In the raising and exaltation of Christ, God has chosen the one whom the moral and political powers of this world rejected – the poor, humiliated, suffering and forsaken Christ. God identified himself with him and made him Lord of the new world …..
The God who creates justice for those who suffer violence, the God who exalts the humiliated and executed Christ – that is the God of hope for the new world of righteousness and justice and peace.
Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope
I watched Bill Maher’s pseudo-documentary Religulous the other day. I knew I was in for a treat when it opened with Maher standing in Megiddo pronouncing the book of Revelation as “Revelations,” a subtle indicator that he has little to no familiarity with the subject matter of this video. This is confirmed later when Maher is talking to an actor who plays Jesus in a Holy Land theme park. This is part of the transcript of their conversation:
[Jesus'] bio was something that was going around the Mediterranean for at least 1,000 years. We’ve got Krishna who was in India 1,000 years before Christ. Krishna was a carpenter, born of a virgin, baptized in a river … There’s the Persian god Mithra, 600 years before Christ. Born December 25th, performed miracles, resurrected on the third day, known as the Lamb, the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Savior, Messiah.
Maher has apparently brought into the Zeitgeist parallelomania nonsense hook, line, and sinker. But, unfortunately for Maher, virtually nothing he says is correct. Krishna wasn’t a carpenter and wasn’t baptized in a river. The only thing that really comes close to showing a modicum of truth is that Krishna was born of a virgin but even that is technically incorrect. While Krishna was virginally conceived (i.e. his mother became pregnant with Krishna without engaging in intercourse), his mother did have seven or eight children prior to him who were conceived through the regular means of intercourse. Besides, attributing miraculous conceptions/births was standard fare with deities and men of renown in those times.
Regarding Mithra, if I recall correctly, there is no evidence linking the Persian Mithra to being born on December 25th, though there maybe for the Roman Mithras (who, as I understand it, was the result of a syncretic Mithra-Helios cult that landed in Rome in about the 1st century BC), but this isn’t that relevant due to the fact that the birthday of the solar gods in Roman religion was invariably December 25 due to it being the time of the winter solstice (e.g. the festival, Dies Natalis Solis Invictis, “the birthday of the Invincible Sol/Sun”). But this is ultimately an irrelevant issue because Jesus’ birthday was not observed on December 25th in earliest Christianity but arose a few centuries after Christ and therefore this has nothing to do with Christian origins. Saying Mithras performed miracles is also irrelevant as miracles or miraculous feats were attributed to a wide variety of figures back in those times and is not evidence that the story of Jesus was dependent upon Mithraism. Mithras wasn’t resurrected on the third day. He wasn’t known as the Messiah (facepalm!) or by any of those other titles as far as I know.
This parallelomania nonsense that Maher spouted off was also accompanied by text on the screen showing parallels between Christ and the Egyptian god Horus. If my memory serves me correctly, it said that the Horus was baptized by Anup (Anubis) the Baptizer (who was then beheaded), that Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, and that he walked on water, cast out demons, and raised Asar (Osiris) from the dead, adding that Asar translates to “Lazarus.” Furthermore, it said that Horus had 12 disciples, was crucified, and that two woman announced the resurrection of Horus. While there definitely was a syncretism with paganism in early Christianity, none of these parallels between Horus and Jesus are true (and it doesn’t take a PhD to figure this out so I don’t get why Maher is oblivious to the fact).
There was quite a few funny parts in this documentary, especially the interview with the (liberal) senior Vatican priest, Reginald Foster, who admitted that the Vatican’s wealth is ostentatious and that the doctrine of hell is “all gone, all finished” and is just part of the “old Catholic thing” (see it on YouTube). But overall Religulous was a huge fail. Maher makes no attempt to present a fair or objective examination of religious belief. Most of the people he interviews are on the religious fringe (e.g. Ken Ham and some guy who claims to be the second coming of Christ). This isn’t too surprising considering that Maher is a comedian and what better way to make your documentary funny than by interviewing complete lunatics. But still, if Maher is going to emphasize how Christians and other religious people are just gullible idiots, he shouldn’t then go and spout off the demonstrably false parallelomania nonsense that Jesus was based off of pagan gods, as it only makes himself look like an ignorant and gullible person.
