2023-04-27

2. How Miracles Help

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

2.

How Miracles Help

When the author had transformed the religious theologian into a sorcerer, he was also compelled to boast of the man who (1 Cor. 15:30) was hourly in danger and whose sufferings and “incessant” afflictions gave him the right to boast of himself that (2 Cor. 4:10) he was carrying the dying Jesus around in his body (2 Cor. 4:10), only to involve him in apparent dangers, i.e. as soon as he got into a danger, to immediately remove the appearance as if he could be seriously and severely affected by it.

26

The man of God must not really suffer; divine help comes at the moment when a distress or danger threatens to become serious and a contradiction of his covenant with heaven; suffering and persecution, on the contrary, must result in his glorification.

Even the accidents of nature must be powerless against him: if an adder gets into his hand, so that people expect his death at any moment, nothing bad must happen to him and people must get the idea that he is a god (28:3-6); if a storm rises on a sea voyage and the ship seems certain to sink, God gives him the whole ship’s company (27:20, 24) and for his sake it is saved.

At one point he has to retreat from the fury of the Jews, whose envy had aroused the conversion of the Gentiles, and leave Pisidian Antioch but the sorrow of this fate is infinitely outweighed by the joy that it must give the apostle, since it proves how right he was when he said immediately before that it was his principle to preach the Word of God to the Jews first, so that their obduracy would be proof that salvation must come to the Gentiles (13:46-50). His adverse fate is important for his theory, necessary even, since he carries out his divine destiny as teacher of the Gentiles – it is the indispensable link in a theoretical proof.

Immediately after the flight of the apostle from Antioch, the same hatred of the “Jews” drives him out of Iconium — when he then proved himself great before the Gentiles in Lystra, even the Jews of Antioch and Iconium come and bring the people to revolt against him (14: 2-19) — this alone is only the continuation and completion of the trial that his fate in Antioch provided – the author therefore, with deliberate intention, sent the same Jews who initiated the trial in Antioch and who continued it in Iconium to complete it in Lystra.

27

Once this testing had been carried out, however, the apostle could no longer be subjected to severe suffering without it bouncing off his majesty and high destiny. The series of sufferings that hit him, for example, during his last stay in Jerusalem, became a corresponding series of glorifications and finally only served to pave his way to Rome. In Philippi (16:22-40) he is beaten with Silas and thrown into prison, but here too it must be shown that the attempts of his enemies bring about the opposite of what they intended and only result in the brilliant revelation of his covenant with heaven.

The nature and origin of the conflicts which the apostle experienced during his last stay in Jerusalem will be revealed to us later; for now we are only concerned with his miraculous fate in Philippi and the side story which contains the account of Peter.

Paul and Silas let themselves be whipped and thrown into prison, although, as is shown on the following morning, when the captains of the city were frightened when they heard that both were Roman citizens, this privilege, if they had claimed it in the first place, would have prevented all maltreatment – only they were to be whipped, they were to be thrown into prison, so that the omnipotence of heaven could declare for them, they were to mention their citizenship *) only in the morning, when the captains of the city had announced their freedom to them, so that these, in their fright, would see fit to come themselves and lead them out of prison.

*) How questionable this is, how Paul, of whose Roman citizenship the epistles still know nothing, how in association with him also Sllas comes to this privilege, we will leave untouched here.

28

The miracle, which revealed the two prisoners to be the friends of heaven, was also worth the fact that they did not invoke their civil privilege. When they prayed aloud at midnight, so that the prisoners heard them, an earthquake immediately arose, which burst open all the doors of the prison and loosed the shackles of all the prisoners **), including those who were imprisoned alongside Paul and Silas.

**) 16:26 πάντων τὰ δεσμιὰ 

The jailer is awakened from his sleep by the shaking, and when he sees that the doors are open, he intends to fall on his sword, thinking that the prisoners have escaped. He is not allowed to think about investigating what has actually happened or to check if the prisoners have truly escaped, so that Paul (Verse 28) can shout to him that everyone – everyone, Paul must speak of everyone, because the author does not have time and space to report what Paul’s and Silas’ fellow prisoners have done – is still there.

In the wonderful element that abolishes all distances, Paul can speak from the innermost prison cell to the jailer, who has just awakened from sleep and is separated from the apostle by cells and corridors, and make himself heard. In the miraculous light that illuminates the event, the jailer immediately knows that it is a miracle and has happened for the sake of Paul. He forgets the other prisoners and throws himself at the feet of the apostle and his companion, even though he had just intended to fall on his sword out of fear of the chief magistrates. Suddenly, he knows that their anger is dispelled, and after he and his household have received baptism, he hosts a banquet for the apostles in his home that same night. In fact, the next morning the chief magistrates announce the freedom of the two prisoners, so their inexplicable change of heart coincides miraculously with the change in the prisoners’ situation during the night. However, Paul insists that they come and release them themselves, and they do come and ask both of them to leave their city. They act just like the Gadarenes, who also felt only terror before the mighty power of Jesus and asked him to leave their land. The author of the Acts of the Apostles even copied the corresponding Gospel account word for word, to leave us in no doubt about his source. *)

*) Acts 16:39 και ελθοντες παρεκαλεσαν αυτους και  ηρωτων εξελθειν της πολεως
Mark 5:15 και ερχονται . . . V. [17 – corrected from 16]  και ηρξαντο παρακαλειν αυτον απελθειν απο των οριων αυτων 

29

The contradictions through which Peter’s corresponding experience moves also work so thoroughly that they break it up and lift it out of the real world into that ideal region in which everything, even the impossible, is possible. Everything, even the utterly incoherent, is inwardly connected.

30

Why were Peter and John, after helping the lame man to his feet, arrested by the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees? Because of the miracle they had performed before the eyes of the people? However, the question is put to the two in the Sanhedrin: “by what authority or in what name did you do this?” – Peter, in his speech of defence, proceeds from the assumption that he and his comrade would be judged because of the benefit they had done to a sick person (4:7, 9) – but of a part of their opponents the author expressly remarks (V. 2) that they had brought about the arrest of the disciples because of their teaching and because they taught in Jesus the resurrection of the dead, – why, then, is this reason for the arrest not brought up by the judges? Simply because the author had only one interest this time, only one intention to achieve, and only wanted to punish the opponents of the apostles by the fact that their measures and legal proceedings led to the official certification of their sins. Why, then, does he mention, before the Sadduceans, their opposition to the disciples’ sermon on the resurrection, their annoyance at their preaching? Why does he not bring out the hostile interest of the Sadducees in the course of the judicial proceedings? Simply because he knows beforehand that soon afterwards a second arrest of the apostles will take place and as a result the opposition of the Sadducees will really come to the fore – but he does not consider that this opposition is not directed against the disciples, but rather causes an inner discord in the Sanhedrin itself – Furthermore, he introduced this contrast much too early and when he was already exhibiting it (4:2), he was idly slacking off.

31

The miracle is thus for now the reason for the arrest, the subject of the trial, and its complete authentication the purpose of the author. But why do the judges ask: “In whose name are you doing this? Why? The question could not have occurred to them, since they had arrested the disciples as heads of the new sect, and therefore also knew whom they proclaimed as their Lord and Master – but the author put the question into their mouths, so that Peter might have an opportunity to “prove his boldness” and preach before them the name in which alone salvation is given (vv. 10-12).

Why do they ask, “by what authority did ye do this?” Because the Jesus of the Gospels is the original “apostolic” founder of the Church, because therefore also the disciples must hear the same question which was put to the Lord after the cleansing of the Temple *), and because now, after this question, Peter’s answer led all the more surely to the conclusion that Jesus is the true author of the miracle and, by the miraculous crast which he communicates to the disciples, puts beyond doubt their authority to “found” his Church.

*) Acts 4:7 εν ποια δυναμει . . . . εποιησατε τουτο . . .
Mark 11:28 εν ποια εξουσια ταυτα ποιεις

The opponents’ attack must be to their own detriment – their questions must lead to their embarrassment – if the fact that a “lame” person jumps on Peter’s word promotes the growth of the church, the opponents’ limitation must at the same time prove the “solid” foundation on which the church rests.

32

The church works miracles – the limitations of its opponents prove its power.

The opponents are so limited and lacking in understanding that they only now, in the course of the negotiations, discover that the disciples (4:13) are not the idiots and unlearned people they thought they were – i.e. the author only now lets them get to know the disciples’ gift of oratory and their art of interpreting Scripture by forgetting that they (4:1) when Peter preached his great sermon about the Risen Lord, so that they must have known long ago how powerfully Peter knew how to speak and how skilfully he knew how to handle the testimonies of the Scriptures from his Master. The author does not consider at all that the Jewish authorities must have known of the danger when they decided to arrest the chiefs of the new sect – but he does not consider it because he wanted to leave the opponents, after they had citied the disciples before the highest court in a correct appreciation of the danger, in the unrecognised danger.

Another intermediary must confound the opponents and bear irrefutable testimony to the miraculous nature of the wonder – namely, the healed man who stands beside the two disciples during the trial. The author himself feels how inappropriate and impossible his presence is and hopes to anticipate the reader’s objections by noting (4:14) that the judges “had nothing to say” when they saw him standing next to the disciples. However, this does not explain how he could have entered the courtroom, nor how he could have filled the interim period from the moment when the healed man (3:11) joined the two disciples until the trial, nor how he could have cleared the healed man’s path from the temple, through the prison, to the courtroom.

33

The Sanhedrin must at last “admit” to itself – and this confession was just what the author wanted to bring about by his unfortunate pragmatism – that they cannot judge the arrested and deny the miracle, since the same (V. 16) is known to all the “inhabitants” of Jerusalem. They even see themselves so constrained by the force of the facts that they can neither come to a decision nor to a sentence – the fear of the people (V. 21) compels them to release the arrested without fail – but if the people were to be feared to such a degree and the public admiration they paid to the great deed demanded such unconditional consideration, then the arrest was also an impossibility from the outset.

Nevertheless, the arrest was repeated soon afterwards. All the apostles were thrown into prison. The angel of the Lord frees them and commands them to teach publicly in the temple. When the Sanhedrin learns of their bold work in the temple, it sends out the centurion with the servants and – these? They bring the disciples to trial, but (5:26) “not by force, for they feared” the people. *)

*) Mark 11:32 εφοβουντο τον λαον, απαντες γαρ . . . .
Acts 4:16 οτι μεν γαρ γνωστον . . . . πασι . . . .

After the consideration for the people and the fear of them had already put themselves between the Jewish authorities and the disciples in the same way as they paralysed the opponents of Jesus after the cleansing of the temple *), the same fear now compels the captains to renounce violence, just as the Sanhedrin had to give up the idea of carrying out the arrest of Jesus by open violence for fear of a popular uproar *). 

*) Mark 14:2 μη εν τη εορτη . . . . .
Luke 22:2 εφοβουντο γαρ τον λαον. V. 6 ατερ οχλου.
Acts 5:26 ου μετα βιας εφοβουντο γαρ τον λαον.

34

But this fear of the people also allows the opponents of Jesus in the Gospel to act correctly; it is real fear and has its natural consequences; the imprisonment is omitted economically and is only carried out when a means presents itself which makes open force necessary; – In the Acts of the Apostles, on the other hand, the same fear does not take effect until later, after that which should have made it impossible has happened – the author has placed the key words of the Gospels wrongly, because he certainly needed the catastrophe which the fear of the people had to prevent, and needed it beforehand, before the opponents of the disciples remembered the necessary consideration for the people.

This time he needed the repeated arrest of the disciples, who, after their miraculous liberation, must voluntarily follow the servants of the Sanhedrin, so that in the new trial the discord between the Jewish parties, which he had already caused at an inopportune moment during the previous arrest, would really break out and in a new way contribute to the irresistibility of the “Christian” cause.

Gamaliel is now to appear and paralyze the zeal of the Sadducees **).

**) Acts 5:17 επλησθησαν ζηλου.

But even this contrast is made – made according to the pattern of the Gospel, in which the Sadducees also appear as special opponents of the work of salvation “and indeed as the same opponents of the resurrection as they prove to be in the Acts of the Apostles – the contrast is therefore unhappily copied from the Gospel – for if it really makes sense and is coherent when the Saddueans of the Gospel make common cause with their bitterest enemies against Jesus and attack him in their own way, it is inconceivable that the two ruling parties would not have forgotten their particular quarrel with a new sect by which they both saw themselves threatened in the same way.

35

The contrast is all the more unfortunate because the same Gamaliel, at whose feet (22:3) Paul sat and under whose leadership the zealot persecutor of the Christians became a zealot for the law, could not possibly have spoken in favour of a cautious and gentle procedure against the young church in the mild manner that the author portrays.

Gamaliel also could not have made the speech which the author puts into his mouth, since the rebellion of Theudas, which he presents as a past one (5:36), occurred at least ten years later.

If, therefore, all the individual features of the report were to dissolve, it would be an unjustifiable half-measure to drop the person of Gamaliel and to attribute his advice *) “only to the view prevailing at that time among the rulers of the Jews” that “it might be best to leave the cause of Jesus to its own fate for the time being”, since it would “soon become apparent how little there was in it” – it would be a more than bold assumption *), “that the enemies of Jesus cared little for his followers in the immediate aftermath of his death, and as “they saw them increasing” and had to be concerned about them, did not consider it worth the trouble “to apply more serious measures” – it is not at all permissible **) to speak of “this first period of the first Christian community” “and to say of it” that it was “still devoid of eventfulnes.”

*) as Dr Baur does; the apostle Paul p. 35.

*) See the same ibid. p. 33, 34.

**) Nevertheless, as Dr. Baur does.

36

This first Christian community, known only from the Acts of the Apostles, this first period of the community that the author portrays in the first sections of his work, does not belong to history, because the substrate no longer exists once everything that reveals its nature has proved to be unhistorical – this basis of the author’s historical account has dissipated when the building he erected on it, which stands in the correct architectural proportion to it, has collapsed.

Whoever, with reference to the account of the Acts of the Apostles, speaks of a first Christian congregation, of a “first period” of the same, of a view of the Jewish authorities that prevailed “at that time”, of a mood of the Jewish parties in the “next” time after the death of Jesus, must also accept all statements of this Scripture as historical – whoever places himself on the ground of the Acts of the Apostles and wants to orientate himself from there about the first period of the Christian congregation, must not and cannot even distinguish between legendary embellishments and a real foundation, for another “first” Christian community, another “first” epoch of it apart from that which the Acts of the Apostles may describe, is not possible according to all its presuppositions – but none of these presuppositions leads to real history – all are the testimony of the later ideal view.

37

Anyone who wants to learn about the origins of the Christian community must take a longer detour and, above all, have first acquired the certainty that the late construction of the Acts of the Apostles is not built on historical ground. We will never know what the opponents of the “first” Christian community thought of it from Gamaliel’s council – but he teaches us that the author of the Acts of the Apostles could not find a better testimony to the irresistibility with which the church grew than the recognition that even the chief and spokesperson of the Pharisees had to offer to its divinity.

Dr. Baur therefore only tries to make a groundless distinction when he *) does not want to accept Peter’s miracle of punishment of Ananias and Sapphira as historical and nevertheless wants to assert the assumption “that these two names are not interwoven into the history of the first Christian community without historical reason” as a legally permissible one. Barnabas, for example, “displayed an attitude and conduct that made their names so odious and detestable that one believed one could only see a divine judgment in their death, which somehow occurred.

*) Ibid, p. 23

38

Rather, the one who killed them also created them in the first place. It was not the tragic indignation over their “despicable” behaviour that made them important to the congregation and preserved the memory of their names until it occurred to the late historian to “bring about” their death by Peter’s word – but the only interest they could offer to the congregation was their death, which Peter inflicted on them with a single word.

Not the two deceitful spouses are the object of Christian interest, but the deed that Peter performed on them, and apart from this deed they could not even exist.

In the end, until the author of the Acts of the Apostles came and did his last work on them, did the church carry their names around in their memory in contrast to that of Barnabas, who shamed them by his “sacrifice and altruism”? Rather, it was only the late historian who connected the name of Barnabas (4:36, 37) with theirs – not only for the sake of contrast, but because he was already thinking of what Barnabas (9:27) did to Paul, and because he wanted to show which intimate and deserving member of the early church was the one who introduced the late Gentile apostle to the apostles.

He who had such a definite intention when he reported the generous deed of Bamabas, by means of that intention, created that deed in the first place – created for Peter’s sake the “detestable” deed of Ananias and Sapphira – created the deceptive couple in the first place.

He, who first saw the community of goods of the primitive community as unconditional, who expressly reports (C. 4, 34) that all who had land or houses sold them and laid the money redeemed at the apostles’ feet, and afterwards not only ( C. 6.1-4) speaks of the administration of the “alms”, but also mentions (C. 12.12) houses owned by individual members of the community, can teach us as little about the property situation of the first Christian community as Epiphanius about the antiquity of his Ebionites when he tells us that they tell the same about themselves as the author of the Acts of the Apostles tells about the early community *).

*) In the present study, we do not have a direct interest in discovering the origins of the Christian community – we only examine what sense of time, what historical perspective, the Acts of the Apostles express and represent. Therefore, we cannot even consider inferring the form of the first community from the late testimony of Epiphanius. The criticism of the statements and hypotheses of Epiphanius is a separate matter – Dr. Baur’s criticism (ibid. p. 32) is therefore at least premature. Just because the Ebionites of Epiphanius claimed of themselves that they (haer. 30) sold their property in the times of the apostles and “added the proceeds to the apostles’ funds,” and because of their well-known hostility to the apostle Paul, the Acts of the Apostles written by the Pauline Luke could not have been authoritative for them – does this mean that this expression was not borrowed from this scripture, that it is significant for the early days of the community, and that it justifies historical conjectures? Therefore, can one assume that the Ebionites later represented their original poverty as a result of a free decision? At the time of Epiphanius, in the late fourth century, that passage of the Acts of the Apostles should not have become a common and prevalent historical category – it should have been impossible for unclear sectarians or Epiphanius himself to use it arbitrarily? However, the criticism of Epiphanius is a separate matter.

