Monday, June 30, 2014

Who Would Invent a Crucified Messiah?

Liberal scholars like Bart Ehrman and James McGrath argue that one of the ways we can know that Jesus was a historical person is that first century Jews had no expectations that the messiah would suffer and die.  At the time, all Jews believed that the messiah would be a conquering hero. Therefore, the only explanation for this belief arising is that someone who was believed to be the messiah by his followers actually suffered and died.

Christians claim that the prophet Isaiah predicted that the messiah would suffer for the sins of his people:
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53 3:5.  However, Ehrman says that first century Jews didn't understand this as a messianic prophecy.  Rather, the prophet is describing the past suffering of Israel during the Babylonian exile.

What I find interesting is that Christian apologists use the same logic to argue that Jesus was really resurrected from the dead.  Since no first century Jews expected the messiah to suffer and die, the only explanation for this belief arising is that Jesus of Nazareth proved he was the messiah by rising from the dead.

Personally, I don't think we really know enough about how an idea like this might have been invented to say what must have happened to cause it.  Ehrman writes "Who would make up the idea of a crucified messiah?  No Jew that we know of."  So what?  Prior to Joseph Smith, did we know of any Christians who would make up the idea of the Golden Plates and the Angel Moroni?  Does that give us any reason to think that there is anything historical about Smith's stories.

I think it entirely plausible that the idea arose of a crucified messiah because the follower of an executed messianic claimant interpreted Isaiah as a prophecy in order to cling to his belief in the man he had followed.  However, I don't see how that makes it highly probable and I don't see how that is the only way it could have happened.  Given the number of devout Jews who must of been searching their scriptures in order to understand why God had not sent a messiah to deliver His people from their tribulations, I think that any number of people might have stumbled on the idea that Isaiah 53 3:5 was a prophecy.

Moreover, even if we could establish that the execution of a real messianic claimant is the most likely circumstance under which a first century Jew would come up with the idea of a suffering messiah, does that mean that it must have been one of Jesus' followers who did so?  Potential messiahs were a dime a dozen if first century Palestine.  It's equally likely that it was a follower of John the Baptist who stumbled upon the idea in an effort to understand his death or the follower of one of the many other messianic claimants of the day.

I was recently chided by Dr. McGrath for making such suggestions:
[T]he existence of sources which say things that are radically different than the ones we have is itself a mere possibility, which cannot be excluded but neither should it be assumed to be probable. And so we should and do assess historical probabilities using the evidence we have, not the evidence that we could theoretically have.
I could not help but note that the sources we have say nothing about the idea of a crucified messiah arising from someone's attempt to maintain their belief in a messianic claimant in the face of his execution.  The sources we have say that the belief in a crucified messiah arose from Jesus of Nazareth literally rising from the dead and appearing physically to his followers.  The whole enterprise of trying to determine the actual events that might have led to the development of such stories necessarily involves a great deal of speculation and conjecture.

24 comments:

  1. Your argument that the idea of Jesus' purported resurrection arose solely from someone interpreting Messianic prophesies is highly implausible for a few reasons. First of all, there is a huge gap between between saying that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophesy in Isaiah 53 by suffering and getting pierced, and saying that he was resurrected because because the text says nothing about the suffering servant being resurrected. In fact, none of the of the OT Messianic prophesies mention that the Messiah will be resurrected.

    Is it possible that someone in Jerusalem made up the part about Jesus being resurrected by extrapolating from Isaiah 53? Yes, but this possibility is extremely implausible when you factor in all the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, 1 Corinthians 15 and Josephus’ The Antiquities. There is no evidence that someone made up Jesus' resurrection solely by adding on the resurrection to Messianic prophesies while several sources say that Jesus' followers reported postmortem appearances; hence your explanation is extremely implausible.

    Another problem is that, given the dozens of Jewish Messiah claimants from 167 BCE to 21st century, why is Jesus the only one who was claimed to be resurrected and why did his followers still cling to the belief that he is the Messiah after their death? Judas Maccabeus lead successful revolts until he was slaughtered in battle in 160 BCE, and yet no one claimed that he was resurrected or continued to follow him.

