Ten reasons why Mark is wrongly dated to around AD 70.
TESTS:
Potential converts will test what you offer. Why do some people join? Why do other people not, or perhaps even hate the church? It is never about doctrine, that would be too easy. Doctrine is merely branding. People join because they test the church's real benefits: friends, status or money.TRUTHS:
Truth claims matter. How true is each historical claim? Young churches rely on unpaid believers, motivated to sacrifice everything because they sincerely believe every word. For a church to succeed, many of these believers need to be educated and competent. So like any successful new business, a church's advertising has to be strictly true, but highly selective and massively interpreted, in order to make the mundane and cynical look magical and holy.TALLIES:
Tallies of membership numbers are less than you think. Exactly how many people are in each group? Far fewer than you think. But the church history will pick its words carefully to make it sound like a lot more. E.g. if a crowd of curious strangers watch, it because a multitude following you. If a hundred say they believe, the odds are that ninety nine are back in their old life a month later. But if one of those people was sick and happens to feel better in the heat of the moment, you record that as a miracle healing. If you send twelve friends to stay with relatives in adjoining countries, that becomes preaching to the whole world. The real numbers come from compound growth: five percent growth per year leads to tens of thousands of followers after a hundred years. Then that established religion looks back and desperately wants to believe the early magical stories, because their lived experience of faith after a hundred years is usually disappointing.TIMES:
The time needed for changes is less than you think. How long do major changes take? Because the church is small, and doctrine changes to fit realities, changes can be very fast. In Mormonism for example, within twelve months (March 1830 to March 1831) they published the Book of Mormon, organised the church, moved the church to a new location (Kirtland), changed the nature of the church (from everyone being equal to a hierarchy), began preaching to the native Americans, planning to lead them as an army to take over the United States (see Naked Mormonism for details) and found their own version of Paul: Sidney Rigdon, leader of a rival church, who then devised Mormonism's unique theology. Luckily Mormonism arose in an age of printing, so we can trace every change. But all successful new religions seem to change at a similar speed: they have to, or they lose momentum and potential converts lose interest.
- Tests: Look for the concrete teachings and benefits.
- Truths: Assume the text is true, but with carefully chosen words to make the bad seem good.
- Tallies: Look for evidence that numbers are far smaller than they appear.
- Times: Expect early changes to take months rather than decades.
Jesus' goal: cleanse the temple, helped by the diaspora
Jesus' teaching is explained right at the start, in Mark 1:1-3. It is what got him killed. He wanted to cleanse the temple (and with it, the nation), with the help of the diaspora."The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. [i.e. Malachi 3 - cleanse the temple] The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [i.e. Isaiah 40 - bring the diaspora]"In later gospels, a wedge was driven between John the Baptist and Jesus, as if they were in different movements (rather than Jesus growing from the same movement). So it has become normal to see Mark 1:2-3 as referring to John the Baptist and not Jesus. But Mark says this is the gospel of Jesus, then quotes the scriptures. It would make no sense for a book about Jesus to open by talking about somebody different. Jesus was John's successor, completing what John started (even though some of John's followers did not accept him: Mark 2:18-19). How did Jesus expect to cleasne the temple and the nation? Jesus expected the Judean state to first descend into chaos:
"And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows." ... "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains" (Mark 13:7-8,13)This was a reasonable guess given events in AD 36 or 37. Jesus saw this approaching chaos as the opportunity for a stronger society to emerge from the smoking wreckage:
"And then shall they see the Son of man [i.e. the common man] coming in the clouds with great power and glory." (Mark 13:26)To achieve this, Jesus planned to gather the diaspora (first at Jerusalem, then Damascus, then elsewhere), arrive at Jerusalem as society collapsed, and use this kingdom of God, based on loving their neighbours, to fill the vacuum. They would dismantle Herod's gaudy temple, and rebuild it in a simpler form as God intended. But the plan failed. The expected chaos did not happen, and the expected mass converts did not appear. The believers, unwilling to admit they were wrong, gradually changed the message to make it more supernatural. This essay is only about the new supernatural message. It is about the original message, as stated plainly in Mark 1:1-3: cleanse the temple, with the help of the diapora.
Mark: a footnote to Josephus
The gospel of Mark is really very simple: Mark is just a small footnote to the story of John the Baptist (that we read about in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews).
Mark fits just after Book 18, chapter 5.
Josephus records how Herod expected John to start a rebellion, and so he put John in prison (and later killed him).
"Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, [Josephus then discusses John's teachings]. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him." (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 5)What always happens when a rebel leader is put in jail? One of his followers will of course say "now is the time to act!" They will perhaps march on the capital city, and be executed as rebels. If the number are small, why would anybody bother recording it? You know it will happen, and it just slows down the story: the historian has already moved on to more important matters.
The gospel
The message of Mark - the "good news" or "gospel" of John's successor, is explained in the first three verses:"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." (Mark 1:1-3)These references explain everything in Mark. They are extremely famous: even today many of us have them memorised (thanks to Handel's Messiah, which sets the most famous scriptures to music). The first reference is to Malachi 3:
"Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple: the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight:see, He is coming, says the LORD of Hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner's fire, like a launderer's soap. And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. Then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the LORD, as in days of old and years gone by." (Malachi 3:1-4)That is, Mark is about cleansing the temple. This theme was popular in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other radical Jewish literature at the time: the temple had been defiled and must be destroyed and rebuilt. For more about this, see the section on the Abomination of Desolation. The second reference is to Isaiah 40, which comes immediately after a description of Judea's greatest ever shock and tragedy: how the nation was conquered and its rulers carried away to Babylon. This was the defining event of the Old Testament: how Judea was conquered due to her sins and how the people would return and finally live as God intended:
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 40:1-5)That is, Mark is about bringing foreign Jews back to live in Judea: make a straight road to Jerusalem, where we shall live as God intended! Mark then introduces John the Baptist. John foretold a leader to come:
"And [John] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." (Mark 1:7-8)In the context of Malachi and Isaiah, this leader would be the one to lead the foreign Jews to Jerusalem and cleanse the temple. Mark then implies that Jesus might be this leader:
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Mark 1:9-11)The imprisoning of John was the catalyst: Jesus then began saying "the time is fulfilled"! That is, no more waiting! It is time to act!
"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." (Mark 1:14-15)The "gospel" is the "good news" - the "ev-angelon", where "ev" means "good" in Greek, and "angelon" means "from angels" - that is, from messengers. Recall Malachi and Isaiah: messengers are to go to foreign lands telling the Jews the good news: it is time to return!
Preaching to the nations
Galilee was known as "Galilee of the nations" - that is, "Galilee among the foreigners", because it was so far from Jerusalem (over seventy miles!) and was the route to other nations: the important trading cities of Phoenicia, and the fertile crescent that led to Syria then the Roman empire or Parthia (old Persia, Babylon). Many Jews suspected that Galileans were half foreign. Samaria was bad enough, and Galilee was even farther away. Galileans were less strict in their rituals, and spoke with a strange accent. So Galilee had one foot in foreign lands. In the very small world of ancient Judea, any small time preacher who wanted to preach to the nations, but had to walk everywhere, would start in Galilee. And Jesus was from Galilee anyway, so this was the obvious place to start. After this, the next step to "preach to the nations" would be either Jerusalem at Passover, because Jews from all nations came there to worship, or up the road to Damascus, the great city on the King's Road between Rome, Parthia and Africa. Or preferably both. That was Isaiah's main message, to tell the diaspora to come home. It's right there in Isaiah chapter 2, Isaiah's call. Chapter 1 is where Isaiah introduces the problem to be solved: Israel's sins that must end. The message of Isaiah is the same as the message of Jesus: so that "all nations" can come to a purified temple:"The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." (Isaiah 2:1-5)So Jesus' gospel is no secret. It is the central message of Isaiah, and Malachi, and all the great prophets. John told the people to repent, and Jesus told them to gather to the temple.
More evidence that Jesus was John's successor
After Peter was killed in AD 42 Jesus' brother James took over running the church. The gospel of Thomas says that Jesus always wanted him in charge, and either way he would have known Jesus better than anybody. James the Just was known for his ascetic ways and very strict keeping of the law, much like John the Baptist. He was also widely respected and liked, like John. So the guy who was closest to Jesus modelled himself on John the Baptist. That's a good clue to how Jesus imagined the church. The rest of the gospel of Mark is Jesus spending a few weeks trying to raise support in Galilee, then going to Jerusalem for Passover. Where he was executed on suspicion of wanting to demolish the temple. The whole adventure probably took less than two months, as we will see.The date of the events in Mark
Everything happened in early AD 36 (or possibly 37)
Everything in Mark (and Paul's conversion, and hence all Christianity), is triggered by a single event. This is the defeat of Herod's armies by Aretas IV. THis is the sign mentioned by Josephus that got the Jews excited. Here are the key events:- The sign: Herod's armies are defeated. The Jews see this as punishment for killing John the Baptist.
- Jesus reacts: This sign will be particularly important for John's successor, Jesus. News of a victory in battle was called "ev-angelon" (literally "good messenger"). Good news! Clearly the time has come for the ancient prophecies to be fulfilled! God will remove the evil rulers! Scattered Jews can return! The temple will be cleansed! Just as Isaiah and Malachi said!
- The "B" team goes south to tell Jerusalem: Jesus gathers followers in Galilee. He marches south to Jerusalem for passover, to tell the people what to expect. (Jerusalem is 75 miles from Jesus' headquarters at Capernaum, as the crow flies).
- The "A" team goes north to tell "all nations": Jesus said he would send the good news "to all nations". The obvious destination is via Damascus, the crossroads of the world (60 miles away as the crow flies). Damascus is where Rome, Parthia and Africa meet on the "king's highway". This is where near where God's sign took place: near where Aretas beat Herod's armies. So it is the obvious place to tell the Jewish diaspora. We know that Jesus had some secret wealthier followers. It was natural for them to visit this trading hub when the new ruler took charge.
- Saul follows, and joins them: Saul follows, planning to stop these zealots from causing trouble at this sensitive time. But along the way he decides to join them: this is just too exciting to oppose!
- Result: Christianity What we call "Christianity" was created by Saul (also called Paul). Christianity was originally just the belief that Jesus would come back with the diaspora and cleanse the temple. Yes they saw him be crucified, but he expected that and planned to use his secret Roman followers to take him down from the cross and nurse him back to health. As the months passed, and it became clear that he was dead, nobody wanted to admit the plan had failed. So the belief arose that Jesus would come back in a supernatural way.
When did Aretas defeat Herod's armies?
March 16th, AD 37 is the starting point for dating: the death of Tiberius. This is such a big event that it can be dated with great confidence. It allows us to calculate the other dates, because it is limits the possible dates for Jesus and for Paul. For details, see Douglas A. Campbell, "An Anchor for Pauline Chronology: Paul's Flight from 'The Ethnarch of King Aretas' (2 Corinthians 11:32-33)" in the Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 121, No. 2, pp. 279-302.The AD 37 scenario
Jesus acted as a response to John the Baptist's death, and surely in response to the sign from God: the defeat of Herod's armies. But when was that defeat? Josephus tells is that Herod complained to Tiberius, and Tiberius told Vitrellius to help Herod. But before he could fight, Vitrellius heard that Tiberias had died, so he want back home. So the latest date for the defeat of Herod's armies was March AD 37, minus the time it took for the message to get to Rome and back. The excellent site "Orbis" gives the time it took for messages to travel the Roman empire.
The fastest journey from Damascus to Rome was 25 days each way, using a normal merchant ship. This includes stops for other passengers. If you were a king, in time of war, and your survival depended on speed, the time would of course be less. So the latest possible date for the battle would be January AD 36. This would place the events of Mark between January and April (passover) AD 37.
AD 37 would explain why Pilate was willing to release a prisoner: he had just lost his job, or was about to lose it, and Vitrellius (his far more powerful neighbour) was in town, and wanted the Jews to be appeased. (Due to the ongoing tension with the nearby Parthian empire: he could not afford to spare troops). However, this also relies on a very tight schedule: Pilate was visiting Rome to defend his job when he heard that Tiberius died. So he would need to return to Jerusalem very quickly. Of course, the knowledge that Vitrellius might be there to fire him would make speed his number one goal: Pilate had to get back to show that he was in charge, and running things just how Vitrellius liked (e.g. personally handling whatever issues arose, such as the Jesus situation, and appeasing the Jews by releasing a prisoner) A date of 37 also makes the Caligula crisis (Mark 13) easier to predict, and the general chaos would increase Jesus' feeling that everything was changing. Jesus does not specifically name Aretas or Caligula or Vitellius in Mark, but these would just merge into the general chaos prediucted in Mark 13. Those precise names would be less important in AD 42 when Mark wrote his text.