Title: The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context
Author: Michael Peppard
Bibiographic Info: XII + 247 + 42
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Cover: Hard with dust jacket
Buy it at Amazon
With thanks to Oxford University Press for the review copy!
It is common amongst Christians to believe that there is an ontological obstacle separating humanity from the divine; humanity and divinity are generally seen as occupying two separate non-overlapping realms of existence. This book by Peppard situates itself in the growing stream of thought which contends that, in the first-century, divinity and humanity were actually seen as occupying a continuous spectrum of existence. The author weaves together recent scholarship on Roman culture – specifically emperor worship, familial relationships, and imperial ideology – in order to illuminate the depiction of Jesus as the Son of God in earliest Christianity, expressly as seen in the Gospel of Mark.
Apart from the introduction and conclusion this book is comprised of five main chapters. In the first chapter, the author deals with the varying frameworks through which scholarship has viewed the concept of divine sonship. While mainstream Christians view Jesus as the Son of God in light of what the Council of Nicaea determined regarding this issue, it is obviously not what is meant by divine sonship in the Gospel of Mark (though that doesn’t stop people from anachronistically reading Nicaea back into the Gospel). Peppard provides overviews on four different methods by which scholars have deal with the divine sonship concept in the Gospels (the Nicene approach; narrative critical approaches; the religionsgeschichtliche schule approach; and a newer quasi-religionsgeschichtliche approach). Throughout this chapter the author provide some good critiques of some popular authors. For instance, he gives a brief critique of Simon Gathercole’s attempt (in The Preexistent Son) to describe Jesus’ divine sonship in the Synoptic Gospels, saying that he relies upon a Platonic philosophical worldview. There is a more lengthy critique of Larry Hurtado’s work (One God, One Lord; and Lord Jesus Christ) which Peppard says too sharply bifurcates divinity and humanity, relies upon an idealized view of monotheism in Second Temple Judaism, and generally ignores the Roman religious world.
In the second chapter, Peppard discusses what the title “son of God” meant and what emperor worship reveals about how divinity was viewed in the Roman world. The old perspective of emperor worship believed that it was just an empty formality from the hoi polloi and that there was no worship of the living emperor, but rather only the dead, albeit apotheosized, emperors. Recent scholarship, however, has shifted to a new perspective on emperor worship. The impetus for this change is due to archaeological findings which suggest that the worship of the living emperor actually did occur, as well as the realization that the conclusions of the old perspective were based on viewing the data through a Platonic framework. This new perspective posits that in the Roman world divinity was not so much an essence but rather a (relative) status.
Chapter three discusses adoption in Roman society, specifically as it relates to imperial succession. Most of what I read in this chapter was new to me and fascinating. The fourth chapter then takes what was discussed in the previous three chapters and uses it to rethink the concept of divine sonship in the Gospel of Mark. Peppard begins with the issue of the Gospel’s provenance which in his assessment “slightly favors Rome” (89). What follows is a nearly forty page examination of the baptismal scene and divine sonship in Mark. Here is a snippet of what Peppard says regarding the dove which came upon Christ after the baptism:
Hence the eagle and the dove: a bird descends and absolute power comes upon a son of God – almost the same, but not quite. Read in the light of Roman imperial ideology, the narrative characterization of Jesus’ baptism mimics the accession of imperial power even as it disavows the authority and methods of imperial power. It mimics Roman imperial adoption but disavows the militaristic type of power transmitted through adoption. It mimics the bird bird omens of Roman warfare and imperial lore but disavows the dominating war-symbol of the Roman eagle. The bird omen of the dove instead portends the accession of a different son of God, whose rise to power, though it would be mocked and suspended by the colonial authority, would ultimately be vindicated by his adoptive father. (124)
He concludes the chapter with these words:
Reading Mark from the perspective of Roman adoption and imperial ideology allows us to see the ingenuity of Mark’s theological mind. Faced with an unprecedented challenge – narrating the divine sonship of a human being in relation to a God that did not procreate – Mark articulated a model of sonship that was theologically coherent and also resonated in his cultural context. Later authors chose incarnational moments or virgin birth vignettes to characterize the divine sonship of Jesus. Therefore, compared with these narrative developments, Mark’s Christology is usually labeled “low.” And that label certainly fits in the terms of later christological debates, heavily influenced by philosophical categories. But viewed in the political ideology of its time period – Mark’s Christology was as high as humanly possible. The Roman emperor, the most powerful person in the world, gained his sonship by adoption. If Mark was crafting a narrative that presents Jesus to Roman listeners as a counter-emperor, the authoritative son of God, then adoption was the most effective method of portraying his divine sonship. (131)
In the fifth and final chapter Peppard traces how the divine sonship motif evolved through the first three centuries until it finally arrived at what is generally considered the pinnacle of Christian orthodoxy, the Nicene Creed. The chapter focuses upon divine sonship in Paul, John, the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen, and the Nicene era.
