Historical Jesus

Simon J. Gathercole, The Genuine Jesus and the Counterfeit Christs: New Testament and Apocryphal Gospels

Gathercole, Simon J. The Genuine Jesus and the Counterfeit Christs: New Testament and Apocryphal Gospels. Eerdmans, 2025. ix+131 pp. Pb. $24.99   Link to Eerdmans

Simon Gathercole is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, and Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He has written extensively on both the Gospels and Pauline letters, including two monographs on the Gospel of Thomas and one on the Gospel of Judas. This new book compares the canonical Gospels to several apocryphal gospels to show that the canonical Gospels are considerably different than these other “lost” gospels.

Gathercole has two propositions for this study. First, the four New Testament Gospels share key elements of theological context that mark them out from most of the non-canonical gospels. Second, the reason why the four New Testament gospels are theologically similar to one another is that they—unlike most others—follow the existing gospel message of the apostles. Essentially, the canonical Gospels are based on apostolic preaching and aim to preserve it; the non-canonical gospels “have a clear desire to distance themselves from key elements” of the apostolic preaching (109).

Apocryphal Gospels

The first two chapters of the book introduced the “other gospels.” Gathercole includes the Gospel of Marcion, two Valentinian gospels (The Gospel of Truth in The Gospel, Philip), two Gnostic gospels (The Gospel of the Egyptians and The Gospel of Judas), The Gospel of Peter, The Gospel of Thomas, and The Gospel of Mary. Each is introduced with a short sample. How can you tell the gospel apart? He suggests that the non-canonical gospels lack a certain “normality” when compared to the canonical gospels. There are strange elements in each of his examples, such as the talking cross in the Gospel of Peter. With respect to the origins of these non-canonical gospels, authorship is usually unclear, and they tend to date later than the canonical gospels (this may be debatable for the Gospel of Thomas, but he is generally correct). The non-canonical gospels lack biographical narration, focusing on dialogue between Jesus and a main character. Gathercole suggests that the non-canonical gospels may have been less popular, but this is a difficult criterion since truth is not measurable by popularity or majority.

It is the theological differences that distinguish the non-canonical gospels from the canonical ones. These differences are the burden of the rest of the book. He compares four issues of critical concern in the canonical gospels to those in the apocryphal gospels, devoting a chapter to each. For each theological topic, he summarizes how the canonical Gospels present the idea, highlighting the diversity between the four while showing they are remarkably similar. He then surveys his eight examples, looking for similarities and contrasts with the canonical gospels.

First, Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. In the canonical gospels, this is a central fee. However, in the non-canonical gospels, some will reject the idea that Jesus was the Messiah or ignore Jesus as the Messiah. Second, the canonical gospels focus on Jesus’s death as necessary for salvation, while the non-canonical gospels tend to downplay the crucifixion or bury it in the background. Third, another key element of the canonical gospels is Jesus’s resurrection. The resurrection was part of apostolic preaching from the beginning (1 Cor 15:4), and in many ways, the canonical gospels reach their conclusion with the resurrection of Jesus. Non-canonical gospels either rejected Jesus’s death and resurrection (Judas and Egyptian) or collapsed the death and resurrection together (the Valentinian gospels). Some accept the idea of resurrection. Jesus is alive, but that is the extent of the resurrection. Fourth, in each of the canonical gospels, Jesus fulfills the Hebrew scriptures.  This is a significant feature in all four of the canonical gospels. However, in non-canonical gospels, the idea that Jesus fulfills scripture is either irrelevant or ambiguous in its fulfillment.

After surveying these for theological points in both the canonical and non-canonical gospels, he returns to his original two propositions. The reason why the canonical gospels are similar is that they are all based on apostolic preaching. The reason the non-canonical gospels are different is that they are not based on that same tradition. Obviously, they have some awareness of the gospel story and may have known the canonical gospels. But the theology of the canonical gospels is not important for their theological emphases.

