Category: Bible History

No Doubt About It: Jesus Was a Miracle Worker, and Everyone Knew It

Akin-EHRMAN1Despite their disagreements, both believing and skeptical Bible scholars can agree on certain things about the life of Jesus.

One of these is that, during his day, Jesus had a reputation as a miracle-worker. Accounts of his healings, exorcisms, and other miracles are found throughout the Gospels.

While skeptical scholars may dismiss miracles like the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Walking on Water, and the Resurrection, even they admit that the evidence we have points to Jesus performing healings and exorcisms.

Not that they believe these were genuinely supernatural, but they’re prepared to concede that Jesus engaged in activities similar to those of modern faith-healers and exorcists, that some of the people he ministered to reported a relief of their symptoms, and that he thus gained a reputation as a wonder-worker.

However, Bart Ehrman—ever a contrarian—begs to differ.

 

Ehrman’s View

In his book, Jesus Before the Gospels, Ehrman writes:

I want to consider whether it is absolutely certain that Jesus was already understood to be a miracle worker even in his own day, prior to his death.

My view of that question is a minority position, but one that I want to explain.

I think the answer is no.

I am not saying that I know for certain that Jesus was not considered a miracle worker during his life. But I do think there are grounds for doubt (p. 221).

To say that his position is a minority one is an understatement. I can’t think of anyone—outside the realm of mythicists who don’t think Jesus even existed—who doesn’t hold that Jesus had a reputation as a miracle worker.

So how does Ehrman argue his case? He says:

Let me begin by making two points that I think everyone can agree on: (a) With the passing of time, Jesus’s miracle-working abilities became increasingly pronounced in the tradition, to an exorbitant extent; and (b) the stories of his miracles were always told in [sic] to make a theological point (or more than one point) about him (ibid.).

Based on these two points, Ehrman makes two general arguments.

 

Ehrman’s First Argument

In essence, the first argument is that—after Jesus’ death—stories about his miracles grew over time, both in terms of the sheer number of them and in how impressive the reported miracles were.

From that, one could infer that, the earlier you go, the fewer and the less impressive the miracle stories would be. And, Ehrman would suggest, perhaps there were none at all in Jesus’ lifetime.

To back up the initial premise of this argument, he writes:

That Jesus’s miracle-working abilities increased the more Christians told stories about him should be pretty obvious to anyone familiar with the noncanonical Gospels.

In chapter 1 I referred to some of the striking accounts: as a newborn Jesus was a walking, healing Son of God; as an infant he ordered palm trees to bend down to provide his mother with some fruit; as a five-year-old he could make mud sparrows come to life, wither playmates who got on his nerves, and kill with a word teachers he found irritating; after his miraculous life, at his resurrection he emerged from the tomb as tall as a mountain; and on and on.

These, of course, are simply the narratives I’ve already mentioned—not the sum total of what one can find in the accounts (ibid.).

Here Ehrman refers to things reported in several noncanonical gospels. The childhood-related stories come from the Infancy Gospel of Matthew (aka Pseudo-Matthew) and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

The reference to his being as tall as a mountain when he came out of the tomb comes from the Gospel of Peter.

What can we say about these?

 

More Time = More Stories

It’s certainly true that there are more stories about Jesus performing miracles in print today than there are in the surviving literature of the first and second centuries.

This is a function of the fact that people have had an additional eighteen centuries to write books about Jesus.

Some of these are novels—like Ben-Hur or The Robe—and the authors of historical fiction regularly produce new accounts of miracles in their works, even though they expect their audience to recognize the fictional nature of the accounts and don’t expect them to believe these miracles actually took place.

Also, there have been people like Joseph Smith who wrote books that are ostensibly non-fiction, such as the Book of Mormon, which also contain new stories of Jesus performing miracles. In these cases, the authors do expect the reader to believe that the stories actually took place.

There are thus more stories about Jesus’ miracles today just because people have had more time to write them.

Some of these stories are no doubt more dramatic for the same reason: The more time you have to think things up, the more time you have to think up really dramatic things.

But this doesn’t give us a good reason to suppose that there were no stories about Jesus’ miracles in his own day.

 

What You’d Need to Show

If you want to show that the number of stories circulating about Jesus’ miracles in his own day may have been zero then you need to show something much more specific than just a general trend toward more stories over time.

You’d need to show an early and steep trend. You’d need to show that there was a trend to a dramatic rise in the number of miracle stories in the first and second century.

You’d also need to show that these stories were not understood as fictions (like the miracles in modern novels) or as symbols but as things that people were expected to take as the literal truth.

Only on the basis of such a trend could one propose that the number of miracle stories in circulation went from zero in Jesus’ day to the large number reported in the canonical Gospels.

This is something Ehrman fails to do.

 

Ehrman’s Noncanonical Examples

There are problems with each of the three noncanonical gospels Ehrman cites.

To begin with, the Infancy Gospel of Matthew was not written until the seventh century, which is way too late to show any kind of trend existing in the first century, when the canonical Gospels were written.

By contrast, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter were probably written in the second century, making them potentially relevant. However, there are problems here also.

It is not clear that the authors of the Infancy Gospels (pseudo-Matthew and pseudo-Thomas) expected people to take their stories as real history.

Early Christians liked fiction just as much as we do, and there are works of early Christian fiction.

Furthermore, the authors of Christian fiction often did not explicitly label their works as fiction, just as modern author’s don’t. If you look at the beginning of Ben-Hur, you won’t find any warning saying, “This is just a novel. Don’t take it as real history.”

Modern authors expect their readers to tell the difference between history and fiction, and ancient authors could expect the same thing—particularly when their audience is reading about things not found in the Gospels being read in church.

When you go through the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the quaint stories it contains about Jesus’ childhood (making sparrows out of mud and bringing them to life, striking people dead, etc.), it’s easy to imagine the author simply making up these stories as part of an exercise in historical fiction—something he never meant people to take as real history.

Just like Anne Rice never meant people to take seriously the things she made up in her book about Jesus’ childhood (which, incidentally, includes material from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas).

We thus have a real question about whether the stories of this work were ever intended to be taken as literal history.

The same is true about the Gospel of Peter.

 

Jesus’ Head Above the Skies?

Here’s Ehrman’s own translation of the relevant passage:

39 [T]hey saw three men emerge from the tomb, two of them supporting the other [i.e., Jesus], with a cross following behind them.

40 The heads of the two reached up to the sky, but the head of the one they were leading went up above the skies.

41 And they heard a voice from the skies, “Have you preached to those who are asleep?”

42 And a reply came from the cross, “Yes” (Lost Scriptures, 33).

So Jesus is being supported by two men whose heads read up to the sky and Jesus’ head reaches above the sky. They are followed by a floating cross, and when God speaks, the cross speaks a reply.

Did the author mean for all this to be taken literally?

The ancients were not stupid. They trafficked in symbols, and it’s easy to think the author (pseudo-Peter) expected the author to recognize the non-literal nature of the account.

In particular, incredible heights read like deliberate hyperbole to make theological points: the two figures accompanying Jesus are heavenly in nature (their heads reach to heaven), and Jesus himself is superior even to them (his head reaching above the heavens).

There are thus real reasons to doubt that any of the examples Ehrman cites are relevant to showing the existence of an early and steep trend of Christians inventing miracle stories that were meant to be taken as real history.

But let’s suppose I’m wrong. Suppose that both the authors of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter did mean for people to take these stories literally.

What then?

 

Looking at Other Non-Canonical Gospels

If there was the kind of early, steep trend that we need, we would expect to see it in other early noncanonical gospels.

Do we?

One of the best-known second century gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, which is a collection of sayings. According to Ehrman himself:

The book records 114 “secret teachings” of Jesus. It includes no other material: no miracles, no passion narrative, no stories of any kind (Lost Scriptures, 19).

Huh. So no miracles in Thomas. Doesn’t really fit the pattern that Ehrman is proposing.

I haven’t done a careful study of the other second/third century gospels and done a count of the miracle stories they contain (many are too fragmentary for that), but my impression is that they don’t support the trend, either.

In fact, many of them are principally dialogues where Jesus talks to people to communicate (Gnostic) teachings—not works filled with miracle narratives.

 

Looking at Early Non-Gospels

A related problem is that, if early Christians were rapidly inventing new stories about Jesus’ miracles, this trend ought to show up in works that aren’t narratives about his life.

For example, the Apostolic Fathers and later, second century authors ought to be reporting them.

We ought to find them saying things like, “I know this isn’t found in the Gospels, but here’s this really awesome story about a miracle Jesus did.”

