Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt7

Did the disciples invent the resurrection?

            How many people do you know that are some flavor of Christianity?  In that context, I mean to paint with the absolute broadest brush possible, any religious movement that can be appropriately identified as Christianity.  How many people do you know are practicing Simon-ists?  Or practitioners of Bar-Kokhba-anity?  Do you know anyone who believes in Bar-Giora-ism?  As an honest question, do you know who Simon bar Giora or Simon bar Kosevah were?

They were both historical Jewish figures, Giora was proclaimed as the King of the Jews during the First Jewish War, and Kosevah was the messianic figure and leader of the Second-Jewish revolt.  Both had followers, both were second-temple Jews*, both were killed by Rome, and like Jesus, both are called false messiahs in Rabbinic literature.  Yet, the followers of these messianic figures never proclaimed their messiah had been raised from the dead.  They never continued their movements.  That’s mainly because there was no messianic expectation in second-temple Judaism for a dying messiah.  Why are there no religions based on these messianic figures?  To be blunt, they died and stayed dead.  Sure, some dead people still have a religious following from them, but not from the second-temple period and as a fulfiller of Judaism.

Did the disciples steal the resurrection story?

            This is a trendy idea online.  As has been previously pointed out in this series, many of the dying-rising god myths, both from Ancient Near-eastern Texts and European sources, are connected to the seasonal cycles.  There ways to explain why things die in the autumn and come to life again in the spring.  Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection have nothing to do with the seasonal cycle and has the backdrop of second-temple Judaism and the Passover instead.  Moreover, a good question would be how pagan mythology that explains seasonal cycles, repackaged as a dying and rising Messiah, convince second-temple Jews to abandon their religion and cultural identity?  As has already been established, the disciples were not well-traveled and highly educated men.  They were, for the most part, second-temple Jewish peasants.

            Keep in mind that Churches from various backgrounds, traditions and denominations annually celebrate Easter; however, there is no belief that Jesus just rose again last Sunday (or next Sunday if you’re Eastern Orthodox).  Easter is the remembrance of His resurrection, a resurrection that happened once in history and doesn't happen every year.  However, as pointed out above, many of the dying and rising gods of paganism are connected to the seasonal cycles, and therefore, they were believed to die and raise annually.

            As N.T. Wright points out, when Paul preached Christ’s resurrection in Athens (Acts 17), he was met with mocking and misunderstanding, but no one was saying things like, “Oh, this is a re-interpretation of X [Osiris, Attis, etc.])” (Wright, 81).  Which raises another good question, if second-temple Jews took pagan mythologies and used them to explain away the fact that their Messiah died, how would that get pagans to convert to a Jewish movement?  Especially if it was their myths that the Jesus followers were adapting to fit their non-Jewish dying and rising Messiah?

            Finally, on this point, early Christians believed that Jesus died, was buried and then rose again; i.e., He returned to life, this life and returned to this world.  Osiris was quite different. Egyptologist Dr. Frankfort, who was not a Christian, explains in his book that Osiris was a god who survived his passing through death but never returned to life (Frankfort, 185).

Perhaps this leads to another good question, did the first-century and second-temple Jewish followers of Jesus believe in a literal (bodily) resurrection of Jesus?  Which is the topic that we’ll take up next week.

(* The second-Jewish revolt was 132-136 AD, and Simon ben Kosevah died in 135, both of which are after the Second-temple period since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.)

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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Works Cited

Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wright, N. T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3). New York: Fortress Press.

Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt6

            In last week’s blog, we explored a little of second-temple Judaism’s understanding of resurrection and noted that our two primary New Testament (NT) sects of Judaism differed on the topic.  The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, whereas the Sadducees did not.  Now, I think we need to meet the Sadducees where they were, understanding that they only accepted the books of Moses or Pentateuch and rejected the Oral Torah.  Their exact beliefs regarding other Old Testament (OT) texts are not explicit; however, they did not accept them as authoritative scripture.  Moreover, there are very few passages in the whole OT where one can find the idea of resurrection, and none of them are in the Pentateuch.  So, we can see, with their parameters, why they would reject the idea of resurrection.

