I came across a thought-provoking questioning of the authenticity of that Gospel detail describing the disciples carrying swords as they accompanied Jesus into Gethsemane while translating a famous nineteenth century work by Christian Gottlob Wilke. (“Famous” because it was in Der Urevangelist that Wilke established the case for the priority of the Gospel of Mark.) Wilke was unable to accept this scene of the sword wielding disciple (the Gospel of John attributes the action to the typically impulsive Peter) formed part of the original narrative. Here are his reasons:
Jesus expected that night, as the common account of Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 tells us, only acts of cowardice from the disciples, and the same account follows through on this explicit expectation when it depicts all the disciples fleeing (Matt 26:56, Mark 14:50.) – evidence that the narrator had only planned to carry out the word of the prediction, and that therefore there was no question of an attempted resistance.
The sword is introduced to portray the disciples as resisting the arrest of Jesus — a detail that stands at odds with the theme of prophetic fulfilment that the author has been establishing.
Notice, too, how more naturally the narrative flows once this detail is removed. We begin with Jesus returning from his prayer and speaking to his disciples:
42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled.
Is it not strange that the author has Jesus addressing those who have arrested him while making no mention at all of the act that actually belies his words. Jesus implies that his own followers have not come “with swords and clubs” and have not performed any act of rebellion. So how could the author have managed to introduce this episode without any rebuke or explanation from Jesus?
The Jesus we find in the Gospel of Mark, Wilke points out, otherwise consistently addresses any specific act of his disciples. But here he seems not to have noticed what they have just done. Rather, his words indicate that his disciples have fearfully stood by before running to avoid the same fate as Jesus.
If a subsequent curator of the Gospel did add such a detail, one does wonder about the circumstances of their time. Were some Christians justifying armed resistance?
(Wilke makes his case with somewhat more technical detail by pointing to various emphases in the Greek words relating to the disciples fleeing and a more detailed discussion of the sequence of the phrases.)
Wilke, Christian Gottlob. Der Urevangelist oder exegetisch kritische Untersuchung über das Verwandtschaftsverhältniss der drei ersten Evangelien. Dresden ; Leipzig : Gerhard Fleischer, 1838. http://archive.org/details/derurevangelisto0000wilk. p. 495
Neil Godfrey
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“Rather, his words indicate that his disciples have fearfully stood by before running to avoid the same fate as Jesus.”
Except that Peter is caught, and the subsequent Peter/courtyard material is original (fulfilling Jesus’s prediction that Peter will deny him three times). So it is plausible that Peter does something that slows him down, enabling him to be captured.
If we hypothesize that the Gospel of Mark was a play–performed (in my view)–or at the least, imitating the storyline of a dramatic work, then a sequence of events based on Peter’s use of the sword makes for a thoroughly dramatic and internally consistent end of the story.
As I propose in my book *The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text*, Peter strikes THE slave of the high priest (who possibly was the high priest’s body double, entitled to the same respect). In turn, this impairment of the high priest’s holiness had consequences for the legitimacy of his decision, causing an uproar when this was discovered–and creating the tumultuous ending of the play.
I suggest that Mark’s readers/listeners would have immediately known that damage to THE slave of the high priest would have had consequences for the legitimacy of anything done subsequently by the high priest, within the plot.
No need to posit editing by Christians who were justifying armed resistance. Recall that GMark was apparently not used by any community for decades after writing. When and why would an editor change it for such a practical purpose?
If the Gospel Jesus is a personification of Israel, then hardly the original intent would have been pro-Roman, since the authorities would have never allowed the diffusion of a text where the secret hope was the destruction of paganism by the new cult (= Jesus casting out demons) or the resurrection of a nation just defeated by the legions. Hence the premise (that I share) implies that the original authors lied deliberately to their public.
If the passage of the ear was added to justify armed rebellion, then it reflects a trend to reveal the secret, i.e. to make it more and more explicit that the essential Gospel propaganda (Jesus as allegory of Israel) had an anti-Roman intent. The secret was going to be revealed as effect of an increased anti-Roman animosity. This may be reflected in the logion on the violent people who take the kingdom with the force (so WB Smith in Ecce Deus).
Was the increasing of the same anti-Roman animosity behind the choice of the sinister name of Pilate as Jesus’ executioner? To remember in definitive, despite of any pretence to the contrary, that the true enemy was the Roman empire?
If I may just add a couple of notes in response to both Danila and Giuseppe whose input I always appreciate….
The view that the gospels were composed for specific (local) communities is not uniformly held by the scholarship. But as for the Gospel of Mark, it is such a strange beast in so many ways, so un-what-later-became-orthodox, surely it had to have been used and embraced by enough Christians for long enough for it to have survived and been considered worthy of rewriting by the other two or three evangelists. I suspect it belongs to a “lost time” in the historical record, only later to have been associated with unorthodox groups like the Basilideans.