Gathercole makes an important point in this book. The non-canonical gospels are not an alternative Bible that presents a unified view (53). There is quite a range of theological motives and interests in the eight gospels he has chosen to feature in this book. There are many more apocryphal gospels, often with even more divergent theological views. Too often, studies of apocryphal gospels lean towards conspiracy theories. It is not the case that these apocryphal gospels represent a strand of Christian theology that was violently suppressed by orthodoxy.

In most cases, they differ enough from the canonical gospels that they never gained traction with the majority of the church. Significant church theologians indeed condemned many, but the fact that we have copies today indicates they were copied and studied. Considering the expense of copying a book in the ancient world, it is no surprise that there are fewer manuscripts available.

Conclusion. This brief book is a good introduction to eight examples from the New Testament Apocrypha. Noncanonical gospels are often interesting to read since they give an insight into the wide range of theological views in the early church. Gathercole’s introduction to this literature and his comparison of it to the canonical gospels are a valuable contribution that most readers will enjoy.

Gathercole recently edited an edition of the Apocryphal Gospels for Penguin Classics (2022). This extensive collection includes the gospels mentioned in this volume, as well as many others, including fragmentary gospels found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus. This inexpensive book is a good value for readers interested in the Apocryphal Gospels.

 

More on Apocryphal Gospels from Reading Acts:

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

 

 

Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology

Pitre, Brant. Jesus and Divine Christology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. xii+320 pp.; Hb.; $39.99. Link to Eerdmans

Brant Pitre is Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. His Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (Baker 2006) was a solid contribution to the study of the historical Jesus as was his  2017 Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans). He also contributed to Paul, a New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology (with Michael P. Barber and John A. Kincaid; Eerdmans 2016;  reviewed here). In this new volume, Pitre argues there are compelling reasons to think Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, miracle worker, and teacher of parables and that he acted like he was a divine Messiah. Jesus’s divine claims led to charges of blasphemy during his ministry and eventually led to his execution for the crime.

Pitre Divine Christology

In Historical Jesus studies, the idea that Jesus claimed to be God is usually met with derision and accusations that the author is engaging in apologetics. One of the assured results of earlier quests for the Historical Jesus is that if a saying or event in the gospels implies that Jesus was God, it must have been created by the later church. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is merely a human; only in the late theological gospel of John is he presented as divinity. Most works on the Historical Jesus ignore the claims, especially the charge of blasphemy (19). Pitre says this view “needs to be left behind as the outdated relic that it is” (329). The assumption in academic studies of Jesus that he was merely human in the synoptic gospels should also be abandoned as “demonstratively false” (330). He concludes, “The ‘smoke’ early divine Christology originated in the ‘fire’ of Jesus’s own divine messianism” (331). In another context, Pitre says he is out to “demolish the scholarly myth—which goes back at least as far as the time of Ernst Renan—that Jesus is not depicted as divine in the Synoptic Gospels” (40).

These are bold claims. To support them, Pitre proposes a methodology that avoids the Form Criticism and the criteria for authenticity. The criteria have fallen on hard times in recent years, and few scholars publishing in Historical Jesus defend them anymore. As an alternative, Pitre uses a triple context method developed by E. P. Sanders in Jesus and Judaism (Fortress 1985). First, Contextual Plausibility within First Century Judaism. Jesus must have been a believable figure in first-century Palestine. This is different than the old criterion of double this similarity. In older Historical Jesus studies Jesus needed to differ from both the Judaism of his day and later Christianity. Pitre is not saying, “If it’s Jewish, it’s Jesus” (29). Second, Coherence with Other Evidence about Jesus. A saying or event needs to fit into other historically reliable reports of what Jesus said and did. Pitre points out that this is a standard principle of historiography. Third, Consequences in the Early Church. This is a form of reception, history, or what Pitre calls a “plausibility of effects.” This is the opposite direction of the old Form Criticism, which relied upon the earliest form of a saying or event, the pre-literary form.). Instead, Pitre asked how the situation in the early church reflected a particular saying or event. There needs to be a “casual thread” (to use Sanders’s) words between Jesus’s life and death and the later Christian movement.