This book is a great study. If you want to understand how Jesus is portrayed as the son of God in the Gospel of Mark and earliest Christianity, then forget the christological orthodoxy of Chalcedon, the philosophical foundations of Nicaea, the logos Christologies of John and Justin, and the virgin birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. Instead, read this book and be enlightened!
Here are three quotes I found humorous that I have come across by scholars on Jesus mythicism (a.k.a. the idea that there Jesus was a complete myth and not a historical figure; a.k.a. the atheist version of creationism).
The question ‘Did Jesus exist?’ seemed likely to be of central importance to [the Jesus Project], though professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago.
Maurice Casey. Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (T & T Clark, 2010), 33.
From what I remember, Casey actually deals with Jesus mythicism in that volume for more than a few pages (he discusses the mythicist work of Zindler and Price). Also, if I recall correctly, I read somewhere in the biblioblogging world that Casey is writing a book specifically on Jesus mythicism and the historicity of Jesus. Looking forward to it.
The following quote is from Dale Allison:
It did not, once upon a time, require much effort to run across mythological proposals, according to which there was no resurrection because there was no historical Jesus: the tale of his rising was modeled on myths of dying and rising gods. Few forward this account of things today, and no responsible scholar can find any truth in it. As Jesus of Nazareth was not a myth, this is an explanation that explains nothing.
Dale Allison Jr., ‘Explaining the Resurrection: Conflicting Convictions’, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3.2 (2005), 121.
The final quote is from James Dunn:
Gosh! So there are still serious scholars who put forward the view that the whole account of Jesus’ doings and teachings are a later myth foisted on an unknown, obscure historical figure.
The Historical Jesus: Five Views (IVP, 2009), 94.
Allison has written a few books on the historical Jesus – Constructing Jesus, Millenarian Prophet, and Historical Christ and Theological Jesus – all of which are a good read, especially Constructing Jesus. Likewise, Dunn has written the massive two volume series on the historical Jesus, Christianity in the Making.
I like how each of those quotes, in one way or another, just casually brushes off the lunacy that is Jesus mythicism.
In loving one’s enemies one no longer asks: how can I protect myself and deter my enemies from attacking me? The question is then: how can I deprive my enemy of his hostility? Through love, we draw our enemies into our own sphere of responsibility, and extend our responsibility to them.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ
While I do believe in a Deity, it’s not exactly the Thomistic god of Christian orthodoxy. I find panentheism to be quite intriguing. Don’t really have a clue about the Trinity. Even on the days when I could sincerely sign my name at the bottom of the Athanasian creed, I still don’t consider the doctrine to be immensely important to Christianity, at least, insofar as it impacts one in living righteously. To be honest, most days I consider it to be a pretty useless and antiquated obstacle to the Christian faith. It is only because I am such a fan of the theologian Jürgen Moltmann (for whom the importance of the Trinity shows through in his social trinitarianism) that I have not entirely jettisoned the doctrine of the Trinity from my repertoire of half-hearted theological beliefs.
