
Introduction
For nearly two thousand years, the concept which stands at the center of Christian thought has been that the death of Jesus is the means by which the creator of the universe rescues humans from the problem of evil. Over this time, theologians have offered a variety of theories for how, exactly, this is accomplished. While many of them fixate on the letters of Paul to define their arguments for a proper salvation theology, the actual narrative for Jesus’ death is found elsewhere.
The four gospels of the New Testament have a complex relationship to each other. The vast majority of scholars have agreed for ages that Matthew and Luke are directly dependent on Mark. While the former two gospels do contain details not found in the latter, Mark was nevertheless the foundation they built on. The apparent outlier is John, with its heavier philosophical dialogues and seemingly more abstract presentation of Jesus as a divine being rather than a divinely-empowered human. However, there is a slowly growing agreement within scholarship that John likely was dependent on Mark (if not all three of those gospels), even if the author was not prone to copying the earlier book verbatim as his counterparts did.
This means that, in regards to learning about the circumstances which led to Jesus’ death—that is, the historical event which Christians seek to understand in theological terms—all of our available sources depend on Mark. This lack of independent corroboration for an event in ancient sources would be highly problematic in any other context. It makes it difficult to know how reliable that lone source actually is.
In our present case, while we do not have any independent sources which describe the death of Jesus that we can compare with Mark, we do have a wide range of texts which discuss elements which make up Mark’s narrative. This can help us find a more nuanced appreciation for how Mark’s crucifixion account functions as literature. However, it also calls into question the historical plausibility of large parts of his narrative.
Betrayal During Passover
The crucifixion narrative begins with the Passover meal celebrated by Jesus and his disciples. Two days before the Passover, the religious authorities in Jerusalem were plotting Jesus’ death, with the help of his disciple Judah Iscariot (14.1–2, 10–11). Once the day of Passover arrived, his group settled into a welcoming home for the ritual meal prescribed in the Torah. The moment they sit down to eat, Jesus declares that one of them is in the process of betraying him (14.12–21).
By the time of the Passover meal, Jesus has told his disciples multiple times that he will be killed after he arrives in Jerusalem (8.31; 9.9, 12, 31; 10.33, 45). He has already hinted that he will be betrayed by one of his own followers; the verb used to describe Judah’s actions (14.17–21),
The question of whether Jesus actually predicted his own death persists in scholarship.
There is an initial discrepancy in Mark’s depiction of Judah Iscariot. Namely, the idea to reward Judah for helping the priests arrest Jesus only comes after he has already decided to betray his teacher (14.10–11). What was Judah’s original reason to betray Jesus, before money entered the picture? The motivation Mark assigns to Judah only comes after he had already committed to his betrayal.
The revelation that the ‘son of man’ Jesus must be killed in Jerusalem by the religious leaders is first brought up at Mark’s halfway point, immediately after the disciples first express their belief he is the Messiah (8.31). The two revelations—that Jesus is the Messiah, and that he must die—are placed in tandem at the book’s center, around which the narrative turns. The reader is reminded of this theme in the following chapters, before Jesus goes to Jerusalem. He brings it up again during the Passover meal, and it even returns during Jesus’ trial: the moment he confirms to the religious authorities that he is the Messiah is the moment they sentence him to death (14.61–64).
Jesus reiterating his prediction at Passover, given with an exposition on his imminent betrayal, provides the author an opportunity to reinterpret the meal as a symbol of how Jesus’ death accomplishes salvation. This reinterpreted meal became the ongoing Christian ritual we call the Eucharist. However, we have another ancient text which offers a different understanding of the Eucharist’s symbolism. The Didache is an instructional book which many scholars agree contains traditions or layers of text predating the gospels. One of the earlier sections explains the Eucharist: the bread represents God’s people, who have been scattered and will be reunited during the end times (hinting at common Judean expectations of a restored Israelite nation; cf. LXX Deut 30.1–5; Mark 13.27), and the wine represents the vine of David’s dynasty, which is restored through Jesus. This interpretation of the Eucharist is at least partially alluded to by Paul (1 Cor 10.17), suggesting the Didache was not teaching an unusual doctrine.
With the possible exception of the Didache, Paul is our earliest source to discuss the Eucharist (1 Cor 10–11). While Paul does interpret the bread and wine as symbolizing Jesus’ body and blood, and he does claim Jesus espoused this symbolism the night before his death, he does not identify it as having been a Passover meal. Paul only once explicitly connects Jesus to Passover (1 Cor 5.6–8), but he does so in a context where he is using the unified festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread to make analogies for the moral state of the Corinthian church. And, importantly, Paul shows no awareness that Jesus was betrayed. He uses the verb
It has been suggested by a few scholars that the author of Mark had at least some of Paul’s letters as sources, and 1 Corinthians is usually the suspected point of intertextual contact.
Sentenced to Death
After the Passover meal Jesus takes his disciples to the Mount of Olives, where he shocks the disciples with another revelation: they will all abandon him. In a garden at the base of the mountain, Jesus fervently prays that God will provide some way for Jesus to avoid his imminent death (14.26–42), a sharp contrast against all his predictions that his death was utterly certain within God’s plan. When he finishes praying, Judah Iscariot arrives with a ‘large crowd’ sent by the religious leaders. (When Judah actually left Jesus and the disciples is unclear. The text implies he was present through the meal.)
The Passover festival provided Mark with a setting to allow multiple items to coincide in a historically plausible (if narratively convenient) way. However, having the Passover festival as the backdrop for Jesus’ death is only the first of several major discrepancies scholars have come to notice with the text. The historical problems with Mark’s account are numerous.
