Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Category: Biblical Studies
The biggie. Much work needs to be done on the children of this category. These need to be greatly reduced in number.
Should this category include the ancient history of Palestine-Judea, including second temple era and Bar Kochba rebellion and rise of rabbinic culture? If so, should Biblical Studies itself be renamed in some way?
“We may, as we did when we were children, wish a beloved tale were true, but as we got older we had to accept that we must be guided by the evidence alone.”
How can we know if John the Baptist in the gospels was a real historical figure? (This is not the same question as: How can we know if there was a real John the Baptist in history — as indicated by record in the writings of Josephus and the memories of the Mandaeans?)
The question came to mind when I read the article that Tim Widowfield introduced in the previous post:
Joynes, Christine E. 2005. “The Returned Elijah? John the Baptist’s Angelic Identity in the Gospel of Mark.” Scottish Journal of Theology 58 (4): 455–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003693060500150X
Joynes considers the way John the Baptist is portrayed through Elijah associations in the Gospel of Mark — his hairy clothing and leather belt, his time in the wilderness, his calling people back to God — and how at least one scholar has interpreted this as an indicator of a fictional scenario:
Goulder’s conclusion that the presence of typology indicates lack of historicity is not entirely convincing, since other criteria are required to determine issues of historicity . . .
[I]t is equally possible that John the Baptist really did dress in this way because of his ‘Elijah consciousness’ and that this fact was accurately reported by Mark. This illustrates that the presence of typology is not an adequate basis for determining historicity. Typology is possible within a fictional composition, but its presence does not constitute a fictional composition. (pp. 458, 460)
Three safeguards, then, we have proposed against the abuse of the typological method: the need to supply catenas, and not single instances, of correspondences; the need for the coincidence of actual Greek words between type and antitype, and the rarer the better; and the need for a convincing motive for the evangelist to have composed his work in the way claimed. (Goulder, M. D. 1964. Type and History in Acts. SPCK. p. 10)
I believe there is a missing detail in Joynes’ argument. True, it is “possible” that John the Baptist really did consciously dress up like Elijah. But is it “equally possible” in this context?
The evidence we have before us clearly leads us to understand that the author had the Old Testament Elijah in mind as he drew his picture of John the Baptist. As Goulder indicates, the multiplicity and the distinctiveness or specificity of the parallels along with an evident motive for creating John the Baptist as an Elijah figure, lead the reader to suspect that the account is a literary invention, not genuine history.
That is one side of the ledger.
On the other, we have no details in the Gospel of Mark that take the reader’s vision away from the Elijah typology. Mark’s Baptist functions solely in the way the Old Testament leads us to expect: he arrives on the scene to call people to repentance before the advent of the divine presence, he is the victim of a spiteful royal woman who bends her husband to her will, and so on. There is no other career history for John the Baptist. He is entirely a foil to point to the divine supremacy and presence of Jesus. He has no role independent of Elijah.
So I don’t think we can say that it is “equally possible” that the Gospel of Mark’s John was a historical figure pretending to be Elijah — if we rely entirely on the evidence, which is nothing other than the portrayal of John the Baptist as the expected Elijah. The Gospel offers no evidence that John was anything but a typological figure.
Until recently, I had never noticed that in some iconographic images of John the Baptist, he is depicted with wings. Often, the icon will show him either holding his own head or standing next to it.
The common explanation within Orthodox Christianity for these unusual features is somewhat reasonable, I suppose. First, the wings simply refer to the Baptist’s angelic life. He is the forerunner not only of the Christ, but of all Christian ascetics who would follow on long after he passed from the scene. But what about the extra head? Well, icons represent the eternal world. The resurrected, transfigured, immortal John is contemplating his own mortal, severed head.
However, we could posit another explanation (at least for the wings), namely that the text of Mark’s Gospel implies that he is indeed an angel of the Lord. Something else I didn’t know until recently was that older Catholic translations like the Douay-Rheims explicitly translate τὸν ἄγγελόν μου as “my angel,” wherein the speaker is clearly God himself.
Of course, more recent careful English translations use the word “messenger” instead of “angel.” This dedication for making scripture say the right thing extends to interlinear translations, where the student of Greek is prudently led to the correct translation without the slightest hint that τὸν ἄγγελόν μου could mean anything but my messenger in this case.
This zealotry for accuracy extends back to the quotation from the book of Malachi. In other cases, when the translators see the term “my angel/messenger,” either in Greek or in Hebrew, they (correctly) presume God is talking about one of his angels. But the prophecy in Malachi is a special case.
Conclusion of the Investigation into the Literary Form of the Gospels.
275
Nachdem die Untersuchung der Form die Entscheidung über den Inhalt der Evangelien herbeigeführt, die Feststellung des schriftstellerischen Ursprungs der Evangelien die Gewißheit von der allmähigen Bildung ihres gesammten Stoffes zur Folge gehabt hat, wird unsere Bestimmung des Verhältnisses zwischen dem Urevangelium und der späteren Entwicklung der evangelischen Geschichtschreibung die exacte Anschauung vom Verhältniß der kirchlichen Parteien und die Reproduction des Gesetzes ihrer historischen Entwicklung aus sich erzeugen und ist es uns namentlich möglich geworden, das hauptsächlichste Hinderniß, welches die neuere kritische Apologetik der Geschichtsanschauung entgegengestellt hat, zu beseitigen.
Es handelt sich um dieselbe Bestimmung des jüdischen Interesses innerhalb der Kirche, die wir bereits in unserer Kritik der Apostelgeschichte sichergestellt haben — um dieselbe totale Umkehrung einer Vorstellung, in welcher diejenigen, die in der letzten Zeit allein auf diesem Gebiet gearbeitet haben, die Lösung aller hieher gehörigen Fragen zu besitzen glauben.
Now that our investigation of the form has enabled us to reach conclusions about the content of the Gospels, and our determination of their literary origin has established the gradual development of their entire body of material, we can proceed to determine the relationship between the original Gospel and the later development of gospel writing. This will give us a precise understanding of the relationship between the different parties within the Church and allow us to reconstruct the law governing their historical development. In particular, we are now in a position to remove the principal obstacle that recent critical apologetics has placed in the way of a historical understanding.
It concerns the same determination of the Jewish interest within the Church, which we have already established in our critique of the Acts of the Apostles — the same total reversal of an idea, in which those who in recent times have worked alone in this field believe they possess the solution to all questions belonging here.
Thomas Brodie deserves to be well and long remembered, not only for his scholarship but also for his personal experiences as a scholar of integrity in a field where faith hangs like a fog over all its practitioners—believers, agnostics, and even the few atheists alike.
Of particular interest to readers here is Michael Commane’s note:
[Thomas Brodie] was the first director of the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick, which opened in 2001. Tom remained as director until 2012. The institute closed in 2016.
The Irish Catholic of January 21, 2013 wrote the following about Tom: “This[Tom’s retirement as director] coincided with his publication of Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, in which he claimed Jesus Christ did not exist as an historical person and led the Irish Dominican province to direct him to withdraw from ministry and cease teaching and writing.”
Tom did not accept the findings of the Dominicans. He argued that he was entering into the ongoing debate about the historical person of Christ.
I covered in depth that publication, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus. See
Published in 1956, Jesus Came Again only quietly explained it was a parable. The only hints were the last paragraph on the back cover and a small-print, dislocated sub-title on the title page. There was nothing on the front cover to alert the reader of the nature of Vardis Fisher’s retelling.
Brodie was never “anti-Christian”. He even argued that a non-historical Jesus made the Christian message potentially more personally meaningful. Compare Mythicism Making Christianity More Meaningful. Beyond the Quest is a phenomenological journey that allows readers to understand why and how he came to see Jesus as a spiritual metaphor with the power to edify the believer — but this could only be accomplished by acknowledging the New Testament’s Jesus was never a historical figure. (Another work I am reminded of, though this one was authored by an atheist: Jesus Came Again; a parable.)