The AD 36 scenario
The AD 37 dates rely in extreme speed. Most scholars assume that this is just too fast. Plus it relies on Pilate returning to Jerusalem before being fired (or after he was fired, to tidy his desk). This is very plausible, but is not mentioned by Josephus (though why would be mention such a minor footnote?) So most scholars assume a leisurely journey with long stays, putting the battle back to late AD 36. But there is good reason why it might have been even earlier: Vitrellius had every reason to drag his feet: he did not want to help Herod. Vitrellius was an extremely capable leader: he handled the border between Rome and Parthia, against a very capable Parthian leader. Later when Claudius campaigned on Britain he left Vitrellius in charge of the whole empire. Te Herod boys, in contrast, were mediocre, selfish and often incompetent. Vitrellius would not want to risk the empire's borders by sending troops to help Antipas in a minor war that was Antipas' own fault. And Vitrellius particularly hated Antipas after the middle of 36: Antipas had hosted an important meeting between Vitrellius and the ruler of Parthia. Vitrellius showed excellent diplomacy and kept Rome's borders safe again. but before he could report to the emperor, Antipus ran to Rome and told him first, no doubt exaggerating his own role. This was very bad manners. So Vitrellius had every reason to delay when told to help Antipas against Aretas. Vitrellius almost certainly liked the wise and capable Aretas better than the spoiled man-child Antipas. How long could Vitrellius drag his feet if he wanted? A skilled foot dragger could find good reasons to delay for months or even years: see the crisis of Caligula's statue for example. Vitrellius could easily say that the best time to attack Aretas was on such and such a date in the future. Or he could argue that it was best to try diplomacy first because of the sensitive Parthian situation. Of course, if he waited too many months then Antipas could just go whining to Tiberius again. So it is quite reasonable to push the defeat of Herod back to early AD 36, but not much before that. In conclusion, because foot dragging was more likely than extreme speed, the AD 36 date is more likely date. It could even be pushed back to late AD 35: The Encyclopedia Britannica refers to "Aretas's victory over Herod in 35-36". But the speedy scenario, AD 37, is still possible and has much in its favour.Mark covers just a few weeks
This dating suggests that all the events described in Mark took place within a few weeks. This explains why Mark often says they "immediately" did this or "immediately" did that, as if everything was happening very quickly. For example, the "walking by the water" incident happened a few hours after the four thousand were fed, and the temple prophecy was given as Jesus was walking out of the temple after seeing the widow donate her money. In Mark's account everything happens very quickly. While gathering followers at one point Jesus picks ears of grain to eat. This confirms the very short time, as the grain was planted in Autumn, and most grain was harvested by the time of Shavuot (Pentecost, 50 days after Passover). The still growing grains would be worth picking, though small, in the weeks before Passover, but not much before that. The alternative is that we add an extra year just for the grain but nothing else in the text or the possible dates suggests that. We can check this rapid speed from the journeys. All of Jesus' travels could be as little as three hundred miles. If he averaged ten miles per day (more on the final journey to Jerusalem, less in Galilee) his mission would take around a month. Double that to allow for minor detours and longer stops.
We can reconstruct Jesus' activities as follows. The longest time period, forty days in the wilderness (Mark 1:13), takes place before Jesus starts to preach. The next verse records how John is imprisoned, and so Jesus starts where John left off (Mark 1:14). He choose his disciples and then "preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee": even a fairly long journey, like Nazareth to Tiberias, was only fifteen miles as the crow flies, or four hours' walk. So he could easily visit one town per day for two weeks and cover all the major towns in Galilee. Most of these towns were just small villages by modern standards. There are only three more gaps before Passover: Mark 2:1 refers to "after some days", Mark 8:2 refers to a three day mass meeting, and Mark 9:2 has a gap of six days. THis last gap is surprisingly long, and during it Jesus may have organised his more secret followers, because this led to a mountaintop meeting with two unknown followers codenamed Elias and Moses. (This was presumably early in the morning, because looking up the slope the followers were dazzled by the light reflected from Jesus' clothing.) Other than those three gaps, totalling perhaps two weeks, all the events appear to happen very close together. So the minimum time needed was two weeks to visit the major synagogues in Galilee, two weeks of gaps, a week to walk to Jerusalem, and a week for everything else. That's six weeks plus Passover. Even if we double this time it's not very long.
The size of Jesus' following
Later gospels make it seem like Jesus was very popular, right from the start. In Matthew, his first sermon was outside and thousands came. In Luke, Jesus already had a great reputation even as a child. In John, Jesus did not hesitate to use great miracles to attract people. But in Mark, Jesus had to rely on his friends in the fishing village of Capernaum, and could only find an audience by preaching to whoever was in the local synagogue. Jesus the found a problem: instead of attracting other righteous men, he only attracted the "unclean" - that is, people with problems. They heard the local boy was now famous and heard that he could help with their illnesses or other difficulties. But followers are followers, and eventually his popularity peaked when five thousand local people came to see. But it is not clear how many of them followed him to Jerusalem: it may have been just his twelve friends and a few others. The numbers would only seem larger because this was Passover, and plenty of people were making the journey anyway. So we see that historians are wrong to look for a major figure called Christ in the AD 30s. And they are wrong to assume that he could only be motivated by a major event like the destruction of Herod's armies. Mark describes just the events of a few weeks, caused by John being imprisoned. And this is exactly what we would expect from reading Josephus:Jesus compared with John
Mark 2:18 draws a distinction between what the disciples of John used to do, and what the Disciples of Jesus do now:"And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast." (Mark 2:18-19)This is typical of whenever somebody new takes over. "It wasn't like this under the old guy." The reference to the Pharisees is needed to show that the old guy's way is the normal and right way. No doubt many of John's previous followers did not want to follow the new guy, or did not hear of him.
Why was Jesus killed?
Why did the authorities want Jesus dead? Because of his beliefs? No: the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources show that wild beliefs, including messiahs, were common in first century Judaism: just read Philo of Alexandria. He tried to merge Judaism with the hated Greek philosophy, saying the scriptures were only allegories, and Philo was chosen by the Jews of Alexandria as their representative to Rome! No, it's never about doctrine. Opposition is always based on more serious matters. Mark records:"And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. But neither so did their witness agree together." (Mark 14:57-59)Destroying the temple was serious. The temple was the foundation of the Jewish state. Now the witnesses were false and confused: they made it sound like Jesus was destructive, or perhaps might rebuild the temple in his own image. And the three days was nonsense. But as we saw in Isaiah and Malachi, Jesus' goal was to cleanse the temple. When the Macabbees cleansed the temple they removing its stones to rededicate and then replace them: see the discussion of Mark 13 for details. So yes, Jesus probably wanted to take down temple stones and rebuild, but the false witnesses made it sound like an act of terrorism. Since they could not agree on details, the case turned to Jesus' character:
"Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death." (Mark 14:61-64)Notice the reference to blasphemy, a capital crime in Moses' law (see Leviticus 24:16). But Rome was in charge, and legally this usually meant damaging temple property (see "Blasphemy And Sacrilege In Roman Law" by Olivia Robinson). E.g. Josephus records how the Jews believed that the Greeks were stealing money intended for the temple. They were able to get the Roman authorities to agree that such a person "shall be severely punished". That case did not require death, but Jesus was accused of a more serious crime: destroying the temple itself. So Jesus's trial was just like a typical terrorist trial today. It is hard to prove exactly what a terrorist is planning, because they rely on secrecy and euphemism. But when you take the fragments of evidence, then add the terrorists's extreme rhetoric, that is enough to convict him. Of course, Jesus was not a terrorist, but he was essentially charged with terrorism. So this is not about belief. It's far more serious.
What happened next? A clue from Galatians
A line in Paul's letter to the Galatians gives us a big clue to what happened next. Galatians is considered indisputably by Paul, and for various reasons is dated very early (perhaps late 40, certainly by the early 50s). The early date adds importance to the part where Paul introduces himself:"For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ: But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed." (Galatians 1:13-23)So Saul was not known by face in Jerusalem. But this appears to contradicts the story in Acts. Acts of course was written later, and tries to make the early church seem distinctive and important:
"there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. [...] As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house" (Acts 8:1-3)Why would the apostles be spared? And if "the church which was at Jerusalem" was so badly persecuted, why are the apostles free to argue in public, and why is there no evidence of persecution other than the single case of Stephen? It looks like Saul's job was to hunt down believers in towns outside of Judea (Damascus, for example, is in Syria), but the book of Acts wanted to make it look like he was persecuting them "at Jerusalem". There are several other contradictions between Paul's letters, over his relationship with Peter (Acts tries to turn enemies into friends, his attitude to the law of Moses (Acts has Paul preach in synagogues and require a man to be circumcised), over his conversion story (different every time), over what he did after his conversion (Acts says he went to Jerusalem and then to his home town, but Galatians 1:17 said he spent three years in Arabia before visiting Jerusalem, over how often he visited Jerusalem (Acts implies often, the letters say only three brief visits), and so on. This is important because it means that Acts was trying to change history. So Galatians is older and more reliable than Acts. And at the very start (the late 30s or very early 40s) Saul was hunting down Jesus' followers in the Jewish diaspora. So the believers were doing what Mark said: preaching to all nations, telling them to "make a straight path" to Judah, as Isaiah said.
Can we trust Acts? Paul in his basket
A line in another of Paul's letters gives us another historical clue. Paul tells of a memorable event from after he became a Christian:"In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands." (2 Corinthians 11:32-33)This event is discussed in more detail in the section on Paul's conversion. It shows how Acts chooses its words carefully, to give a false impression, but the story in Acts is essentially true. Another example is Paul's conversion itself: Acts assumes it is after Jesus died, and chooses phrasing that exaggerates the events, but a careful reading shows that Acts is basically accurate. So we can probably use Acts as a reliable source, as long as we interpret each event in the smallest way that fits.
Acts: Peter as the Godfather
We can now use the book of Acts to construct a timeline of the church between AD 36 (Jesus) and AD 42 (the death of Peter and writing of Mark). Remember the methodology: we are not looking for parallels with other texts as much as we are looking for the four "T"s of any successful new religion: Tests (what concrete tests can potential converts apply - what makes them join?), Truth (what ugly truths are spun to look good?), Tallies (what numbers might be smaller than they appear?), and Time (what fundamental changes are happening quickly?)Acts 1: Crucifixion, AD 36
Jesus is executed at Passover. We can date this to AD 36 because John the Baptist had just been killed, and Pilate was in charge. Other dates rely on nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, which are (1) supernatural, (2) contradictory, and (3) written much, much later. So where they disagree with Mark they should not be relied on. Acts says that Jesus miraculously went to heaven. What is more likely, that a miracle occurred, or he simply died? A miracle, by definition, is far less likely. So Peter tries to raise the twelve followers' spirits. Judas had betrayed them, so they find a replacement. Somehow they will continue without their leader!Acts 2: preach to the nations, AD 36
Jesus's role was to preach to the nations. Lacking funds, the only way was to find those foreign Jews who had come for Passover and might be staying for a few weeks. Obviously they would need to first find people to translate. They then hired a room, fifty days after Passover (i.e. we are still in AD 36) and invited others to hear the message in their own language. This clearly impressed them, even if the translation was sometimes poor (so that many observers felt they were drunk). But Acts tries its best to make this sound like a supernatural event.Acts 3: Peter is failing
The greatest need in a new religion is a charismatic leader. Jesus had charisma, but there is nothing to indicate that Peter did: he was probably just the only one available. So they continue to preach in the synagogues, apparently with little success. Acts says that Peter managed to "heal" one person: given that Peter was claiming supernatural power, and this would attract sick people, it is statistically probable that at least one person should happen to feel better. This is presented as a miracle healing. But just one healing is a failure, a sign of random luck. A good charismatic leader should mae lots of people feel better, and want to present themselves as healed. Conclusion: peter was not a charismatic leader. he was drifting, failing. How could he make people join?Acts 4: communism
Peter lacks charisma, but he does understand being poor. So he finds the one sure fire way to get people to join a church: offer money. That is, share all the wealth. Acts claims that five thousand people now believe. This sounds like a reference to the five thousand people who once came to listen to Jesus: and then went back to their houses. When you talk money you can get large numbers of superficial believers.Acts 5: Peter rules by fear
The rest of this review of Acts might sound like an attack on Peter. But what else could he do? The problem with communism is that people are greedy. Everyone wants more, but most of the people who join will be very poor. If Peter cannot get money from somewhere, then he cannot get the followers he needs. The survival of the church depends on squeezing the few followers who have money. How far would Peter go? Think of the pressure on Peter. All of Jesus' plans rest on him. Peter will do whatever it takes. The state could not be trusted to follow God's law, it was up to Peter. In the law of Moses, when people do not sacrifice enough, or share in an "ill favoured" way, the penalty is death:"Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God. [...] If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: [...] And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously." (Deuteronomy 17:1,8-9,12-13)Let's see if Peter applied that law. Here, Peter heard that a believer had more money that he was not sharing. Remember that this is not supernatural: Peter is shaking the man down for money. So read this in the voice of Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone from "The Godfather":
"But Peter said, 'Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.'' And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things." (Acts 5:3-5)Take note: "great fear came on all them that heard these things" When they heard - that is, they did not see what happened. Continuing:
"And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him." (Acts 5:6)Like any Mafia boss, Peter had young men around him ready to wrap up and dispose of bodies.
"And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in." (Acts 5:7)So the man was wrapped up and buried within three hours. Why the hurry? We get a clearer view with what happened to Ananias' wife:
"Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband." (Acts 5:9-10)In other words he told her "you will die. The men who buried your husband are ready to bury you." Take away the supernatural gloss and this is nothing but a threat.