Once again, I haven’t done a study for purposes of making a count, but my impression is that—while they may mention a few noncanonical miracles—there is no general and accelerating trend to reporting new Jesus miracles in their works.

 

Preliminary Conclusion

We don’t seem to have evidence for the kind of trend that Ehrman needs to show if he wants to argue that there may have been no stories of Jesus working miracles in his own day.

And things only get worse when we look at the canonical Gospels.

That’s what we’ll talk about next time . . .

Genesis and Justification: Misreading a Famous Text

abraham_and_stars_1xThere’s a famous passage in Genesis that often comes up in discussions of salvation. It says Abraham “believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

Protestant pastors frequently preach on this passage, and they frequently get it wrong.

Really wrong.

Here’s why . . .

 

Why It Comes Up

This passage frequently comes up in preaching about salvation because it’s used that way in the New Testament.

Paul quotes it in two places (Rom. 4:3-25, Gal. 3:6), and James quotes it once (Jas. 2:23).

This makes sense, because the Genesis passage connects faith and righteousness.

It was thus logical for the New Testament authors to use the passage in discussions of how we become justified (righteous) through faith in Christ.

It’s also logical for us today to also use the passage—whether we’re Protestant or Catholic.

But we need to use it the right way.

Unfortunately, that’s not always done.

 

The Wrong Way to Use It

Protestant preachers frequently use Genesis 15:6 (and Paul’s quotations of it) to argue for the classical Protestant understanding of justification. That model goes something like this:

  1. We are all sinners and therefore unrighteous before God.
  2. In our sinful state, we can’t become righteous before God by good works.
  3. However, if we place our faith in God, he will forgive our sins and reckon us righteous even though we are not.
  4. This reckoning is something that happens as a once-for-all event in the Christian life known as “justification.”

Points 1 and 2 are true, and points 3 and 4—though flawed—contain elements of truth.

The problem that concerns us here is that Protestant preachers tend to assume Genesis 15:6 maps onto the classical Protestant model in a straightforward way.

At first glance, this isn’t unreasonable, for Paul uses the verse to support justification by faith rather than works.

But the matter isn’t as straightforward as people assume.

 

A One-to-One Mapping

If Genesis 15:6 mapped directly onto the classical Protestant model of justification, the following would result:

  1. Abraham was a sinner and therefore unrighteous before God.
  2. In his sinful state, Abraham could not become righteous before God by good works.
  3. But Abraham came to have faith in God in Genesis 15:6, so he forgave Abraham’s sins and reckoned him righteous even though he was not.
  4. This reckoning was a once-for-all event in Abraham’s life, his justification before God.

But when you read Genesis 15, this is not what is happening.

Not. At. All.

 

Read the Context

To understand what’s happening, you need to start by reading the events that led up to it. Those are found in Genesis 14.

Basically, a war started between two groups of kings, one of whom was the king of the wicked city Sodom. During the war, Abraham’s kinsman Lot—who had been living in Sodom—was taken captive.

When Abraham heard about this, he mustered a group of more than three hundred fighting men from his own household and defeated the opposing kings. He thus rescued Lot, the other captives, and their goods.

Afterward, in thanksgiving for his victory in battle, Abraham went to Melchizedek—a priest of God most high—and gave him a tenth of all the spoils.

Then the king of Sodom offered Abraham a reward, telling him, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself” (Gen. 14:21).

Abraham refused this reward, saying that he’d sworn an oath not to take anything from the king of Sodom.

God then comes to Abraham in a vision and says, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great” (Gen. 15:1).

Abraham asks how this will be, for he has no children, and his current heir would be Eliezer of Damascus, a slave born in his household.

God tells him, “That man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.” Then he takes Abraham outside and has him look at the stars, telling him, “So shall your descendants be” (Gen. 15:4-5).

At this point we read: “And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

 

An Initial Question

We should note there is an ambiguity in Genesis 15:6—it says that “he reckoned it to him” as righteousness.

This can be read two ways: (1) God reckoned Abraham righteous or (2) Abraham reckoned God righteous.

The latter has been supported by some interpreters, including Jewish ones, and it makes sense in context: Abraham believed that God would give him a multitude of descendants, and he regarded this this as a sign of God’s righteous goodness.

However, this is not the way the New Testament takes the verse. On all three occasions where it’s quoted, the authors understand God as reckoning Abraham as righteous.

For Christians, that guarantees that this is a proper way of looking at the text (even if it is not necessarily the only way of looking at it, since Scripture operates on more than one level).

 

A Very Different Picture

If we understand God reckoning Abraham righteous, how well does the passage match the classical Protestant view of justification?

Not well at all.

Notice how different the whole approach of the text is. Abraham is not being presented as a sinner who can’t redeem himself by good works but who then comes to have faith in God and who is then forgiven his sins and declared righteous (even though he is not) in a once-for-all, life-changing event.

Quite the opposite is true! Abraham is already a follower of God, someone who already has faith in him, and the context stresses Abraham’s good works and righteousness:

  • He defeated the evil kings.
  • He rescued Lot and the other captives.
  • He went to a priest of God and gives thanks for the victory.
  • He refused any reward from the wicked king of Sodom.
  • And so God himself promised to give Abraham a reward instead.

The fact God is rewarding Abraham for what he has done shows this isn’t a case of a sinner coming to God and repenting so he can obtain forgiveness. It’s God rewarding a follower for faithful service.

That means Abraham isn’t acquiring righteousness here for the first time. He is already righteous, as his actions have shown.

Then Abraham believes the incredible promise that he will have a multitude of descendants, despite his age (cf. Rom. 4:19, Heb. 11:12), and God reckons that act of belief as a new act of righteousness on Abraham’s part.

Some translations bring this aspect out better than others. The New American Bible does a particularly good job. It says that the Lord: “attributed it to him as an act of righteousness.”

Notice, by the way, that Abraham’s act of faith also wasn’t generic in nature. Abraham already believed in and trusted God in a general way. Here he is believing something very specific: that God will give him a multitude of descendants—a point Paul recognizes when he uses the verse (Rom. 4:17-22).

And notice the righteousness isn’t a counterfactual, purely legal thing: Believing God when he tells you he will do something is a righteous act. Abraham did something actually righteous here.

All of this means that we need to be careful when we apply this verse to discussions of justification.

It is relevant to the subject. Thus Paul makes the point that Abraham wasn’t circumcised at the time this happened (Rom. 4:9-12), so God can view someone as righteous even though he’s not circumcised and thus doesn’t have works of the Jewish Law (Rom. 3:28-30).

But it’s a mistake to map the passage onto the classical Protestant view of justification.

The Mystery of the Beloved Disciple

beloved discipleSomething very strange happens in John’s Gospel.

Unlike any of the other Gospels, it indicates—directly—who its author is.

And yet it also doesn’t tell us who he is.

At the very end of the Gospel, we are told that it was written by a figure who has become known as “the beloved disciple.”

But he never names himself. That’s something everyone agrees on: The text of the Gospel never directly tells us the name of this disciple.

The author chose to remain anonymous or “not named” (Greek, a(n)- “not” + onoma “name”).

That creates a mystery around him—and it’s a mystery that he chose to create, for whatever reason he had.

Most people, for most of Church history, have thought it was the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee and brother of James.

There is, however, a vigorous debate about this in some quarters.

Regardless of who you think the beloved disciple was, it’s worth looking at how he handles the issue of his identity and what light this may shed on the question.

So let’s look at the appearances of the beloved disciple in the Gospel . . .

 

Before We Begin

We should say a word about how we should look at these passages.

To fully appreciate their significance, to avoid coloring them with other ideas we may have, we should put ourselves in the position of an early reader who didn’t know anything else about this Gospel.

Treat it like a document that just fell into your hands—without “The Gospel of John” written at the front, the way it appears in modern Bibles.

Ancient documents didn’t have titles at the front like that. They just started with the text.

Also, forget that you know that the beloved disciple will eventually be revealed as the author.

Imagine mentally reading the document from the beginning—without knowing anything else—and watch the clues that accumulate.

Let’s get started . . .

 

A Man “Whose Name Was John”

In the first chapter of the Gospel, we learn about John the Baptist, only he isn’t called “the Baptist.” He’s just called “John”:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (John 1:6).

We are expected to already know about this figure. For example, we are expected to know that he was eventually sent to prison—a fact that the author drops on us without any further explanation, at one point simply saying, “John had not yet been put in prison” (John 3:24).