39

At the same moment, when he is calling the renunciation of personal possessions a general and unconditional one, he lets Peter speak against Ananias (6:4) as if he could have kept the field and withheld the proceeds. How, then, does he come to this inconsistency? What drove him to act against a note he had just written down?

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He was interested in portraying Ananias, who could thus freely dispose of his own, as a man who did secretly what he should have done openly – as a man who secretly kept a part of the proceeds for himself.

But why did he care? Because Peter of the Acts, as bishop of the congregation – for that is at least how he behaves – takes the place of the Lord, and because the author wanted to show that what Ignatius says *) is true, that he who conceals from the bishop what he is doing serves the devil.

*) ad Smyrn. C. 9. ο λαθρα επισκοπου τι πρασσων, τω διαβολω λατρυει.

Peter thunders at Ananias that he has lied (5:4) not to men but to God – smashes Sapphira with the accusation that she and her husband have become one to tempt the Spirit of the Lord.

The couple wanted to see if it was true that the Spirit of the Lord was really in Peter, if Ignatius was right that “he who betrays the bishop, the visible one, mocks the invisible one” **).

**) ad Magnes c. 3

The attempt, of course, went badly, for the author’s main concern was to show that the theory developed in the letters of JgnatiuS was completely correct.

This late theory of ecclesiastical hierarchies was also in the mind of the author when he reported that the apostles, when standing in the hall of the sanctuary, formed a sacred group which the people dared not approach.

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For if Peter is the bishop and representative of Christ, the apostles are that holy association and synod of God which the presbyters form *) – Peter with the apostles forms the holy collegium, to which the others, as the laity, show their reverence by respectful distance.

*) Ignat. Ad Trall. C. 3: honour the presbyters ως συνεδριον θεου και ως συνδεσμον αποστολων.

When Schneckenburger **) explains the predominance of Peter in the first part of the Acts of the Apostles “from the historical fact itself, that it was really Peter who everywhere led the word and powerfully guided the young church,” and when he also refers to the explanation of Jesus (Matt. 16:18) according to which Peter is the rock of the church, then to the word (Luke 22:32): “strengthen your brothers”, finally to the “old testimony” (John 21:15): “feed my lambs”, then I have proven with my critique of the Gospels that the dignities, which these sayings of the Gospel Jesus confer on Peter, were only created when Peter had become the bearer of the later ecclesiastical hierarchy, and as far as the “old testimony” of the fourth Gospel is concerned, then I have rather proven ***) that the author of it had the Acts of the Apostles in mind.

**) p. 158.

***) See my critique of the Gospels.

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2023-04-26

Peter and Paul, miracle workers

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

I have not posted so frequently here but have been busy on the blog pages …. if you have an interest in comparing how the author of Acts of the Apostles paired Peter and Paul as miracle workers check out the latest addition to my series of translations of Bruno Bauer.


1. Miracle Workers

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

1.

The Miracle Workers


If only one question were asked, how the author of the Acts of the Apostles comes to portray the apostle, who only defeated his opponents with the force of his religious dialectic, as a magician, the man who led his historical work through sufferings, struggles and temptations, as a miracle-worker, who won followers and blinded his opponents through the splendour of his magical works, the answer *) that the author does not want to give a “complete” description of the apostle’s experiences, not an “exhaustive” account of his personal circumstances, and that instead of the dark and sorrowful side he rather “only allows the opposite side” of his life, distinguished by miracles and divine interventions, to “come to the fore”, would be far from satisfactory.

*) which, for example, Schneckenburger, op. cit. p. 60, has raised

If the man who disarmed the opponents by the “proof of the spirit” and opened a new era of world history and the sorcerer form an antithesis, where is the spiritual hero if only the adversary appears?

If the weakness that formed the glory of the apostle and the night of the miracle-worker are opposed to each other – when the earthen and frail vessel in which the apostle of the epistles delivered the heavenly treasure to his congregations, and the mighty hand of the miracle-worker, which with one blow throws the adversaries to the ground and convinces them by fear, are essentially different from each other – where is the Master, who was strong in his weakness, when only the man of fear casts awe?

8

One steps back – the other steps forward!

So only back? Is the One still present in itself? He is only in the background of the painting which the author of the Acts of the Apostles sets up? Behind the picture ——- in hiding?

But behind the picture of the Acts of the Apostles there is no space for this hiding place – in the back of the painting there is an unconditional emptiness in which no living being can breathe, no historical person can work and function.

Only the miracle-worker and sorcerer emerges – no! he stands alone there and there- the hiding place in which the spiritual fighter and religious dialectician can still hold on to necessity, can only assert himself by force, is only in the consciousness of the apologist who knows the apostle of the letters and still wants to keep him – absolutely wants to keep him – next to the hero of the Acts of the Apostles.

In vain! – the magician knows nothing of the religious dialectician, – the miracle-worker denies the spiritual hero – the painting of the Acts of the Apostles excludes the ideal of apologetic consciousness – the shining picture of the Acts of the Apostles wants to know nothing of a dark hiding place in which another Paul lives.

The opposite side of the apostle’s personality, which the apologist in the Acts of the Apostles alone brings to the fore,

The opposite side of the apostle’s personality, which the apologist finds in the Acts of the Apostles alone, is rather, according to the presupposition of this Scripture, that characteristic definiteness which expresses the nature of the apostle.

9

It is the opposite side according to the view of the apologist who compares his other knowledge and view of the apostle with the account of the Acts of the Apostles – according to the presupposition of this scripture, it is not a single page, but the characteristic expression in which the whole being of the apostle is exhausted – the whole, which excludes every other view.

————–

The question becomes more complicated for the apologist, and his attempt at a solution even more violent, when he observes how the miraculous activity of the apostle Paul has such an exact parallel to that of Peter that the latter cannot perform any miracle which the latter has not previously performed.

The lame man whom Paul heals in Lystra is like the one Peter healed at the temple, lame from his mother’s womb *); Peter as well as Paul look their lame man in the face with the same firmness before they proceed to the miracle **); the success that the lame man jumps up and walks is described both times with the same words ***), both times the people finally proved the greatness and reality of the miracle by the impression it made.

*) C. 3, 2. 14, 8. Χολος εκ κοιλιας μητρος αυτου. 

**) C, 3, 4. ατενισας εις αυτον.
C. 14, 9. ατενισας αυτω.

***) C. 3, 8.και εξαλλομενος εστη και περιεπατει.
C. 14, 10. και ηλλετο και τεριεπατει.

10

Pray to the saints at Lydda – so on a journey and in a friendly house Peter heals a gout-ridden man (C. 9, 32. 33.); so Paul rewards the hospitality with which a citizen of Malta accommodated him on his journey to Rome by healing his fever-stricken father (C. 28, 8) – both times names are mentioned: – the sick man whom Peter healed was called Aeneas, the man whose father Paul heals, Publius. 

Whereas Peter healed the sick, who were being dragged out into the street in anticipation of his coming, by passing his shadow over them, Paul’s sweatcloth and aprons demonstrated the same miraculous power when they were removed from his skin and held over the sick *).

*) Even the construction of the corresponding sentences is consistent:
5:15 ωστε . . . εκφερειν
19:12 ωστε . . . . επιφερεσθαι

Peter casts out the unclean spirits (C. 5, 16) – the same power Paul showed when he cast out the spirit of divination from the maid in Philippi (C. 16, 18-18), and in Ephesus it showed that the unclean spirits acknowledge him as the master who can become their master.

Peter awakens Tabitha from death in Joppa (C. 9, 36-41) – Paul (C. 20, 9-12) in Troas, Eutychus; – when finally Paul strikes the magician Elymas with blindness (C. 13, 6-11), he refutes the power of pagan magic just as Peter did when he fought with the magician Simon, and at the same time he inflicts a corporal punishment on his opponent that corresponds to the one Peter inflicted on Ananias (C. 8, S-24. C. S, 4. 5 ).

This is a part of that “side” of the apostle Paul’s personality which is only opposed to the picture of his character which he draws of himself in the epistles, but which is otherwise, as the apologist assumes, thoroughly “historical” – a part of those features from the life of the apostle, which the author of the Acts of the Apostles “included” *)  in his work only for the reason of making the image of his hero perfectly similar to that of Peter – a part of those features which the author alone could use, since he was only concerned with this “similarity of the” image of both apostles and since he did not want to present “a complete historical image of Paul”, but one that was as brilliant as possible’ **).

*) Schneckeuburger a. a. O. p. 57. 58. 

**) The same ibid.

11

For the apologetic point of view, on which alone this separation of a historical personality into two, still more into two opposite sides is possible, our question would be incomprehensible: “How did Paul come to portray only the one in his own writings, and whether his historian was allowed to portray only the other? The apologist will not even listen to the question whether the picture which the historian draws up when he omits the features which the hero has exhibited in his own writings as the characteristic – indeed the only characteristic of his picture – whether this picture can still be called historical and correct. The same apologist will answer the question whether the lives of two personalities, whose character is by nature quite different and almost “without” any points of contact, and who are active in “utterly different” spheres of life, can be so congruent that a geometrically exact parallel can be formed from their deeds and destinies, by leaving it as an absurdity.

12

At the most, he will reject the assumption of the possibility that the author of the Acts of the Apostles, in order to make the image of both apostles similar, has “interwoven” unhistorical features “into the image of Paul” as a “misinterpretation” *) – namely, he starts from the premise, that the shining image of Peter as certainly historically vouched or from the tradition of the author from the outset was fixed or handed down and that the same has now borrowed the corresponding traits from his common view of the image of the apostle Paul.

*) The same ibid.

This presupposition of the historical basis of the Acts of the Apostles, namely of the pre-existence of the miracle-worker Peter before the magician Paul,- i. e. The presupposition that the historical picture of the miracle-worker Peter already existed and was completed before the later historian formed a parallel to it from the life of Paul, we shall immediately resolve by showing which is the original of both miracle-workers and that the same creator who made the one after-image also made the other.

The original Peter and Paul of the Acts of the Apostles is the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels. The author of the Acts of the Apostles had the latter – to put it cautiously at first: the Ur gospel, which is preserved in the writing of Mark, Luke’s gospel and the related evangelical sources – “in mind” when he borrowed from them the features from which he put together the picture of both apostles; – the literal coincidence betrays him and the faulty processing of some key words, which only have meaning and context in the writing of Mark, testifies against him.

13

The proof will overcome all the apologist’s presuppositions and make those questions, which he is not able to answer, together with all possible answers – even the correct answer, which would still be unsuccessful within the limited presupposition in which that “question” is held – unnecessary.

Peter’s healing of the lame man is modelled on the Gospel account of the healing of the gout-ridden man. “Get up and walk”, Peter calls to the lame man – “get up and take up your bed”, is the call with which Jesus lifts up the gout-ridden man – since the author of the Acts of the Apostles could not mention the bed in the healing of the lame man, he makes up for this omission when Peter heals the gout-ridden man in Lydda and calls to him: “get up and make your own bed ” *). Finally, both times when Jesus heals the gout-ridden man and Peter heals the lame man, it is said that the people present were amazed **).

*) Acts 3, 6: ‘Εγειραι και περιπατει.
Mark 2, 11: εγειραι και αρον τοω κραββατοω σου.
Acts 9, 33: κατακειμενον επι κραββατω. V. 34: αναστηθι και στρωσον σεαυτω.

**) Mark 2, 12: ωστε εξιστασθαι παντας.
Acts 3, 10: εκλησθησαν . . . εκστασεως.

While the healing of the lame man by Paul is simply modelled on the miracle performed by Peter on his lame man, the parallel healings of the gout-ridden Aeneas and the fever-stricken father of Publius have the opposite effect: the latter miracle of Paul is most carefully modelled on the Gospel original, and the author already had this later version in mind when he sketched out the side piece to the healing of Aeneas in brief. He was content to let Peter also reward the hospitality of the circle in which he found shelter by a miraculous healing, and relied on the reader recognising in this event the side piece to Paul’s later deed.

14

Paul did to the father of Publius what Jesus did to Peter’s mother-in-law when he stopped at her house – he healed him of a fever, only his act is a mere reward for hospitality, while Jesus’ act had a more far-reaching purpose and served to secure him a hospitable welcome in Capernaum for ever – i.e. in the Gospel this miracle is justified, in Acts it is an extraordinary splendour: Paul did the same thing for a one-time friendly welcome. i.e. in the Gospel the miracle is justified, in the Acts of the Apostles it is an extraordinary splendidness: – Paul did the same for a one-time kind reception that Jesus did in order to buy you “permanent” hospitality in Capernaum. More! The splendidness of Paul goes even further, the generosity of the “disciples” goes much further than the “behaviour” of the “Master” – it is not enough for Paul to free the “father of the public” from fever; immediately afterwards all the “sick” of the island come and are also all healed by him. Fortunately, this splendidness did not cost the apostle much, since his historian only had to copy the evangelical account of Jesus’ “first” entry into Capernaum, and after he had formed the side piece of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, he only had to copy *) the miracles that Jesus performed on all the sick people of Capernaum. But he was not happy. He lets all the sick of the island come, while the evangelist still knew that the sick were to be brought to the miracle-worker, – he could not make it comprehensible how the miracle, which the apostle performed in the interior of a private house, could alarm the whole community and bring all the sick to their feet, whereas in the Gospel the gathering of all the sick in front of Jesus’ house is economically motivated by the miracle that was performed in the synagogue on the “man possessed with the devil” before everyone’s eyes, and the haste with which the sick were brought that very evening by the fact that Jesus, as far as anyone knew, had only stayed as a guest in Capernaum. The author of the Acts of the Apostles finally attributes to the evangelist the phrase that the miracle-worker “joined” the sick person who belonged to his host **), and because he does not create the original, thus does not know the need for the economic context, he forgets to borrow the explanation from the original that the miracle-working guest was reported to the sick family member ***).

*) Mark 1, 32: εφερον προς αυτον παντας τους κακως εχοντας . . . . και εθεραπευσε.
Acts 28, 9. οι λοιποι οι εχοντες ασθενειας προσηρχοντο και εθεραπευοντο

**) Acts 28, 8 . . . . πυρετοις κατακεισθαι, προς ον προςελθωω.
Mark 1, 30. κατεκειτο πυρεσσουσα . . . , και προσελθων.

***) Mark 1, 30. και ευθεως λεγουσιν αυτω περι αυτης, και προσελθων.

15

The mass gathering of people from the surrounding towns to bring their sick to Peter in Jerusalem is modelled on the account of Mark, according to which the sick were brought to Jesus from the surrounding towns *) – that the sick were brought out into the streets and placed on stretchers so that when Peter passed, even if only his shadow overshadowed some of them, is a literal copy of the Gospel account, according to which, as soon as Jesus arrived in a town or village, the sick were taken to the market and asked to touch the hem of his garment **), – after the miraculous power had finally been transferred from the hem of Jesus’ garment to Peter’s shadow, it had become possible to impart the same miraculous power to Paul’s sweatcloths and aprons, and thus a kind of manifoldness to the parallel of both apostles.

*) Acts 5,16. συνηρχετο δε και το πληθος των περιξ πολεων . . . φεροντες ασθενεις . . .
Mark 6, 55. περιδραμοντες ολην την περιχωρον εκεινην ηρξαντ . . . . . τους κακως εχοντας περιφερει.

**) Acts 5, 15. ωστε κατα τας πλατειας εκφερειν τους ασθενεις και τιθεναι επι κλινων και κραββατων, ινα ερχομενου πετρου καν η σκια επισκιαση τινι αυτων.
Mark 6, 56. και οπου αν εισεπορευετο εις κωμας η πολεις . . . εν ταις αγοραις ετιθουν τους ασθενουντας και παρεκαλουν, ινα καν του κρασπεδου του ιματιου αψωνται.
That the sick (Mark 6, 55) were brought on beds (επι τοις κραββατοις) is replicated in Act. 5, 15.
The corresponding construction ωστε Acts 5, 15. 19, 12, especially with the following ινα C. 5, 15 is the topic of the evangelical report Mark 3, 10: ωστε επιπιπτειν αυτω ινα αυτου αψωνται.

16

If Peter and Paul are equal to their Master in this, yes, even superior to him in this, through the clumsiness of their historian, who did not see that the touch of Jesus’ garment healed only of sickness, while the demonic spirits only departed at the express commandment, that their shadow and their sweatcloths deliver people from “sickness” and demonic spirits *), only two single cases are reported by Paul – how he fought with the evil spirits – both nothing but variations on a Gospel theme’- both cases, however, also evidence that the author did not understand one of the most important Gospel phrases.

*) Acts 19, 12 is at least expressly said of Paul’s sweat cloths that before them the sicknesses departed and the evil spirits went out. When Peter, C. 5, 16, heals the sick and the possessed, it is not expressly said that it was through his shadow, as in v. 15, but this healing is just as little expressly described as being mediated by the will. In each case the author confuses what Marcus very strictly separates: the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons. Compare Mark 6:55-56. 3:10-12. 1:34.

17

The demons of the Gospels know Jesus as the Son of God, but Jesus “threatens them severely that they do not reveal him” (Mark 3, 11. 12), because only at the end of his public activity does he want to unmask himself as the Son of the Most High. When, therefore, the seven sons of a Jewish high priest in Ephesus, unknown in the real world, sought to exorcise the possessed by calling upon the name of Jesus, “whom Paul preaches” (C. 49, 13.14), when then, with an unmotivated transition to a special event, “the pure spirit (B. 15) replies”: I know Jesus well “and who Paul is, I know, and when finally “the possessed man” falls upon the seven summoners, maltreats them and puts them to flight, then the wonderful knowledge of the demons, which Jesus does not want to use for his person, is “a” glaring spectacle and exploited for an unattractive comparison between the superiority of the apostolic sorcerer and the impotence of some Jewish exorcists.

