Category: Uncategorized

Mark vs Luke on the Crucifixion

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

This week we are considering how Mark and Luke took the same basic story — the Crucifixion — and  described how Jesus reacted during the event in an entirely different manner.

Mark, the first Gospel written, portrays Jesus as being in deep agony as he goes to the cross. He beseeches God three times to get him out of this. He is mocked by both of the men hanging with him. Finally, at the end he says “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Luke likely had Mark’s manuscript on the kitchen table when he was writing his version. Luke readily admits early on to having consulted other documents in preparing his Gospel. But in contrast to Mark, Luke says nothing about Jesus being sorrowful or distraught. Jesus asks only once for God to get him out, and even that included the qualifier “if it be your will.” On the cross, he asks God to forgive his transgressors. And only one of the robbers mocks him on the cross, while the other asks for help. 

Why did Luke make all those changes? Interpreters can only speculate. Maybe he wanted to give an example to Christians how they should face death in the face of persecution. But the main point is that Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew all have a different emphasis on what they say about Jesus. It’s not that one is right and another is wrong. It’s just that the Gospels are not to be treated as first-person eyewitness accounts of what happened 2,000 years ago.  

Much of the information above was from the book by Bart Ehrman entitled Misquoting Jesus:  The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. The Chief Editor finished it this week. It was worth looking into, although not a page-turner. Here are just a few of the reasons that the version of the Bible we pick up today may (or more likely may not) be exactly what was written down initially:

  • Translation from Arabic (the spoken word in Jesus’ area and time) to Greek to Latin to English.
  • Manual copying by scribes of various skill levels for centuries before the invention of the printing press.
  • Edits made by scribes and church leaders to make the texts read the way ‘they should have been written’.

OK, six bullets this week. But it’s still short.

How is the Gospel of John Different?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Question of the week:  What makes the Gospel of John and the epistles of John different from the other New Testament writings?

We’ll focus this week on the Gospel of John. 

  • The stories are different. Not all of them, but some.Only in John do we find the story about the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, and raising Lazarus from the dead.
  • No parables. No pithy quotable quotes or stories. Rather, Jesus talks in longer discourses. We also get Jesus spending a lot of time emphasizing that he is the one sent from heaven. Reinforcing that view, Jesus’ miracles are described as ‘signs’ in order to prove that what Jesus says is true. This is in sharp contrast to several verses in the other three gospels, where Jesus asks people not to tell anyone after he performs a miracle.
  • Multiple authors? Chapter 21 (the final one) appears to be an add-on. It does not flow from the end of Chapter 20 and is written in a different style. Scholars speculate it was possibly added later to round out the stories of Jesus’ resurrection. And while we are talking about writing style, the entire prologue about Jesus being the Word of God is written in a completely different (poetic) style from the other chapters of John. John never calls Jesus the “Word” anywhere else. Was this another add on inserted by a cleric in the second century who liked poetry?

The more we dig into this stuff, the more fascinating it gets. The Chief Editor has been reading a book by Bart Ehrman entitled Misquoting Jesus:  The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Today’s bullets were largely taken from Dr. Ehrman’s descriptions about John in this book. The big take-away from this book so far:  We have no original manuscripts of any books from the New Testament. The earliest fragment (and it is a fragment) is dated around 200 CE. So with all the hand-copying and ‘editing’ over the centuries, it’s hard to tell what the original texts actually said. 

Who Wrote Luke?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Question of the week:  Who wrote Luke?

The Chief Editor learned in his small town Sunday school class that Luke was a physician who traveled with Paul and wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the apostles. Where did that come from? 

  • It’s kinda in some of Paul’s letters, but not really. First, the letter to the Colossians mentions a physician that was a companion of Paul’s. The same letter also has a minor reference to a Gentile named Luke (it seemed important for the writer to note Luke was a Gentile). But there is never a sentence that puts the two together. Plus most Biblical scholars think Paul did not write Colossians anyway (another rabbit trail for future 3BTs). And the author of Luke/Acts never says who he is, other than implying he was a traveling companion of Paul, but probably not as seen in the next bullet.
  • OK, fine. So Luke was probably not a physician and may not have written the Gospel of Luke nor Acts. And while we’re at it, whoever wrote Acts got some of the sequences of events mixed up compared to what Paul writes. For example, in Galatians Paul says he did not go to Jerusalem after his vision on the road to Damascus. But in Acts it says he went straight to Jerusalem after the conversion to consult with ‘the boys.’ And there seems to be some confusion over whether Timothy was left in Athens or not. If there was really someone who was a traveling companion of Paul that wrote Luke/Acts, you’d think the record of occurrences would be more consistent.
  • What difference does it make? It’s part of trying to piece the puzzle together what really happened in that early development of Christianity in the 30-70 CE period. Whoever wrote Acts had an agenda — make it look like Paul and the other apostles got along famously and they all were on the same page when it came to preaching the good news. But Paul’s letters (Galatians in particular) are pretty clear he wanted to make a clean break from the Jewish ‘law’ as espoused by James and the apostles in Jerusalem. In Galatians, Paul swears he did not go back to Jerusalem after his conversion, in contradiction to Acts (which was written 20 years later). This means that either Paul a) wants to emphasize that his conversion and teachings are directly from God without interference by the brethren in Jerusalem, or b) Paul is … how should we say … stretching things a bit. The second choice seems unlikely, but it does beg the question of why it was important for Paul to write in Galatians 1:20 “In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie.” 