"And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things." (Acts 5:11)
"And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch." (Acts 5:12)The words translated "signs and wonders" ("semeion" and "teras") can both be translated as "omens" or "warnings". Should we read this as good or bad? The next verse tells us:
"And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them." (Acts 5:13)Other translations say "none of the rest dared join them." They outsiders did not dare join Peter's followers: this is fear again. The authorities try to imprison Peter:
"And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth" (Acts 5:18-19)"Angel" just means "messenger". If we reject the supernatural explanation, it looks like Peters' fanatical followers sprung him from jail. This reading is supported by what happens next:
"Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned." (Acts 5:25-26)Notice that: the authorities are afraid that the believers will stone the police! This confirms what we inferred: Peter thinks it is acceptable to stone people to death who oppose him. Peter is now a fully fledged cult leader. He has power of life and death, and no prison can hold him. Desperate people start coming to him in large numbers, believing he might heal them. And the city rulers were afraid to do anything. The communism worked. Peter's group is finally starting to grow! He finally has power!
Acts 6: Money and power!
Peter and co. continue to collect money from the diaspora in Jerusalem, but they won't share it with the diaspora's needy:"And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration." (Acts 6:1)Instead, Peter argues that he should not work for a living.
"Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables." (Acts 6:2)He chooses Stephen and six others to handle the business. Acts of course paints them as angelic and holy, but what kind of man would a Mafia boss hire? The government accuses him of the same thing they accused Jesus of: wanting to destroy the temple:
"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us." (Acts 6:12)Acts of course says these are "false witnesses" but they are consistent with Jesus' trial, and are not far from what Jesus himself said: that he came to cleanse the temple, by taking it apart first if needed (see the discussion of Mark 13).
Acts 7: We first meet Saul
Stephen is condemned for the same reason as Jesus: confused but real evidence of wanting to destroy the temple, plus his loud, angry hatred of the authorities. Put these together and today a person might be jailed for terrorism charges. Back then he was simply stoned. Here we first meet Saul, watching the trial of this scary gang member. Paul will be discussed in more detail in his own section.Acts 8: Saul versus Peter, round 1
The apostles stay in Jerusalem, but the others go looking for the diaspora elsewhere (verse 1). We saw before that they would kill people to get money, and that the money did not seem to go to the poor and needy where it was intended. Saul follows them to report their scam to the authorities. We then get the story of "Simon Magus" - a believing member who thinks he can buy his way to the top. This was reasonable, because we previously saw that Peter loved getting money. And later we will see that Paul is allowed to do exactly that: by collecting money from the diaspora he is allowed to call himself an honorary apostle. But Peter does not want to say it directly, so like every Mafia boss he denies any underhand dealings and is shocked by the suggestion. Immediately after this, we see Philip targeting an Ethiopian: he was a Jew far from home so would welcome a friend. And he happened to be in charge of a great deal of money (verse 27: he controlled the queen's treasure). So while the church was not officially a money making scam, actions speak louder than words.Acts 9: Saul is reconciled
On the road to Damascus, Saul decides to reconcile with the apostles. His story will be discussed in more detail in his own section.Acts 10: Saul's plan
So far, Peter has only shaken down the Jewish diaspora for money. Paul has the idea that he should go to the gentiles. Peter now accepts the idea, and it is presented as a dream. Please note: Peter must have been sincere. Why else would Jesus choose him? Why would people trust him? But the Jesus movement had to survive at all costs. And for that it needed money. The more money it had, the better it could survive. And Peter never lived long enough to enjoy it anyway. Peter had one job, make the movement survive, and he did it.Acts 11: more money
Peter is easily led: when Paul says they should go to the gentiles, Peter gives in, and even starts breaking the law of Moses:"And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them" (Acts 11:1-3)But Peter's one skill is that he has learned how to get money, and has trained others in the method. So the movement will always survive. Here they tell everybody that a world famine is coming, so send money to Jerusalem:
"And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea: Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." (Acts 11:28-30)This is well before the death of Agrippa in AD 44. But there was no "great dearth throughout all the world" so the prediction was false. However, small local famines were common, and Josephus records one at Jerusalem a few years later (after 44, possibly closer to AD 50). Note that other areas had plenty of food:
"Helena, the king's mother [...] had a mind to go to the city of Jerusalem, in order to worship at that temple of God which was so very famous among all men, and to offer her thank-offerings there. [...] and she went down to the city Jerusalem, her son conducting her on her journey a great way. Now her coming was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem; for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food withal, queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn, and others of them to Cyprus, to bring a cargo of dried figs." (Antiquities 20:2:5)So this false prediction (a global famine) eventually worked out well for Jerusalem.
Acts 12: Peter's death: AD 42?
We saw before that the local authorities tried to jail Peter after he apparently killed some people. But they could not keep him in jail because they feared his followers. Now King Herod got involved, and he would not be intimidated. First he executed the apostle James, the one known as "son of thunder". That is, he was probably one of the more aggressive leaders of Peter's group. Then Herod imprisoned Peter as well, in order to execute him. As we discussed earlier, Herod probably succeeded where the local authorities failed.Acts 13: Mark travels
Mark's family has a nice house, and Mark is in great demand when others travel around the empire. Why?"they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John [John Mark] to their minister." (Acts 13:4-5)The word translated "minister" is "huperetes" or assistant. It is the same Greek word that the same author uses at the start of Luke. (Acts says it is a continuation of Luke.)
"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed." (Luke 1:1-5)So Luke, the gospel writer, describes his writing job as being "huperetes" or assistant to the world of God. He then describes John Mark in the same way. In that chapter we see Mark accompany the apostles, then return to Jerusalem. Then after they return for the Jerusalem council, Mark travels with Paul as his assistant (Acts 15:36-37). Mark, with his money and hence probably a Greek education (his first name is Greek, his surname Jewish) would be the perfect travelling companion for a missionary in foreign lands. All the early commentators agree that this was the same Mark who wrote the gospel.
Acts 14-28: Paul travels, collecting money
When Paul preached he also collected money to bring back to Jerusalem:"Now after many years I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings." (Acts 24:17)Here Paul recalls how he was accepted by the Jerusalem church, allowed to preach to the gentile on condition that he should "remember the poor":
"For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the gentiles: And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do." (Galatians 2:8-10)"Remember the poor" means "give me money to take to Jerusalem":
"But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. [...] that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints;" (Romans 15:25-27,31)So Paul travels around the diaspora, preaching and collecting money:
"Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem." (1 Corinthians 16:1-3)Note Paul's prosperity gospel: if you are poor, then give more money so God will bless you with his grace:
"Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. [...] Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." (2 Corinthians 8:1-5,8-9)The idea of sharing all things for equality is still here. But it amounts to the same thing: pay me money.
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack" (2 Corinthians 8:14-15)To be fair to Paul, he does not like how the Jerusalem apostles want to be paid for preaching. He defends it, but in such a way that you can tell he really thinks it ids an abuse of their power: and the fact that he does not do that makes him a better apostle than them. (Elsewhere we gather that Paul paid his own way by setting up as a tent maker whenever he arrived in a city.)
"Am I am not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord. Mine answer to them that do examine me is this, Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel." (1 Corinthians 9:1-18)On a personal note, researching this has completely changed my opinion of Paul. I used to think of him as the antichrist because of how he opposed Peter. Now I am beginning to wonder if Peter was the problem all along.
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Dating Mark, 1 of 10:
A history of dating Mark
The argument
Mark is usually dated to around AD 70 because the majority of scholars supposedly place it there. But that is only true if we carefully define "most scholars" so as to exclude most scholars! If we really include most scholars then the favoured date is AD 42. Note: this is a simple argument from numbers. It does not say anything about the quality of the scholars' evidence. The evidence they use is covered separately, in other parts of this essay. By "most scholars agree with AD 70" we mean most current scholars who have attended reputable universities. But for most of history, going to university meant being a Christian and holding broadly orthodox Christian views. So if we include all scholars from respected universities, from all history, then traditional views must prevail. Of course, we could argue that scholarship is always improving, and therefore new scholarship must be better than tradition. However, in the case of Christianity, the vast majority of early sources are lost. So modern scholarship is based on very little evidence. Early scholarship, in contrast, had access to vastly more sources. What modern New Testament scholar would not want access to the library of Eusebius? So tradition is based on better sources.The traditional dates: AD 42 for Mark, no dates for other gospels
Tradition has some disagreement over exactly when or if Peter went to Rome, and whether Mark wrote when Peter was alive or just after he died, the greatest traditional historian was Eusebius, and he implies AD 42. So, if pushed for a date, most scholars across history would have preferred AD 42 to AD 70. The rest of this section gives the history of dating AMrk, It shows why Eusebius, together with the great Bible translator St Jerome, say that Mark wrote his gospel when (they believed) Peter went to Rome, which they date to the second year of Claudius, or AD 42. That date was settled for 1800 years. Note that the date of Matthew, Luke and John were never fixed: right from the start this was not something the church cared to examine. It became convenient to think that Matthew was before Mark, but they could not say when or give any details that would help to narrow it down. It is as if the church knew from the start that Mark was historical, with a pedigree that stands up to close analysis. But Matthew, Luke and John? It's best not to ask too many questions about them.First century to the nineteenth: Mark is not popular
From the beginning up to the nineteenth century (when it was realised that Mark was first), Mark was the least popular gospel. It is quoted the least by church fathers (count them for yourself), and references to the author are lukewarm. Peter was ambivalent about the work based on his words: "he neither strongly forbade it nor urged it forward." (see the comments by Clement, below) Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, hated Mark, though in later years he admitted that Mark was useful and wished him well (at a safe distance! - 2 Tim 4:11):"And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;" (Acts 15:36-39: Most early historians agreed that "Mark" was John Mark, mentioned in Acts 12:12 and 15:37)"Mark was the basis for the later gospels, even though Mark was not popular. This is clearly seen in the very first New Testament canon, the one created my Marcion, around AD 144. Marcion only had one gospel: an edited version of Luke. But a close look at what he edited shows that he simply removed everything that was not in Mark. That is, Mark was the test of what was genuine, even though Marcion didn't like it and preferred Luke. Or some have suggested that this was the first version of Luke: simply Mark but re-written, and the "missing" parts were actually added later. So Mark was so unassailable that even though people disliked it, it was the gold standard. This argues for Mark being much older or more authentic than the rest.
c.AD 42: Acts 12-13
Acts 13 introduces us to Mark. Here is the order of events:- Peter supposedly escapes from prison (AD 42)
- He goes to Mark's family: they own a large house where the church meets
- Herod looks for Peter but cannot find him
- Some time later (in AD 44) Herod dies
- Mark then accompanies Paul
- "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem." (Acts 13:13).