Is the Gospel of Mark really “anti-Roman”, though? Pilate is not depicted as keen to execute Jesus. He even tries to free Jesus — but in this gospel he is not the historical Pilate but a literary figure who wavers and succumbs to pressure from a Jewish mob. (Surely an opposite character to the real Pilate.) We have a Roman centurion at the cross uttering ambiguously “Truly this man was the son of God” (sarcastically or reverentially? typical Markan ambiguity!) and Jesus in this gospel is favourable to gentiles. Yes, he exorcises the “tenth legion pigs” from the possessed man, but demonstrating power over military might does not make Jesus against Romans themselves — his Via Dolorosa walk to Golgotha was in many ways a re-enactment of an inverted Roman Triumph, as I’m sure you also know.
“surely [GMark] had to have been used and embraced by enough Christians for long enough for it to have survived and been considered worthy of rewriting by the other two or three evangelists. I suspect it belongs to a “lost time” in the historical record, only later to have been associated with unorthodox groups like the Basilideans.”
I disagree. There’s a simpler explanation that fits into what we know of the Roman congregation that was the home of the popes. If, as I propose, Mark wrote for a congregation that was to some degree patronized by/favored by the wife of Titus Flavius Clemens (i.e., the Roman congregation later associated with Pope Clement), then the congregation would not have discarded any manuscripts Mark left behind. I propose that subsequent to the performance of his play, they kept his narrative in their library as evidence of Flavian patronage. They didn’t *use* it in services. It was a prestige object. Decades later, Luke (in my opinion, not Matthew) learned about GMark (?via Marcion, if he did indeed go to Rome), obtained a copy, and revised it for his own use, possibly in part contra-Marcion.
Whether the “support troops” were Romans or Temple Guards who had learned anything from the Romans they didn’t need to have Jesus fingered. (Well, and the fact that Jesus was a well-known recognizable public figure and would have responded to his name being called, etc.) They would have scooped up the whole group, taken them to somewhere private and beaten what they wanted to know out of them. The story goes on with Jesus’s posse being pursued as co-conspirators. The Romans wouldn’t have made that mistake. They would have had them all and had them all in custody from the get-go.
While people still debate the fine points of “sword or no sword” they miss the overall picture.
gJohn has Jesus walking around Jerusalem for weeks! The Romans would have gotten word of this almost instantly and Jesus would have been nailed up again lickity split. As I said, the story makes no sense whatsoever.
About this episode of the ear, So Klinghardt gives the reason of the its presence in Mark:
The subsequent reaction by the disciples with the sword-stroke (Mark 14,47) is new and goes back to the Markan redaction. it prepares Jesus’ speech to the arrest squad and emphasizes the contrast between the violent nightly action μετὰ μαχαιρῶν καὶ ξύλων and the opportunity to meet Jesus daily in the temple. The sword episode, therefore, has the primary purpose of highlighting the fear of the chief priests, scribes, and elders (as already in Mark 11,18.32; 12,12): they do not dare to arrest Jesus because of the support from among the people [8] Mark understands this opposition between the public ministry of Jesus and the supportive response by the people on the one side, and the violence and shrewdness of the Jerusalem authorities on the other side, as the fulfillment of the scriptures. In doing so, he reverts to 14,21 as well as to the issue of the inevitability of suffering conveyed since 8,22.
(Matthias Klinghardt, The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels, p. 1152-1253, my bold)
The note 8 reads:
That the Markan Jesus (as opposed to the other Gospels) reacts neither to the kiss of greeting nor to the sword-stroke may well simply be an expression of his “austere style” (LUEHRMANN, Mark 246 in reference to 14,45): Mark expressed his compositional intent theologically with his account of the events; no further commentary, interpretation, or reaction by Jesus is necessary.
I don’t know if Klinghardt is correct about this point, however he gives a bood reason to consider not an interpolation the episode of the ear (because otherwise also the kiss of Judah has to be one).
More in general: I have to recognize that just as the best historicist case assumes that the gospels “go out of their way to depict” a nonviolent Jesus, so in response the best mythicist case has to assume that the clues of violence (and the episode of the ear and the episode of the kiss of Judah are surely some: remember that — docet Shaw 1984 — a common Mediterranean tropos about the lestai is that they are captured by betrayal) are a mere effect collateral of the contrived manner of getting the Romans in the story. In other terms, the best mythicist scenario has to be one where it is assumed a priori that the Romans have to be involved, before or after, in the first fictional story about Jesus. And the best way to get the Romans in it is with the pretext that Jesus gets involved in activity of sediction hence he can be lead before Pilate. I don’t see the other direction in action, though (the Jews rebelled against Rome in 70 CE “therefore” also the Gospel Jesus is someway crucified as seditious rebel against Rome).
