Everything you never knew about Jesus,and never thought to ask

Misunderstoo

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Jesus,

Warning: what you are about to hear may be very confronting for you.

I invite you to listen with an open-mind, and I would ask you to consider that what you believe to be the truth about Jesus is not the scholarly understanding.

Who am I?

• Author of Manifest Insanity• 400-page summary of over

4000 years of archaeological, biblical, historical, and textual scholarship

• 2009-2012 read, transcribed, and summarized over 50 scholarly works on the topic of biblical history

The Scholarly Consensus:

Scholars of the Bible have made significant progress over the past two hundred years:

- archaeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Greek languages

- deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analysis

- This is a massive scholarly endeavor

New Testament Professor Bart Ehrman - Jesus, Interrupted. Chapter One: A Historical Assault on Faith

Yet such views are virtually unknown among the population at large

Many pastors who learned this material in seminary have, for a variety of reasons, not shared it with their parishioners

These perspectives . . . are the views that have held sway for many, many years among the majority of serious critical scholars teaching in the universities and seminaries of North America and Europe.New Testament Professor Bart Ehrman - Jesus, Interrupted. Chapter 1: A Historical Assault on Faith

So who was Jesus?

What have scholars been teaching about him for 100 years?

What is misunderstood?

TerminologyApocalyptic – Greek for “unveiling” or “revealing”

Forecasting the ultimate destiny of the world, referring to an

Apocalypse –

One of the Jewish and Christian writings of 200 BCE to 150 CE marked by symbolic imagery, and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom

Eschatology –

A branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind

A belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind; specifically :  any of various Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment

Contextual Background

- Intertestamental Period (167 BCE – 50 CE): Era of rising apocalyptic beliefs

- Explosion of apocalyptic writings

Satanic literature reaches a climax: Life of Adam and Eve, 2 Enoch, etc…

- Apocalyptic thinkers “revealed” the imminent end of the world, as they knew it

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12:1-2

The idea of individual resurrection which occurs in the Hebrew Bible for the first time in Daniel, introduced a kind of hope for the future that was radically new in the context of Jewish tradition and that would have far-reaching consequences for the development of religion in the Western world.

So… What does this have to with Jesus?

German higher criticism- Reimarus (1694-1768), first attempt to form a historical conception of

the life of Jesus.

- Eichhorn, 1823, concluded Moses could not have written the first 5 Books

- Strauss, 1835, took his cue from Reimarus, concluded Jesus was not divine and the Gospel miracles are mythical in nature

- Hupfeld, 1853, distinguished Elohist (northern tradition) and Priestly sources, and emphasized the role of an editor

- Wellhausen, 1876, formulated the Documentary Hypothesis for the Old Testament:

Yahwist (south), Elohist (north), Deuteronomist (Aaronid priests), Priestly (post-exile)

- Weiss, 1892, focus on the coming of the Kingdom of God

- Schweitzer, 1906, The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

- The Quest of the Historical Jesus(1906, German; 1910, English)

- Changed the course of modern opinion on Jesus

- Quest was a tribute to the life of Jesus:

Moreover, we are here dealing with the most vital thing in the world’s history. There came a Man to rule over the world. . . . That He continues to reign . . .

Quest:

[Reimarus] was the first to grasp the fact that the world of thought in which Jesus moved was essentially eschatological.

Weiss grasped the general conception of the Kingdom of God which is wholly future, as is indeed implied by the petition in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Kingdom come.”

Jesus does not “establish it,” He only proclaims its coming. He exercises no “Messianic functions,” but waits, like others, for God to bring about the coming of the Kingdom by supernatural means.

On Schweitzer:

Few authors in modern times can be said to have redirected the course of an entire field of study.

His basic emphases—that Jesus is to be situated in the context of first-century Palestinian Judaism and that he was himself an apocalypticist—have carried the day for much of the twentieth century, at least among critical scholars devoted to examining the evidence.