    In the 1st century Judas of Galilee (6 CE), Menahem ben Judah and Theudas (?-46 CE) where all Messiah claimants who were killed or executed, and yet none of these men were said to be resurrected or had followers after their deaths. However, Jesus was said to be resurrected and Tacitus tells us that Jesus's followers had a resurgence after his death. What makes Jesus different from all the other Messiah claimants? The answer lies in the fact the Jesus' followers believed that they saw him walking around after his death. The Messianic OT prophesies were combined with the purported resurrection appearances to make a Messiah who suffered, died and was resurrected.

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    1. Keith,

      I wasn't talking about where the idea of the resurrection came from. I was talking about where the idea of a suffering messiah came from.

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  2. 'In fact, none of the of the OT Messianic prophesies mention that the Messiah will be resurrected.'

    Really?

    I guess Jesus was lying in Luke 24:46.

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  3. 'The answer lies in the fact the Jesus' followers believed that they saw him walking around after his death. '

    The earliest writer Paul says nothing of Jesus walking around after his death, and says Jesus became a life-giving spirit.

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  4. Prior to Joseph Smith, did we know of any Christians who would make up the idea of the Golden Plates and the Angel Moroni? Does that give us any reason to think that there is anything historical about Smith's stories.

    The story of the discovery of the golden plates is enough to make us highly dubious of the contents, plus the hefty linguistic and genetic problems. As such, I'd say that debate about what Smith could or could not have invented is fairly redundant.

    In any case, are you trying to argue that angelic appearances or even the golden plates were alien to Christian thought in the same way that Ehrman is arguing that the idea of a crucified Messiah was alien to Jewish thought?

    Which Christians do you mean - the ones who'd never read Acts or the ones who'd never read Revelation?!

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    1. I'm not trying to argue that angelic appearances were alien to Christian thought. Additional books of the Bible buried in the New World were certainly unexpected although I am not certain how one would compare the degree to which particular ideas are alien to particular cultures.

      However, does the fact that we could not predict the invention of an idea actually tell us anything about the manner in which it was invented? Clearly someone came up with the idea of a crucified messiah at some point. On what basis do we determine that it must have been a follower of Jesus of Nazareth as opposed to a follower of some other messianic claimant or simply someone who observed the manner in which those who challenged the Romans were brutally crushed?.

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  5. Tried replying has it got stuck in admin?

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    1. Not as far as I can tell. There is nothing in the spam folder.

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    2. I blame Kindle. Tried again below.

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  6. "Additional books of the Bible buried in the New World were certainly unexpected"

    Theories of Hebrews in the new world had been doing to rounds since at least the sixteenth century. If I looked into it, I suspect I'd find that Smith wasn't the first person to imagine that these Hebrews might have written down their history, just as the Hebrews of Israel had.

    The story of the discovery of the golden plates has obvious parallels to folkloric tales of buried treasure and ghosts revealing the whereabouts of some hidden item, and these have been around probably for thousands of years - think about the ghost story in Pliny.

    I did a quick bit regooglesearch which even suggests that even the idea of a "golden Bible" might have been something Smith borrowed:

    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zW6SN8OcYpAC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=canada++golden+bible+ingersoll&source=bl&ots=4WcWp6WHpS&sig=tidflS57rVXVRfDEnlCRnEiFQPY&hl=en&ei=h6gJUZ69EaLI0QG_ooCwCA&sqi=2&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=canada%20%20golden%20bible%20ingersoll&f=false

    I wonder if the examples you cite are quite good illustrations of the kind of ways historicists like me think stories do and don't tend to be invented: Stories of angelic appearances are suspect because they have a supernatural element and because there are obvious apologetic reasons why people might have invented them - "look at our guy - angels appeared to him, so you know he's legit". But Jesus being crucified or Joseph Smith getting shot in the back while trying to do a runner? I don't see any reason why anyone would have invented such stories - they hardly add glory to the faith, do they?

    "Clearly someone came up with the idea of a crucified messiah at some point." I'm not sure I understand this point. Did someone come up with the idea of "America under attack", "Watergate" or "the rock star is dead at age 27", or are these just events that happen that may or may not influence the way people view the world?