From one perspective, this is not surprising since the fourth Gospel appears to have been written as a way of supplementing the information found in other Gospels, such as Mark’s (see here).

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell the story of John the Baptist’s imprisonment, so the fourth Gospel can assume that we know about it.

But early Christian tradition contained multiple figures named “John,” which was one of the most common Palestinian Jewish male names in the first century. Individuals who bore it included John the Baptist, John son of Zebedee, and John Mark, the author of the second Gospel.

It’s thus surprising that the fourth Gospel simply refers to the Baptist as “John,” without adding “the Baptist” the way the Synoptics do.

In fact, this John is the only person called “John” in the entire fourth Gospel.

This is potentially significant, and it suggests that the author—for some reason—wanted to keep the name “John” focused exclusively on the Baptist.

 

  1. Meeting Jesus

A bit later in the first chapter of the Gospel, we learn that John had disciples:

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).

We thus encounter two anonymous disciples who begin following Jesus and presumably become Jesus’ disciples.

We also learn one of their names. One is “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother” (John 1:40). But the other disciple remains unnamed.

Why is that?

If Andrew isn’t the only one who has a future with Jesus, why isn’t the other one named? This is a mystery later passages may shed light on.

 

  1. At the Last Supper

Another very strange thing happens in the final third of the fourth Gospel.

We’ve been reading about Jesus and what he did and said for more than two thirds of the book in our hands. After Jesus announces, at the Last Supper, that one of his disciples will betray him, we suddenly read:

One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, “Tell us who it is of whom he speaks” (John 13:23-24).

Wait. What? A disciple “whom Jesus loved”? Who is that?

If Jesus loved him in a special way, that suggests he’s important. But if he’s important, why hasn’t he been mentioned before in this Gospel?

Or has he?

In this passage, we see Jesus interacting with an anonymous disciple—just like he did back in chapter 1. Could the two anonymous disciples be one and the same?

We’ll have to see . . .

 

  1. In the High Priest’s Courtyard

We encounter another anonymous disciple after Jesus has been arrested:

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, while Peter stood outside at the door.

So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in (John 18:15-16).

It is very strange that “the other disciple” remains unnamed. He was obviously important—for he was personally known to the high priest, and it was this fact that allowed Peter to gain access to the high priest’s courtyard.

Yet he remains anonymous and is simply described as “another disciple” (v. 15) and as “the other disciple” (v. 16).

In Greek, these phrases are very close. “Another disciple” is allos mathētēs, but once he has been introduced, the author adds the definite article (“the”/ho) in front of the phrase: ho allos mathētēs.

Does anything else in the Gospel shed light on who he is?

Keep reading.

 

  1. At the Foot of the Cross

The next time the beloved disciple appears is at the foot of the Cross:

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”

Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home (John 19:26-27).

Here we have another indication of the importance of the beloved disciple: Jesus entrusts the care of his mother to him.

And the disciple lives up to the commission Jesus gives him, beginning to care for Mary “from that hour.”

 

  1. At the Tomb

The beloved disciple is also mentioned when Mary Magdalene runs to tell the disciples that Jesus’ tomb is empty:

So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb.

They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead (John 20:2-9).

Notice how the beloved disciple is first introduced: He is initially described (v. 2a) as “the other disciple,” and the Greek phrase is ho allos mathētēs (though here put in the accusative case).

We’ve heard that phrase before. It was how the disciple who got Peter into the high priest’s courtyard was described back in John 18:16.

The fact John uses this phrase first suggests that he expects us to recognize this person as “the other disciple” who was with Peter at the high priest’s house.

This impression is reinforced because John keeps referring to this figure as “the other disciple” (vv. 3, 4, and 8).

But now John further identifies him (v. 2b) as “the one whom Jesus loved”—the beloved disciple from the last supper and the foot of the cross.

The passage also reveals that the beloved disciple and Peter were together, and it appears that the beloved disciple is fleeter of foot than Peter (which some have suggested may mean he is younger, though Peter was not old at this time).

The beloved disciple also defers to Peter, allowing him to enter the tomb first, and he is quick to believe.

 

  1. At the Sea of Galilee

The beloved disciple also had a personal encounter with the risen Jesus when a group of disciples decide to go fishing. Notice who is present:

Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together (John 21:2).

There were seven people present:

1) Simon Peter
2) Thomas
3) Nathanael
4-5) The sons of Zebedee
6-7) Two unnamed disciples

Seven is a significant number in the Bible in general and in the Johannine literature in particular.

Also, we are here at the very end of the Gospel, and we are encountering two anonymous disciples—just like we did at the very beginning of the Gospel.

Could they be the same two? Andrew and one other?

The disciples spend all night fishing, and in the morning Jesus appears on the shore, but in the distance they don’t recognize him.

Jesus then asks them if they have caught anything. When they say they haven’t, he tells them to cast the net on the right side of the boat, and they miraculously get a huge catch.

That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and sprang into the sea (John 21:7).

Afterwards, they all get to shore and have breakfast with Jesus, who has Peter confess his love for him three times as a way of undoing the threefold denial Peter made in the high priest’s courtyard.

Then Jesus tells Peter about the way he will die, and we read:

Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”

The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (John 21:20-23).

Here we learn that the beloved disciple wasn’t just important when the events of the Gospel were transpiring. He continued to be well-known in the Christian community afterward, as there was a rumor he wouldn’t die.

The fact he takes the time to debunk this rumor—to assure the audience that Jesus didn’t say he wouldn’t die—indicates that the rumor still had currency.

Presumably the audience, or at least a notable number of its members, had heard the rumor and knew who the mysterious disciple was.

This makes the Gospel’s refusal to name the disciple all the more mysterious.

 

  1. The Author Revealed

There is one more thing that the Gospel tells us about the beloved disciple: He’s it’s author.

Immediately after learning about the rumor concerning the beloved disciple, we read:

This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:24-25).

For someone reading this Gospel for the first time, not knowing anything else about it, this would be mind-blowing!

The enigmatic disciple about whom mystery has been building for chapter after chapter suddenly turns out to be the author! Wow!

The author even steps out of the shadows, dropping his previous habit of referring to himself in the third person (“the disciple whom Jesus loved,” “the other disciple”) and suddenly using the first person: “I suppose the world itself could not contain the books.”

This is carefully crafted literary artistry, and that may help us put a few additional pieces in place.

 

Putting It All Together

For a reason the Gospel does not tell us, the author has chosen to keep himself unnamed throughout his work.

He’s also used a careful, “slow build” literary strategy to gradually fill in our picture of who he is. It’s a strategy that fosters a sense of growing mystery about him:

  • We first have a definite indication that something is up in chapter 13—two thirds of the way through the Gospel—when we suddenly hear about a mysterious disciple “whom Jesus loved.”
  • Then the author reintroduces himself in chapter 18 under the title “the other disciple,” where we learn he was personally known to the high priest and played a key role in getting Peter admitted to the courtyard.
  • In chapter 19 we learn that the beloved disciple was at the foot of the cross and that Jesus entrusted the care of his own mother to him.
  • In chapter 20 we learn that he was present at the empty tomb, and he was apparently the first disciple to believe in the Resurrection. We also learn that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and “the other disciple” are one in the same.
  • In chapter 21, we learn that there was a rumor about him that he would never die.
  • Finally, we learn that he is the author of the Gospel itself.

This carefully constructed, “slow burn” pattern invites us to consider whether we may have missed anything, whether there are other pieces of the puzzle that also need to be fit in.

Earlier we noted that, given the sudden appearance of a disciple “whom Jesus loved” in chapter 13, we would have expected an account of how such a disciple first met Jesus—and that impression is strengthened even further once we know he is the actual author of the Gospel.

How could a disciple who felt so close to Jesus, who cared for his own mother, not tell us how he met Jesus? He told us about how other people (Andrew, Peter, Nathanael, Nicodemus, etc.) met Jesus.

But maybe the deliberately unnamed author did tell us: There are those two unnamed disciples in chapter 1, and—surprise, surprise—there are two unnamed disciples in chapter 21.

This suggests that the unnamed author was one of the two unnamed disciples in both cases. He was Andrew’s companion in chapter 1, and that was the story of how he first met Jesus.

Quite possibly, Andrew was the unnamed disciple in chapter 21. It would be very natural for Peter and the sons of Zebedee to be accompanied by Andrew, the fourth member of their fishing partnership. The beloved disciple simply kept Andrew unnamed on this occasion to mirror chapter 1.