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem during Passover.
The trial of Jesus begins at night, ends at night, takes place on the day of a festival, takes place on the day before the Sabbath, has no charges decided upon before it convenes, begins with the assumption of the defendant’s guilt, renders its guilty verdict on the same day when the trial first convened, and renders its verdict with unanimity. Every single one of these was impermissible for capital offense trials (M Sanh 4.1).
Mark 14.61–64
Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed?’
Jesus said, ‘I am, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.’
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy! What is your decision?’ All of them condemned him as deserving death.
Despite arguments to the contrary, nothing in Jesus’ response would have been considered blasphemy without an intense debate first. It was generally required that, to even qualify for a blasphemy charge, the accused must have used the divine name ‘Yahweh’.
Leviticus 24.16
Mishnah Sanhedrin 7.5
One who blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer.
One who blasphemes, i.e., one who curses God, is not liable unless he utters the name of God and curses it.
We see the high priest avoid the name, referring to God as ‘the Blessed’. Likewise, Jesus uses the circumlocution ‘the Power’, fully complying with this legal ruling. Without uttering the name, could Jesus still have said something defamatory about God? Could ‘blasphemy’ have been applied in a wider sense?
The trial scene is so egregiously contrary to all known evidence for how the Sanhedrin practiced law, that scholars tend toward two opinions: either the Judean leaders were genuinely that hyperbolically corrupt, or Mark does not depict a ‘trial’ at all. Instead, it has been proposed, the author is telling us about a preliminary ‘hearing’.
Josephus and Philo tell of multiple incidents when Pilate deliberately offended both Judeans and Samarians, or responded to their complaints with brutal methods of control.
Crucifixion Under Darkness
Pilate draws attention to the injustice of Jesus’ arrest by means of a festival tradition. Every year at Passover, Pilate releases a prisoner chosen by the people. This time, he gives them two specific choices: Jesus, or Barabbas, who ‘was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection’. (For Pilate to give them the option of having Jesus receive a pardon would mean he accepted the guilty verdict, or ‘suggestion,’ of the Sanhedrin, despite the final call for Jesus’ fate being his decision alone.)
While the text explicitly mentions two other crucifixion victims, ‘one on his right and one on his left’, we have no reason to think they would be the only ones executed that day. It was common for larger groups to be crucified together, often next to well-traveled paths.
There is no evidence of the prisoner tradition Pilate uses in a last-ditch attempt to save Jesus’ life.
Mark 14.18–20
Psalm 41.9
And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me. […] It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me.’
Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.
Mark 14.21
1 Enoch 38.2
’For the son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.’
And when the Righteous One
Mark 14.24
Exodus 24.8 (cf. Zech 9.11)
He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’
Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, ‘See the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words.’
Mark 14.48–49
Isaiah 53.9
Then Jesus said to them, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit?’
although he had done no violence
Mark 14.56–57
Psalm 27.12
For many gave false testimony against him, and their testimony did not agree. Some stood up and gave false testimony against him
Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.
Mark 14.61 (cf. 15.5)
Isaiah 53.7
But he was silent and did not answer.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Mark 14.65
Isaiah 50.6
Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, ‘Prophesy!’ The guards also took him over and beat him.
I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
Mark 15.18–19
Micah 5.1
And they began saluting him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him.
Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.
Mark 15.24
Psalm 22.16–18
And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shrivelled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.
Mark 15.29–32
Psalm 22.7–8
Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; ‘Commit your cause to Yahweh; let him deliver—let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’
Mark 15.34
Psalm 22.1
At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
Mark 15.36
Psalm 69.19–21
And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’
You know the insults I receive, and my shame and dishonour; my foes are all known to you. Insults have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Amid all these is where we find that the land was shrouded in darkness. There is no historical corroboration for the phenomenon.
Mark 15.33
Amos 8.9–10
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
On that day, says the Lord Yahweh, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
The turning point was the revelation of the main theme, that the Messiah must be killed. Jesus explains to his disciples that the son of man’s death in Jerusalem would be the means by which God will accomplish the eschatological salvation (10.45; 14.24). But these explanations are soon followed by a repeated emphasis on Jerusalem’s destruction (11–12), when the ‘son of man comes on the clouds of heaven’ (13.1–27). Jesus indicates via parable that Jerusalem’s destruction will be vengeance from God for its leadership killing his ‘son’, the Messiah (12.6–9, 12). The climax of the Sanhedrin trial scene is when Jesus admits that he is the Messiah. He follows this with a declaration that his accusers will see the ‘son of man coming with the clouds of heaven’ (14.61–62).
By casting a shadow over the land of Israel specifically ‘at noon’ during Jesus’ crucifixion, the author not only provides an omen to mark the death of an important person,
Mark 14.50–52
Amos 2.14–16
All of them deserted him and fled. A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.
Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain their strength, nor shall the mighty save their lives; those who handle the bow shall not stand, and those who are swift of foot shall not save themselves, nor shall those who ride horses save their lives; and those who are stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked on that day, says Yahweh.
For the author, it was not enough to simply show the disciples running away. He needed to demonstrate that this, too, was the beginning of the Day of Yahweh.
Burial in a Tomb
Jesus dies in the middle of the afternoon. The temple’s curtain rips in half, and the centurion guarding Jesus realizes he must be the son of a deity. Later in the evening, a man named Joseph is given permission by Pilate to take Jesus’ body. Joseph places the body in a tomb outside Jerusalem, and blocks the entryway with a large stone (15.42–47).
