Tag: Resurrection of Jesus

2024-07-06

Dying and Rising Gods? Scholars are Divided

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Religious Cultures, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Some argue….

Some argue that it is misleading to speak of “dying and rising gods.”65 Greece (Eleusis) and the East did know of dying gods; there were always two, usually an older female goddess and a younger male partner who dies. The older female mourns, and death is partially abolished, but Gerd Theissen argues that there is never a real resurrection.66 Osiris is killed violently, struck or drowned by his brother Set, then cut to pieces. The overcoming of death is not resurrection: Osiris rules as king of the underworld. The ritual around the fate of dying deities is lamentation: cult members join the female deity in mourning the loss of the partner deity. Cult members do not experience the death themselves but lament it. Other scholars argue that . . . .

Balch, David L. “The Suffering of Isis/Io and Paul’s Portrait of Christ Crucified (Gal. 3:1): Frescoes in Pompeian and Roman Houses and in the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.” The Journal of Religion 83, no. 1 (2003): 49.

So what do the #65 and #66 cited sources say?

65 Gerd Theissen, The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), pp. 58-59.

It is certainly true that in antiquity we find belief in dying gods. Here there are always two gods: an older female deity and a younger partner deity, usually a male partner. The younger partner deity suffers death. The older one mourns this. In the conflict between life and death, death is partly abolished – but there is never a real resurrection.19

The following survey shows that most of these deities come from the East.20 Only in Eleusis do we find a genuinely Greek cult:

Original area of dissemination Older female deity Younger partner deity
Eleusis Demeter Persephone
Mesopotamia Ishtar Tammuz
Ugarit Anath Baal
Phoenicia Cybele Attis
Phrygia Cybele Attis
Egypt Isis Osiris

In the Greek view the gods are really immortal. They live at a distance from death. But the myth which underlies the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries shows that even the world of the gods is not spared the intervention of death. That is even more true of the Eastern gods. The intervention of death is described in different ways. In the first three cases, with Persephone, Tammuz and Baal, the young partner deity is carried off into the underworld and kept there. In the last three cases the deity is killed violently: Osiris is struck or drowned by his brother Seth and then cut in pieces. Attis castrates himself and dies. Adonis is killed by a wild boar. The overcoming of death is not resurrection. Osiris rules as king of the world of the dead. Persephone has to spend four months of the year in the underworld. The corpse of Attis does not decay. Flowers rise from the blood of Adonis. It is therefore misleading to talk of ‘dying and rising gods’. There are dying gods who wrest some ‘life’ from death by compromises.

Only some of these deities were worshipped in mystery cults, i.e. in cults which were not celebrated in public but into which individuals had to be initiated. Thus there were mysteries of Demeter, Cybele and Isis. At best one could see an analogy to Christian baptism as a dying with Christ in these initiation rites. But that would be to overlook an important difference: the festivals (whether public festivals or ‘private’ mysteries) in which the fate of the dying deities is celebrated are all associated with rites of lamentation; the adherents of the deity join the older female deity in mourning the loss of the partner deity. The adherents thus do not experience the death themselves, but lament it. They identify more with the older, mourning, deity than with the younger, dying, deity, even if there are also the beginnings of the latter identification.

19. For the following remarks cf. above all Dieter Zeller, ‘Die Mysterienkulte und die paulinische Soteriologie (Rom 6, 1-11). Eine Fallstudie zum Synkretismus im Neuen Testament’, in Hermann P. Siler (ed.), Suchhewegungen. Synkretismus kulturelle Identität und kirchliches Bekenntnis, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1991, 42-6.

20. The table of different partner deities reproduced below comes from Dieter Zeller, Christus unter den Göttern. Zum antiken Umfeld des Christusglaubens, Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1993, 42. There is more information about the individual cults in Hans-Josef Klauck, Die religiose Umwelt des Urchristentums I. Stadt- und Hausreligion, Mysterienkulte, Volksglaube, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne: Kohlhammer 1995, 77-128.

(Theissen 58f)

66 Theissen, p. 58, citing Dieter Zeller . . . . See also A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1987); Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 23, 27, 87, 99-101. See Frederick Brenk, review of Ancient Mystery Cults, by Walter Burkert, Gnomon 61 (1989): 289-92.

The question with which we started out, the possibility of influence of the ideas of the mysteries upon Christian ideas about resurrection led us to steer a hazardous course between the Scylla of so tight a definition of ‘resurrection’ that some Christian accounts of the phenomenon of Christ’s resurrection would be excluded, and the Charybdis of overlooking fundamental differences of substance between various myths and the Christian story. . . .

