resurrection, but only a belief about Jesus rising from the dead. They may have believed it was physical, but it doesn’t “prove a physical resurrection”

  48. All good points but which do you think was written first? Also, adding on to what Luca said about the resurrection, I believe it was just a vision like you do, but if it was just a vision that Paul had on the road to Damascus then why was he blind for 3 days? He must have actually saw something for him to be blind, other than it just being a hallucination or something. And it’s very unlikely that the author of Acts would’ve made up something like that.

    1. All good points but which do you think was written first?

      Hard to say. But both were most likely written in the 50s AD, so for the purposes of this discussion I can’t see how it matters which was written first.

      if it was just a vision that Paul had on the road to Damascus then why was he blind for 3 days?

      Paul says nothing about this. That’s from Acts.

      And it’s very unlikely that the author of Acts would’ve made up something like that.

      On the contrary, we can’t rely on Acts for much that is actually historical at all, especially fine and dramatic details like this.

      1. Well it just seems like cherry picking to say that Acts is wrong about Paul being blind for three days while, in the same passage, agreeing to the fact that he had a vision of Jesus.

        1. Did you read my comment? I said we can’t rely on Acts for anything much. Including that. But Paul tells us that he had this vision. In 1Cor 15. That’s why I say he had the vision – he tells us. Not because of Acts.

          1. Yes but the issue is that Paul never says he had a “vision” of Jesus; he simply says that Jesus “appeared” to him without elaborating on what he meant. The only descriptive account of his encounter with Jesus is in Acts, which is most likely independent of Paul. The only reason why anyone thinks Paul had a “vision” is because of Acts. It’s because of how descriptive it is, so people see a “vision” in Acts when it really isn’t a vision. And to claim that Acts thought Paul had a “vision” is nonsense because Acts specifically tells us that Jesus spoke to Paul verbally. But I guess none of that matters since, like you said, we’re not sure if that’s actually what happened or not.

          2. Yes but the issue is that Paul never says he had a “vision” of Jesus; he simply says that Jesus “appeared” to him without elaborating on what he meant.

            Given when Paul says that and the word he uses (ὁράω) he is talking about a vision of some kind.

            The only reason why anyone thinks Paul had a “vision” is because of Acts.

            Wrong. Jacob, it might be a good idea for you to stop making statements and stick to asking questions.

          3. Where in 1 Corinthians 15 is the word ὁράω used? The only word I can find that comes close to that is “appear” is ὤφθη, which means appear to or to see. It doesn’t give an indication of “how” Jesus appeared to Paul, only that according to Paul, he did. How are you seeing vision here? And I can do both quite well.

          4. Where in 1 Corinthians 15 is the word ὁράω used? The only word I can find that comes close to that is “appear” is ὤφθη, which means appear to or to see.

            This is basic Greek grammar. ὤφθη is a form of the verb ὁράω. Its aorist indicative third person singular form, to be exact.

            It doesn’t give an indication of “how” Jesus appeared to Paul, only that according to Paul, he did. How are you seeing vision here?

            Context. Paul himself says he saw Jesus “last of all, as to one untimely born” (v. 8). From other references he makes in his letters, this seems to have been several years after Jesus’ execution. So unless he is describing a scenario where a physical, resurrected Jesus was hanging around Judea for several years, this seems to be some kind of vision, not a meeting with a risen, physical Jesus (otherwise we’d need to ask where Paul thought this physical risen Jesus went to afterwards, since he no longer seems to be around when Paul is writing). So it seems all the appearances he refers to here are visions, including his own, because he uses the same form of the verb ὁράω for all of them and only differentiates his experience as being later in time, not different in nature. So, it’s a vision he’s talking about.

            And I can do both quite well.

            You can do both. Whether you can both well, given your very limited knowledge, is the issue. I don’t say things unless I have very good reasons. That’s the benefit of reading on and discussing this stuff for twice as long as you’ve been alive. So the smarter approach for you would be to understand this and ask me why I’m saying something first, not to jump straight to disagreeing with me.