But Brodie’s most in-depth scholarly output was probably his 33 + 653 page tome, in effect a collation of many years of his research and publications: The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings.
If you have been intrigued by works (not only by Brodie, but also Winn, MacDonald, Charbonnel and others) identifying the Greco-Roman as well as Old Testament sources of the gospel narratives, you will appreciate The Birthing as a priceless treasure indeed. The same volume contains an overwhelming (in my view) demolition of the need to assume oral traditions lie behind the gospels. Brodie even argues that the “raw emotion” of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is a literary artifice drawn from the Old Testament.
Vridar posts addressing Thomas Brodie’s work (including this post) are collated here. There are about 50 or so of them.
Remembering Thomas Brodie with fondness and sadness and deep respect, I like to leave my little collection of hard copies of his works:
& jointly edited with Thomas Brodie:
Brodie, Thomas L., Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter, eds. 2006. The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice. Sheffield Phoenix Press.
Paul Cheffers made it possible to update Bauer’s Philo citations to their modern references. (Bauer was relying on a 1691 text). Paul’s page: https://www.securecottage.com/BauerProto/
Contents of Philo, Strauss and Renan and Christian Origins
I. Philo as guide from Hellenism to Christianity.
II. Strauss and his new faith.
III. Renan’s position with respect to French imperialism.
IV. Strauss’s place in the world.
V. The Roman Caesars and the forerunners of Christianity.
VI. Philo’s spiritual world-religion.
VII. Philo in the New Testament.
VIII. Renan’s Life of Jesus.
IX. Philo’s writings.
AI translated via Neil Godfrey, with the bulk of the cross referencing citations by Paul Scheffers. I worked with AI over time to try to ensure the translation was faithful to Bauer’s text while at the same time being readable for most of us. I have preserved the pagination of the German publication.
Throughout this work Bauer cites the 1691 printing of the 1613 Höschel edition of Philo. These references are obsolete. Today readers are likely to refer to the Loeb Classical Library’s Colson and Whitaker translation or Yonge’s translation of Philo for the complete works. The title breaks and numbering references found in these modern translations are based on the Cohn-Wendland edition of Philo that was published between 1896 and 1915. Thanks to the cross-referencing work of Paul Cheffers Bauer’s obsolete citations are matched with modern equivalents. Despite our efforts we cannot guarantee complete accuracy in every case but hopefully enough information is given to reasonably direct readers to relevant source material in Philo. —–
Example:
1) De Migrat. Abrah. p. 403, 404. [= Migr. 100-101]
2) De Temulent. p. 252, 253. [= Ebr. 90-92]
3) De Plantat. p. 234–239. [= Plant. 139-177, esp. 142-148, 166-167]
[= ….] is the modern citation
Occasional errors in the original citations have been noted and corrections added. —
³) Quis heres div. rer. [sic – should be Josepho] p. 537. [= Jos. 72-78]
While we were living in Berlin, many years ago, during the Cold War, I recall being confused by a rather common question:
How long are you in Berlin?
The phrasing of this query, at first, sounded to me as if the person wanted to know how long I would be staying in Berlin, not how long I had been living there. What does this odd concatenation of English words mean? It’s actually a word-for-word translation of the original German question, and it reveals a difference in German versus English when it comes to the expression of verbal tense and aspect.
In German, the following sentence is completely normal:
Ich bin seit einem Jahr in Berlin.
Literally, that says: “I am since a year in Berlin.” But that translation doesn’t just sound wrong; it is wrong. A native English speaker would express the durative (i.e., progressive) aspect with a different construction, namely:
I have been in Berlin for a year.
A brain thinking in German does not hear the strangeness of the present indicative in this situation. Similarly, a brain thinking in English has a great deal of difficulty hearing “ich bin” as correct in this context.
Tense and sensibilities
It turns out Greek has a similar sort of construction. In his Greek Grammar, Herbert Smyth explains it succinctly:
The present, when accompanied by a definite or indefinite expression of past time, is used to express an action begun in the past and continued in the present. The ‘progressive perfect’ is often used in translation. (Smyth 1956, p. 422)
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? (NIV)
Jesus saith unto him, Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? (KJV)
Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? (NASB)
The Greek uses the present tense, but the English does not. A word-for-word translation in this case wouldn’t be merely stilted or awkward — it would be wrong.
We can find examples in the Septuagint as well. For example:
In a recent comment on an old post of mine concerning the overblown claims about the attestation of NT works, Robyn Goss wrote (among other things):
There is an ignored massive network of early non-biblical writings (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatious [sic] of Antioch, Papias), translations (Vetus Latina, Syriac Peshitta, Coptic Bohariic [sic], Codex Sinaiticus), and historical catalogs that document (Muratorian Fragment), and quote from the New Testament texts.
First off, I’m not sure why she listed the Codex Sinaiticus as part of the “ignored massive network,” since I mentioned it in the post and since it isn’t a translation. Perhaps we should chalk it up to the thrill of sprinting through a Gish Gallop. In fact, the translations listed do indeed “witness” to the Greek manuscripts they were translated from. But again, we know precious little about how they came to be. The who, the when, the where, and the why are all inferred.
Second, I will remind readers that my post compared the quality of attestation versus the quantity of attestation. Given a choice between the two, I’ll choose quality over quantity every time. To argue against my thesis by re-asserting the quantity of NT attestation misses the point entirely, I would think. I’ll admit that I have sometimes argued, in the Marxian tradition, that quantity can be a quality of its own, but not here.
Papias of Hierapolis
While we’re on the subject of good, reliable attestation, let’s talk about Papias. He can hardly be part of the “ignored massive network,” since every commentary of Mark I’ve ever read (and that’s a lot) mentions him. Those writers who lean toward the apologetic (possible, ergo must be true) side of the spectrum tell us that Mark was Peter’s translator, and that he wrote down what he remembered, but not necessarily in the right order. More skeptical commentators have written similar things, but with all sorts of caveats. They acknowledge we have many unanswered questions about what Papias actually meant. Continue reading “Is Papias a Reliable Witness to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew?”
CORRECTION (10th June 2026): The title says “sacrifices continued”. I should have added a qualifier, such as a question mark or an adverb “arguably” or the adjective “informal”. Scholars cite evidence to indicate that informal sacrifices continued. Some scholarly works have also expressed doubts about any sacrifices being offered but I have yet to see them engage with the evidence cited in favour of informal sacrifices. The evidence leaves us “beyond doubt” that Jews were regular visitor to Jerusalem and the site of the Temple. See the next post for one reference to this point.
Sometimes even PhD persons can keep repeating mistakes in their specialist field and I’d like to correct one that has come to my attention. I did attempt to notify their author a few weeks ago, offering to send some of the following citations, but have had no reply. So for everyone else who is interested….
Mistaken claim:
Jerusalem itself remained by law an uninhabited ruin from 70 to the 130s, and when it was rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina, Jews were banned from living there. Jewish attitudes and beliefs also substantially changed in result, even in Palestine. So you can’t equate the conditions post-War with those in the time of Jesus.
Correction: There was no such law. Jerusalem was not left an “uninhabited ruin from 70 to the 130s”. Romans certainly lived there and Jewish pilgrims were regular visitors. As for the Aelia Capitolina experience, Jews were only expelled after the Bar Kokhba uprising 132-135 CE. And no, as can be seen in the quotes and their cited sources below, Jewish attitudes and beliefs by no means “substantially changed” as a result of 70 CE. I will quote some sources to support these corrections at the end of this post. There are more I could add, but what has been included should be enough to make the point.