18

The other case, that a soothsayer *) who owned a maid in Philippi cries out to Paul and his companions: “these men find servants of God the Most High”, that Paul became annoyed by this incessant crying, that the apostle finally commands the soothsaying spirit to leave the maid, is likewise a copy of the Gospel original, but again a copy that misses the meaning of the original. When Jesus forbids the unclean spirits to make him manifest, he does so because he does not want to use their testimony for himself – when he casts them out, he does so not because he finds their cries annoying, but because he wants to have mercy on the “possessed” – when he finally also finds a host of sick and possessed people annoying, it is not their cries that annoy him, but their urging **), in that both the possessed and the sick best him regularly, – the latter because they were healed by the touch of his body. The author’s greatest oversight, however, is that he believes he must presuppose a spirit of divination, a special Pythonic kind of demon, in order to explain and make possible its knowledge of Paul and his divine destiny, whereas the demons of the Gospels as such, as “supernatural” beings, know whom they have before them.

*) πνευμα πύθωνος.

**) Mark 3, 11. ὅταν αὐτὸν ἐθεώρουν, προσέπιπτον αὐτῷ καὶ ἔκραζε λέγοντα.
Acts 16, 17.  κατακολουθοῦσα . . . ἔκραζεν λέγουσα.

19

When the author created the two revivals of the dead by Peter and Paul, he had in mind above all the account by Mark of the revival of Jairus’ daughter. As Jesus, on entering the house of Jairus, finds the swarm of weeping and wailing, so Peter finds the weeping and wailing widows in the house of Tabitha; Jesus drives the swarm of wailers out of the house, then goes to the corpse, grasps the hand of the child and calls out the awakening words to him; Peter does the same *). But if Jesus had a real reason for driving the strangers out of the house (for he wanted to keep the mystery of the following miracle away from profane curiosity, did not want the miracle as such” to become public), the apostle has no reason to drive away the complaining widows; – If Jesus, on awakening the child, has the parents at hand and can immediately instruct them to give the child food, Peter stands alone in his miraculous deed, and if he wants to bring the revived girl back into the circle of her own, he must, with the saints, call back the same widows whom he has just driven away. Even the name of the girl whom Peter awakens is derived from the account of Mark: for the evangelist gives the words with which Jesus overcame death in Hebrew: “Talitha kumi” and adds the explanation that this means interpreted: The author of the Acts of the Apostles also remarks that Talitha is translated as Gazelle, and thus leads us even through the consonance of the foreign word and through the concordant structure of the interpretation of the same *) to the source from which he has borrowed both – a result which retains its certainty, even if the author has made Gazelle, originally a tender metonymy for girls, an economic proper name.

*) Mark 5, 40. ὁ δὲ ἐκβαλὼν πάντας . . .  V. 41. καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ . . .
Acts 9, 40. ἐκβαλὼν δὲ ἔξω πάντας . . .  καὶ ἐπιστρέψας πρὸς τὸ σῶμα εἶπε . . . .

*) Mark 5:40: Ταλιθὰ κούμ ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον τὸ κοράσιον . . . .
Acts 9, 36: Ταβιθά, ἣ διερμηνευομένη λέγεται δορκάς.

20

The fact that the dead woman finally raises herself up and sits down, that Peter gives her back to her own, is borrowed verbatim from the account of the revival of the youth from Nain **).

**) Acts 9, 40: ἀνεκάθισε . . . . V. 41: παρέστησεν αὐτὴν ζῶσαν.
Luke 7,15: ἀνεκάθισεν . . . . καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ.

The “purpose” and meaninglessness of a phrase in Paul’s account of the revival of Eutychus likewise leads us back to the Gospel account of the revival of the daughter Jairus. “Make no noise,” Paul cries, “for his soul is in him” – but why does he deny the real occurrence of death, why does he want to create the impression that Eutychus is not really dead? why, especially in the presence of the people who had picked up the young man who had fallen from the balcony, “dead” – really dead? He had no reason for this turn of phrase, nor could he hope to convince the eyewitnesses of the untruth of what they themselves saw. In the report of Mark, on the other hand ***), the denial of death has meaning, purpose and significance: – it is prepared, for Jesus, before entering the house of Jairus, rejected the people and his disciples except the three favoured ones – it is addressed to the right people, to the wailers who were in the porch of the house – it has real consequences, for Jesus drives the wailers out of the house and goes only with the parents, who knew the real facts only too well, and with the three disciples, who alone were worthy to see the most monstrous miracle with their own eyes, into the death chamber – it has its real purpose, for Jesus did not want the whole crowd to be drawn into the mystery.

***) Mark 5, 39: τί θορυβεῖσθε, . . . . τὸ παιδίον οὐκ ἀπέθανεν ἀλλὰ καθεύδει.
Acts 20, 10: μὴ θορυβεῖσθε, ἡ γὰρ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐστιν.

21

Finally, just as for the miraculous deed of Peter, apart from the account of Mark, the account of Luke of the revival of the young man of Nain is used, so the circumstance that Paul rushed over the dead Eutychus and embraced him lengthwise is modelled on the procedure followed by Elijah and Elisha in similar cases *).

*) 1 Kings 17, 21.  2 Kings 4, 34, 35.

———–

Now that the original text has fallen prey to criticism and has been recognised as a free, late creation, even one word about the historical character of the copy would be superfluous.

Therefore, instead of engaging in a useless argument with the apologist about the historical credibility of the miracle reports in the Acts of the Apostles, we can immediately add the remark, after the evident proof of their origin, that the godlike impression which the author ascribes to the personality of both apostles is only his own and free work.

22

When the miracles of Peter and the other apostles caused the people who “thought highly of them” to keep at a distance out of reverence and to leave them standing alone and exalted like a holy group in the temple hall (C. 5, 12. 13), the people of Malta shied away from Paul (C. 28, 6) as from a god.

When Cornelius pays homage to Peter as to a divine being and the latter has to raise him up with the words: “stand up, I am also a man” (C. 10, 25. 26), it is not as an event of the author that the “homage” of the citizens of Lystra, who want to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas after the healing of the lame man, bring both to despair, so that they have to shout to the overzealous (C. 14, 15): “we are mortal men like you!”

The writer of history, who has made his heroes into godlike miracle-workers, finally found it easy to instil in a part of their opponents the fear that in them they have to do with God Himself, that therefore also unconditional resistance against their value and their person might in the end be a struggle against God Himself. Therefore, when Gamaliel, as head of the Pharisees, confronted the “Sadducees” when Peter was on trial and urged them to be careful so that they would not end up fighting God himself, it was fitting that in Paul’s case the Pharisees also paralysed the Sadducees’ zeal for the same reason *).

*) Acts 5, 39. μήποτε καὶ θεομάχοι εὑρεθῆτε.
Acts 23, 9. μη θεομαχωμεν

———–

23

By pointing out afterwards how Peter’s victory over the magician Simon and Paul’s victory over the magician Elymas also touch each other in that both are the first foreign deeds and successes of both apostles, how furthermore the circumstance that just when the apostle converts the proconsul Sergius Paulus, his former name Saul gives way for the first time to the name Paul (C. 13, 9), seems to indicate that the great deed to the Roman, like Peter’s confession, earns him a new name, we note how another parallel, through the clumsiness of its execution, likewise betrays itself as a fabricated one.

Just as Peter completed the work of Philip on the Samaritans, a controversial mixed people who were undecided between Jews and Gentiles, by giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands (C. 8, 14-17), Paul also completed the work of a mixed family that occupied an uncertain position between Jews and Christians, the disciples of John at Ephesus, by “baptising” them and endowing them with the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands – so he was also like Peter in that he completed the work of another, Apollos, in these disciples of John. But it is precisely the wavering attitude that the author gave to the figure of the “latter” that proves both his intention and their weakness and powerlessness.

By letting Apostle Apollos, a man who (C. 18, 25) only knew the baptism of John, work there before the arrival of the Apostle in Ephesus, and by letting the Apostle find the disciples of John immediately thereafter (C. 19, 1), he wants to connect both, “those” Jewish teachers and “these” disciples, but he did not really make the connection and he could not, because immediately before he had Apollos introduced to all the secrets of the new teaching by Aquila and Priscilla.

24

In the disciples of John and their teacher Apollos he also wanted to set up the side piece to the Samaritans, who had received baptism, knew the Christian doctrine and only lacked the last perfection, the gift of the Holy Spirit – what does he do? He lets “Apollo”, although he only knew about the baptism of John *), nevertheless at the same time preach “thoroughly” about the Lord (C. 18, 25) – he calls the disciples of John, whom Paul finds and to whom the first elements of the Christian doctrine are unknown, disciples (C. 19, 1). 19, 1), disciples of the church, – as if a man who only knew the baptism of John could preach the Lord, as if the people who (C. 19, 2) had not yet heard a word of the Holy Spirit could be counted as disciples to the church!

*) Acts 18, [25 – corrected from 5]. ἐπιστάμενος μόνον τὸ βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου.
C. 8, 16. μόνον βεβαπτισμένοι . . . . εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ

The parallel (referring to a biblical reference) has failed and had to fail, as the Samaritans who received Christian baptism and doctrine could not be compared to those who only knew the baptism of John. To make the parallel somewhat possible, he had to bring Apollos and the disciples of John in the community so close that they were only lacking the Holy Spirit for completion. But they lacked more than that if they only knew John’s baptism. He wanted to create a hybrid species in the disciples of John like the Samaritans, but he forgets that the latter, when Peter took them under his hands, had already received the first Christian consecration, which was lacking in the former when Paul should only give them the last completion. And he has also not been able to explain how it was possible for Apollos, with his limited knowledge of divine salvation, to preach so “thoroughly” from the beginning that Aquila and Priscilla only needed to “explain” the way of God to him more “thoroughly” *).

*) Acts 18, 25. ἀκριβῶς  V. 26. ἀκριβέστερον

25

Instead of a mixed race, the author has created chimerical beings. That there were disciples of John he learned from the Gospels (Mark 2, 18) – he could not find them anywhere in the real world.

———————————

 


Acts of the Apostles: Title and Foreword

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The Acts of the Apostles

a balancing of

Paulinism

and 

Judaism within the Christian Church.

——

by B. Bauer.

——

Berlin

published by Gustav Hempel.

1850.

 

iii

Foreword

After Schrader and Dr. Baur first noted the difference between the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Epistles, the conformity of the “First” with Peter and the Pauline character of Peter of Acts *) – after Schneckenburger **) then proved in detail the conformity of the figure in which the Paul of Acts appears with that of Peter, there are still two points in dispute, two questions that await decision.

*) The former in the fifth volume of his writing: the Apostle Paul 1836, – the latter in his essays in the Lübinger Zeitschrift. 1836. 1838. 

**) in his writing on the purpose of the Acts of the Apostles. Bern. 1841.

The purpose and point of view of the author of Acts is still to be determined and the question of historical credibility, i.e. the question of whether the author of Acts created freely or used reliable sources for his composition, has neither been solved by Schnekkenburger’s effort to assert the Pauline character of this writing alongside that of the Epistles, nor by the admonition of Dr. Baur, who urgently recommends *) that “from the special purpose which the later living historian had, no too disadvantageous conclusion may be drawn about the historical credibility of the Acts of the Apostles in general, since the apologetic interest of the author does not outright excludes it, but only in a limited and modified way.”

*) Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. Stuttgart 1845. p. 13.

iv

In addition, we have the natural explanation which Neander lastly and with the most assiduous effort gave to the Acts of the Apostles, i. e. that explanation which is satisfied and believes to have achieved all, when it has made one miracle after another into a half-natural, but in truth only more unnatural, event by the imposition of strange, natural or psychological elements, is abandoned to its own worthlessness and insignificance, in which it is forever exposed and even removed from the sphere of investigation as soon as the question has received its proper position, – we will lead the investigation to that point of unity in which the questions of the author’s purpose and standpoint, the question of whether he is a free creator or dependent on earlier works, the question of the time in which he wrote, will no longer appear as separate questions and their answer will depend neither on the violent presuppositions that Schneckenburger holds, nor on the precarious caution that Dr. Baur recommends.

From this point of unity of the investigation, which will clarify the relationship of the author of Acts to the Gospels in general, but especially to the Gospel of Luke, the relationship between Paul and Peter in Acts will receive its final clarification, and the difference between the former and Paul in the Epistles can only be fully established.

v

Raised to this point of unity, the investigation will finally prove its strength by drawing the Pauline epistles into its circle and subjecting them to the same question to which the Acts of the Apostles are subject. Dr. Baur, who still possesses undoubtedly authentic letters of the apostle in the New Testament canon, can only arrive at the “conviction” from the comparison of these with the Acts of the Apostles, “that in view of the great difference between the two accounts, the historical truth can only be either on the one side or on the other” *) – he must keep within this limited and arbitrary alternative, because the authenticity of the main Pauline Epistles is certain to him – but cannot both representations of the apostle be free works of reflection, late creations – cannot both representations have sprung from the same soil of deliberate reflection and on this soil still assert their difference, indeed, only now assert their difference with full force?

*) a. a. O. p. 5

Between the two accounts, remarks Dr. Baur **), “there is generally a similar relationship as between the Johannine Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels”, and so it is – we shall even prove the correspondence of the authorial relationship in the fact that in the Acts of the Apostles we find in the same way lost and imperfectly processed key words of the Pauline Epistles, as the dissonants of the fourth Gospel – partly also result from the fact that the author could not completely master the key words, echoes and borings which he borrowed from the Synoptic Gospels, But just as we have, with the help of our criticism, proved the difference between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels, and at the same time the common origin of Gospel historiography in general from the formative Steflexioa, so we shall now also subject to criticism the boron assumption of the authenticity of the Pauline main Epistles, and bring the question from its previous half-ness to full and complete unity.

**) ibid. 

vi

The presupposition that “historical truth can only be either on the one side or on the other” can no longer assert itself before the seriousness of the question.

The Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistles are subject to one and the same question, and the following examination of the former can therefore only be the preparation for the critique of the Epistles.

————-


BRUNO BAUER: Acts of the Apostles – in English

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The German text that I used for the translation is on Google Books:
Die Apostelgeschichte: eine Ausgleichung des Paulinismus und des Judenthums innerhalb der christlichen Kirche.

 

 


2023-04-25

BRUNO BAUER: Critique of the Gospel of John – English translation

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

With the assistance of machine translation tools I have been making some of Bruno Bauer’s key works on New Testament criticism available in English. This page links to BB’s chapters on his Criticism of the Gospel of John, published in 1840. I will continue to add more chapters as (a) attempt to proof-read translations for accuracy and readability and (b) format them for online posting here. Unfortunately I have not been able to render all of BB’s words with the clarity I would like, especially his more philosophical and theoretical discussions. But there is still much more that is clear for those who are interested.

The page numbers correspond paragraph by paragraph to the published online text on Google Books so if you want to compare what I have posted here with the German original it should not be too difficult to do so.

The German text I have used is located on Google Books. Consider my effort a draft awaiting someone more knowledgeable of Bauer’s thought and the German language to refine into a more respectable translation.

Criticism of the Gospel of John

BB does not go beyond 10:39 in this volume. He continues discussion of the Gospel of John in Criticism of the Gospels and History of their Origin – in English. The reason for the break is that up to 10:39 the Gospel of John can be analysed for the most part independently of the Synoptic Gospels but in order to investigate the origin of the later chapters comparisons with the Synoptics are essential.

 

Comments by Martin Kegel on Bauer’s criticism of the Gospel of John

Comments on the Bruno Bauer’s Criticism of the Gospel of John by Martin Kegel: Bruno Bauer und seine Theorien über die Entstehung des Christentums [= Bruno Bauer and His Theories on the Origin of Christianity]. Quelle & Meyer, 1908.

The plan:

Bauer’s original plan had been to continue his “Critique of the History of Revelation” (Part I) by presenting the historical preconditions of Christianity to the critical examination of the New Testament Revelation. This plan – he says in the preface to his new work on the Gospel of John – of a presentation following the course of history, he has given up and with his new writing has entered a path that will lead more quickly to the goal1). He wanted to proceed in a literary-critical manner and begin his investigation with the latest form of New Testament literature. For, he later said (“Deutsche Jahrbücher” 1842, p. 670): “With the insight into the composition and tendency of the Gospels and their individual sections, the insight into their origin and into the historical basis or ideal meaning of their reports is also given”. He wanted to begin with the latest structure and then penetrate further and further into the early period of the production of New Testament literature and thus come closer and closer to the origins of Christianity itself.

But what was this latest structure? Bauer was certain that it was the Gospel of John. At the beginning of the century, this Gospel had been subjected to sharp attacks2) : the time was preparing itself in which one would no longer draw one’s knowledge of the founder of Christianity from the Gospel of John, as had been the case hitherto, but from the Synoptics alone, the time within which we still stand to some extent. Bauer helped to bring about this time; his work was intended to show that the fourth Gospel was not suitable to inform us about the origins of Christianity. — p. 25 — all quotations here are translations

Early days:

In his critique of John’s Gospel, Bauer had still admitted a number of important positive propositions with regard to the common view of the origin of Christianity; so in particular he had asserted the existence of Jesus and the revelation that had taken place in him of a power (if not quite transcendent, then at least) reaching beyond “all” humanity. — p. 36

Evolution of thought:

Already in his writing on the Gospel of John (p. V and especially p. 418 ff.) he had come to the conclusion that the history of Jewish consciousness, as it had developed from the conclusion of the canon to the appearance of Jesus, was still an unknown area; but there he had still assumed that the messianic views were widespread at the time of Jesus (p. 277 f.), that above all Jesus found his messianic self-awareness confirmed in the Old Testament (p. 335). There he only gave evidence in a supplement that at the time of Jesus the concept of the Messiah as a concept of reflection was not at all present among the Samaritans, let alone generally widespread . . .  — p. 37

History of Jesus or the Community?