          5. Oh yeah I actually figured out the first part of your comment immediately after I posted it so thanks for explaining that. I was just confused on what you were trying to say about Acts and Paul’s view on the resurrection because I couldn’t find anywhere in Paul’s works, before you explained it to me, a reference to Paul seeing Jesus in a vision. And, clumsy me, I completely forgot that 1 Corinthians 15 was written in Greek, not English. I think the reason why I was confused was because I was using an English translation, not reading the passage in its original language. And the reason why I didn’t find your view convincing on Paul only seeing Jesus in a “vision” was because I was confused on what the word “vision” meant. Paul says that Jesus “appeared” to him, so I thought he was describing the same experience that is recorded in Acts. But I was also confused because both Paul’s letters and the book of Acts say that Paul was a persecutor of the Jesus sect before his conversion but that somehow, through his “vision”, he eventually converted. But then the question arises of what type of “vision” that was that made him convert and become one of the strongest defenders of Christianity in history. My confusion really all came down to why did Paul convert? And I do understand your point about asking questions instead of making statements at this age, however, I don’t think making statements is necessarily bad, as long as they’re accurate. But I know this is getting off topic so I won’t dive into it anymore here, but I just wanted to explain my perspective.

    2. ‘And it’s very unlikely that the author of Acts would’ve made up something like that.’

      Well, the author of Acts writes in the same section that after his blindness was cured Paul spent his time learning from the apostles and then started preaching, etc… but in Galatians Paul says that what he did, as soon as he’d had his vision, was to go up to Arabia and then Damascus, and he’s quite specific that he did *not* go to see the apostles until three years later. So at least one of those two is not giving an accurate account of events. I think it’s fair to say that these authors would embroider/alter events if it suited.

      1. Im compressing the heck out of this to fit here, but Allison argues in his book on the resurrection that

        Paul’s casts his prophetic self conception in terms of both Jeremiah and Isaiah. Note that the idea that Paul claims to have been called implies a verbal element within that experience” attributes his missionary work among the Gentiles to his Christophany (Gal. 1:16). And he relates that, shortly after his calling, he “returned to Damascus,” which suggests that his new life began in that city’s environs (Gal. 1:17). If, moreover, 2 Cor. 4:6 (“God…has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”) adverts to Paul’s vision of Jesus—an uncertain issue —this would line up with the accounts in Acts, where Paul sees a spectacular light..

        So, the story of Paul’s blindness may be figurative. Im tempted to ask whether the idea that Paul’s companions in chapter 9 hear the voice but see no one is a way of saying they received the call, but did not understand. At any rate, Acts also has both Peter and Paul go into trances before having a vision and I don’t think we can ignore the implication that this state may have been induced which makes visions/hallucinations more likely both for individuals and groups

  49. One thing that I’ve wondered too is that is Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:12 a good objection to the idea that the apocalypse was coming soon because Christian apologists use it all the time and they’ll say that the reason why Jesus hasn’t come back yet is because he didn’t believe that it was coming soon because he said in Matthew 24:36 that of that day and hour no one knows, which they interpret as referring to the apocalypse. Is this a good objection? And also they’ll argue along similar lines and say that the “we” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 isn’t really talking about Paul and the Thessalonians but that Paul’s just using that term to refer to the group of Christians in the future who will see the apocalypse. Is that a good objection as well?

    1. Is this a good objection?

      No. The idea that the apocalypse will happen despite no-one knowing exactly when is completely compatible with the idea that it is coming very soon. In fact, that adds to the urgency of what the preacher is saying.

      Is that a good objection as well?

      Given it goes exactly against the clear sense of the text, no it’s not.

  50. Yeah it’s not really relevant but I thought it was worth mentioning just because there’s disagreement among scholars as to whether or not it mentioned the Jerusalem council. If it did, then it must have been written prior to 49-50 ad which is when most scholars date the council. I was just trying to be as accurate as I could. I think you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m a person who pays huge attention to technical details.

  51. Mike I just meant I was gonna concede to the fact that you were right about the dating of the Jewish apocryphal works.

  52. Luca one thing you probably should also know is that the Greek word that is used in 1 Corinthians 15:4 is etaphe which usually implies an actual bodily entombment which potentially strengthens the case for Jesus actually being buried. The passion narrative, (basically Mark 14-16) also describes Jesus’s physical bodily resurrection as well as his entombment and since most scholars date this to 30 to 60 ad, this is also another very early text as well.