As he works his method, he traces a “plausible trajectory” from Judaism to reports about what Jesus said and did and then to the early church. This is unlike older Historical Jesus studies because he is not interested in recovering the actual words of Jesus (ipsissima verba). Nor does he claim that he is discovering the actual voice of Jesus (ipsissima vox). He is after the “basic substance of a teaching or action” (substantia verborum Jesu). For Pitre, this is what he means by “historical” (35).

For some Historical Jesus scholars, Pitre’s rejection of the classic criteria of authenticity is the correct move, and the search for the substance of Jesus’s words (rather than his authentic voice) is admirable. However, it seems as though he has rejected the old criteria and replaced it with another (less old?) criteria drawn from E. P. Sanders. I happen to think the methodological steps Pitre drew from Sanders and rigorously employs in this book are solid. But scholars in the so-called “Next Quest” may find Pitre’s method as having one foot in the old (now rejected) methods. For example, the essays collected in The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus, edited by James Crossley and Chris Keith (Eerdmans, 2024, review coming soon).

There are several other unique elements to Pitre’s study. Unlike most classic Historical Jesus studies, Pitre uses the Gospel of John as a historical source. For many academics working on historical Jesus, the gospel of John is set aside as late and problematic because of its advanced theology. A final difference is that his first step will always be “to offer a contextually anchored interpretation of any given or deed of Jesus before weighing the arguments for or against authenticity” (39). Typically, Historical Jesus studies begin with the criteria of authenticity to decide whether the saying reflects what Jesus may have said or done. Rarely do these kinds of studies begin with an exegesis of the words of Jesus to determine what the passage actually says. Although technically not part of his methodology, Pitre offers citations from Christian, non-Christian, and Jewish scholars to support his arguments for the authenticity of a passage. The fact that a diverse range of scholars can agree that some saying or event likely goes back to the historical Jesus helps with the plausibility of the argument.

Pitre works this method by examining the epiphany miracles of Jesus (chapter 2), Jesus’s teaching in parables (chapter 3), his apocalyptic teaching (chapter 4), and his trial for blasphemy (chapter 5). For each topic, he selects three examples from the gospels. After a brief exegetical section, he works through the three contextual steps as presented in his introduction.

In Chapter 2, Pitre studies three Epiphany Miracles (Stilling in the Storm, Walking on the Sea, and The Transfiguration). Pitre is clear: not all of Jesus’s miracles were signs of his divinity. But the epiphany miracles “certainly were taken as signs he was more than human” (108). Since these three examples come from the Synoptic Gospels, “a close study of the epiphany miracles demolishes the modern myth that Jesus only speaks and acts as if he is divine in the fourth gospel” (108).

In Chapter 3, he examines three parable-like sayings (Greater than the Father and Nother, No One is Good but God, and the Riddle of David’s Lord). These examples are not traditional parables in the sense of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan. Jesus used Psalm 110 to suggest to his followers that the Messiah was not merely a human descendant of David. In fact, the Messiah was to be something much more: the preexistent, divine son of God (168).

In Chapter 4, Pitre describes Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet by examining examples (The Heavenly Son of Man, the John the Baptist Question, and the “Apocalyptic Thunderbolt”). By the “Apocalyptic Thunderbolt,” Pitre refers to the Johannine-like saying in Matthew 11:25-27 and Luke 10:20-21. In this context, Jesus claims that God’s omnipotence has been given to him. Jesus possesses a kind of divine sonship that transcends the divine sonship of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. For Pitre, this explains the apocalyptic Christology of Paul (241), which is quite similar to the apocalyptic self-understanding of Jesus.