The cause for the centurion’s reaction is unclear. It seems it was due to the temple’s curtain tearing apart at the moment of Jesus’ death, but this would be nonsensical. The curtain was inside the temple, behind walls, atop Mount Zion, off inside the city. The centurion could not have seen it, especially not while it was dark.
The centurion’s reaction happens because the author is driving in another part of his main theme. While Jesus’ disciples have their revelation of Jesus being the Messiah halfway through the story, the author has other characters in the book recognize his importance before this, each of them commanded to keep it a secret (1.25, 34; 1.44; 3.12; 5.43; 7.36; 8.26, 30; 9.9). The ones who make these declarations about Jesus are evil spirits, ailing lepers, and rural laborers. The educated religious authorities, the people who (in the author’s mind) should be most prepared to recognize who Jesus is, are the ones wholly opposed to everything he says and does. When Jesus confirms for them that he really is the Messiah, they call for his death. Having a gentile soldier make the connection is the penultimate irony of the book.
It is sometimes thought that Jesus, as a crucifixion victim, would have been denied burial in a tomb. It is argued it would be more historically accurate if he was carelessly thrown in a mass grave. But the placement of Jesus’ body in a tomb is entirely plausible. In 1968 an ossuary with the bones of a Judean man who died in the first century was found, his name inscribed in Hebrew on the stone box. Jehoḥanan, son of Ḥagqol, was crucified.
Josephus, Judean War, 4.5.2
No, [the Idumeans] proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial. But the Judeans used to take so much care of the burial of men that they took down those who were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the sun went down.
The only apparent problem is that the man who buried Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, is identified as someone ‘who was himself also waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God’. The author says his request to Pilate was ‘bold’. This man evidently agreed with Jesus’ message. Yet, the narration also says Joseph was ‘an honorable councilman’. He was a part of the very same Sanhedrin whose every member sentenced Jesus to death. It seems the author may have forgotten the verdict was unanimous. This casts doubt over the historicity of at least some of Mark’s description of the burial.
The Resurrection
A group of women who followed Jesus observe his death (15.40–41). They come to the tomb on the third day, intending to anoint his body for a proper burial. They wonder how they will move the heavy stone blocking the entry, but upon arriving they find the tomb already open. Inside, ‘a young man’ informs them that Jesus has been restored from death and is going to Galilee, as he had promised (16.1–7; cf. 14.28).
There are attempts to identify the ‘young man’ waiting for the women with the naked ‘young man’ who fled during Jesus’ arrest—based on the shared word
The book shockingly ends with the women remaining silent when told to inform the disciples that the risen Jesus will be waiting for them in Galilee. This was bothersome enough that later Christian scribes invented endings to append to the book. The so-called ‘long ending’ (Mark 16.9–20) appears to be written by someone who had Matthew, Luke, Acts, and possibly John, suggesting it was written sometime after the mid-second century CE. While the late origin of those endings is broadly accepted, the real debate is whether the book was designed to end with verse 16.8, or if there was more to the story that was lost before it could be widely copied.
In the letters of Paul—our earliest sources—we are told about his experience with the risen Jesus that led to him believing he was the Messiah. Paul was a seeker of visions, the sort commonly found within apocalyptic streams of Judaism (2 Cor 12.1).
In discussions of the book’s value as a dependable source of history, it is often argued that the identification of women as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection is a strong point in favor of the empty tomb’s historicity. Because women in this time period were allegedly stereotyped as poor, flighty witnesses, an author would not try to convince people of a spectacular claim on the testimony of women unless he was absolutely sure what they said was true. Yet, this argument skips a vital detail: the Gospel of Mark, in fact, does not present the women as reliable witnesses. Their portrayal here is overwhelmingly negative.
Mark 16.8
So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
In my opinion of the text, this ending performs two functions. The first is that it reads as a deliberately blunt conclusion to the book. Jesus must regularly command people to keep his identity as the Messiah a secret. But now, the only people given explicit permission to spread the word that Jesus is alive again, commanded to tell others, instead fail to reveal it to anyone. It is the final twist of irony on the theme of the ‘messianic secret’.
The second function of their silence requires another look at Paul.
Part of the puzzle is not whether Paul thought Jesus had been buried. He knows Jesus was (1 Cor 15.3–4). The question is whether Paul had any awareness that Jesus was buried in a tomb which was then found empty. This would require that Jesus’ resurrection body was the same body which had been buried in the first place, a mortal body restored to life and transformed to be immortal. This does not seem to reflect what Paul thought resurrection was. In his discourse on the nature of the resurrection, the only bodies Paul describes as being ‘transformed’ or ‘changed’ are those still alive when the eschaton arrives (1 Cor 15.50–57). Otherwise, ‘the resurrection of the dead’ consists of earthly, soulish bodies being traded for heavenly, spiritual bodies (1 Cor 15.42–49). He elsewhere compares the resurrection to an old tent being replaced with a new one, or old clothes replaced with new clothes (2 Cor 4.1–4). These analogies do not suggest a mortal body becoming immortal, but the person ‘inside’ the mortal body leaving it behind and later receiving an immortal body.
Some recent scholarship has drawn attention to the work of a Roman author, the Satyrica by Gaius Petronius, as a point of comparison for the gospels. In one passage, the reader learns of the Widow of Ephesus, a woman grieving her dead husband in his tomb. A nearby centurion, guarding a crucified man, is distracted by the commotion. While the centurion is away from his post on the third day, the crucified man’s body is stolen. Not wishing for the centurion to be punished, the widow assists him in placing her own husband’s body on the cross. This causes other people to wonder how someone already dead wound up on a cross, away from his tomb.