Do you agree with K’s explanation?
Remove the sword episode and nothing changes. There is no indication of any reaction at all by the arresting party in response to the sword episode. It is simply ignored in the surrounding narrative. That’s not just austere style — it’s total ignoring of the episode by the arresting party.
I am not sure, either, if we can say that the evangelists “go out of their way to depict” a certain kind of Jesus — that’s mind-reading the authors. If we speak of “clues” regarding a violent Jesus, then we are arguing in a circle: we cannot just assume that the gospel narrative is derived from certain historical events and then read evidence for that historical event into it. (Confirmation bias). We already have evidence that those details in the narrative derive from intertextual engagement with OT Scriptures. If that simple explanation is satisfactory there is no need to introduce other hypotheses to explain those details.
Further, I try to avoid using Mark’s Gospel as the foundation of the Christ myth (speaking of “myth” in its technical/theological sense). It is an open question whether Paul understood Roman involvement.
On the other hand, I have no reason to doubt that Mark drew upon a knowledge of revolutionaries and zealots. But that is quite different from arguing that his narrative was ultimately derived from that history. Just as Mark may well have drawn on Homer to flesh out his narrative and its themes, but at the same time did not “BASE” or “DERIVE” his Jesus from any of Homer’s characters, so he may have drawn upon the likes of zealots without those zealots being the original version of a historical narrative behind the gospel. He appears to have used Josephus in the same way he used Homer — to present an ideal alternative to the would-be heroes of the past and a new creation of an ideal and saving Israel.
Neil, do you agree with Christopher Batsch that the material from which the Gospels were derived, at least as to “the likes of zealots”, was a (written and/or oral) collection of sayings and acts of various failed messianists (I mean by “messianists” the various sign prophets posing as new Joshua and rebels mentioned by Josephus) made hastily after the 70 CE by their survived followers and put under the name of “Joshua” and “Chrestos” without further specifics? Or do you think that Josephus alone was sufficient as “midrahical” source for the Gospel references to “the likes of zealots”?
I ask because in whiletime in this recent article Robert Drews argues for the pre-70 existence of Chrestiani (messianists) different from the Christians, hence corroborating the Batsch’s view.
Thank you in advance for any answer.
There was more than Josephus behind the flesh wrapped around the bones of the gospel narratives. Thank you for pointing me to Christopher Batsch’s article. That is the first one I have seen where a biblical scholar seems to put centre stage the fundamentals of justifiable historical research methodology in his hypothesis. Here at last is a mind like mine at least on that score!
Batsch, as I have done, points to the turn of the century, particularly the early second century, as of particular relevance as the point of convergence of definite signs of the earliest evidence of Christianity emerging on the scene. What makes sense to me is that the inheritors of the experiences of the mass crucifixions of Judeans pre and post 70 were the ones open to new interpretations of Judaism — as represented by the synagogues and Yavneh. But I liked B’s introduction of Alexandria as the new focus of what became Christianity (vis a vis what Yavneh and Masada – and Rome – represented).
On Robert Drews’ article, I cannot find in it strong support for B’s view because the way I read and understood D’s article, it is so speculative and without supporting evidence where we would expect to find it if his hypothesis were true. He relies heavily upon Acts and even the gospels themselves as historical sources, and speculates scenarios that we would expect to find some hint of in Josephus at least — but all the evidence, even in Acts and Josephus, seems to falsify his speculations. I could write more to justify that criticism but it would be unwieldy in a comment here.
Where I would be tempted to modify Batsch’s idea would be to suggest that the Jesus figure is not so much based on one of the many supposed messianic pretenders, but is a personification of the Judean survivors and their experiences and hopes — having come through the death and destruction that might otherwise have marked the end of them spiritually. Clarke Owens, whose book and ideas I have posted about here, seems to hit the bull’s eye on that regard, I think.
If so, then it doesn’t matter if those crucified before 70 were actually messianists. You know I have my doubts about that — the evidence tells us they were prophets or rebels of one kind or another. But where I disagree, in particular with Robert Drews, is that we have strong evidence for messianic hopes prior to the war of 70 CE. I think Steve Mason has pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the view that messianic hopes were a cause of the Judean-Roman war of 66-74CE.
Of course, the dark horse I have avoided mentioning in the above is Paul, (and a Samaritan role).