Finally, in chapter 5, he examines the bedrock historical event of the gospels, the crucifixion of Jesus for blasphemy. Three examples are drawn from the gospel of John: Picking up Stones (John 8:48-59), Making Yourself like God (John 10:22-39), and the Charge of Blasphemy, which led to Jesus’s execution. Following John Meier, “a Jesus whose words and deeds would not alienate people, especially powerful people, is not the historical Jesus” (Meier, Marginal Jew 1:177, cited 246). So, what did Jesus do that resulted in his execution? Many scholars have observed that, from a Jewish perspective, messianic pretenders do not merit punishment (249). Nor is Jesus charged with its threatening the temple (298). When Jesus is questioned, he puts himself into the context of Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:14. He is the divine figure from these two messianic passages. The high priest in the Sanhedrin understood clearly what he claimed, so Jesus was condemned to death for blasphemy against God (304). Pitre agrees with E. P. Sanders: “I have no doubt that Jesus died for his self-claim” (cited 326).

Conclusion. In his acknowledgments (353-54), Pitre describes his first encounter with John Meier’s The Marginal Jew. He studied with Meier at Notre Dame while Meier was working on volumes 3 and 4. Unfortunately, Meier died before completing the last planned volume on the enigmas of Jesus’s self-designation. To a certain extent, Pitre’s Divine Christology fills that gap. Because the methods of Historical Jesus research have shifted considerably since Meier’s project began, I suspect that Pitre’s conclusions on historicity might differ from Meier’s.

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of these books. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Paul Barnett, The Trials of Jesus: Evidence, Conclusions, and Aftermath

Barnett, Paul. The Trials of Jesus: Evidence, Conclusions, and Aftermath. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. viii+223 pp.; Pb.; $24.99. Link to Eerdmans.

Paul Barnett’s new book on the trials of Jesus joins three similar size books on the origins of Christianity: The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Eerdmans 2005), Paul, Missionary of Jesus (Eerdmans 2008), Finding the Historical Christ (Eerdmans 2009). Barnett also wrote the 2 Corinthians volume in the NICNT series (Eerdmans 1997). Formerly the Anglican Bishop of North Sydney (1990 to 2001), Barnett is now a fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University and a teaching fellow at Regent College.

Trials of Jesus

How did Jesus get crucified for a political crime? Barnett traces hundreds of years of political and social change in Judea that led to Jesus’s trial as a rebel against Rome. The first half of the book describes this political struggle in detail. Barnett argues that the power of the high priest had increased in the early first century, and the Pilate lost his support in Rome. This allowed Caiaphas to manipulate Pilate into crucifying Christ.

The Trials of Jesus is divided into twenty-seven short chapters in four sections. Part one, Barnett describes the dynastic background of the New Testament. He begins with Israel’s return from exile and life under the Persian Empire and the rise of Hellenism leading up to the Maccabean Revolt. Some readers might question the need to go this far back into backgrounds to describe the trials of Jesus. However, as he warns in his concluding reflections, “Reading the gospels easily gives the impression that their narrative picks up where the leader books of kings end” (203), but this is not the case. This background material is necessary to understand the power struggle between the Herodians, Rome, and the high priests in Jerusalem. The clash between these powerful forces resulted in the crucifixion of Jesus.

In part two, Barnett tracks the end of Herod the Great’s reign and the division of his land between his three sons, which led to political chaos. It was to this world that Jesus came as a “prophet and rabbi” in Galilee. He introduces political players in Jesus’s crucifixion: the two high priests (Annas and Caiaphas), Pontius Pilate, and Herod Antipas. Barnett emphasizes the role of an often-overlooked figure, Judas the Galilean. In his concluding reflections, he stresses that the crucifixion results from political jealousy (207). In A.D. 6, Judas led a rebellion against Rome when Herod Archelaus was deposed. Jesus would have been a teenager at the time. Judas is sometimes associated with Josephus’s Fourth Philosophy, a group that argued Jews ought to recognize no king but God.