Erroneous claim:
“Jerusalem” (which in 95 A.D. was an uninhabited ruin).
Correction: No, it was not. Romans lived there and Jews regularly frequented the city on pilgrimages or for personal sacrifices. I quote scholarly accounts below – beneath the heading “Jerusalem after 70 CE”
Someone made the following claim (which I happen to agree with):
The ‘Little Apocalypse’ maps better the circumstances of the Bar Kochba War…
To which the unfortunate reply was made:
It cannot. Because it still has the temple standing to be destroyed and Jerusalem inhabited. By the time of the Bar Kochba revolt, Jerusalem was an uninhabited ruin, and the temple had been razed. The author of Mark 13 had no concept of this.
No, again, this is simply false — except the temple did remain unbuilt. The passage in Mark does not speak of the temple. It speaks of a place that is presumed to mean the “holy of holies” but that is not the whole temple. Hadrian was known to place his statue in that site. And that site was regularly visited by Jews up to Hadrian’s time. (Some scholars suspect a rebuilding of the temple may have begun in the early 130s but there is no clear evidence for this.) A reason it remained unbuilt appears to be that the tax the Jews had once paid for the upkeep of their temple was now diverted by the Romans to a treasury in Rome.
Jerusalem after 70 CE
Though there is no evidence in classical, ecclesiastical or Jewish literature that the rebuilding or repair55 of the Temple was forbidden after 70 (as was to be the case after 135), the diversion of the Temple tax to Rome suggests that it was at any rate discouraged, and there is no indication that rebuilding was attempted or even seriously discussed, though the Jews had free access to the site 56 (in contrast to the situation after 135).
55 BJ vi, 387-8 implies that some parts survived the fire [BJ = Josephus’s Jewish War]
56 BJ vii, 377; and references to visits by rabbis and laymen to the Temple hill—e.g., BT Makk. 24b; Ber. 3a; Tos. Ber. vii, 2b (transl. O. Holtzmann (1912), 85; transl. E. Lohse and G. Schlichting (1956–8), 86); Eduy. iii, 3, 459; Midr. Eccl. R. vii, 8, § 1; Lament. R. i, 17, § 52; ARN 4 on Hosea vi, 6 (Goldin, 34); IV (II) Esdras iii, 1–2 (cf. below, n. 58); II Baruch x, 5; xiii, 1; xxxv, 1. II Baruch comprises elements of varying date, and these chapters clearly date from after 70; see R. H. Charles in APOT II, 470–6.
Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian: A Study in Political Relations (E.J. Brill, 1976), 346.
Another:
Following the cessation of hostilities Jews in increasing numbers moved into Judaea and Jerusalem, and Jewish pilgrims continued to come to the Temple with their offerings. Seven synagogues survived in the city to serve the need of the Jerusalem community.1Traditional religious rites and ceremonies were persistent, and would have been observed as fully as possible. Only when the Temple worship was threatened by Hadrian’s design to establish a Temple of Jupiter on the site did revolt again break out, and one may reason that such a threat to the Temple cult must have been absent up until that time (about 130 or 132).”
1 F.-M. Abel, Histoire de la Palestine (1952), II, 48; H. Vincent et Abel, Jérusalem (1926), II, 877 f. See Ep1ph. De mens. et pond. 14.
Kenneth W. Clark, “Worship in the Jerusalem Temple after A.D. 70,” New Testament Studies 6, no. 04 (1960): 273f, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688500001594.
Another:
In previous times [that is, in earlier destructions of the Jerusalem Temple] the cult flourished even when there was no central sanctuary, a recognition clearly made by the rabbis. [Sacrifices continued at other Jewish temples in Egypt — at Elephantine and Leontopolis] . . . . In the past the sacrificial cult continued, or was resumed in some form and in some places whenever there was no central sanctuary or when it was not functioning.
The sacrificial cult [at Jerusalem after 70] was made optional.
After the Temple was destroyed, its place remained holy and suitable for offering sacrifices. According to other sources, the optional offering of sacrifices was permitted after the destruction of the Temple in any place, even outside of Jerusalem.
This implies that after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem its sanctity ended: and the offering of sacrifices was permissible in other places, even outside of Palestine.
Scattered evidence points to the persistence of private sacrifices after the fall of the Temple.
Other sages, who often expressed the hope for a speedy restoration of the Temple. . . .
This experience deterred them from appointing another High Priest which would have led to the re-establishment of a centralized cult and to a nationalistic rallying center. Nonetheless, they [sc. the Romans] did not prohibit the Jews from revisiting Jerusalem and the ruins of the Temple until the Bar Kokhba rebellion
Guttmann, Alexander. “The End of the Jewish Sacrificial Cult.” Hebrew Union College Annual 38 (1967): 137–48. — supporting rabbinic and other sources are cited throughout. His point is that though private sacrifices were permitted, and continued, at the temple site, official sacrifices were no longer offered there because that would have required the appointment of a High Priest, and only Romans could do that. Guttmann also argues that the Pharisaic leaders after 70 may not have supported Bar Kokhba’s rebellion because had it succeeded, they would have been replaced by a restored priesthood overseeing official temple sacrifices.
Another interesting point is that several leaders said that since the temple no longer existed, atonement could be achieved by expressing loving-kindness to one another. (This view was an extension of pre-70 Jews who believed the temple was not necessary if people expressed righteous behaviour. — For another remark on the same lines see the Nodet section below.) But others regularly expressed a love for the holiness of the temple site, implying a longing for its restoration.
Another — again pointing to the continuity of Jewish religious thinking, not to some “substantial change” in attitudes and beliefs:
Both archaeological and rabbinical documents testify to a Jewish cultural identity, the institutional use of Hebrew, testify “to the vitality of Judaism and Jewish identity among Judean Jews in the years between 70 and 135.”
Adiel Schremer, “The Lost Chapter: Imperialism and Jewish Society 70-135,” Revue Des Études Juives 179, nos. 1–2 (2020): 10, https://doi.org/10.2143/REJ.179.1.3287589.
Another:
We may safely conclude that during this period [sc. between 70 and 135] the population grew up in Judea, and that something of the Temple worship was restored.”
So, this administration was functioning at the time he was writing, very probably still during the reign of Domitian. Again, when Josephus describes the organization of the cult, he writes systematically in the present tense (Ant. 3:224-58). In Ag. Ap. 2:193-8), he recalls, still in the present, that there is one sole Temple for one sole God, and that the priests are constantly occupied in its service, and he even mentions the daily sacrifices offered by the Jews for the emperors and the Roman people (2:77). . . .
It is also worth noting that Josephus, although he claims to be an eyewitness, begins his account of the War with the Maccabean crisis, more than two centuries earlier: it was a forced a cessation of the cult (the daily sacrifice) followed by its restoration at the end of three and a half years (half a “week of years”, to borrow the terminology of Dan 9:27). This suggests that he was already envisaging something similar after 70, even if he does not say so expressly, or even perhaps that things were already moving in this direction. . . .
[Plutarch, writing in the time of Trajan, describes Jewish festival customs associated with the temple:] The wording indicates a witness of the present position, and not memories of the past. . . .
Dio Cassius, however, soberly says that a part of the Temple was set on fire (65.6.3), which opens up the possibility of a worship resumption in not too distant a future. . . .
We can finally mention a collection of ancient traditions, entitled Chronicon paschale, in which it is said that Hadrian destroyed the temple that had actually been rebuilt. . . .
In Jesus’ prediction, the only possible reference is to Hadrian’s destruction and profanation . . . [see side box —>]
Etienne Nodet, “Destruction of Jerusalem Temple”, in Rethinking the Jewish War: Archeology, Society, Traditions, ed. Anthony Giambrone, Études Bibliques 84 (Peeters, 2021), 246.