There are many striking elements to the Widow of Ephesus if one has the gospels in view. The robbers, the crucifixion, guards, three nights in the tomb, missing crucified corpses, and so forth are all shared topoi. […] The episode also evokes the motif of the empty tomb with the widow’s husband ascending the cross.48
The Satyrica’s date of origin is disputed. The ‘vast majority of scholars’ put it as early as the 50s CE, but others suggest a time around 115 CE.
Missing corpses were a very common occurrence in antiquity. [There are too many cases to detail here] Throughout Mediterranean literature (and material culture), more often than not, these missing dead were understood to have experienced some form of apotheosis, resurrection/rebirth, or transition into a supernatural state.50
Looking past the sheer surface of the narrative, we do not have to suppose some kind of historical basis for Mark’s empty tomb simply because (to borrow from one academic) ‘some stories are so odd that they may just have happened’.
The author, of course, would not want to say he determined the fact of Jesus’ burial in a tomb by means of his own inspiration while reading Greco-Roman literature, Paul’s letters, and the Book of Isaiah. This is the second function of the women’s silence: it hermetically seals the narrative, similar in purpose to Daniel being told to hide away the account of his apocalyptic visions (Dan 8.26; 12.4, 9). For Daniel, it explained how an ancient prophecy about the Maccabean Revolt just happened to be discovered during that very event. This kind of literary ‘seal’ preemptively answers the critical question, ‘How come we have never heard about this before?’ Because the only witnesses, a small group of women, never told anyone.
Changes in the Other Gospels
My conclusion on the literary nature of Mark 14–16 is probably obvious at this point. Before we bring this to a close, however, we should first explore the other gospels and survey how they interact with Mark’s version of the story.
Matthew sometimes places Mark’s narration into Jesus’ mouth (e.g. 26.1–2, 26–29). He explicitly identifies the high priest as Caiaphas (26.3–5). He makes several changes to Judah Iscariot’s subplot: his motivation for betraying Jesus is greed (26.14–16); Jesus clearly identifies Judah as his betrayer (26.25); Jesus now bravely faces his enemies when Judah points him out (26.50); and, Judah is consumed with regret, returning the money to the priests and killing himself before Jesus is even taken to Pilate (27.3–10). Jesus not only complains to the crowd for their injustice, he now first takes a moment to rebuke his own disciples for attempting to prevent his arrest and thus thwart God’s plan (26.52–54). Matthew not only adds details; he cuts the small pericope of the naked young man, probably confused about its meaning. Matthew seems to think Jesus did threaten to destroy the temple, and so rewords the accusation at his trial to imply it did not come from a ‘false witness’ (26.59–61; see here). He also modifies Jesus’ response to the high priest, adding the word
Legendary elements in Matthew’s account are even more obvious than Mark’s: Pilate is absolved of all guilt (27.19, 24); a vicious fabrication is placed in the mouth of the entire Judean populace (27.25); and, other omens accompany the temple curtain (27.51–53; the centurion now reacts to an earthquake, rather then the curtain he can’t see). Joseph of Arimathea is now plainly ‘a rich man’ and is no longer a member of the Sanhedrin (27.57–61). Matthew asserts the presence of temple guards assigned to watch Jesus’ tomb; they see an angel open the tomb, but are subsequently commanded by the nefarious priests to lie about what they saw (27.62–66; 28.4, 11–15). Finally, and most importantly, the unsatisfying and abrupt ending of Mark has been ‘fixed’: the women now witness the tomb being opened (28.1–2); they eagerly run with ‘great joy’ to tell the disciples (28.8); they see the risen Jesus (28.9–10); and, the disciples find Jesus in Galilee as promised (28.16–20).
Luke moves the story of Jesus being anointed with perfume to a completely different part of the book (7.36–50). The satan is directly involved in events: he possesses Judah Iscariot (22.3–6), and he is the cause for Peter’s denial of Jesus (22.31–34). The wine of the Passover meal is featured twice, and adheres closer to Paul’s phrasing in 1 Corinthians (22.17–20). Luke also provides a reason for how anyone could possibly think Jesus posed a threat of violence: not because he threatened the temple—this accusation is omitted from the trial—but because he specifically told his disciples to carry swords with them that night for the express purpose of forcing prophecy to be fulfilled (22.35–38). Jesus rebukes his disciples when they fight back, as in Matthew, but he now goes a step further by healing the slave’s ear (22.51). Jesus calls out Judah’s betrayal (22.48), as well as the Sanhedrin’s disbelief (22.67–68). Similar to Matthew, he adds the word
Luke inserts another pericope: women mourn Jesus’ death, and he cites back a prophecy about Israel coming under judgment (23.27–31; Hos 10.8). Jesus offers one of the crucified men salvation (23.39–43), possibly to show that even last-second repentance is valid. Luke keeps Joseph of Arimathea on the Sanhedrin, but removes the unanimous verdict from the trial scene, here noting that Joseph objected (23.50–51). He also specifies that the tomb was brand new, truly ‘empty’ (22.53). The women now find two men at the tomb, and, as in Matthew, tell the disciples what they saw (24.8–9). However, it is here that we now notice a significant change to Mark: Luke has completely scrubbed all references to Jesus’ plan to meet the disciples back in Galilee after his resurrection. Instead, he simply happened to be in Galilee at the time he mentioned his coming resurrection (24.6–7). Thus, Jesus appears to several of his disciples not only in Jerusalem, but on a road far away from the city (24.13–48). He even requires them to stay in Jerusalem (24.49) and disappears into heaven the night of that same day he rose from the dead (24.50–53), which prevents any attempts to harmonize with Matthew’s ending.