- This annoyed Paul, and he refused to take Mark on his next mission, though Paul appears to soften in later years, referring to Mark as "useful" (2 Timothy 4:11: the church fathers said this was the same Mark)
Late 1st century: Papias
Eusebius cites Papias as saying that Mark wrote his book when accompanying Peter. Papias was alive when the apostles were still active (he was born circa AD 60, and later became a bishop)."There are said to be five books of Papias, which bear the title "Interpretation of our Lord's Declarations." Irenaeus also, makes mention of these as the only words written by him, in the following terms: "These things are attested by Papias, who was John's hearer and the associate of Polycarp, an ancient writer, who mentions them in the fourth book of his works" [...] concerning Mark, who wrote the gospel. He [Papias] expounds with these [words]: "And the presbyter [i.e., John] also said this: 'Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately all that he remembered (but not, however, in order) of the things which were spoken or done by our Lord," for he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, [he followed] Peter (who provided instruction according to the need, but not as to make an arrangement [orderly account] of the Lord's discourses); so that Mark did not err in anything in thus writing some things as he remembered them; for he was attentive to one thing, not to leave out anything that he heard or to make any false statements in them." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39)
Early 2nd century: Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr (born circa AD 100) refers to the memoirs of Peter, and quotes details that are only found in Mark. This implies support for Papias' statement that Mark recorded Peter's memories. (Dialog with Trypho 106:3, full discussion here)c.100-150: the Preaching of Peter
The Preaching of Peter appears to imply that the apostles all went to the gentiles in AD 42. (The "Preaching of Peter" is a lost book usually dated to between AD 100 and 150.) Therefore AD 42 would be the obvious time to write a gospel foer the gentiles. (Mark is obviously aimed at a gentile audience, hence explaining Jewish terms in Mark 3:17; 5:41, 7:2; 7:34; 10:46; etc.)Clement of Alexandria refers to this lost text in his book "Stromata" and appears to use it as his source for the following quote:"Wherefore Peter says, that the Lord said to the apostles: 'If any one of Israel then, wishes to repent, and by my name to believe in God, his sins shall be forgiven him, after twelve years. Go forth into the world, that no one may say, We have not heard.'" (Clement, Stromata, book six, the end of chapter 5)Around the same time, Appolonius of Ephesus (c. 200) wrote something similar:
"[Apollonius] speaks yet from a tradition that the savior ordered his apostles not to depart from Jerusalem for twelve years, and he also uses testimonies from the revelation of John, and he relates that a dead man had been raised by John himself in Ephesus by divine power, and he also says other things, through which he sufficiently and fully exposes the error of the aforementioned heresy [Montanism]. These are also the things of Apollonius." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5:18:14)This may seem a tiny detail, but it is a bombshell. The same "twelve years" claim is also in the Acts of Peter, presumably also drawing on the lost "Preaching of Peter". The fact that Clement and Appolonius quote it as unquestioned history, and that it appears in at least two other sources (one lost), suggests that this was well established as a historical fact. A New Testament scholar explains what it means:
"Clement of Alexandria, on the authority of the 'Preaching of Peter,' thinks the apostles did not leave Palestine until twelve years after Jesus' death, which would fix the date at about 42 A.D." (Shirley Jackson Case, "The Origin and Purpose of the Gospel of Matthew", in "The Biblical World" vol. 34, No. 6, 1909, p.390-402)So the widely accepted tradition in the year 200 was that the apostles only preached in Israel until the year AD 42. The date of AD 42 is based on adding the twelve years to AD 30, the commonly accepted date of Jesus' ministry ever since Luke was written. (Why AD 30 and not AD 36 or 37? Mark's date is indirect: it's based on his reference to the death of John the Baptist, which Josephus links to the defeat of Herod by Aretus, AD 36. But Matthew and Luke are much more direct. Matthew ties Jesus' birth to the time of Herod the Great (who died in 4 BC) and Luke chapter 3 says that Jesus started preaching "when he was about thirty" soon after John started preaching in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, or AD 28-29. Any believer who tries to believe Matthew and Luke has to conclude that Josephus was wrong and that Jesus was crucified around AD 30.) Did Jesus really say "twelve years"? The "twelve year" saying is not in the gospels, or in any surviving apocrypha: it seems to be just a tradition that is somehow linked to Peter. The idea that Jesus really said "preach in Judaea for twelve years and then move to the gentiles" is highly unlikely for two reasons. First, Jesus was Jewish. The people who knew Jesus best, his brother James, and Peter, strongly argued that the message was for the Jews, and gentiles could only join if they first became Jews. The idea of preaching to the gentiles came from Paul, not Jesus. And second, the idea of twelve years in Judaea before even starting with the other nations suggests a very leisurely pace. This contradicts the urgency indicated by the earliest texts, where Jesus was expected to return at any time. So the twelve years teaching must be from many years later. But where did it come from? Where would a "twelve years from AD 30" tradition come from, except a real memory that preaching in Jerusalem ended in AD 42? The obvious source is the events of Acts 12. Acts 12 records that the church in Jerusalem had great persecution around the year 42, and James was killed and Peter disappeared. The rest of Acts then focuses on Paul preaching to the gentiles, with the Jeusalem church led by James the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the twelve apostles. So this "twelve year" teaching is simply Acts 12 combined with the ate of AD 30 from Matthew and Luke. So the early church widely taught that the apostles left Jerusalem in AD 42, and the focus then changed to the gentiles. So AD 42 is whan a written text was most needed. Until that point the preaching was of the apostles in Jerusalem: why write it down, when everybody saw Jesus with their own eyes? And anybody who did not see Jesus could hear the story from lots of people who did. Plus all the apostles were always available at any time. But all that changed in AD 42. From AD 42 the apostles went through different cities: a person in a city would be extremely lucky to see an apostle, and any reference to Jesus would result in "who was he?" So n AD 42 they needed a written text. Note that this tradition only talks about the apostles. As we see from Paul's conversion, non-apostles were already spreading the world beynd Judaea. Also note that just because an early gospel would be written, that does not imply the people liked it or made many copies. All the indications are that the apostles were not too excited about the written text. Mark was not the hagiography they wanted. They removed the start and end and seldom quoted from the text. SO this first written account was a marketing failure. The later, supernatural versions (Matthew and Luke) were far more popular. But this does not change the fact that AD 42 was when they first needed a written gospel, and it would be aimed at the gentiles, like Mark.
c.160-180: The Anti-Marcionite Prolog
Another early source that links Mark to the death of Peter is the brief introduction to Mark that is contained in some early manuscripts. (It was originally assumed to be written against Marcion, who flourished circa AD 140, hence the name "anti-Marcionite"):"Mark recorded, who was called Colobodactylus ["stumpy finger"] because he had fingers that were too small for the height of the rest of his body. He himself was the interpreter of Peter. After the death of Peter himself, the same man wrote this gospel in the parts of Italy." (Introduction to Mark, in around forty surviving ancient manuscripts.)This is the key text. Because whereas Irenaeus was just a guy attacking anybody who disagreed with him, a Bible translation is a work by a committee. And a good quality Bible was expensive: potential buyers had to be persuaded that they were getting the best scholarship. So the best scholarship of the second century said that "After the death of Peter himself, [Mark] wrote this gospel in the parts of Italy." Even without these quotes, this is just common sense. The church relied heavily on Peter's memory. So when he died, they needed to quickly write down what they remembered Peter saying. And if writing it down, it makes sense to aim it at the people who could not come and hear it in person: that meant Rome. Because the largest group of Jews outside Judea was in Rome.
c.170? The Muratorian Fragment
This document repeats the statement that Mark wrote down what he heard Peter say. The text refers to pope Pius (AD 157-170) as recent, hence its early date. Though some scholars feel it fits better in the fourth century, when a similar canon became popular. The beginning is missing, but the context makes clear that this is probably about Mark recording Peter's words:". . . at which nevertheless he was present, and so he placed [them in his narrative]." (The Muratorian Canon, line 1)
c.180: Irenaeus
Irenaeus (writing circa 180) wrote "Against Heresies". The book is dedicated to showing that Roman Christianity was the original. This is the first time (that we know of) that Peter visiting Rome is declared as a fact."What [the apostles] at first preached, they later delivered to us in writings [...] Matthew [...] also produced a written Gospel [...]; Peter and Paul, however, were in Rome preaching the gospel and founding the church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also delivered to us in writing the things that were then being preached by Peter." (Source.)Because he had to make the gospel after the apostles, he makes it sound like Mark wrote his account in the 60s, the traditional date for Peter and Paul in Rome. But like a good apologist, he maybe simply choosing his words carefully. Irenaeus had a good reason to never suggest an earlier visit to Rome, or the evidence that Peter died in AD 42. Because Irenaeus was the champion of late second century orthodoxy. That orthodoxy taught that Peter and Paul had always been friends. But Paul's letters show that in the 40s, Peter strongly opposed Paul over the position of gentiles:
"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Galatians 2:11).That was the reason for the Jerusalem council that followed (in AD 43 or 50). The disagreement was so strong that the Pseudo-Clementine texts argued with "Simon Magus" who supposedly fought Peter in Rome, was code for Paul. Irenaeus could not admit that Peter and Paul once had major, serious differences in the 40s. By placing them together in the 60s, can Irenaeus says Peter and Paul "founded the church" because at that point there is no evidence for disagreements (as in reality Peter was probably dead). Also "the church" did not exist in the 40s: before the council at Jerusalem, Jesus followers were simply Jewish reformers. It is also technically true to say they Peter could not found a church in 42 because the Jews were forbidden from meeting in groups. So Irenaeus, as a rabid apologist, chooses his words very carefully.
c.195: Clement of Alexandria
Clement wrote that time when the church at Rome was rising in influence, because of the number of people in the empire's capital. So historians took the fact that Mark was written for Rome, and the fact that Mark was close to Peter, and concluded that Peter must have also visited Rome. The idea that Peter had died early on became unthinkable: Acts had done its best to hint that Peter might have lived past AD 42. So here is Clement's understanding:"The Gospel according to Mark came into being in this manner: When Peter had publicly preached the word at Rome, and by the Spirit had proclaimed the Gospel, that those present, who were many, exhorted Mark, as one who had followed him for a long time and remembered what had been spoken, to make a record of what was said; and that he did this, and distributed the Gospel among those that asked him. And that when the matter came to Peter's knowledge he neither strongly forbade it nor urged it forward." (Source.)Note that Peter was lukewarm about the text: this argues both for Mark's objectivity, and for the likelihood that he included some details that were not from Peter, but from other sources.
Early 3rd century: Caius
Caius mentions trophies in Rome dedicated to Peter and Paul, implying that they had both been in Rome. Eusebius took this to mena that both men had died in Rome:"But likewise, a certain ecclesiastical writer, Caius by name, who was born about the time of Zephyrinus bishop of Rome [bishop from AD 199 to 217], disputing with Proclus the leader of the Phrygian sect, gives the following statement respecting the places where the earthly tabernacles of the aforesaid apostles are laid. 'But I can show,' says he, 'the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican, or to the Ostian road, you will find the trophies of those who have laid the foundation of this church.'" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2:25)If Mark is dated to Peter's death, and Peter visited Rome after AD 42, then of course Mark cannot be dated to AD 42.
c.350 Eusebius, the father of Church history
Eusebius says this about the date of Mark, apparently using the Acts of Peter and other sources:"...during the reign of Claudius, the all-good and gracious Providence, which watches over all things, led Peter, that strongest and greatest of the apostles, and the one who on account of his virtue was the speaker for all the others, to Rome against this great corrupter of life [i.e against Simon Magus]. [...] And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2, 14:6-15:1)Claudius reigned from AD 41 to AD 54. Eusebius implies that the gospel would have been written as soon as Peter arrived in Rome the first time, and not after his death.
"But a great light of religion shone on the minds of the hearers of Peter, so that they were not satisfied with a single hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with every kind of exhortation besought Mark, whose Gospel is extant, seeing that he was Peter's follower, to leave them a written statement of the teaching given them verbally, nor did they cease until they had persuaded him, and so became the cause of the Scripture called the Gospel according to Mark. And they say that the Apostle, knowing by the revelation of the spirit to him what had been done, was pleased at their zeal, and ratified the scripture for study in the churches. Clement quotes the story in the sixth book of the Hypotyposes, and the bishop of Hieropolis, named Papias, confirms him" (Source.)Perhaps this is because the date of AD 42 was well known, yet the Acts of Peter said Peter survived and went to Rome after that date. Either way, Eusebius confirms his belief that Peter visited Rome 25 years before Nero's persecution, which takes us again to AD 42, the second year of Claudius:
"Eusebius of Caesarea left us two lists of the Roman bishops, one in his 'Ecclesiastical History,' the other in his 'Chronicle.' The first is the list of Irenaeus, the beginning of which has just been quoted. The second is derived from the lost 'Chronicle' of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, written about half a century later. In the 'Chronicle' St. Peter's episcopate at Rome is stated to have lasted twenty-five years. In the 'Ecclesiastical History' we read 'under the reign of Claudius by the benign and gracious providence of God, Peter that great and powerful apostle, who by his courage took the lead of all the rest, was conducted to Rome.' In other passages his martyrdom with that of Paul is represented as taking place after Nero's persecution. The interval between these two dates would roughly be about twenty-five years. Now it is evident that these figures, derived as they are from men like Irenaeus and Hippolytus, who had access to the archives and traditions in Rome itself, cannot be dismissed as pure fiction. They must have a basis of fact behind them. Eusebius tells us 'that after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter Linus was the first that received the episcopate at Rome.' Now the date of this martyrdom was according to the received tradition the fourteenth year of Nero or 67 A.D.; if then we deduct twenty-five years, we arrive at 42 A.D." (source)
c.400: St Jerome
Jerome said Peter visited Rome in AD 42:"Simon Peter the son of John, from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, brother of Andrew the apostle, and himself chief of the apostles, after having been bishop of the church of Antioch and having preached to the Dispersion - the believers in circumcision, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia - pushed on to Rome in the second year of Claudius [i.e. AD 42] to overthrow Simon Magus, and held the sacerdotal chair there for twenty-five years until the last, that is the fourteenth, year of Nero." (From Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, chapter 1)Peter later returned to Jerusalem for the great council. This is usually dated to around AD 49, but some scholars say it could have been in AD 43 or 44. Daniel Wm O'Connor's "Peter in Rome" (1959) lists at least three prominent scholars who held that opinion. More recently, see:
Alfred Suhl, "Paulus und Siene Brief: Ein Beitrag zur paulinischen Chronologie" (SNT 11: Gutersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1975), 57-70, who proposes a date of AD 44 for the Jerusalem council. Cf Wilhelm Pratscher, "Der Herrenbruder Jakobus und die Jakobustradition (FRLANT 139: Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 42-59, who dates the Jerusalem council a year earlier (to AD 43)" (Jack Gibson, "Peter Between Jerusalem and Antioch", 2013, p.218 footnote 11)
c.400: St Augustine
Augustine popularised the idea that Matthew came first (i.e. even earlier than 42), and Mark merely summarised Matthew. Augustine seems to base this opinion on the belief that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. (This is a belief that most scholars no longer share.)"Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, [...] are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John. [...] "Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek." (Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels, 1:3-4)And this was the settled history for a thousand years. Mark was written in AD 42, and the other gospels were assumed to be earlier. But eventually new ideas arose.