As per Guttmann above, Nodet notes how Jewish/Judean leadership felt at ease without a temple by substituting ethics since this had been a practice in other times when the temple was destroyed: “According to Abot de-Rabbi Nathan A, § 4), Yohanan declared that there is a mode of expiation which is just as effective as the cult, to wit, charity, but that is actually a way of bypassing the Temple, for this precept already existed well before the destruction, cf. m.Abot 1:2, which attributes it to Simon the Righteous.
Another indication of quick recovery and continuity after 70:
The Jewish material culture of Herodian era continued during the period between the two uprisings. . . . The archaeological record shows that the Jewish population recovered from the Jewish War within a generation.
Boaz Zissu, “Interbellum Judea 70-132 CE: An Archaeological Perspective,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 Ce: 15, ed. Joshua J. Schwartz and Peter J. Tomson (Brill, 2017), 49.
Again,
The general situation reflected in the documents is one of rapid recovery of Judaea.
Joshua Schwartz, “Yavne Revisited: Jewish ‘Survival’ in the Wake of the War of Destruction,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua J. Schwartz (Brill, 2014), 248.
And again:
Destruction of the Temple and the sacking of the city did not bring about the abandonment of Jewish villages in the Jerusalem area and throughout Judaea.
Kloner’s work summarized in Joshua Schwartz, “Yavne Revisited: Jewish ‘Survival’ in the Wake of the War of Destruction,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua J. Schwartz (Brill, 2014), 247.
I’d rather not stir up flame wars by mentioning names but maybe a reader here can discreetly notify anyone they think might be off-track regarding the long-held scholarly view about the situation in Jerusalem after 70 CE.
The usual way of doing history is to start with the ancient sources and move forwards. So for Christian origins we might start with the canonical gospels, sift out what is not plausible (e.g. rising from the dead), massage a little what seems plausible for the times of the story setting (e.g. a would-be messiah was crucified by the Romans and hallucinations about a dead person reappearing), add the epistles of Paul and Book of Acts to tell us that preachers went out preaching the gospel to the world, and bingo! Christianity is born. Today we have the gospels and letters from within a generation of Jesus and his apostles and we can study them to work out how things started out to explain what we have today.
But here’s another way of doing history.
Start with what we think we know, what we’ve learned, about the Gospels and Epistles of Paul. Start with our common understanding that these were among the earliest documents of Christianity. Start with our knowledge that the gospels were competing (or complementary) accounts of the historical Jesus, mixed with a bit of mythical embellishment. Start also with our notion of the common knowledge that Paul wrote letters to his early churches.
Then work back.
Okay, we are clear about what our beliefs about the sources are. Now let’s work back and see what others thought about these gospels and letters. Why do we think the things we do about them? Did we inherit our views from earlier writers? What did those earlier writers say? We can leapfrog over generations and go back to late antiquity and learn that the Church Fathers definitely assured their readers that the four gospels were “true” accounts of Jesus; and that Paul’s letters, as we know them, were indeed written by a first century Paul.
Okay, but let’s keep moving back in time though our mental time-machine.
We read now that Church Fathers protested that there were many letters of Paul doing the rounds and that many of these were outright forgeries! We further learn that some sects had shortened forms of the letters and that the only true letters were the larger, more wordy texts.
We learn that there were many gospels doing the rounds. But only four of these were genuine.
Let’s keep working backwards:
Let’s say the year is 140 CE. Some figure in Rome is declaring that he has a gospel and ten letters by Paul. That one gospel is anti-Jewish and the letters reject the idea that the Jewish Scriptures are authoritative. At the same time opponents to this figure are saying they have other gospels that are pro-Jewish and more than ten letters of Paul, and that all the letters of Paul respect the Jewish Scriptures.
So we have claims and counterclaims about authentic and false gospels and epistles. How is anyone to decide which is which?
Keep rolling back in time:
Nothing. Blank.
So how do we get further back in time? We can, if we want, return to the first option above. We can begin with what we think we know about the gospels and the letters.
We re-read the gospels and see that their story is set in the mid first century CE. The letters have Paul’s name on them so obviously they are written by the same Paul we read about in Acts. Let’s re-start there. Our beliefs, the traditions, must have come from somewhere. They must have had some basis in fact, yes?
To get back further in time, then, we assume that what the second century texts wanted us to believe about the origins of Christianity were true. Instead of asking, Why did the authors of these texts we read about in the second century want us to believe the gospel narratives were true, we ask, So given that we know these gospel stories have some basis in truth…..
They might have been “true” just as some factions in the second century believed. That’s where our beliefs come from, after all. But …..
How can we tell?
Should we do history forwards? Or backwards? Should we first examine our inherited beliefs about the sources? What happens if we set apart our beliefs and re-frame them as hypotheses to be tested?
Indebted to Markus Vinzent for the notion of “doing history backwards”.
Vinzent, Markus. Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
A while ago I posted a case for the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation referring to two of the leaders of the second Jewish war, or the Bar Kochba war of 132-135 CE. (Part A, Part B, Part C, Part D). For most of us who have been long immersed in the view that ancient Christianity must always have opposed violent Judean rebels against Rome, the view that the two witnesses could possibly refer to Simon Bar Kochba himself and the high priest at the time must seem outrageous. In partial defence of the possibility of that interpretation I would point to certain divisions among Christians at that time: some were very pro-Judean, pro-Old Testament, pro-Torah, while others appear to have been opposed to any form of “Judaizing” and Torah observance. Christians were not a monolithic identity; but nor were Judeans before the rabbinic era.
A prominent rabbi at the time of the Bar Kochba war was remembered in rabbinic literature as holding views that are strikingly similar to those we associate with Christianity. I refer to a “Son of Man” dispute. Who was the “Son of Man” one reads about in the Book of Daniel?
One verse reads: “His throne is sparks of fire” [Dan. 7:9] and another [part of the] verse reads, “until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days sat” [Dan. 7:9]. This is no difficulty: One was for him and one was for David.
— As we learn in a baraita [non-Mishnaic tannaitic tradition]: One for him and one for David; these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Yosethe Galilean said to him: Akiva! Until when will you make the Shekhina profane?! Rather. One was for judging and one was for mercy.
— Did he accept it from him, or did he not?
— Come and hear! One for judging and one for mercy, these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. (BT Hagiga 14a)(Boyarin 140)
Rabbi Akiva is better known for having entered rabbinic tradition as a contemporary of Bar Kochba and as a leader who (erroneously) proclaimed Bar Kochba to be the Messiah. Another of this rabbi’s “mistaken views” (according to later rabbinic teachings) was his claim that the Book of Daniel’s image of one like the Son of Man amidst clouds of heaven approaching the Ancient of Days pointed to a heavenly Davidic King with a throne beside God’s. That is, Daniel’s image was of David as the Messiah and “Son of Man” who sat at the right hand of God. The same rabbinic tradition quickly disputes Akiva’s view, condemning Akiva for daring to think a man could also be a divine figure. The rabbis left on their record that Akiva eventually changed his mind and was restored to “orthodoxy”.
A modern Jewish scholar, Daniel Boyarim, alerts us to a similar claim being put in the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark:
The crux is his identification of David, the Messiah, as the “Son of Man” who sits at God’s right hand, thus suggesting not only a divine figure but one who is incarnate in a human being as well. “I am [the Messiah] and you shall see ‘the Son of Man’ sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). Hence, his objector’s taunt: “Until when will you make the Divine Presence profane?! Rabbi Akiva is seemingly also projecting a divine human, Son of Man, who will be the Messiah. His contemporary Rabbi Yose the Galilean (perhaps a more assiduous reader of the Gospels) strenuously objects to Rabbi Akiva’s “dangerous” interpretation and gives the verse a “Modalist” interpretation. Of course, the Talmud itself must record that Rabbi Akiva changed his mind in order for him to remain “orthodox.” (140)
The rabbinic record does not explicitly say that Akiva equated Bar Kochba with the “Son of Man” messiah of Daniel 7. It only tells us that Akiva proclaimed Bar Kochba as the messiah; it elsewhere records that Akiva identified Daniel 7’s heavenly Son of Man figure with a Davidic Messiah.