            Where does the idea of resurrection then come from?  Well, as I stated above, there are very few passages in the OT where resurrection is present.  The state of the dead in the OT is a developing concept, for example in the book of Job[1] we can read, “When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol [the place of the dead] does not come up” (Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible, Job 7:9).  From Job’s understanding, the dead go to the place of the dead and do not return (cf. Job 14).  However, during the time of the exile and towards the beginning of the second-temple period, this view develops further as can be seen in the book of Daniel.  There, we get one of the texts on the subject, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Ibid. Dan. 12:2).  Job represents a very early and undeveloped theology, he serves as the priest of his own family, there is no hint of organized religion or Mosaic laws.  Daniel comes from the end of the captivity, and by the time of the second-temple, there are more texts that express the idea of some future state of the dead.

            One could then ask, what would be the portrait from the OT of the state of the dead?  It would seem like ancient Israel had a rather dark view of that place.  David called it, “the pit” (Ps. 30:9) and another Psalmist calls the place of departed spirits, “the grave”, “Abaddon” [place of destruction], “the darkness”, and “the land of forgetfulness” (88:10-12).  Solomon describes it as a place where there is no activity, planning, knowledge or wisdom (Ecc. 9:10).  Again, Job did not think that one returns from the place that he depicts as darkness and deep shadow (10:21).  However, that is not the only depiction we get, starting in the Pentateuch with Abraham, it reads that he was gathered to his people (Gen. 25:17) and by the time of the kings they are described as sleeping with their fathers (1 Ki. 2:10, 11:43).  It needs to be made clear, this place of sleeping with their fathers is not the tomb, because there is no text regarding the burial place of Jesse or any of David’s other ancestors.  Therefore, it seems reasonable that by saying, “they slept with their fathers” means, that they went to the place of the dead.

Would resurrection in the OT raise the Messiah?

            Although I have above stated that there is little in the OT about resurrection, it is there.  The clearest is Daniel 12:2-3; however, notice that the text mentions “many” but not “all” and therefore, this text does not suggest a universal resurrection.  When does this happen?  Whoever is talking to Daniel states that it will be at the end of time (12:4).  Therefore, this resurrection text is speaking about an event that will happen at the end of this age.

            That kind of eschatological [end of this age, start of the next age] view of the resurrection is expressed in the NT by a peasant Jew.  Martha tells Jesus that she knows her brother Lazarus will be raised again on the last day (Jn. 11:24).  Which could be a very good indicator of what the common Jew in the first-century believed about the resurrection of the dead and that view would fit what the Daniel text said.

            However, if that view is accurate, it does nothing to explain the origin of a dying and rising Messiah.  N.T. Wright, one of the foremost scholars on the NT and historical period that we are talking about writes, “No second-Temple Jewish text speaks of the Messiah being raised from the dead” (Wright, 25).  Notice that the apostles did not understand Jesus when He predicted His resurrection (Mk. 9:31-32, Lk. 18:32-36), nor did they believe right away when it was reported to them (Lk. 24:11). 

Therefore, there was a sudden and unconditioned [in the Pavlov sense] shift amongst a group of second-Temple Jews to begin proclaiming a unique resurrection in history[2] [as opposed to an eschatological one] and that resurrection was of the Messiah.  How did that happen?  Where would these peasant Jews have come up with such a radical idea, something quite different from their embedded theology?  This mutation was fundamentally different from the Jewish expectation of the day

And with that, we’ll leave it and pick it up next week.

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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Works Cited

1995. Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible. LaHabra: The Lockman Foundation.

Wright, N. T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3). New York: Fortress Press.

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[1] Dating for this book is difficult, both when did the events happen and when was it written.  Job fits well in the time of the Patriarchs.

[2] Jesus’ resurrection is dissimilar from the widow’s son (Lk. 7), Jairus’s daughter (Lk 8) and Lazarus (Jn. 11), because they were performed by a Messianic figure and those raised were only to die again.  There is no indication in the text that anyone thought of these as a sign of the eschatos.  Whereas, Jesus resurrection was a rising from dead never to die again.

Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt5

            From the New Testament (NT) texts, we learn that Jesus of Nazareth chose 12 men to follow Him (Matt. 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16, and Acts 1:13 minus Judas Iscariot) as “apostles”.[1]  These men are then described as witnesses to God having raised Jesus from the dead (Acts. 3:15).  What do we know about them and what would they have meant by saying that God raised Jesus from the dead?

Second-temple Jews:

            The Second-temple period extends from the sixth-century BC to the first-century AD, when the second Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem after the return from the Babylonian captivity, until its destruction in AD 70.[2]  Therefore, we refer to Judaism during this time as Second-temple Judaism.  That is not to say that there was only one type of Judaism during this time.  During the NT period, there were two major sects: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, both of which are involved in NT events.[3]  There was also the Zealots and the Essenes, but neither play a significant role in the NT.[4]

            According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the Jews liked the Pharisees over the Sadducees, but then again Josephus was a Pharisee (Antiquities, Book 18, Ch 1. 16).  The main difference between the two related to our topic is that the Pharisees believed in a resurrection of the dead, whereas the Sadducees did not.  Therefore, it is difficult to determine with complete accuracy what the peasant Jew in Galilee would have believed about the resurrection.  However, one thing that is perfectly clear, there is no evidence from second-temple Judaism in the belief of a dying messiah, let alone a dying and rising again messiah.  So it must be asked, where would second-temple peasant Jews have come up with such an idea?

What do we know about the 12? pt.1

            Two were the sons of Zebedee, James and his brother John, the latter of which is identified as the disciple that Jesus loved (Jn. 13:23) and had been a disciple of John the Baptist (Jn. 1:35). Their mother was Salome, who may have been the sister of Mary, Jesus’ mother (cf. Mt. 27:56, Jn. 19:25).  They were fisherman from Galilee, and business partners with Simon Peter (Lk. 5:10).  Two final details are that they own multiple boats (Lk. 5:11) and employed servants (Mk. 1:20) and therefore, may not have been poor.  Simon Peter and his brother Andrew were the sons of Jonas (John) and were from Bethsaida.  Peter was married (Mk. 1:30) and lived in Capernaum.  Andrew had also been a disciple of John the Baptist (Jn. 1:40).  Philip was also from Bethsaida (Jn1:44) and traveled from Galilee to hear John the Baptist (Jn. 1:43), likely with Andrew.  Perhaps because of his Greek name, it was him that the Greeks came to hope to get to talk to Jesus during the Passover (Jn. 12:20-33); ergo, it’s reasonable to think that he was fluent in Greek.  Philip went and found Nathanael/Bartholomew (Jn. 1:45), who may have been a fisherman from Cana in Galilee (Jn. 21:2).[5]  He also had gone to Bethany where John the Baptist was preaching (Jn. 1:28) and it seems was well versed in the Old Testament (Jn. 1:46).

           Thomas who is also called Didymus (Jn. 11:16) and was best known for being a doubter in the resurrection (Jn. 20:25).  He was the one that told the others they should go with Jesus to Bethany for the raising of Lazarus, saying that if Jesus were to die there, they should die with Him (Jn. 11:16).  Also, on the eve of the Passover, he was the one who questioned Jesus about them knowing the way (Jn. 14:5).  Next, Matthew, who is identified as Levi (cf. Mt. 10:3, Mk. 2:14 and Lk. 5:27) and called the son of Alphaeus (Mk.2:14) which raises the question if he is the brother of James the son of Alphaeus, of which there is no clear text calling them brothers as there is with Peter and Andrew or with James and John.  Levi does not seem to have been a follower of John the Baptist and was working in Capernaum as a tax collector, when he was called by Jesus (Lk. 5:27).  He must have had some education and been acquainted with Greek because of this position.  James son of Alphaeus, is sometimes referred to as James the less, beyond this little is known.  Judas, the son or brother of James, not Iscariot (Jn. 14:22) and sometimes identified as Thaddeus.[6]  He does not play a significant role in the gospels and only speaks once (Jn. 14:22).  Simon the Canaanite (Mt. 10:4, Mk 3:18) or Zelotes/Zealot (Lk. 6:15), these designations should be understood that at some point, Simon was associated with the movement of Judas of Galilee who opposed increased taxation during the census of Quirinius.  Simon was most likely from Galilee.  Simon does not play a significant role in the Gospels and as noted above, it is possible that he is to be identified with Nathanael, not Bartholomew.