The Gospel of John is substantially different from the other three overall. The etiology for the Eucharist is moved to an earlier dialogue (6.22–59). Judah Iscariot, as in Luke, is possessed by the satan, and Jesus reveals his betrayal to other disciples early on (13.21–30). Jesus delivers a long series of philosophical monologues before his arrest (13.31–17.26). Judah Iscariot is not even given the chance to point Jesus out; Jesus approaches his enemies and identifies himself to their surprise (18.1–9). The violent disciple and the maimed slave are both named: Peter and Malchus. Jesus rebukes only Peter, not the crowd arresting him (18.10–11a). Jesus nowhere prays for God to ‘remove this cup’, allowing Jesus to avoid his death; he now flatly says he must ‘drink the cup’ set before him (18.11b); this resolution is more in line with a typical martyrdom account.
There are more than just the four gospels of the New Testament, but we will look at only one of them. The Gospel of Peter explains that Pilate granted Joseph’s request because they were friends. Jesus is stated to feel no pain when crucified. The Judeans acknowledge Jesus’ innocence, declaring that God’s judgment was on Jerusalem. The tomb’s entry is sealed shut, and Pilate sends Roman soldiers to guard it. A crowd from Jerusalem witnesses angels open the tomb and accompany the risen Jesus as he emerges. The cross, evidently buried with Jesus, follows him out of the tomb and speaks. The next day, the women find the tomb open, but run away in fear. A full week later, at the end of the eight-day festival, the disciples still have not seen the risen Jesus.
Conclusion
In each one of these later gospels, we see how items are rearranged, added, removed, and altered. There is a general sweep across those books to portray Pilate (and all Romans, by proxy) better and the Judeans worse. They fix plotholes, adjust motivations, and completely fabricate new details to serve their individual agendas and theological perspectives. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both embellish Mark, and the Gospels of John and Peter both further embellish all three of their predecessors.
Mark may have had an existing ‘passion’ document as a resource, but he was not simply slavishly copying extant documents and passing on oral traditions. We have no reason to think the author of Mark was not capable of the same kinds of authorial decisions his successors made. We see him regularly exercising his prowess as a creative writer.
The general outline of Mark 14–16, the suffering of a holy man, had plenty of ‘literary models’ to survey for ideas on how to construct a narrative.
As Mark’s author established his basic story structure for the crucifixion and decided how it would tie into his ongoing ‘messianic secret’ theme, he also searched through the scriptures. He found a handful of especially poignant chapters which focused on the suffering of God’s followers and which prophesied judgment against Israel itself. He borrowed from these texts—especially Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22—to convey that Jesus was a truly righteous man whose unjust suffering had resulted in divine vengeance coming upon Jerusalem. The Day of Yahweh had arrived, and festivals like Passover would turn ‘into mourning’ because the people killed the Messiah, the ‘only son’ of God.
When we peel away the editorial side of Mark 14–16, searching for the bare story underneath, what we find is that Jesus was crucified by the Romans on charge of sedition, sentenced to death perhaps through an expedited legal process.
Jesus may have been buried in a tomb, though not surrounded by fearful guards or scheming priests. Perhaps he was even buried by a disapproving member of the Sanhedrin, someone concerned not for Jesus, but for obeying the Torah. Jesus was probably one among many crucified that morning, and would not have received special attention from Pilate or the executioners. The temple curtain was not torn, and the sun was not eclipsed. There were no omens to mark the day.
Doesn’t Matthew also record the curtain being torn, not just Mark? Also, do you think it’s “plausible” that Jesus’s body was just thrown into a mass grave (and still remains there to this day)?
ReplyDeleteMatthew does keep the curtain (dependent on Mark), and adds other omens.
DeleteI think it is possible Jesus was buried in a mass grave. I don't know if I would rate it more likely than a tomb.
Do you think it’s likely that his bones are still in the tomb (or wherever he was buried) today? I think it would be really cool if we found Jesus’s bones, since that would probably be the greatest discovery of all time, although I don’t know how you would be able to determine if the bones were his or not.
DeleteOn the basis of Jehoḥanan, Jesus may well have been buried in a tomb, then his bones transferred to an ossuary. I don't think we have any way of knowing, however, and I think it's incredibly unlikely we'd ever find it
Delete"I am unconvinced by arguments for a lost ending, that it would resolve any of Mark’s loose plot threads. Hypothetical sources like J (for the Torah) or Q (for Matthew and Luke) at least have tangible material to make a case from. A lost ending for Mark is, by definition, unknowable. We cannot make arguments for its existence by citing its non-existent contents."
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts about the proposition that John 21 contains the "lost ending" of Mark's Gospel? See the following Reddit post and follow the links to read more about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/hwgtrk/comment/fyzo3va/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I first learned of this theory maybe five or six years ago. I think it's interesting, but my opinions on source criticism of the Gospel of John are still up in the air.
DeleteCurrently, my tentative, personal theory is that the so-called 'Signs Source' or 'Signs Gospel' is not a separate or earlier document, but the Johannine evangelist's own innovation on the synoptic gospels. That is, he loosely adapted material from the synoptics to be his narrative framework, which he then filled in with the heavier, more philosophical material. Rather than preserving an alleged lost ending to Mark, maybe John 21 is instead the Johannine evangelist's adaptation of the fishing miracle story from Luke, which he left out in the earlier edition of his gospel.
