The following is based on Professor Bart Ehrman’s course “The New Testament,” produced by The Teaching Company. The citations refer to the page numbers of the course guidebook. Obviously some of Ehrman's points (and some of my own comments) could be controversial, and this essay can only represent a snapshot of my understanding at this particular moment in time.
I’ve long been intending to compose more concise essays because I find writing about what I am studying to be an invaluable step in enhancing my comprehension and retention of the material, but I am currently finishing my degree and have limited time for study outside of classwork. Hence this essay is shorter than previous ones.
Early Pagan and Jewish Sources
Jesus was executed around the year 30. Professor Ehrman discusses the early sources (defined as written earlier than 130 A.D.) for his life and deeds. He categorizes the sources: pagan, Jewish, Christian. “From the 1st century A.D., we have hundreds of documents written by all kinds of pagan authors for all kinds of reasons. Among all these surviving sources, Jesus is never mentioned at all.” (58) In the year 112, a Roman governor mentions in a letter the existence of people who worship “Christ.” In the year 115, the Roman historian Tacitus mentions Christ and his followers in his The Annals. These references are brief.
As for the Jewish sources, there is evidently only one. The single source is Flavius Josephus. Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived during the second half of the first century A.D., authored Jewish Wars, a history of the rebellion against Rome, in which he participated, which culminated in Rome’s destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Jesus doesn’t appear in Jewish Wars, but he does appear twice in another of Josephus’s works, Antiquities. One of the references to Jesus gives us some details which coincide with the details of the Christian sources. However, Professor Ehrman points out that this reference may have been expanded upon by a later Christian scribe in the Middle Ages in the process of reproducing Antiquities. (Remember, no printing press—every copy of a document was handwritten. Presumably we don’t have the original documents, only later copies; therefore we cannot compare to see what medieval scribes added.) Professor Ehrman doesn’t seem to think that the reference is to be entirely dismissed however. The second mention of Jesus in Antiquities is a brief mention that he was regarded by some as the messiah and had a brother named James. (58-9)
The pagan and Jewish sources from Jesus’ time and the century subsequent to his death tell us virtually nothing about Jesus. The consequence of this dearth of early sources is that the Christian sources are virtually our only sources for anything other than passing mentions of the existence of Christians or that someone named Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate.
Bad News about the Good News?
The more I’ve studied the Bible (entirely through sources such as this Teaching Company course; I haven’t actually read anything more than a handful of excerpts of the Bible), the more I’ve developed an appreciation for how rich it is as an anthology of literature, as an historical source, and simply as a reservoir of ideas that foster creative contemplation. I have also come to realize just how deceptive the Bible would prove if one were to approach it uncritically.
There are many respects in which the Bible is not what it appears at first to be. When it comes to our early Christian sources for the life of Jesus—the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—there are many very interesting ways in which reality differs from what we are presented with. There are, incidentally, more than twenty Gospels that didn’t make it into the Bible. These are known as non-canonical Gospels, and they include the Gospels of Thomas and Peter. The four Gospels included in the Bible do appear to be the earliest sources however, these non-canonical texts being composed between the 2nd and 8th centuries. (51)
Our four earliest Christian sources for the life of Jesus are attributed to Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke—people who supposedly witnessed the events of Jesus’ life or who were very close to people who did. However, these attributions were affixed to these works in the second century AD—seventy years, maybe one hundred or more years, after they were written. The works were originally composed anonymously, and they are written in the third person. (22)
The Gospels were written well after Jesus’ death. While Jesus was executed around 30 A.D., the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the Gospels to be composed, was not written until about 65-70 A.D. Matthew and Luke were composed between 80 and 85 A.D., and the Gospel of Luke was written between 90 and 95 A.D. The Gospels were written between 35 and 65 years after the death of Jesus. “This would be akin to writing the first accounts of the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson at the turn of the 21st century—with no written sources from the time.” (20) The implication, of course, is that the Gospels contain myths and embellishments in addition to true accounts.
Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, a language related to Hebrew. According to the New Testament itself, Jesus’ followers were uneducated peasants. According to Acts 4:13 John was illiterate. One must not only be literate to compose a text, but the Gospels were clearly written by authors who were highly educated. If indeed Jesus’ lower class followers somehow surmounted these obstacles and composed the Gospels, they overcame at least one more—they wrote the Gospels in a language which they did not speak, as the Gospels were written in Greek.