            Lastly, Judas Iscariot, who is identified as the son of Simon (Jn. 13:2).  It is possible that he is the only non-Galilean, Iscariot meaning, man of Kerioth, which was somewhere south of Judea.  John’s Gospel gives us the most details regarding Judas.  Sufficient for the purpose here is to identify him as one of the 12.  As to the spreading of the gospel after the resurrection, Judas plays no part seeing how he was already dead from suicide by hanging (Mt. 27:5) and that afterward, wither the rope or branch broke, he fell to the ground in a gruesome manor (Acts 1:18).

Next week, we’ll continue to explore how the message of Jesus went out into the Greco-Roman world and changed it forever.

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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[1] Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew (Nathanael Jn), Thomas, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Judas (Thaddaeus Mt & Mk) the son or brother of James, Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot.

[2] Despite the fact that there were two temples during this period, Ezra’s temple and Herod’s temple.

[3] Josephus mentions three groups, we know there were more, but they are not relevant to this discussion.

[4] Some people have speculated that John the Baptist and Jesus were associated with the Essenes; however, there are no explicated NT references and there is no data from the DSS to support this notion.

[5] The Nathanael-Bartholomew connection is not for certain, others have identified Nathanael as Simon the son of Cleopas.

[6] There are seven people mentioned in the New Testament with the name.  We only need to be concerned with three of them.  First (1) Judas Iscariot.  Second, the apostle identified as (2) Thaddaeus and called Judas of James in Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 and finally a (3) brother of Jesus mentioned in Mt. 13:55 and Mk. 6:3.  There is no clear reason from the New Testament to identify 2 and 3 as the same person.  3 is commonly believed to be the author of Jude in the New Testament, he is identified as the brother of James, the author of the book that bears his name.

Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt4

Preface:

The age of the text is a different topic then textual variance.  The age of the text has direct implications on the Resurrection, whereas variance could only have at most secondary implications.  All variances in New Testament manuscripts have been documented at Instituts für Neutestamentliche Textforschung in Munster Germany.  Therefore, this blog will focus on information regarding the age of New Testament texts.

How old are our New Testament (NT) texts?  When were they originally written?

            I think that we can, with some level of accuracy, limit the timeframe in which they were written by what they contain [One could say this is an argument from silence, and it is, but it’s at least a pregnant argument from silence]:

1.     Who is the emperor?  Augustus is mentioned in Luke 2:1 and Tiberius is mentioned in 3:1. Caligula is not mentioned, but Claudius is mentioned twice in Acts, specifically 18:2 relates an edict that he issued.  Nero is not mentioned, which is odd because under him is when the first state sponsored Christian persecutions began.  But none of the other first-century Roman emperors are ever mentioned.  That includes Vespasian and it was under him that the temple was destroyed and Domitian, who also sponsored Christian persecutions.

2.     Which of the disciples are dead?  The NT only recounts the deaths of two of the original twelve disciples, Judas (Matt. 27:5, Acts 1:18) and James the brother of John (Acts 12:2).  According to Eusebius (c. AD 260-5 – 339/340) both Peter and Paul were martyred under Nero; ergo, they are dead before AD 68.  According to Josephus, the high priest Ananus ben Ananus ordered the execution of James the brother of Jesus in 62. 