In part three, Barnett describes the various trials of Jesus. Beginning with a chapter on the Jewish trial, he has separate chapters on the Roman trial in the synoptic gospels and the same trial in the gospel of John. Barnett includes a chapter on Josephus’s account of the trials. The problem for historians is that Josephus’s brief paragraph on Jesus contains clear Christian additions. Barnett thinks these Christian additions can be removed so that Josephus can be used as a witness to the trial of Jesus.

In part four, Barnett begins with a chapter on the theology of the gospel of Marc, the earliest Gospel written. Mark presents Jesus as the spotless lamb and a new sacrifice leading to a love-based ethic. Chapter 24 tracks what he calls “Annas Vendetta” against Jesus’s disciples, who continued to preach the resurrection of Jesus despite being warned by the high priests to be silent. This is basically an overview of the first nine chapters of the Book of Acts leading up to the conversion of Saul. He observes that Galatians is “arguably the most important documentary evidence for earliest Christianity” (193), describing Paul’s revelation on the way to Damascus (which Barnett dates to A.D. 34). He compares information from Galatians to the gospel of John, one of the last books written in the New Testament.

Conclusion. For a book entitled The Trials of Jesus, there is less on the trials than expected (as little as three short chapters). However, the book’s goal is not a complete explanation of the trial sections of the Gospels. Barnett wants to explain why Jesus came to be tried as a political prisoner. To do this, he must necessarily review the remote background to the entire New Testament so that readers can understand the political machinations of the Herodians, the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, and Pilate. Readers should appreciate his short explanations of detailed history. Barnett connects often complicated history to the events of the New Testament. Although some chapters seem like tangents, they all contribute to the larger project of offering the political background to the trials of Jesus.

 

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Tucker S. Ferda, Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins

Ferda, Tucker S. Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins. Foreword by Dale C. Allison, Jr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. xxvi+538 pp.; Hb.; $69.99. Link to Eerdmans.

Tucker S. Ferda is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He previously published Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis (LNTS 601; Bloomsbury, 2018) as well as several articles on Jewish eschatology. In his foreword, Dale Allison Jr. says this book significantly contributes to recent research on Jesus of Nazareth and early Christianity.

Jewish Eschatology

How did the expectation of Jesus’s imminent return emerge in early Christianity? In this book, Ferda argues that the idea came from Jesus himself. His interest is historical, and this book contributes richly to Historical Jesus studies. He is not interested in making theological claims. Ferda comes at the topic backward. Most scholars are interested in determining the authentic words of Jesus using various criteria; once this pool of authentic sayings is recovered, differences between Jesus and the early church emerge. Since sayings implying an interim after his resurrection before his return as the eschatological judged are usually deemed as non-authentic, scholar assumes the early church created them as they developed ways to deal with the shocking death of their leader.

In Part One, he begins with the pervasive idea in scholarship that Jesus was not interested in eschatology, nor did he expect to be killed, resurrected, and then, after an interim, return to earth as the eschatological judge. Since Jesus is assumed to be non-eschatological, scholars then argue that anything implying Jesus thought he might go away for a time and then return after an interim is a later addition by the early church. In Part Two, he suggests reasons for this pervasive rejection of an eschatological Jesus in Historical Jesus studies. In Part Three, Ferda outlines early Christian expectations of the return of Jesus. He begins with the apostle Paul and moves to the various layers of the gospel tradition. Only after establishing the early church belief in an imminent return of Jesus does he examine the words of Jesus (Part Four).

Very few historical Jesus scholars think Jesus predicted a return after his death. Ferda begins part one by examining two studies on the return of Jesus.: T. Francis Glasson, The Second Advent (originally published in 1946, third edition, 1963; reprinted W&S, 2009) and J. A. T. Robinson, Jesus and His Second Coming: The Emergence of a Doctrine (Abingdon, 1957). Although it might be objected that these books are more than 60 years old, it is true that most scholars in the last half of the twentieth century did not think Jesus predicted a second coming. More recently, N. T. Wright suggests the entire Olivet Discourse is symbolic of the fall of Jerusalem.