We would then have seven appearances of the beloved disciple in the Gospel:

  1. His first meeting with Jesus (John 1:35-37)
  2. His appearance at the Last Supper (John 13:23-24).
  3. His appearance at the high priest’s house (John 18:15-16)
  4. His appearance at the foot of the Cross (John 19:26-27)
  5. His appearance at the empty tomb (John 20:2-9)
  6. His appearance at the Sea of Galilee (John 21:2-23)
  7. His self-revelation as the author (John 21:24-25)

This arrangement is not certain, because there are other ways one could divide the material (some of which also would add up to seven).

However, the prominence of the number seven (including the seven disciples mentioned at the Sea of Galilee) and the author’s clear literary artistry, indicate that a deliberate seven-fold pattern of appearances may be indicated.

It’s also worth noting that all but the last of these appearances occurs in Jerusalem or the vicinity of Jerusalem. (John 1:28, as well as Matt. 3:1 and Mark 1:5, place the location of John’s baptizing ministry near Jerusalem.)

This pattern of events around Jerusalem is consistent with someone who would be personally known to the high priest. Indeed, it would suggest not just a Jerusalemite but a member of the Jerusalem aristocracy and possibly a priest himself.

It is less consistent with the profile of a Galilean fisherman like John son of Zebedee.

Also pointing in this direction is the suggestion that the author is one of the two unnamed disciples at the Sea of Galilee. If that is the case then he is not one of the sons of Zebedee, who were also present.

This does not mean the beloved disciple can’t be John son of Zebedee, but it does mean there are indicators pointing in a different direction.

This only continues the mystery surrounding the author—a mystery produced by the fact that he never names himself, not even in the last verses of his Gospel when he reveals himself as author.

For more on the debate about who wrote John’s Gospel, see here.

Who Wrote John’s Gospel?

john the evangelistIt sounds like a trick question. You’re tempted to say, “Uhh . . . that would be John?”

Yes, but which John?

A handful of names were extremely popular in first century Israel. These included Simon, Judas, James, and, John. The frequency with which they occurred sometimes makes it hard to sort out who is who.

Worse, first century Jews didn’t have last names, and sometimes a person went by multiple names (Simon, Simeon, Cephas, Peter, Simon Peter, Simon son of John, Simon son of Jonah—all the same guy).

So who wrote John’s Gospel?

There have been a number of proposals, and, as we will see, Pope Benedict makes an interesting one.

 

The Anonymous Author

John’s Gospel indicates it was written by an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things” (John 21:24).

It is ironic that John’s Gospel—of all the four—is the only one that so explicitly points to its author, yet it does not name him.

Why?

The author was known to the first readers, so in a sense it wasn’t necessary to say his name, but there may have been other reasons. One possibility is that the author keeps himself anonymous out of humility, identifying himself simply as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Another is that he is making himself a symbol—a stand-in for all of his readers, all of whom Jesus loves.

Since he was writing in dangerous times, he might want to be anonymous so that he didn’t get in trouble with the authorities, and the strategy may not have worked. If he is also the author of Revelation, as commonly supposed, he ended up being exiled to the island of Patmos. It’s interesting to note that Revelation, of all the books attributed to John, is the only one that explicitly names its author (Rev. 1:4), and it was written after he had been exiled.

 

The Case for John the Apostle

The most common view, historically and today, is that the Gospel was written by John the Apostle. What evidence is there for this?

The author describes himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the [Last] Supper” (21:20).

This seems to put the author among Jesus’ core group of disciples, and it is an easy step from there to conclude that he was one of the twelve apostles. But which one?

Here we can use the process of elimination. John’s Gospel names several figures and thus distinguishes them from “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Here is a list, along with their first mention in the Gospel:

  1. Andrew (1:40)
  2. Simon Peter (1:40)
  3. Philip (1:43)
  4. Nathaniel (i.e., Bartholomew) (1:45)
  5. Judas Iscariot (6:71)
  6. Thomas (11:16)
  7. Judas (not Iscariot) (14:22)

The fact seven of the Twelve are named may be intentional. Seven is a significant number that crops up in unexpected ways in John’s Gospel (and in Revelation).

If none of the above are the beloved disciple, that leaves the following members of the Twelve: James, John, Matthew, James the Less, and Simon the Zealot.

If the beloved disciple’s relationship is meant to be an especially close one (as opposed to a symbol of the love Jesus has for all his followers) that might mean he was one of the inner circle of apostles, which we know from the other Gospels to have been Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

Peter and Andrew have already been eliminated, and James the son of Zebedee was the first apostle to be killed (Acts 12:2), so there would scarcely be an enduring rumor that he would live until the Second Coming, as there was for the beloved disciple (John 21:22-23).

With the other three core disciples eliminated, that would point to John the son of Zebedee.

This is a compelling case, and it is no surprise that the dominant view historically has been that John the Apostle was the author of this Gospel.

 

Testing the Assumptions

The case above depends on certain assumptions—that the author was one of the Twelve and that he was among the core group within the Twelve. Both assumptions are reasonable, but are they certain?

There were other important followers of Jesus.

Two were Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias, the two proposed as Judas Iscariot’s replacement precisely because they had followed Jesus from his baptism to his Ascension (Acts 1:21-26). Yet they are not mentioned in the Gospels at all.

There is also Joseph of Arimathea, who donated his own tomb for Jesus to be buried in (Matt. 27:60).

Nicodemus also went with Joseph to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus, and he later helped with the burial (John 19:39).

John’s Gospel prominently features a disciple who was not a member of the Twelve but who was close enough to Jesus that others commented on how much Jesus loved him: Lazarus (11:36). As a result, some have even proposed Lazarus as the author of the fourth Gospel.

This is unlikely, one reason being the anonymity that the beloved disciple uses for himself. It is improbable that he would carefully craft the anonymous, beloved disciple identity for himself and then casually name himself in other passages.

The same reasoning makes it unlikely the beloved disciple is any of the other non-Twelve disciples mentioned in John (e.g., Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus).

But the point remains that there were important disciples who were not members of the Twelve. Given that, is there any reason to think that the beloved disciple might not be John son of Zebedee?

 

Not a Fisherman from Galilee?

Several reasons have been suggested. First, the beloved disciple does not appear clearly until chapter 13 of the gospel, when he is reclining by Jesus at the Last Supper (13:23). But James son of Zebedee had been a disciple as early as Peter and Andrew (Matt. 4:18-22, cf. John 1:40-42).

Second, the Gospel of John focuses largely on Jesus ministry around Jerusalem rather than in Galilee. This is what one would expect of a native of Jerusalem but not a native of Galilee like John son of Zebedee.

Third, the beloved disciple’s residence in Jerusalem may be shown by the fact that he was personally known by the high priest. This enabled him to enter the high priest’s court with Jesus. Peter, however was stopped, and the disciple had to intervene to get Peter access to the courtyard (18:15-16). The same high priest (Caiaphas) does not appear to recognize John son of Zebedee when he and Peter are brought before him in Acts 4.

Fourth, the beloved disciple may have been a priest himself, as illustrated by the fact that he knew the high priest. The second century Christian writer Polycrates agreed: “John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the sacerdotal plate . . . also sleeps at Ephesus” (quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3:31:2). But John the son of Zebedee was a fisherman rather than a priest.

Fifth, John son of Zebedee and Peter are specifically said to be “uneducated, common men” by Luke (Acts 4:13). But priests were educated, and the Gospel of John displays significant literary qualities that would not be expected from an uneducated, common man.

Sixth, at the end of the Gospel, there is a fishing expedition that includes “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples” (21:2). These seven disciples (note the number) include the beloved disciple. But since he has kept himself studiedly anonymous, we might expect him to be one of the two unnamed disciples mentioned at the end, not one of the sons of Zebedee.

As we will see, none of these objections is insuperable. There are ways John son of Zebedee could be the beloved disciple. But they have led some scholars to wonder if the beloved disciple might be someone else.

 

The Name John

The fact the fourth Gospel is known as John’s is important.

Though none of the Gospels explicitly name their authors, their original audiences knew who had written them, and these traditions circulated in the early Church. It is hard to imagine personal names becoming attached to the Gospels if the names were totally inaccurate.

As a result, we should look for someone named John as the author of the Gospel.

John was a common name in first century Palestine. About one in twenty men bore it, so among the seventy disciples Jesus sent out on a preaching mission (Luke. 10:1) or among the 120 core disciples present at the election of Judas’s replacement (Acts 1:15), there should have been several Johns.

 

John Mark?

An interesting case is John Mark. We know that he lived at Jerusalem, where his mother had a house (Acts 12:12). Because it is described as his mother’s house rather than his father’s house, his father was likely dead.

