In discussing how researchers create narratives to portray historical events or write biographies, Benedict Anderson, author of the highly acclaimed Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, drew a contrast with the Gospel of Matthew.
These narratives . . . are set in homogeneous, empty time. Hence their frame is historical and their setting sociological. This is why so many autobiographies begin with the circumstances of parents and grandparents, for which the autobiographer can have only circumstantial, textual evidence; and why the biographer is at pains to record the calendrical, A.D. dates of two biographical events which his or her subject can never remember: birth-day and death-day. Nothing affords a sharper reminder of this narrative’s modernity than the opening of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. For the Evangelist gives us an austere list of thirty males successively begetting one another, from the Patriarch Abraham down to Jesus Christ. . . . No dates are given for any of Jesus’s forebears, let alone sociological, cultural, physiological or political information about them. This narrative style . . . . was entirely reasonable to the sainted genealogist because he did not conceive of Christ as an historical ‘personality,’ but only as the true Son of God. (pp 204f)
Yet how many biblical scholars have attempted to fill in the gap in Matthew’s Gospel by calculating the exact or approximate years of Jesus’ birth and death! Rather, the more enlightening inquiry should be to seek to understand why the first evangelists did not have the historical interests that fascinate modern readers.
(Of course, it would be too easy to fall back on the claim that Pilate’s appearance in the gospel establishes a historical setting and time — until one pauses to recall that the Pilate in the gospels is a character utterly unlike the historical Pilate. As I wrote earlier, the Pilate of historical record (sc. Josephus) was renowned for his cruelty but all the evangelists, Matthew included, present him — most UNhistorically — as benign and soft when he meets Jesus, and as being cowered by the Jewish priests and mob into doing their will against his own. A historical person has been rewritten to meet the needs of the narrative.)
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition. Verso, 2006.
Neil Godfrey
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It always puzzles me, the interest in Jesus’s genealogy. His mother was Mary, and his father was the Holy Ghost. Christian excusigists tie themselves into knots as to how the Holy Ghost created sperm from the line of David to make sure that Jesus was of that line, which makes a mockery of the magical impregnation and birth.
My only thought after reading this was; what was the reliability of Josephus? It is very difficult to know how much bias had entered his writing so long after the events occurred, especially since the Jews were treated rather harshly for a long period of time due to their rebellious actions. Pilate remains a mystery. I don’t think we have any idea as to the origin of Matthew so I choose the words that appeal to me as one who values an inner path. For example, the Essenes and Sadducees did not believe in hell. Only the Pharisees of the larger Jewish sects did. I doubt Jesus was a believer in their particular doctrine and more likely had an aversion. Like Marcion, I think that so much had been rewritten, edited and forged that the true history is unknowable.
Everyone writes with some kind of bias and the biases of Josephus are well known. In certain key respects he wrote with a pro-Roman bias and was certainly biased against those he viewed as rebels against Rome. Wherever he could he would fault Jewish rebels for stubborn resistance despite a willingness of Rome to show some clemency at key junctures. The most famous episode of bias producing a most unlikely scenario was his claim that Titus did not want to destroy the Jerusalem temple but it was burned despite his best efforts to save it. Or perhaps even more famous pro-Roman bias was his claim that Vespasian was the promised world ruler of Jewish prophecy.
The Pilate of the gospels is as much a fairy tale figure compared with his reality — not unlike the way a historical Arthur or Charlemagne have been re-written in various fictional tales.
The story of Pilate in the gospels looks indeed not very historical. But the depiction of the stories as fairy tails is in my opinion a bit unnuanced. Many episodes in the gospels are carefully constructed and are midrasj stories rooted in the jewish scriptures. The events and conditions in the time of the writer were in midrasj writing always interpreted through the lens of written and oral torah.
The Pilate story in the gospels has many allusions in earlier jewish writings. For example, the feast on which a prisoner is released in Mk 15:6 alludes to the feast of the birthday of the pharaoh in Gen 40:20-22, when the chief cupbearer was released, but the chief baker was hanged. Other allusions to the Pilate story can be found in the Joseph story (Gen 37-50) and the story of the death of Absalom (2 Sam 15-18).
In my view, the closest parallels between the jewish scriptures and the Pilate story in the gospels can be found in Jeremiah 37/38 where Pilate is depicted much like (a second) Zedekiah.
Both stories occur not far before the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. Parallels that can be found include:
(1) Both Jeremiah is made captive by the officials (37:13) as Jesus is made captive by the chief priests and scribes in Getsemane.
(2) Both Jeremiah is falsely accused by the officials (37:14, 38:4) as Jesus is falsely accused by the crowd (Lk 23:2)
(3) The officials were angry with Jeremiah (37:15) as the chief priests had delivered Jesus out of envy (Mk 15:10)
(4) Both Zedekiah is not an enemy of Jeremiah as Pilate is not an enemy of Jesus. Zedekiah goes secretly to Jeremiah to listen to a word of the Lord (37:17), sends him not back to the house of the scribe and gives him bread (37:21). Pilate found no fault in this man (Lk 23:14) and was willing to release Jesus (Lk 23:20).