Referring to nineteenth-century scholars, Ferda says older critics fought an eschatological Jesus who was far too carnal, unspiritual, and, in their words, “too Jewish.” In most of these studies, there are assumptions about Jesus’s ethical teaching and the caricature of Judaism. The evangelist misshaped Jesus’s words. “But it does not bode well for the overall plausibility of a historical hypothesis if it requires us to conclude that Jesus was so roundly misunderstood by those who came after him” (37).

Later theological trends problematize eschatology, even a simple “second advent hope” (to say nothing of the eschatological weirdness described by Norman Cohn, for example). Earlier critics wanted to separate Jesus from Jewish eschatological ideas. Ferda charts Christian eschatology over the centuries in part two of the book. The vast majority of church history did have eschatological hope. Even though there has always been vigorous debate about when the Parousia would occur or what its nature might be, “the Parousia of Christ has been a hope for a real change of scenery” (63). Few denied that Jesus’s second advent would happen.

Ferda calls this early second advent hope a “painful thorn” for Historical Jesus scholars. An enlightened Jesus, as defined by nineteenth-century Protestant liberals, would not predict his return, so eschatology gets downplayed in scholarship. “They had assumed that suggesting the second coming hope had anything to do with historical Jesus with something only a Christian apologist would do” (93). Or worse, I would add, it is something only a dispensationalist would do! Why removed eschatological hope from the historical Jesus? First, most scholars have a disparaging attitude towards popular-level eschatology (premillennialism, dispensational theology). Second, mini scholars site to distance Jesus from “Jewish messianism.” Although this is associated with Strauss and Remarius and their predecessors, anti-Jewish Jesus began early in the church, developing, especially after Constantine. However, Tertullian once observed that “Christians expect Jesus to do exactly what Jews hope their Messiah will do” (cited 108-09).

Ferda begins to outline early Christian eschatology in part three of the book. It is generally agreed that the earliest Christians were expecting Jesus’ future to appear (133), or they were trying to make sense of hope. This is not an isolated belief of a few early Christ followers; it is pervasive in the New Testament. Beginning with Paul’s letters and moving chronologically through the synoptics, he surveys what these texts say about second hope. (Ferda assumes Markan priority and some form of Q, but this is unimportant for the overall argument.) “The general hope for Christ’s return was a fundamental element of Paul’s kerygma” (167). After carefully examining 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15, he observes that in Mark, “we see a good deal in common with what we found in Paul” (194). The present state of things for Jesus’s followers is incomplete in his absence. They live in a time when the “bridegroom is taken away” (195). He carefully examines how Mathew and Luke wrote with Mark as a source.

Although Matthew and Luke’s Jesus do not say exactly the same thing as Mark’s Jesus, there is still hope for Jesus’s return in these later Gospels (implying that the hope for an imminent return of Jesus is not fading away at the end of the first century). All three Synoptic gospels are informed by well-known messianic texts from Isaiah, Daniel, etc. (255). Ferda compares the use of Daniel 7:13-14 in Mark 14:62, Matthew 26:64, and Luke 22:67-69 and concludes that both gospels see a future return, even if this is about a future enthronement. “Everywhere else we look, we find widespread agreement and creative development, wherein expansion and invention accentuate what the sources already contain” (232). This is true, even for the gospel of John. He argues that John does not represent a totally realized eschatology, nor does he see this as a “cooling” eschatological hope. Ferda examines the farewell discourse in John with parallels to the Synoptics. “John’s Jesus, too, talks about his future coming” (249), even if this language has been “stripped down” (250).

In part four, Ferda argues that the most plausible explanation for this early and pervasive second advent hope is the Historical Jesus. By the time 1 Thessalonians was written (the earliest book in the canon), the return of Jesus was already raising questions, and by 2 Peter (the last book written in the canon), it was an object of mockery! Ferda does not engage in recovering the actual words of Jesus as if that were possible. Instead, he suggests, “Jesus said things like this…” A second advent hope makes sense in the light of what the followers believed and in the context of the Second Temple Judaism (259). Although he is certain writers reframed traditions, “deeschatologiclization is not the key to understanding the development of early Christianity” (268, citing J.C. Paget).  For Ferda, Jesus himself used Daniel 7 eschatologically and as a self-reference (375). If Jesus thought he might die, he likely expected an interim between his resurrection and his second advent (427).