This could make John Mark the eldest male in the household, which could explain why the beloved disciple was seated next to Jesus as the Last Supper. Even as a non-member of the Twelve, if he was the official host representing the family that owned the house, he might well be seated next to the guest of honor.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict notes that, “According to the Jewish custom, the host or, in his absence, as would have been the case here, his firstborn son sat to the right of the guest, his head leaning on the latter’s chest” (v. 1, p. 225).

That could apply to the beloved disciple if he were someone other than John Mark, though. The beloved disciple appears in a clear way for the first time at the Last Supper, and if he were also the owner of the house where it took place, or the eldest male of the family present, he could end up seated next to Jesus even though he was not a member of the Twelve.

The main problem with supposing him to be John Mark is that John Mark is usually identified with Mark the Evangelist, the author of the second Gospel, not the fourth. The tradition in the Church Fathers on this point is very strong.

It also is commonly thought that John Mark appears as one of the unnamed characters in his own Gospel, such as the man who runs away without his clothing on the night Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51-52).

His case does demonstrate, though, that there were other early disciples, not members of the Twelve, not mentioned by name in the Gospels, who were nevertheless in a position to write Gospels—and even ones named John!

Some have suggested that the beloved disciple was a priest who lived at Jerusalem but who is otherwise unknown to us. Hypothetically, this is possible, but it seems unlikely. Someone important enough to write a Gospel should have left some trace in history. So does history record any other Johns who could have written the fourth Gospel?

 

The Case for John the Presbyter

In the first half of the second century an author named Papias wrote a work on the sayings of Jesus. It is now lost, but quotations survive in works by other early authors, such as the second century bishop Irenaeus and the fourth century Church historian, Eusebius.

Papias lived early enough that he was in contact with people who had actually known Jesus. Although many had passed away by his time, some were still alive, and he names two: Aristion and a figure known as John the Presbyter (also called John the Elder and John the Priest, depending on how the underlying Greek word is translated). Note the contrast between what Aristion and John the Presbyter “say” and what the other disciples, including John the Apostle, “said” (see below).

Both Johns were associated with the city of Ephesus, and Eusebius cites Papias’s statement as evidence for the claim of those “who say that there were two persons in Asia that bore the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present day, is called John’s” (op. cit. 3:39:6).

He went to say that “it is probable that it was the second [i.e., the Presbyter], if one is not willing to admit that it was the first, that saw the Revelation” (ibid.).

St. Jerome records a common view that 2 John and 3 John were written by John the Presbyter, saying that these two letters “are said to be the work of John the Presbyter, to the memory of whom another sepulcher is shown at Ephesus to the present day, though some think that there are two memorials of this same John the Evangelist” (Illustrious Men 9). Note that the opening verse of both letters lists the sender simply as “the Presbyter.”

Scholars who favor the idea that John the Presbyter wrote the fourth Gospel have produced a number of arguments for their position.

A noteworthy one is that John the Presbyter evidently lived to a very old age. Otherwise, he would not have acquired the nickname “the Presbyter,” which in Greek means “the Elder.” If he is addressing his letters simply as “the Elder,” that would indicate an advanced age.

That harmonizes well with the rumor that the beloved disciple would live until the Second Coming (21:15-23).

This, as well as literary similarities between the Gospel and the epistles of John, suggest a common author.

 

Papias on John the Presbyter

Papias writes:

“If, then, any one came who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say” (Papias of Hierapolis, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3:39:4).

 

John the Presbyter Speaks?

In the opening verses of 2 and 3 John, we read:

The Presbyter to the chosen Lady and to her children, whom I love in truth—and not only I but also all who know the truth [2 John 1].

The Presbyter to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth [3 John 1].

 

Pope Benedict’s Solution

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict takes up the question of who wrote John’s Gospel and proposes a solution that other scholars have advocated.

He notes that “the Gospel never directly identifies [the beloved disciple] by name. In connection with the calling of Peter, as well as of other disciples, it points toward John, the son of Zebedee, but it never explicitly identifies the two figures. The intention is evidently to leave the matter shrouded in mystery” (v. 1, p. 223).

Pope Benedict acknowledges the difficulty some have had with seeing John son of Zebedee as the author of the Gospel: “Can he, the Galilean fisherman, have been as closely connected with the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, its language, and its mentality as the Evangelist evidently is? Can he have been related to the family of the high priest, as the text hints (cf. John 18:15)?” (p. 224).

He concludes that “that such an identification is actually quite possible. The priests discharged their ministry on a rotating basis twice a year. The ministry itself lasted a week each time. After the completion of the ministry, the priest returned to his home, and it was not at all unusual for him also to exercise a profession to earn his livelihood. Furthermore, the Gospel makes clear that Zebedee was no simple fisherman, but employed several day laborers, which also explains why it was possible for his sons to leave him” (ibid.).

While it was possible for a Galilean fisherman to also be a priest at Jerusalem, Pope Benedict thinks John the Presbyter had a role as well.

In his view, John’s Gospel was based on the memories of the Apostle but put into its final literary form by the Presbyter, who served as “the literary executor of the favorite disciple” after his death (v. 1, p. 227).

He also sees John the Presbyter as the author of 2 and 3 John (see below).

These views are not magisterial teaching. As Pope Benedict famously said in the preface to Jesus of Nazareth, “this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Ps. 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me.”

The seriousness with which Pope Benedict takes the traditions connecting John son of Zebedee and John the Presbyter with the fourth Gospel, though, should not be lightly dismissed.

 

Pope Benedict on John the Presbyter

In Jesus of Nazareth, volume 1, Pope Benedict writes:

In Ephesus there was something like a Johannine school, which traced its origins to Jesus’ favorite disciple himself, but in which a certain “Presbyter John” presided as the ultimate authority.

This “presbyter” John appears as the sender and author of the Second and Third Letters of John (in each case in the first verse of the first chapter) simply under the title “the presbyter” (without reference to the name John).

He is evidently not the same as the Apostle, which means that here in the canonical text we encounter expressly the mysterious figure of the presbyter. He must have been closely connected with the apostle; perhaps he had even been acquainted with Jesus himself.

After the death of the apostle, he was identified wholly as the bearer of the latter’s heritage, and in the collective memory, the two figures were increasingly fused.

At any rate, there seem to be grounds for ascribing to “Presbyter John” an essential role in the definitive shaping of the Gospel, though he must always have regarded himself as the trustee of the tradition he had received from the son of Zebedee [Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, v. 1, p. 226].

 

Conclusion

Our purpose here is not to settle the question of which John wrote the fourth Gospel, but it is to illustrate the lively debate that has emerged on the question and to indicate some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration.

We’ll have more to say on the subject in the future.

An Important and Little-Known Fact About the Temple of Jerusalem (Gentiles and the Jewish Temple)

Akin-TEMPLEMany people have the idea that, in biblical times, the Jerusalem temple was exclusively for Jewish use.

This is a natural assumption, given the hostilities that led to the Jewish War of the A.D. 60s, as well as the attitude of some Jewish Christians who thought salvation was impossible for Gentiles.

But the historical evidence shows otherwise.

This is a subject I’ve written about before, but here are some interesting examples that further illustrate the actual situation . . .

 

The Emperor Augustus

The first century Jewish sage Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 B.C. – c. A.D. 50) was caught up in a controversy involving the Roman emperor Caligula (aka Gaius, reigned A.D. 36-41).

This incident occurred after Caligula fell ill in early in his reign and recovered, but with a drastic personality change.

He became very cruel, started demanding to be worshipped as a god, and announced that a statue of himself (depicted as Zeus) would be placed in the Jerusalem temple for Jews to worship.

Philo wrote an account of this controversy in his work On the Embassy to Gaius.

During the course of the work, he compared Caligula’s treatment of Jews to that of previous Roman individuals, including their treatment of the temple.

He thus reported on how the emperor Augustus (reigned 27 B.C-A.D. 14) and his family supported the Jerusalem temple:

So religiously did [Augustus] respect our interests that, supported by wellnigh his whole household, he adorned our temple through the costliness of his dedications, and ordered that for all time continuous sacrifices of whole burnt offerings should be carried out every day at his own expense as a tribute to the most high God.

And these sacrifices are maintained to the present day and will be maintained for ever to tell the story of a character truly imperial (On the Embassy to Gaius 23[157]).