    1. What Paul says in 1Cor 15 does indicate he believed Jesus was buried, though this does not indicate “buried in a tomb”. He never mentions the “empty tomb” element that is central to the later accounts. But everything else he says in 1Cor 15 does not indicate a bodily resurrection, in the sense of the former dead body of Jesus coming back to life. Quite the opposite – all of his discussion of physical versus spiritual bodies and seeds dying to give rise to a new plant all indicate that he saw Jesus’ resurrection as something other than simply a revivification of a dead body and saw it as a more spiritual phenomenon. The physical resurrection idea came later, as reflected in gMark and the other gospels.

  53. Yes, but doesn’t the Greek word etaphe in 1 Corinthians 15:4 mean a bodily entombment, in other words, a body being placed in a tomb? And most scholars date the passion narrative to 30 to 60 ad so wouldn’t that mean that the tradition that Jesus was placed in a tomb and had a physical, bodily resurrection be much older? If that’s the case, then the empty tomb story couldn’t have been invented by the gospel writers.

  54. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/passion.html
    My question is how it relates to the empty tomb story and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It seems like you’re saying that the idea of an empty tomb and a bodily resurrection was a later development but if the passion narrative referred to in the article above is correct on its date (30 to 60 ad), then doesn’t that mean that the idea of Jesus being buried in a tomb and him having a bodily resurrection is an EARLIER idea and thus predates the gospels?

    1. It seems like you’re saying that the idea of an empty tomb and a bodily resurrection was a later development

      I said it developed after Paul’s time.

      but if the passion narrative referred to in the article above is correct on its date (30 to 60 ad), then doesn’t that mean that the idea of Jesus being buried in a tomb and him having a bodily resurrection is an EARLIER idea and thus predates the gospels?

      That’s a date range reflecting when various elements in what came to be reflected in gMark developed. Obviously some elements date all the way back to Jesus’ execution itself, because they happened. Others date to additions to and developments in the way the story was told in the intervening decades. I’m saying the fact Paul makes no mention of any “(empty) tomb” when it would have aided his argument if he’d known anything about one means that element wasn’t in the story until after the 50s AD.

  55. >And most scholars date the passion narrative to 30 to 60 ad.

    I don’t know of anyone who dates Jesus death outside of the early 30s much less as late as 60.
    Now you may mean the actual narrative, but I’d be eager to know who dates the story as early as the 30s. A number of scholars note parallels in Mark to
    The Roman triumphator suggesting competition with imperial propaganda, which doesn’t seem to be a concern for the Jesus movement in its early decades.

  56. Hey Tim, do you think that when Jesus talked about the apocalypse, final judgment, resurrection, heaven, hell etc., who do you think he thought would be involved in all of this? Would it just have been his fellow Jews and the people who lived in the surrounding region or would he have thought about the WHOLE world? Well I guess probably not the WHOLE world because Jesus and his disciples probably didn’t think that there was a “globe” and he probably only knew about the people that he traveled to and “healed” like in Galilee. It seems like modern Christianity thinks that when Jesus talked about the apocalypse, he was talking about everyone on earth, not just his fellow Jews but what do you think his expectations were? Mark 13:26-27 and Matthew 24:30-31 seem to imply that Jesus was talking about how the whole earth would see his coming but how would Jesus have even known about the “whole world”? He was just a Jewish peasant living in Nazareth and he and his buddies weren’t exactly of the “upper class” so how would we have known about this? Unless he just thought that the “whole world” would just be the Jewish and Greco-Roman world because that’s all he knew but I’m very confused. What are your thoughts?

    1. His conception of “the whole world” would have been unsophisticated geographically, but he would have been aware of a wider world beyond Palestine. Those statements about the apocalypse encompassing the earth came from a well-established Jewish tradition, so he would have gained at least some insight from that alone. And the apocalypse was to cleanse the whole earth.

  57. So you’re basically just saying that his conception of the “whole world” would have just been the parts that he and his followers knew about such as Palestine, not places like the Americas, Australia, China, India etc?