But if Mark is of purely literary origin, it is obvious that what Luke and Matthew have more than their source Mark is also only a literary extension without a historical background. And this assumption, Bauer shows, can also be proven: nowhere in them do we find anything factual either, but always only construction! In the Gospels, whose conclusion is John, we have nothing more than a development of Christian self-awareness . . . — p. 40

The writing on the Gospel of John had already caused widespread offence by its content and tone . . . — p. 44

Bauer, as has been shown, had founded the whole edifice of his new theories on the proof that in the Gospel of John we have before us a unified work of reflection. From here he advanced to the assertion of the artistic structure of the Gospel of Mark and came to the conclusion: the story could not have proceeded in this way, so the Gospels do not report real facts to us, but they only give us views of the community. — p. 58

 


2023-04-24

More works of Bruno Bauer now translated and online

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by Neil Godfrey

All three volumes of Bauer’s criticism of the gospels — works that led to his dismissal from his position at Bonn University — are now publicly available in English:

Critique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics = Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker — 1841

The third volume — 1842 — includes a comparison of the Gospel of John with the Synoptic Gospels in their treatment of the Passion Narrative.

I have also translated Bauer’s earlier analysis of the Gospel of John and plan to make that available here soon-ish, too.

Other works of Bruno Bauer now available in English:

Criticism of the Pauline Letters

Christ and the Caesars

Criticism of the Gospels and History of their Origin — this is a later publication than the one mentioned at the beginning of this post.

They are all listed in the right margin of this blog– just check the pages listed there.

Another title I hope to make available before long is BB’s treatment of the Acts of the Apostles.


2023-04-23

§ 95. The report of the fourth

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

333

§ 95.

The report of the fourth.

John 20, 21.


Not only do the contradictions which theology thought it would have to spend the whole of history dealing with to the end of the world resolve themselves easily and without effort, but they also resolve themselves without much loss of time as soon as the true key is found – a proof that mankind will no longer need to spend much time – – no! at all on these things.

In the fourth Gospel, the women no longer watch Jesus being buried — the fourth, as has been noted, has advanced them by a few lines; Nicodemus and Joseph already embalm the corpse so abundantly – with a hundred pounds of aloes and myrrh — that the women have nothing left to do the next day after the Sabbath – – so they stay at home. The fourth sends only the Magdalene to the tomb; he must send a woman to the tomb so that the matter may be initiated at all, he sends only one because the others are superfluous and also disturbing for the elaboration of the contrasts which the evangelist has in mind for the following conversation of Jesus with Mary.

Mary Magdalene finds the stone taken from the tomb and immediately runs — why only to these two? — to Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them that the stone had been taken from the tomb. She suspected the enemies of what Matthew’s priests had imposed on the disciples out of malice, but the outcome disproves their assumption.

334

She runs to Peter because the fourth reads in Luke’s writing that Peter ran to the grave at the women’s message. He has to do the same here, except that the Fourth makes him run a noble race with the other disciple. Already their walk to the tomb is a race, they both run together, but the other disciple arrives first, bends over — like Luke’s Peter to see into the tomb, and sees the linen lying there, but does not go in. Peter also arrives, goes in and sees – so that he also sees something special! O, wonderful discovery! — He sees the linen lying there and the face-cloth that was on Jesus’ head, not – no, not! — lying with the linen, but — oh, how important! how great! how glorious! – but wrapped together on one side in a special place. “The great Peter! And yet how small! His glory is only that he first went into the tomb and saw the face-cloth, but — he thought nothing of it! He did not know how to appreciate his find. Only the other disciple, who now also went into the tomb and now also saw the face-cloth, believed – as Luke’s Peter wondered at the incident.

Well, if he believed, why not Peter? Why not Mary Magdalene, who is now suddenly standing by the tomb again and weeping? She must not yet believe for the sake of the following contrasts. She must first see the angel or the two. She does indeed see Luke’s two, but the fourth – oh, how symmetrical! – places the one at the head, the other at the feet where Jesus had lain. But why must Mary be here again? The two angels did not answer her complaints, saying that Jesus’ body had been taken away. She has to come back to the tomb – how clumsy! – because the fourth reads in Matthew’s scripture that Jesus appeared to the women as they were going away from the tomb. Yes, but that is something else; that is at least an external connection; but the last trace of connection disappears, we lose sight and hearing when Mary, after walking back to the city, suddenly stands at the tomb again.

335

The tasteless web of contrasts, where Mary, when she expresses her complaint to the two angels, looks around and sees Jesus but does not recognize him, mistaking him for the gardener – of the garden created by the fourth gospel – asking if he – imagine! – has taken the body away, recognizing Jesus only when he calls her by name “Mary!”, and Jesus saying “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father,” these contrasts fall to the ground before any human eye. The last one is not even properly developed and is only explainable from the scripture of Matthew, which is not taken from it, but only the assumption of this page is silently derived from it. In fact, the women of Matthew approach Jesus and worship him, embracing his feet.

Matthew’s Jesus does not forbid them to worship at all, but only tells them not to be afraid, nor to endure, but rather to bring the good news to the disciples.

Suddenly and mysteriously, Luke’s Jesus appears in Jerusalem in the midst of the hurrying people, calling out “Peace!” to them, and when they are frightened, shows them his wounds with the words: “Touch me and see!

From this, the fourth gospel has made the story that Jesus – correctly! – suddenly appears among the disciples late in the evening of the same day, with locked doors, saying “Peace be with you” and showing them his wounds. But contrasts! Contrasts! The fourth gospel wants them. So this time, he only breathes on the disciples and gives them the Spirit through this breath – as he promises them the power from above at the same occasion in Luke – and thereby also gives them the power of forgiveness of sins (– Matthew 18:18).

But the contrasts! the contrasts! Thomas was not present this time. Therefore, after eight days, Jesus must appear once again because Thomas, in the meantime, had proven himself to be unbelieving against the report of his brothers, so that the previously omitted feature of touching could be supplied and Thomas could have the desired opportunity to touch the resurrected one. Poor Thomas! What has he suffered so far! *)

*) The assumption that Jesus had to fight with those who doubted the reality of His person, is very clumsily brought up by Matthew – and only in a few words – when he brings it up in C. 28, 17 at the only meeting of Jesus with the disciples and even at the same moment he lets some doubt that the disciples worshipped Jesus at all. Under these circumstances, since we do not know where some of them came from, Matthew’s account must have become as confused as it has in fact become. Only Luke’s account is coherent: first the disciples doubt, then they are taught, and afterwards, when the Lord departs from them, they worship Him.

336

But doesn’t Luke also tell the story that Jesus ate to prove his reality back then? Patience! The fourth gospel also reads in the scriptures of Mark and Matthew that Jesus met with the disciples in Galilee? Patience! The fourth gospel seems to end his writing right after the Thomas section (Chapter 20, verses 30-31), when he says: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The fourth gospel was impatient; he connected this reflection too early to the saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” As we are used to seeing from him, he made a mistake and will continue in his laborious and disconnected manner soon enough. But haven’t the greatest theologians proven that Chapter 21 is spurious and written by a later hand? We have proven, on the other hand, where the fourth gospel took his material from: from his imagination and from the writings of the Synoptics. We saw that he copied Luke everywhere – if one were to strike out as spurious what is borrowed from Luke, without lamenting the loss, this gospel would have to be struck out from the beginning, from the questioning of John until the end, with a mighty cross. The fourth gospel has just copied from Luke again: well then! He is now also copying what he had not yet copied last: he lets Jesus eat with the disciples, by letting him appear before the disciples in Galilee out of obedience to Mark and Matthew. He lets him appear before them at the Sea of Galilee because he believed he could bring in Luke’s story of Peter’s fishing here. He lets Peter be instructed with the office of the chief shepherd on this occasion because he reads in Luke that Peter should strengthen and establish his brothers, he brings this investiture of Peter here because it seemed to him to be a fitting conclusion for his writing and (according to Matthew) the laying of the foundation for the building of the Church. Finally, he could bring in a contrast here, which made it possible for him to mention “the other disciple” and to assure that he wrote the gospel of the heart.

337

It is no longer worth the trouble to point out how shapeless and inhuman the elements of the original report have become under the hand of the Fourth – for this reason alone it is not worth the trouble, since we have already proved how unsubstantial and vapour-like these elements all are already in the original report, in Luke’s report. What, then, they had to become under the hand of the Fourth! The disciples, among them Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, had spent the night casting their nets in vain on the lake: there stands Jesus on the shore! on the shore! they do not know him, like the disciples of Emmaus, and he asks them: Children, have you nothing to eat? — — — No! we avert our gaze from it for ever and ever!

Only the question remains, who is the “other”, the favourite disciple who wrote the Gospel? It is not John! He is hidden among the “two others” whom the Fourth mentions next to the sons of Zebedee (C. 21,2). The fourth man would have been so clever that he would not have mentioned the two Zebedees in this context and next to the unnamed one, if he had the Scriptures of Luke open in front of him, read the names of the two Zebedees here (C. 5, 10) and if he wanted the beloved disciple and author of the Gospel to be understood as John. In the very late time when the Fourth wrote, it was well known among the believers who the Zebedees were, and the Fourth should not have considered it even in one of his unguarded moments? Impossible!

338

But (parenthetically!) did he really write the last verses of his Scripture (C. 21, 24. 25)? Is not the assertion that Jesus did so much that, if one wanted to write it in one, the world would not contain all the books, a too conspicuous repetition of the early! Is it not too striking a repetition of the early conjecture (C. 20, 30) that Jesus had done many other signs? It is rather an exaggerated repetition, which can only belong to the fourth – or one would have to refute our whole previous work! – can belong to. But he says: “and we know that his testimony is true”? Well? doesn’t he say a moment later: “I mean, the world would not contain the books.” The Fourth (Gospel) loves such hyperboles, as we have already seen above in Chapter 19, verse 35, where he so excellently knows how to set up testimonies for himself. In this, as in everything else, he is lacking in restraint, and awkward, because he excessively exaggerates.

The other is also not, as Lützelberger thinks, Andrew, who together with an unnamed person is at the same time the first to follow Jesus (C. 1, 37 – 41). The fourth was so clever that he understood that if Andrew was acquainted with the high priest Annas, then Peter was also acquainted with him, and that he did not need to come to the palace of Annas through the mediation of another, the mysterious other. The other is rather the unnamed one next to Andrew, and with diligence the Fourth immediately has the great unknown appear the first time he introduces the disciples of Jesus.

339

So who is he? That would be a fine conclusion to our criticism if we were to be tempted to build hypotheses into the air.

Before we should stray so far, the contest that the unnamed and Peter wage in this Gospel should rather be more human, more sustained, and in general only be worked out to a more definite image. It is certain that the fourth wants to elevate his unnamed one by presenting him as a dangerous rival of Peter, even as a rival who often wins the battle. But what a battle it is and what matters it revolves around! They race against each other “ah the grave, and the quarrel revolves in the end around who sees the linen or the sweatcloths first; the unnamed one must arrange for Peter to enter the palace of Annas, and satisfy Peter’s curiosity about the Master’s fate! If only the Fourth Gospel had left out this competition and conflict! The struggle is in itself terribly petty and insignificant, and in the end so unsuccessful that the Fourth, through Luke and Matthew, is nevertheless forced to bestow the office of shepherd on Peter.

But in the end, the Fourth Gospel still considers Peter significant! He is the one to whom Jesus says: “No! No!” – it is not known when and how and where he said that he should stay until he comes again. And when does Jesus say that he may say this of the unnamed? When the fourth had copied from Luke’s account of Peter’s fishing expedition, now at so late a time, the note that Peter (C. 21:19,20) was told by the Lord to follow him, now that the fourth goes on to say that Peter turns round and stands following the unnamed man, and says to Jesus, “Lord, what shall he do?”– – Lord, what shall he do?

But if the fourth says that from that word of the Lord the opinion was formed that this disciple, the unnamed one, would not die, does he not then refer to a real conception of time? to a legend? Must the unnamed one not then be a certain, known person?

340

How can we still be impressed by a Gospel that is completely dissolved for us?

he Unnamed One is a nebulous figure, a foggy figure formed by the Fourth Gospel itself, and in this respect the Fourth Gospel has actually hit the mark. He first wanted to create the appearance that there was still a Gospel that came from an eyewitness, written directly by such a person. A nebulous figure was the only worthy author of such a scripture, as the Fourth Gospel has delivered.

————

In the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel story confronts us in its highest perfection, in its truth and as a revealed mystery. As a plastic representation of the same ideas, it might seem that the Synoptic Gospels stand above the Fourth, just as the theology of the Church Fathers, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, and the symbolism of the Reformation seem to stand as the plastic, completed forms above the narrowness, lack of content and nihilistic confusion of the new theology. But this is only an illusion. The relative priority of sculpture should not be denied to both, to those ecclesiastical creations and to the Synoptics – actually, if the whole is important, only to Mark. Only this more restrained, tighter form can itself not even be called plastic and human with any real right. Let us see a dogmatic execution of Augustine, Anselm, Hugo, Luther, and Calvin, which would have human form, inner form, support, and true coherence! Just one dogmatic sentence! The monstrosities of narrowness, of staggering contradiction, of stilted obtrusiveness, lie only hidden in the classical works of those men, and only poorly concealed under the deceptive cover of a tighter form. The newer ones, too, are classical if they present us only with narrowness, only with contradiction, only with obtrusiveness, and present it purely as such, without any further content. The newer ones have only peeled out the true kernel when they offer us the obtrusive nothing; they have betrayed the mystery, they are the true classics.

341

Thus the Fourth has betrayed the secret of the Gospel, which we have critically uncovered – a merit that predestined him to become the ideal and idol of the newer classical theologians and has truly made him an idol.

—————


§ 94. The report of Matthew

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by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

330

§ 94.

The report of Matthew.

Matth. C. 27, 62 — 66.  C. 28.


A healthy person only needs to hear that the chief priests and scholars of Christ, on the day after the crucifixion, go to Pilate, tell him that they remember that the executed man said during his lifetime that he would rise after three days, that they ask him for a guard for the grave, so that his disciples do not steal his body and say afterwards that he has risen, that the guard is placed correctly, but flees in terror when the angel comes to roll the stone from the tomb, that the soldiers run to the priesthood, but are bribed by them to say that the disciples stole the body – one only needs to hear all this to see that Matthew has not invented anything particularly beautiful. Not to mention that Jesus only spoke of his resurrection to the disciples in a small circle, and that the Roman soldiers had to run to their Roman captains to report, the evangelist’s intention to counter the Jews’ rumour, which he expressly combats (28:15), that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body, is too glaring. The chief priests had to say and fear from the beginning (C. 27, 64) what was only later Jewish desecration.

And it is not even certain, not even probable, that a Jewish legend of this kind was generally spread at the time of Matthew. Perhaps only here and there, perhaps only from individual Jews, Matthew had heard an interjection that made him so concerned that he now sat down and formed this episode.

331

But it is not only clumsily formed, but also interrupts the context of the whole report. The negotiations of the priests with Pilate (C. 27, 62-66) separate the report at the point where the women watch Jesus’ body being buried, and where it should immediately follow that they went to the tomb in the morning after the Sabbath. Hence, because Matthew does not particularly understand the rejoining of the separated, hence, especially, because he had previously said so clumsily, “on the morning day, which came after the preparation day” (27:62), hence it comes that he afterwards so awkwardly and abenthemously inserts the mention of the Sabbath, that he says (28:1) “late on the Sabbath bath,” and that he must therefore also set the time somewhat early: “when it dawned on the first day after the Sabbath”, the women went to the tomb.

The negotiations of the priests with the runaway soldiers not only separate the note that the women went to bring the good news to the disciples from the following (C. 28, 8-16), but they are also to blame for the fact that the women did not bring the message to the disciples at all. The disciples set out on the journey to Galilee without Matthew having actually invited them to do so through the women.

The watch is also against the inner plan of this passage. No unbeliever is allowed to witness the resurrection.

But also no believer! Matthew presents the matter in such a way that at the same moment when the women arrive at the tomb (28, 2: και ιδου. V. 5: αποκριθεις), the angel comes from heaven with an earthquake, rolls the stone from the grave and then sits on it (!). It is inappropriate that the angel rolls the stone away – how embarrassing is this pragmatism, of which Mark knows nothing yet; Mark covers this matter, which, when seriously considered, is very petty, with a benevolent veil, so that now the matter can rather come down to the fact that the stone, when it was time, made room of its own accord for the Risen One. It is inappropriate that the guards and the women should see the resurrection and see the supersensible, mysterious process as a sensual one.

332

But they do not see him. At the same moment when the angel speaks to the women and tells them: He is risen, he presupposes that the resurrection has already happened, i.e. Matthew writes Mark off again.

Matthew has worked out another episode: when the women hurry home to the disciples, Jesus himself meets them and gives them the order to tell the disciples to come to him in Galilee. Inappropriate superfluity! Especially since Jesus had already described Galilee as the point of unification after the resurrection, it was all the more inappropriate that He gave the women the same command again that they had just received from the angel. But Matthew did not remember at this moment that Jesus had already spoken to the disciples about this, the words of the angel: “as he told you”, Mark 16, 7, he changed into the other: “See, I told you”, because he did not know how to interpret the text of Mark immediately, and now Jesus Himself had to appear and give the women this commission.

How easily these contradictions are resolved! They remain, but as explained and resolved, and no art of lying will make them again the labyrinth in which the Minotaur of faith devours its victims.

From “the mountain” in Galilee, the disciples meet Jesus, who, with the formula of later dogmatics, baptises the nations in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew does not explicitly mention the Ascension because he lets Jesus speak as one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been delegated and who, although occupying the throne of heaven, nevertheless dwells among His own all the days until the end of the world. He who speaks in this way is already enthroned in heaven and already dwells in spirit among his confessors.

