Did Jesus Exist? - The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth by Bart Ehrman (read book .TXT) 📕

questions in the next chapter, as I explain in greater detail why Jesus is best understood to have been an apocalyptic preacher who anticipated that the end of the age was coming within his own generation.

CHAPTER NINE

Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet

MOST OF THE UNDERGRADUATE students who take my classes on the New Testament or the historical Jesus seem to learn a lot and to enjoy the experience. Or so they say on their end-of-the-year course evaluations. I regularly do get one complaint from students, however: that I do not present “the other side” of the story. Students learn in class that the early Gospel sources contain historically reliable traditions but also legends about Jesus (what mythicists would call “myths”); they learn that each of the Gospels has a different point of view and presents Jesus in a distinctive way; they hear all about early Jewish apocalypticism; and they see the evidence that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptical Jewish preacher. But students wish that I would also present “the other side.”

I sympathize with the concern, but I also recognize why it is a problem. The semester lasts only fifteen weeks. How can we cover everything that various scholars have said about this, that, and the other thing? To my students’ surprise and dismay, I emphasize in class that there is no such thing as “the” other side for any of the topics we discuss. There are lots of other sides. That’s the nature of scholarship.

With respect to Jesus being an apocalypticist, what would “the” other side be? I could present the evidence that other scholars offer for seeing Jesus as something else. But which other side would I choose: that Jesus was a political revolutionary? A proto-Marxist? A proto-feminist? A countercultural hero? A Jewish holy man? A Jewish Cynic philosopher? A married man with children? The students who want to hear “the” other side, of course, mean that they want me to spend at least half the class presenting their own views about Jesus rather than the scholarly consensus. In almost all instances, here in the South, it means they want me to present a conservative evangelical view. But even within my classes, lots of other views are represented, as I have students who are Jewish, Muslim, Roman Catholic, Mormon, atheist, and so on.

For my class I do have the students read scholars who represent other views. But instead of spending class time discussing Jesus from all these other sides, I present the view that appears to be the most widely held by critical scholars in the field, the one first popularized, as we have seen, by Albert Schweitzer: that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who predicted that the end of this evil age is soon to come and that within his generation God would send a cosmic judge of the earth, the Son of Man, to destroy the forces of evil and everyone who has sided with them and to bring in his good kingdom here on earth.

Evidence for Jesus as an Apocalypticist

IT IS, OF COURSE, contextually credible that Jesus was an apocalypticist, as we have evidence that apocalyptic thinking was widespread in his day—among Pharisees,1 the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writers of the various Jewish apocalypses of the time, and prophetic leaders such as John the Baptist, about whom I will soon say a few words. We will also see clear instances in which apocalyptic teachings of Jesus pass the criterion of dissimilarity. At the outset, however, I want to stress that the apocalyptic proclamation of Jesus is found widely throughout our earliest sources.2 In other words, it is multiply attested, all over the map, precisely in the sources that we would normally give the greatest weight to, those that are our oldest. And so, for example, we find the following apocalyptic teachings on Jesus’s lips in our four earliest accounts of his life: Mark, Q, M, and L.

Early Independent Sources

From Mark

Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of that one will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels…. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power. (Mark 8:38–9:1)

And in those days, after that affliction, the sun will grow dark and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the sky will be shaken; and then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send forth his angels and he will gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of earth to the end of heaven…. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place. (Mark 13:24–27, 30)

From Q

For just as the flashing lightning lights up the earth from one part of the sky to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day…. And just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving away in marriage, until the day that Noah went into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. So too will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:24; 26–27, 30; cf. Matthew 24:27, 37–39)

And you, be prepared, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming. (Luke 12:39; Matthew 24:44)

From M

Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the culmination of the age. The Son of Man will send forth his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom every cause of sin and all