While I claim ignorance regarding what happens when we die, I must say that I definitely don’t subscribe to the idea of hell. Even though I did believe in it during my teenage years, I now find the idea of eternal conscious retributive punishment to be an abhorrent thing to believe in. I do believe in some sort of existence after death, but I am somewhat skeptical of the idea of an incorporeal soul part of us that survives death and flies through a tunnel of light to heaven. I find the idea of a future resurrection of the body to be a much more holistic and meaningful concept in this modern scientific age regarding the question of life-after-death.
Who was Jesus of Nazareth? I think the virgin birth of Jesus is a later accretion to the message being proclaimed about him and probably doesn’t have any basis in history, but that seems to be a not so uncommon view amongst Christian theologians nowadays. Was he the eternal second person of the Trinity incarnate in the flesh? I thought so for many years, but now, even on my best of days I have a hard time swallowing that one. Historical research has given us no reason to consider that he ever claimed such a thing. Church tradition eventually hammered it all out over the first half a millenia, but I really don’t know what to do with church tradition so that isn’t helpful. I have no problem saying something like “Jesus is divine”, but it would be disingenuous of me to say that without the disclaimer that I haven’t made up my mind as to exactly what I mean by that. Does Jesus’ divinity stem from a pre-existence as deity? Was it something only conferred upon him at the resurrection? Or something else entirely? I simply just don’t know.
I like Christianity because of the narrative I find in the Gospels. Jesus teaches and lives out the good news of the kingdom of God, bringing hope and joy to the marginalized and poor of the world, which then climaxes in his unjust crucifixion at the hands of the powerful. This bleak picture is then further intensified in Mark’s record of Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross. But did the resurrection actually occur or was it just a figment of the imagination of some disciples? As I’ve said before on this blog, I don’t think there is any more of a reason to accept the historicity of the resurrection any moreso than any other supernatural event in antiquity, but I hope that the resurrection occurred and was indeed the Deity saying fully “Yes!” to Jesus, as the resurrection provides the best answer to the question of theodicy that I have encountered.
It’s been ten years since I first became a Christian (I was raised Catholic until then but that doesn’t count). I went from a 15 year old teenager who was certain of everything I believed about the Bible (e.g. its inerrancy and inspiration) and theology (e.g. pre-trib dispensationalism, seven-day creationism, everyone-is-going-to-hell-except-conservative-Christians, etc), to a 25 year old married man whose knowledge on Christianity and world religions has exponentially grown over the past few years, yet who, almost paradoxically, is now full of doubts instead of certainties. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Attestation in the Early Church Writings
The epistle of Jude, like most of the other Catholic Epistles (e.g. James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John), suffers from a severe lack of attestation in the writings of the apostolic fathers, consisting of only a couple of possible allusions to the salutation of Jude.
Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians (ca. 110-140) begins with ελεος υμιν και ειρηνη παρα θεου παντοκρατορος και Ιησου Χριστου του σωτηρος ημων πληθυνθειη (“May mercy and peace from God Almighty and Jesus Christ our Savior be multiplied to you”). Likewise, the Martyrdom of Polycarp (ca. 155) begins with the similar sentence of, ελεος και ειρηνη και αγαπη θεου πατρος και του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου πληθυνθειη (“May mercy, peace, and love from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied”). Both are clearly akin to Jude’s salutation of ελεος υμιν και ειρηνη και αγαπη πληθυνθειη (“May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you”). Nevertheless, this allusion does not betray a dependence between the texts, but is likely the result of a prevalent form of greeting.
Apart from the salutation there are no other possible links to Jude among the apostolic fathers, which is supported by most literature dealing with the subject, for instance, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (OUP, 2005). Though, Lee Martin McDonald in The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Hendrickson, 2007; 397), sees Jude vv. 3 and 20 in Pol. Phil. 3.2, Jude vv. 20 and 23 in Pol. Phil. 11.4, and Jude vv. 3-4 in Barn. 2.10. The relevant portions read:
And when [Paul] was absent he wrote you letters; which if you study them carefully, you will be able to build yourselves up in the faith that has been given you (Pol. Phil. 3.2).