1776: Johann Jakob Griesbach
Griesback published his "Synopsis of the Gospels" and popularised the idea that Matthew, Mark and Luke should be thought of together, and that John is different. This encouraged people to think of John as the special gospel, not Mark. Worse, Griesback assumed that Mark was written after Matthew and Luke, and just summarised them both. So at the beginning of modern scholarship, Augustine's view was reinforced. The idea that Mark shares the same concepts as Matthew (e.g. supernatural views of "Christ", "Kingdom", etc.), and that Mark can best be understood by studying Matthew, became the sand on which all later scholarship was built. An important point to note is that it took 1700 years for people to realise that John was very, very different from the other gospels. Despite the gospels being the most read books in the world. It has taken over 200 years more and scholars still have not noticed how Mark is even more different (e.g. not supernatural).1835: David Friedrich Strauss
In 1835 Strauss published "The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined". It changed how people look at the gospels. Strauss pointed out what should be obvious: the supernatural is not real. So he rightly concluded that a story with supernatural elements is either fiction from the start, or a true story with fictional parts added later. He also concluded that adding the supernatural, while claiming the story was still history, probably took decades. The rise of Paul and the destruction of Jerusalem were obvious reasons to make changes to the story, so the dates for Matthew, Luke and John were probably at least late 50s, probably 70s, and perhaps even much later. Unfortunately, Strauss published before it became widely known that Mark was written first, so he had no reason to suspect that Mark might be fundamentally different from the other gospels. Worse, 1800 years of defining "Christ" and "gospel" a certain way creates a habit that is hard to break. So he just lumped Mark in with the other gospels.1863: Heinrich Holtzmann
Various scholars had suggested that Mark was written first, but it was not widely accepted until Holtzmann published "The Synoptic Gospels: Their Origin and Historical Character". For a detailed examination of why Mark was first, why the others quote Mark and not the other way around, search for The Farrer-Goulder hypothesis, paying particular attention to how it answers critics. Unfortunately this growing realisation came too late. The most important scholars, Ferdinand Christian Baur (who died in 1860), Ludwig Feuerbach (died 1872) and others, had already completed their work. The foundations of modern scholarship are now based on the belief that Mark can be treated much like the other gospels: that Mark includes the supernatural, that Mark uses the same concept of "messiah", and so on. This new scholarship became enormously influential. So much so that starting in 1860 (in "Essays and Reviews") the mainstream Anglican church began to adopt their ideas. The foundation of modern scholarship was laid, and it was built on a vast body of work that assumed Mark was like the other gospels. Then the metaphorical ladder was pulled up after them, by the fundamentalists shutting down further scholarship for mainstream Christians.1910: Fundamentalism
The final glue that cemented the AD 70 date was the publication of the Christian pamphlets "The Fundamentals", beginning in 1910. The pamphlets reacted against the new scholarship that questioned any part of the Bible. Gospel dating became a cultural litmus test. So a mainstream publisher can no longer sell critical Bible scholarship for a general Christian audience, because the loudest section of Christianity will condemn it. So new ideas are pushed to the margins. So the old idea - that Mark is like Matthew - will probably be around for a long time.1919: Form Criticism
In 1919 the 28 year old Karl Ludwig Schmidt published his first book, "The Framework of the Story of Jesus". He decided that different parts of Mark had different themes. When he could not see a connecting theme he decided the parts must have come from disconnected oral traditions. This takes us right back to Clement: Mark recorded Peter's oral memory, but did not necessarily get every detail in the right order. Peter's lukewarm response suggests that Mark added details from other sources as well. Collecting oral stories need only take a few months, and may still involve contradictory views (as any police officer can tell you). Why, then, does form criticism generally argue for a process that takes decades? This is easily explained by economics. Imagine you are scholar who thinks that form criticism supports Clement. What is there to say? Form criticism has added nothing. There is nothing to publish, so you move on to some other topic. So if you are scholar and still have a job, and have not moved to new pastures, you probably argue for a late date. For whether these arguments are based in reality, see the later section on parallelomania.1969: "Peter In Rome"
The definitive work on Peter's time in Rome is the book "Peter In Rome" by Daniel Wm O'Connor. O'Connor looks for evidence that Peter "presided over the Jewish Christians" and looks for evidence of "extended missionary activity" (p.9) and of an apostle working with a "Christian community" (p.10). However, the church was not a distinct organisation until Paul persuaded them to drop the requirement for circumcision at the Jerusalem, so Peter would simply be a Jew with a message about another Jew, not a missionary looking for converts. Regarding the lack of clearer evidence, O'Connor suggests five possible reasons, and considers that the fourth "may very well be the answer": perhaps the reason for some people not talking about the AD 42 visit to Rome is that "the account contained unedifying material, such as the internal jealousy perhaps alluded to in 1 Clement 4-6" (p.11). O'Connor mostly focuses on Peter's alleged visit in the AD 60s, about which the evidence is also ambiguous. But he has this to say about the earlier visit:"In 1953 appeared the fourth edition of the 'Manual of Christian Archeology' of Orazio Marucchi, the eminent Roman Catholic archaeologist, author of over fifty-five books and articles related to the subject of Peter and Paul in Rome. In it he claims that all the evidence combined permits the opinion not only that Peter did live in Rome, but also that he most likely arrived during the reign of Claudius, between A.D. 41 and 44, left after the edict of Claudius A.D. 49 and did not return again until the year of his death." (Peter In Rome, Columbia University Press 1969, p.5)Of course "permits the opinion" means only that: it is permitted by the evidence, but not demanded by the evidence either. As a Catholic, O'Connor has a great incentive to find evidence that Peter could have visited Rome. But all he can prove is that Peter "could have".
1990s-2000s: back to an early date
Maurice Casey, and his graduate student James Crossley, spent decades analysing Mark using the latest understanding. Casey used the Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls to reverse engineer Mark into its likely original phrasing. He also analysed the phrase "son of man" in great depth. Then Crossley examined the use of the law of Moses in Mark, comparing it to the understanding in Paul and in other first century texts. Both men concluded that Mark only makes sense if dated to the early 40s or before."Casey's reconstructions also demonstrate that Mark had a written Aramaic source and not an oral source" [...] "On the basis of these observations, Casey offers a date of c. 27-40 CE for this written version of Mark's Gospel." (source)
Summary
In summary, history points to Mark being written in AD 42. That history was challenged in the 1800s, based on Mark's similarity to the synoptic gospels, which are clearly written long after the events in question. But is it really so similar? And what about the original arguments, about Peter and taking the message to Rome? And what of the various claims that Mark does not know the local geography, or that he refers to the destruction of Jerusalem? It's time to dig deeper!(top)
Dating Mark, 2 of 10:
Oral tradition
The argument
Mark is often assumed to be based on oral tradition. This suggests that nobody saw the need to write it down at the time. This further suggests that there would be no pressure to write anything down until the first generation were nearly all dead, and people began to fear that the message would be lost. Hence a date of around AD 70. However, in the real world, new religions cannot be so relaxed about their message. Because new ideas compete for followers against more powerful incumbents. So they always rely on having at least some literate people, because if they don't get the message out in the crucial first year, they don't survive. Also, the competition does not cease. So the church needs to try extra hard to get its message out when its existence is threatened. This suggests that the first fully written version of the message would need to exist in time for the first major crisis: the killing of James and Peter around AD 42.The problem with New Testament scholarship
New Testament scholars are generally not sociologists. Nor do they have experience in starting new religions. And it shows. They create armchair theories about Jesus' followers being illiterate, and how nothing was written down at first. Sociologists know different. New religions compete with more powerful older religions: the older religions survive precisely because they have evolved to neutralise threats. Like any business they use advertising, copying, or the power of the state, to neutralise the competitor. A new movement can only survive if it has access to money and educated people right at the start. Rodney Stark explores this in his essay "Opiate of the Privileged".
So it is no accident that Buddha was from a rich family, Mohammed had rich friends, Joseph Smith needed Martin Harris, hippies "drop out" from middle class lives, and so on. You need spare capital to explore new lifestyles.
Illiterate?
Bible scholars are seldom sociologists, so it is common to read statements like these:"Christianity grew from a small group of illiterate Jewish peasants from Galilee" (Bart Ehrman, "The Early Growth of Christianity")
"In his now-classic study of ancient literacy, William Harris gave compelling reasons for thinking that at the best of times in antiquity only 10% or so of the population was able to read [Ancient Literacy; Harvard University Press, 1989]. By far the highest portion of readers was located in urban settings. [...] Moreover, far fewer people in antiquity could compose a writing than could read, as shown by the investigations of Raffaella Cribiore, who stresses that reading and composition were taught as two different skills and at different points of the ancient curriculum." (Bart Ehrman, "Peter as Literate?")
The invisible hand of the religious market
It is true that most people in ancient times could not write, but that ignores market forces. If only one guy in the village can write, others pay him whenever they need a letter or government form. And if a religion succeeds then it will have more than one writer. This does not mean that the documents spread widely: perhaps 99 percent of believers cannot read. But the one percent who can are essential. Ehrman often links this claim with a different claim that is not about oral tradition. We may as well cover that here as well: the question of copyist mistakes.Copyist mistakes: the straw man
Ehman often writes about about copyists introducing changes into the text. Evidence for this is the thousands of changes between different New Testament manuscripts. This is sometimes used as evidence that texts cannot be relied upon. This is a straw man argument because it it merely introduces a question of probabilities: historians know that any text might have been changed, but they still draw conclusions, based on probabilities and not certainties. A Ehrman accepts this in his November 20, 2013 blog post: when debating Biblical inerrantists he will argue that the texts are not reliable, meaning they are not one hundred percent reliable as the inerrantists claim. But when working with other scholars he relies on the texts in the same way they do: avoiding claims of certainty, but appealing to probability. So it is a straw man argument to say that copyist errors make the texts unreliable. It is more accurate to say that we can rely on them, but must talk of probabilities, not certainties. A related issue, and one that overlaps with the question of oral tradition, is whether the authors and copyists cared about reliability.Did copyists care about reliability?
If words are considered sacred, then perfect transmission matters. For example, every letter in the Massoretic text of the Old Testament was counted, to make sure nothing was changed. But if the current audience is more important, then words can be changed depending on that audience. Usually texts are a mixture of the two: a copyist will try to be accurate, but will happily change the odd word to clarify a meaning, and will not fret of the odd word is missed by accident. This can lead to significant changes over time, such as adding the new ending to Mark. But does that make the text less reliable? If a car changes its paint, does that make it less reliable? Of course not: it still gets from "A" to "B". What if the shape of the body changes? It still gets from "A" to "B". The reliability of a thing depends on what you want the thing to do. The purpose of a religious text is not to preserve the previous religious text: it is to change the world. The new ending to Mark did that. The removal of original ending also served its purpose: the text survived and formed the foundation for more popular works. Scholars can test whether these messages fit the audience of their time, and whether that audience had the money and education to change the world. That is sociology. But testing whether the words were unchanged from year to year? That is like testing whether the page widths changed each time they were copied: it is of secondary importance at best. With religious texts, sociology is what matters. Because religion is sociology. That is what we need to measure.Jesus and the middle class
Mark's description fits the pattern described by Stark. Mark describes Jesus' friends in middle class ways, and Jesus acted middle class himself:"And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him. And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." (Mark 1:19-22)Notice how James and John are part of a family business that can afford to own a ship large enough for several people, and they hire servants. Then we see Jesus teaching in a synagogue and surprising people with his confidence and ability. These two examples are typical of everything Jesus does in Mark: he acts middle class (that is, he acts confident and educated, whether he is or not) and his friends are often middle class. Some of his friends are very rich indeed:
"And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always." (Mark 14:2-7)A penny was a normal day's pay for a labourer: this woman's ointment would have cost some people a year's wages. And in his reply Jesus distinguishes himself from poor people. Incidentally, the word "leper" is probably due to Mark mishearing Peter say "jar maker": in Aramaic "leper" is "GAR'BA" and jar maker is "GARABA". A leper would not be allowed in the city limits according to the law of Moses (Leviticus 13:46), and while Jesus might visit a leper would a wealthy friend visit him at the same time? But a jar maker is exactly the kind of place where you find jars of expensive ointment. Again, here is Jesus visiting a middle class friend, a business owner with rich clients.
Motivation to write it all down
So we see that Jesus was middle class, and while he had many poor followers (because most people were poor) he also had wealthy followers. Exactly the kind of people who could write down what he said. We also see from the ointment example that some rich people felt that Jesus was very, very important person. Recall that Jesus' whole journeys only lasted a few weeks and he announced it as an extremely important event: the coming of the kingdom of God! Given that Jesus attracted crowds of hundred of people, and occasionally thousands, it would be crazy if at least one of those people was not writing down notes.From sayings to gospel
Of course, once the main parts were copied in Mark there was no reason to keep the rough notes. Most would be in the form of sayings: it is what he said that mattered, not where he was. Some of these unused sayings may have survived in the gospel of Thomas.Q?
