So you then disagree with what I perceived to be the theological meaning of the narrative? Fair enough, but do you care to elaborate on why? My view was that it is a reflection, years later, of the fact that the Jews had largely rejected Jesus as Messiah. In the account they chose a Jewish revolutionary set to be crucified, they wanted a Messiah who was to overthrow Rome, and as a result, the Jewish temple was destroyed. As noted, Matthew took Mark and couldn’t make it anymore specific: “our blood is on our own hands.” You are free to reject this interpretation but I am surprised by your comment that it doesn’t have any theological meaning. It has theological meaning whether historical or not. It is certainly not an incidental detail. Crossan probably puts the issue far more eloquently than me:
"Barabbas was a bandit, a rebel, an insurgent, a freedom fighter, depending always, of course, on your point of view. But Mark was written soon after the terrible consummation of the First Roman War when Jerusalem and its Temple were totally destroyed in 70 C.E. We saw earlier how the Zealots, a loose coalition of bandit groups and peasant rebels, swept into Jerusalem by the tightening Roman encirclement, fought within the city for overall control of the rebellion in 68 C.E. There, says Mark, was Jerusalem’s choice: it chose Barabbas over Jesus, an armed rebel over an unarmed savior. His narrative about Barabbas was, in other words, a symbolic dramatization of Jerusalem’s fate as he saw it. The Jewish authorities chose the (religiously) wrong person to release. The Roman authorities chose the (politically) wrong person to crucify.” Who Killed Jesus, pg 112
My theological interpretation leans along those lines because I agree on that dating of Mark and that there are too many implausible details in the narrative to be taken as historical.
I agree with you, it doesn’t have any obvious or straightforward theological meaning that adds particularly to the events in a way where something significant would be missing without it.
Moreover, let’s remember that as much as I typically agree with Markan priority, the passion narratives themselves demonstrate a much greater degree of independence.
So that said, note it isn’t just Mark that was lying, but Luke and John also… Luke added the little detail that the insurrection had taken place in the city, so on the “fiction” hypothesis, we’d have to conclude he was also intentionally lying by adding a small irrelevant historical detail to embellish this story further for obviously no theological reason. Then John gives yet another variant piece of information… that being Barabbas was a “robber” rather than noting his part in the insurrection. Another utterly insignificant and irrelevant little detail on John’s part that clearly also would have added no particular theological note to the events.
So if we follow the “Barabbas was fiction” hypothesis… we end up having to claim that Mark, Luke, and John were all lying as regards to this story, each (independently) adding little insignificant details that they knew they had no evidence for… rather they were deceitfully either fabricating, or embellishing, this tradition.
There comes a point where the more reasonable hypothesis is that this event simply happened, and all the little insignificant irrelevant details that Luke and John contributed beyond Mark’s account are there simply because Luke and John had gathered these details from the larger knowledge of the event that they gathered.
Barabbas literally means “Son of the father.” Matthew goes so far as to call him Jesus Barabbas. Also, as far as I know, John calls him a bandit, using the same word Josephus does for revolutionaries. Where are you getting the word “robber” from? There is no difference here. John just abbreviates what Mark has. The best you can claim is Luke, who clearly adds to and removes much from Mark, mentioned that the the uprising took place in the city. Are we talking about Jerusalem? Did it ever occur to you that Luke (writing 10-40 years later) may have taken Mark’s theological narrative and decided to search any available archives and match it up to a rebellious event around the time of Jesus’ death? Is it possible he found or knew of some uprisings in Jerusalem at the time and made that connection thinking he was reading history remembered? Certainly it is. On what ground do you just assume that Luke possesses additional historical knowledge of the event vs just streamlining Mark as he sees fit? There is no “lying” necessary here. None at all on Luke’s part. We also know there is no demonstrable independent corroboration of the event (it may all come from Mark), we can imagine hypothetical sources but we know of no actual source or line of transmission here (how history, as opposed to apologetics, actually works). Not to mention that even if we did list pros and cons and gave some credence to that tiny little “city” detail, how does it erase all the bonafide historical implausibilities in Mark’s account? It doesn’t. I also have to point out you issued a false dichotomy but more seriously, utilized emotional blackmail in claiming we must view 3 of the 4 gospel writers as liars or accept the incident as historical. I believe you were wrong about John (it says bandit but I am ready to be corrected) and too presumptive about Luke. Not to mention that either way, in an oral culture, after decades of a story being told and retold to different people with different outlooks and needs, some details are bound to be added and some dropped from stories. That is only natural. This is not an issue of “lying.” From an evangelical-inspiration standpoint, I would even think “lying” is a strong word. I doubt the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy would appreciate or approve of it. Writing a gospel is not the same thing as writing a modern historical biography. Works like Mark need to be judged by ancient literary conventions and their intended purposes.