Here Philo reports that Augustus:

  • Adorned the temple with costly decorations
  • He was supported in this by “wellnigh his whole household” (i.e., family)—meaning others did the same (see below)
  • He arranged that sacrifices of “whole burnt offerings” would be offered to the Jewish God every day by the Jewish priests
  • That he paid for this out of his own pocket
  • That these sacrifices were still being offered, with no planned ending date for them

 

Temple Access for Gentiles

Philo later refers to the fact that portions of the Jerusalem Temple complex were open for Gentiles worshippers:

Still more abounding and peculiar is the zeal of [all the Jewish people] for the temple, and the strongest proof of this is that death without appeal is the sentence against those of other races who penetrate into its inner confines.

For the outer are open to everyone wherever they come from (31[212]).

This refers to the fact that the temple was built as a series of zones that different classes of people could access:

  • The outermost area (the Court of the Gentiles) was open to everyone
  • The next area (the Court of Women) was open to Jewish men and women
  • The next area (the Court of Israel) was open to Jewish men
  • The next area (the Court of Priests) was open to Jewish priests
  • The final area (the Holy of Holies) was open to the Jewish high priest once a year

These zones were places where the designated people went to worship—so the Court of the Gentiles was where Gentiles could go to worship God.

This is why Isaiah refers to the temple as “a house of prayer for all nations” (Is. 56:7).

And it is apparently the area from which Jesus drove out the money changers: They were taking up space that was reserved for Gentile worshippers (see Mark 11:17).

 

Sacrifices on Behalf of Caligula

Sacrifices were offered on behalf of Gentiles at the temple.

In fact, it was normal to offer sacrifices on behalf of Gentile rulers, including Roman emperors.

This had already been done on behalf of Augustus and Tiberius, and Philo refers to the fact that, as soon as Caligula’s reign began, the Jewish priests offered sacrifices to God on his behalf:

Was our temple the first to accept sacrifices in behalf of Gaius’s reign only that it should be the first or even the only one to be robbed of its ancestral tradition of worship? (32[232]).

These sacrifices were to ask God to bless the new ruler and to ask him to help the ruler govern wisely and justly. As St. Paul says:

For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment (Rom. 13:1-2; see 1 Pet. 3:13-14).

Philo refers to this matter again later, when he recounts how—in a meeting with Caligula—an anti-Jewish man named Isidorus accused the Jewish people of refusing to offer sacrifices on Caligula’s behalf.

Philo reports that they defended themselves by saying:

We cried out with one accord, “Lord Gaius, we are slandered; we did sacrifice and sacrifice hecatombs [large sacrifices of multiple bulls] too, and we did not just pour the blood upon the altar and then take the flesh home to feast and regale ourselves with it as some do, but we gave the victims to the sacred fire to be entirely consumed, and we have done this not once but thrice already, the first time at your accession to the sovereignty, the second when you escaped the severe sickness which all the habitable world suffered with you, the third as a prayer of hope for victory in Germany” (45[356]).

He thus indicates that large sacrifices of bulls were made on Caligula’s behalf three times:

  1. When he began to reign
  2. When he had his severe illness (that drove him crazy)
  3. When he was in a conflict with the German tribes

 

Marcus Agrippa and the Temple

Philo also quotes from a lengthy letter that King Herod Agrippa I sent to Caligula during the crisis regarding his statue.

(This Herod is the one who put St. James son of Zebedee to death in Acts 12. He was also the grandson of Herod the Great and a friend of the emperors Caligula and Claudius. He’s the Herod who appears in the BBC drama I, Claudius.)

In the letter, Herod refers to how Caligula’s own grandfather—Marcus Agrippa—honored the temple when he was in Jerusalem. He reports that he was very impressed by the temple and its priesthood (37[294-296]) and that he made gifts to the temple:

After decking the temple with all the dedicatory gifts which the law made permissible and benefiting the inhabitants by granting every favor which he could without causing mischief and paying many compliments to Herod and receiving a host of the same from him, he was escorted to the harbors not by one city only but by the whole population of the country amid showers of posies which expressed their admiration of his piety (37[297]).

 

More on Augustus’s Gifts to the Temple

In his letter, Herod Agrippa also gives more detail on the gifts that Augustus supplied to the temple:

Another example no less cogent than this shows very clearly the will of Augustus.

He gave orders for a continuation of whole burnt offerings every day to the Most High God to be charged to his own purse.

These are carried out to this day. Two lambs and a bull are the victims with which he added luster to the altar, knowing well that there is no image there openly or secretly set up.

Indeed this great ruler, this philosopher second to none, reasoned in his mind that within the precincts of earth there must needs be a special place assigned as sacred to the invisible God which would contain no visible image, a place to give us participation in good hopes and enjoyment of perfect blessings (40[317-318]).

Livia’s Gifts

Finally, Herod Agrippa notes that Augustus’s wife—Julia Augusta (commonly referred to as Livia; she’s also the Livia in I, Claudius)—made costly gifts to the temple:

Under such an instructor in piety your great-grandmother Julia Augusta adorned the temple with golden vials and libation bowls and a multitude of other sumptuous offerings (40[319]).

These golden vials and libation bowls were liturgical furnishings that would have been used in the temple ceremonies.

 

Conclusion

There certainly was an undercurrent of hostilities on the part of many Jews regarding their Roman overlords, but the idea that the Jerusalem temple was exclusively for Jewish use is not true.

From the beginning, it had been meant as a house of prayer for all nations, with its outermost (and largest) court reserved for Gentile worshippers.

Many of the Gentile worshippers were polytheists, but they did not deny the existence of the Jewish God or refuse to give him worship.

In fact, they made costly gifts to the temple—both in terms of decorations, liturgical furnishings, and underwriting of the costs of the daily sacrifices.

The Jewish priests not only accepted these offerings—recognizing them as permitted by the Jewish Law—they also made special offerings on behalf of the rulers, asking God to bless them with things like health and victory.

The situation may have been tense, and there certainly was Jewish resentment of the Romans, but overall the situation was more cordial than we commonly suppose.

Ultimately, those who were hostile to the Romans got the upper hand and stopped these sacrifices—and that was one of the incidents that led to the Jewish War and the destruction of the temple.

 

Will the Jerusalem Temple Be Rebuilt?

western wallJesus prophesied that the Jerusalem temple would be destroyed within a generation, and it was.

Jewish rebels began a war against the Romans in A.D. 66, and four years later the temple lay in ruins.

Will it ever be rebuilt?

Many Jews and Christians think so, even claiming that this must happen for certain prophecies to be fulfilled.

Tom Nash isn’t one of them, however. In a recent article at Catholic World Report, he argues that the temple will not be rebuilt.

Let’s look at what he has to say . . .

 

Advocates of Rebuilding the Temple

Nash takes a special interest in a group of people known as premillennialists, who believe that—after the Second Coming—Jesus will reign on earth for a thousand years or more before the Last Judgment and the beginning of the eternal order.

In recent years, many premillennialists have also belonged to a school of thought known as dispensationalism, and dispensationalists commonly have certain additional beliefs, including:

  • There will be a rapture of believers several years before the Second Coming
  • The Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt before the Second Coming
  • The Antichrist will proclaim himself to be God in the Jerusalem temple
  • After the Second Coming there will also be a temple in Jerusalem (either the same one, reconsecrated, or a new one)
  • During the millennium, animal sacrifices will be offered at this temple in memory of what Jesus did on the cross

Nash doesn’t make this clear, but historic premillennialists would not endorse all of these ideas.

As some of their characteristic beliefs indicate, dispensationalists hold that the Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt in order for certain prophecies to be fulfilled.

They are not the only ones, however. As Nash indicates, many Jews also believe that there will be a future temple. Some think that this will not happen until the future, messianic age. Others think that it could happen sooner.

There also is a division between Jews who would favor reinstituting animal sacrifices at the temple and those who would prefer it to serve simply as a house of prayer.

 

Catholic Teaching

The Catholic Church has rejected premillennialism (see CCC 676, where it is rejected under the name “millenarianism”).

It believes that there will be a future appearing of Antichrist, which will precede the Second Coming. When Jesus returns, however, the Last Judgment and the eternal order will begin immediately.

The Church does not take a position on whether there will be a rebuilt temple.

Nash’s view that there will not be one is a legitimate theological opinion. However, so is the contrary.

As we will see, respected Catholics have advocated the view there will be a future temple.

 

The Fulfillment Argument

In his article, Nash cites several factors pointing to the fact that Jesus fulfilled the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, and so animal sacrifices are no longer necessary.

One could quibble with the details of some of his arguments (e.g., exactly what it meant when the temple veil was torn in two can be debated), but his fundamental conclusion is correct: Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament sacrificial economy.