    For what it's worth, I do think Ehrman is trying to be a bit too clever by using the crucifixion to PROVE that Jesus existed - I think he could and should have given a more sober summing up of the evidence for both sides of the debate. Even so, given what we do know of Jewish and early Christian thought, I think it much more likely that Jesus' crucifixion was an actual historical event that Christians had to work into their theology. If you think there is some other reason explanation, I'd say that the onus is on you to show that it's plausible based upon what we do know, not on what we don't know.

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    1. I wouldn't be surprised if Smith wasn't the first one to imagine that those imaginary Hebrews wrote down their imaginary histories. Of course, Smith lived in the age of the printing press and high literacy rates so we can reasonably expect to document all sorts of fringe ideas that we could never hope to document in first century Judaism. That is why assertions about what nobody could have believed or invented about the messiah strike me as somewhat silly. All we know is what the mainstream beliefs were.

      Even if Jesus was a historical person, someone had to come up with the idea that messiah was supposed to suffer and die as part of God's plan. Someone had to search the scriptures and reinterpret Isaiah and the Psalms as messianic prophecies. I think it entirely plausible that Jesus' crucifixion was an actual historical event that Christians had to work into their theology, but I don't think that it is a defeater of mythicism. I think it also plausible that the crucifixion of any messianic claimant would be a challenge to any pious Jew who was trying to understand why God had not sent His anointed one to liberate.HIs people.

      The fact that the idea of a crucified messiah resonated with enough people to start the movement it did has to be considered evidence that the concept was actually appealing to a significant number of first century Jews. If it was really as alien as it is claimed that it was, I think it never would have gained any traction outside of those actual followers of Jesus who embraced it because they couldn't admit to the failure of their movement.

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    2. " That is why assertions about what nobody could have believed or invented about the messiah strike me as somewhat silly. All we know is what the mainstream beliefs were."

      I have no idea how you're defining "mainstream beliefs", but unless you just mean "all the stuff we already know about", that strikes me as a highly dubious statement.

      It's not just that we don't have any evidence that Jews expected a crucified Messiah, it's that we *do* have some evidence that Jews did *not* expect a crucified Messiah, for example from Paul and Justin.

      "Even if Jesus was a historical person, someone had to come up with the idea that messiah was supposed to suffer and die as part of God's plan. Someone had to search the scriptures and reinterpret Isaiah and the Psalms as messianic prophecies."

      History abounds with examples of events that happen that absolutely should not happen according a particular worldview that rather annoying do happen - from Jesus being crucified through the rise of Islam up to the slight delay in the proletariat rising to overthrow their capitalist oppressors. The people who held that worldview then have to slightly modify their worldview to explain why it did actually happen - it's just Flew falsification principle applied to history.

      I'm not sure history abounds with people who receive by revelation mythical stories that run completely counter to their world view and that these people's presumed followers almost immediately forget are mythical and everyone subsequently assumes actually happened without anyone raising a dissenting voice.

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    3. So which is it Paul? Did the idea of a suffering messiah "run completely counter" to Jewish thought or did it require them only to "slightly modify" their views? There seems to be a little inconsistency in your position there.

      I suppose we cannot truly know whether the surviving sources reflect the mainstream views of 1st century Judaism or not. As a matter of probability, I think that the most widely held beliefs are those that are most likely to survive in the historical record. If they weren't, then using the to extrapolate to what all Jews believed is eve more suspect.

      I know that historicists love to use phrases like "almost immediately forget" when describing mythicism, but it's just a straw man. Whatever the process was, it played out over the course of decades at the very least.

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    4. Thank you for confirming that the very first thing the disciples did when they saw Jesus was crucified, was to remember that the Messiah was not supposed to be crucified.

      The louder historicists proclaim that Jews would never have thought of a crucified person as the Messiah, the more gaping the hole in their assertion that Jews thought a crucified person was the Messiah.

      The double-think is astonishing,

      You can't have it both way.

      Either Jews did think a crucified person could be the Messiah or Jews could not conceive that a crucified person could be be the Messiah.