Conclusion. In Jesus and His Promised Second Coming, Tucker Ferda significantly contributes to the study of Historical Jesus. Picking up threads from recent studies of an apocalyptic Jesus and reception history, he makes a clear case that the simplest explanation for the early and pervasive hope that Jesus would return as the eschatological judge of Daniel 7 is that Jesus made these kinds of claims. I have long thought that the best way to understand Jesus’s eschatology, as well as that of the early church, is to understand Jewish eschatology in the Second Temple period. Ferda examines the issue from the other direction, suggesting that modern scholarly consensus bracketed out this evidence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I suspect many Historical Jesus scholars will remain unconvinced, but Ferda opens the possibility that Jesus thought he would return sometime after his death.

 

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

 

Book Review: Justin W. Bass, The Bedrock of Christianity

Bass, Justin W.  The Bedrock of Christianity: The Unalterable Facts of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2020. 238 pp.; Pb.  $13.99  Link to Lexham Press    Link to Logos Bible Software

In this short apologetic text, Justin Bass seeks to establish the basic facts of Christianity. Alluding to the introduction to John Meier’s historical Jesus study, The Marginal Jew, Bass imagines a meeting during which Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists and agnostics scholars evaluate evidence and determine what basic facts about Christianity everyone can agree on. In his introductory chapter he disregards the mythicist position represented by Richard Carrier. He cites Bart Ehrman description of the view as “foolish,” compares the “handful of mythicist hecklers” to Holocaust deniers (p. 5-7).

In the first chapter, Bass outlines his historical method. Following Bart Ehrman, he says historians want early dating, multiple eyewitnesses, corroboration of those eyewitnesses, and unbiased sources (p. 28). He then asks what we can know about Tiberius Caesar, the Jewish War, Socrates and John the Baptist using these four historical measures. In each case, scholars agree on a historical bedrock based on a variety of sources. With Tiberius, his reign is well known from four literary sources that date long after his death. Comparing this to what we can know about the apostle Paul, Bass argues scholars have an abundance of trustworthy sources for Paul’s life, especially compared to Tiberius and Socrates. However, Bass omits archaeology from his list. Hard evidence for the reign of Tiberius is abundant if archaeology, inscriptions, and numismatics (coins) are allowed as evidence. This kind of evidence is unavailable for characters in the New Testament.

The Apostle Paul is therefore Bass’s “Bedrock Eyewitness.” Chapter 2 sketches a biography of the apostle Paul drawing only on his epistles. He uses Acts for his chronology of Paul’s life, working backwards from Paul’s hearing before Gallio (A.D. 51/52; Acts 18:12-17). Having established that Paul is an early eyewitness, he presents his “Bedrock Source,” 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 (ch. 3). Bass argues this is a pre-Pauline creedal tradition delivered to Paul by the apostles (p. 74). He follows James Dunn who suggested the beginnings of this creedal statement may go back to the first few months after the resurrection (p. 82). But at the very least Paul must have received it during his brief visit to Jerusalem in A.D. 37 (Gal 1:18-19).

Having established the creedal statement in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 constitutes early eyewitness evidence from multiple sources, Bass then examines the three key claims of the creed. First, the creed establishes the bedrock fact that Jesus was crucified: “Christ Died for our Sins and He was Buried” (ch. 3). After a short discussion of crucifixion in the Roman world, he draws together several texts from Paul’s early letters which demonstrate that Jesus was not just crucified, but that his crucifixion was “for our sins.” Bass argues these statements are based on the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 and he suggests  the historical Jesus may be the origin for the idea his death is in some ways like the servant of Isaiah 53. Here Bass goes to another tradition Paul received from the apostles, the inauguration of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25. Although he considers the crucifixion of Jesus under Pontius Pilate as a historical bedrock fact, he does not think the phrase “he was buried” can be counted as a bedrock fact. For Bass, it is likely Jesus was buried as recorded in the Gospels, but the evidence is not clear that someone named Joseph of Arimathea buried the body of Jesus.