Vinnie
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
102
I tend to the superpositioned nowadays. That all things are true even when polarized, in opposition. If the Incarnation happened, then all of the rationalization that is performed, even with good will toward the sources, as if it didn’t, ain’t so. Where’s the line? Is it reasonable that the Resurrection happened and that the synoptics and John made up, filled in; interpolated, misremembered, inferred, agendaed 80% forty years on?
Marks was writting his Gospel for Gentile Converts.It would be of little significance to them if Jerusalem was destryed.Also it doesnt really add up to the story for me.Before that Mark explains how Jesus was betrayed and how they took him in etc etc.But since all those are historical (at least we believe they were)he then suddenly uses this reflection of the destruction of the temple ? Why?Christians never really considered the Jewish temple “their” temple anyway.
The first early Christians were throughly Jewish. They most certainly used the temple. All you have to read is Acts 24:53. James also had Paul go to the Temple, remember in Acts? Also, I think you may be missing the significance of the dating of Mark to around 70CE. This is war time. This is right when the temple was destroyed—Mark slightly after. This is big news to Jews (what could be bigger?) and many Gentile Christians. Every presentation of Jesus we see is steeped in Judaism, in the Old Testament. And if you believe John Mark wrote Mark (I’m not convinced) he was a Palestinian Jew and God’s home on earth was literally just demolished.
It’s not really about misremembering to me. It’s about the story being preached and retold in different situations and new places over 40 years before the first Gospel was written. Just as Christians today make a document written 2000 years ago about some current social issue I think the early church did the same. Would Romans and Palestinian Jews intercept the Aramaic teachings of Jesus in the same context? The story, the words and deeds of Jesus would take on the nuances of the community they were in.
In my view John wasn’t written by John the apostle. Mark doesn’t come directly from an interpreter/secretary of Peter etc. But even eyewitnesses make mistakes and can be creative in the first century where theological narration seems acceptable (compare John and the Synoptics). It’s not about lying or misremembering. Mark was not writing a modern historical biography. He was writing a Gospel, he was relaying the good news and his work only needs to be judged by the validity of that news. There is certainly a lot of history embedded within the gospel but there is also a lot of theology which drove and created narrative details at times.
But the Temple wasnt a Christian Church or synagogue that the Christians were going.It was a Jewish one hense it iddnt matter to Christians since the Father already revelead himself trough Christ and the messiah already came.But even then as i sad Mark was exlplaining how Jesus was betrayed and how they arrested so he was speaking in a literaly style and then all of the sudden he dropped this reflection or this comparrison out fo nowhere?It doesnt really add up to me
Can you explain to me the exact difference you are making between a “bandit” and a “robber”?
ban·dit
(băn′dĭt)
n.
1. A robber, especially one who robs at gunpoint. 2. An outlaw; a gangster.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
108
Freedom fighters, insurrectionists, separatists, terrorists have to finance their activities. By banditry and robbery and gangsterism, piracy, vice if they have to. The PIRA robbed banks big time when Boston and New York couldn’t come up with enough dosh. And many criminals become romantic idealists.
Obviously they didn’t have guns in the first century so there is some anachronism here with the word “bandit.” Given the word used is translated as bandit (why not thief or robber?) is the same one Josephus uses of revolutionaries, one is hard pressed to avoid the political connotations here in John. Your claim that John supplies new historical information is possible just not substantiated and your argument that John must be lying or the account is true is false. John very well may be summarizing the story as it comes from Mark or even know of the tactics of several revolutionaries who would have naturally been brigands and bandits. Look at how stories of Judas’s death evolved in the early church. Who knows what of of details were told and retold about Barabbas. Your entire argument is just one of presumption and a false dichotomy based on it. That is not how history works. And I say this fully admitting John could be supplying a bit of additional information. Could be and did are two different things. For apologists bent on placating doubt and maintaining certainty, the former is usually enough, but for a historian the latter must be demonstrated.