It may be tempting to think that the imagined "Q" document is these lost sayings. "Q" refers to the parts of Matthew and Luke that are not in Matthew. However, Matthew and Luke add supernatural material such as the nativity, so they are more than willing to simply make things up. Add the fact that nobody has ever found Q, and no early writers mention anything like it, and Occam's Razor says Q does not exist. There was only Mark, possibly Thomas, and then years later Matthew and others wrote fan fiction.Another reason for AD 36
The argument about competition, that new religions have to compete hard, is further evidence that Mark's AD 36 or 37 is the correct date for Jesus, and not AD 30 to 33. The older date requires several years when very little happens, before Paul's conversion when the events of Acts kick off. Bible timelines vary, but usually 33 to 37 is a very quiet period. But in the real world that could not happen. New religious movements must evolve very quickly to survive, and a whole year is a very long time. The AD 36 (or 37) date removes the problem: from the moment that Jesus is chosen as John the Baptist's successor, events happen thick and fast.Summary
In summary, when we examine the alleged "illiterate" followers of Jesus we find evidence for even earlier written sources - that is, written while Jesus was speaking. Plus further evidence that a written version would be needed sooner rather than later. Plus additional evidence that the events described took place in AD 36 (or possibly 37).(top)
Dating Mark, 3 of 10:
The death of Peter
The argument
The earliest histories date Mark to either the lifetime of Peter, or soon after he died. Peter's death is traditionally placed around AD 65, leading to a similar date for Mark. However, a closer look shows that Peter probably died around AD 42, leading to a similar date for Mark.A typical guide to dating Mark
Here is a typical summary of the evidence for dating the gospel of Mark.Most scholars date the Gospel of Mark to sometime between 60 AD and 80 AD. It was probably the earliest of the four gospels and a source used by Matthew and Luke. The oldest clear evidence we have regarding the date comes from Irenaeus of Lyons, who wrote in the second century: 'after their death [Peter and Paul], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing what was preached by Peter.' Peter probably died around 65 AD, so if Irenaeus is right, then Mark was written after this time. If Irenaeus was not correct, it may not have been composed much earlier because oral tradition would have had to develop. An additional consideration is that Mark 13 may reflect the Jewish War and the resulting destruction of the temple, which occurred in 70 AD. Many scholars conclude from this that Mark had to have been written after 70 AD." ("The Book of Mark's Date of Composition" from "Religion Facts"The summary begins by linking Mark to the death of Peter, so we will start there. Other evidence (oral history, the destruction of the temple, etc.) will be examined later. Here is the full statement by Irenaeus on how Mark was written after the death of Peter:
Irenaeus, 2nd century AD
"The apostles did not commence to preach the Gospel, or to place anything on record until they were endowed with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. They preached one God alone, Maker of heaven and earth. 1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. 2. These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ the Son of God. If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 3, chapter 1)Since Mark is dated to the death of Peter, we need to know when Peter died.
When did Peter die?
The traditional date for Peter's death is around AD 65. This was important to the Roman Catholic church: it was part of a story about how Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome. This made Rome seem very important. But when we examine the evidence for Peter's death, we find that the AD 65 date appearad in the late second century: all the first century sources point to to Peter disappearing around AD 42. For the details, see the paper "Where and When Did Peter Die?" by Donald Fay Robinson (Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 255-267). Robinson examines all the later claims and finds them to be weak. Whereas Peter's last appearance around AD 42 (in Acts chapter 12) looks like the writer is hinting that Peter died. In another paper, "Did Peter Die in Jerusalem?" by Warren M. Smaltz (Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 211-216) Smaltz shows that the Greek words used in Acts 12 are elsewhere used by the same author to indicate death. So it looks like Peter died in Acts 12, but this would have ruined the story of triumph. So Acts makes it as ambiguous as possible: so his death does not matter because he carried on as a kind of angel, just like Jesus did. The rest of this section will look at some of the evidence for Peter's death in AD 42. Because if Mark was written soon after Peter's death, that would date it to around AD 42 and not AD 70.We never hear from Peter after AD 42
In the book of Acts, Peter leads the church and is the most important person after Jesus. Acts chapters 1-12 are mostly about Peter. But in chapter 12, Herod (Agrippa) kills the apostle James, and then captured Peter, planning to kill him as well:"Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread [Passover].) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter [Passover] to bring him forth to the people." (Acts 12:1-4)Herod died in AD 44, and the killing of James is usually dated to around AD 41 or 42. After this we never hear from Peter again. Except for possibly one verse, Acts 15:7:
"And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe."If this is the Peter we know, it raises a lot of problems:
- This Peter says he was called to preach to the gentiles. But that was always Paul's role. The original Peter only preached to the Jews. This was a major disagreement between them: although Acts 10 makes him sound tolerant, Paul's letters are earlier than Acts and show that this was a major disagreement between the two men:
"For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the gentiles: And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." (Galatians 2:8-11)"
- If this was Peter, why is he then called Simeon? True, Simon was another name for Peter, but why change names? We'll discuss that in a moment.
- If this was Peter, why don't we hear more from him than this one verse? Acts 1-12 made him look like the head of the church after Jesus died. Yet the history of the church ignores him!
- If this was Peter, why is he not in charge of the meeting? In Acts 12 James runs the meeting and decided whether or not to accept this Peter's argument.
- If we use the excuse that Peter was now based in Rome, why is this never mentioned in Acts? The last few chapters are about Paul's journey to Rome: if Peter was there, why not at least mention it to explain his absence and demotion?
- If this was Peter, why isn't he reigning in Paul? After Acts 12 the focus shift entirely to Paul. But as long as Peter was around, Paul could not flourish.
"Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name." (Acts 15:14)This is not the same as Simon in Simon Peter. "Simeon" is Strong's Greek number 4826, the Greek "Sumeon". But the Simon in Simon Peter is Strong's Greek number 4613, in Greek it is the same as in English, "Simon". What is going on here? Let's back up and see what led to the debate:
"And thence [Paul and his companions] sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the gentiles. And there they abode long time with the disciples. And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question." (Acts 14:26-15:2)Notice that the dissension and disputation was not small! This was a big and heated argument, just as we saw in Galatians. And just as we saw in Galatians, when Paul argued about the circumcision, he does not compromise. But Paul was not stupid: he knew that if he spoke, he would just create a stronger disagreement But he needed the others to see his side. In cases like these a good lawyer will find the most sympathetic witness possible. So Paul and Barnabas brought "certain others" to this debate. Transport was costly, so they must be there to help Paul's case. And who are the "certain others" who were preaching with Paul to the gentiles at Antioch?
"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." (Acts 13:1)That's right. One of Paul's assistants was called Simeon. Paul brought friends to help argue his case, and the person who argued Paul's case to James was called "Simeon". So the previous reference to "Peter" could have been a copyist's mistake. Somebody saw "Simeon" and could have thought it meant Simon Peter. But the context suggests it was Simeon, friend of Paul. So the only reference to Peter after AD 42 is highly doubtful. And yet up to that time, Peter was everywhere, running the church, being the center of attention. What happened?
Acts 12: a euphemism for death
Peter ran the church until Acts 12, then Herod captured killed James the apostle, and imprisoned Peter, intending to kill him. Then we never hear from him again, and the rest of the apostles flee: later historians interpet this as them taking the gospel to the gentiles (the "twelve years" tradition discussed earlier). It does not take a genius to work out what happened. When a despotic king wants to kill a prisoner, he kills the prisoner. But the book of Acts is a story of triumph. So it cannot record the death of Peter and the apostles fleeing. So Acts uses similar language to the death of Jesus: Peter saw a great light, an angel smote him, and then Peter simply walked out of the prison, like an angel himself. He then appeared in his angelic state to the wives of his friends, and then to his friends, and then we never hear from him again."James B. Jordan suggests that this incident is portrayed as being a type of resurrection for Peter. Noting that one of the major themes of the Book of Acts is that 'Christ's servants follow in His footsteps,'" Jordan argues that the events of the chapter 'recapitulate the resurrection of Jesus.'" Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff, like Jordan, relate the disbelief of Rhoda's message to Luke 24:1-12, where most of the disciples refuse to believe the news of the resurrection brought by a group of women." (Wikipedia summary, retrieved 15/9/2020)It makes no sense that James would be killed but Peter, the ring leader, can just walk out of the prison. As James Jordan put it, why "James should die while Peter should escape" is a "mystery of divine providence." (Quoted in Wikipedia) Here is the full account of Peter's mystical "escape" in Acts:
"And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street; and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel." (Acts 12:6-15)
Which is more likely?
So which is more likely? That Herod did what he said he would do? or that Peter was rescued by a supernatural miracle, which looks like Jesus' resurrection? That Peter would abandon his job in Jerusalem and disappear? Which is more likely? So Peter died around AD 42, and then Mark wrote down what Pater had said, so nobody would forget. Buy the church had to pretend that Peter survived, because otherwise the church ended in AD 70. Because Jesus created a Jewish movement, with the goal of bringing back the diaspora to cleanse the temple (Mark 1:2-3). Jesus said that after his death his brother James should run it. But the diaspora did not return, James was killed, and Jerusalem was destroyed. Here is the evidence:James always ran the church
The definitive history of first century Judaea is Josephus. He does not mention Peter or Paul, but does mention John the Baptist and James, with a line indicating that James was the brother of Jesus who they called Christ. So at the time, to historians, the stad out chaarcters are John the Baptist, Jesus and James. Peter and Paul are not even footnotes."CONCERNING ALBINUS UNDER WHOSE PROCURATORSHIP JAMES WAS SLAIN; AS ALSO WHAT EDIFICES WERE BUILT BY AGRIPPA. 1. AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest." (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 20 chapter 9)Even in the book of Acts we can see that James ran the church after Peter was jailed in Acts 12. And in Acts 15, the only reference to someone called "Peter" after Acts 12, James is clearly senior.
Peter only ran the church in one city
Acts says that Peter ran the church in Jerusalem, at least for the five years or until he disappeared. This is probably true. But may not mean what you think it means. The apostles were always "apostles": people "sent out". They were not the ones doing the sending. That was Jesus. And after Jesus, who?"The disciples said to Jesus, '"We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?' Jesus said to them, 'Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous [the brother of Jesus], for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.'" (Gospel of Thomas 1:12)Recall that Jesus was been based in his home of Galilee, not Jerusalem. At the end of Mark the mysterious robed man tells the followers to gather to Galilee:
"Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (Mark 16:6-7)So both before and after Jerusalem, the headquarters of the movement was Galilee. (Whether the Jesus was successful in his plan to survive crucifixion, or whether the robed man had to remove a dead body and then use Jesus as a symbolic figurehead, is a separate topic.) At the very start, the focus was always in gaining converts to the immediate north: Saul was on his road to Damascus, the group was first called "Christian" in Antioch, and so on. The apostles were supposed to be sent out to different places. It looks like Peter was told that his focus was Jerusalem. When Paul recalls visiting the church in Jerusalem, all he saw was Peter and James the brother of Jesus.
"Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." (Galatians 1:18-19)Why was James there? And why not the others? If that is the same Peter in Acts 15, he was clearly junior to James. And if that was a different Peter, it still makes sense that Peter would be junior to James brother of Jesus: because everything we know about James was that he was highly respected by all sides, and highly capable. And everything we know about Peter was that he was not. So it looks like the apostles were in different cities, and James was coordinating them. That authority structure is supported by a text about James found in Nag Hammadi. In it, Jesus explaining everything to James, who then explains it to the apostles and tells them what to do:
"And he went at that time immediately and rebuked the twelve and cast out of them contentment concerning the way of knowledge" (First Apocalypse of James ).To see Peter's role, just look at the book of Acts. Jesus told his followers to preach to all nations, but there is no evidence of Peter coordinating that. Instead, Peter just hung around in Jerusalem telling people that Jesus would come back with lots of people. Occasionally we hear of other apostles there but usually different people like Steven or Barnabas. It looks like each apostle is in a different city, spreading the message. Who was coordinating all that? There is no evidence that Peter did, or that he had the skill to do so. We never see him sending people out or settling disputes or answering letters: it is not even clear how literate he was. But once we see James in Acts, James runs the Jerusalem council and in the letters of Paul it is James who sends out people to solve problems. For more about the people coordinating the movement, see the section of Mary and Jesus 'A' team in Galilee. So james ran the chuch, and the church (as Jesus intended) was Jewish, devoted to bringing back the diaspora and cleansing the temple. And it failed, because the diaspora did not come back, James was killed, and Jerusalem was destroyed. Let's look at what happened next.
The church was dead. Long live the church!
AD 70: the church was dead
In AD 70 it was all over. Not only did the diaspora not come back, but they now had nowhere to come back to! Jerusalem was destroyed! However, Paul had a lot of gentiles who believed in Christ as a supernatural god, and that movement was still alive and kicking. However, they had their own problems:- Paul was dead as well.
- Paul's churches were fragmented.
- Paul's message was weak. "Jesus is coming soon!" - but "soon" never came.
- Paul's followers tended to drift back to the Jewish gospel after he left.
AD 80? Psychology is real
Nobody likes to admit they were wrong. When a person invests their whole life into a belief, and the belief fails, they double down. The ones who stayed were the moat insanely committed. This was the age of believers like Ignatius, who welcomed martyrdom, even looked forward to it, and began to treat the dead apostles almost like gods. The only way to save the church was to combine the Jewish and gentile beliefs: combine James and Paul. Make the living Jesus supernatural. Make his second coming a supernatural thing. problem solved! So the first step is to create a more supernatural version of Mark.AD 80? Enter... Super Mark!