The second element of the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 is the claim Jesus was “raised on the third day.” Bass shows that there were no traditions drawn from the Hebrew Bible to indicate a belief in the first century that the Messiah would be die and rise from the dead. Although there is a hint of resurrection in Daniel 12:2-3 and 2 Maccabees 7:9-14, a dying messiah is unknown. Bass argues there are three innovations from the earliest Christ followers. The first innovation is a positive interpretation of a crucified Messiah. There is no other crucifixion in the Greco Roman world seen in a positive light. The second innovation is the claim this crucified Messiah had been raised from the dead. This claim is unanticipated in Second Temple period Judaism. Third, that this crucified Messiah who God raised from the dead is the divine Lord of the world is an unparalleled innovation. Here Bass cites another early Christian tradition passed along to the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 8:6. This is the almost shocking insertion of Jesus into the Jewish shema. Bass cites Larry Hurtado, “this worship of the risen/exalted Jesus comprises a radical new innovation in Jewish monotheistic religion” (129).  Bass is using the so-called criterion of dissimilarity used in historical Jesus studies. Essentially, this criterion argues that if something is different than the Judaism of the Second Temple period, it is more likely to be authentic. In this case, the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah is not something that a group of Jewish theologians would have created.

The third element of the creed is the list of post-resurrection appearances. That Jesus appeared to Peter, the Twelve, more than 500 at one time, and James is a wide range of witnesses. Bass recognizes that Paul has added himself to the list. He quotes skeptics Bart Ehrman and Paula Fredriksen as saying they might not know what Paul saw, but Paul believed he saw Jesus (p. 162). Bass argues Paul was not lying by using Paul’s “foolish speech” in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27. This speech lists various ways Paul has suffered for his preaching of the Gospel. If he was lying about the resurrection of Jesus, then his life after his Damascus Road experience is inexplicable. In the conclusion to his book, Bass cites E. P. Sanders, “That Jesus is followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know” (Historical Figure of Jesus, 279-80). Bass’s challenge to this agnostic view of the resurrection is to push past agnosticism and “give the risen Jesus welcome” (p. 207).

Paul’s suffering serves as a transition to the final piece of Bass’s argument, the fast rise of the Nazarenes. For Bass, it is difficult to account for not only the persistence of followers of Jesus from the days just after the crucifixion, but also the willingness of those followers to suffer and die for their faith in a resurrected messiah who is the Lord of the world. This is a common apologetic strategy, but it may fail because there are many other movements that encouraged martyrdom from their adherents, yet they were based on horrible distortions of the truth (Jim Jones and David Koresh, for example). This chapter includes sections on Christianity’s unique origins, continuing influences, and skeptics who have converted to Christianity throughout history. Similar to the willingness to die for one’s beliefs, someone might suggest Islam has had a similar influence on the world, and no one wants to argue Christianity has always had a positive influence. This strategy is typical in apologetic textbooks, but I’m not sure how it contributes to the bedrock of Christianity as defined in the first chapter of the book.

Bass often cites skeptical scholars who agree with him such as Bart Ehrman or Paula Fredriksen; even Crossan and Bultmann make a few appearances. This is a rhetorical strategy designed to show these are in fact “bedrock facts” of Christianity. The book is richly footnoted and includes an extensive bibliography which will point interested readers to more detailed studies. The book will reaffirm the beliefs of committed Christians and perhaps encourage Christians who have some doubts. I’m not sure it will convince skeptics, but that’s the nature of apologetics. Bass’s book supports the contention the bedrock of Christian faith is reasonably historical.

NB: Thanks to Lexham Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.