One can even strengthen his argument, for Jesus not only predicted the destruction of the temple (Mark 13), he also identified himself with the temple (John 2:13-22). The destruction of the Jewish temple thus in some ways parallels the destruction of Jesus’ body on the cross, and Jesus takes the place of the Jerusalem temple for Christians (Rev. 21:22).

The main difficulty comes when Nash draws his conclusion:

So to think that God would authorize the reinstitution of Temple sacrifices is to misunderstand his salvific work and also, unwittingly, blaspheme Jesus, who rendered void the need for such inferior sacrifices.

Blasphemy (even unwitting) is a harsh charge, and it is not clear that it would be warranted in the case of dispensationalists. They think millennial sacrifices will not be needed in themselves but that they will be a way God has chosen to commemorate of what Jesus did on the cross.

Catholics make even stronger claims than this regarding the Eucharist, which not only commemorates but re-presents the sacrifice of the cross.

However, the key problem is that Nash seems to assume that God must “authorize the reinstitution of Temple sacrifices” for the temple to be rebuilt.

Many things happen in God’s prophetic plan that aren’t positively willed by God (e.g., the appearance of Antichrist and his evil activities).

Jesus certainly fulfilled the Old Testament sacrificial economy, and God does not will that animal sacrifices resume, but that doesn’t mean that at some point some Jews won’t build a temple in Jerusalem—whether as a house of prayer or a house of sacrifice.

Thus, if there are prophecies of a future temple, they need to be taken seriously.

 

The Julian Argument

Nash also cites the example of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, who tried to rebuild the temple in A.D. 363 but who was thwarted, with reports of unusual and possibly supernatural events playing a role in his decision to cease his efforts.

This failed attempt to rebuild could be taken as evidence for Nash’s position, but it could also be taken as evidence that it was not God’s will to allow the temple to be rebuilt then.

Julian the Apostate can be seen as a forerunner of Antichrist, and his plan to rebuild the temple as a foreshadowing of what Antichrist will do.

Julian simply didn’t get to carry the project through because it wasn’t yet God’s time.

 

St. Paul on the Temple

Are there prophecies that point to a future temple? A famous passage in St. Paul reads:

Let no one deceive you in any way; for [the day of our Lord Jesus Christ] will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition,  who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thess. 2:3-4).

Interpreters have proposed a number of possibilities for what temple Paul is referring to, including God’s heavenly temple, the Church, or a purely metaphorical temple.

However, one of the strongest possibilities is that he was referring to the Jerusalem temple.

This is especially likely given the recent background to this letter, which was written around A.D. 50.

Less than a decade earlier, the Roman emperor Caligula, who claimed divine honors, attempted to have his statue put in the Jerusalem temple—an event that was prevented by Caligula’s assassination.

This plan produced a major convulsion in the Jewish community, and the thought of a satanic “man of lawlessness” taking his seat “in the temple of God” and “proclaiming himself to be God” is naturally understood in terms of a world ruler doing this in the Jerusalem temple.

Since this didn’t happen before A.D. 70, the prophecy could point to a future temple—and Caligula, like Julian, could be a forerunner of Antichrist.

 

Church Fathers Weigh In

So what happened after the temple was destroyed? How did the Church Fathers interpret Paul’s prophecy?

They had a variety of views. Some thought the passage applied to the Church, but others simply inferred that the temple would be rebuilt and that the Antichrist would take his seat in Jerusalem.

Advocates of this view include:

We thus have a mixed tradition, with some Fathers and doctors (Cyril is a doctor of the Church) advocating the view that Paul’s prophecy points to a future Jerusalem temple.

Nash’s view that the temple will not be rebuilt should not be ruled out, but in light of Paul’s prophecy, its historical background, and the mixed tradition in the Church Fathers, the possibility of a future temple should be taken seriously.

Did the Exodus Happen?

EXODUSAccording to multiple books in the Old Testament, the Israelites came into possession of the land of Canaan after they left slavery in Egypt—an event known as the Exodus.

Yet, according to some skeptical scholars today, the Exodus never happened.

Instead, the Israelites simply were a group of Canaanites, and they eventually took over the territory in which they already lived—either as part of a peasant revolt or through some other process.

Despite these claims, there are reasons to hold the Exodus occurred.

Let’s talk about that.

 

Origin Stories

Every people has an account of its origins, or what could be called its origin story.

  • In the case of the United States, our origin story involves the original thirteen rebellious colonies that seceded from England in the American War of Independence, starting in 1776.
  • In the case of the United Kingdom, the origin story involves the uniting of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland in 1701.
  • In the case of Rome, the story involves the founding of the city by the hero Romulus.

But everybody’s got an origin story.

History doesn’t know any people who, if asked about their origins, would say, “Well, we don’t really know who we are or where we came from.”

The Israelites were no exception: Their national origin story involved the Exodus.

So why wouldn’t one take them at their word?

 

Sketchy Stories

It’s certainly true that you can’t take everybody’s origin story at face value.

For example, certain long-settled peoples have no memory of their true origins, and they have provided an account based on folklore and mythology.

When this happens, they may say that their people was created by the gods—or otherwise entered the world—in the same territory they now occupy.

This is the case with the Hopi and Zuni tribes of North America, whose origin stories hold that human beings—including themselves—first emerged into this world out of a hole in a rocky mound known as the Sipapuni, which is located on the Colorado River outside Grand Canyon National Park.

However, if modern scientific accounts are remotely accurate, their ancestors originated in the Old World and migrated over the Bering Land Bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska.

Sketchy origin stories are found in the Old World as well. The Egyptians, similarly, had no memory of their ancestors ever having lived anywhere else, and they set their creation stories in the Nile Valley. Curiously, their stories also feature a primeval mound, which they called the Benben.

 

Distance in Time

One thing the Hopi, Zuni, and Egyptian origin stories have in common is that they describe events occurring long before recorded history.

In the absence of historical memory, folklore has filled in the gaps.

This is markedly different from the origin stories of the U.S. and the U.K., which deal with events only a few hundred years ago.

If you read a modern account of the American Revolution or the British Acts of Union, the distance in time between the account and the events it describes is only 250-300 years.

How does Israel’s origin story fare by comparison?

 

References to the Exodus

For much of Church history, the book of Exodus was regarded as having been authored by Moses and thus as having been a record produced within the same generation as the events it describes.

More recently, biblical scholars have drifted away from this view, and by the 20th century it became common to hold that the Pentateuch—of which Exodus is a part—is a composite of four sources known by the initials J, E, D, and P.

The parts of the book of Exodus that deal with the Exodus event itself were held to be derived from the J (“Yahwist”) and E (“Elohist”) sources, which are named after the terms they use for God (“Yahweh,” and “Elohim,” respectively).

Scholars debated precisely when these sources were to be dated, but it was common to date J to some time between 950 and 850 B.C.

It was also common to date E sometime between 850 and 750 B.C.

More recently, the JEDP theory has begun to fall out of favor—at least in its classical form—though there is no current consensus about what should replace it.

However, if—for purposes of argument—we were to accept the dates proposed above, we would have references to the Exodus event in Israel’s literature between around 950 and 750 B.C.

Even if one were to take a more skeptical view and think the Pentateuch is composed of later sources, the date of our earliest Exodus references would not change much, because there are multiple references to the event in the prophets.

Thus in Micah 6:4, God declares, “I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage.”

And in Hosea 11:1, he says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

  • Micah prophesied between the times of King Jotham and King Hezekiah (Mic. 1:1), which puts his ministry between 750 and 687 B.C.
  • Hosea prophesied between the times of King Uzziah and King Hezekiah (Hos. 1:1), which puts his ministry between 783 and 687 B.C.

We therefore would still have references to the Exodus event in Israelite literature by the 700s.

The fact we have multiple such references (and there are others) means the tradition was widespread and thus has to be dated earlier to allow time for it to become popular and be mentioned multiple times in the surviving literature.

We thus would conclude that the story had to be circulating by around 850 B.C.—a century before the prophets just mentioned.

 

Dating the Exodus

That leads us to the question of when the Exodus occurred.

The traditional date for the event is in the 1400s B.C. However, more recently a date in the 1200s B.C. has been proposed.

The latter seems more likely, and it corresponds to the earliest extra-biblical reference we have to Israel.

This is found on an Egyptian monument known as the Merneptah Stele, which celebrates a military victory over the Israelites by the Egyptian pharaoh, Merneptah, who reigned between 1213 and 1203 B.C.

