Bart D. Ehrman - The Bane of Fundies!

[Minimalist]

I don't get that out of Matthew 27 at all, Void.

Jesus Before Pilate
11 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

12 When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” 14 But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.

15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.

21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.

“Barabbas,” they answered.

22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.

They all answered, “Crucify him!”

23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

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!”

26 Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

The Jews not only cause it they accept responsibility for them and their children. Pilate is portrayed as a vacillating wimp.[/code]

---

Yet, Coffee,

even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,

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.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...senes.html

The main focus of Sadducee life was rituals associated with the Temple.

The Sadducees disappeared around 70 A.D., after the destruction of the Second Temple (see below). None of the writings of the Sadducees survived, so the little we know about them comes from their Pharisaic opponents.

With the end of the temple and the required sacrifices the raison d'etre for the Sadducees vanished and so did they. In fact, Josephus tells us quite plainly that many were killed within in the temple precincts by the various Zealot factions or, presumably, when the Romans broke in. The point being that by the time the gospels were cobbled together there were no more sadduccees and it was the pharisees who turned the whole thing into rabbinic judaism. Perhaps this accounts for the repeated "conflicts" between jesus and the pharisees when they were not the ones calling the shots during his supposed life time. The pharisees had survived to become the "bad example" that the early xtians needed.

Just a thought...though there are other aspects of this issue.

[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!

[Minimalist]

Well Luke was written in the first century,

Before we go any further the evidence for that is, what?

Scholars generally date "Mark" to the late first century because of the burning of the temple and "Luke" comes after "Mark." Even this is dubious. "Jesus" in Mark 13 is alleged to say: "And Jesus answering said to him, See you these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone on another, that shall not be thrown down."

Yes. The temple was burned in 70 and much of the city destroyed. But the so-called "prophecy" did not come true until 135 when Hadrian actually leveled the site to build Aelia Capitolina. So we have the "prophecy" coming true 65 years later.... in the second century. The oldest fragment we have of any gospel is P52 and that is dated, by paleography alone, to Hadrianic times. Which brings us back to c 135.

[Anomalocaris]

I see no contradiction between early christianity being simultaneously primarily jewish and antisemitic. If you say rant that 99% of jews deserves no better then to burn in hell, but 1% is redeemable, you will be called to task for being anti-semitic. It makes no difference whether you happen to belong that 1% or if you are a complete outsider. In fact if you were in that 1% you would probably be more effective and convincing in inciting antisemitism amongst the outsiders then if you are one of the outsiders.

[coffeeveritas]

Well Luke was written in the first century,

Before we go any further the evidence for that is, what?

Scholars generally date "Mark" to the late first century because of the burning of the temple and "Luke" comes after "Mark." Even this is dubious. "Jesus" in Mark 13 is alleged to say: "And Jesus answering said to him, See you these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone on another, that shall not be thrown down."

Yes. The temple was burned in 70 and much of the city destroyed. But the so-called "prophecy" did not come true until 135 when Hadrian actually leveled the site to build Aelia Capitolina. So we have the "prophecy" coming true 65 years later.... in the second century. The oldest fragment we have of any gospel is P52 and that is dated, by paleography alone, to Hadrianic times. Which brings us back to c 135.

I'm not aware of any recent scholarship dating the Gospel of Luke as late as 135 CE, since we have works dated earlier than that which cite the Gospel. In particular we have the Polycarp and Pseudo-Barnabas that both cite Luke fairly early in the second century (Pseudo-Barnabas is c.70-130, but almost no one dates it later than 110). We also have Luke quoted in the Didache, which is definitely written before the middle of the second century. Most scholars tend to agree that the Gospel can't be dated later than works that cite it and quote from it. In terms of modern scholarship I'm not aware of anyone that dates Luke in the second century, I just haven't seen a good case for it. Then again maybe there is a good case that has escaped my reading, where are you getting your dating of the Gospel from? I'd like to read it.

A pleasure as always!

[downbeatplumb]

Tell me Min if the copiest did such a poor job why is it that the book of Isaiah is word for word accurate after 1000 years between known copies, this knowledge tends to lean in favor of the copiest.
PS. there are many others who are experts in the ancient languages and they disagree with Ehrman, and they are no more biased than he is.

It seems the occasional mistake did creep in.

The Wicked Bible, sometimes called The Adulterous Bible or The Sinners' Bible is a term referring to the Bible published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, which was meant to be a reprint of the King James Bible. The name is derived from the compositors' mistake: in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14) the word "not" in the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery" was omitted. This blunder was spread in a number of copies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible

[Justtristo]

Jesus, Interrupted is a fucking awesome book. One of my most recommended.

I am reading it at the moment, I agree fully with you.

[Godscreated]

[hide]Read them. They get progressively more forgiving of Pilate and progressively more antagonistic to the Jews.

There were 3 serious Jewish revolts between 66 and 135 AD. By the end the Jews were quite unpopular. Coincidentally ( or not ) it is around 140 that xtians become noticeable to the Greco-Romans.
[hide]

BTW, what has any of this to do with Ehrman's point that your "inerrant" gospels contradict themselves about the day that your god boy died? I understand why you keep trying to change the subject but it is my job to keep dragging you back to face reality.

Did not try to change the subject or anything else, I live and face reality every day the biggest difference between you and myself on this matter is I do it with God and not alone and for me it's a sound choice.
After reading all four gospels I see that they are all in agreement that Christ was crucified on Friday the day of preparation for the Sabbath.

[cdog]

After reading all four gospels I see that they are all in agreement that Christ was crucified on Friday the day of preparation for the Sabbath.

Really?

Mark 14:12 "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”"

They clearly are in Jerusalem on the day of preparation (for the passover).

They proceed that evening to have the passover meal, jesus does the whole "this is my body" and all that. Note that the jewish day began and ended with sunset, so this is now passover day.

In any case they go out to pray, jesus is betrayed spends the night in jail and

Mark 15:25 "It was nine in the morning when they crucified him."

Obviously this is not 9am on the day of preparation for the passover, since they had already eaten the passover meal.

edit: you could of course claim that mark says jesus died on the day of preparation in mark 15:42. This is true

"It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached"
"When evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, "
"And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,"

a couple different translations for you. he's saying jesus died on the day of preparation... for the sabbath, in case you didn't get that

[Godscreated]

After reading all four gospels I see that they are all in agreement that Christ was crucified on Friday the day of preparation for the Sabbath.

Really?

Mark 14:12 "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”"

They clearly are in Jerusalem on the day of preparation (for the passover).

They proceed that evening to have the passover meal, jesus does the whole "this is my body" and all that. Note that the jewish day began and ended with sunset, so this is now passover day.

In any case they go out to pray, jesus is betrayed spends the night in jail and

Mark 15:25 "It was nine in the morning when they crucified him."

Obviously this is not 9am on the day of preparation for the passover, since they had already eaten the passover meal.

edit: you could of course claim that mark says jesus died on the day of preparation in mark 15:42. This is true

"It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached"
"When evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, "
"And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,"

a couple different translations for you. he's saying jesus died on the day of preparation... for the sabbath, in case you didn't get that

Isn't that what I said?