But once a deity is seen as a symbol of, for instance, the natural cycle of vegetation, or perhaps even came into being as a symbol of that cycle, then it would seem appropriate to speak of that deity’s death and resurrection. But is it? A number of scholars have insisted that it is far more appropriate to speak of the deity’s return. That point may be granted; the vegetation deity returns only to die again; it does not effect any final victory over death, at least not qua vegetation deity, although it may as a god of the dead or a solar deity. Nor, in the Graeco-Roman world, did its devotees see their own destinies in terms of resurrection. . . .

It is when Christians came to express in their own terms the beliefs of non-Christians that we find the tendency to describe those beliefs as including the resurrection of the deity or of his devotees. Now it is true that this means that they saw in those beliefs at least a superficial similarity to their own. But that need not mean that the similarity was anything more than superficial. It is quite another thing to suggest that those beliefs somehow generated the Christian ones. Had the dominant Christian claim been, for instance, one to the effect that Jesus had ascended, had been snatched up to heaven, either pagan (or indeed Jewish) beliefs could have been adduced as possibly influential in the formation of the Christian belief, but ‘resurrection’ is another matter and it is this that is the dominant expression of Christian beliefs about Jesus and also of Christians’ beliefs about their own destiny.

(Wedderburn, 208, 209, 210)

Burkert…

. . . . the pagan evidence for resurrection symbolism is uncompelling at best.

To sum up, there is a dynamic paradox of death and life in all the mysteries associated with the opposites of night and day, darkness and light, below and above, but there is nothing as explicit and resounding as the passages in the New Testament, especially in Saint Paul and in the Gospel of John, concerning dying with Christ and spiritual rebirth. There is as yet no philosophical-historical proof that such passages are directly derived from pagan mysteries; nor should they be used as the exclusive key to the procedures and ideology of mysteries.

(Burkert, 23, 101)

Other scholars argue that . . . .

….. Other scholars argue that Osiris is indeed raised from the dead.67

(Balch, 49)

And where does that citation lead us? Continue reading “Dying and Rising Gods? Scholars are Divided”

2023-04-23

§ 95. The report of the fourth

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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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

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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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Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics
by Bruno Bauer

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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

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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).

———————–

2021-04-04

Earliest Resurrection Reports — John’s and Paul’s

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The last two from that dimly remembered period in the last century when I was (a) sorting out my investigations into the biblical accounts of the resurrection with an interest in seeing how matching or contradictory they were; and (b) experimenting with new software I had purchased for my primitive Windows PC.

Why I ended up with two by Paul I can’t recall now. Presumably, new info hit me after I wrote up one of them. I have no idea now which was the final one.

but maybe the one below was first and the realization that Paul could point to eyewitnesses (as above) came later.

I’m reminded of newspapers I used to mock up when I was a little boy. Maybe I should have been a reporter.

The Earliest Resurrection Reports – Matthew’s and Luke’s Reports

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Two more from the last century when I was (a) sorting out my investigations into the biblical accounts of the resurrection with an interest in seeing how matching or contradictory they were; and (b) experimenting with new software I had purchased for my primitive Windows PC. I posted Mark’s report here; two more to follow after this post.

and then, of course, Luke’s

2021-04-03

The Earliest Resurrection Reports – Mark’s Report

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Another discovery of long-forgotten dabblings of mine, again from the 1990s when I was (a) sorting out my investigations into the biblical accounts of the resurrection with an interest in seeing how matching or contradictory they were; and (b) experimenting with new software I had purchased for my primitive Windows PC. They make me cringe now but they’re my history. Here is the first one.

 

 

 

2021-01-16

What Is the Purpose of the Nicodemus Stories in John? (Part 2)

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Before returning to the Johannine stories containing the words and deeds of Nicodemus, I must digress briefly to discuss the issue of dependence. The Gospel of John contains countless mysteries, many of which can keep a scholar busy for a lifetime. Who actually wrote the gospel? What were his sources? Who is the Beloved Disciple? Can we find seams (aporias) that might reveal both sources and later redaction?

These puzzles may entertain the mind, but they can often become dark, twisting, endless rabbit holes. I would offer here a rather imperfect analogy to the so-called hard sciences in which we may not understand certain things (yet), but rather than beat our heads against the wall, we measure what we can and try to derive workable models and submit modest predictions. With that in mind, let’s look at larger patterns — looking less at syntax and semantics and more at pragmatics and narrative frames.