My interpretation works from the presumption that Mark contains multiple historical implausibilities. Couple that with a good interpretation based on the work’s life setting and it all falls into place for me. Any potential historical details elsewhere that may be new information would only suggest that there may be a historical core somewhere garbled in Mark’s account, not that it is true in its entirety. When doing history, you have to look at all the details, not just the ones that agree with your preconceived notions and formulate the most probable reconstruction from there. Pilate is simply not releasing a violent, murderous criminal who started a rebellion against Rome. This is not remotely plausible from a historical perspective. Crucifixion was meant for such “bandits.”
I think you are confused on how Christianity started. There weren’t any “Christians” in the 30s, 40,s 50s, etc. Significant breaking with Judaism doesn’t really occur until after Paul’s missionary journeys and the destruction of the Temple.
Exactly what is historical and what is a dramatized retelling of events the apostles and/or later Christians may or may not have had access to in the passion account is an open question. Everything is open to me. For all I know, the apostles may very well have went back to their lives, been fishing per John 21 and saw Jesus a half year later. Daniel’s clever linguistic gymnastics and attempted harmonizations in another thread here not withstanding, I see no evidence of a singular, harmonious set of appearance stories. I see diversity. You can attempt to harmonize them all or you can accept the diversity for what it is.
Was Joseph and the tomb history remembered? Possibly. We can debate that and point out the role of women there. Was Jesus actually buried in a shallow grave and left as carrion, his body ultimately lost? Possibly. That can be debated too. Very shortly after his death, were many of his original followers convinced he rose from the dead and appeared to them? Absolutely. There is scarcely any other way to explain the development of Christianity. That is what I would deem a bedrock fact. The details of who, when, where and how are not unassailable historical facts to me.
I consider much in Mark to have a historical core but to be embedded within the needs and beliefs of the community he writes to ca 70CE. The Gospel is not just about 30Ad, it is ever-present. I deem the conflict stories in Mark to reflect the situation later, but this does not mean the sayings of Jesus within then were invented or that there weren’t conflicts. Just that the nature of those conflicts tends to have Jesus addressing contemporary issues in Mark. His words were cast in a new light. Something we do all the time when reading the Bible. The words of Jesus were timeless in a sense and could be adapted to the needs of different communities. I don’t view a gospel as a biography or a history. It’s a combination of history and proclamation and back then I don’t think all story-tellers drew as sharp a line as we did today. There were of course some who strove more for strict history but they have bias, limitations and errors as well. I just don’t find that to be the genre of the Gospels. Luke may be the closest attempt. It’s still very theological though in and out.
I fear you’re reading into this a bit much… neither do I see any evidence of a singular, harmonious set of post-resurrection events, and as I think I noted numerous times, I have no need or desire to harmonize them.
My only point is that this is exactly what happens in any case of a real historical series of events that are passed down and developed into different narratives. They can each be different, having gathered or selected diverse threads of information, and be utterly impossible to harmonize, and yet both be entirely true.
That was the very point of my rather extended illustration of two accounts of my time in the Middle East. I happen to know that they can be harmonized, and that they don’t in fact contradict, but I also would be extremely surprised would anyone be able to correctly harmonize them, either. To anyone else that doesn’t texignize the impact of all the little details, nuances, figures of speech, naval procedures, implications, or recognize the intentional selection between my two accounts for different narrative purposes, they would certainly claim them as hopelessly contradictory.
All I am pleading is the basic recognition (which I think should be self-evident) that differences between two accounts do not automatically entail contradictions.
especially if I am able to propose numerous possible harmonizations… which I do not do because I want or need to have some kind of airtight case… but simply to pointing that concluding a contradiction is terribly premature.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
114
What still bemuses me @Vinnie is that assuming the Resurrection - with misremembering, as witness evidence is notoriously inaccurate - why would Mark make up Barabbas just to make a somewhat subtle, modern therefore anachronistic point that the Jews chose rebellion against God and Rome from over a generation before the Jewish wars.
Vinnie reminded me of another detail I’d forgotten… not only would Mark have had to make it up, but Matthew also would have had to have further embellished the made-up story by giving Barabbas the additional name “Jesus”… a particularly odd moniker to invent especially if you’re inventing a point about them choosing between Jesus and… Jesus.