Regarding Paul's conception of the resurrection body and its implications for the empty tomb, what are your thoughts on James Ware's papers on the subject? He argues that Paul's description of the resurrection body elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 15, along with the language of resurrection, show that he must have understood the resurrection as a physical event that involved Jesus' body getting up out of his tomb. If you're not familiar with them, please don't feel like you have to read them; I'm just wondering if you were aware of his arguments and had any thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWare, James. “The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5.” New Testament Studies 60, no. 4 (October 2014): 475–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688514000150.
Ware, James. “Paul’s Understanding of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:36–54.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 4 (2014): 809. https://doi.org/10.15699/jbibllite.133.4.809.
His name is familiar, but I don't see either article in my collection. I can't recall if I've read these, sorry. I'll keep my eye out for them and get back to you.
DeleteDo you see Matthew’s account in 28:11-15 about the guards arguing over Jesus’s tomb as historical? It’s a common apologetic view to take this passage from Matthew and argue for Jesus’s literal resurrection from the dead because people will argue that even the guards placed at Jesus’s tomb knew where he was, and they will also argue for the idea that “Everyone knew where the tomb was”, and use this passage as proof of that. Justin Martyr also records the same tradition that some of the Jews were arguing that Jesus’s body was stolen from the tomb, so this doesn’t appear to be an invention of Matthew’s author, since Justin is independent of Matthew. But what are your thoughts on the historicity of this account?
ReplyDeleteI think it is historically probable that by Matthew's time (circa 90 CE) the 'empty tomb' story had become commonplace among Christians, which led to Jewish critics responding with a counterargument that Jesus' body must have been stolen from that tomb by his own disciples, which led to Matthew's author retroactively putting that counterargument in the mouths of the priests as a deliberate lie. I think the guards, and their dialogue with the priests, are a non-historical invention of Matthew's author for a polemical reason.
DeleteIn Justin's 1 Apology, he mentions 'the memoirs composed by [the apostles] which are called gospels'. He knows of multiple 'gospel' books attributed to Jesus' disciples, though he may not have known them by the names later assigned to them by Irenaeus. In the 1 Apology, Justin quotes the Gospel of Matthew multiple times (according to Larry Hurtado, Matthew is the gospel which Justin quotes the most often). This includes sayings or versions of sayings unique to Matthew (e.g. in 1 Apology 19, Justin quotes the wording from Matt 10.28, not the parallel version in Luke 12.5). In Dialogue with Trypho 108, Justin criticizes 'all the men of your nation' by referring to something Jesus said: 'that he would give the sign of Jonah, exhorting you to repent of your wicked deeds at least after he rose again from the dead, and to mourn before God as did the Ninevites'. While the 'sign of Jonah' is mentioned in Luke 11 and Matt 16, its specific association with Jesus' resurrection is only found in Matt 12, again showing Justin's familiarity with Matthew. This paragraph, Dialogue 108, is where we find Justin mentioning the guards uniquely found in Matthew. I think it's very safe to say that Justin Martyr was dependent on the Gospel of Matthew for his knowledge of a tradition about guards at the tomb.
“Amid all these is where we find that the land was shrouded in darkness. There is no historical corroboration for the phenomenon.”
ReplyDeleteDon’t Thallus and Phlegon record the darkness?
Phlegon, as cited by Eusebius, wrote that a solar eclipse and earthquake happened at the end of the 202nd Olympiad (circa 33 CE). Phlegon was writing in the late second century, and appears to have slightly confused the dating of the eclipse, which happened at the beginning of the 202nd Olympiad (24th November 29 CE). This is several months out of season for the Passover scene depicted in Mark, which, as noted above, cannot be a solar eclipse because they cannot occur during a full moon. (Phlegon also states that the earthquake was felt in Bithynia, northern Türkiye, much too far from Jerusalem to be the one in Matthew.)
DeleteThe statement from Thallus, as I understand, is only known to us through third-hand accounts (writers citing someone who cited Thallus), and may not have been talking about events in this time period in the first place.
Mark, you cited one of John Granger Cook’s books, but I absolutely have to recommend his book called Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, especially for comparisons between the empty tomb element in the gospels and other same motifs found in both Jewish literature and Greco-Roman literature. If you haven’t read it yet, you absolutely have to! John cites over a dozen examples of figures in antiquity undergoing apotheosis (like Walsh and Litwa mentioned), but it’s an absolutely amazing book!
ReplyDelete“There is no evidence of the prisoner tradition Pilate uses in a last-ditch attempt to save Jesus’ life.”
ReplyDelete1. Josephus records that when the Roman governor Albinus was preparing to leave office he released prisoners who had been incarcerated for crimes other than murder. 'he was desirous to appear to do somewhat that might be grateful to the people of Jerusalem; so he brought out all those prisoners who seemed to him to be most plainly worthy of death, and ordered them to be put to death accordingly. But as to those who had been put into prison on some trifling occasions, he took money of them, and dismissed them; by which means the prisons were indeed emptied, but the country was filled with robbers.' (Antiquities 20.9.3).
2. In the Mishnah (Jewish oral tradition, written in around AD 300) it records that “they may slaughter the passover lamb for one….whom they have promised to bring out of prison”. Now its not exactly clear but this certainly records a prisoner being released specifically at Passover.