The earliest reference we have to a canon (meaning writings treated as authoritive) is by Marcion in the 140s: he had a version of Luke that was basically Mark plus miracles. That is, if you look at the parts of "Luke" that he had, it was just Mark, but Jesus' actions were made to appear supernatural. Unfortunately, Marcion's religion had no place for the Jewish believers. And the church was not yet strong enough to lose them. So at the same time that people were writing Super-Mark (there is ndisagreement over which came first), they were also writing Super Mark - Jewish Edition! The book we came to call "Matthew" was Mark plus the supernatural, plus lots of Jewish prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. To win over the Jewish believers.AD 85? Paper over the cracks
Even with "Super Mark - Jewish Edition" there was a problem: people still remembered James. James would never have accepted Paul's gentile religion. So how do you get James out of the way? Somebody came up with the answer: say that Peter ran the church in the early days! After all, for the first five or six years, James was apparently in Galilee, but Peter ran things in Jerusalem. And then, after those five or six hyears, when Peter disappeared and James took over follow Paul instead. and show throughout that Peter and Paul were in agreement. And so the book of Acts was written. Was Peter really in agreement with Paul? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Paul records a strong disagreement with Peter, feeling that he was a hypocrite:"the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter; (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the gentiles:) And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the gentiles to live as do the Jews?" (Galatians 2:8-14)Peter's weakness is a common theme in all the earliest texts. Mark records Jesus saying "get thee behind me, Satan" to Peter. Acts records how Peter ruled by fear, and used his position to get money. And the gospel of John, although written later, ends with a chapter that does not make Peter look good (see below). But Acts does its best to make Peter look like the head of the church after Jesus. And it seems to have worked.
Did Peter Visit Rome?
Once Acts had made Peter look important, the church at Rome wanted Peter. Because that would make them important. This section looks at the belief that Peter survived past AD 42, and visited Rome. How did that belief arise?AD 57: Paul's epistle to the Galatians
Galatians 2:11 refers to Peter meeting Paul at Antioch and disagreeing over whether converts should be circumcised. Galatians was probably written about AD 54, but that does not mean that Peter at Antioch in 54, any more than it means Jesus rose from the dead in 54: Peter is defending himself, not writing a history. So he has to use whatever events are useful to make his point, regardless of their order. Paul became a Christian in AD 37 at the latest, then spent three years in Arabia, and then " came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia [southern Turkey];" (Galatians 1:21). Paul then says that he was still a stranger to the apostles at this point, but they had heard of him. So it would be natural for them to visit Antioch around AD 40, to try to work with Paul. So there is nothing here to show that Peter was alive after AD 42.AD 57: Paul's epistle to the Romans
In Paul's epistle to the Romans, dated AD 57, he mentions around fifty different people in Rome. And never mentions Peter. But according to later tradition, Peter founded the church in Rome in AD 42, served as bishop there for twenty five years, and was martyred there around AD 67. That tradition must have evolved later than AD 57, because Paul seems to know nothing about it.AD 62: Acts 28
Acts 28 describes how Paul arrived in Rome in AD 60 and spent two years there. But again he does not mention Peter. So the tradition about Peter being in Rome suince AD 42 must have evolved later than AD 62. And probably later than the AD 80s, when Acts was written.Unknown date: 42? 60s? 100s? 1 Peter
1 Peter claims to eba letter written by Peter from "Babylon":"The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son." (1 Peter 5:13)It says that is at "Babylon" along with Mark. Mark was known to spent time in Alexandria soon after AD 42, and there as a town called Babylon nearby. Today it is known as Old Cairo.
"Mark, the evangelist, according to ancient tradition, laid the foundation of the church of Alexandria. The Copts in old Cairo, the Babylon of Egypt, claim this to be the place from which Peter wrote his first epistle (1 Pet. 5:13)" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume II)However, later tradition insisted that Babylon was code for Rome. Which is a problem, because Rome was not routinely called Babylon until after AD 70, because in AD 70 Rome destroyed Jerusalem jsut as Bablyon had centuries before. (See for example the Book of Revelation for Rome as Babylon.) And even Peter's biggest fans agree that he was dead by then. Also, the language of 1 Peter is very polished, so scholars like Bart Ehrman say a fisherman like Peter could not have written it. And his scribe was Mark, who is mentioned ("Marcus"), and who was famous for his rough unpolished Greek. So 1 Peter could be a late forgery, but there is another explanation. The deaths of two senior apostles in Acts 12 would be a huge shock. Somebody had to reassure the believers that the church could go on. Hence this letter, implying that Peter survived and simply went away. But the author dare not say "I am in Rome" or "I am in Alexandria" because the local believers would say "no he isn't" and the truth would get out. So "from Babylon" keeps everything nice and vague. And saying "I am in Babylon with Mark" explains how he got there (Mark has money and can read and write Greek). It is all very neat. And the church is reassured that Peter is somewhere out there, even though nobody ever sees him again.
AD 84-95: a monument?
"Aneclitus [bishop of Rome, AD 84-95 according to this source] [...] built and adorned the sepulchral monument of the blessed Peter, forasmuch as he had been made priest by the blessed Peter, and other places of sepulchre for the burial of bishops. There he himself likewise was buried near the body of the blessed Peter" (Book of the Popes 1:5)The Book of the Popes was compiled centuries later, so this could simply be a confusion with Anicetus, who was bishop of Rome at the time the more famous monument was made in the 160s. And centuries later it was common to believe that Peter's bones were buried there; the original monument could have just been a shrine to St Peter. The 180s was a time when the gentile churches were looking for leadership, so creating a permanent monument would be Rome's way of saying "we are the new headquarters". It would have been small - there is no mention of it later - but would be the first step to the larger shrine, and then the belief that Peter died in Rome.
Late first century: John 21
Does John say that Peter would be crucified when old? The following passage in John is sometimes taken to mean that Peter would be crucified (his "arms stretched out"), far away ("carried" somewhere), when he was old. However, when we see it in context, it is actually saying that his arms will be stretched out in prayer, and that Peter is not as strong as the later church said. Here are the key verses and the verses just before and after:"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." (John 21:17-22)The gospel of John is usually dated to the end of the first century. In this final chapter, Peter decides to return to old his job as a fisherman, and some others follow hom. Then the resurrected Jesus appears to them and tells Peter three times to "feed my sheep". He then predicts Peter's eventual death, and the book ends with saying that in contrast "the beloved disciple" (presumably John) will wait for Jesus. The three times "feed my sheep" is the key, as it shows Jesus' frustration: Jeuss asks if Peter loves him with sacred love, "agape" but each time Peter says he loves him with brotherly love, "philia". Jesus then says that he is being like a child: a child has it easy, but because he knows Jesus, in the end Peter will not have an easy life. Peter then asks Jesus about his favourite disciple, John, and Jesus says that John will wait for him (i.e. not go back to being a fisherman). He seems to be saying "You, Peter, try to escape, but you cannot. So you will die as a martyr. But John here does not try to escape, and he will survive. So this passage is about Jesus' frustration with Peter, the one who was called "Satan" and denied him three times. And telling him that he cannot escape his connection with Jesus by going back to being a fisherman. This contradicts the claim that Peter was the strong foundation of the church. Instead, John's gospel reflects the knowledge at the end of the First Century that Peter disappeared way back in AD 42 (see Acts 12). As we saw in 1 Peter, the church felt he must still be out there somewhere "in Babylon". But how did he die? Why didn't Peter come back? THey need closure! So the author of John says how he must be out there somewhere as an old man, being "carried where he wouldest not". But does "stretched out" mean crucifixion? It usually just means stretched out in prayer, or in giving mercy (e.g. Isaiah 5:25;9:12,17,21;10:4) or supplication or to help people . So the imagery is of Peter in some far away land, praying to God for help, and that is how he will die, serving God. Notice that this is vague. If the author of John had meant "you will die like me" then he could have said so. But he does not.
Late 1st century: Ignatius
The letter of Ignatius to the Romans is often used as an early proof that Peter visited Rome. However, he does not actually say that. In fact, his silence speaks volumes, because Ignatius, accordign to tradition, should have known Peter personally, and yet he writes as if Peter is just some distant figure in history. The letter was re-writen at least twice (shorter and longer versons exist) so any details could be from much later. But in the commonly accepted version, this is the key line:"I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man" (Ignatius to the Romans, chapter 4)Does this mean that Peter visited Rome, as well as Paul? No, because he wrote something similar to the Trallians (people of Tralles, Asia Minor) and to the Philadephians: there is no record of Peter visiting there.
"though I am acquainted with these things, yet am I not therefore by any means perfect; nor am I such a disciple as Paul or Peter. For many things are yet wanting to me, that I may not fall short of God." (Ignatius to the Trallians, chapter 5)
"For I pray that, being found worthy of God, I may be found at their feet in the kingdom, as at the feet of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; as of Joseph, and Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets; as of Peter, and Paul, and the rest of the apostles, that were married men. For they entered into these marriages not for the sake of appetite, but out of regard for the propagation of mankind." (Ignatius to the Philadephians, chapter 4)Ignatius just seems to like Peter: he mentions Peter eight times in his letters, and Paul sixteen times: Ignatius prefers Peter and Paul no matter who he's talking to. The apostles? The other senior apostles James and John? Just once each. The other apostles? Usually not at all. Ignatius is jsuta Paul and Peter fan, so will refer to their teaching rather than whatever apostle may or may not have visited a city. Ignatius of Antioch was born around AD 50. Later tradition said that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome sometime between AD 63 and 68 (that is, after Acts but before Nero died) so Ignatius could have been 18 when they died. According to an even later tradition (from Theodoret of Cyrrhus, a bishop from 422 AD). Ignatius was personally chosen by Peter. Another tradition is that he was born before AD 50, and was one of the babies that Jesus held ("Suffer the children to come unto me"). So Ignatius had the best chance of knowing first hand or close second hand about Peter. Ignatius left us seven epistles, most of which are about the authority of the apostles, how we should follow them, etc. And yet all his work seems to be based on New Testament writings or similar: Peter and the others seem just as distant to him as they are to us. This suggests that Ignatius' life probably did not overlap with Peter at all: probably Peter died years before Ignatius was born, just as hinted at in Acts.
Late 1st century: Clement of Rome
This is another clue to when Peter died, and hence (according to several sources) when Mark was written. 1 Clement is a letter to churches where the members just kicked out their bishop. Clement, a bishop himself, says a bishop should never be kicked out, because bishops are chosen by the apostles and the apostles were such good men. Clement writes:"Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance." (1 Clement 5:3-6)Clement was bishop of Rome from 26 April, AD 88. Peter and Paul were supposedly martyred in Rome around the year AD 65, just 23 years before. And Peter had supposedly been bishop of Rome for 25 years. And according to some sources, Clement directly replaced Peter:
"Tertullian and most of the Latins (and the pseudo-Clementina), make Clement (Phil. 4:3), the first successor of Peter; but Irenaeus, Eusebius, and other Greeks, also Jerome and the Roman Catalogue, give him the third place, and put Linus (2 Tim. 4:21), and Anacletus (or Anincletus), between him and Peter." (Philip Schaff, "History of the Christian Church" volume 2)So if Peter was martyred in Rome, Clement should have known all about it. Yet he is strangely vague about their deaths. Compare that to the verses immediately after, where he describes other people's deaths:
"Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast multitude of the elect, who through many indignities and tortures, being the victims of jealousy, set a brave example among ourselves. By reason of jealousy women being persecuted, after that they had suffered cruel and unholy insults as Danaids and Dircae, safely reached the goal in the race of faith, and received a noble reward, feeble though they were in body." (1 Clement 6:1-2)He specified "tortures", he refers to "unholy insults as Danaids and Dircae, which probably refers to criminals being killed in front of crowds by being forced to act out deadly stories from mythology (see "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments" by Kathleen M. Coleman). The Danaids had to carry heavy water jogs with holes in, and Dircae was tied to the horns of a bull. Why mention those details, and forget to mention that Peter was crucified upside down? It sounds like he does not know how Peter and Paul died. Next, look at how much space is given to Peter, Jesus' chief apostle and how much more space is given to Paul. Reading this passage you might conclude that Peter died long before Paul. Finally, see the reference to "having reached the farthest bounds of the West": Paul's intention to visit Spain (See Romans 15). Based just on Clement you might conclude that Paul died in "the farthest bounds of the West" and that the early bishop of Rome gives no clue that he has heard the later beliefs of Peter and Paul dying in Rome.