    1. How could it have included places like the Americas or Australia? No-one in the Greco-Roman world knew they existed. How much or even if he had any knowledge of China or India we can’t know. They at least were known about in his time, though any conception he had of them would have been rudimentary at best. I’m not sure why any of this matters.

  58. Hey Tim, I’ve been wondering about this for a while now. How come it was only the Jesus sect that survived his execution and reinterpreted the scriptures, had different psychological “episodes” etc but not the other sects like the ones of Theudas, The Samaritan, or the Egyptian Prophet? How come Jesus’s followers didn’t just die out like all the other sects? And how come none of the followers of the other sects also did the same thing as Jesus’s sect? Is this just some sort of coincidence or is there some reason behind it?

    1. We have so little information about those people and their lives that we have no idea if their followings survived their death for any time. Maybe they did. But we have some evidence that there was another figure whose following survived his execution, and he was someone far closer to the kind of figure Jesus was than the examples you mention. That’s John the Baptist. The gospels give two episodes indicating a belief that the Baptist had risen from the dead or somehow survived death. After the Baptist’s death he disciples tell Jesus that some people consider him to be the Baptist (Mark 8:28, Matt 16:14, Luke 9:19). And when Antipas hears about Jesus he is depicted saying “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead!” (Matt 14:2), while another version says explicitly “some were saying that John had been raised from the dead” (Luke 9:7). Then in Acts 19:1-3 Paul comes across some “disciples” in Ephesus who say they have been baptised “into John’s baptism” and don’t know the kind of baptism practiced by Paul.

      So this indicates that John’s following survived his death and even spread into Greece. And that some (probably including some of his followers) believed that John had, in some sense, risen from the dead. So this appears to be a direct parallel to and prefigurement of what happened with Jesus.

    2. What almost certainly made the biggest difference between the Jesus sect and other sects of the time was Paul. He was this strange maverick character who became completely convinced that he’d received revelations from Jesus, to the point where he deliberately had very little to do with the existing church and what they had to say; instead, he spent his time travelling to far-flung places teaching the Gentiles about his particular conception of the Jesus-church, which probably differed significantly from what the established group at the time was teaching. There’s a good argument to be made that all the stuff about Jesus’s death being a sin sacrifice that wiped out everyone’s sin actually originated with Paul and wasn’t the belief of the pre-Pauline group at all.

      So, the big difference between Jesus’s followers and the other followers of would-be Messiahs of the time was that this was the group that got a fanatical convert teaching a really distorted but rather attractive version of the movement to far-flung groups of Gentiles, and this was what spread and lasted. There were then other reasons why the religion endured and eventually took over, but that was the big thing that made all the difference to the group’s trajectory in the early years.

      1. Hi doc
        Aren’t you forgetting that groups like Theudas didn’t,afaik, have a resurrection claim?
        Would Paul have persecuted Christians if they weren’t saying that a crucified criminal was the Messiah? Would he have converted without this?
        As far as Paul and the apostles not agreeing, I doubt we can say very much. We have nothing from “the Pillars” or Paul’s adversaries in Galatia. We’re they the same ppl Paul said came from James when he was in Antioch?

    3. According to Jona Lendering in Israel Verdeeld (Israel Divided, unfortunately only in Dutch) the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE was crucial. The pharisees became the rabbinical jews and the protochristians early christians. The other jewish sects disappeared, at least from historical record. We don’t know nearly enough of them to say more without speculating (which is not always a bad thing, see ToN’s example).

  59. You said that apocalypticism pretty much disappeared from the gospel of John but what about passages like John 5:28-29 where Jesus mentions the resurrection and the final judgment? It seems like apocalypticism is still in John just a bit. Also, do you think the book of revelation tried to reconcile the apocalyptic Jesus and the heavenly messiah savior Jesus because throughout the book of revelation, Jesus is constantly referred to as the Lamb which seems to imply the sacrifice for the sins of the world, however the overall theme of the book is apocalypticism. Do you think the author of revelation is trying to reconcile these two ideas?