Literary Dependence

Typically, scholars will demonstrate the probability of independent, unique Johannine sources by means of declaration rather than explanation.
The Raising of Lazarus, by Duccio, 1310–11 (Wikipedia)

As you probably know from my previous posts on Vridar, I believe that the author of John knew the Synoptics — especially Mark — and used them as source material. Anyone who argues for absolute independence must either ignore or explain the astonishing fact that John re-invented the gospel genre. We have discussed in earlier posts the ways in which John follows narrative boundaries already laid out in Mark.

The author of the Fourth Gospel has built his own road, but he was clearly following already established paths. As an example, we have the narrative “Dead Zone” between Jesus’ burial and the discovery of the empty tomb. The curtain closes as the tomb is sealed. Nothing happens in the story for about 36 hours. The curtain lifts, the sun rises, and the truth is revealed.

Many scholars posit the existence of “traditional material” that lies behind the Fourth Gospel. They insist that John’s usage of such unknown, unseen, never-referred-to sources is more likely than John’s appropriation of and embellishment upon existing Markan frames. Typically, scholars will demonstrate the probability of independent, unique Johannine sources by means of declaration rather than explanation.

However, I would argue that the silence in the Dead Zone represents a Markan frame adhered to by John. We can more simply explain it as an artifact of literary dependence than as a coincidence among pre-existing (yet somehow always magically independent) sources. The silence signals dependence. Yet despite this shared silence, we can find clues that John ached to say more.

The Raising of Lazarus and the Dead Zone

In fact, we can find the missing action between the burial and Sunday sunrise somewhere else. What are we missing from Jesus’ resurrection stories in Mark and John? Continue reading “What Is the Purpose of the Nicodemus Stories in John? (Part 2)”

2020-02-03

Review, parts 13, 14. More on Ancient “Resurrection” Stories (Litwa: How the Gospels Became History)

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by Neil Godfrey

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Chapter Thirteen, “Disappearance and Recognition”, continues with an exploration of the little devices used by the author of the Gospel of Luke to build a sense of realism (or “historicity”) into the narrative of the two travellers on the Emmaus Road after the death of Jesus. These literary devices make the account seem very natural, acceptable as “reportage” of “what happened”. But then we come to the strange failure to recognize Jesus when he walks and talks alongside them and even after entering their home — until he breaks bread when he simply vanishes into thin air. Soon afterwards Jesus appears to his disciples by passing through a solid wall, after which he attempts to prove he is not a ghost but flesh just like them. M. David Litwa shows how such strange happenings were known and believed to have happened to Greek mythical characters. The point is that just as Greek myths could be told in a manner that lent them verisimilitude, placing the supernatural within a narrative of natural psychological reactions and settings, so the gospels do the same with the resurrection accounts of Jesus. One of the myths Litwa uses for comparison have also been discussed on Vridar, though not always in relation to the gospel: Baucis and Philemon. Another, one about hospitality given to an unrecognized Dionysus, you can read on archive.org’s poem by Silius Italicus. The motif of the gods preventing some people from seeing or recognizing them while allowing others to do so at certain times goes back to Homer. Walls did not prevent gods like Dionysus or Hermes from entering rooms, either.

Litwa covers other instances of humans dying only to have their bodies disappear and then reappear alive at some other time and place, as found in histories and biographies by Herodotus, Iamblichus and Philostratus. Sometimes the reappearing person even commands incredulous witnesses to touch him to see that he is real. Playwrights portrayed those returned from the dead as ghosts continued to bear the physical wounds they had suffered in the flesh so that they could be recognized by former acquaintances.

It would be a mistake to think that early Christians could see no comparison between their stories of Jesus and Greek myths. Justin Martyr, a mid-second century “Church Father”, addressed non-Christians thus:

The early Christian Justin Martyr even used these myihoi as a measuring rod of historical plausibility: “When we [Christians] say also that the Logos [i.e., Christ] … was crucified and died and rose again and ascended into heaven [aneleluthenai eis ton ouranon\, we propound nothing new [ou . . . kainon ti] beyond [what you believe] concerning those whom you call sons of Zeus.” Justin’s argument only works if the Greeks and Romans understood their ascent mythoi as records of real events.

(Litwa, 187 – Chapter 14)

In chapter fourteen (Ascent) Litwa addresses in detail the ancient belief in ascent to heaven in a cloud by one who at death is deified. Both the historian Livy and the biographer Plutarch write of what was believed to have been Romulus’s ascent and subsequent appearance on earth to a reputable eyewitness. The authors themselves may have been sceptical, as Litwa points out the Jewish philosopher was sceptical of Moses’ bodily ascent to heaven, but belief in the bodily ascent did persist among many.