But even granting his point that John’s description of Barabbas as a “robber” ( λῃστής - leistes, same word by the way in John 10… “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber [ λῃστής ] )… we still then have both Matthew and Luke choosing to further embellish Mark’s fictional invented-from-whole-cloth story with their own fictional inventions.
Occam’s razor starts to cut in here… the ideas of Mark inventing this event in order to make some terribly subtle and near irrelevant point, and Matthew and Luke embellishing this event with additional invented details with no discernible theological points … Luke because he wanted to connect this invented person with some particular insurrection, then Matthew inventing a most unlikely name for this person with no discernible reason whatsoever… the whole thing starts to get convoluted and we have hypothesis upon hypothesis and explanation upon explanation as to the larger theological reason he was invented and the very (I’m sure) intriguing explanations why Matthew invented the name “Jesus”, etc…
They way Occam’s razor cuts suggests embracing a far more simple explanation: They recorded the event, including the additional minor insignificant details, simply because it happened. The event simply happened, was remembered by eyewitnesses, thus why it was unanimously testified in all four gospels, each of the Synoptics including slightly different historical details that were available.
And maybe rather than develop some intricate and unnecessary theory why Matthew had a theological agenda to give Barabbas the additional name “Jesus”, maybe we might go with the far simpler explanation that Matthew referenced him as “Jesus” because that was his name.
This wasn’t a modern point of view. This was Mark’s explanation of why the temple was destroyed when he wrote ca 70AD. His account very plainly puts the major responsibility on the Jewish leaders and the Jewish crowd even if Rome carried out the sentence. Instead of choosing the suffering servant as a Messiah, they maintained the dominant expectation of revolt and a Messiah who would overthrow the Roman occupation of Israel. The choice was made. They rejected Jesus and had him crucified. God allowed the temple to be destroyed. Many scholars think chapter 13 reflects the destruction of the temple after the fact. I side with them. This is where Barabbas also fits. Mark is writing to a community struggling through this Jewish-Roman war and presumably the aftermath. This is very relevant to him and his community. I mean, depending on the the location of the community, what could be more relevant? I used to think Rome was the place of composition but I am no longer convinced of that based on recent reading.
I have maintained Mark may have had a historical core but the problems with the narrative, that I am yet to see any convincing historical answers to, render it lost to us if it wasn’t an entire Markan creation.
That supports my view. They chose the wrong Jesus, the wrong Messiah. Matthew seems to connect Marks dots more explicitly.
24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar(X) was starting, he took water and washed his hands(Y) in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,”(Z) he said. “It is your responsibility!”(AA)
25 All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”(AB)
Their blood definitely ended up on them and their children for Matthew who writes 1-2 decades after the Temple was destroyed.
Could there have been a real Jesus Barabbas and Matthew attached this independent information? Certainly. Could Matthew have made this connection in Mark about choosing the wrong Jesus? That’s possible as well. The presumption that “Jesus” is independent historical information by you is precisely that—it assumes what it needs to be demonstrating. That Matthew wasn’t simply modifying Mark and connecting those same dots. We do know later Christians had issues with the criminal having him the same name as Jesus by comments and manuscript traditions but Matthew, apparently, did not.
Could Mark have appended a real figure to the story? Absolutely? But the truth is none of these minor details is strong enough to over-rule the rather bizarre practice of releasing any prisoner requested and a Roman prefect caving to a Jewish crowd and releasing a man guilty of violent and murderous insurrection against Rome. The narrative is so plainly theological to me in its extant form. That’s why all these outlandish details are the way they are. Not to mention the fickle crowd(a) who the Jewish leaders are scared of provoking earlier immediately turning on Jesus here and shouting crucify him. I am aware of some scholars who surmise Jesus’ cleansing of the temple and the idea of multiple crowds (Galileans coming for the festival and Jerusamites already there is) could help resolve some tension but when I engage in historical discussion what did happen and what could have happened are two very different things. For the latter, the sky is the limit. Your imagination can surmise anything. For the former, you have to use a sober methodology and critical methods.
I am open to the idea of the occasional release of prisoners (certain types) evolving into this in the a Gospel of Mark but as it now stands, the narrative is historically problematic and implausible.
@Daniel_Fisher I do enjoy your argument about the additional details in the other accounts. It’s good food for thought and something to consider. I’m not convinced these details are significant enough to carry the weight you seem to want them too but I am open to their possibility.