3.     The Jewish revolt began in 66 and the temple was destroyed in 70.  Yet, there is no reason from the NT to think either of those events have happened.  Note especially the appearance of the Jerusalem Temple in Revelation 11.  There is no indication in the text that this is not Herod’s Temple, nor is there any surprise by anyone that there is a Temple in Jerusalem. 

     a. If the destruction of the Temple had happened before the writing of any NT texts, there are good reasons to expect it to be mentioned.  To begin with early Jesus followers were 1^st century Jews and as can be seen in the book of Acts, very early in the existence of the church the temple was still relevant in their minds.

     b. Second, by the second half of the first century, the division between Jew and Christian was becoming more and more clear.  If the Temple had been destroyed, it would be well within expectations for a report in the NT leaning towards God’s judgment on the Nation of Israel or the like.  Its absence should be suspect if the event had happened.

     c. In Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, Jesus is recorded as predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, and we know that happened in 70.  However, no NT uses its destruction as evidence for Jesus’ claims.  If someone says those were written after the event, note that in all four Gospels, landmarks and locations in Jerusalem and its area are mentioned as if they were still standing; therefore, there is no indication in the texts that those events had already happened.

4.     In part 1 of this series, I pointed out that the canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John get both political and religious rulers correct.  We can compare that track record to texts written later, such as the ‘Gospel of the Birth of Mary’.  In its first chapter there is a Jewish High Priest named Issachar.  That, however, is demonstrably false because the Jewish records of their High Priests show there was never a High Priest named Issachar.  If the canonical Gospels were late 1^st-century or early 2^nd-century, then we’d find errors such as mentioned above.

5.    The Didache, which can be dated to the later part of the 1^st-century or early 2^nd-century, quotes the Gospels.  Both Pseudo Barnabas (late 1^st-century or early 2^nd-century) and the Shepherd of Hermas (2^nd-century) quote the NT including the Gospels.  Finally, early Church fathers including Clement I allude to or quote the Gospels by the end of the 1^st- century.

6.     There is little doubt that Paul is the author of 1^st Corinthians and we know that he was in Corinth when Gallio became proconsul of Achaia in AD 51 (Delphi Inscription).  After Paul left Corinth, he was in Ephesus for a few years and there he wrote 1^st Corinthians around AD 54.  It specifically mentions that Jesus died, was buried, rose on the third day and had several post-resurrection appearances.  This is within 35 years of the event, within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and confirms details reported in the Gospels.

7.     Gallio’s response to Paul being brought before him by the Jews reveals that Rome did not yet notice a difference between Judaism and Christianity.

8.     The Synoptic Gospels all contain the ‘Beelzebul controversy’ (Matt. 12:24, Mark 3:22 and Luke. 11:15).  Two points about this can be made, first if you were going to invent a story, would you include an episode like this?  Second, Beelzebul is present in some 2^nd-temple Jewish literature; however, it would be unlikely for late first-century Gentiles to know about this and make reference to it; therefore, these two facts point to this being an accurate charge made against Jesus and the earliness of this report.

9.     I can understand why a skeptic would be doubtful if I cited a conservative Evangelic source, so I’ll quote liberal Biblical Scholar, William F. Albright, “In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and eighty of the first century…” (Albright 1963).

10.     The atheist Bart D. Ehrman, distinguished professor of Religious Studies at Chapel Hill and NT critic wrote in his book The Triumph of Christianity, that the Christians believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus before Saul of Tarsus’ conversion (Ehrman, 46).  Moreover, Ehrman also wrote that within Jewish communities the message of Jesus’ resurrection could have been being spread within a year or two of the crucifixion (Ibid.)

     a. The fact that this comes from an atheist NT critic and scholar makes this powerful enemy attestation.

     b. If Jewish converts are speaking the news of Jesus’ resurrection within a year or two of the event there is no reason to reason that it’s a later invention of late 1^st century or 2^nd century Christianity.

Taken collectively, these arguments show, there is good reason to regard the belief in Christ’s resurrection very early and that NT documents including the Gospels were written within a few decades of the crucifixion.

Next week, what did 2^nd temple Judaism believe about resurrection.

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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Works Cited

Albright, W.F. 1963. "Toward a More Conservative View." Christianity Today, Jan. 18: 4.

Ehrman, Bart D. 2018. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. New York City: Simon and Schuster.