And so forth. The gospel stories would not have been believed literally by sophisticated authors such as Cicero and Plutarch but it is evident that comparable stories, told with similar “naturalizing” techniques and contexts, were believed by others. The same techniques to create plausibility (see two earlier posts for the details) have led to millions ever since believing in the historicity of the gospel narratives. Litwa would be appalled, though, to take this point any further. His point is that the events in Jesus’ life were “remembered” through a cultural context that allowed the imagination to shape them in the direction of Greek myths.

Litwa, M. David. 2019. How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

To order a copy of How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths at the Footprint Books Website with a 15% discount click here or visit www.footprint.com.au

Please use discount voucher code BCLUB19 at the checkout to apply the discount.

 

2020-02-02

Review, part 12. Ancient “Resurrection” Stories (Litwa: How the Gospels Became History)

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Though I have used the term resurrection stories M. David Litwa uses the more accurate heading “Empty Tombs and Translation” for chapter 12 of How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths.

This chapter and the next three (“Disappearance and Recognition”, “Ascent” and “Eyewitnesses”) are thoroughly interesting and informative. I know my discussions of the earlier chapters of Litwa’s book found points to criticize but here, by contrast, I have found little to fault and much that contributes to a reader’s understanding of the literary contexts of the New Testament gospel accounts of the burial and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps by now I have reconciled myself with the problem that Greco-Roman historians, unlike the evangelists, more often than not expressed some distance from the miraculous events they narrated, and have come to focus on the content of the events themselves. If so, I have had one of Litwa’s cited authors to thank, Sarah Iles Johnson, who showed how the Greek myths were generally told with techniques very similar to those used in our gospels.

Litwa begins with the “minimalist” burial and resurrection story of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark and finds overlaps with several Greek myths. In this earliest of our canonical gospels Jesus simply disappears at the end. (The original ending was at 16:8.) There is no resurrection appearance narrated though one was promised at a future time in Galilee. Similar “translations” of bodies to live elsewhere away from the human world are found in Homer’s Odyssey (Menelaus taken to the Elysian Fields) and in the biography of Apollonius of Tyana (see 8.30.3), though both of those heroes appear to have been snatched to immortality before physically dying. Not so Achilles. Achilles body on the pyre was attended and mourned by his mother who was promised by a divinity, at that tearful moment, that her son would be taken and restored alive and immortal in a far off island in the Black Sea (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy, Book 3, lines 770-780). Better than the story of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, we have accounts of eyewitnesses of the immortal and divine Achilles appearing “in the flesh” on that island:

Achilles himself is said to have appeared to a merchant who once visited the island often, related what took place in Troy, entertained him with drink as well, and ordered him after sailing to Ilion to bring him a Trojan maiden, saying that this particular woman was a slave to a certain man in Ilion. When the guest was astonished at the command and because of his new-found boldness asked Achilles why he needed a Trojan slave, Achilles said, “Because, my guest, she was born of the lineage from which Hektor and those living before him came and is what remains of the blood of the descendants of Priam and Dardanos.” Of course, the merchant thought that Achilles was in love, and after he bought the maiden, he sailed back to the island. When he came, Achilles praised the merchant and ordered him to guard the maiden for him on the ship, because, I suppose, the island was inaccessible for women. He ordered the merchant to come to the sanctuary at evening and to be entertained sumptuously with him and Helen. When he arrived Achilles gave him many things that merchants are unable to resist; he said that he considered him a guest-friend and granted him lucrative trade and safe passage for his ship. When day came, he said, “Sail away with these things, but leave the girl on the shore for me.” They had not yet gone a stade away from the land when the girl’s wailing struck them, because Achilles was pulling her apart and tearing her limb from limb.

MacLean, Jennifer K. Berenson, and Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, trans. 2002. Flavius Philostratus: On Heroes. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. (p. 85, [section 56])

See earlier posts with more examples:

“Oral traditions” and personal accounts confirmed the “truth” about Achilles post-mortem existence:

“[3.19.11] A story too I will tell which I know the people of Crotona tell about Helen. The people of Himera too agree with this account. In the Euxine at the mouths of the Ister is an island sacred to Achilles. It is called White Island, and its circumference is twenty stades. It is wooded throughout and abounds in animals, wild and tame, while on it is a temple of Achilles with an image of him.