————


§ 93. Luke’s account

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by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

326

§ 93.

Luke’s account

C. 24. Acts. 1, 3 -11.


Already before, when Jesus left the last supper with the disciples to the Mount of Olives, He told them that He (Mark 14, 28) would precede them to Galilee after His resurrection. Luke, who wanted all the appearances of the Risen One to take place in and near Jerusalem, therefore had to omit that word of Jesus – we have seen how splendidly he filled the gap – and if the angel’s message to the women should still contain the word Galilee, give this mention a new twist. So the two angels who appear to the women in the open tomb say: He is not here, but has risen; remember what He said to you while He was still in Galilee, when He said: The Son of Man must be crucified and rise again the third day (C. 24, 6.7).

The women must not be believed by the disciples with their message, Jesus Himself must first appear to the disciples in Jerusalem and in the city, so that they are held back in Jerusalem – the Lord therefore appears to them on the day of His resurrection (C. 24, 13. 33. 36) – they must remain here in the city, so that Jesus may ascend to heaven at Bethany, and here the Ascension must take place, so that Jesus may command the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they receive the power of the Spirit (24:49), and so that then the outpouring of the Holy Spirit itself may take place in the holy city and among the crowd of strangers who were present on account of the Pentecost feast.

327

The transition from the appearance of the women in the tomb to the appearances of Jesus himself, as well as the transition from the disbelief shown by the disciples towards the women’s message to the conviction they later gained when Jesus appeared before them – first to two, then to eleven – is represented by the curiosity of Peter, who ran to the grave after the women’s message was received poorly, leaned over and saw only the linen cloths (24:12).

It is worth noting that Luke has the women see two angels, because later at the Ascension he places two beside the disciples, and because he deemed the symmetry of the image more fitting with the number two. Indeed, at the Transfiguration, two heavenly figures also appear at the sides of Jesus.

As for Luke’s additions, first of all, the curiosity of Peter, when it was said before that the disciples laughed at the message of the women as foolishness, is very badly placed, and the laughing at the message is again very inappropriate, when the angels reminded the women that Jesus had previously spoken of his resurrection.

The majority of Jesus’ appearances are a disruptive excess, because they drag the resurrected one, who is supposed to sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven, far too tumultuously into the earthly changes of time and place. It is inappropriate that the appearances, though they are secretive, happen right in the midst of Jesus’ opponents during a walk near Jerusalem, in the city itself, and close to the city at Bethany. One appearance is sufficient, and the only appropriate setting for it is the seclusion of Galilee.

328

It is affected how the two disciples on the walk to Emmaus do not recognize their Lord and only realize who they are dealing with when he breaks bread in the inn. The idea of the solemn expression with which one broke bread in the community during that festive occasion is the underlying concept here and is inappropriate when transferred to this situation. It is affected how Jesus questions the two about the reason for their sadness; it is an insult to the original gospel when Jesus now tells the disciples that all this had to happen so that the scripture would be fulfilled. Has Jesus not taught this before or not sufficiently? Or does Luke have new observations to make on this matter?

It is inappropriate and too sensual when Jesus, upon appearing to the eleven, lets them touch and feel his flesh and bones to convince them of the reality of his person, and when he finally eats fish and honeycomb in front of them for the same purpose. His appearance must be supernatural and momentary.

The extraordinary rapidity with which the Resurrection is followed by the Ascension on the same day is inappropriate, and the confusion that arises from the fact that it is already evening when Jesus arrives with the two at Emmaus is not insignificant. Is it then night when the two return to their brothers and Jesus appears immediately afterward, leading them to Bethany to say goodbye? Luke did not reflect on this.

When Luke closed his Gospel, he was already of the opinion (24:49) that it must be at a certain, thus miraculous, moment when the power from on high seized the disciples; it was certain to him that the disciples would receive this equipping in Jerusalem, so that – as we can now say and as the Evangelist himself indicates, v. 47 – the prophecy of Micah and Isaiah that the salvation of the world would go forth from Jerusalem would be fulfilled. But it was not until he wrote the Acts of the Apostles that he knew how to find out that the Spirit must come upon the disciples at the feast of Pentecost, perhaps because – we are only conjecturing here – in his time the feast of Pentecost was already associated with the law, and it now seemed fitting to him that the proclamation of the new law should begin on this day with Peter’s sermon, or perhaps only because he was mechanically reaching for the next feast, which follows the Passover. Likewise, he had now found out that the Ascension had to happen only after Jesus had shown Himself to the disciples for forty days – forty, the consecrated number of the OT – and had taught them about the Kingdom of God, as if He had not done so sufficiently during His life. (Acts 1, 3.) Now Luke also knows more precisely that Jesus did not ascend to heaven near Bethany in the plain, but rather on the Mount of Olives; it had to happen this way so that Jesus would be glorified on the mountain where Jehovah revealed his power. Zach. 14, 4. Here, at last, Luke brings in what he had not attributed to Mark above in the discourse on the last things (cf. Luk. 17, 37, another variation on this theme), that the disciples ask the Lord when he will restore the kingdom to Israel, and that he answers that it is not their business to know the times which the Father has determined in his authority *) – an inappropriate negotiation in this place, where Jesus already speaks of a date, namely of the one when they would be baptised with the Spirit. Since Luke had already dealt with the saying of Mark on an earlier occasion, could it be that Zechariah, who speaks of the Mount of Olives and of “that hour” in the same context, was responsible for Luke’s again referring to that hour? It is very probable.

*) The original passage Mark 13, 38 is formed after Zachar. 14, 7: καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνη γνωστὴ τῷ Κυρίῳ

————–


§ 92. The report of Mark

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by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

323

Fourteenth Section.

The Story of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.

 

§ 92.

The report of Mark

C. 16.


When the Sabbath was over, the women, among them Mary Magdalene, bought spices to embalm the body of Jesus and early in the morning after the Sabbath, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb.
Their anxiety as to who would roll away the stone from the vault of the tomb was lifted when they looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away. They entered the tomb and saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were frightened. But he says to them: Do not be afraid; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified – how inappropriate is the detail of this advertisement here in the assumed situation, i.e. how much the intention here betrays itself to present the contrast completely for the congregation—he has risen, he is not here. See there — again, how inappropriate and detailed! But the evangelist wants to exhaust all contrasts in brief — the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.

324

After these words, the conclusion begins immediately and not later, which later hands added to the original gospel and which displaced the true conclusion. Even the words, “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them” (Mark 16:8) are already partly the work of a later hand. Matthew still reveals the true content of the original report when he writes, “So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples” (Matthew 28:8). These words in their later form are inappropriate, for the angel whom the women met in the tomb had already dispelled all fear from them. However, the following belongs solely to the later hand: that the women said nothing to anyone out of fear, that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the morning, that she brought the fleeting message to the disciples but found no belief, that Jesus then appeared to two disciples in a foreign form on a walk, and finally to the Eleven when they were at table (Mark 16:8-14).

Mark’s pragmatism is not so uncontrolled and wasteful that he would leave the angel’s mission to the women so useless and futile, which gave Mary Magdalene a proof of Jesus’s resurrection once again, after she had already learned about it with the other women – as if the angel, who even took so much trouble to convince the women, was not credible enough – and then, after Magdalene again found no belief with her report, the Lord should be sent twice to the disciples. The note of the appearance that Magdalene was honored with is borrowed from Matthew and the Fourth Gospel, the characterization of Magdalene that the Lord cast out seven demons from her is from Luke, the same Luke provides the note that the disciples did not believe the unexpected message, and the note of Jesus’s appearance twice before the disciples.

There is no place in the Gospel for all these things, for only in Galilee should the Risen One appear to the disciples, as the angel expressly states.

325

The later hand therefore made a serious mistake in the conclusion by placing the last appearance of Jesus not in Galilee, but still in Jerusalem in connection with the previous revelations. The error became even more pronounced by not separating the last appearance (v. 15-20) from the preceding one that took place at the table, and now the matter comes down to the fact that Jesus gives his last instructions to the Eleven here at the table and is taken up into heaven.

In the original Gospel, Jesus can only appear to his followers once, in Galilee, and he must appear to them outdoors so that, after commanding them to preach the gospel to the whole world and baptize those who accept it, he can be taken up into heaven at the right hand of God without offense. The later glossator overlooked that Jesus, after giving his final instructions to the disciples, leads them out into the open country to Bethany, and that it is only after Luke (24:43-51) that the ascension takes place here.

The description of the miraculous power that is promised to the believers is patched together from the writings of Luke. That they (Mark 16:17-18) should drive out demons in the name of Jesus is necessary so that they may be like the Seventy; that they should pick up snakes is also appropriate so that they do not fall behind the Seventy who tread on snakes, and so that they become like Paul, who shook off a snake that had bitten his hand without any harm coming to him (Acts 28:3-6); that they will not be harmed if they drink something deadly is a proof that, like the Seventy (Luke 10:19), nothing can harm them; they will speak in new tongues, as actually happened according to the Acts of the Apostles, and finally they will lay their hands on the sick, as they had already healed the sick before, following the command of their Lord (Mark 6:13).

326

It does not seem that the original account promised the disciples the power of miracles, since they already had this power before and there is nothing in the parallel accounts of Matthew and Luke that suggests a promise of this kind was included in the original text

The power over snakes was given to the believers only by Luke, in whose writing the account of the Seventy was first created. Luke showed, through the example of Paul, that the privilege of the Seventy had been passed on to all messengers of faith. Luke found the source of this privilege in the Old Testament (Psalm 91:13).

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§ 91 Respite

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

307

§ 91

Respite.


We do not need to make or seek the transition to dogmatic criticism. Although the historical criticism that we have exercised above has never used so-called dogmatic arguments, such as that this or that miracle is impossible, in its result it is already the criticism of dogma. If we were to turn from it to the criticism of church dogma or the dogma of the New Testament letters, we would not be entering a new area, but would be considering the dogma that we have examined in the evangelical version in another stage of its development. The Christian dogma of the Redeemer is in itself both history – the history of his heavenly origin, his suffering, and his resurrection – and this history has been depicted in the Gospels as a real, empirical sequence of events. However, we have shown that it is only a dogma, only an ideal product of the Christian consciousness, so we have criticized the dogma at the point where it is most firmly rooted in reality and most inaccessible to doubt.

The idea of the Messiah, and specifically the idea that this is the Messiah, gave the Christian community its origin, or rather, both the formation of the community and the emergence of that idea are one and the same and coincide in terms of the matter and the time; but that idea was only the notion, i.e., the first vital impulse of the nascent community, the religious expression of an experience that the general consciousness of the world made and that expressed itself in the circle of religious concepts, presenting its content, its inner self, as a foreign person, as indeed the religious consciousness is a spirit that estranges itself from itself.

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We have answered the question that our time has been so occupied with, namely whether Jesus is the historical Christ, by showing that everything that the historical Christ is, what is said about him, and what we know about him belongs to the world of imagination, specifically the Christian imagination, and therefore has nothing to do with a human being belonging to the real world. The question is thus answered, and it is eliminated for all future time.

Equally unfortunate is the ultimate fate of this question with regard to its concern with the determination of the sinlessness of the Redeemer. Just as the historical Christ dissolves into the opposite of what the imagination claims of him, namely from being a person with flesh and blood, a person who belongs to history with the power of his soul and spirit, into a phantom that mocks all laws of history, so has the imagined sinlessness of this phantom undergone the same fate. We simply refer to our critique, which at every step it took, had to become a feeling of indignation about a relationship in which one person is opposed to the general wickedness and stupidity, so that he always points to this contrast, always delights in this contrast, and without any moral connection with the world, dissolves all moral relationships in the thought of his pure self-consciousness, without reproducing them from it in any way. Nature must be blasphemed by the one, history and human relationships must be despised and ridiculed by him.

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The fourth [gospel] has pursued all the relevant contrasts in his ruthless manner only up to the extreme pinnacle of the irony of the divine over all things human. But the contrasts themselves are already found in the synoptic Gospels and they belong necessarily to the religion which has raised itself to its ultimate abstract completion.

The result of our previous critique, that the Christian religion is the abstract religion, is the unveiling of the mystery of Christianity. The religions of antiquity had as their main powers nature, the spirit of the family, and the spirit of the people. The world domination of Rome and philosophy were the movements of a universal power that sought to rise above the limits of previous natural and national life and to become master of itself and of consciousness. For the general consciousness, this triumph of freedom and humanity, apart from the fact that Rome’s external world domination could not bring it about, could not yet be brought about in the form of free self-consciousness and pure theory, since religion was still a universal power and within it the general revolution had to take place. Within the sphere of the alienated spirit, if the liberation was to be thorough and for humanity, the previous barriers of general life had to be lifted, i.e., the alienation had to become total, embracing everything human. In the religions of antiquity, the essential interests conceal and veil the depth and horror of the alienation; the view of nature is enchanting, the family bond has a sweet charm, the interest of the people gives the religious spirit a fiery tension towards the powers of its worship: the chains that the human spirit wore in the service of these religions were adorned with flowers, like a sacrificial animal splendidly and festively adorned, man presented himself to his religious powers as a sacrifice, his chains themselves deceived him about the hardness of his service.

As the flowers of history withered away and the chains were broken by Roman power, the vampire of spiritual abstraction completed the work. He sucked out the sap and strength, blood and life of humanity until the last drop of blood: nature and art, family, nation and state were absorbed, and on the ruins of the fallen world, the emaciated self remained as the only power. After the enormous loss, the self could not immediately recreate from its depth and generality nature and art, nation and state; the only deed that engaged it was the absorption of everything that had hitherto lived in the world. Now it was all the self, and yet it was empty; it had become the universal power, and yet it trembled before itself on the ruins of the world and despaired of its loss. The empty, all-consuming self was afraid of itself; it did not dare to grasp itself as everything and as the universal power, i.e., it still remained the religious spirit and completed its alienation by confronting its universal power as something foreign and working in fear and trembling for its preservation and salvation. It saw its guarantee for its preservation in the Messiah, who represented only that which it was fundamentally, namely, itself as the universal power, but as the power in which all nature-view and the ethical determinations of family, nation and state life, as well as the artistic view, had perished.

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The historical starting point for this revolution was given in Jewish national life, since in its religious consciousness not only nature and art had already been strangled, thus the struggle against the nature and art religion was already carried out in itself, but also the national spirit had already had to enter into dialectic with the thought of a higher universality in manifold forms – whose presentation I have given elsewhere. The lack of this dialectic lay only in the fact that at its conclusion the national spirit again made itself the center of the universe: Christianity eliminated this deficiency by making the pure ego the universal. The Gospels have carried out this transformation in their own way – namely in the way of historical representation: everywhere dependent on the Old Testament and almost only a copy of it, they have nevertheless allowed the power of the national spirit to be consumed in the omnipotence of the pure, pure, but estranged from actual humanity ego.

311

If we consider the Gospels in a way that disregards their mutual contradictions, that is, as the simple and unprejudiced faith abstracts a total picture from their confused content, we must already be amazed at how they could occupy humanity for eighteen centuries and do so in such a way that their mystery was not uncovered. For in none of them, not even in the smallest section, are there any views that do not offend, insult, or outrage humanity.

Our amazement must become even greater when we notice how the Gospels, with their statements and assumptions, are in contradiction with everything we know about the supposed time of their subject; the highest degree of amazement, however, must be reached when we consider the terrible contradictions into which they are entangled with their mutual assertions, with a historical narrative like that of Matthew and with a view like that of the Fourth. Has humanity had to suffer from such things for one and a half millennia? Yes, it had to, for the great and immense step could only be taken after such pains and efforts if it was not to be taken in vain and if it was to be appreciated in its true meaning and magnitude. Consciousness had to deal with itself in the Gospels, even if only with itself in its alienation, that is, with a terrible parody of itself, but still with itself: hence that magic that attracted, captivated, and forced humanity to offer everything to maintain its image until it had healed itself, and even then, to prefer it to everything else and to call everything else, like the apostle did, rubbish in comparison. In slavery under its own image, humanity was educated so that it could prepare the freedom all the more thoroughly and embrace it all the more intimately and fervently when it was finally won. The deepest and most terrible alienation was to mediate, prepare, and make freedom valuable for all time, perhaps also to make it expensive for the struggle that slavery and stupidity will wage against it. Odysseus has returned to his homeland, but not by divine grace, not sleeping, but awake, thinking, and through his own power: perhaps he will also have to fight the suitors who have squandered his property and want to withhold the most precious thing from him. Odysseus will know how to string the bow.

312

The battle with the theologians and their hypocritical twists and turns is over. We have told them so many times that, if they had ears to hear and eyes to see, there should be no more misunderstanding: their hypocrisy consisted in trying to maintain views that were refuted by their own secular education and all their circumstances, and that could only be sustained by pitiful arguments. They really thought they were serious about it, they really fought for those views, because they were still imprisoned by them and believed they would be lost, here and in the other world, without them. It was the general hypocrisy of the world: to consider and treat the maintenance of religious views as an intellectual task with the consistency of reason, while reason itself had outgrown and escaped those views. Now things have changed, criticism has been scientifically and ethically completed, the religious view explained and recognized, and humanity freed. If the theologian still believes that humanity should not devote itself to nobler purposes, higher tasks, and that history is only there to entertain us with his bickering, or that an explanation of one biblical passage displaces the other and the issue never comes to a decision, if the theologian still believes that humanity and history are only there for his sake, then he must now force himself upon us, while he used to rule the world, he must finally openly, willfully, and consciously deceive and lie, i.e. oppose the mediated knowledge and still harass us with his ideas.

