Bart D. Ehrman - The Bane of Fundies!

[coffeeveritas]

Not true, in Luke Pilate believes Jesus is innocent but can't save him because the Jews would raise hell for the Romans, they condemn Jesus and instead free Barabbas (the governor could apparently free a prisoner on Passover). Luke is the 'Alexandrian' gospel, it's origins are from a rather anit-semitic sect of Christianity.

In Matthew it's all Pilates doing and the Jew's weren't particularly responsible for Jesus being crucified. Matthew is from a very very jewish community, thus the difference.

Well Luke was written in the first century, so I'm not sure where you're getting "anit-semitic" from. Christianity started off as a Jewish group, founded by twelve Jewish guys and one other Jewish apostle. As late as the fourth century people like john chrysostom had to tell Christians to stop going to synagogue. Not to mention the church in the first century was Jewish, as the first place Christianity spread was Jerusalem and the surrounding area. It's funny that you claim Matthew as the Jewish Gospel because most people try to paint it as the most anti-semitic. Also, anti-semitism has been a part of the church in later years, and there was even a bit fairly early on in the church, but it doesn't make any sense in light of the Gospels because they all make it clear that Jesus was Jewish.

As for the quote from Matthew 27:
24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
25 All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”

First of all the author of Matthew was Jewish, writing to Jewish people who lived in a Jewish community. Calling this Gospel anti-semitic is also stupid, but here we see the account that seems the most anti-semitic. (Read Mat 26:28, "blood on us" is an unintentionally ironic statement on the part of the Jews.) Clearly "In Matthew it's all Pilates doing and the Jew's weren't particularly responsible," doesn't make any sense. The tension we see in the Gospel accounts between Jesus and the Jews is within the Jewish community. If you read the Gospels they are clearly not about hating the Jews. We see Jesus saying at numerous points in the Gospels that his mission is to save the people of Israel, and we also see him filled with compassion when he sees crowds of Jews looking for teaching. Also keep in mind that Jesus and his disciples were blatantly Jewish, and all of the Gospels make use of the Jewish holy books.

As for Minimalist,

such a claim is mere hearsay. There is no hint at who those sources may have been. "Luke" is of course the most "Roman" of the 4. Instead of highlighting "Jewish" events, Luke tries to tie the story (poorly) into Roman history making mention of Augustus, Tiberius, Pilate and Quirinius and runs afoul of "Matthew" with the nativity in the process.

Such a statement is, I suppose, a little bit better than "Luke" saying "I pulled the whole thing out of my ass" but not by much.


As for the Jews, be serious. The Romans did not give a rat's ass about the Jews by the time the 3'd revolt was over. For a group which was trying to make inroads among an essentially Greco-Roman population far better to blame a bunch of hated outcasts than the imperial administration.

But since you raise the point it is probably worth considering this whole sadducee/pharisee thing. Prior to the sack of the temple it was the sadducees who ran it.

I'm getting that you're arguing that the Gospel writers let the "Jews" take the heat for the crucifixion to make friends in the Roman community. That still doesn't account for the fact that the Gospels are all about Jewish people and quote Jewish scripture directly. As for my point about the Pharisees and Sadducees as the ones at odds with Jesus, there are numerous accounts of this in the Gospels. The Pharisees were important lay leaders of the day, though the Sadducees were the ones controlling the temple, and the ones with enormous political influence. Look at Mat 27:20, "But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed." The ones in charge of the temple, the "chief priests and the elders," would have been the Sadducees, and clearly they are the ones stirring up trouble in this account. Keep in mind that the Sadducees were in close collaboration with the Roman government, and were in charge of keeping the temple free from trouble and handling matters of Jewish faith. Pilate already had trouble earlier in his career with the Jewish faith (mass protest against imperial symbols in the temple), so he might have been reluctant to get involved again, trying as much as possible to let the Jews handle their own problems, which after all, is why the Romans let the Sadducees have power in the first place. Pilate even tries to ship Jesus off to Herod to get out of it. But the Romans wouldn't let the Sadducees execute people, so they had to pressure Pilate to let them kill Jesus. So clearly the Gospels have a problem with the Sadducees, who were actually the only pro-Roman Jewish group in Palestine (though the Gospels also disagreed with the Pharisees too).

As for your comment about Luke's intro, "such a claim is mere hearsay," whether you believe Luke or not, he's clearly claiming to be authoring a historical account based on the stories of eyewitnesses. But you're right, he doesn't list his sources, so we don't know who he was talking about, though citing sources wasn't a clearly defined historical practice in the ancient greco-roman tradition. It's frustrating for moderns to have to deal with such uncertainty in our written sources, so I sympathize.

Thanks for a lively discussion my friends, enjoyable as always!