Note that Batsch agrees with Robert Drews at least on a point: the suetonian impulsore Chresto as evidence of messianists working before the 70 CE. Personally I like the Amalgam Theory posed by Batsch, differently from your view of generic Judean survivors at the origin of Christianity, since in the first case we have identifiable authors distinct from the authors of rabbinical talmudism and from the violent Zealots. Under the Owens’s hypothesis, it is hard to understand why the rabbinical judaism was hostile from day one to the idea of a personification of survivors (afterall, also the rabbis were survivors).
You are right about Paul being ignored in both the scenarios: Batsch has never answered me what he thinks about Paul. Possibly, since Turmel has argued for only undated bits of Paul being original, then those genuine Pauline bits can be referred to an unknown Chrestos pre-70 (not necessarily one lived under Pilate) and as such be collected hastily after the 70 (as all the rest of the material relative to all the pre-70 Christos was collected hastily after the 70).
That notion of Judeans in Rome rioting over a messianic hope for the overthrow of the Roman empire is surely speculative to the core. There is simply no supporting evidence for such a scenario — not even in Judea for such persons or movement. The evidence that survives suggests that it did not happen.
I don’t know of any thesis that suggests what became “rabbinic Judaism” was “hostile from day one” to any proto-Christian emergence.
The evidence is in the gospels themselves, with the pharisees and scribes being attacked again and again. And obviously there is also the anathema against the minim (I go to memory) by the rabbis after the 70. Batsch’s point is that a such rivalry descends from the two actors being distinct already before the 70: the sign prophets are hostile to (or at least distinct from) the pharisees before the 70, they continue to be distinct also after the 70 (assuming that the followers of the sign prophets survived as the authors of the material that in Alexandria served to elaborate the gospels, while the pharisees survived as the rabbinical judaism).
In addition: can Owens’s scenario explain why the proto-gospels were written just in Alexandria (the ideal place where the Gnostics would have joint later the movement) as opposed to Rome or Jamnia?
The gospels were not the “from day one of Christianity” documents. They are not witnessed until well into the second century. There is an argument that Revelation precedes them. As for the curse on the minim, that is a vague reference that is open to multiple interpretations — see, for example, Goodman’s chapter 14 in Judaism in the Roman World, Collected Essays.
The earliest gospel, for that matter, also has the disciples being attacked again and again by Jesus. That is not a historical record, though. It is a late reflection on the nature of Christianity against the old Judaism. The case may be stronger, I think, for the gospels representing in their origin the gap between Christ followers and those who sought a material victory over Rome.
I didn’t mean to imply that the gospels were written in Alexandria. Batsch, I don’t think, even says that — or at least not in their first drafts. The relationship between the Gospel of Mark and proto-gnostic type thought is an open question.
I think that Batsch doesn’t argue that Mark was written by survived followers of various sign prophets shortly after the 70. He says that the material on which the first gospel was based was collected hastily shortly after the 70. That rash material was a collection of sayings and acts of various sign prophets (you may call them “Jesuses” – plural – and “Chrestos”). The first evangelist would have worked very late (even after the 150!) and he derived freely from that material. He shaped it according to his own theology. Hence in this Batsch’s scenario, as at least interpreted by me, you have, in the chtonological order:
Before the 70:
Various sign prophets (one of which could have been crucified by Pilate, if he was not the same Samaritan Impostor), more or less identified with Chrestos and posing as Joshua redivivus
After the 70:
The survived followers of the various sign prophets collected hastily an amalgam of the various sign prophets, by putting all their acta et logia under the generic name of Joshua snd Chrestos.
Between 80 and 150 CE:
Various different sects in Alexandria (many of which were anti-Jewish Gnostic sects) were interested to rewrite that rash material by injecting in it their different theologies (the result was: first gospels). In parallel, Paul was invented etc.
Hrnce, answering to your objection: we can be sure that there was from day one a rivalry between the original collectors (= survived followers of the pre-70 sign prophets) and the rabbinical Judaism, while Mark was written much time after the original collection and was very much artistically elaborated because its same theology and christology were highly elaborated.
What do you mean by “sign prophets”? It might be easier, to help us be clear in understanding each other, if you quote the passages in Batsch on which you rely.
Batsch refers to Daniel Boyarin who places the “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity relatively very late — not at the beginning of Christianity.
Literary analyses of the gospels does not support the claim that they are a compilation of historical memories or records. They are, rather, constructed from other long-established literature. All attempts to deny this that I have seen are mere conjecture in defiance of the contrary evidence. There is no evidence oral or historical traditions in the Gospel of Mark that that gospel has literarily elaborated, that I know of.
Rabbinic Judaism, as I understand it, was, strictly, a post Javneh phenomenon.
Batch means clearly the various Athronges, Theudas, Judas the Galilean, the ‘Egyptian’ Prophet, the Samaritan Impostor, etc.