3.A piece of papyrus also records a Roman governor of Egypt saying: “You were worthy of scourging but I gave you to the crowds.” (P.Flor 61, c. AD 85).
4. Pliny the younger from one of his early second century letters also has something important to note on such practices and who had responsibility to do so, "It was asserted, however, that these people were released upon their petition to the proconsuls, or their lieutenants; which seems likely enough, as it is improbable any person should have dared to set them at liberty without authority" (Epistles 10.31).
5. The author William Lane states ‘There is….. a parallel in Roman law which indicates that an imperial magistrate could pardon and acquit individual prisoners in response to the shouts of the populace’ (The Gospel according to Mark, p. 553).
Don’t these sources debunk this claim?
I do not think any of these points debunks the claim. While trying to find the source of the quotation in the second point, I discovered that this five-point list has been copied across several apologetics websites. I did not read any of them beyond this initial discovery, so the thoughts below are my own, in response to how the list has been presented in the comment above.
Delete1 — This only tells us of an exceptional occasion when Albinus was trying to impress a visiting Roman official with how much Jerusalem enjoyed Albinus' leadership. He tried to accomplish this by sloppily rushing pending death sentences while also releasing the rest of the other prisoners.
2 — The list wants us to assume this prisoner is waiting to be executed, but is suddenly released from prison because a Passover lamb has been killed in their place (i.e. substitutionary atonement). This is not remotely what the text describes. The given quote refers to a passage in Mishnah Pesachim 8, which lists various categories of people who may be unable to bring their own lamb for the Passover sacrifice due to circumstances outside their control, and thus how other Torah-observant individuals should carry out the sacrifice on the absent person's behalf (with additional guidelines on when not to do it on their behalf). The examples provided include: a woman currently on her period, someone currently mourning the death of a relative, someone currently in prison but 'whom the governing body promised to release from prison on the night of Passover' (i.e. the conclusion of someone's prison sentence happens to coincide with Passover), and certain sick or elderly individuals.
[continued below]
[continuing above]
Delete3 — P Flor 61 is a sort of transcript of a civil suit which the Roman governor of Egypt (Gaius Septimius Vegetus) presided over. It appears that Phibion (plaintiff) was suing Polydeukes (defendant), accusing him of being a loan-shark because of a loan with a forty-year repayment plan. But Phibion evidently made some kind of procedural error when bringing suit, and this papyrus records how Kephalon (Phibion's legal advocate) argued that Phibion should not be punished with the usual flogging due to—what was essentially—his confusion over paperwork. The governor ultimately agreed, telling Phibion that ‘You deserve to be flogged ... but I shall concede your case to the crowd and be more humane to you.’ The governor proceeds to rule that Phibion must makes his loan payments to Polydeukes as agreed, but that the payments may stop after only twenty years if Phibion returns to court after that time.
4 — The citation comes from Letter 40 of Pliny's correspondences with Trajan. In Pliny's own estimation, he was dealing with an unusual situation where criminals sentenced to this or that standard punishment (e.g. working in mines) have fallen into the routine of working as their city's public slave. Pliny writes to Trajan for advice on what standard to follow when he finds such cases, since several of these criminals have reached old age and now behave properly. Pliny thought it would be unnecessarily cruel to force them back to their original punishments. In the meantime, Pliny has taken to simply letting local authorities claim the criminals had long-since been released on appeal, excusing why they were not carrying out their original sentences.
5 — Lane makes his claim by citing P Flor 61. Specifically, he claims the papyrus shows how 'an imperial magistrate could pardon and acquit individual prisoners in response to the shouts of the populace'. No such scene is portrayed in the papyrus. Phibion was not a prisoner, he did not commit any crimes in order to need a pardon or acquittal, and the governor was swayed by Phibion's lawyer's argument in court, not screaming crowds.
None of these texts supports Mark's claim that Pilate pardoned a criminal as part of a well-known Passover tradition in Jerusalem. We have no evidence such a tradition existed. I have to be honest that I think the person who originally wrote the list was desperate to find proof-texts. (Note how points 3 and 5 are redundant, artificially lengthening the list to make the defense appear stronger.) Each one is severely misrepresented, whether out of laziness or dishonesty.
Thanks again for the responses Mark!
DeleteYesterday, I was reading more through your responses and I happened to come across two more “sources” that weren’t on the list I originally sent. Do you think you could respond to these for me? Thanks! (I don’t want this to just be a back and forth debate on apologetics because that’s not the purpose of your blog, but I just thought you’d find them interesting.)
1. An inscription in Ephesus (441 AD) mentions a decision of a proconsul to release prisoners because of the outcries of the people. (Adolf Deissman, “Light from the Ancient East,” 2004, Pages 269-270 n7).
2. Josephus tells us Herod Archelaus released several prisoners to appease his fellow Jews (Antiquities 17.204).
Source: https://youtu.be/P0HfUOihf5c (2:36)
I just thought these two were particularly interesting because they both (are said to) mention releasing prisoners to appease other people, just like what’s recorded in the gospels about Jesus and Barabbas.
I don't see how either passage could be interpreted as evidence for the historicity of the Barabbas scene which Mark portrays. The Phlegethius inscription concerns an event which happened four hundred years later. The Josephus passage concerns how, when Archelaus came to power, he bent over backwards to show the people he was a kinder ruler than his father by fulfilling a variety of requests. Neither of them demonstrates, in any way, the existence of a first-century tradition that the Roman governor of Iudaea Province would release a violent prisoner each year in celebration of a Judean holiday. These citations (and the others above) are grasping at straws to defend the historicity of a practice for which we have no evidence.