Do not regard such people as enemies, but, as sick and straying members, restore them, in order that you may save your body in its entirety. For by doing this you build up one another (Pol. Phil. 11.4).
We ought to give very careful attention to our salvation, lest the evil one should cause some error to slip into our midst and thereby hurl us away from our life (Barn. 2.10).
None of these allusions are at all persuasive and are probably just the result of trying to find parallels where they simply do not exist. Also, in later writings of the second century, McDonald finds Jude in Athengoras’ Supplication for Christ 24-25, which discusses the fallen angels and the origin of giants. This does not at all demonstrate dependence on Jude, but only that they were both using a well-known Jewish tradition. McDonald also finds dependence on Jude in Theophilus of Antioch’s Treatise to Autolycus 2.15, which mentions that planets (or wandering stars) are a type of men who have wandered from God. Despite the fact that the Enochic literature only portrays fallen angels as wandering stars (not men), it not correct to use this as proof that demonstrates Theophilus’ knowledge of Jude.
The prominent Alexandrian church fathers Clement (ca. 150-215) and Origen (ca. 185-255), are the earliest Eastern writers to make use of Jude. Clement has a brief commentary on the entire epistle and elsewhere quotes a few verses from it (Clement, Fragments, 1.2; The Instructor, 3.8.44.3-45.1; and Stromata, 3.2.11.2; all of which are ca. 200). The no longer extant treatise of Clement, Hypotyposeis, is mentioned by Eusebius (ca. 270-340), who observes that Jude is a part of the canonical list included therein. The writings of Origen have been pointed towards as containing about fourteen references to Jude, one of which displays his glowing opinion of Jude, describing it as “a short epistle, yet filled with healthful words of heavenly grace”, εγραψεν επιστολην, ολιγοστιχον μεν, πεπληρωμενην δε των της ουρανιου χαριτος ερρωμενων λογων (Comm. on Matt., 10.17.40; ca. 245). Nevertheless, later in the same work, while quoting Jude 6, he notes that it is not universally received in the church with the words, “if indeed one were to accept the epistle of Jude”, ει δε και την Ιουδα προσοιτο τις επιστολην (Ibid. 17.30.9-10). Elsewhere, Origen twice places Jude in a list of canonical writings accepted by the church.(Homilies on Joshua, 7.1; Homilies on Genesis, 13.2).
The important second and third century Western fathers Irenaeus of Lyon (ca. 130-200), Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 170-235), and Cyprian of Carthage (ca. 200-258), all show no knowledge of Jude in their writings. This is particularly interesting in the case of Irenaeus given that he was the first orthodox church father involved in using a proto-New Testament canon. Outside of 2 Peter, which is typically thought to have Western provenance, it is in the writings of Tertullian of Carthage (ca. 160-223) that the first non-canonical text sheds light upon the status of Jude in the Western church. In using 1 Enoch as a reference for tracing the origins of feminine adornment, Tertullian proceeds to outline two possible objections to his use of it: 1) that it was not included in the Jewish canon, and 2) that if it was truly written by the ascribed antediluvian then it would have certainly been lost in the flood. Tertullian then responds to these reservations, finishing with the contention that “the fact that Enoch possesses a testimony in the apostle Jude” justifies his own citing of 1 Enoch (Latin: Quod Enoch apud Iudam apostolum testimonium possidet, in On the Apparel of Women, 1.3.1). Tertullian evidently valued the epistle of Jude highly enough that it could be used to decisively adjudicate the use of disputed texts.
