Tag Archives: Pilate

Later ‘evidence’

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The Didache is an early Christian manual discussing ethical behaviour and outlining liturgical practice. Scholars disagree about when it was created, most opting for a date around 100CE. Despite referring to itself as ‘The Teaching of the Lord Through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles’ in the only extant complete copy, the Didache doesn’t mention Jesus by name nor refer to any of the historical details of the kind provided in the gospels. Instead, it refers to ‘the Lord’ or ‘the Messiah’, the same terms Paul uses for his angelic Christ, and makes use of ‘teaching’ similar to that in the (invented) gospels, from which it almost certainly draws.

We’re now heading into a period when the gospels were in wider circulation and any reference to Jesus cannot be regarded as independent from them. We need, consequently, to be suspicious of any ‘evidence’ that appears to affirm his historical existence. Documents that appear after the gospels is unlikely to be from independent sources (not that they always reference their sources) but are merely relying on gospel data as filtered through contemporary Christian believers. Hence the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote in his Annals circa 115CE:

Nero fastened the guilt (for the fire in Rome in 64CE) and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Chrestians by the populace. Chrestus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

Chrestians? Chrestus?

Pilate as procurator instead of prefect? Christianity as a ‘mischievous superstition’?

Actually, this last I can see. The other peculiarities are a problem for those who claim this is evidence for an historical Jesus. Written some 85 years after Jesus was supposedly active, this first extra-biblical reference to something approaching an historical figure is simply too late. Likewise everything after it.

We’ve exhausted the paltry references to ‘the Christ’ or ‘the Lord’ that exist prior to and just after the gospels. An historical Jesus there is not, in any of them. What does this all mean? 

Whatever Happened to Mary Magdalene?

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(The risen Jesus) appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve (1 Corinthians 15:12)

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. (Mark 16:9)

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb… Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. (Matthew 28: 1 & 9)

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance… she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. (John 20: 1 & 14)

Whatever happened to Mary Magdalene? I mean, where did she go? She’s everywhere in the gospels: following Jesus and his entourage around the place, funding his layabout lifestyle (Luke 8:1-3) and being first to see him after he returned from the dead. After that, nothing. Luke doesn’t even bring her back for his sequel and no one else in the New Testament so much as mentions her. When, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul lists those who, like him, have had a vision of the risen Christ, she’s conspicuously absent. Mary is the first person to see Jesus resurrected according to three of the four gospels, yet in the far earlier tradition mentioned by Paul, she doesn’t get a look in. Her place is taken by Cephas.

The neglect of Mary Magdalene in early tradition could of course be because she was a woman, and a woman’s testimony, back in those less than enlightened times, was worth far less than a man’s. However, it’s far more likely that whoever created the creed had never heard of her. Why not? Because the gospels didn’t exist when they came up with it. They had no idea that a woman was supposedly the first to see Jesus alive again. As far as they were aware, it was ‘Cephas’ who’d had the first vision of the risen Lord. Yet Peter – assuming he and Cephas are the same person – isn’t the first to see the risen Jesus in any of the gospels.

Mary Magdalene is side-lined like this because when the creed was created, and later still when Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 15, the stories about her hadn’t yet been invented. It’s safe to say, she hadn’t been invented.

In fact, Mary Magdalene and most of the rest of the support cast from the (future) gospels aren’t referred to anywhere else in the New Testament. This includes at least eight of the disciples from the slightly differing lists in the gospels, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the angel Gabriel, the Magi, Nicodemus, Lazarus, Martha & Mary, Judas (apart from Luke’s side-splitting story about him in Acts), Barabbas, Joseph of Arimathea and Doubting Thomas. Likewise, fictionalised versions of historical figures with key roles in the gospel stories aren’t referred to either: Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas and John the Baptist(?) are all absent, even from epistles written and forged after the appearance of the gospels’ ‘cunningly devised fables’ (2 Peter 1:16).

Decades after the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul’s letters, Mark invented Mary Magdalene, as well as many other characters who appear in his gospel. His allegory then became the basis for the other three canonical gospels, whose authors added their own imaginary characters.

And just as they invented the earthly Jesus’ companions and adversaries, they created too his miracles, teaching, cryptic parables, bodily resurrection and ascension. Mary Magdalene was but one small aspect of their ingenuity.