I find this little datum interesting. Perhaps of related interest, too, that it is a Galilean rabbi (Joseph) who is made to refute Akiva.
My studies have led me to another item I think will be of a wider interest: a hypothesis to explain the origin of a “heavenly Christ” myth. It is from Christoph Markschies’ Valentinus Gnosticus? (1992). Valentinus, Marcion and “proto-orthodox” Christian leaders migrated to Rome after the Bar Kochba war and engaged in discussions and debates over their respective interpretations of Christianity1. For those of us who have been familiar only with the literal readings of the gospels we cannot help but wonder how such dialogue could have taken place. Were not Marcion and Valentinus “gnostics” who taught a non-human Jesus? How would “orthodox” teachers have enough in common to discuss anything with them? Well, Markschies offers an explanation. Here is a translation of the key passage:
. . . . We therefore ask first which person is here designated by the name “Jesus,” since the Valentinians are known here to differentiate: they distinguish Jesus, the Savior born of Mary, who effects the διορθώσεις [= the restoration] of this world (τὰ ἐνθάδε) [= the things in this world; these are Plato’s words], from two other figures called “Jesus Christ”: from that Christ who restores the outer Sophia and then takes his place in the Pleroma, and a third, the consort of the outer Sophia. “Εἰσὶν οὖν κατ’ αὐτοὺς τρεῖς Χριστοί.”⁵⁹ . . . . . the Jesus described [in a third century fragment] is only an image of the actually important Christ figure . . . . [translation of pp 92f]
A third “crisis-point” of Valentinus’ theology was probably Christology. . . . The uniqueness and historical contingency of the “Christ-event” posed serious problems. A theory which Valentinus presented at the decisive points of Christology was, for the educated of late antiquity, a contradictio in adiecto: the Logos could not suffer a slave’s death. The students, if they wished to make theology accessible to the “educated” among their hearers, had to remove the offense that the crucified cult-founder represented. Here too, as in the question of the fall of sin, they once again hypostatized the historical processes in order to move away from the actual historical Christ-event onto the archetypal level of the world of ideas, into the aeonic world—so that the emergence of the three Christ-Jesus figures [see side box] can be understood on the three levels of the cosmic drama. The decisive act does not take place on this earth (and thus on the historical level), but already in the “ideal cosmos,” in the realm of the Aeons. The “actual” Christ acts (outside Sophia) and then takes his place in the aeonic world, in which the other Christ figures are his images and perform on other levels exactly what their prototype has already done.
This thesis concerning the emergence of Valentinian gnosis from Valentinus’ theology proves itself when one can answer a further important question: why is it that among the students there arises, relatively consistently, such a mythical intensification of theology, whereas myth still seems to play no role at all for Valentinus himself? First, one must make clear what function myth had in this period: in Valentinus’ lifetime a whole series of philosophical schools promised initiation into the mysteries of God, soul, and immortality with the help of myth. Nothing would be more unhistorical than to want to separate philosophy and theology here by means of our modern distinctions. The introduction of myth made—however paradoxical it may appear today—the teaching of the Valentinians attractive in the first place for certain philosophically interested circles: “ἦλθε καὶ ὁ φιλόσοφος ὡς ἐπίσκοπος, πῶς ἐστίν. [Quote from Aristotle, = “Then the philosopher also came as a bishop—what is he like?”] At the same time, myth increased the orienting function of the theory, since through it, on the one hand, matters became more vivid, and on the other hand even the “unutterable words” (ἄρρητα ῥήματα = [unspeakable words]) concerning the highest principles were illustrated and thereby became “sayable.” The deterministic tendencies of this displacement onto the level of principles simultaneously relieved human beings in their everyday decisions. The myth of the pupils of Valentinus offered the greatest possible relief, since everything that happens in this world is already predetermined by the processes in the world of ideas. I am ready—provided I am a pneumatic—to be so; the human being is thereby largely relieved of ethical responsibility⁷³. Valentinus’ theology evidently did not yet possess this high degree of relief and orientation.
Markschies then explains how the pupils of Valentinus apparently came to expand and elaborate on his own original teachings, thus producing the quite complex gnostic system discussed at length by Irenaeus.
There is nothing here about a “crucifixion in heaven”, as some suggest (and as I have sometimes wondered) was the original meaning in certain passages in Paul’s letters. But it seems to me that according to Markschies the spiritual meaning of the crucifixion was taught through the myth relating to Sophia. Where this hypothesis fits in relation to passages in Paul such as his claim that the cosmic powers crucified Jesus I can only speculate.
Continuing Markschies ….
Between the highly interesting precision based on Plato’s Timaeus at a high philosophical level—which elevates him above many contemporaries . . . .—and the somewhat helpless-comic solution he offers for the problem of the suffering Jesus, there exists a contrast and indeed a difference in level. If one interprets this contrast against the background of the engagement with Hellenistic philosophy within theology—which shapes the entire history of the early Church—one will have to agree with A. v. Harnack, who described as the main problem that of “premature scientification”: Valentinus had already developed certain approaches to solving the classical problem-fields, but—as far as the fragments allow this judgment—no consistent theory; in some areas he perhaps even performed genuine theological pioneering work. In this deficiency lies the inner reason for the transition into the “mythological heresy” of the pupils. They develop their theology of mediation already with an (implicit) method, namely that of consistent (popularizing) Platonization.
. . . .
Naturally, the interpretation presented here of the inner reasons for the development from Valentinus to the Valentinians remains a hypothesis. But it best explains, in my view, a historical finding that clearly reveals continuities between Valentinus and his school and at the same time equally clear discontinuities.
This explanation is the reverse of Earl Doherty’s view that the crucifixion narrative was a product of neoplatonic ideas and later “mythologized” into an earthly story.
One might assume that the Markschies view presupposes a historically “true” narrative, but I would not rush to that conclusion. We need to keep in mind that all of this suddenly breaks into the scene in the wake of the Bar Kochba War and Trajan’s massacres preceding that. The Gospel of Mark Jesus is clearly (to me at least) a personified figure of Israel, a “son of man” figure from Daniel placed in a narrative with a theological meaning. Marcion’s Jesus is a clear antithesis of the Judean god. These are all theological figures. Historical origins cannot be assumed.
1 “‘Christian'” teachers and schools emerge in Rome around the mid-second century ce, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, and as a consequence of it.” (Livesey 200), and “In my study on Marcion I have pointed out that, prior to the end of the second Jewish war of the years 132–135, we do not know of early Christian teachers who sojourn, live, or teach at Rome. From what early Christian authors tell us, it was the disaster of the Bar Kokhba war that moved people and made them re-locate from Palestine and Samaria to Asia, and further to Greece and Rome.” (Vinzent 96)
Livesey, Nina E. The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
Markschies, Christoph Johannes. Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis: mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins. Mohr Siebeck, 1992.
Vinzent, Markus. “Orthodoxy and Heresy: Misnomers and Misnamers.” Forum: Foundations and Facets. Third Series 10, no. 1 (2021): 91–108.
Bronze head of Hadrian found in the River Thames in London. Now in the British Museum. – Wikipedia
I’ve come across more items of a more general interest in the course of my formal studies these last few days: a very old and a very publication favourably arguing that the “abomination of desolation” can only refer to a statue set up in the Jerusalem temple by Hadrian in the 130s CE.