      Which is it?

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    5. 'Did the idea of a suffering messiah "run completely counter" to Jewish thought or did it require them only to "slightly modify" their views?'

      I also fell in love with this claim that they only had 'to slightly modify their worldview' to proclaim a crucified Messiah - it's so adorable a phrase.

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    6. I have never understood the certainty that historical Jesus scholars have about Jewish expectations concerning the messiah. No matter how much evidence I had that the peasants were happy under the Tsar, the Russian Revolution would be enough to create some uncertainty in my mind about the uniformity of their happiness.

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    7. "There seems to be a little inconsistency in your position there."

      No, I think you've just completely ignored the context of the second comment.

      "I know that historicists love to use phrases like "almost immediately forget" when describing mythicism, but it's just a straw man. Whatever the process was, it played out over the course of decades at the very least."

      And I love it when mythicists resort to such obvious question begging to try to the charge of straw man stick. The process went on over decades?! Er... can you show me some actual evidence for this decades long evolution from mythical to historical Jesus?

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    8. Please show me how I ignored the context by answering my question.

      You were the one who raised the issue of "immediately forgetting." You should cite evidence to support your claim.

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    9. Seriously Vinny?

      "History abounds with examples of events that happen that absolutely should not happen according a particular worldview that rather annoying do happen - from Jesus being crucified through the rise of Islam up to the slight delay in the proletariat rising to overthrow their capitalist oppressors. The people who held that worldview then have to slightly modify their worldview to explain why it did actually happen - it's just Flew falsification principle applied to history."

      If you can't pick out from that that a) I'm using a bit of sarcasm ("rather annoyingly do happen) and ("the slight delay in the proletariat rising"), and/or b) the paragraph isn't only referring to the rise of Christianity, then I think you need to read with either more care or more good will.

      "You were the one who raised the issue of "immediately forgetting." You should cite evidence to support your claim."

      Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot that your own views don't require any evidence. Silly of me.

      PS: That was sarcasm again.


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    10. Seriously Paul.

      I did get that you were employing sarcasm and I did get that you were referring to phenomena other than the rise of Christianity. What I didn't get was your point which is what I was trying to clarify with my question.

      I assumed that "absolutely should not happen according to a particular worldview" was not said sarcastically (which is perhaps where I made my mistake). If a thing absolutely should not happen according to a particular worldview, then it might be expected to take more than a slight modification to explain it. By the same token, if it only takes a slight modification to explain an event, then it probably was not as radically unexpected as was initially supposed.

      As I understand Flew's falsification principle, what makes beliefs about God meaningless is their endless flexibility in that they can be modified to explain whatever happens. The Jews of first century Palestine would have needed a very flexible concept of what it meant to be God's chosen people in order to maintain that belief in the face of all the tribulations that they had suffered throughout their history. I would guess that Flew would say that this belief was essentially meaningless for that reason.

      Why should we think that the Jews messianic beliefs were so rigidly inflexible that they couldn't be squeezed or stretched to fit whatever circumstances arose? Isn't that the very nature of religious beliefs?

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    11. I would also say of your three examples: (1) Whether there was a Jesus of Nazareth is the issue under discussion so you can't really use that as an example to establish your point; (2) It is not at all clear to me which particular world view it was according to which Islam shouldn't have risen and how that world view was modified; (3) I think that Marxism was always a work in progress such that it is hard to say that any particular series of out comes "absolutely should not have happened" according to the worldview even if they were not predicted by Marx's original theory.

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  7. 'The story of the discovery of the golden plates has obvious parallels to folkloric tales of buried treasure and ghosts revealing the whereabouts of some hidden item....'

    This is called 'parallelomania'

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  8. So Paul Regnier claims it only required a slight modification of world view to accept something that was totally unthinkable for Jews of the first century.

    No wonder he wants us to cut him some slack.

    But all Paul does with the slack is tie a noose and hang himself with it.

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  9. What could Jews conceive of?


    We know that Jews in Jerusalem would mourn for the death of a god who would then return to life.

    According to the Bible, this mourning by Jews about the death of a god would take place literally at the Temple in Jerusalem.

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