 

Announcement

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The story so far…

While he used to argue vociferously that the gospels are history – remember they must be history because Pilate and Herod are in them? – our resident apologist has backed away from this position. He says now they’re not history as such but are only ‘like’ history, which means they’re ‘historical but not written as histories’, whatever this means. He derides the likes of Ehrman and Tabor for their inability to recognise this (newly invented) fact. These no-nothings make a category error when they confuse the gospels with history.

I suspect Don wants to reclassify the gospels because he recognises they make rather poor history. It’s safer to pretend they’re designed to be something else, something that doesn’t require external evidence to verify it: ‘announcement’, for example.

This, however, merely sidesteps the question of where the gospel writers got their information from. Don has previously argued that the gospels are based on eye-witness reports, Peter’s dictation to Mark and a reliable oral tradition. But conjecture like this is only necessary if the gospels are history. If they’re not, but are ‘announcement’ instead, then their sources need  be neither historically reliable nor demonstrable.

If the accounts are ‘announcement’ rather than history then where does their ahistorical, announced information come from? Fortunately, Mark gives us a clue:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12, referencing and misquoting Isaiah 6:9)

In fact, the gospels’ ‘announcement’ is conveyed by a story constructed from supposed prophecies from Jewish scripture and the immediate concerns of the early cult communities, expressed in metaphors of the gospel writers’ making. All of the internal evidence supports this conclusion. In fact, the source of the gospels’ material is the same as Paul’s and that of other writers in the New Testament. Here’s how the great, self-appointed apostle puts it: 

My gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ [is] according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but now is made visible through the prophetic scriptures and is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, for the obedience of faith. (Romans 16:25-26)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor 15:3-8)

Compare this with:

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 14:21)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24:25-27)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24: 25-27)

(Paul) reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. (Fictional Paul in Acts 17:2-3)

The revelation of the Messiah and the secrets and mysteries revealed to Paul and the other apostles are ‘explained and proved’ in their entirety by ancient scripture. But, these scriptures in and of themselves do not prophesy the kind of Messiah the early apostles envisaged. Rather, the scriptures are retrospectively pressed into service to match the revelations of the Messiah that Paul and the others experienced.

This is Don’s ‘announcement’: secrets and mysteries founded not on history but on revelation expressed through metaphor and the misapplication of scripture.

How The Trick Was Done

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Mark 15 tells the story of the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Here’s how it was constructed from parts of the Old Testament:

Isaiah 53:7 is rewritten in Mark 15: 60-62 as the trial before Pilate

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

So Pilate questioned him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. And the chief priests began to accuse him of many things. Then Pilate questioned him again, “Have you no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against you!” But to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply.

(Oops! Looks like we are expected to overlook the fact that Jesus does speak! Mark obviously had trouble shoe-horning this one in!)

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Isaiah 53.5 becomes Mark 15:15:

He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

Pilate had Jesus flogged and handed him over to be crucified.

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Isaiah 50:6 and 53:16-20 are rewritten as Mark 15:16-20:

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Then the soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called the whole company together. They dressed him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and set it on his head. And they began to salute Him: “Hail, King of the Jews!” They kept striking his head with a staff and spitting on him. And they knelt down and bowed before him. After they had mocked him, they removed the purple robe and put his own clothes back on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him.

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Psalm 22:18 becomes Mark 15:24

They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

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Isaiah 53:12 is used for Mark 15:27:

He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.

Along with Jesus, they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left.

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Psalm 22:7-8 becomes, verbatim in places, Mark 15:29:

All who see me mock me; they hurl insults shaking their heads: He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!”

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Psalm 22:1 ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ is lifted straight into Mark 15:34.

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Isaiah 53:5 becomes the underpinning of the whole of this chapter and Mark 15:6-15 in particular: the story of Barabbas.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him  punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his stripes/wounds we are healed.

The verses are not alluded to directly, but Jesus is made to stand in for Barabbas (literally, ‘son of the father’) who has deservedly been sentenced to death, or so Mark would have us believe. The story is patently invented to make this point. No such tradition existed and Pilate would never have been so placatory. The other made up story in Mark 15, the tearing of the temple veil, symbolises that the old way of accessing God, though the temple system, had now been superseded by… who else? Jesus. Ironic really when Mark plunders that old system’s scriptures for his purposes.

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Isaiah 53:9 is written up as Mark 15.43-46

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body... Pilate gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock.