Some readers here will be aware of Hermann Detering’s proposal that the “abomination of desolation” that was to be “standing where it ought not” referred to the time of the Bar Kochba War, 132-135 CE, and the Roman emperor Hadrian’s supposedly setting up of a statue of Jupiter/Zeus in the Jewish Temple. See Little Apocalypse and the Bar Kochba Revolt.
Well, Hermann Detering’s name and the article I discussed in the above link appeared recently (2024) in a footnote of a book chapter by Étienne Nodet, “Destructions du Temple de Jérusalem”. But what was most interesting was that Nodet was pointing out that the same view (that the prophecy in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 refers to Hadrian erecting a pagan statue in the Jerusalem temple) was made as early as 1845 by none other than the great, pioneering New Testament scholar, Ferdinand Christian Baur! New Testament scholars have followed a good many of Baur’s leads but this particular one fell between the cracks.
Nodet introduces an alternative possibility that the statue erected in the temple was actually a statue of Hadrian himself. In the light of Thomas Witulski’s research there is probably no major difference between Jupiter and Hadrian: see the post, Hadrian the God.
I have translated Nodet:
Finally, one must mention a collection of ancient traditions entitled Chronicon Paschale, which indicates that Hadrian destroyed the Temple, which had been rebuilt⁴². Taken in isolation, such information would carry little weight, but it combines with a statement by Jerome: he affirms that an equestrian statue of Hadrian was erected at the site of the Holy of Holies and that it is none other than the “Abomination of Desolation” prophesied by Jesus (In Matth. 24:15); this must evidently be connected with the statue erected by Apostomos⁴³.
. . .
Étienne Nodet
In Luke’s version, without profanation, the prophecy may refer to the war of 70, but in Matthew–Mark, the “Abomination of Desolation” of Daniel signifies a formal profanation of the Temple, alluding to the idol erected by Antiochus IV mentioned above. To situate the prediction of Jesus, one must eliminate the attempt of Caligula to have his statue placed in the Temple, since his death at the beginning of 41 interrupted this project⁴⁶, as well as the assault of Titus and the fire of 70, since that was not strictly speaking a profanation. One must therefore return to Jerome’s interpretation of a prophecy of Jesus, which had already been proposed by F. Baur in 1845, but, like modern scholars, he rightly considered that it had been composed after the fact⁴⁷. The consequences for the dating of the Gospels are obvious, but little used.
42 Cf. L. Dindorf, Historici graeci minores, Leipzig 1870, vol. I, p. 474. The sources on the causes of the Bar Kokhba revolt are sparse, but there was certainly a profanation of the Holy of Holies, cf. E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People, vol. I, pp. 535–542, hence an analogy with the Maccabean revolt.
43 There are good reasons to think that shortly after the foundation of Aelia Capitolina an equestrian statue of Hadrian was erected in the Holy of Holies or in its place; see D.-M. Cabaret, La topographie de la Jérusalem antique: essais sur l’urbanisme fossile, défenses et portes, du 2e s. av. au 2e s. ap. J.-C., Louvain 2020, pp. 260–288. [my note: Apostomos was the name given in rabbinic records to Hadrian]
. . . .
46. The affair, recounted by Philo and Josephus, is presented in detail by E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People, vol. I, pp. 394–397.
47. See F. C. Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältniss zueinander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung, Tübingen 1851, p. 122; he was little followed, no doubt because of his personal discredit, but one should note the detailed study by H. Detering, “The Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13 par.): A Document from the Time of Bar Kokhba,” Journal of Higher Criticism 7 (2000), pp. 161–210.
F. C. Baur
Here is Baur’s discussion, again translated. For Baur, Matthew was living at the time of the Bar Kochba war and wrote of what he understood to be the culmination of the tribulations before the end, while Luke wrote of the first war, 66-70, and the beginning of sorrows.
If Jesus cannot have spoken as the evangelist has him speak in chapter 24, then the question deserves all the more to be considered whether the event which is here presented as the sign of the Parousia is in fact the destruction of Jerusalem at all.
According to the presentation, the discourse of Jesus is connected with the destruction of Jerusalem, which is yet to occur; but the discourse itself does not intend to give a description of that destruction, but rather to set forth only the signs of the Parousia, which takes place only after the destruction of Jerusalem and presupposes it.
If one now asks whether the phenomena indicated in relation to the sign of the Parousia fit the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, one must almost throughout give a negative answer. The commentators unanimously observe that before the destruction of Jerusalem neither false messiahs nor significant wars among nations, such as are meant in vv. 6 and 7, can be demonstrated. Nor is anything more precise known about persecutions of Christians through which many Christians might have been led into apostasy.
How perfectly, on the other hand, does all this fit the Jewish war under Hadrian! At that time it was that Bar Kokhba was generally regarded by the people, who flocked to him in crowds, as the Messiah who was to free them from the yoke of Roman rule, and rabbis such as Akiba gave every support to belief in him. Not only in Palestine did a general uprising of the Jews occur—which the Romans were able to suppress only with the greatest exertion in a war that seems to have lasted several years, in which Jerusalem had first to be reconquered (around the year 134)—but the spirit of unrest spread everywhere where Jews were in the Roman Empire and broke out in secret or open attacks on the Romans; and the support which Bar Kokhba received alone must prove how deeply the nation was involved in his undertaking. “Almost the whole world,” says Cassius Dio (LXIX, 14), “was set in motion by the uprising of the Jews.” Münter, Der jüdische Krieg unter den Kaisern Trajan und Hadrian (1821), p. 66.
What the discourse of Jesus contains about persecutions of Christians also receives thereby a new light. Bar Kokhba treated the Christians, who did not wish to take part in the uprising against the Romans, with the greatest cruelty, as is reported by Justin Martyr (Apol. I, 31), Eusebius of Caesarea (H.E. 4.6), and others; and according to the assertion of the Talmudists, many at that time are said to have denied the Christian faith. Münter, ibid., p. 55.
Still more remarkable, however, is how in this connection even the βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως (“abomination of desolation”) first seems to receive its proper meaning. The interpreters who think only of the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus have not yet succeeded in taking the expression in a sense corresponding to its precise wording.
Baur then addresses the arguments of those who attempted to place the prophecy in the time of the first destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE):
If, according to Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, the phrase refers generally to the abominable devastation on the temple site which historically occurred through the Romans at and after the conquest of the temple, then one may rightly say with Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette that the term does not fit this at all. But if, with de Wette following Hugo Grotius, one thinks of the Roman army with its standards, which were an abomination to the Jews, then Meyer can object that the words contain nothing pointing to this. Nor is it clear why precisely the standards should be singled out as something so especially abominable, and even in this way the expression is not exhausted, since one cannot assume that the Roman standards remained planted on the temple site after its destruction.
But only the events of Hadrian’s time can make sense of the prophecy, Baur continues….
The expression receives its adequate meaning only through the report that Hadrian, precisely at that time, during the aforementioned Jewish war, either before or after it, set up the statue of Capitoline Jupiter on the place where formerly the temple of Solomon had stood (εἰς τὸν τῷ θεῷ τόπον ναὸν τῷ Διΐ ἔθηκεν, Cassius Dio LXIX.12; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 1.2: ubi quondam erat templum et religio Dei, ibi Hadriani statua et Jovis idolum collocatum est), from which Jerusalem also received the pagan name Aelia Capitolina.
How striking, then, is the expression used by the evangelist if the statue of the pagan god stood as a permanent monument on the very site where formerly the true God was worshipped! This was the truly abominable aspect of the devastation already accomplished, with which for the Jew and Jewish Christian everything was connected that made paganism as such abhorrent. This extreme, the worst that could happen, is therefore highlighted by the evangelist as the most evident signal of the catastrophe now fully unfolding.