Batsch writes (p. 10):
Depuis les troubles ayant suivi la mort d’Hérode le Grand en l’an 4 avant l’ère commune, durant lesquels surgirent de nombreux prétendants messianiques, la crucifixion est devenue le supplice le plus couramment employé par l’administration romaine contre toutes les velléités de révoltes juives, qu’elles fussent de type messianique ou «nationaliste» (zélotisme).
In p. 11 Batsch argues for the cross having become a symbol (a topos) connected with the fate of the ‘king of the Jews’ even before the 70 CE:
La crucifixion n’était donc pas Judée, comme on le lit trop souvent, ni un châtiment exceptionnel, ni un châtiment réservé aux esclaves, mais bien plutôt le supplice ordinaire auquel avait systématiquement recours l’administration romaine pour réprimer les velléités de soulèvements politiques et religieux (les deux se confondant presque toujours) d’une partie de la population judéenne.
[…]
Ainsi l’association entre les deux puissantes images idéologisées du roi messianique des Juifs et de la crucifixion n’avait-elle rien pour surprendre dans la Judée du Ier siècle ; on pourrait même dire qu’elle en était venue à y constituer un topos.
Batsch continues in p. 16, where it is enough clear, in my view, that by ‘heirs of the apocalyptic and messianic threads of the judaism’ he means the survived post-70 followers of the various Theudas, Judas, the ‘Egyptian’, Athronges, etc:
Il faut alors prendre en compte la troisième réponse apportée au désastre de 70: celle des héritiers des courants apocalyptiques et messianiques du judaïsme de la fin de l’époque du deuxième Temple. Pour ces citadins cultivés, ayant échappé aux violences du siège, aux soubresauts des guerres civiles et aux massacres de la répression romaine, la question se posait de savoir où aller, où se regrouper, où continuer à vivre et à penser ce judaïsme des derniers temps, cet eschaton dont les catastrophes de la Judée annonçaient l’imminence. Jérusalem, le centre et le cœur battant du judaïsme du Temple était détruite. Rome, la capitale de l’Empire à nouveau unifié semblait interdite après les expulsions et les persécutions anti-juives de ses derniers empereurs. Restait Alexandrie, capitale de l’Orient, berceau de la culture de l’écrit, où une importante communauté juive, prospère et culturellement active, résidait depuis la fondation de la ville.
Batch means again and again them (= Theudas, the ‘Egyptian’ Prophet, the Samaritan Impostor, etc) when he talks about the ‘messianic Jews’ finding a refuge in Alexandria:
De même que les héritiers d’Hillel et Shammaï se regroupèrent à Yabné avec leurs rouleaux (la Torah écrite, la Loi et les Prophètes) et leurs traditions (la Torah orale); de même les juifs messianiques se retrouvèrent-ils à Alexandrie avec leurs écrits (les mêmes) et leurs propres traditions écrites ou orales. C’est probablement là, dans le bouillonnement intellectuel de la ville érudite, et dans l’urgence de trouver une explication à la catastrophe en cours, que furent hâtivement rassemblés, compilés et recopiés toutes les paroles, plus ou moins fidèlement conservées, les unes en araméen, les autres en hébreu, les dernières en grec de tout ce que la Judée avait connu de messies au cours du dernier siècle.
The only point where Batsch is possibilist (only in very abstract terms) about the historicity of Jesus is when he allows the mere abstract possibility that, in the amalgam of various oral traditions that was fabricated hastily after the 70 (not still a ‘Gospel’) also some oral traditions about a ‘charismatic Galilean’ merged into in the mix:
Ces recueils de dicta hétérogènes (parmi lesquels rien n’interdit d’imaginer que figuraient ceux d’un charismatique galiléen) furent la matière première à partir de laquelle on élabora bientôt des évangiles, plus tard canoniques ou apocryphes, marqués aux sceaux divers des théologies différentes qui les inspiraient. [my bold]
I think that Batsch distinguishes clearly between the rash collections of heterogeneous sayings and the first Gospel properly so called:
Tous ces recueils possédaient néanmoins en commun ceci qu’ils rapportaient les actes et les paroles d’un «sauveur», Yeshua, qui était aussi le «messie», Chrestos. Ce fut là le berceau du judéo-christianisme qui, sous ses formes multiples, déborda les frontières du judaïsme, d’abord à Alexandrie (d’où tout semble provenir en matière de Nouveau Testament), puis dans l’Orient de l’Empire, jusque dans sa capitale enfin.
These sayings and actions were historical, in the sense that they were sayings and actions of the various Theudas, etc., but they were not historical insofar they were attributed all, without distinction at all, to a titular name, ‘Joshua’ and ‘Chrestos’.