    1. I didn’t say “pretty much disappeared”. I said it was greatly less emphasised and no longer the central message. So of course it’s still there. Revelation is an example of a later work that fully maintained the centrality of apocalypticism. The imagery of Jesus as the Lamb etc. is just a more developed working of an apocalyptic conception of him that goes back through the synoptics all the way to Paul and so is clearly a very old idea.

  60. What about the other New Testament letters like the epistles of John, Peter, James etc.? Do you think they preserve early ideas about Jesus or do you think they are just later developments? Their theology is definitely more evolved however do you think it’s possible that some of their material may also go back to Jesus’s apocalyptic preaching?

  61. Have you read “The historical reliability of the Gospels” by Craig Blomberg?

    He said this on “The delay of Christ’s return”.

    Several of Jesus’ very solemn pronouncements sound as though he believed that he would return within the lifetime of at least some of his disciples: ‘Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power’ (Mark 9:1); ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened’ (Mark 13:30); ‘Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes’ (Matt.10:23). As time went by and Jesus did not come back, so this view affirms, Christians’ hope for his imminent return began to recede and they recognized the need to preserve the story of Jesus for future generations. But not having anticipated this need, they had not preserved entirely reliable traditions on which to draw.The hypothesis about the ‘delay’ of Christ’s return influences the interpretation of the New Testament in a number of significant ways. But at least 3 key observations weigh against it.

    (1) None of the verses cited above should be taken to mean that Jesus mistakenly believed that he would return to earth in the first century. In fact, each has several alternative interpretations that are more likely. Perhaps the best are that in Mark 9:1 Jesus was referring to his subsequent transfiguration as an important foreshadowing of his final coming ‘with power’, that in Mark 13:30 the ‘all things’ do not include his return but only the signs leading up to his return, and that in Matthew 10:23 he is predicting the continually incomplete mission of preaching the gospel to all the Jews.

    (2) A large percentage of Jesus’ teaching, including that which even more radical scholarship accepts as authentic, presupposes the continuing existence of Jesus’ followers as an organized community teaching others about him. For example, Jesus takes ethical stands on such issues as marriage and divorce, payment of taxes and submission to the government, and, perhaps most important of all, the application of the Old Testament commandments to everyday life, as epitomized in the Sermon on theMount.
    (3) Even if the disciples had interpreted Jesus’ teaching to mean that he would return in their generation, they would not have been the first Jews to have believed that the end of the age would come quite soon. Ever since the days of the writing prophets of the Old Testament, Israel had been hearing the message that the Day of the Lord was at hand (e.g. Joel 2:1; Obad.15; Hab.2:3). Yet this seldom deflected her from her course of carrying on with the ritual of the Law and living as though she had centuries ahead of her. The Essenes at Qumran at times seem to have been convinced they were living in the very generation that would see the fulfilment of all the Messianic promises but it did not prevent their very prodigious output of literature, including those documents that describe their founder, the anonymousTeacher of Righteousness.

    Should one expect any less from Jesus’ followers? The behaviour of those Thessalonians who stopped working because they believed that Christ’s return was imminent (2Thess.3:6–15) seems to have been an exception; at least Paul certainly discouraged it.

    2Peter 3:8–9 shows how Christians need not have changed their theology or invented alleged teaching of Jesus to mask his original claims when the delay in his return became apparent; rather, they simply underlined the vast chasm between God’s and humanity’s perspectives on time: ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years . . . The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness’. Moreover, this interpretation of God’s delay, based on Psalm 90:4, had already been applied by Jews in pre-Christian times to their questions concerning God’s ‘tardiness’.

    The idea that the early church must have drastically altered her approach to the Jesus-tradition when it dawned on her that his return might not be so immediate seems very poorly founded. Michael Bird has recently collected a convenient catalogue of reasons why the early church would have wanted to preserve accurate information about Jesus completely apart from the question of the timing or interpretation of the parousia. These include practical guidance for Christian living, help for defining the Jesus-movement over against other forms of Judaism in the polemical environment of those early years, biographical interest in the movement’s founder, authentication of its beliefs and practices in the context of all the various religious and philosophical alternatives of the day, the desire to imitate Jesus’ example, and sheer curiosity and interest in the figure ofJesus.