I’ve long been intending to compose more concise essays because I find writing about what I am studying to be an invaluable step in enhancing my comprehension and retention of the material, but I am currently finishing my degree and have limited time for study outside of classwork. Hence this essay is shorter than previous ones.
Early Pagan and Jewish Sources
Jesus was executed around the year 30. Professor Ehrman discusses the early sources (defined as written earlier than 130 A.D.) for his life and deeds. He categorizes the sources: pagan, Jewish, Christian. “From the 1st century A.D., we have hundreds of documents written by all kinds of pagan authors for all kinds of reasons. Among all these surviving sources, Jesus is never mentioned at all.” (58) In the year 112, a Roman governor mentions in a letter the existence of people who worship “Christ.” In the year 115, the Roman historian Tacitus mentions Christ and his followers in his The Annals. These references are brief.
As for the Jewish sources, there is evidently only one. The single source is Flavius Josephus. Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived during the second half of the first century A.D., authored Jewish Wars, a history of the rebellion against Rome, in which he participated, which culminated in Rome’s destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Jesus doesn’t appear in Jewish Wars, but he does appear twice in another of Josephus’s works, Antiquities. One of the references to Jesus gives us some details which coincide with the details of the Christian sources. However, Professor Ehrman points out that this reference may have been expanded upon by a later Christian scribe in the Middle Ages in the process of reproducing Antiquities. (Remember, no printing press—every copy of a document was handwritten. Presumably we don’t have the original documents, only later copies; therefore we cannot compare to see what medieval scribes added.) Professor Ehrman doesn’t seem to think that the reference is to be entirely dismissed however. The second mention of Jesus in Antiquities is a brief mention that he was regarded by some as the messiah and had a brother named James. (58-9)
The pagan and Jewish sources from Jesus’ time and the century subsequent to his death tell us virtually nothing about Jesus. The consequence of this dearth of early sources is that the Christian sources are virtually our only sources for anything other than passing mentions of the existence of Christians or that someone named Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate.
Bad News about the Good News?
The more I’ve studied the Bible (entirely through sources such as this Teaching Company course; I haven’t actually read anything more than a handful of excerpts of the Bible), the more I’ve developed an appreciation for how rich it is as an anthology of literature, as an historical source, and simply as a reservoir of ideas that foster creative contemplation. I have also come to realize just how deceptive the Bible would prove if one were to approach it uncritically.
There are many respects in which the Bible is not what it appears at first to be. When it comes to our early Christian sources for the life of Jesus—the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—there are many very interesting ways in which reality differs from what we are presented with. There are, incidentally, more than twenty Gospels that didn’t make it into the Bible. These are known as non-canonical Gospels, and they include the Gospels of Thomas and Peter. The four Gospels included in the Bible do appear to be the earliest sources however, these non-canonical texts being composed between the 2nd and 8th centuries. (51)
Our four earliest Christian sources for the life of Jesus are attributed to Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke—people who supposedly witnessed the events of Jesus’ life or who were very close to people who did. However, these attributions were affixed to these works in the second century AD—seventy years, maybe one hundred or more years, after they were written. The works were originally composed anonymously, and they are written in the third person. (22)
The Gospels were written well after Jesus’ death. While Jesus was executed around 30 A.D., the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the Gospels to be composed, was not written until about 65-70 A.D. Matthew and Luke were composed between 80 and 85 A.D., and the Gospel of Luke was written between 90 and 95 A.D. The Gospels were written between 35 and 65 years after the death of Jesus. “This would be akin to writing the first accounts of the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson at the turn of the 21st century—with no written sources from the time.” (20) The implication, of course, is that the Gospels contain myths and embellishments in addition to true accounts.
Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, a language related to Hebrew. According to the New Testament itself, Jesus’ followers were uneducated peasants. According to Acts 4:13 John was illiterate. One must not only be literate to compose a text, but the Gospels were clearly written by authors who were highly educated. If indeed Jesus’ lower class followers somehow surmounted these obstacles and composed the Gospels, they overcame at least one more—they wrote the Gospels in a language which they did not speak, as the Gospels were written in Greek.
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