The inscription on the stele is significant not just because it refers to Israel but because of the way it refers to it.

Egyptian writing uses a set of symbols—known as determinatives—to help the reader identify the kind of thing being described. For example, when a man’s name is given, a symbol representing a seated man is often placed after it. When a woman’s name is given, a symbol representing a seated woman is used.

On the Merneptah Stele, when Israel’s name is given, a determinative indicating a foreign people is used.

This determinative is usually used for nomadic peoples that do not have a settled location, suggesting the inscription was made during the period of wandering before Israel was settled in the land.

That would suggest that the Exodus occurred in the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II (1279-1213 B.C.).

 

The Role of Writing

If accounts of the Exodus were circulating in Israel by 850 B.C. and if the event itself would have taken place around 1250 B.C., that’s only a gap of 400 years.

Four centuries is not a long time when it comes to national origin stories.

Even in purely oral (illiterate) societies that depend entirely on tradition for knowledge of the past, collective memory can preserve the core facts regarding where a people came from for that length of time.

But Israel was not a purely oral society at this time.

We have artifacts with Hebrew writing that date from the time of King David’s reign, in the 10th century B.C.

Given the fragmentary nature of the historical record in this period, writing had to have been in use in Israelite society even earlier. Very conservatively, we could push it back by a century, into the 11th century B.C.

That would reduce the time between the proposed date of the Exodus (13th century) and the Israelite use of writing (11th century) to only two hundred years.

That’s not long at all for oral tradition to preserve memories of something as important as how a nation was founded, and there’s no reason it need be that long. The Israelites could have been using writing even earlier.

In fact, according to the Exodus account, they came from Egypt, which had been a literate culture for 2,000 years by that point.

Even if they hadn’t yet begun writing their own language in the Phoenician-based script that they later used, the Israelite’s origin story attests that they had been exposed to a literate culture, and they could have been using writing even before the Exodus.

But there’s another reason we should give credence to the Exodus.

 

You Wouldn’t Make This Up

Nobody wants to look down on their ancestors, and national pride pushes people to glorify their ancestors and the founding of their nation.

Even if your nation was founded as, say, a penal colony, you’ll want to find admirable things about your ancestors and talk about their heroic struggle in a new and difficult land.

But you wouldn’t invent the idea that your nation was founded by convicts if it wasn’t true.

Long before 1984, inconvenient facts like that would be conveniently sent “down the memory hole” if at all possible.

We see this all the time in the ancient world. If you read the military records left by Egyptian pharaohs, guess what! They never lost a battle! (Though we do sometimes read about them “winning” battles progressively closer and closer to home as their armies were forced to retreat.)

If the Israelites had been in Canaan since time immemorial, they would have done what other ancient peoples did, such as saying they were created there.

They might have even depicted the Canaanites they displaced as invaders whose yoke they threw off.

Or they might have said their ancestors came from a powerful, nearby civilization which they admired (the way the Romans said Romulus was a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas).

But they would not have invented a shameful past that depicted their ancestors as slaves in a neighboring country that they hated and that periodically conquered them in their own land—which Egypt did.

Slavery was not a desirable condition in the ancient world, and Jewish people were as sensitive to that as anybody.

Thus the Gospel of John reports that, on one occasion, Jesus’ opponents declared, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one” (John 8:33).

This hasty statement ignores not only the bondage in Egypt but the subsequent conquest by the Babylonians and even their present subjection by the Romans—but it testifies to the common feeling of national pride that leads people to minimize or ignore uncomfortable facts about their past.

“We were slaves in Egypt” is one such uncomfortable fact, and it is not something that the Israelites would have made up.

We thus have good reason to hold that the Exodus occurred.

Understanding the Ascension of Jesus

Ascension of Christ. 1510-1520. Oil on panel. Image licenced to Amy Jordan CNN PRODUCTIONS by Amy Jordan Usage : - 3000 X 3000 pixels (Letter Size, A4) © Scala / Art Resource

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (May 25, 2017, 1st hour), Jimmy answers the following questions:

1:29 Why is Ascension Thursday a holy day of obligation in some places and not others?

5:30 How do we know the Ascension happened on a Thursday?

7:20 When will we get our glorified bodies?

8:10 How does Jesus’ glorified body work?

9:25 Why didn’t the disciples always recognize Jesus immediately?

17:35 Why does the Gospel of Mark end the way it does? Why do Matthew and Luke end differently?

23:45 Where did the Ascension take place?

24:10 Did the disciples go to Galilee (as Matthew and Mark say) to encounter Jesus or did they see him in Jerusalem (as Luke says)?

27:20 Does only Luke mention the Ascension?

28:25 Why does Jesus tell Mary Magdalene not to touch him in relation to the Ascension?

30:30 How are Jesus’ appearances in the 40 days different than his appearances to saints? What about his appearance to St. Paul?

33:05 Why did Jesus ascend? What was the purpose of the Ascension?

36:30 Why did Jesus go *up*? Is heaven *up*? Why is God depicted as being in the sky?

44:35 How do we know Luke didn’t make up the Ascension?

48:38 Who were Luke’s sources? Did they include Peter and Paul themselves?

51:15 When did Christians start proclaiming the Ascension?

51:55 What happened with the two “men in white” at the Ascension? Who were they, and what was their message?

Did Jesus say the Second Coming would happen in the first century?

second comingIn this episode of Catholic Answers Live (April 20, 2017, 2nd hour), Jimmy answers the following questions:

2:22 Did Jesus falsely prophesy that he would return before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70?

13:39 Did some of the disciples initially think Jesus was a ghost after his resurrection?

17:50 What is “hermeneutics”? How to respond to the “All have sinned” passage in Romans with respect to the Immaculate Conception of Mary?

28:50 How should we evaluate Buddhism in relation to the Christian Faith?

38:50 How to deal with a problematic family situation that may even be dangerous?

47:23 Did the Council of Nicaea invent the divinity of Christ? Did it arbitrarily select books of the Bible? What was Constantine’s role in it? Was he a sincere Christian? How to know the truth about all this?

53:39 Catholic Answers MORE begins

In this episode of Catholic Answers More (April 20, 2017), Cy and Jimmy discuss:

* Beards!
* The origin of “Rindercella”
* Spoonerisms and other eech sperrors
* Hee-Haw comedian Archie Campbell
* Why the Church accepted 1 and 2 Maccabees into the canon but not 3 and 4 Maccabees
* Easter foods
* Why eggs are associated with Easter

Special appearance by Nick Chamberlain!

Archie Campbell does “Rindercella”: https://youtu.be/1FcUc2Tk0GQ

Click this link to watch the Catholic Answers Live show on YouTube.

 

The Last Days of Jesus

lenten-2In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (April 14, 2017, 1st hour), Jimmy answers the following questions:

1:10 What was happening at the Triumphal Entry?

4:50 What is happening with the mysterious incident where the disciples get the animal for Jesus to ride?

8:30 When was the cleansing of the Temple?

9:50 What is a “Markan sandwich”?

10:40 Why did Jesus curse the fig tree?

12:00 Why is Jesus angry in the temple? Why did he cleanse it?

13:55 Why does John have the cleansing of the temple at a whole different point in Jesus’ ministry?

15:00 How did Jesus’ opponents challenge him and try to get him in trouble with the authorities?

19:00 How did Jesus respond to the challenge of the Sadducees?

21:50 How did Jesus use one of the same techniques that modern apologists use?

22:55 What are we missing about the story of the widow’s mite?

24:55 What does Jesus teach in his prophetic discourse?

27:35 Who anoints Jesus and why is he anointed?

28:50 Why are the identities of some people kept secret in the Synoptic Gospels but then revealed in John’s Gospel?

30:05 How do we explain the mysterious way Jesus arranges a place to celebrate the Last Supper? How did Jesus secretly thwart what Judas might have done?

32:40 Where is the garden of Gethsemane? How do we know what Jesus prayed there if the disciples fell asleep?

34:10 Why is the identity of the disciple who used a sword kept secret–until John’s Gospel?

35:25 What’s happening with the young man who runs away naked in Mark’s Gospel? If it’s not Mark himself, who might that be?

37:15 Was Jesus’ trial legal? Why did the Jerusalem authorities have to take him to Pontius Pilate?

39:15 Why is Jesus said to rise “on the third day” when it was only two days later? Could he have been crucified earlier than Good Friday?

41:15 How do we reconcile the different descriptions of the angels at the tomb? What about the women?

44:10 Did Jesus bodily rise from the dead?

Click the link to watch the video on YouTube.