In addition to all this, mention should be made of the Muratorian fragment. This is a Latin text believed to have been translated from Greek, and due to internal evidence is generally accepted to have originated from the mid-late second-century Western church. The fragment consists of a list of canonical writings accepted as authoritative in the church, of which Jude is included. There is, though, some who consider the Muratorian fragment to be a fourth century document of Eastern provenance, as presented by Geoffrey Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992). For a defense of the mid-second century Western view, see Everett Ferguson, ‘Canon Muratori: Date and Provenance’, Studia Patristica 18 (1982): 677-83. For a comprehensive and decisive argument against fourth-century Eastern provenance, see the essay by J. Verheyden, “The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute” (pp. 487-556) in Jonge and Auwers (ed’s), The Biblical Canons (Leuven: Peeters Press, 2003).
From the fourth century onwards, Jude enjoyed an almost universal acceptance among the church, no doubt largely in part due to it being acknowledged in the Third Council of Carthage in 397, as well as being in the canon lists of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3.25; ca. 310-325), Athanasius (39th Festal Letter; ca. 367), Jerome (On Illustrious Men, 4; ca. 392-393), and Augustine (On Christian Doctrine, 2.12; ca. 397).
In spite of this widespread acceptance, there is scant data to confirm or deny whether the Syrian church accepted the epistle of Jude (if indeed they even knew of its existence). The Peshitta version of the New Testament, which was already in circulation by the fifth century, consisted of a 22 (not 27) book canon which did not contain Jude, but after a revision in the early sixth century (known as the Philoxenian version after its commissioner Philoxenus), Jude was included along with 2-3 John, 2 Peter, and Revelation, although it is debated as to whether this was actually when these Catholic Epistles were added (and if it wasn’t by Philoxenus then it was probably in the early 7th century by Thomas of Harkel in what is known as the Harclean version). Nevertheless, the East Syrian Church still possesses to this day a 22 book canon of the New Testament. [For a critical discussion of the history of the Syriac Bible see Sebastian Brock's, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition; Gorgias Press, 2006.]
Attestation in the Greek Papyri
The epistle of Jude is attested in two early papyri. The first, P72 (Bodmer Papyrus VII-VIII), is a papyrus manuscript collection containing 1-2 Peter and Jude in a codex together with other religious texts in the following order: Nativity of Mary, 3 Corinthians, the 11th Ode of Solomon, Jude, Melito’s Homily on the Passion, a liturgical hymn fragment, Apology of Phileas, Psalms 33:2-34:16 (LXX), and 1-2 Peter. These texts were produced by multiple scribes (significantly though, 1-2 Peter and Jude were likely by the same scribe), bound together during the third-fourth century and was probably for private use instead of liturgical. While P72 can be pointed to as verification that Jude circulated together with the Petrine writings (remembering that the same scribe is responsible for 1-2 Peter and Jude in that collection), it could still nevertheless be bound together with other non-canonical pseudepigraphal writings. [For a fuller discussion of P72 see James Royse, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (Brill, 2008; reprinted by SBL, 2010), 545-614; and Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission (Almqvist & Wiksell, 2006), 30-50.]
The second papyrus, P78 (P.Oxy. 2684), is a small fragment of Jude discovered at Oxyrhynchus which contains the text of Jude 4-5 and 7-8 on the recto and verso. Dating from the third or fourth century, it was probably produced as an amulet, which naturally begs the question as to why someone would possess an amulet containing the text of Jude. Considering that the majority of Jude consists of a polemic against “certain people” who have “crept in unnoticed” among the brethren, it is possible that the amulet was used as a means of protection directed against the users perceived enemies within the church and other possible supernatural malevolent forces. [For a fuller discussion of P78 see Ibid. 51-72]
Title: The New Testament: A Literary History
Author: Gerd Theissen
Bibiographic Info: XVI + 290 + 20
Publisher: Fortress, 2011.
Cover: Hard with dust jacket
Buy it at Amazon
With thanks to Fortress Press for the review copy!
The book is a translation of Gerd Theissen’s 2007 volume, Die Entstehung des NeuenTestaments als literaturgeschichtliches Problem.