  62. John, I’m not Tim, and I probably don’t have the knowledge to give my detailed thoughts on this topic, but Mark Edward (who has studied the Bible for years) has a great website called abibledarkly.com that’s worth checking out. It’s basically just a website that tries to deal with certain biblical passages and topics from a critical, secular, academic perspective, and in one article called “Mark and the Transfiguration”, he goes into detail on certain passages in the gospels and tries to “illuminate” their Jewish context by pointing to passages in the Septuagint and in the Hebrew Scriptures to understand the Transfiguration event in the gospels. He also tackles the idea that the transfiguration is actually a resurrection event, although that’s a bit off topic. He also tackles the common apologetic interpretation of passages like Mark 9:1 that they are just referring to the transfiguration and shows why this is unlikely. I don’t know if I agree with everything he says, but apocalyptic literature is one of his main areas of expertise, so I definitely think it’s worth checking out. But I’ll leave Tim to the other claims.

  63. Jesus’ position between John the Baptist, for whom the imminent judgement was reportedly central, and the early church as reflected in Paul’s letters, who longed for the apocalyptic παρουσία in their lifetimes, means a Jesus who also expected the apocalypse soon makes most sense.

    An account of John the Baptist is found in all extant manuscripts of the Antiquities of the Jews (book 18, chapter 5, 2) by Flavius Josephus (37–100):[89]

    Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s [Antipas’s] army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure to him.[90]

    was John the Baptist apocalypse according to Flavius Josephus?

    1. Josephus doesn’t say anything explicitly to suggest so, but what he does say fits with the Baptist of the gospels. Why do they need to repent? Purify for what, exactly?

      1. . Why do they need to repent? Purify for what, exactly?

        Isn’t that what the Torah and Judaism central teaching is ?

        John the Baptist could be a typically normal Essene

        1. John the Baptist could be a typically normal Essene

          We might think that if what Josephus is all we had regarding him. But Josephus seems to have had a positive view of the Baptist and tends to tone down anything he consisted radical, Messianic or apocalyptic about the people of which he approves. And we have the gospels traditions (plural) in gMark, separately in the Q material and even in gJohn that clearly depict John the Baptist as an apocalyptic prophet. So you’ll need to account for that and explain why we should ignore this multiply-attested tradition and read Josephus’ version in isolation, rather than read Josephus in light of this other material. If we do the latter, it all makes sense, though Josephus tones down the politically tinged apocalypticism. I can’t see any coherent way to do the former.

  64. “John the Baptist could be a typically normal Essene…

    It may be sheer ignorance on my part, but can we really say that there was a “typical Essene”?
    Marcus connected John to Quamran, arguing that he” probably belonged to that sect before striking out on his own.” with John seeing himself
    as a returning Elijah. Qumran definitely had an apocalyptic outlook and if John saw himself in the role of Elijah, it would be hard to doubt his apocalypticism

    1. Ever since the DSS were discovered pretty much anyone and everyone in this period have been “connected to Qumran”. This is another example of mistaking parallels for evidence of derivation or connection. John may have been connected to the Essenes and Qumran (leaving aside the whole issue about whether the DSS reflect just one sect or several, whether that sect actually is the Essenes and even whether Qumran was ever an Essene centre – all debatable). Or he may be just a reflection of similar currents in the Judaism of the time. Either way, you’re right that the sect of sects reflected in the DSS texts do seem to have eschatological hopes and could be seen as apocalyptic.

      1. Part of me wants to argue the point, but the link doesn’t affect John’s apocalypticism. I’m skeptical about his baptizing Jesus.There’s much to Rafael Rodriguez point about the criteria [embarrassment] depending “on a pre-established reconstruction in order to verify (or falsify) any particular datum.” If John functions in Mark to establish Jesus bonafides, the other evangelists (embarrassed or not) risk losing that endorsement if they drop this detail.
        To be sure, it’s entirely plausible this happened. As much as Mark may have used John to establish Jesus, messianic status, Jesus, himself may have seen John as a mentor or a means of establishing himself.