313

But, as for my work, perhaps there would still be another task for him. If he managed to be thorough and concise and insisted on the belief that everything happening in the world is only for his sake, that everything is just a homework assignment in which he must prove his particular wisdom, he might come up with the idea of collecting the passages in my writing where I describe him himself. And since he knows only personal interests, he could use this to prove my rudeness, recklessness, and terrorism. In vain! You can’t get away from the issue! The only proof you have to provide is that you demonstrate that those outbursts of indignation about hypocrisy and the most frivolous mockery of the writing itself are not justified by the previous development; you must first prove that I am wrong about the matter; you must first prove that you have read the critical developments— in general, it must be proved that humanity does not have the right to throw off its chains. We would also be curious to see proof that a painter should not use a dark printer, and that a painting is judged perfectly if one says, “Look at this dark spot!” Theology is the dark spot in modern history, and as such, I could only describe it and confront it with the purity of criticism.

The historical Christ is the man whom religious consciousness has raised to heaven, i.e., the man who, even when he comes down to earth to perform miracles, to teach, and to suffer, is no longer the true man. The son of man in religion is also the reconciler of man with himself. He is not born like a man, does not live like a man in human relations, and does not die like a man. This historical Christ, the one raised to heaven, the one who became God, has overturned antiquity, conquered the world by draining it, and fulfilled its historical destiny when it forced the real spirit into immense turmoil, forcing it to recognize itself with a thoroughness and decisiveness that were not possible for the naive antiquity, to become self-consciousness.

314

If nothing in the Gospels can be considered as a statement about Jesus anymore, then for the theologian who fights for the distribution and disposal of this man’s clothes, who gave him this or that bitter drink on the cross, who sailed over the Sea of Galilee so many times, the matter has become very serious. We can already see the terrifying character this seriousness must take from the fact that they did not hesitate to use the note of Tacitus, that Christ was executed by Pontius Pilate under Tiberius, as the most striking proof that “a Christ existed.” When did Tacitus write? Did he not write when the preaching of the crucified one had already begun to unsettle the whole world? Does his meager note, which was then the subject of conversation around the world, say or indicate that it was taken from the “secret archive of His Majesty the Emperor” or from “ministerial files”?

If a man named Jesus existed, if this Jesus gave rise to the revolution that shook the world in the name of Christ and gave it a new form, then it is certain that his self-consciousness was not yet distorted and ripped apart by the dogmatic propositions of the evangelical Christ: then the character of his personality is saved. The evangelical Christ, thought of as an actual, historical phenomenon, would be a figure before which humanity would have to shudder, a figure that could only inspire terror and horror.

315

If the historical Jesus really existed, he could only have been a personality that triggered the opposition of Jewish consciousness, namely the separation of the divine and human in their self-consciousness, without creating a new religious separation and alienation from it, and who withdrew from the forms of legal servitude into his own inner world without worrying about new legal bonds.

But whether this personality existed, whether it opened up the happiness and depth of its self-consciousness to others, thus giving rise to struggle and ultimately the formation of a new religious principle, this question can only be answered when we have completed the work that must follow the criticism of the Gospels, the criticism of the New Testament epistles. We had to start with the criticism of the Gospels because these writings have captivated the mind most through their positive content, because their content seems to be the prerequisite for the epistolary Gospel, as this prerequisite has been assumed until now and this appearance had to be stripped away first. Now it is the turn of the epistles, and with their criticism, the criticism of the original Christian consciousness will also come to an end, and insight into the actual course of its historical development will be gained. We have not yet reflected on the factual and chronological relationship between the various often literal touches of the Gospels and the epistles. We could not do so because the criticism still needs to examine when, by whom, and in what circumstances the letters were written. It is even a question of when the epistolary literature of the New Testament began, and the investigation of the so-called Pauline epistles is still far from its conclusion. In this field, not much, but almost everything still needs to be done.

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So far, we only know for certain that the Gospels are of late origin and a work of the long-existing community; however, when they were written and how they are to be classified in the development of the epistolary literature will be taught to us by the criticism of the latter. *)

*) It is indeed already incredulous, but still transcendent, to ask what age is associated with a work such as the one Jesus accomplished. The question is only properly posed as follows: what kind of development of the church and of Christian consciousness was necessary, and how long did it take, to lead to the composition of the Gospels and the creation of the Gospel story.

We had to proceed gradually. When the criticism has an immense library of theological books to burn, it must proceed thoroughly and cautiously, and no one will reproach it for replacing ten thousand books with a single octavo volume. Later, happier times will simplify the matter even more, and they must do so in order to completely set aside the necessary opposition to theological consciousness. However, even later, one may still need elaborations that touch upon the opposition, and give them some interest, as they are, in any case, the monument of a struggle in which freedom, dignity, and humanity of self-consciousness had to fight against a stupidity that had never existed and ruled in the world!

I have provided the characterization of evangelical historiography in every section of my work, and if a comprehensive treatise is required, I have given such in my book “The Divine Art of Holy Historiography” in a way that exhausts all related categories completely.

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One more word about the fourth Gospel! What I had to leave undecided in the criticism of it has been fully explained in the present volume of my work, and I have only one more remark to add. The fourth evangelist also knew and used the Acts of the Apostles by Luke, especially in his accounts of the healing of the paralytic (Ch. 5) and the blind man (Ch. 9). It has already been noted that the paralytic of Bethesda is the same as the one mentioned in Mark’s Gospel, and that the fourth evangelist borrowed some of the more important incidents from the synoptic account. The healing of the lame man by Peter, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, is itself only a copy of the original account of the healing of the paralytic, which the fourth evangelist has also borrowed extensively in order to enhance his Gospel. That lame man, who had been afflicted from birth, is taken daily to a certain place (Acts 3:2), just like the paralytic of the fourth Gospel. Peter speaks to him first (ibid. 3:4), but for the natural reason that he had asked him for an alms beforehand. Unnaturally, the fourth evangelist has reversed this, so that Jesus speaks to his sick man first. The people take notice of Peter’s action and run to the apostles in the temple, where the miracle took place, and Peter seizes the opportunity to speak about the resurrection of Christ; the same, but unnaturally motivated attention of the people after the healing of the sick man from Bethesda and the same result of a speech about the resurrection. The sick man of Peter is over forty years old (Acts 4:22), while the fourth evangelist’s has been sick for thirty-eight years. We now know how the fourth evangelist arrived at his number, and we may now say that it is perhaps likely that if the number had a symbolic meaning, although he did not want to express himself definitely about the feast, he intended to give the appearance that it could have been the Passover. That he did not carry out the symbolic meaning purely and certainly can now be explained to us from his poor style of historical writing, just as we can now also say that he wanted to give a symbolic reference to the Samaritan people in that statement of Jesus to the Samaritan woman, a caricature of the synoptic Canaanite woman, but could not carry it out again because of his lack of all plastic power.

318

That Jesus must heal a blind man, the Fourth Gospel learned from Mark, but that this blind man was born blind is among other things the fault of the author of the Acts of the Apostles, for the story of the man born blind is a copy of the story of the lame man. The miracle of Peter is examined before the court, namely before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:5-7), as is the miracle of the healing of the blind man; the lame man of Peter also stands before the court (v. 14), as does the blind man of the Fourth Gospel. The Sanhedrin of the Acts of the Apostles forbids the disciples to confess the name of Jesus before the people (4:17); the Sanhedrin of the Fourth Gospel imposes the punishment of excommunication on the confession of the same name. In the account of the Acts of the Apostles, at least everything is coherent and understandable, as far as coherence is possible in the world of wonders, while in the account of the Fourth Gospel, everything is staggering, crazy, and falsified to the smallest detail, thrown out of joint by the overabundance of motifs and with reason completely dead. For example, even the minor detail that the Sanhedrin lets the accused disciples (and the healed man) leave, forms its decision, and then calls the people back into the council chamber to announce the sentence to them, even this minor matter the Fourth Gospel could not even reproduce properly; he has reproduced it in the way we have already characterized in sufficient detail above.

Finally, it should be noted that the leaders in the Acts of the Apostles (4:13) wonder about the language of the disciples, from whom they knew that they were ignorant and not learned in the scriptures, and also that they belonged to the entourage of Jesus, even an unlearned. The Fourth Gospel has reserved this trait for a later occasion (7:15), as he has also learned about the Hall of Solomon (10:23) only from this account in the Acts of the Apostles (3:11, compare 5:12) and in general has often used the structure of this narrative – that the miracle arouses the attention of the people, finally the leaders, and gives rise to speeches and negotiations – for his history, only making it more unnatural in his manner.

319

Regarding the Old Testament, the Fourth Gospel has also diligently used it and carefully observed some of its indications. The account of the hostility that Jesus experienced from his family, he directed to the point that it was his brothers who showed unbelief towards him, according to Psalm 69:8 and Jeremiah 12:6.  *) The emphasis with which Jesus often says that he has chosen the disciples, and finally the antithesis “you did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16), is an inappropriate rephrasing of the opposition that lies in the confession of the people in Psalm 100:3: “It is He who made us, and not we ourselves”. From Psalm 40:7, Jesus has taken the expression with which he says, “the Scriptures testify of me.” The Book of Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 16, verse 6, has led the Fourth Evangelist to see that the ancient serpent is “a symbol of salvation”, and he is indebted to the Old Testament for a considerable amount of dogmatic categories.

*) Ps. 69, 8: απηλλοτριωμένος εγενήθην τους αδελφούς μου και ξένος τοϊς υιούς της μητρός μου. Jer. 12, 6: ότι και οι αδελφοί σου ήθέτησάν σου … μὴ πιστεύσῃς ἐν αὐτοῖς. To Mark, of course, these passages were not unknown either, namely Jer. 12, 7 gave him an element to his story of the transfiguration of Jesus in Nazareth  : ᾿Εγκαταλέλοιπα τὸν οἶκόν μου, ἀφῆκα τὴν κληρονομίαν μου, ἔδωκα τὴν . . . .  ψυχήν μου εις χείρας έχθρών αυτής.

The matter of the Fourth [Gospel] has been decided for all eternity, and should anyone still doubt the decision, the criticism of the resurrection story will thunder it in their ear.

320

To criticize the resurrection story, which will occupy us at the end, we have nothing else to do but to show how one report originated from another and how the contradictions between the reports were inevitable in the way they were created. It would be an insult to the critical method, and would question the purpose of our work, and finally, it would be an insult to honorable men, especially one among them who is counted among Germany’s greatest.

The resurrection of the historical Christ has fallen back into the realm of imagination, where his whole life and suffering had already returned. The idea of his resurrection is only possible for the religious spirit, who is inaccessible to general ideas, and who can only imagine the victory of a principle by thinking of the person who sacrificed himself for it as having risen from the dead as an incorporeal individual, and preserved as such for all eternity.

If the critical method had already proven itself before, and if the criticism of the story of Christ’s suffering was the test of our calculations, it would be unfair to start again from the end, to dissolve the late reports through their enormous contradictions and to work our way back to the original report. The case is decided. We start with Mark and move on to his followers, and it is no longer necessary to demonstrate in detail the groundlessness of the late reports – we have already exposed these baseless claims in their nakedness too many times – the simple reporting of the reports will already be their full and sufficient characterization.

How many weaklings have slandered Edelmann, insulted him without ever having seen a line of his writings. Lilienthal knew him, but did not refute him, and only the excerpts that he shared from his writings – which are not accessible to us – prove what kind of man he was, and with what noble rebellion he tore himself out of the theological fabric of lies. It would be an insult to his memory if we were to specifically expose the invention of the Roman guard by Matthew as an invention, and no theologian has yet refuted Edelmann’s statement, and none will refute it as long as the world stands, the statement that the resurrection of Christ, as the religious spirit imagines it, would not be a resurrection from the dead, but rather a new entry into the same death from which he was to rise. *)

*) Lilienthal, The Good Cause of Revelation II, 164.

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Brave and honest Reimarus, you have brought to light the contradictions in the resurrection story as far as your pure and honest mind was able, given the state of criticism at the time, but no one has refuted you.

With Lessing, who defended the honest Fragmentist so chivalrously against the detractors, who knew the power of the ten paragraphs of the honest man and made them even more powerful, and who famously described the taste that theological dishes have for an uncorrupted palate, the theologians who always deal only with people and soul and salvation, that is, with the needs of their poor souls, and never with the matter and an uplifting principle, believe that they can handle it by murmuring languidly: “Lessing would think differently in our times.” You do not know his response, you have not read it; otherwise, you would know what he would say to your murmurings.

Finally, ask yourselves how the principle for which Lessing worked and suffered and for which he died will decide and must decide the matter in our times.

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In doing so, it will dissolve the contradictions by representing and explaining them.

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§ 90. The Crucifixion, Death and Burial of Jesus

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

291

§ 90.

The Crucifixion, Death and Burial of Jesus.

 

1. The procession to Calvary

Mark 15, 21, 22


Jesus is led out of the city to Golgotha (i.e. as Mark translates the name of this place, the place of the skull) and a man who has just come from the field is forced to carry the cross. Mark calls him Simon of Cyrene *), and it was from him that the others first learned the name of this man and the place of execution. But nowhere do we complain about the name Golgotha, which Josephus should have mentioned more often; but he didn’t know him yet, because it was only Mark who formed him. And Simon of Cyrene? Before you dare to blame us for our unbelief in this name and its Lord, first answer us, why was he requisitioned, a man who had just come from the field? Did not people go with the procession? Does such a procession happen without escorts?  Who was first curious enough to inquire about that man’s name? As if a name were that difficult to form! As if Mark hadn’t created a Jairus before!
As if that feature shouldn’t serve purely and simply to indicate that Golgotha lies outside the city, because strangers can only meet a person who comes from the field as such if one is close to the gate, either still within the city or already outside of it. Mark doesn’t even say that or if Jesus had carried the cross until then, or if he had given signs of exhaustion. It is determined by one interest only, namely, to impress the reader with the most definite idea that Jesus suffered outside the city; for Jesus is the sin offering of the Day of Atonement, whose body was burned outside the camp. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews already found this evangelical view and explains it correctly when he says: Jesus also suffered outside the gate so that he could sanctify the people with his own blood. C. 13, 11-13. Luke and Matthew took Simon’s note from their account, but the fourth erased it, he says: Jesus carried his cross, because he wants to make the matter more sensitive by saying that Jesus himself “went out to the place of the skull carrying the cross. ” C. 19, 17.

*) The further determination: “the father of Alexander and Rufus” is an overabundance that is alien to Mark. It is an addition that a very late reader added. The two names were taken arbitrarily from the letters of the NT.

292

Luke has formed an episode here: Not only does he say here that the two criminals who were crucified with him were led out together with Jesus, but he also tells us that a large crowd of people joined the procession and that the women who also went, mourning and weeping for Jesus. Jesus answers them that they should not weep for him, but for themselves and their children, for there will come a time when people will say what Luke reads in the scripture of Mark (Mark 13:17), that those who are pregnant and nursing should be pitied, when they will say what the miserable say in the scripture of Hosea: Mountains fall upon us (Hos. 10, 8); because, Jesus concludes his discourse (C. 23, 27-32), if that happens to the green tree, what will happen to the dry tree? — whether that means: if this happens to pregnant women, how should it go for hard sinners — or not is unclear, is also extremely irrelevant; – only so much is clear that the evangelist takes a saying of Ezekiel (C. 20, 47. 21, 3), namely the saying that the judgment should fall on the dry and green wood, the unjust and the just, in a very unclear way not processed here, but only attached.

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2. The bitter potion.

Mark 15, 23. 36.


Twice Mark has a bitter and astringent drink given to the Lord, the first time immediately after the arrival at Calvary adding myrrh to the wine, and afterwards, when Jesus uttered his last lamentation, vinegar, with which one of those close to him had soaked a sponge.

When Jesus rejects the wine the first time, we should not, indeed, look for everything that people usually thought and dared to invent. It was believed that, before being executed, criminals were allowed the favor of throwing off the burden of consciousness by drinking heavily spiced wine. Myrrh does not intoxicate! Now, however, when Jesus is still free to dispose of himself, he rejects what someone else will later give him when he can no longer resist; namely, that drink which Matthew has somewhat clumsily revealed, when he wrote for the first time that Jesus was given vinegar mixed with gall. This is the drink over which the Righteous One of the Old Testament already complains, that when he was thirsty, they gave him vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21). Matthew added gall to the vinegar, of which the Righteous One says that they put it in his food. Mark mixed the drink in such a way that the historical probability was not too greatly violated, and the situation was not too greatly mocked.

Luke knows of one drink, the second one that was given to Jesus when he was already hanging on the cross (Luke 23:36). He says that the soldiers gave him vinegar out of mockery, but he does not say how they came up with such mockery. His episodes did not leave him room for the first drink and for the proper introduction of the second one. He had just reported the speech of Jesus to the women of Jerusalem, and now, as soon as he reports that Jesus was nailed to the cross, he wants to remark that Jesus, as Isa. 53:12 is prophesied, prayed for sinners. Father, says Jesus (C. 23, 34), forgive them, for they know not what they are doing; just as Luke has Stephen pray before his departure (Apostles 7:60): Lord, do not hold this sin against them!

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Because of his episodes (the negotiations of the Jews with Pilate about the title on the cross and the arrangement of the lottery of Jesus’ clothes), the fourth did not have any time left for the first drink either: but he gives the second all the importance that it is due. Jesus not only calls so that the scripture (Ps. 69, 22. Ps. 22, 16) would be fulfilled: I am thirsty, but he also takes the vinegar to be able to have it immediately: It is finished. The thirst of Jesus, the giving of the vinegar and the consumption of it have now put the final seal on the fulfillment of Scripture.

 

3. The lottery of Jesus’ clothes.

Mark 15, 24


Immediately after the crucifixion—immediately thereafter, so that the scene is at the foot of the cross—the soldiers divided Jesus’ garments among themselves in such a manner that they cast lots over them to determine “who shall receive.”