[3.19.12] The first to sail thither legend says was Leonymus of Crotona. For when war had arisen between the people of Crotona and the Locri in Italy, the Locri, in virtue of the relationship between them and the Opuntians, called upon Ajax son of Oileus to help them in battle. So Leonymus the general of the people of Crotona attacked his enemy at that point where he heard that Ajax was posted in the front line. Now he was wounded in the breast, and weak with his hurt came to Delphi. When he arrived the Pythian priestess sent Leonynius to White Island, telling him that there Ajax would appear to him and cure his wound.

[3.19.13] In time he was healed and returned from White Island, where, he used to declare, he saw Achilles, as well as Ajax the son of Oileus and Ajax the son of Telamon. With them, he said, were Patroclus and Antilochus; Helen was wedded to Achilles, and had bidden him sail to Stesichorus at Himera, and announce that the loss of his sight was caused by her wrath.”

Excerpt From: Pausanias. “Complete Works of Pausanias.” Apple Books.

Achilles was worshipped as a god into the fourth century CE. Poets and even ancient biographers or historians wrote of “eyewitness testimony” to the reality of his immortal existence.

Such stories were narrated as “historical” or at least as believed by many people. Litwa’s comment is apt:

If in a general way the gospel writers were influenced by Greek mythography, then they were specifically imitating those who put it into historical form.

(173)

Empty Tomb

Continue reading “Review, part 12. Ancient “Resurrection” Stories (Litwa: How the Gospels Became History)”

2019-01-05

Further on Origins of Belief in a Dying and Resurrected Messiah

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by Neil Godfrey

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Matthew Ferguson once again has an interesting post that serves as an apt sequel to my previous post on the meaning of martyrdom among pre-Christian era Judaeans: The Rationalization Hypothesis: Is a Vision of Jesus Necessary for the Rise of the Resurrection Belief?. It is a guest post written by Kris Komarnitsky, author of Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection.

Komarnitsky writes from the position of acceptance of the historicity of some form of belief in Jesus’ resurrection arising among his disciples (as distinct from my own view that there is no methodological justification for assuming a “historical core” behind our gospel narratives or a gospel narrative behind 1 Corinthians 15) when he introduces the question:

The origin of the resurrection belief is a captivating historical puzzle and the lack of a satisfying answer motivated my inquiry into this topic. Ironically, the lack of a satisfying answer for the rise of the resurrection belief subjected me to the same basic cognitive process that I will suggest led to the resurrection belief. . . . 

The conviction that Jesus was raised from the dead is found in the earliest evidence of Christian origins and appears to have come about almost immediately after Jesus’ death. How does one account for the rise of this extraordinary belief if the later Gospel accounts of a discovered empty tomb and corporeal post-mortem appearances of Jesus are legends, as many scholars believe is the case?

Subheadings give an idea of what to expect (I have not yet had an opportunity to more than quickly skim the article):

  • Introduction
  • What is Cognitive-Dissonance-Induced Rationalization?
  • Model #1: Leon Festinger’s Cult Group Study
  • Model #2: The Millerites
  • Model #3: Sabbatai Sevi
  • Model #4: The Lubavitchers
  • Conclusion from Models
  • Preconditions to a Rationalization of Jesus’ Death
  • Jesus Died for Our Sins and Will Return Soon
  • The Resurrection Belief
  • From the Resurrection Belief to Visions of Jesus to the Early Creed
  • Summary of the Rationalization Hypothesis
  • A Critique of the Bereavement Vision Hypothesis
  • Conclusion

It looks like a significant contribution to further testing of various hypotheses accounting for Christian origins.

I have been critical of the cognitive dissonance theory to explain a historical turning point leading to Christianity but Komarnitsky obviously explores this psychological explanation in a depth that I have not considered before. Some of his points coincide with the reasons I have dismissed the validity of the theory, but he adds so much more that I have yet to read more carefully and consider. From what I have noticed at this point, some of the data and proposals of Komarnitsky may well have a relevance to alternative modes of Christian origins, that is, even apart from a historical background to the gospel resurrection narratives.

Almost at random, some interesting passages that I have noticed by chance:

The answer to the second question – why did the Messiah have to die – could have been formed from Jewish beliefs about measure-for-measure recompense and vicarious sacrifice when dealing with God. An example of such beliefs can be found in the aqedah story, Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac in return for God’s blessing and favor (Gen. 22.1-19). By the first century, this story had become embellished to emphasize that Isaac was a willing sacrifice: “[Isaac] was pleased with this discourse.…So he went immediately to the altar to be sacrificed” (Ant. 1.13.4).