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Mark 15: all of it constructed from the OT or just plain made up. You could, like gullible Christians, insist that Mark didn’t invent his story using fragments of scripture. You could say instead that these fragments were really prophecies of incidents that were to happen in the life of an itinerant preacher many years in the future. You could argue that the probably non-existent creator of the universe was all the time controlling events, dropping into ancient scriptures veiled references to tenuously connected incidents centuries later. But then you’d have to concede that not one of them is precise enough to name Jesus or indicate he’d die by crucifixion or would return from the dead after a day and a half.

Which seems to you more likely? That imprecise ‘prophecies’, which really weren’t prophecies in the first place, came true in Jesus’ life; or that Mark lifted scriptures which suited his purpose and crafted his Jesus story around them?

For me, it’s always a case of ‘seek ye first the human contrivance’, by far the most plausible and persuasive explanation of scenarios such as this.



 

On what day did Jesus die?

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Blog338Passover

I’ve been ‘discussing’ with a commenter on Gary Matson’s Escaping Christian Fundamentalism blog the incongruities between the synoptic gospels and John’s gospel in their accounts of the crucifixion. Specifically, the day on which it took place. While tradition has it on a Friday, it has long been debated whether this is the case; see Michael J. Alter’s The Resurrection: A Critical Enquiry for an excellent overview.

Scholarly consensus is, it has to be said, that Jesus did indeed die on a Friday. However, as discussed last time, one of the many problems surrounding the date of the crucifixion is that we don’t know the year in which it happened. We don’t therefore know the precise time of the Passover that the gospels say occurred around the time of the crucifixion. If we presume that it was during the month of Nisan in AD 33 (again, refer to Alter), then the monthly Passover was on the Thursday. The problem is, we do not know if Jesus died in AD33, or even in the month of Nisan. If the end of his life was in some other year or month (and there are good reasons for thinking it may have been), then the Passover would, in all probability, have fallen on a different day.

A Friday crucifixion creates significant problems. The first is that the synoptic gospels tell us that Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb ‘in the evening’. The evening of Friday (our time) is, and was, the start of the Sabbath, which would have prohibited any activity, including those the synoptic gospels tell us took place during the evening that followed Jesus’ death. These include Mary Magdalene, who apparently could find a shop open on the Sabbath, buying and preparing spices to anoint Jesus’ corpse and Joseph of Arimathea purchasing linen in which to wrap it. It also involves Joseph visiting Pilate to persuade him to release the body and then taking it down from the cross himself. All of these activities qualified as work and were strictly forbidden.

How to get round the problem? The apologist on Escaping Chrsitian Fundamentalism  has been making the case that ‘evening’ in first century Palestine was between 3pm, when Jesus died, and 6pm or thereabouts, when the sun set and the Sabbath began. There is some evidence this period was indeed known as ‘early’ evening. However, the word used for ‘evening’ in the gospels – ὀψίας – always signifies ‘late’ evening (Alter, p98). My apologist, however, argues that people in first century Palestine went to bed early, once the light began to fade (even though the gospels themselves suggest otherwise), so when the gospel writers refer to ‘the evening’ they must actually be referring to ‘late afternoon’.

The second, and to my mind more significant, problem is that a Friday burial, even if before the Sabbath began, means that Jesus was in the tomb for, at most, thirty-six hours; Friday evening to (before) dawn on Sunday when Mary Magdalene and the other women visited the tomb and decided he had risen. Thirty-six hours is only half of the ‘three days and three nights’ Jesus is made to predict he would be buried (Matthew 12.40). The writers of the gospels must surely have known this, and yet they all choose to maintain Jesus’ prediction in one form or another. Perhaps it was too well known to exclude. Or perhaps Jesus wasn’t executed and buried on a Friday.

I have been arguing with my apologist that John’s gospel addresses these two problems by locating the crucifixion a day earlier, on the Thursday, and also by having Jesus die long before 3pm. While the synoptics all say (copying from Mark) that he was put on the cross at 9am and died six hours later, John suggests that the crucifixion took place at around noon and that Jesus died quickly. John’s alternative scenario gives those involved in the burial time to prepare for it (a problem in the synotics) and allows the interment to take place in the evening proper, late Thursday evening not being part of the Sabbath. It also grants a period much closer to the prophesied three days and nights for Jesus to remain in the tomb.

Most scholars, however, agree that all four gospels record the crucifixion as taking place on a Friday. So what is my evidence that John’s gospel suggests otherwise? I’m glad you asked…