Luke omits the last specification given and merely says that they cast lots when they divided the clothes (C. 23, 34). Matthew reports the matter just as briefly, but he also tells us why Mark wrote this feature, because it was important and necessary for the Scriptures that prophesied of this distribution of clothing to be fulfilled (C. 27, 35. Ps 22, 19). Finally, the fourth, since in the psalm the same thing is signified by two parallel expressions, takes this signification seriously and, as Strauss was the first to remark, forms his new story from it. For it is written in the Psalm: “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” (Psalm 22:18) The fourth gospel then tells us that the soldiers, who had suddenly become four in number, divided Jesus’ clothes into four parts and “cast lots” for his tunic, which was woven in one piece and they did not want to tear apart – as if they had torn apart the other clothes, which not even the fourth gospel dared to say! – so that, as the fourth gospel adds, the scripture would be fulfilled (John 19:23-24), as Matthew had already taught us.

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4. Jesus on the cross.

Mark 15, 26-36.


Mark only knows how to tell of the mockery that Jesus suffered on the cross.

Even the attached plaque with the inscription: the king of the Jews! is a mockery, the continuation of those that Pilate had already allowed himself before.

Two robbers are crucified on either side of him in order to equate him with the rejected.

The passers-by mock him, nod their heads scornfully and say: aha! who wanted to tear down the temple and expand it in three days! rather save yourself and get off the cross!

Even the high priests stoop to this mockery and add to it from the miracle side in general, saying, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, that we may see and believe.”

Even those crucified with him mock him.

At the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. Then, at the ninth hour, Jesus spoke with the words of the psalm (Psalm 22:2): “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The exclamation “Eloi, Eloi” gave rise to some thinking about the connection between the Messiah and Elijah, which led to mockery: “He is calling Elijah!” and even the one who gave him the sponge with vinegar said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down from the cross!”

Matthew also tells the story essentially and in almost the same words in chapter 27, verses 37-49. The small change that he has the entire body of the high priests, along with the scribes and the elders, station themselves at the cross to mock Jesus instead of just the high priests alone, is not noteworthy.

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However, Luke had to make changes because he had left out the testimony of the witnesses about what Jesus said in the temple earlier, and had reserved it for the story of Stephen. He could not have the people in general utter the mocking words, and then have the high priests say something different. He had to simplify or, if he could not do so intelligently, confuse the story. He did both! (Luke 23:35-45) First, he simplified: “The people stood there watching, and the leaders even scoffed at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.'” But now, because Luke did not want to ignore it and, in his slavish dependence on Mark, could not ignore it, he includes the soldiers’ mockery of giving him vinegar – not, of course, mocking the exclamation “Eloi, Eloi!”, but a variation on the same mockery of the leaders, which Mark reports and which Luke had just mentioned himself: “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” Only after these words – too late and in the wrong place – did it seem appropriate to Luke to mention the inscription on that sign that was attached to the cross.

A new mockery follows! Only one of the two criminals actually mocked Jesus – but how? – with the words that Luke reads as the mockery of the high priests in Mark’s account: “If you are the Messiah, save yourself – of course! – and us!” With this episode, Luke’s account is directed. The other criminal rebukes his companion, asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingly power, and Jesus responds: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

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The note about the solar eclipse that follows is very misleading in Luke’s account, because he had to omit what gives it context in Mark’s account. He does not indicate the duration of the three hours, because he had already reported the incident of someone waving at Jesus out of mockery, which gives rise to the new taunt prompted by Jesus’ cry of “Eloi!” Now he cannot report the taunt again. In his anxiety to fill the gap, but only the spatial gap, he says that darkness covered the land from the sixth to the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn”, as if the darkness of the sun followed the darkness and as if the tearing of the temple veil did not occur until after Jesus’ death. Luke has everything out of order because he introduced the note about the person who gave Jesus vinegar too early and then wanted to report some new information (v. 48, 49) later.

The original account was as follows: Mark himself says why the two criminals were necessarily placed beside Jesus, so that the scripture would be fulfilled, which says: “He was numbered with the transgressors,” Isa. 53:12. The taunting in general was necessary because the Righteous One of the Old Testament laments: “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads” Ps. 22:7-8. Finally, Matthew cites verse 9 from this psalm to emphasize how the people must taunt the Messiah: “He trusts in the LORD,” they say, “let the LORD rescue him if he wants him.”

The fourth gospel only tells of one of these mockeries, namely that two criminals were crucified on either side of Jesus, and the other, that Pilate attached a plaque to the cross with the inscription – in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as Luke later learned from Mark and from him the fourth gospel learned – “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”. As already noted above, his episodes took up too much space and time for the evangelist. He now adds a new episode immediately after the casting of lots for the seamless garment, one that makes the mockery mentioned earlier pale in comparison. Notably, the space it takes up must come at the expense of other details reported by Mark. The evangelist has incorporated the notice of the women who “from afar” – as is the only way that makes sense and is reasonable – watched and afterwards observed where Joseph placed the body. The women, together with the beloved disciple, are suddenly standing at the foot of the cross, so that Jesus can entrust his mother to the disciple’s care (John 19:25-27). Since we have already valued the notice of these women in their worth above, the criticism of this episode in the fourth gospel is also given, and it is therefore not worth the effort to mention that the fourth gospel lists other women than Mark, namely three Marys: the mother of Jesus, her sister, and Mary Magdalene.

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5. The hours of the day of death.


The way in which Mark calculates the hours of the day of Jesus’ death is beyond doubt due to the context. When he says in Chapter 15, verse 25, that it was the third hour when Jesus was crucified, and the sixth when the darkness came, which lasted until the ninth hour, at the end of which Jesus died, it is clear that our third hour of the morning is his ninth, his ninth is our third hour of the afternoon, because the sixth hour is noon: the darkness – that is the contrast that Mark worked towards – came when the sun reached its culmination point.

For the remark of when Jesus was crucified, Luke has no space – due to the episode of Jesus praying for his enemies in Chapter 23, verse 34 – and no time, because he struggles with the transition to the mocking of Jesus by the people and the rulers. Afterwards, he reports the time and duration of the darkness; and Matthew reports only the latter, for the remark of when Jesus was crucified, he had no space, since he quoted the scripture that was fulfilled when they divided up Jesus’ clothes.

Luke has no space to comment on when Jesus was crucified because of the episode of Jesus praying for his enemies, c which Obem must torment very much. But afterwards he reports the time and duration of the darkness; the latter is also reported by Matthew alone, for he had no room to note the time at which Jesus was crucified, since he was citing Scripture, which was fulfilled when the robes of Jesus were given away.

Due to his episodes, the fourth Gospel does not even have enough space left to mention the darkness. Without much thought, he uses a number that caught his eye in the writings of his predecessors, for his purposes: at the sixth hour *), it was, he says in chapter 19, verse 14, when Pilate finally gave in to the stormy demands of the Jews and handed Jesus over for crucifixion.

*) Above (in the criticism of the ev. Gesch. d. Joh. p. 45) we probably made a mistake when we accepted the fourth and the connection in honor that the tenth hour is our tenth in the morning. Since the fourth is capable of everything, it is more likely that he calculates C. 1.40 in the same Hebrew way that he also follows C. 4, 6 for in the last place the sixth hour can only be that of noon. The sixth hour of the Suffering Day is nothing at all, it was only thoughtlessly noted down by him.

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6. The death of Jesus.

Mark 15, 37-39.


The last words Mark put in his master’s mouth—my God! my God! why did you leave me? he wrote, without getting involved in any way with the possible consequences, only to show that Jesus had really proved himself to be the Messiah right up to the moment of his last sufferings, and the Holy Spirit already had a picture of his pain revealed long before to the psalmist.

With a loud cry, Jesus soon dies. The temple curtain must tear apart to make it clear that the world now has free access to God, and the captain of the Roman guard, who was standing in front of Jesus, must be prompted by the cry (!) with which Jesus died to exclaim, “Truly, this was the Son of God!” This is not so that one might later ponder in what sense he spoke of a Son of God, but rather so that the last moment of Jesus may be glorified through the testimony of a non-Jewish person. Now that the Jews seem to have won, a harbinger of the faithful Gentile world must come forward to announce the victory of the crucified one in advance.

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How Luke has disrupted the development of this scene is shown. When the temple curtain was torn apart, Jesus – similar to Stephen in Acts 7:59 – said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke had to provide an exclamation for Jesus, as he could not use the other one: “Eloi! Eloi!” Additionally, the centurion said, “Truly, this man was righteous.” Luke had to soften the statement of the Gentile, as there was no need for any special testimony after Jesus had just previously told the repentant criminal, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Finally, since Luke had already mentioned the women (in chapter 8, verses 2-3), he had to include the note from Mark about them here, too. He also leaves space (!) for male acquaintances who watched from a distance and for the other note – the counterpart to the above note about the weeping women of Jerusalem – that all the assembled crowds (!) beat their breasts. Now, he believes, it was time for the prophecy of Zechariah (12:10) to be fulfilled. (Luke 23:46-49.)

Matthew follows Mark, but between the note of the renting of the veil and the size of the centurion, inserts the remark that an earthquake happened, the rocks rent, the tombs opened, many of the buried saints—an Abraham, Moses, David, etc. — rose again, emerged from the grave, after their *) resurrection went into the holy (!) city and showed themselves to many (C. 27, 50-54). When it is said that “the chief and the guards who were with him” (which Matthew very inappropriately has them spying and speaking with their leader) saw the earthquake, the point is that they also saw the resurrection of the saints and their departure into the holy city. This miracle was what finally caused them to exclaim, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” In other words, the episode is ultimately overwhelmed by the context – which is only correct in Mark’s writing.

*) not after the resurrection of Jesus, as later scrupulocity changed to give Jesus back the privilege of being the first of the resurrected. It is to be read αυτων, not αυτου.

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The interests already mentioned and the interest that now follows (in verse 31), namely his concern for the purity of the Jews who will be partaking of the Passover lamb that night – all of this has so preoccupied the Fourth Gospel writer that he does not even mention anything about the tearing of the temple curtain.

 

7. The Real Death and Burial of Jesus.

Mark 15, 42-46.


While Mark reports that an honest councillor, Joseph of Arimathea, plucked up the courage and asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, he does not yet think of overwhelming the interest to the point that he would dwell on it for a long time and the benevolence of Joseph motivated and explained. Rather, he is only concerned with proving that the dictum of the Holy Spirit, that after his death the Messiah will find his tomb with the rich after he had been appointed with the criminals, was fulfilled (Isa. 53:9), he only has the other interest of confirming the death of Jesus as having actually taken place, in order to at the same time confirm the subsequent miracle of the resurrection as a miracle. Pilate, namely, when Joseph presents his request, is surprised that Jesus has “already” died, lets the centurion stand guard, and asks him whether Jesus—here the evangelist’s interest is betrayed somewhat too keenly—had died “long ago.” , and when he heard the confirmation from the centurion, he gave the corpse to Joseph. He wraps him in linen and places him in a rock vault, in front of which he then rolls a stone.

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Luke does not see the significance of Pilate’s questions to Joseph and the centurion, but rather leaves out everything related to it because he has other interests. He describes Joseph to us more closely: “he was a good and righteous man who had not consented to the counsel and deed of his fellow council members – (or!), Luke writes very carelessly – and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God.” This formula, which belongs solely to Luke’s standing language, was only inserted into the Gospel of Mark by a later hand. Additionally, Luke suddenly tells us that Joseph also embalmed the body, but like Mark, he also says that the women from Jesus’ entourage watched where Joseph laid the body, and like Mark, he also says that the women went to the tomb on the morning after the Sabbath to perform the embalming, as if they could think of doing so when they had seen that Joseph had already taken care of it. Finally, Luke tells us the news that no one had yet been laid in the tomb (Luke 23:50-55).

Matthew also did not pay attention to how important it was to establish the true death of Jesus; he omits Pilate’s relevant discussions and instead mentions Joseph, probably to incorporate the cue of that prophecy, as a rich man. He further develops the pragmatism of Luke by stating that Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, and finally, only out of negligence and not because he wanted to follow Mark’s account, he leaves out the fact that the women wanted to embalm the body – he only reports that Joseph performed the embalming (Matthew 27:57-61).

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With the cumbersome heaviness of someone who has to struggle to immerse himself in the customs of the Jews, the Fourth Gospel writer narrates the burial of Jesus’ body – in an unused tomb – and its embalming; in particular, he says that Nicodemus, who happens to come along as if on cue, brought the necessary materials – a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes. He also knows that Joseph, a disciple of Jesus, had been hiding out of fear of the Jews. What a clever or curious pragmatism! Then Joseph would have had to be most afraid now.

We are now approaching the point where the question of chronology will be answered.

The Fourth Gospel writer is so meticulous that he says the place where Jesus found his tomb was a garden that happened to be nearby, and they brought Jesus’ body there because time was pressing, as it was now the moment when they had to prepare for the Sabbath – not just for the enjoyment of the Passover meal!

He uses the same motive to remove Jesus’ body from the cross. The Jews, he says, asked Pilate to have the bodies removed from the cross so that they would not remain there until the Sabbath, and to break their bones beforehand – but we do not hear of this custom anywhere else. So the soldiers did this to the two criminals who were crucified with Jesus, but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they spared him this procedure, and only one of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with a spear. (John 19:31-42)

He himself says why he thought these things were necessary, and he also lets us know how highly he values them when he says, “He who saw it has testified to it, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth – the all-knowing one knows that he is telling the truth! – so that you may believe”!! All of this happened, he says, to fulfill the scripture that commanded (Exodus 12:46) that no bone of the Passover lamb should be broken, and which said in another place (Zechariah 12:10) of the Messiah that they would see him whom they had “stabbed”.

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In short, the Fourth Gospel writer has no intention of confirming the death of Jesus, but rather uses the note from Mark that Jesus was truly dead to further his Christological dreams. However, he has another purpose: to prove that he did not write the so-called first letter of John. The author of that letter – whoever he was, it doesn’t matter here, but what is certain is that he was a man and wrote as a man with a soft pen, unlike the Fourth Gospel writer who has softened the forms of his style and taken away every muscle and nerve – that man says that Jesus came with water and blood, meaning that at the beginning of his ministry he was attested as the Messiah through baptism with water and ultimately through baptism with blood, so that water and blood testify on earth in communion with the Spirit (1 John 5:6, 8). And the Fourth Gospel writer makes this testimony, this blood and water testimony, consist in the fact that when that soldier had stabbed Jesus in the side, blood and water flowed out!

Thus, the significance to the Fourth Gospel writer of Jesus finally being shown as the true Passover lamb is evident, and this explains the transformation he allowed himself in the chronology of Holy Week.

 

8. The chronology of the week of suffering.


Therefore, the Fourth Gospel has taken away the character of the Passover meal from the last supper of Jesus with the disciples, he has reported nothing about the institution of the Lord’s Supper, he has afterwards reminded anxiously that the celebration of the Passover meal was approaching that evening, he has finally concocted a feature that made Jesus equal to the Passover lamb, so that it would be certain and every reader would notice that Jesus himself was the true Passover lamb and was sacrificed for the sins of the world, while the Jews enjoyed the shadow, the old legal Passover meal. According to him, Jesus was not sacrificed on the first day of Passover, but on the Sabbath following the Passover evening, which is this first holiday – he therefore says very awkwardly (as if this coincidental circumstance could only have persuaded the Jews not to allow the bodies to remain on the cross) that Sabbath day was a great day (chapter 19, verse 31) – thus, his account is also fragmented on this aspect, as it becomes clear that the significance of this Sabbath, which he initially set to be the first day of Passover, is blurred.

Mark arranged things so that Jesus offered his body, blood, and flesh to the disciples at the same moment that the Jews had to content themselves with the shadow, the Paschal lamb. Jesus was crucified on the first day of Passover, and the Sabbath during which he lay in the grave was now the counterpart to that Sabbath on which God once rested after creating the new world.

Furthermore, it was only Luke who called the first day of Passover the preparation day for the following Sabbath, thus robbing it of its independent meaning (Luke 23:54). The parallel remark in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 15:42) is partly a later addition borrowed from the fourth Gospel, as evidenced by the overcrowding of the sentence, a style not typical of Mark. Matthew only used the term “preparation day” in his episode about the Roman guards after learning it from Luke (Matthew 27:62).

We do not want to hold the Fourth Gospel responsible or rely on it when we overturn the chronology of Mark. We also do not want to note how unlikely it is that the trial took place on the first day of Passover and that the priests dared to execute Jesus on this day when they feared his followers. Nor do we want to remind ourselves that the account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper has dissolved, or that all parts of this story have suffered the same fate of dissolution, so that we have no more history before us. Rather, we need only to recall how the chronology of the Passion Week was shaped by the Christian idea to have the right to say that it was formed later than there was a Christian community, a Christian self-consciousness. This is the kind of tautology that the spirit has suffered from, been tormented and bloodthirsty, for eighteen centuries.

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Like true Christian art, especially painting, when it was still truly Christian, reached its peak in the portrayal of the sufferings and martyrdoms of the saints, and found its highest task in depicting the instruments of torture, the executioners, the gruesome contortions, distortions, and disfigurements that the bodies of the saints must suffer under the rough fists of the persecutors, so in this section the evangelical view has heaped up the most significant descriptions from the Old Testament of the sufferings of the righteous and worked them into one story. The only difference from the Old Testament view is that if in the latter the idea of suffering turns into the victorious revenge, the Christian spirit has given suffering a deeper meaning and sought to bring about the reversal, the peripeteia, in a different way. But not yet in the true sense! Suffering is still worked out too much in its crude externality, not yet fully grasped as inner and in itself world-conquering. Moreover, it is only viewed in this person as the true, as the highest, so its overcoming and dissolution cannot be viewed in a general form in the ongoing development of history. This person must rather rise bodily, she must win by bodily means, as she suffered bodily and as her bodily suffering appeared as a significant object of contemplation: i.e. this person must rise bodily and through the sense of touch convince her own that she has won. —-

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§ 89. The trial of Jesus before Pilate

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

Volume 3

—o0o—

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§ 89.