It begins with a chapter on the oral prehistory of early Christian literature, followed by a chapter on the sayings source Q, and a chapter on the Gospel of Mark. The chapter on Q was quite a good overview, discussing such things as its structure, genre, theology, dating, and provenance. Though, the author only mentions in a footnote how some (e.g. Hengel, Bowden) dispute the existence of Q. So for those who reject Q, you will be disappointed if you are expecting to find any interaction with non-Q hypotheses (e.g. Farrer-Goulder). I liked Theissen’s brief treatment on the messianic secret in the Gospel of Mark. He says:
The traditional interpretation of the “messianic secret” is thus correct: in Mark’s Gospel the worship of Jesus as Son of God, which was originally tied to his resurrection, was projected back into the life of Jesus. Jesus was the Son of God, but during his lifetime he was so only secretly. Jesus and his followers had to wait for God’s decisive action in order to be able to acknowledge him as Son of God. (51-52).
The following five chaptersare on the epistolary literature of the apostle Paul, touching upon matters such as pre-Pauline oral traditions in Paul (i.e. pre-Pauline Jesus traditions), the literary form of Paul’s letters, and the collection, sequence, and development of the Pauline corpus. The next two chapters are concerned with the pseudepigraphic phase in the early church, with a particular focus on the Deutero-Pauline epistles. At one point, the author discusses for a couple of pages the question of whether early Christians knew that many of their writings were pseudepigraphic. He concludes that “we find in early Christianity a pseudepigraphy in good conscience” (115).
There is a brief excursus on the Catholic Epistles, which the author correctly sees (IMO) as a correction to Paul, though in such a brief excursus I don’t think the author was able to provide a thorough and compelling case for this. At one point the author makes an interesting (overstatement?) that, “without Paul, the letter form would not have achieved literary status in early Christianity. All early Christian letters are form-critically dependent on him” (127).
What follows is four chapters on how the various gospels transformed the Jesus traditions to a particular interpretation of him. The first chapter deals with the Synoptics; the second with the Gospels of John, Thomas, and the Egyptians; the third with the Jewish-Christian Gospels of the Nazareans, Ebionites, and Hebrews; and lastly, the fourth chapter deals with the Gospels of Egerton, Peter, and the Unknown Berlin Gospel. This is followed by chapters on Acts, Revelation, and Hebrews.
The book finishes with two chapters on canon. While rightly noting that the construction of the New Testament canon is “one of the most obscure phases in the history of New Testament literature” (205), the author provides his own theory as to how it all came about. Like many others who have written on the formation of the NT canon, the author believes that Marcion played a crucial role. He states that while Marcion did not create the first NT canon, he served as a “common heretic” that the early Christians had in common, and that he “was a catalyst for a consensus about the canon already in process and independent of him” (211).
The author presents a succinct overview on the formation of the NT canon, though it is hard to deal with such a topic in only one chapter. There were various things that I didn’t agree with regarding canon formation. For example, the author says: “The letter of Jude has been used as a source and adapted [by the author of 2 Peter], but is scarcely regarded as canonical, as witnessed by the corrections made to it” (224) [the corrections being the excision of Jude’s references to the texts of 1 Enoch and the Assumption of Moses]. Contra to Theissen, I think that the intertextuality between the 2 Peter and Jude, when seen in light of the compositional practice of imitatio, goes to show that the author of 2 Peter considered the epistle of Jude to be canonical and authoritative enough to emulate (though, this depends on how exactly you want to define “canonical”).
All in all, though, despite some disagreements here and there throughout the book, it is quite a good primer on the literary composition and history of the New Testament.
There has been a bit of hooplah on the interwebs recently (e.g. here and here) concerning Richard Carrier and his response to Bart Ehrman’s book on why Jesus mythicism is a joke – Did Jesus Exist? Interestingly enough, it seems like Richard Carrier has very recently released his own book on the historicity of Jesus, or lack thereof (see here).
I have a self-published book of Carrier’s on my kindle, Why I Am Not A Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith, and so I thought I would give it a quick whirl while sitting out on the balcony in the sun. I knew I was in for a treat when I cracked the book open (can one use this language when talking about an e-book?) and saw on the first page Carrier saying that he has “become something of a world renowned atheist.” I had no idea!