Hence I see that, even if you and Batsch agree about the 70 being the driving spring of the fabrication of “Jesus Christ”, the great difference is that for you what was sufficient was only the massacre of the 70 (as if what happened before didn’t matter at all), while for Batsch the 100 years preceding the 70 CE had served, at least, to sow the raw oral traditions about various would-be kings and sign prophets that, once collected and amalgamated hastily after the 70, served in a second step to elaborate the first Gospel.
I will address your first comments later, but for now let me focus on your concluding points.
I do not intend, and never have intended, to suggest that the events/massacre of the year 70 was “sufficient” for the “driving spring of the fabrication of Jesus Christ”. I have never discounted — in fact I have always attempted to include, the massacres leading up to the events of the year 70. I am sorry that that has not been clear. It is, indeed, the basic premise of Bedenbender’s argument that I have also promoted here.
But what evidence do you have that the gospel narratives relied at any point on oral traditions? Literary analysis has surely excluded the grounds for such a presumption.
Imagine if the scenario proposed by Drews is even partially valid — that Judeans were loudly proclaiming throughout the empire the overthrow of Rome at the imminent descent of a Messiah from heaven — what would we expect to find somewhere in the sources that have been left to us?
Proposing a hypothesis and then setting out reasons why we don’t have evidence supporting the hypothesis won’t cut it.
Translated = Since the troubles that followed the death of Herod the Great in the year 4 BCE, during which many messianic claimants emerged, crucifixion became the most commonly used punishment by the Roman administration for all Jewish rebellious tendencies, whether they were messianic or “nationalist” (Zealots).
As you know, though, I disagree with Batsch on the interpretation of those prophetic and rebel figures as “messianic claimants”. Batsch adds nothing new to justify this interpretation of those persons but simply repeats the common assumption that they were messianic hopefuls. The evidence we have about these figures, and other evidence of that time and place, contradicts that interpretation — as I have posted elsewhere.
translating for those who do not read French: Therefore, crucifixion was not, as is too often read, an exceptional punishment in Judea, nor was it a punishment reserved for slaves. Instead, it was the ordinary form of execution systematically employed by the Roman administration to suppress the tendencies of political and religious uprisings (which almost always intertwined) among a portion of the Judean population.
[,,,]
Thus the association between the two powerful ideologized images of the messianic king of the Jews and the crucifixion was not surprising in 1st century Judea; one could even say that it had come to constitute a topos there.
Indeed, and this this is an important point introduced by Batsch. Too many Christian interpreters try to argue that crucifixion of Jesus was singularly humiliating BECAUSE it was the punishment of slaves and rebels. But no, at least when we are looking for the background to the Gospel narratives, crucifixion was a reminder of what the nation had suffered.
But the second paragraph of B needs some qualification. Do we have any evidence that the messianic pretenders he names were all crucified? I don’t think so. So B’s attempt to infer that those, as messianic pretenders, were associated with crucifixion, is not quite on the rails. We don’t need to postulate messianic claimants for which we have no evidence (only assumption contrary to the specific claims of Josephus and other evidence) being associated with crucifixion. B blurs the data here to try to make this particular point. It is enough to know that the nation suffered mass crucifixions both leading up to and especially during and in the wake of the Jewish War of 66-74 to associate any deliverer with a revival of a new Israel from the fate of crucifixion – as Jesus was resurrected from the death of the cross.
Of course, if the notion of a crucified messiah existed prior to the Gospel of Mark, then it is even easier to him making that link.
translated: We must then take into account the third response to the disaster of 70: that of the heirs of the apocalyptic and messianic currents within Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period. For these educated city-dwellers who had escaped the violence of the siege, the upheavals of civil wars, and the massacres of Roman repression, the question arose of where to go, where to regroup, where to continue living and contemplating this Judaism of the last days, this eschaton whose catastrophes in Judea heralded its imminent arrival. Jerusalem, the center and beating heart of Temple Judaism, was destroyed. Rome, the capital of the newly unified Empire, seemed forbidden after the expulsions and anti-Jewish persecutions of its recent emperors. Only Alexandria, the capital of the East and the cradle of written culture, with its significant, prosperous, and culturally active Jewish community since the city’s founding, remained.
Yes, that is B’s interpretation, but I have explained above where I disagree and my reasons.
Where we do find clearer evidence of messianic claimants being associated with mass slaughters and no doubt crucifixions is in the time of Trajan — the rebellion of Judeans throughout much of the eastern part of the empire. Enter again a case for the Gospel of Mark being a product of the second century.