(5) Both the message of Jeremiah is not to combat (38:2) as the message of Jesus is not to combat, because his kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36).
(6) In both stories a choice has to be made. In the case of Jeremiah the people have to choose between staying in the city and die or surrender and live (38:2). Pilate lets the people choose between Jesus and the insurrectionist and murderer Barabbas (Mk 15:6,7) .
(7) Both the officials want Jeremiah be put to death (38:4), as the chief priests and the people call for Jesus to be crucified (Mk 15:13)
(8) Both Zedekiah delivers Jeremiah to the officials, as Pilate delivers Jesus to the chief priests. Although both had the authority to decide differently, Zedekiah could not resist them (38:5) and Pilate was willing to content the people (Mk 15:15). Both apparently wanted to get rid of the problem. Maybe they acted out of fear for disturbances.
(9) After they had put Jeremiah in the pit, a minor character from high ranking, Ebed Melech (means servant of the king) goes to the king, and requests boldly to save Jeremiah. Zedekiah immediately approves the request. After the crucifixion of Jesus Joseph of Arimathea, a honourable councilman goes to Pilate, and asks boldly for the body of Jesus. Pilate gave the body to Joseph.
The observation that the Pilate of the gospels looks much like Zedekiah in Jeremiah 37/38 leaves still the question open for what reason the name Pilate is chosen by the gospel writer.
Zedekiah was appointed by the emperor of the Babylonians (Nebukadnessar) (37:1), where as Pilate was appointed by the emperor of the Romans (Tiberius), but the gospel writer could have chosen a different roman governor / procurator.
If anyone would ask me how the character of Pilate could have emerged in the gospel narrative – provided that the story is not historical – then my best guess would be that his name is chosen because of a wordplay. Maybe the name Pilate is a fictional name based on a wordplay on the greek verb epilanthano. (In the gospel of Mark more fictional names can be found from which the origin is not always clear (like Boanerges, Bartimaeus, Barabbas)).
The verb λανθανω (lanthano) means to escape notice, to be unseen, to be unknown about, but with a clear implication of being very much there but somehow hidden from direct sight or otherwise not noticed. The amplified version επιλανθανω (epilanthano) means to (cause to) forget, with an implied emphasis on burial and covering over (https://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/l/l-a-n-th-a-n-om.html).
The proximity between Pilate and epilanthano can maybe best made visible in its imperative form. Suppose someone calls ‘Forget Pilate’. In Greek this would look like ‘επιλάθου του Πιλάτου’.
The reason why the word epilanthano makes sense here is that the same word is also connected to the figure of Manasseh. Josephus writes in Ant. 2.6.1 that Joseph named his eldest son Manasseh, and says ‘which signifies forgetful’ (σημαίνει δ᾽ ἐπίληθον).
In the book of 2 Kings the story is told of king Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, whose behaviour was so abhorrent that it caused the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the first temple.
2 Kings 21:10-12 says: ‘Therefore the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets: “Because King Manasseh of Judah has done these abhorrent things—he has outdone in wickedness all that the Amorites did before his time—and because he led Judah to sin with his fetishes, assuredly, thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that both ears of everyone who hears about it will tingle….’
The name Manasseh is generally seen as derived from the verb נשה (nasha), and means (make to) forget. The antonym of forgetting is remembering. The hebrew verb for remember is זכר (zakar).
Memory belongs to the foundation of the jewish religion. Remembering the teachings of the Lord and keep his commandments is in the torah the way to peace, prosperity and healing.
Proverbs 3:1-4 says: ‘My son, do not forget (επιλανθάνου) my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.’
On the other side, the rejection of the knowledge of the Lord is the way to destruction.
Hosea 4:1, 6 says: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; … My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten (επελάθου) the law of your God, I also will forget (επιλήσομαι) your children.’
While the authors of the book of 2 Kings laid the blame for the fall of the kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE by the sins of king Manasseh (even despite the reforms of Josiah, see 2Kings 23:26), later scribes were unhappy with this story, and thought different about divine justice, therefore in the book of Chronicles a different story is found. The writer of Chronicles did not believe in intergenerational punishment and had no choice but to blame the destruction of Judah on the last king, Zedekiah. Therefore, the Chronicler added more sins to the works of Zedekiah and his generation (2 Chr 36:12-16). Only after all this had occurred, God acted by sending Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. (source: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-chronicles-of-divine-justice-why-god-destroyed-judah)
We find both Manasseh and Zedekiah are associated to the fall of the first temple.
In the aftermath of the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, the Jews had to find answers on the question how this shock could have happened to them, and on what impact the loss of the temple would have on the faith of Judaism. The struggle to incorporate the destruction of the temple into their religious understanding of the world led around the turn of the first century CE to the emerge of Jewish apocalyses as we have with 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. The authors of these books chose as their protagonists figures from the period of the Babylonian destruction and exile. Baruch was the scribe and sometimes representative from Jeremiah and lived during the destruction of the first temple. Ezra led the return from the Babylonian exile in the 5th century BCE. The use of biblical figures from the past in later religious writings was common practice.