. . . .

These new beliefs were a creative interpretation and reconfiguration of Jewish beliefs about measure-for-measure recompense and vicarious sacrifice when dealing with God, great prophets ascending to heaven, the final immortal body, the state of existence of souls in heaven, and possibly Jesus’ apocalyptic teachings and some minor Hellenistic influences. 

. . . .

However, once one integrates cognitive-dissonance-induced rationalization into the bereavement vision hypothesis, the question posed by this article logically follows: Is a vision of Jesus even necessary for the rise of the resurrection belief? 

I look forward to engaging with the post as soon as opportunity permits.

 

2018-04-01

Why Does the Resurrection Happen Off-Stage in the Gospels?

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by Tim Widowfield

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Oedipus Rex

In one of the more memorable scenes in Greek drama, Oedipus reacts to the sudden revelation of his actions by moving off-stage and blinding himself. Critics over the centuries have pointed out the tragic meaning of his inner blindness before, contrasted with his outer blindness afterward. But while Oedipus’s blinding occurs out of sight, a messenger describes the gruesome details.

Jocasta has committed suicide. Oedipus has at long last fully understood the awful truth:

Bellowing terribly and led by some
invisible guide he rushed on the two doors, —
wrenching the hollow bolts out of their sockets,
he charged inside. There, there, we saw his wife
hanging, the twisted rope around her neck.
When he saw her, he cried out fearfully
and cut the dangling noose. Then as she lay,
poor woman, on the ground, what happened after.
was terrible to see. He tore the brooches—
the gold chased brooches fastening her robe—
away from her and lifting them up high
dashed them on his own eyeballs, shrieking out
such things as: they will never see the crime
I have committed or had done upon me!
Dark eyes, now in the days to come look on
forbidden faces, do not recognize those
whom you long for—with such imprecations
he struck his eyes again and yet again
with the brooches. And the bleeding eyeballs gushed
and stained his beard—no sluggish oozing drops
but a black rain and bloody hail poured down.
So it has broken—and not on one head
but troubles mixed for husband and for wife.

(Oedipus the King, Sophocles Translated by David Grene)

Some dispute surrounds the etymology of the word “obscene,” although many insist that it comes from the Greek ob-skene — referring to actions such as explicit sex and violence that must occur off-stage. But while the death of Jocasta and the blinding of her son-husband may be obscene to look at, the Greeks apparently did not find them too obscene to describe.

Oddly, however, the death of Jesus in the canonical gospels occurs “on-stage” and “on-camera,” while his resurrection does not occur within the narrative, nor is it described in a flashback. In Mark, generally believed to be the first narrative gospel, Jesus is crucified, and the people pass by, mocking and deriding him. And when he dies, it happens in full view of Jewish and Gentile witnesses. Continue reading “Why Does the Resurrection Happen Off-Stage in the Gospels?”

2017-07-06

How to Improve Bart Ehrman’s Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus

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by Neil Godfrey

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Matthew Ferguson has posted a very thorough article clearly setting out a weakness in Bart Ehrman’s argument with William Lane Craig over the probability of the resurrection of Jesus.

Simply to say, as Ehrman does, that the resurrection is the “least probable” explanation and therefore it can never qualify as a historical explanation really begs the question. Craig grants that it is indeed the least probable explanation a priori but that the evidence is strong enough to lead the disinterested mind to conclude that it does turn out to be the best explanation for the evidence available. As Ferguson points out:

I don’t think that Ehrman presents the strongest case against miracles (including the resurrection) when he defines them, from the get go, as “the most improbable event.” This kind of definition is too question-begging and it opens the door to the stock “naturalist presupposition” apologetic slogan. The reason we are looking at stuff like the texts that discuss Jesus’ resurrection is precisely to see whether such a miracle could ever be probable.

Ferguson’s article clearly demonstrates the application of Bayes’ theorem in assessing historical evidence for certain propositions and he links to another article discussion the way probability reasoning works in historical studies. (I especially like his opening point in that article pointing out that history is not something that “is there” like some natural phenomenon waiting to be discovered but is a way of investigating the past.) The article also links to another relevant discussion addressing apologist arguments against the likelihood that the disciples hallucinated the resurrected Jesus.

The article is Understanding the Spirit vs. the Letter of Probability.

I won’t steal Matthew’s thunder by singling out here where he believes the emphasis belongs in discussions about the evidence for the resurrection. Suffice to say that I agree with his conclusions entirely.