Yes — I see now what you meant by “signs prophets”. It was a term that left me a little uncertain about what you meant. But yes, I disagreed and continue to disagree with B on his interpretation or assumptions about those specific figures. I may be wrong, of course, and maybe I will be shown reasons to change my mind in the future, but I have seen no evidence yet to justify the interpretation of those persons as messianic claimants.
Translated: These collections of diverse sayings (among which there is no reason to exclude those of a charismatic Galilean) soon became the raw material from which gospels were elaborated, later becoming canonical or apocryphal, marked with the various seals of the different theological inspirations behind them.
Yes, but do you agree with that, knowing what you do about the several scholarly arguments against oral tradition being behind the gospels, and the abundance of evidence for the gospels being constructed from other writings, particularly the OT? Does not the literary analysis of the gospels count as evidence against B’s proposal? Would we not expect to find some hint of some historical memories in addition to the literary presentation? We have many myths about Alexander and other heroic figures who modelled themselves on other demi-gods, but the mythical presentation cannot hide the historical core for which we additionally have independent evidence.
Translation: However, all these collections had in common that they reported the deeds and words of a “savior,” Yeshua, who was also the “Messiah,” Chrestos. This was the cradle of Judeo-Christianity which, in its multiple forms, overflowed the borders of Judaism, first in Alexandria (where everything seems to come from in terms of the New Testament), then in the East of the Empire, finally in its capital.
Do you accept that the gospels used collections of sayings of Jesus or some other messianic type figure? The Jesus Seminar attempted to sift the original sayings of Jesus, but are there any sayings of Jesus that are more simply explained. Q itself is now being seriously challenged.
Ditto my earlier counter-view above. The Gospel sayings and narratives surely derive from literary sources we can identify and we don’t need to postulate — a postulate that raises many more problems — a reliance on “historical sayings”.
Addressed in an earlier comment.
Thanks for the comment and questions/claims raised. I like B’s methodological approach, as I said before, but disagree with him where he repeats the assumptions conventionally found in the conventional scholarship, even if he transfers those assumptions from Jesus to other figures. The assumption remains the same — only applied to different figures and different times — but is faulty and contradicted by other evidence, in my view.
I should add that though Batsch dates the Gospel of Mark to soon after 70, and while I also believe that gospel refers to that time in Jesus’ prophecy of the end-time, I also keep bumping into evidence that it was written in Hadrian’s time. The year 70 was certainly understood as the watershed moment, and I can see conditions from that time being ripe for Christianity to be born, but the gospel itself …. I am not so sure. There are obvious questions that arise from this possibility that I have discussed elsewhere over the years.
I also keep in mind the reminders in even Luke and Acts that despite Jesus’ attacks on Pharisees, Pharisees were also depicted as favourable to Jesus and his movement. Revelation, too, can be understood as favourable to law-abiding Judeans — though of course questions arise there, too.
One problem that came to my mind when reading the speculation that the rioting Judeans in Rome at the time of Claudius were prompted by the anticipation of the fall of Rome was that there is no evidence — not even in the gospels — that I know of that such a notion was motivating Judeans to action at that time. If Jesus was supposed to have taught such a thing there is no hint of it in the gospels. Rather, Jesus there prophesies the fall of Judea and the Temple, and speaks of the apostles judging the 12 tribes of Israel — nothing about an overthrow of Rome.
Another problem: many scholars argue that the authors of the gospels were in fear of Roman retribution if they let on that Jesus was a “political activist messianist” — but the argument of Drews goes to great lengths to stress that Jews were quite open — without apparent fear of punishment — about prophesying the end of Rome at the return of Jesus. The worst that is said to have happened was that the messianists were expelled from the city of Rome despite being active throughout the entire empire. If the crucified in Judea had been messianic zealots (and there is no evidence that they were, certainly not in Josephus) then how can one explain such a merciful or comparatively light punishment for their counterparts in Rome itself?
One could go on — think of the sources we do have and what we would expect to read in them if Judeans really were messianically active throughout the Diaspora and Judea long before the Jewish War.
R Drews seems to say that it was only gradually, by knowing the Chrestiani day after day, that the Romans started to understand what the hope in the coming return of Chrestos would have meant in political terms: the destruction of the Roman Empire. Even today, in order to recognize potential terrorists in the mosques, one has to learn before what is said in foreign languages.
Where Drews’s argument is more weak is in the his forced identification of that Chrestos with Jesus of Nazareth, but as to the identification of Chrestos with Christos in pre-70 times he is on the same page of Batsch and Doudna and I tend to agree.
I don’t know what evidence we have for claiming that there were Judeans who made a public impact by declaring a Christ or Messiah or any other figure was soon coming to overthrow the Roman empire. — Certainly not in the 30s or 40s or even the 50s. Even in the events of the War there is little to no evidence for the scenario that Judeans spoke of a Christos to overthrow the empire. Even before 70, if my memory serves, there was a more general hope for a Nero to return from the east and overthrow his enemies, was there not? Josephus gives us no reason to think that a propaganda claim he made of Vespasian involved the Christos term.