Question of the week:  What makes the Gospel of John and the epistles of John different from the other New Testament writings?

Why Did Luke Not Like Jesus’ Family?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

We talked a few weeks ago how the author of Luke/Acts was a huge fan of Paul. But when it came to Jesus’ brother James —- not so much. And the author of Luke doesn’t much care for any of Jesus’ family for that matter. What makes us think so?

Anonymous family members. Mark, the gospel written first, frequently mentions the brothers and sisters of Jesus, even naming them. Luke, despite having Mark open on the kitchen table as a reference, makes no mention of any of Jesus’ siblings by name. This is true even at the crucifixion scene, where Mark identifies Mary, the mother of James and Jesus. But Luke just says “the women” were there.

Jerusalem vs Galilee. Luke also wants to eliminate any association of Jesus and his followers with Galilee. In contrast to some of the other gospels, in Luke the followers of Jesus did not retreat to Galilee after Jesus’ death (Jesus even forbids the apostles to leave Jerusalem in Luke’s version). And he puts all the “sightings” of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Why’s that? To Luke Galilee represents the native, Jewish origins of Jesus and his family. It is also where the leadership of James apparently took root following Jesus’ death, with the influence of Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus’ other brothers. Galilee was also known, from the time of the Maccabees (c. 165 B.C.) as the center of political and religious unrest. Sooooo, if you recall from an earlier post, Luke was writing his gospel in the midst of the Jewish/Roman battles that resulted in the destruction of the Temple. And he wanted to be clear that the Jesus movement was not to be associated with any kind of rebel activity coming out of Galilee.

Most of this week’s observations are from a book entitled Paul and Jesus by James Tabor. Tabor also has a blog, which we have featured here before too.

Question of the week:  Who wrote Luke?

More on Judas

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Let’s continue down the rabbit trail on Judas. Last week we speculated about whether Judas was a real person, or whether the author of Mark invented him as a purely symbolic character in the first Christian public relations campaign with the Romans. Alternatively, the attached ‘Iscariot’ descriptor (they did not have last names back then) could indicate that Judas was a rebel trying to get Jesus to join the guerilla movement. One of our readers even noted the rebellion parallels to the character of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. 

Let’s look at some other interesting things about Judas.

  • What does Paul have to say about Judas? The short answer is nothing. Yep, nowhere in any of Paul’s letters is there a mention of Judas or the betrayal after the last supper. To make matters more interesting, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul starts listing all the people Jesus appeared to after his resurrection: first to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to the 500 …..
  • Wait a minute. Didn’t Judas die soon after the betrayal? If that was the case why would Paul write about 12 disciples in the post resurrection appearances? In the Gospels, it is clear that Jesus appeared to eleven disciples. And even though Paul did not have access to the gospels (they had not been written yet), we know from Galatians 1 that Paul spent time with Peter about three years after Jesus’ death. You woulda thought something like that would have come up while they were partaking of some good Middle Eastern wine and discussing the need for circumcision to become a Christian.
  • Two different versions of Judas’ death. First, there is nothing about Judas’ death mentioned in Mark, Luke, or John. In Matthew he hangs himself. And in Acts there’s a strange description of Judas falling down in a field and his intestines falling out. So there’s that. 