Schweitzer did not think that the historical Jesus shared the problems or perspectives of the twentieth century. Instead, Jesus was a first-century apocalypticist, who never expected that there would be a twentieth century.New Testament Professor Bart Ehrman – Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

An inconvenient truthSchweitzer's breakthrough observation:

Paul clearly believed in the immediacy of the "Second Coming of Jesus“

Later, organized, Christianity had no option but to ignore the proclamation by Jesus & Paul:

The certain and imminent end of the world within the disciples lifetime.

Schweitzer recognized that each new generation of modern Christians hoped to be the one to see the world destroyed.

Kingdom References119 references in the Gospels; 8 authentic to Paul, 6 forged

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. Matthew 19:24

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the Kingdom of God come with power. Mark 9:1, Matthew 16:28 , Luke 9:27Mark 13:30, Matthew 24:34, Luke 21:32

So, what was the “Christian” message

then?

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. . . . And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.Matthew 25:34-45

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is . . . thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. And the second is namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.Mark 12:29-31

Paul fundamentally changes the message

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.1 Corinthians 15:12-14

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10Theological Trend

Year

Apocalyptic

Paul Mark Destruction of the 2nd Temple

Matthew

Luke

John

If Jesus were to be taken literally—that is, if he really meant that the Son of Man was to arrive in the lifetime of his disciples—he was obviously wrong.Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet

Titles given to Jesus . . .

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

Daniel 7:13

And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

Mark 13:26

Son of Man

Son of ManWhen the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.

Matt 25:31

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Mark 8:38

According to the available documentation, it was only after AD 70 that ‘son of man’ became the designation of an individual entrusted with an important messianic or judicial function. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that Jesus used ‘son of man’ as a title.

Son of God

Children of Zeus with mortal women:

Alcmene - HeraclesDanae - PerseusLeda – Helen of

Troy and Pollux

Rubens, Leda and the Swan

Son of GodA person standing in a special relationship to God, who chose him to accomplish a task of great importance.

In the decades following Jesus’ death and resurrection Christians would give Jesus both titles (Messiah and Son of God) and interpret them in ways that some Jews considered blasphemous. ‘Son of God’ in particular would come to mean that Jesus was not a mere mortal.

Son of God

But in the Hebrew tradition the idea of a son of God is repulsive, it is not considered at all. The Messiah as the son of God is not actually God’s son. He is one who in his character and dignity is worthy to be likened to the son of God... The virgin birth comes into Christianity by way of the Greek tradition.

MessiahBearing in mind that the crucifixion of Jesus was perhaps the greatest difficulty which the early church had to overcome in proclaiming him as the Messiah promised to the Jews, the absence of detailed biblical proof concerning this essential doctrine is astonishing… Remarkably, when St Paul later declared that Christ ‘died in accordance with the scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:3), he did not give this as a message of the Lord, nor did he quote chapter and verse from the holy books to substantiate his claim.Vermes, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus

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Questions?

Virgin BirthTherefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.Isaiah 7:14

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.Isaiah 9:6

- Insert Power of Myth clip?

Divinity

Neither Paul nor Matthew nor Luke nor Mark dared to call Jesus “God.”Emperor Julian the Apostate (360-363)Against the Galileans

The historical Jesus did not teach about his own divinity or pass on to his disciples the doctrines that later came to be embodied in the Nicene Creed.Professor Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet

Trinity

The pretext was souls, but in fact it was desire for control, control, I hesitate to say it, of taxes and contributions which have the whole world in miserable confusion.Gregory of NazianzusArchbishop of Constantinople, also known as Gregory the Theologian, Cappadocian Father, Doctor of the Church

Crucified Messiah

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.Isaiah 53:4-5

Resurrection ContradictionsMary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome. A young man, clothed in a long white garment. Mark 16:1, 5

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. An angel, his garment white as snow. Matthew 28:1-3

“The women” came. Two men stood by them in shining garments. Luke 24:1, 4

Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre. John 20

Pauline ForgeriesSeven letters (with consensus dates) considered genuine by most scholars:

1 Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)Philippians (ca. 52–54 AD)Philemon (ca. 52–54 AD)1 Corinthians (ca. 53–54 AD)Galatians (ca. 55 AD)2 Corinthians (ca. 55–56 AD)Romans (ca. 55–58 AD)

6 letters considered falsely attributed:

1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusEphesiansColossians2 Thessalonians