        1. If gMark invented the baptism story to “establish Jesus bonafides” it’s odd that he didn’t do a better job. John doesn’t speak to Jesus, Jesus doesn’t speak to John and John certainly doesn’t declare Jesus to be the Messiah. So the story is pretty weak in that respect. This is why the gMatt and, especially, the gJohn versions “fix” this by making the endorsement of Jesus by John and John’s subordination to Jesus explicit. The gMark version does make sense, however, as a memory of something that happened.

          1. Don’t really have a response for this Tim. Although clearly much of the John story is invented, that doesn’t make all of it fictional and it may be a historical memory.

  65. Tim, I only finished the first section, and I like your writing style as its very easy to follow with a touch of wit. That said, why do you think that using Mark 9:1 & Mark 13:30 is good biblical evidence of Jesus presenting an imminent apocalypse?
    From what I see, in Mark 9:1, Jesus is clearly referring to the transfiguration (The literal next event following those words in the text) & in Mark 13:30, He’s obviously referring to a future generation given the time it would take “Spread the gospel to all the nations”, amongst other reasons.

    1. Jesus is clearly referring to the transfiguration (The literal next event following those words in the text)

      This is not “clear” at all. He says they will see “the kingdom/kingship of God come in power”. That is a reference to the fulfilment of the whole apocalyptic scheme, with the enemies of God defeated, God reigning directly over the earth and his Messiah ruling at God’s right hand. That is not what they see in the Transfiguration. This is just an apologetic attempt to explain the awkward 9:1 prophecy away.

      Mark 13:30, He’s obviously referring to a future generation given the time it would take “Spread the gospel to all the nations”, amongst other reasons.

      More apologetics. He is depicted as addressing the disciples and telling them what will happen to them. He says “they will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them”. Then he says the “the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations”, which is a term meaning “beyond Israel”, not literally all of the planet and definitely not any modern conception of “nations”. Then the says “When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say”, again, telling those he’s speaking to what will happen to them. He’s not talking about some distant future generation, he’s depicted as talking about them – those there with him.

      1. Thank you for answering 😀

        It’s clear He’s talking about the transfiguration because its literally the next event in the text. If the next event was just Jesus just talking to someone or another miracle, I’d probably agree with you, but its not, its the transfiguration. How convenient, just made a prediction of power & here’s one right afterwards. Mark’s obviously connecting the two, non-verbally saying the transfiguration’s the fulfilment of what Jesus predicted barely a week before. It’s a common technique in writing & you don’t need a degree in English Literature to spot it.

        Furthermore, why the differentiation from the “Son of Man coming in the glory with the holy angels” (8:38) & “the kingdom of coming with power” (9:1), why not just say “Some standing here won’t taste death till they’ve seen this”? That’d leave no doubt He’s talking about the end apocalypse.
        Unless you want to say Mark twisted His words, He’s obviously talking about something different – “Kingdom of God” could be a mountain metaphorically, the prophet Daniel said so (D. 2:34/35) – “Come with power”: They definitely saw Jesus with power, compared to His lowly state on earth. There’s also no mention of enemies being defeated, just a showcase of God’s power. The transfiguration fits all of these from what I see.

        – I’m not certain on the “future generation” verse so I’ll leave that alone for now, but this one, I think you have to make logical leaps too far for me in order to say it’s about the “imminent” apocalypse. I’d like to converse though 🙂

        1. It’s clear He’s talking about the transfiguration because its literally the next event in the text.

          That doesn’t mean that’s what the Mk 9:1 prediction is referring to. As I’ve explained, “the kingdom of God coming in power” has a very specific meaning and the Transfiguration simply doesn’t fit it. It refers to God himself renewing his direct rule over the world, defeating the demonic powers of the world and establishing an eternal kingship over a renewed earth. The Transfiguration isn’t that.

          1. With respect, I don’t think it does- “Son of Man coming in glory with the holy angels” obviously means the apocalypse, but – “Kingdom of God coming in power” – That’s something else & the meaning isn’t fixed. The word “kingdom” here can also mean “royal splendor” – Those who “won’t taste death” would see Christ as He is; which is what Peter, James & John saw in the transfiguration, before they tasted death. From what I see, your interpretation only works if you take kingdom as only to mean one thing & disregard the differences between the two statements.