Judas — fact or fiction?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

We’ll get back to Luke/Acts eventually. Last week we talked about how the Jewish/Roman war influenced the writing of all the Gospels. We also noted that Mark penned his book in the middle of the conflict … between the fall of Jerusalem and the final battle at Masada (approx 70-72 CE). And we left with two questions related to one of the main characters in Mark: 

  1. What does the name Judas mean? Or to be more complete, what does the name Judas Iscariot mean?
  2. Why is that significant?
  • How many Judas’s are there in the New Testament? Several. Obviously Judas Iscariot. Jesus had a brother named Judas. One of the other disciples was also named Judas. And there was a book in the New Testament written under the name Jude (or Judas), which apparently is not related to any of the other Judas’s. 
  • What about Iscariot? The most mundane explanation for Iscariot is that it might refer to a village named Kerioth where Judas could have come from. Or maybe not. Let’s go with conspiracy theory here. In Jesus’ day, one of the most aggressive of the Jewish rebel groups was called the “Sicarii”, which means “political assassins.” Notice the similarity to Iscariot? Hmmm. Many scholars believe the two are connected.
  • Applying this symbolism to Mark. Bishop Shelby Spong believes that Mark invented the character of Judas Iscariot as a literary tool, not as an actual historical figure. Here’s the logic. After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians wanted to make sure the Romans knew they (the Christians) were not part of the rebel Jews. One of the ways to do that was to create a story about how your leader (i.e. Jesus) was betrayed by a rebel Jew. This would demonstrate that both you and the Romans had a common enemy — i.e. the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Plus, to complete the definitions from above, Judas is the Greek spelling of Judah, the traditional name of the Jewish nation.

So file this away in the mental archives. This seems a little circumstantial, and many scholars take the opposite viewpoint that Judas was indeed a real person. But it might give you something to think about next Easter when you hear all about Judas betraying Jesus.

Paul slams the door on James

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Last week we talked about the rift between Paul and the ‘pillars’ back in Jerusalem — James and Peter. This week we are going to talk a little more about James, especially how James is framed up in the book of Acts.  

Both Luke and Acts were written by the same author, somewhere near the end of the first century. 

  • Why is that important? Because taken together, these two books appear to be historical narratives  of Jesus and the early Christian movement after Jesus’ death. But if you look at these a little more closely, you can see the author had an agenda. And that agenda was to promote Paul as the true leader of the post-Jesus movement and downplay the importance of any other associates of Jesus, including Jesus’ own family. 
  • Say what? Acts acknowledges that James was the head of things early on. But you have to look for it. If you’re skimming along you’d barely recognize it, because there’s just one line saying that James was the head of the church in Jerusalem when Paul came to visit (probably around 55 CE). That’s it. James had been in charge of the early Christian movement (not called Christian at the time) for 25 years, and he barely gets a verse in chapter 9 of Acts. After that all references to James stop. And once Paul is introduced in chapter 9, the rest of the 24 chapters is all about Paul. Even Peter is somewhat marginalized, largely dropping out after chapter 12.
  • Want more proof that James was supposed to be the head? We have mentioned the Gospel of Thomas in prior posts. It was one of those lost works that were found in a dig at Nag Hammadi back in the 1940s. Here is an interesting excerpt from this book:  The disciples said to Jesus, “We know you will leave us. Who is going to be our leader then?” Jesus said to them, “No matter where you go you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”

We have to stop here. But we’ve got a few more interesting things from Luke/Acts to talk about next week. Thanks for reading.

Paul and James come to fisticuffs

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Question of the week:  Who was in charge of the Christian movement before Paul?

The short answer: James (Jesus’ brother) and Peter. But there’s a little more to it than that.

  • First, some important dates. Paul had his conversion experience around 35 CE. He was likely in his late 20s at that time. But he did not officially meet the boys in Jerusalem for 15 years after that, around 50 CE. That’s a pretty long time to go before meeting your boss.
  • Why so long and why the meeting? Let’s just say Paul was going a little rogue on things. The conservative group in Jerusalem (led by James and Peter) followed Jesus’ teachings, but remained within the Jewish tradition. But Paul had his own version of the gospel that did not require strict adherence to Jewish laws. And he preached to those ne’er-do-wells — the Gentiles. Paul’s message is focused on the resurrection. He says nothing in any of his writings about the birth, life, or general teachings of Jesus.
  • So Paul was essentially called on the carpet? Pretty much. And things did not go well. The book of Acts makes it seem like they all had a meeting of the minds in 50 CE. But Acts was written almost 50 years after those events took place. Plus, in Paul’s letters he repeatedly says things about ‘the pillars’ in Jerusalem that indicate there was a major rift between the two.

Next week:  Why did the Christian movement essentially embrace Paul and not James and Peter?