DeleteThanks for the responses! I actually found these sources on an apologetics website which you can find here: http://apologeticsuk.blogspot.com/2012/04/would-pontius-pilate-have-released.html
ReplyDeleteAlso, Inspiring Philosophy recently made a YouTube video responding to a tiktocker on this subject, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/dyVhZmJFrlw
One of his main points was to cite Craig Evans on some of the sources listed above (such as the Mishnah text). He also made a claim that saying that there is no evidence for the Barabbas releasing tradition (which you said in the article) is just an “argument from silence”, and he said that “the gospels should not be judged guilty until proven innocent” or something like that. How would you respond to this? Also, I’m not sure if you really like critiquing apologist YouTubers on your blog, but what are your thoughts on Inspiring Philosophy as a whole? I feel like a lot of people consider him “unbeatable” in the whole theist/atheist debate, which I personally think is pretty ludicrous on the surface. But what do you think about him as a whole? Thanks for the responses!
I'm not familiar with Inspiring Philosophy to be able to give an opinion. I don't watch many YouTube channels in general (and the only relevant one is Religion For Breakfast).
DeleteI don't think saying 'there is no evidence for the tradition' is an argument from silence. Rather, it is an argument which explains that silence. The only sources we have which reference this tradition are ultimately dependent on Mark. Given the amount of sources we have from that era, it is reasonable to expect even one of them to independently reference this tradition. Yet none do.
I think the statement 'the gospels should not be judged guilty until proven innocent', and the implication it raises, is disingenuous. This field of scholarship is history + literary criticism. The method is to study the texts by means of being informed by contemporary evidence. The texts are not studied in regards to authorial intent (as much as such a thing is possible for us to identify), and, at least in the case of claims about historical events or figures, plausibility and probablity. Flattening all this into a linear spectrum of 'guilty' and 'innocent', where 'guilty' means 'false/bad' and 'innocent' means 'true/good', is an absurd simplification.
I don't think such an argument can be made in good faith. Does a Christian apologist who says we should simply assume the 'innocence' of the Gospel of Mark (read: its complete accuracy, over and above all contrary evidence, so that we necessarily accept its theology and join the apologist's religion) also say we should simply assume the 'innocence' (complete accuracy) of the Quran, 3 Enoch, Book of Mormon, Avesta, Vedas, etc? Almost never. It is an anti-academic notion, where a person has predetermined what we should think/feel/believe ahead of time, so that evidence is accepted, discarded, or ignored accordingly.
I just don't have much interest in the sort of intellectual gymnastics required for debates over religious apologetics. I really just want to understand the biblical texts as pieces of a tiny corner of history, independent of any claims for or against their theological 'truth'.
I agree on all of this.
DeleteHowever, I should correct myself because what Michael (Inspiring Philosophy) actually said in the video I linked to above was “we don’t just assume the gospels are guilty unless they are proven innocent.” This was a response to the claim made by the tiktocker that BECAUSE this practice is only mentioned in the gospels, then this means that it likely doesn’t exist in the first place. He was trying to make the point (as an implication) that the gospels should be judged like any other ancient text and that we should not just dismiss them just because they are religious texts and therefore religious texts have bias. The problem with this line of reasoning is that ALL ancient writers were biased, so this argument doesn’t work. We have to examine each claim independently on its own. I know you weren’t making this specific argument, but I thought I would present what he said accurately so I wasn’t misleading. So that might change the discussion just a bit. My apologies about that.
My question originally hinged on “we don’t just assume the gospels are guilty unless they are proven innocent” instead of “the gospels should not be judged guilty until proven innocent. Do you think the saying that “we don’t just assume the gospels are guilty unless they are proven innocent” is a valid response to what, for example, the tiktocker said in the video? I know that saying might sound the same as the one I originally asked, but after I posted it, I realized that the words “assume” and “unless” have different implications on the overall argument than than the words “judged” and “until” because they mean different things.
DeleteBasically, my question is do you think Inspiring Philosophy’s response to the ticktocker in the video I linked is accurate? The video can explain it much better than I can ha ha.
https://www.bibleplaces.com/blog/2012/05/evidence-for-april-3-33-ce-crucifixion/
ReplyDeleteMark, could you tell me what you think of this report given by Jefferson Williams please? Thanks! You didn’t spend too much time on Matthew’s gospel in the article, but I thought this was still interesting when I first discovered it.
As the geologist wrote, the study assigned a ten-year range to when the earthquake may have happened (26-36 CE), with 31 CE landing in the center of that range. The geologist also says that the author of Matthew may have ‘borrowed’ the earthquake. I think this is the most information we can get from the study, and I think the latter detail—that Matthew was inspired by a historical earthquake—is dubious. As the geologist admits, he is a scientist and not a biblical scholar. (Given the scripture-inspired literary invention found throughout the narration, I think that is the most plausible explanation for the earthquake. The author isn't trying to record history; he wants to convey a theology interpreting Jesus and his death, which he does in part by inventing details lifted from passages of the Hebrew Bible.)
DeleteWhat the study actually shows is far from the claim that the geological survey confirmed an earthquake happened in Jerusalem on the conveniently precise date of 3 April 33 CE. That is such a ‘sensationalist’ headline (as the page’s author says), it could only come about through a deliberate misrepresentation of the study in question. I don’t see any value in pursuing alleged ‘scientific evidence’ regarding the crucifixion narrative from individuals who do that.