To grasp the discourse at its central point, one must place oneself entirely on the standpoint of the event as presented by the evangelist. The form of prophecy brings it about that everything spoken of here is presented as something still future. Yet it cannot have been purely future, since what had already happened determined him to direct his gaze into the future and to perceive in the present the future developing within it.
But where, one must ask, in his presentation does what has already happened separate itself from what is yet to happen? Since he places the Parousia, which comes at the end of all things, in such an immediate relation to the θλῖψις (tribulation)—as v. 29 proves—and since he expressly says (v. 22) that for the sake of the elect the days of this tribulation were shortened, then at the time of composing this discourse the μεγάλη θλῖψις (“great tribulation”) cannot yet have run a long course; accordingly, that βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως can scarcely yet have been set up in the holy place.
But even this assumption is not necessary. According to Cassius Dio (ibid.), the great uprising of the Jews broke out precisely because Hadrian had already begun to carry out his plan to rebuild the destroyed city as a Roman colony and to erect the image of Jupiter in place of its temple. The uprising intervened, but it was foreseeable that after its suppression what had already been decided would be carried out all the more decisively—as indeed, according to Eusebius (H.E. 4.6), the founding of Aelia followed immediately after the end of the war.
What if, then, we assume that the author wrote in the midst of the uprising? Only thus do we fully understand how he could point with such emphasis to the βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως as the decisive turning point of the catastrophe now unfolding. As certainly as he, as a Christian, could regard Bar Kokhba only as a false prophet, so certainly could he not doubt the victory of the Romans; but as a Jewish Christian he could see in the profanation of the holy place by a pagan idol only the worst that could yet happen. If it comes to that, then there can no longer be any doubt that now the μεγάλη θλῖψις begins, upon which the Parousia immediately follows.
It is clear to see how, from this point, his entire conception of this great catastrophe is shaped. It divides for him, through the erection of the βδέλυγμα, into two periods: the one being the ὠδῖνες (“birth pangs,” v. 8), the other the θλῖψις μεγάλη itself. As he proceeds from definite phenomena given in reality, so in the second period the same fundamental conception appears again, only in its highest intensification. The general flight, in which each thinks only of saving himself, can only be a time of unrest and wars like the first period; and just as that period has its driving principle in belief in a false Messiah, so in the second period the most characteristic feature is that ψευδόχριστοι and ψευδοπροφῆται (“false Christs and false prophets”) seek to lead all into error and delusion.
This feature stands out so clearly in the description of the two periods that, if one must choose between the time of the first destruction of Jerusalem and the time of Bar Kokhba, one can only decide for the latter.
Admittedly, Luke in the parallel passage (chapter 21) can only have meant the first destruction of Jerusalem. But what does that prove for the explanation of Matthew? At this point we perceive only the different standpoint of the two evangelists, partly in relation to belief in the Parousia, partly in relation to the events then occurring in Palestine. For the non-Palestinian writer these events could not have had the same interest in themselves; moreover, he saw the expectation of the Parousia fulfilled only in the still-future βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. And just as for him the increasingly universal inclusion of the Gentiles belonged essentially to this kingdom, so for him the first destruction of Jerusalem had all the more the significance of a divine judgment (21:23), which, in the same measure that it testified to the rejection of messianic salvation by the Jews, guaranteed the inclusion of the Gentiles in the kingdom.
While Luke thus had the interest of fixing the beginning point of the great catastrophe—whose course extended from the destruction of Jerusalem to the Parousia—for the author of the Gospel of Matthew everything in his conception was concentrated at the point where the tribulation, whose pressure he felt keenly in the immediate present, could end in its highest intensity only with the Parousia of Christ.
If the interpretation of Matthew 24 attempted here is correct—as I do not doubt—then we would thereby have a very definite date for the composition of our canonical Gospel of Matthew: it would fall in the years 130–134, and I would not know what could be objected against this assumption.
If, according to this assumption, even the oldest of our canonical gospels—which the others already presuppose—cannot be placed any earlier, then it also provides a standard for the age of the others, and one can all the less be surprised that the data for determining the time of their origin do not reach further back.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian. Kritische untersuchungen über die kanonischen evangelien, ihr verhältniss zu einander, ihren charakter und ursprung. With Internet Archive. Tübingen, L.F. Fues, 1847. http://archive.org/details/kritischeuntersu0000baur. — pp 605-609
Nodet, Étienne. “Destructions du Temple de Jérusalem.” In Aux Origines Judéennes Du Christianisme Études En L’honneur De Simon Claude Mimouni Pour Son Soixante-Quinzième Anniversaire, edited by José Costa, David Hamidović, and Pierluigi Piovanelli. Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses. Brepols Publishers, 2024. — pp 467-486
Here is another snippet from my studies research that also has a place here . . . .
Ian Mills has a newly published book, The Hypothesis of the Gospels: Narrative Traditions in Hellenistic Reading Culture, that explains one important facet of the literary culture in which the gospels were written. It is a distillation from his 2021 PhD thesis, Rewriting the Gospel: The Synoptics Among Pluriform Literary Traditions.
“Hypothesis” in the title is a transliteration of the Greek word used by ancient authors to describe a well-known basic story outline that could be taken up and rewritten with variations by other authors. Ancient poets and playwrights, for example, would sometimes write different accounts of a legendary tale or myth, and as long as they retained “the essential characters, settings, and events of a particular narrative” they were free to make any changes they saw fit. The “most basic elements” of a story were its “hypothesis”. Order of events might change; even “who did what” might change; scenes might be added; and so forth. It was understood to be a kind of literary competition. An author would attempt to write a better or more relevant version of a well-known story. In other words, the authors of our gospels belonged to a wider literary culture that was familiar with the practice of re-writing basic stories.
Plato and Xenophon wrote quite different biographies of Socrates, for example:
These rough contemporaries of Justin, Irenaeus, and Clement report the same basic reading of Plato and Xenophon. Overlapping accounts of Socrates, they agree, are evidence of literary rivalry between their authors. . . . These readers all share the assumption that writing a book on an established hypothesis is a conventionally competitive act. (155)
The gospels . . . reflect a certain competitiveness inherent in writing on an established hypothesis. (Hypothesis, 149)
How often have we heard or read that the differences in the accounts of Jesus are the result of authors being exposed to different oral traditions. Well, now we have a good reason to rethink that assumption. If an author felt confident enough to write a better account of Jesus for any reason, then we have our explanation for why different gospels sometimes changed the order of events, sometimes added or subtracted certain episodes, and so forth.
I did not see Mills make this implication of his study explicit in The Hypothesis of the Gospels but he did point out in his earlier thesis that there is no need to call upon oral tradition to explain what are clearly features common to the literary practices extant at the time the gospels were composed. The gospels are well-known for consisting of blocks of mini-anecdotes. There is no need to assume these encapsulate what had been passed on orally since authors of the day wrote like that in other narratives — including “biographies” of philosophers or teachers.
The episodic structure evinced in the gospels was a creative choice that grew increasingly popular across various genres in the first and second centuries CE. The organization of Jesus’ ministry into discrete pericopes, therefore, does not justify the form critical view of the gospels as compilations of independently circulating oral traditions. (Rewriting, 198)
There is one other point I would like to add to Mills’ study. If well known narratives could be rewritten to the extent we find among ancient authors, then surely it follows that those basic narratives were not “set-in-stone truths”. They were tales or myths or literary creations that were open to rewriting. Mills does say that even the genre of history in ancient times contained basic narratives that could be written but the examples he points to are the Trojan War and the Theban Cycle. My understanding is that those particular histories were so distant in time, stretching back to the “age of heroes”, that those tales were indeed subject to diverse version histories. I am not so sure more recent “real” histories would have been open to rewriting of that kind. The second century Lucian, for example, savagely mocked historians as potential liars. That’s something I would like to read a bit more about. Maybe I should start with this old post: https://vridar.org/2019/11/25/two-more-reasons-ancient-historians-fabricated-history/
Mills, Ian N. 2021. “Rewriting the Gospel: The Synoptics Among Pluriform Literary Traditions.” Ph.D., Duke University.