Where did Luke get his material?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Clarification. First, a bit of a clarification from last week’s post on John the Baptist and his attire. The Chief Editor failed to hit the delete button on one of the sentences about what John wore. One sentence said he had a hairy coat of camel’s hair and shorts. The other sentence omitted the shorts. One of our astute readers noticed the difference and asked if there was any significance in the difference (ya never know about all these nuances we keep finding in the Bible). Alas, it was merely an oversight by our Quality Assurance department in proofing the final version. We have spoken firmly to the department manager.

We appreciate these observations — it keeps us diligent.

Back to this week’s focus — Luke and Acts. Luke and Acts were written sometime between 80-100 CE, 30+ years after Paul’s letters and even 10+ years after the first Gospel Mark.  

If Luke was written so long after Paul’s letters and Mark’s Gospel, where did he get his material? There are three sources for Luke’s material.

  • First, both Matthew and Luke take a lot of material straight from Mark. But Mark’s account is pretty sparse — no birth story and his Easter story ends with the women finding an empty tomb. Editor’s note: The last several verses in Mark recording the appearances of Jesus to the disciples were written in much later by someone else who didn’t like the unexciting ending.
  • Second, both Matthew and Luke added a number of Jesus’ sayings from a theoretical document called Q. Why theoretical? Because Archaeologists have not actually found this document. Nevertheless, both Luke and Matthew contain almost verbatim many of the same sayings of Jesus. None of these sayings are in Mark or John. So Bible scholars have concluded that there must have been another document floating around in the first century that both Matthew and Luke utilized. (Q stands for a German word that means ‘source.’)
  • Third, and this is where we get even more gray, there is Luke’s subjectivity. Luke was written after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish people were under a lot of pressure from Rome — not a good time to be writing inflammatory literature. Consequently, we see in Luke a lot of backpedaling on how the Romans treated Jesus in comparison to Mark. Pontius Pilate wasn’t such a bad guy in Luke. There is no mocking or scourging by the Roman soldiers in Luke, compared to Mark.  Plus (and this will lead to next week), the author of Luke/Acts was a big proponent of Paul, who was a Roman citizen. 

Question of the week:  If Paul did not come along until 20+ years after the death of Jesus, who was in charge in the interim?

 Most of this week’s observations are from a book entitled Paul and Jesus by James Tabor. Tabor also has a blog, which we have featured here before too.

Was John the Baptist a Hairy Man?

~ Dana Horton ~ Leave a comment

Many of us were taught in Sunday School that John the Baptist was the fore-runner to Jesus. The visual is that John graciously stepped aside when Jesus came along, as he clearly recognized that Jesus was the Messiah and John was just the messenger. But there’s a new book by Joel Marcus that claims that Is not the case. The book is called John the Baptist in History and Theology. This week’s bullets come from a summary of this book.

  • Verification? The usual story is in the gospel of John, where John the B baptizes Jesus, and then God says that this is my beloved son, and it’s all pretty obvious. But both Matthew and Luke have accounts that indicate John the B was not convinced. Specifically, John was put in prison at the end of his life before being beheaded. While there, he sends messengers to Jesus asking him if he is the Messiah. Ummm, why did John need to get clarification if that whole Messiah question was settled at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry?
  • Who did John think of himself as? John thought he was the return of the Old Testament prophet Elijah.  Stay with us here. In the Old Testament story, Elijah was taken up to heaven while still alive. Because Elijah had not really died, he was expected to return at the end of the age. And John thought he was the embodiment of that return.

    To further make his point, the author offers the following logical argument:  Elijah is described in 2 Kings 1:8 as a hairy man wearing leather shorts. In the Gospels John is described as a man wearing leather shorts and a coat of camel’s hair. But the Gospels say John just wore a hairy coat. Why the difference? Because John must not have had much hair, yet wanted to model himself as much as possible on Elijah.

    How do you know that? OK, we were not there. But if the Gospel writers had instead invented the description of John out of whole cloth, they would have portrayed him as a hairy man, exactly like Elijah. This makes a logical case that the description of him wearing a hairy garment probably reflects the historical record.
  • Interesting, but how did that affect his relationship with Jesus? If John thought of himself as Elijah, he may have seen his star pupil Jesus not as the Messiah but as Elisha, the successor figure who inherited a double portion of Elijah’s spirit when the latter was taken up to heaven. John thought of himself as ‘the man’ who spoke of atonement, salvation, and spiritual blessing. After him there would be only a mopping up operation–the Messiah (not Jesus) would arrive to enact judgment, separating the wheat (those sealed by John’s baptism for salvation) from the chaff, and consuming the latter in unquenchable fire.

Is this stuff fun or what?