That the name of Manasseh as well was apparent in pseudoepigraphical works from the first or second century CE we know from the Martyrdom of Isaiah, a part of the Ascension of Isaiah. In this work Isaiah reveals to Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh, that Manasseh will not follow the path of his father. On instigation of the false prophet Belkira Manasseh condemns Isaiah to death, which finally leads to the death of Isaiah by being sawn in two. Manasseh is depicted here as a useful idiot, someone without understanding. (Note that the name Isaiah comes from the hebrew Yeshayahu, which means salvation of the Lord. This name is very close to the name of Jesus, meaning salvation (or maybe better: healing, restoring to the original state))
My thesis is that the gospel writer needed for his midrash (1) a Manasseh / Zedekiah like character (someone who does not recognizes the ways of the Lord and persecutes a righteous person / a prophet with a divine revelation), and (2) this character had to be understandable and recognizable for his greek (non jewish speaking) gentile audience. He found this character by means of the wordplay in the person of Pilate.
Note that the historical Pilate looks much more alike Manasseh than the Pilate of the gospel narratives. Like Pilate Manasseh shed innocent blood (2 Kings 21:16), and whereas Pilate used temple money for building an aquaduct, Manasseh put an Asherah pole in the temple (2 Kings 21:7).
If this hypothesis holds, then it is not probable that Pilate emerged in the gospel narrative before the very end of the first century. At this time there lived almost no more people who had an active remembrance on the acts of the historical Pilate. It looks even doubtfull to me if anyway stories about Jesus existed before the destruction of the second temple.
Anyhow, I absolutely agree with your thesis that Pilate could very well be a historical person that has been rewritten to meet the needs of the narrative.
You are quite right to correct me on my “fairy tale” analogy. That term did not even apply to my intended target of comparison with the romance treatments of Arthur and Charlemagne. Thank you for the detailed analysis comparing Zedekiah of Jeremiah’s trial with Pilate in Jesus’ trial. I also like the intriguing possibility you propose for the initial word play related to the name of Pilate.
The only question that matters, ultimately, is whether there was an historical Jesus who was known by contemporaries, and who died by crucifixion, and was later said by some of his contemporaries to have been “raised from the dead”.
Now, we could all agree that the canonical Gospels are NOT offering historical, “biographical” accounts. Maybe they’re theological, heck, maybe they’re fiction (and, they certainly would be, if there was not, at a minimum, a known, historical person named Jesus who was claimed by some of his contemporaries to have been raised from the dead).
So, let’s just say that whatever the Gospels are, they are NOT historically reliable biographical accounts.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t an historical Jesus (as I’ve described above). It may just mean that decades after the life, death, and purported resurrection of Jesus, somebody decided to write some “historical fiction” books about Jesus.
But, if there WAS an historical Jesus who was known by contemporaries, (some of whom claimed he was raised from the dead), then somebody’s “historical fiction” written 30, 40, or 50 (or more) years later doesn’t change whatever the real “facts” were.
So, the only thing that is accomplished in writing books, articles, and blog posts about how “bogus” the canonical Gospels might be that some become convinced that those writings ARE “bogus”.
But, ultimately, that has nothing to do with whether a historical Jesus was raised from the dead or not. An individual might be convinced on other grounds (besides the canonical Gospels) that there was an historical Jesus (as described) – and, who really WAS raised from the dead. This was, after all, the very case in the first century: Clearly there were those that believed in an historical Jesus who was said, by contemporaries who knew him, to have been ‘literally’, bodily raised from the dead. And, they believed that BEFORE any Gospels were written.
So, I find these sort of writings about the Gospels to be a tedium. They say, over and over again, that the Gospels are (essentially) bogus. Yet, they never address the question of why people BEFORE the Gospels were written believed in an historical Jesus (as described).
It makes me ponder: A “Christianity” built around an historical Jesus that was claimed to have been ‘literally’, physically, bodily raised from the dead could have survived WITHOUT the Gospels at all. But, but, could something like Christ Mythicism survive without the Gospels? I don’t think so.
You misunderstand the purpose of this blog. I am not interested in debunking anyone’s religion or in trying to argue that the Gospels are “bogus” — nor even in trying to argue that Jesus did not exist. None of those issues interest me at all. What does interest me is trying to explore the origins of Christianity and origins of the Gospels. How and why did it/they come about? What are the Gospels and what was their purpose, function, when composed? Those questions are still very much open.
And the immediate stimulation for this post was my reading — by chance — the reference to Matthew’s gospel in a historical work where I least expected to find it. I think many in the general public would like to know how non-biblical historians think of the gospels compared with other sources they normally work with.
As for mythicism, I simply do not see myself as a “mythicist” at all. The question of a historical Jesus simply does not arise in my thinking. There is no plank from which to start to even begin to explore such a question — the many books by biblical scholars notwithstanding.
I take the same view of the gospels as do many, perhaps most, theologians: that the gospels present a non-historical Christ figure. That is the figure that requires explanation wrt the gospels. Similarly for the Christ Jesus figure in the epistles and Revelation.