The trial of Jesus before Pilate.

 

1. The Report of the Fourth.

John 18:33-40. 19:1-16.

The Jews who have their Passover lamb at hand stay outside remain standing outside when they have handed Jesus over to the governor as a criminal deserving of death. Pilate then goes back into the praetorium, welcomes Jesus and asks him whether he is the king of the Jews. If he now, instead of outright declaring himself, thinks he must raise a counter-question, he should in any case have asked it more clearly than he actually did. His question: are you talking about yourself or did others tell you? the judge couldn’t understand and neither do we. Whether the question is meant to ask whether Pilate is considering Jesus’ claim to kingship from a Roman perspective or from the perspective of the Jews who hold this claim, there would be no difference, which is what Jesus seems to be emphasizing at this moment, as the Jews, when speaking with Pilate about the matter, could only present it to him in the dangerous light in which it must have appeared to the Roman.

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Or, if the question is meant to ask whether Jesus is speaking about his claim to kingship as a divine belief that he himself holds, or whether he has been told this by others, then we might reasonably ask whether it was the time for Jesus to gain new followers or to pursue any even remotely appearing chance of gaining such followers. However, could he really have been uncertain about who Pilate had heard from that he was the King of the Jews?

Both cases that we had to consider as possible, the meaningless tendency of the question and this pretentious one, have crossed the mind of the Fourth [Gospel writer]. Both are present in the question itself, but these already baseless allusions could not be followed up and shaped into a coherent thought by the Fourth [Gospel writer], because he can never shape and because this time he pursued different tendencies at the same time.

(It is not worth noting that it is inappropriate for the Jews to have argued back and forth without telling Pilate what kind of criminal they were bringing, and for the governor to suddenly ask, “Are you the King of the Jews?” However, it is indicative of the Fourth Gospel writer’s style, or rather, the way he borrows from his predecessors and develops their statements. When Mark says that the Jews handed Jesus over to Pilate and he asked him if he was the King of the Jews, that is something completely different; it is told in a sensible manner.)

“Am I a Jew? replies Pilate. Your people and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” So because he is not a Jew, he has nothing to do with investigating what Jesus’ supposed claims are all about? And what does that mean, putting off the investigation first and then ask, “What have you done? Well, this latter question is only meant to bring about Jesus’ declaration that his kingdom is not of this world. So you are a king after all? replies Pilate, naive and curious as a child, and Jesus has not even denied it hitherto! He was supposed to only have the opportunity to notice that he is indeed a king and to impart the same formulas he uses throughout the whole fourth Gospel about his purpose for coming into the world. As he also mentions the word “truth” for this purpose, Pilate asks, “What is truth?” However, the Fourth Gospel did not come up with all those interesting intermediate thoughts that later cleverness combined with this question. The evangelist simply wanted to end the conversation and therefore lets Pilate pose a question to which he had very little to answer unless he wanted to teach the same old formulas over and over again. He then says that Pilate went out to the Jews with these words.

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We believe Pilate’s report to the Jews that he found no fault in this man during the wonderful interrogation. However, if he was convinced of Jesus’ innocence, he could not even take the middle ground and propose, in accordance with the Paschal custom of releasing a prisoner at that time, whether they wanted him to release to them the King of the Jews. Furthermore, if he wanted to save the accused, it was a childish and reckless obstinacy on his part to provoke the Jews through the form of the proposal, not to mention that it is not the custom of authorities to label the innocent with the title of the accusation.

Although these contrasts all collapse before the human eye, they repeat themselves again and again, until we run out of patience and are compelled and justified to cast down the concoction of this pragmatism with contempt. But it doesn’t even get that bad with him: it falls apart in our hands.

The people want Barrabas, a robber, free. Pilate obeys, takes Jesus, has him scourged, and the soldiers dress him in a mocking royal garb, taunt and mistreat him.

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Now we might think that it’s enough and the matter is over. But no! it goes on again and again from the beginning, and we can’t understand how it can ever come to an end.

Once again Pilate goes out to show the Jews, by bringing Jesus out with him, that he finds no fault in him. What a foolish man! How could he hope to find a hearing for his proposals by presenting Jesus to the Jews in a mocking king’s costume! Of course, the high priests and their servants cry out: “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Then Pilate answers, “Take him and crucify him!” As if they hadn’t already said before that they didn’t have the right to execute the death penalty. And if they had just said it again: “He is guilty, but we are not allowed to execute the death sentence ourselves.” No! They answer: “According to our law, he is guilty because he made himself the Son of God.”

Pilate is said to have become “even more” afraid, and he goes back (!) to the Praetorium, asking Jesus where he comes from – ποθεν, as Pilate is familiar with the language of the holy John – but Jesus remains silent. Pilate tries to win him over, reminding him that he has the power to crucify him or to set him free, and – can anyone treat their hero more frightfully, degrade him more deeply? – with this threatening argument, Jesus is actually moved to answer. However, even an answer that rebuked the governor was inappropriate if Jesus had already decided not to answer; indeed, an answer that only elevated his own person above Pilate’s pretended power was the most inappropriate in this case. He should have better introduced or used his reworked version of the saying he read in Luke, the saying (Chapter 22, verse 53) that “this is the power of darkness at this hour”. Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”

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The thing then starts again from the beginning. From then on, it is said – but he had proved from the beginning that he had this intention! — Pilate sought to set him free. But—the steps he tried to carry out his intention are not given! Naturally! because the stuff that his predecessors gave to the Fourth has finally run out — the Jews shouted, if you let him go, you’re no friend of Caesar. Anyone who makes himself king defies the emperor! Finally – as if he hadn’t known from the beginning that this man would attach himself to the kingship, as if it didn’t matter in what sense he attached it to himself etc etc etc — Pilate sits outside on his judge’s seat, carrying Jesus with him, but starts again the unworthy, we should mean long ago hounded joke that he introduces Jesus to the Jews as their king, and then asks them when they demand the crucifixion, should he crucify their king? Only when they reply that we have no king but the Emperor is the matter finally settled. But we still have no rest. Pilate gives Jesus to the Jews to be crucified. The Jews! The fourth, who now had so much to do with the Jews and finally wanted to quench their anger, forgets that Jesus could not be handed over to the Jews, but only to the Roman soldiers, according to the assumptions that he himself had so glaringly emphasized!

But why didn’t he close the matter with the fact that Jesus was handed over to be scourged by the governor and mocked by the soldiers with that king’s habit! Why does he then have this endless tangle of going back and forth, going out and going in, leading out and in! Why is he only now bringing up the fact that the Jews regarded Jesus as guilty of death because he had made himself the son of God! Why does he bring up Luke’s saying about the power of darkness here in the first place! In general, he has to fix the mistakes he made in the composition so poorly, and he even processes the new incident points that the other two have added to the original report, such as the note about the increasing fear of Pilate, even more clumsily than his predecessors!

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We’ll catch our breath when we read the original report.

2. The original report.

Mark 15, 1—21

Jesus is handed over to Pilate by the priesthood. He asks him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus affirms it, but says nothing about all the accusations of the priests, remains silent even there, to the astonishment of Pilate, when he draws his attention to the seriousness of the accusations.

In short, Pilate is at a loss as to what to do.

The fact that the mob stormed up to the praetorium—the negotiations were taking place inside— *) and reminded him that he was in the habit of releasing a prisoner for them at Passover time. He immediately takes this opportunity to propose to them whether he should not release the king of the Jews to them; for he saw that the priests had handed him over to him only out of spiteful envy. Rather, they incited the people to demand Barrabas, a man who had committed murder in a rebellion and was imprisoned with the conspirators. From this proposal Pilate asks what he should do with the king of the Jews, they cry crucify him! and after he had noticed that he had done nothing wrong, and the people had repeated his cry, he gave him up to be flogged and crucified, but released Barabbas, which the fourth had completely forgotten to report on more important matters. The soldiers now lead Jesus into the courtyard, call the whole cohort together, clothe Jesus in that mocking royal garb, mock him, put his own clothes back on him, and then lead him out to be crucified.

*) V. 8: αναβας. After V. 18 :  ο εστι πραιτωριον is a later gloss.

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Before we examine the original report more closely, we shall first free it from the additions with which the other two hoped to enrich it for its own good.

3. Luke’s account.

Luke 23, 1-25.

Not even at the beginning, although he is still trying to preserve the structure of the original report, can Luke resist the temptation to improve, to change, to define more precisely; but if these changes are already unfortunate in the beginning, the definiteness which Luke imposes on the original features is only fragmentary, namely only spotted out here and there, while the other features remain as he finds them in the writing of Mark:— so he finally broke through the original report at one point and changed one feature so much that in this respect his account can compete with that of the fourth.

It is far too suggestive when the Jews come forward with the accusation that Jesus deceives the people and prevents them from paying taxes to Caesar by saying that he is the Messiah-King; This detailed and suggestive accusation is now the subject of Pilate’s question: are you king of the Jews? afterwards, when Jesus answers this question in the affirmative, it is much too early and unnaturally hasty that Pilate assures “the priests and the crowd” that he finds no guilt in this man, and when the adversaries affirm again , he stirs up the people by teaching throughout Judea, and that he began his career from Galilee to here is, according to the proportion in which the Gospel passages are worked out and expressed, a very unnecessary and superfluous remark.

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To Pilate, the word Galilee was like a godsend. When he heard that Jesus was a Galilean, he remembered that Herod, the accused’s ruler, was present in the capital right now, and sent Jesus to him. Later, after the account of Jesus’ unsuccessful interrogation by Herod, Luke informs us that Herod and Pilate, who had previously been enemies, were good friends at that time.

Pilate hit it very well with his idea. Herod was happy to see Jesus, for he had wanted to see him for a long time and he hoped to see a sign from him. But he asked him a lot!! Jesus was silent and — but where do they come from? did they know that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod? Must they always be where there is something for them to do? — the chief priests and scribes accused him severely! — the chief priests whom Pilate must later call together again when Jesus returns; the high priests, who, if they had accompanied Jesus to Herod, would certainly not have let him go alone on his return!

Later, however, when Pilate calls the priests back, he himself says that he sent them to Herod – but Luke should have mentioned this earlier instead of presenting the matter as if what happened between Pilate and Herod was only a private matter, only a proof of their renewed friendship! And if the priests were sent to Herod with Jesus, shouldn’t they have returned to Pilate with Jesus at the same time?

Things are back to where they were now. Pilate must again protest the innocence of this man and in vain – but no! Luke did not even know how to put the matter in such a way that Pilate, when the people reminded him of the Passover custom, made the suggestion that he should accordingly release the accused — No! after Pilate had declared, without reminding of this custom and without regard to it, that he wanted Jesus, after having him —! — have scourged, release, the people suddenly cry out, without us learning how the idea came about: take him and instead release us Barrabas! Therefore, when Pilate later makes his proposal again and even repeats it once more, despite the people’s outcry, stating that he finds nothing deserving of death in this man, this sets the stage for that endless and senseless expansion that so painfully tormented us in the fourth Gospel. On the other hand, it is not even explained how it came about that the dice were cast between Jesus and Barabbas, i.e., it is not motivated why Pilate persisted with his repeated proposals.

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And yet this interlude was originally intended to give Pilate an opportunity to extricate himself from his embarrassment, even through Luke’s unclear and confused presentation this determination can still be seen. — — —

i.e. if Pilate wanted to get himself out of the embarrassment by Jesus’ settlement to Herod – although Luke did not even know how to write in such a way that he would have clearly stated this intention – then a disturbing excess has entered the account.

Finally, the mockery of Jesus in the royal robe is only intended to conclude the development, and because of its crude character, it can only come from the soldiers and as the conclusion of this act, only from the Roman soldiers to whom the condemned was handed over for crucifixion. And, as Luke says, Herod dressed Jesus in the purple robe, mocked him with his soldiers, and sent him back to Pilate in the purple robe.

Not a word more about a report of this kind! We have already shown above that Luke used what Mark reports about the relationship between Herod and the Baptist in the most adventurous way to work out this novel between Jesus and Herod, and his imagination was so poor in this regard that he only knew how to process in this novel what can be read in the original report of the interrogation of Jesus before Pilate and of his mockery by the soldiers.

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Matthew has other news to tell us.

4. The account of Matthew.

C. 27, 2. 11-31.

He kept the order of things as they were in Mark, and copied more faithfully than Luke. However, when he comes to that incident and mentions the Paschal custom at the time, and then lets Pilate make the proposal without further explanation: “Whom shall I release to you, Jesus or Barabbas?” – how does the governor know that a certain Barabbas comes into play here? It is because Matthew is excessively hasty and inserts what he has learned from Mark’s scripture into Pilate’s mind without considering it. He had already made an extraordinary mistake in allowing Pilate to speak before telling us that the people reminded the governor of that custom.

As he sits on the judge’s seat and makes that very suggestion, the Fourth Gospel has the note from Matthew about the judge’s seat, which he then introduces in his own very laborious and anxious way. He only has Pilate ascend the seat at the end for the sake of solemnity, and also because the harried Pilate has been running back and forth before. Suddenly, while he is making this suggestion, his wife sends word to him, telling him not to harm this innocent man, for she has suffered much in a dream on account of him. It’s a pity that we don’t hear what she suffered, but it’s unfortunate that this episode is drowned out by the context! Because what did the people say in response to that proposal? We don’t hear it! No, because of that episode, once it’s finished, the story starts all over again: the priests convince the people to demand the release of Barabbas, and in response to this demand – as if it had never been made! – Pilate must reply: which of the two shall I release? The story thus falls into a bottomless abyss from which it will never emerge, and the episode is dragged down with it.

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A new episode! Finally, after Matthew has worked his way up to the point with the help of Mark where Pilate is forced to give in to the will of the people, he tells us that Pilate took water, washed his hands in front of the eyes of the people – washing his hands in innocence! – and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. You can see for yourselves!” to which the people replied, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

What is the world in which a judge so vehemently protests the innocence of an accused and, when he nevertheless sentences him, thinks himself white-faced and settles the matter completely, as soon as he presents himself before the eyes of malicious persecutors, to whom he exposes the innocent, wash hands? What is the world in which the judge, who sits publicly free in the marketplace among the people, as soon as it enters his mind, immediately has water at hand to wash symbolically, or rather ridiculously earnestly, by washing his hands, to ensure his innocence? It is that world of Matthew in which the Roman governor must at all costs pronounce the innocence of Jesus, whatever the consequences may be. It is the world in which Jesus’ innocence must be declared at any price, even at the price of a Roman governor making himself look ridiculous; it is the same world in which people are sent dreams just as they are necessary for a petty pragmatism: for petty is this effort to establish the innocence of Jesus in every way.

Incidentally, the reason for the last episode, or at least one element that Matthew has processed in it, is that word that, according to Luke’s account, Jesus said to the women who wept for him on the way to Golgotha: Rather weep for you and yours Children!

After the episodes, the contortions, the endless extensions have experienced their fate, the original report will not be able to escape its fate either.

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5. Resolution of the original report.

Very wise remarks have been made that Jesus, after briefly professing himself before Pilate as King of the Jews, is silent on all further accusations; but the thing is simply this: Jesus had to be silent, because the Holy Spirit had dictated to the prophet that it would be so, because Jesus is the Lamb which, when it is led to the slaughterhouse (Isa. 53:7), does not open its mouth.

By resisting the demands of the priests, Pilate must provide the proof that Jesus really was innocent, by his inclination for the innocent he must provide the foil on which the raging fury of the Jews appears in all its gloom. and finally he has to declare that he finds no guilt in this man, so that he can speak like those princes who, in contrast to the vengeful priests, declared that Jeremiah (26:16) was not guilty of death.

However, the evangelical view cannot be consistent because it is never concerned with portraying a character accurately, as it does not recognize the value of any individual character or person, and only its momentary needs and contrasts are of importance. Therefore, it should not surprise us when Pilate is suddenly used in a different way and has to renounce his willingness to support Jesus at the moment when another contrast is necessary. As if he could be heard through such bitter jests, he presents Jesus as the King of the Jews to his opponents, because this is what Mark wants at that moment, as he aims to humble the pride of the priests while also demonstrating the Romans’ contempt for all Jewish beliefs.

As for Barabbas, Mark is the only witness who teaches us about that Passover custom, which the people suddenly thought of when things were quite different, but which they had to think of in order to be accepted by Pilate’s suggestion and through the insinuations of the priests it could happen that the lot was drawn over two people who touched each other in a strange way *). The copyist who wrote about Barrabas Matth. 27, 16 first added the addition “Jesus” may have already seen who Barrabas is. Barrabas, i.e. “the son of the father”, is the image of the Messiah created by Mark, namely the lying image of the true Messiah. The Jews demanded the false image and rejected the heavenly archetype. In a rebellion in which he stained himself with blood, Barabbas wanted to fight for the earthly freedom of his people, while Jesus taught freedom and the service of the kingdom of heaven, whose citizenship one only obtains by accepting it as a child. Furthermore, by his name Barabbas is the lying image of him whom his father from heaven called his beloved son. When finally on the Day of Atonement the lot was thrown over two, namely over the two goats, one of which had to fall to the Lord as a bloody sacrifice for the sin of the people, while the other went free, that one had to be chosen in a similar way who was to shed his blood for the sins of the people and the world.

*) As I said, I don’t want to spoil the end of my work by mentioning theological lies and shamefulness here. The theological archeology of the passion story is only a tautology, which merely repeats the information given by the evangelists and has the impertinence of wanting to count as the result of historical research. In another place, however, if one really wants it, although the matter is completely settled with the above criticism, I shall show to what lies theologians have taken refuge in this matter.

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The mocking coronation of Jesus by the Roman soldiers—the mockery of the world power at the promised king of Israel—is intended to bring the mockery to the extreme it could reach before the crucifixion and before the scenes that took place at it.

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