The book consists of four main chapters, each of which is an explanation of a reason as to why Carrier rejects God. At the beginning of the first chapter, Carrier says,
If God wants something from me, he would tell me. He wouldn’t leave someone else to do this, as if an infinite being were short on time. And he would certainly not leave fallible, sinful humans to deliver an endless plethora of confused and contradictory messages.
This type of reasoning is what you essentially find on many pages of the book: I think God would do XYZ, God does not do XYZ, therefore God could not possibly exist. Yup, that is the main thrust of Carrier’s whole argument. God doesn’t do things the way I would, therefore he doesn’t exist.
The book is extremely light on knowledge of Christianity (Carrier only evinces a very rudimentary knowledge of C.S. Lewis’ brand of “mere Christianity”), and doesn’t even really attempt to touch the surface of theology and philosophy. The four reasons that Carrier provides in the book as to why he isn’t a Christian may be perfectly fine for him, but for those who desire an intellectual discussion of the issue, you will be sorely disappointed. This book makes Christopher Hitchens badly researched book, God is Not Great, seem like a veritable five-star intellectual discussion on Christianity.
Synkrisis to the Temple Cultus
The author’s exposition on Melchizedek is followed up with a lengthy exposition on the temple cultus. The superiority of Jesus to the temple cultus has already been implied by the author’s earlier declaration of Christ’s superiority to Moses, and then developed further with the contrast between Christ and the Levitical priesthood. It is possible to take this comparison as a polemic against a still functioning temple, yet on the other hand, it could be understood as consolation for the audience in the absence of the temple which had already been destroyed. [Hebrews 8.13 and its phrase “soon to disappear” may imply that Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. Moreover, if the Temple had been destroyed then we could have reasonably expected the author to insert that fact in his polemic against the Levitical system system (cf. Barn. 16), not to mention the author could have inserted it into his argument against the Levitical sacrifices in 10.2-3. There are, however, also some possible textual clues in the epistle which may betray that the temple had been destroyed at that point in time, e.g. 13.14]
The exposition found in 8.1-10.18 focuses upon the superiority of Jesus to the sanctuary, the animal sacrifices, and the Mosaic covenant. Here Jesus is portrayed as entering the heavenly sanctuary with his own perfect sacrifice, enabling the inauguration of a new covenant and law. As always, the author turns to the Old Testament in order to support his point (8.8-12), this time with a lengthy quote of Jer. 31.31-34 which describes a new covenant that will accomplish three things for the members of this covenant: (1) they will have the law put into their hearts; (2) they shall all know God; and (3) they shall have all their sins forgiven. Intriguingly, the author’s particular use of this passage from Jeremiah is not found in other Jewish literature of the time, for I think that even the Qumranic literature only understood Jeremiah to be speaking of the perfecting of the Mosaic covenant by means of following the Teacher of Righteousness, not as the inauguration of a new covenant.
This new covenant theme is carried on throughout chapters 9-11 in which the Mosaic covenant and the temple cultus is contrasted with the benefits of the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. Surprisingly, while Hebrews devotes an entire discourse on this subject, other New Testament texts seldom discuss this new covenant explicitly (see Luke 22.20; 1 Cor. 11.25; 2 Cor. 3.6; Gal. 4.24). The author’s view of Christ’s inauguration of a new and eternal covenant is quite surprising considering that other Jewish writings viewed the Mosaic covenant as eternal (see 2 Sir. 17.12; 2 Esd. 9.36-37; 2 Bar. 77.15; Josephus, Against Apion 2.272).
The following shows how the author contrasts the differences between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant, with the intent of showing the superiority of the latter:
Old Covenant
New Covenant
Final Thoughts
In the end, I think one can reasonably argue that the rationale for the various agents chosen to be compared with Christ is due to their mediatorial agency. This is to say, the author desires to depict the superiority of Christ as a mediatorial figure over and against that of the Mosaic covenant by comparing Christ to it through means of the angels, Moses, the Levitical priesthood, and the temple cultus.