Drews speaks of messianic Judeans being immersed in Hellenistic and subsequent Jewish apocalyptic writings and references but relies entirely on the Book of Daniel for details, if I recall. But all the evidence that I can think of tell us that Daniel was used to explain events of 70 after those events, not before. As Batsch writes,
Is there any evidence in the historical record that Judeans throughout the Diaspora and in Judea itself were “loudly proclaiming” (not secretly whispering in their private meetings, but clamorously shouting, as Drews repeatedly emphasizes) about a Christos to come from heaven, let alone to overthrow the Roman empire?
I can add that when we do look for evidence of what Judean prophets had in mind before the war of 66-74, we see in Josephus that they were following the hopes expressed by Moses and Joshua (hoping the Jordan would part, etc). Daniel only comes into the picture after 70.
I see on another forum (one which I have given up participating in) that you describe this comment of mine as an argument by rhetorical question:
On the contrary, my point is merely pointing towards the standard test of any hypothesis. If a hypothesis is valid, then what evidence or data would we expect to find? If we do not find what is expected by the prediction of the hypothesis, then we have to question the hypothesis. Some people, unfortunately even some professional scholars, prefer to discuss at length why evidence does NOT exist for the hypotheses they nonetheless remain committed to.
Feel free to post this response to that forum. But I can no longer handle the personal attacks and ongoing harassment that the moderator allows against me there.
I see that Dave agrees with the premise of Robert Drews but not with the conclusion:
Just because Drews successfully argued that Seutonius Claudius 25.4 was about a Christ figure still does not automatically mean it’s about Jesus. There were at least 20 Christ figures that could have been candidates for the original head of this particular movement. Even within Christians own literature Acts admits some were not of the Jesus movement
This interpretation of the Suetonian passage is precisely the same Batsch’s interpretation.
It seems that in order to deny the messianism before the 70 CE you have to argue (forcibly?) that “Chrestos” cannot be in no way at all a reference to the Jewish Messiah (“Christos”) but the exact name of a rebel active in Rome under Claudius. To insist that Chrestos ≠ Christos in Suetonius (beyond of Suetonius really understanding or not his own source about the impulsore Chresto) seems to be skating on thin ice.
Dave Allen banned me from his Facebook history discussion page because I pointed out that various scholars argued against the widespread existence of popular messianic movements prior to the Jewish War, even blatantly misreading the clear words of a quote from Steve Mason that I presented. So I am not surprised that Dave agrees with Robert Drews. But I have little confidence in the intellectual justification for his position.
You suggest my argument is “forced” — but all I am trying to point out is the lack of evidence that is cited for the alternative, for Drews’ position. I am trying to point out the difference between supporting evidence for a view and an assumption that certain events should be interpreted in a certain way even in the absence of supporting evidence for that interpretation. In other words, I am trying to point out the circularity of the argument for interpreting certain figures as messianic claimants. I think where the “forced” argument is found is on the part of those who insist on refusing to acknowledge and question their assumptions.
I don’t know what I have said that suggests “Chrestos” cannot in any way be a reference to a Jewish Messiah. I have never said that there was no notion of a messiah before the Jewish war. Of course there was — the DSS, Ps of Solomon, etc etc. My point is about the evidence we have or don’t have for popular messianic movements at that time.
The Suetonius passage is riddled with uncertainties and to base any argument on one uncertain and unprovable interpretation of his passage is certainly skating on thin ice. Where we have passages that are open to a range of problems — two different meanings of Chrestus (one contemporary, the other arguably anachronistic), even a plausible case for interpolation — it is best to set that problematic piece of data to one side and focus first on what we do have clear evidence for.
The failed attempts to find “original sayings” or even “original actions” of Jesus, and the problems with the oral tradition hypothesis, and the clear evidence for literary borrowings, must also be taken into account — we surely must be careful to avoid assuming that the gospels are relics of traditions of historical events and sayings.
Let’s suppose the Suetonius passage does refer to a messianic riot or civic disturbance in Rome. I have attempted to point out in earlier comments that there is no evidence at all — the evidence we have in fact forbids the assumption — that such movements were spread (“loudly shouting the name of Christ” according to Drews’ repeated insistence) throughout the Diaspora and in Judea. The punishment inflicted by Claudius is inconsistent with everything else scholarship has had to say about the fear of the gospel authors from offending Rome.
My argument is nothing other than attempting to hold the claims of Drews to accountability to meet the normal standards of supporting evidence that other ancient historians work with.