            And yes, it alone doesn’t confirm its the transfiguration, but its true: Its common in literature to place things in texts that connect like this, and in each gospel where Jesus says this, the transfiguration immediately follows. Isn’t it funny how each time Jesus says “Kingdom of God coming with power”, the Gospel writers placed an event that sounds exactly like that immediately afterwards? Coincidence? I think not.

            Maybe this is why when verses & chapters were added to the Bible, this verse was made the start of the chapter of the transfiguration, as the editors saw that it was referring to it. Just a hunch.

            With all that & more, the transfiguration is the most likely interpretation in my lowly eyes 😀

          2. here can also mean “royal splendor”

            Evidence please. The word is βασιλείαν. It means “kingship, sovereignty, authority, rule”. I see no uses of it in any concordance that is equivalent to “royal splendour”. You appear to have made up a definition that suits your interpretation, which in turn is contrived to avoid the implications of Mark 9:1.

            your interpretation only works if you take kingdom as only to mean one thing

            The terms used have specific meanings and refer to the coming of God’s direct rule on earth ἐν δυνάμει – “with power/might/strength”. Jesus appearing in dazzling clothes alongside Moses and Elijah doesn’t qualify.

      2. It’s also worth mentioning Mark 10:23 wherein after telling them they will be persecuted, Jesus says “…for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

        So, this can’t refer to the time it would take “spread the gospel” since they
        will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

        1. Yes. It can mean those. It can also mean “royal power” or “royal dignity” (1,2). So a lil’ mistake for me to say splendour, but they’re close in meaning so it doesn’t matter. The Blue Letter Bible analysis also notes it doesn’t strictly mean a physical kingdom, like I said. The meaning of the word isn’t as fixed as your interpretation implies.

          Furthermore, reducing the transfiguration to just “Jesus appearing in dazzling clothes alongside Moses & Elijah” – That reminds me of Oprah Winfrey describing God’s son Jesus as “optional” – It’s a complete watering down of the matter.

          The transfiguration showed Jesus as He is – A powerful deity, unlike like the lowly servant on earth. He’d told His disciples they’d suffer for His name, and seeing their Master in His true state gave them the reassurance they needed, and they were terrified also, as the Israelites were when God spoke in the Exodus. The presence of the two most famous Old Testament prophets & God saying “Listen to Him” was symbolic of how Jesus was higher than them & the law (Moses was holding it). That’s power. Oprah didn’t comprehend that calling God’s son Jesus meant accepting the need for His Lordship – Your comment fails to comprehend the transfiguration’s point of Jesus’ power (3).

          No offence Tim, I’m criticising your argument, not you. To say the transfiguring lacks “power/might/strength” is to misunderstand a fundamental aspect of it. Would the disciples be shocked at just dazzling white clothes?

          That coupled with my previous points on context & verses, it makes the most sense to interpret the statement as about the transfiguration.

          Further reading:
          (1): biblehub. com. (n.d.). Strong’s Greek: 932. βασιλεία (basileia) — kingdom, sovereignty, royal power. [online]
          (2): https://www. billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/basileia
          (3): GotQuestions.org (2004). What was the meaning and importance of the transfiguration? | GotQuestions.org. [online] GotQuestions.org.

          1. No offence is taken, but you’re simply wrong. You’re deciding what “in power/royal power/royal dignity” can mean and then deciding that it can apply to the Transfiguration based on your presupposition that Jesus is “a powerful deity”. No, it doesn’t “strictly mean a physical kingdom”. The word βασιλεία refers not so much to the territory ruled by a king (which the modern English word “kingdom” tends to imply) but rather to the sovereignty and authority of its ruler. δύναμις means “power, might, strength” (thus it’s the origin of words like “dynamo” and “dynamic”),but used here (δυνάμει) with βασιλείαν refers to the full, ultimate and fulfilled power, might and authority of the coming of God in his apocalyptic intervention. The Transfiguration is not that. And I don’t need any “further reading” of commentary that either doesn’t support what you’re claiming or just shares your apologetic assumptions. I’ve indulged you to this point, but you’re now bordering on preaching.

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