Mills, Ian N. 2025. The Hypothesis of the Gospels: Narrative Traditions in Hellenistic Reading Culture. Fortress Press.
We are familiar enough with the claims that the mention of the sons of Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross of Jesus indicates that they were real people: the first audience of the Gospel of Mark must have known them personally because there is no other mention of them in the other gospels.
Well, I just came across the following while reading for another project . . . . .
Similarly with a certain Simon of Cyrene, a passerby coming in from the country, who is compelled to carry Jesus’s cross. Despite the fact that he is given an identification by place of origin, he is also identified through his sons, Alexander and Rufus (15:21), who are not further described. Mentioning them here in this way implies that they must be well known. But to whom? To Mark’s readers? But I would point out that it is not necessary to assume that Alexander and Rufus were in fact well known to Mark’s readers, because naming them in this way still performs the literary function of assuring the reader that the scene with Simon of Cyrene is attested by his better known sons. If Alexander and Rufus as the sons of this Simon were in fact so well known to Mark’s readers, he would not have had to mention them at all. (Miller 2017, 395)
Miller, Merrill P. 2017. “The Social Logic of the Gospel of Mark: Cultural Persistence and Social Escape in a Postwar Time.” In Redescribing the Gospel of Mark, edited by Barry S. Crawford and Merrill P. Miller. Society of Biblical Literature.
Before we get to Wrede, I’d like to quote from the Acts of the Apostles. First, from the Contemporary English Version, which proudly claims to be accurate and “faithful to the meaning of the original”:
Acts 5:30 (CEV) You killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. But the God our ancestors worshiped raised him to life.
The New International Version, which is the most popular English translation in the world, has a somewhat different take on the same verse. Their team claims to translate scrupulously from the original Greek using word-for-word along with thought-for-thought methods.
Acts 5:30 (NIV) The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.
Readers will no doubt remember this line from Peter’s speech before the Sanhedrin. Here’s another example from Acts 10:39. First, from the Good News Translation, which is still extremely popular. (The CEV and GNT both came from the American Bible Society.)
Acts 10:39 (GNT) We are witnesses of everything that he did in the land of Israel and in Jerusalem. Then they put him to death by nailing him to a cross.
And now the NIV:
Acts 10:39 (NIV) “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross . . .”
Peter is speaking here again. Curiously, the Jews disappear from the GNT and the CEV. We see minor differences, but one thing these verses have in common is the word “cross,” which does not exist in the original Greek. There are no nails or crosses here, only trees. These translations aren’t outliers, either. The New American Standard Bible (“Accuracy you can trust, in the English you speak!”) does it, too:
Peter Preaching in Jerusalem by Charles Poërson, 1642
Acts 10:39 (NASB) “We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross . . .”
What’s going on here? The translators have decided in these cases to substitute the word-for-word method with thought-for-thought. They presume to know what the author was really thinking, so they’re “fixing” (amplifying?) the text for modern English readers.
And we [are] witness of all [the] things he did in both the region of the Jews and [in] Jerusalem, whom also they put to death having hanged [him] on a tree.
I bring all this up, because a great deal of New Testament oddness remains hidden by our “accurate” English translations. The faithful translators will, of course, insist that tree is just a poetic synonym for cross. Do we really know that?
Diversity of Thought in the New Testament
They see themselves as faithful to the text, but they are faithful first to their conception of the Bible. That conception starts from the belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Here in the rural Midwest, we see billboards that ask “What does the Bible say about . . . ?” These questions reveal the foundational dogma that the Bible has a unified message at its core. The unspoken question for the faithful is “What is the Bible supposed to say?”
The translators of the NIV and CEV feel free to add “missing” words. In the Gospel of John, both translations add “pray” and “prayer” where they don’t exist in the Greek. In the same Gospel, the CEV actually adds the missing name of Jesus’s mother (see 2:1). Did the author of John know her name was Mary? Perhaps. But he never wrote the name.
Today’s NT scholars do admit that some diversity of thought exists in the New Testament. However, the extremely conservative British and American scholars of the early twentieth century were far less tolerant of such notions. When Wrede pointed out passages in scripture that strongly suggest various authors had divergent ideas about when Jesus became the Messiah, they were not amused. But Wrede went further. He said such divergence indicated an evolution of ideas:
Jesus became the Messiah at his death (Paul)
Jesus became the Messiah at the baptism (Mark)
Jesus was the preexistent Son of God (John)
Moreover, Wrede pointed out that our earliest Gospel is a mixture of Mark’s dogmatic invention along with received tradition, and he showed that the author was neither an eyewitness nor a disinterested historian. Finally, his somewhat favorable references to F. C. Baur and D. F. Strauss were certainly more than any self-respecting scholar could allow.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that pious Brits and Yanks savaged Das Messiasgeheimnis and its author, or that the book wasn’t translated into English until 1970. The tradition of reading and opining about Wrede, while diligently not reading Wrede has a long, proud history.
“The meaning of the item”
Mark had an entirely different view of what it meant to be the Messiah.
If they had read Wrede, they would have discovered that he identified a number of core problems with critical scholarship of the nineteenth century. Many of these problems persist.
In the affirmative answer to this question if Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the Blessed” the high priest discerns blasphemy—and therefore a crime punishable by death. The blasphemy is usually thought to lie in arrogation to himself by a puny, weak and powerless man of the highest dignity known to Israelites, that of the Messiah sent by God. The tacit or explicit assumption behind this is that if the blasphemy lay in the pretension to divine glory and divine nature, Jesus like the high priest would have been taking the title “Son of God” to have a dogmatic, metaphysical sense and this is historically an impossibility. But to argue in this way is as dangerous as it is frequent. We must never say that if a particular item meant one thing it would not match up with the history of Jesus and that therefore it must mean something else. The meaning of the item is rather the prior question at all times. What history can make of it comes into consideration later. (Wrede 1901/1970, pp. 74-75, bold emphasis mine)
In a literary analysis especially, “the meaning of the item” must go back to the author, not to some imagined historical context. People still make this mistake. They gloss over the surface and look for what lies beneath. They leapfrog over the plain meaning of the text and evaluate matters as if they really happened, and they compare critically the terms Mark uses against the “normative” definitions found in other texts from roughly the same period.
As Wrede explains, calling oneself the Messiah would not constitute blasphemy. He writes:
[T]he mere assertion of messiahship does not, according to Jewish ideas, amount to blasphemy. But it is not any easier to see how a Christian author could find an instance of blasphemy here if he had only the Jewish idea of Messiah in mind. For when all is said the Messiah is not in Jewish eyes a divine being. On the other hand, if Mark understood “Son of God” in a supernatural and metaphysical sense, everything becomes quite clear. (Wrede 1901/1970, p. 75, bold emphasis added)
Many scholars have chastised Wrede for putting too many things under the umbrella of messiahship. Why keep healings and exorcisms a secret, they ask, when being acknowledged as some sort of wonder-worker doesn’t make a person the Messiah? Similarly, they note that nobody would have thought a Jewish Messiah would suffer, die, and be raised from the dead. Well, yes. That’s what Paul said: The claim that the Messiah had died was a “stumbling block” to the Jews. But Mark had an entirely different view of what it meant to be the Messiah.