AD 130s? The Apocalypse of Peter
The Apocalypse of Peter claims to be what Jesus taught Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, and describes punishments in hell for various sins and blessing in heaven for various good works. This text is often referred to later, so it was popular and taken seriously. The text dates to after AD 100 (because it quotes 4 Esdras) but before 170 (it is mentioned in the Muratorian fragment and also by Clement of Alexandria). Some scholars suggest Bar Kochba, AD 130s, when believers would have felt under great stress and in need of answers to prayers. One of them felt he had a vision of what Peter was told, to comfort people that justice would prevail, and that is what we now call the Apocalypse of Peter. One copy, from the fifth century (the "Rainer fragment") includes this:"Behold, Peter, I have shown and exposed all things to you; and you must go into the capital of corruption and drink the chalice I have announced to you, from the hands of the son of him who is in Hades, that his ruin may begin and that you may receive the fulfillment of the promises." (quoted by Margherita Guarducci in "The Tomb of St Peter")Being just one fifth century fragment, it might just be something added later. But let's assume that it is genuine. "The son of him who is in Hades" and "go to the capital of corruption" to "drink the chalice" seems to refer to Nero (son of Satan for persecuting the Christians), going to Rome and drinking the same cup that Jesus did (i.e. being crucified). Unlike the later Acts of Peter, this does not record Peter actually going to Rome: it records Jesus telling him that he would. So the author sidesteps the need for evidence. Other than the evodence that Jesus said these things, and that could come from a dream or vision. So here we might have the origin of Peter in Rome: a second century Christian, feeling stressed because of Bar Kochba, feels he has a vision. He could say it without lying, because he was making no claims to have proof that it did happen, it was simply his vision. Then Justin Martyr thinks he sees historical evidence that it happened:
Early second century: Justin Martyr
This is where a vision starts to be seen as historical fact, because Justin made a mistake:"There was a Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village called Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Caesar, and in your royal city of Rome, did mighty acts of magic, by virtue of the art of the devils operating in him. He was considered a god, and as a god was honored by you with a statue, which statue was erected on the river Tiber, between the two bridges, and bore this inscription, in the language of Rome: “Simoni Deo Sancto,” “To Simon the holy God.”There was definitely a statue on the Tiber between two bridges that said "to Semon the Holy God", referring to the Sabine god "Semon Sancus". Most scholars think that Justin saw the statue on a visit to Rome, and thought it was a statue to Simon Magus, who was very popular in Justin's home of Samaria. This etsablished the belief that Simon Magus, the great enemy of Peter (from Acts 8) was in Rome. Simon was active in the reign of Claudius, and this also coincides with when Peter disappeared in Acts 12. The coincidence seems to be too much the younger generation. Forty years people believed that not only did Simon Magus come to Rome, but Simon peter followed him again and defeated him.
c.160: shrine
Some time around 160 or just after, a shrine was built at Rome, and it was later linked to Peter:
It was common in Rome to create shrines to holy people. This does not mean of course that the holy person lived there: any more than having the church of Saint Peter and Paul in your local city means Peter and Paul lived there.
"Excavations have brought to light an aedicula [shrine] of pillars dated between 160 and 180, which has been interpreted as a memorial to St. Peter. When the basilica of Constantine was built, people actually believed that beneath the aedicula St. Peter's grave was to be found. But a real grave never existed there. The archaeologist probably best acquainted with the necropolis below St. Peter, our colleague Harald Mielsch from Bonn, has recently stated his opinion to the same effect. Having conducted field work on the spot for many years, he was able to show that when the cemetery (in use since the 2nd c. AD) containing the memorial was built on the Vatican hill, the existence of a putative grave of St. Peter was not taken into account. What is more, the Red Wall that was designed to protect the ascent leading up to 'area Q' from earth being washed down was built partially across the site where the presumed grave of the apostle would have had to be found - which, as is well-known, it never was. He concludes: 'The archaeological evidence for St. Peter's grave and its veneration begins at the earliest around 160180 AD, starting with the erection of the memorial'." (Otto Zwierlein, author of "Peter and Paul in Jerusalem and Rome", in "Has St. Peter ever been in Rome?")Human and animal bones were also found in the excavation, along with some coins. One was from the reign of Antoninius Pius (138-161), six from 168-185 and most from 285-385. All of this suggests the bones are not of Peter, but somebody later.
Peter's tomb in Jerusalem
The shrine in Rome has of course gained great publicity: the world largest church needs this to be true. Meanwhile, the same year that the shrine was revealed (1953) an actual tomb, with Simon bar Jonas' name, was revealed to be in Jerusalem.
Being an actual tomb, with his actual name, makes this far more significant than the string of circumstantial evidences used to support the shrine in Rome. The discovery was made by Franciscan Father Bellarmino Bagatti, near the Dominus Flevit Church, and was reported in Liber Annuus III, 149-184. Being handwriting, the letters are not perfectly formed, so other scholars then came up with alternative readings. See for example "Rereading The 'Shim'On Bar Yonah' Ossuary From Dominus Flevit" by Stephen Pfann. Just as critics of the Rome shrine have argued that it was just a shrine and nothing else. Both claims are open to doubt of course. But at least the Jerusalem claim starts four steps ahead: an actual tomb, what might be Christian symbolism, and an actual name that might (or might not) be Simon bar Johah, and it agrees with Acts 12, which says Peter was at Jerusalem when he disappeared.
Peter's skull
Today it is normal to imagine Peter's remains in the shrine mentioned above. But for centuries Saint John Lateran church has claimed to house the heads of both Peter and Paul:"In the upper part of the baldacchino are preserved the heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the great treasure of the basilica, which until this shrine was prepared to receive them had always been kept in the 'Sancta Sanctorum', the private chapel of the Lateran Palace adjoining." (Catholic Encyclopedia)Of course, we can smooth this over by saying that perhaps the heads were separated before the other bones were buried. Or perhaps Peter had three heads, one in his tomb in Jerusalem, one in the Lateran church, and one at St Peter's church? And perhaps even more yet to be found?
The shrine was not a tomb
The shrine was clearly not a tomb, but was built in a pagan cemetery, so clearly was intended to remember someone who died. It was not built where Christians were buried, so may have originally had no connection to Peter. Or perhaps it was made anonymous to avoid persecution. It was built where pagans were buried, presumably because they felt this would be more permanent, and would not draw attention to itself?"The Vatican and the Ostian road, where in the early third century these monuments were shown, were not at that time otherwise connected with the Christian cult. Archaeological research has made this plain. The Christian burial places were elsewhere." (Donald Fay Robinson, "Where and When Did Peter Die?")
"What [...] did the excavators find? Nothing labelled, no funerary inscription, no Apostolic sarcophagus, no bones that are certainly St Peter's, [...] In fact (and this must be clearly emphasised) no actual tomb [that phrase in italics in the original], in the structural sense of the term, was found; but a small, free, empty space in a cemetery, over which was constructed not later than c. 170 [...] a simple niched building, or aedicula, venerated as his 'shrine' from at least 200" (J. M. C. Toynbee, "The Shrine of St. Peter and Its Setting" in The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 43, 1953)The term "building" might sound like something large, but a glance at the reconstruction shows that it was small. It was a shrine. But what was its original purpose?
What did the shrine originally mean?
"Roadside shrines have been part of Roman life for thousands of years. Every neighbourhood would have one, and back in ancient Roman they were looked after by the local 'college' - a kind of neighbourhood watch group who likely operated out of the pub located on the same crossroads as the shrine! These days images of the emperor have been replaced with images of the Virgin Mary." ("Bec The Guide")
"Wayside shrines arose through a custom born in Christianity's earliest years. Ancient Rome's persecution of the first Christians made the open construction of churches virtually impossible. [...] In place of churches, the faithful erected small monuments with cryptic Christian symbols to conceal worship from Roman soldiers. These hidden 'signposts' became the earliest Christian shrines." (Wayside Shrines of South Tyrol)How was this shrine concealed? It looks just like a lararium. In fact, to all intents and purposes it was a lararium. When a Roman needed something, he would pray or give some small sacrifice at his household shrine or lararium, and feel that his favourite spirits of the house were praying alongside him. The city and each of its districts also had a public lararium. Forty years or so after the shrine to Peter was built, Clement of Alexandria refers to the same idea. Clement's spirit helpers were of course the saints:
"In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]" (Clement of Alexandria , "Miscellanies" 7:12, A.D. 208).As Christianity grew in Rome, the lararium naturally evolved into Christian shrines to the saints. The Roman lararium's feast day, "Caristia" on February 22nd then became a Christian feast recalling the burials of the favourite Christian saints, St Peter and St Paul.
Christianity re-used Roman objects of devotion
This is from an impeccable Roman Catholic source:"The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holy days and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the east, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church." (Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of the Christian Doctrine")So the shrine "to Peter" was indistinguishable from a shrine to some minor god.
A shrine to who?
The shrine could have been to any minor god or hero. Here is just one possibility: the god Vagitanus. The region was called Vatican before it was Christian. Most people assume there was an old region called "Vatic" by the Etruscans (the former rulers of Italy). However, there is no reference to such a region. Instead, the great scholar Varro (who dies in 27 BC) explained that the real origin of the name is the god Vaticanus (or Vagitanus) who had an altar there. Vagitanus was the god who opened the mouth of babies for their first cry: he was important because so many children (and mothers) dies in childbirth: if he cried, he would live. Hence the need for an anxious new mother to appeal to the god of the child's first cry."this deity was called Vaticanus, because he presided over the principles of the human voice; for infants, as soon as they are born, make the sound which forms the first syllable in Vaticanus, and are therefore said vagire (to cry)" (quoted by Aulus Gellius in "Attic Nights")The name has also been compared to the Etuscan word "vates" for prophecy. The Vatican hill was named because somebody heard a voice from heaven at that place, so created a shrine to Vagitanus. It became a shrine to "vatiana" or words from God: prophecies. Aulus Gellius explained this connection in the mid second century, the same time that the Christians created their own shrine, in a cemetery at the same place. Using a cemetery meant it would survive persecution: a cemetery has lots of little shrines, so one more would not be noticed. And a Christian shrine would look exactly like a shrine to Vagitanus: At this time Jesus was commonly referred to as The Word, from John 1:1, "in the beginning was the Word". Justin Martyr was the most famous for teaching about The Word: he had a school in Rome to promote Jesus as the Word, and he was martyred at this time. As another example, see the "Epistle to Diognetus", a letter explaining Christianity to a non-believer. It is usually dated to the 130s, and never refers to the name "Jesus" or "Christ", but only refers to "the Word". Another keystone belief of this period was that the Word was made flesh at his birth. The Virgin Birth was important at the time, both to counter the claims that Jesus was illegitimate, and to show why the Jesus was far more than a man. Indeed, Mark's idea that Jesus was only chosen at his baptism was starting to be condemned as a heresy (called "adoptionism"). So the whole message of Christianity was The Word became flesh at the moment of Jesus' birth, and Peter and Paul were his prophets. All of this fits perfectly with a shrine to Vagitanus. It was the same teaching, taken to its extreme: the Word of God came to a baby. So the shrine to Peter looks exactly like a shrine to Vagitanus. Who knows, maybe it was a shrine to Vagitanus that Christians began to associate with Peter, much as they later used the pagan festivals of Christmas and Easter? This is of course parallelomania. But that is all we have to go on.
170s: Dionysius
Dionysius was bishop in Corinth in the 170s. In 1 Corinthians 1:12 we read that over a hundred years before Dionysius, competing pro-Paul and pro-Peter factions existed at Corinth. Some have take this as meaning that Peter visited Corinth, but all it proves is that followers of Peter were there. However, by 170 it was decided that Peter had visited Corinth, and (no doubt encouraged by the erection of the shrine) Dionysius felt confident that Peter must also have visited Rome and died there:"Therefore you also have by such admonition joined in close union the churches that were planted by Peter and Paul, that of the Romans and that of the Corinthians: for both of them went to our Corinth, and taught us in the same way as they taught you when they went to Italy; and having taught you, they suffered martyrdom at the same time." (Dionysius to the Romans)
c.180: The Acts of Paul
The Acts of Paul is essential to our understanding of Peter, and therefore of Mark. Partly because many scholars think it might be one of the sources for the Acts of Peter. But mainly because it is an example of many documents that appear around this time, and the orthodox church did not hesitate to denounce it is a recent fake:But if certain Acts of Paul, which are falsely so named, claim the example of Thecla for allowing women to teach and to baptize, let men know that in Asia the presbyter who compiled that document, thinking to add of his own to Paul's reputation, was found out, and though he professed he had done it for love of Paul, was deposed from his position. How could we believe that Paul should give a female power to teach and to baptize, when he did not allow a woman even to learn by her own right? Let them keep silence, he says, and ask their husbands at home." (Tertullian, "On Baptism", 17.
c.180: The Acts of Peter
The Acts of Peter is the first document we know that places Peter in Rome. In fact, placing Peter in Rome sees to be the whole purpose of the book. 1 Peter had said Peter was out there somewhere, maybe in Rome. Beginning with the Acts of Peter people began saying yes, that's where he must have gone. It is interesting to compare the reception of the "Acts of Peter" to the "Acts of Paul" around the same time. The Acts of Paul was condemned because it gave equal rights to women. Therefore, Tertullian said, it must be false! Church leaders then traced the book to its source and its writer confessed. But the Acts of Peter, in contrast, told the church exactly what it needed to hear: that the church at Rome was very important to Peter. No doubt many people had wondered what happened to Peter after Acts 12, in the reign of Claudius. 1 Peter had said he was in Babylon, which may have meant Alexandria but was now closely associated with Rome. Justin said that his arch enemy Simon Magus was in Rome at that time. It didn't take a genius to fill in the blanks. So let's look closer at The Acts of Peter. The first part might be close to real history, and the rest is an attempt to combine 1 Peter and Justin, with a heavy dose of late second century beliefs about miracles, the eucharist, the Virgin Mary, etc. Here is the start, that reads like history. This is not to say that Simon himelf was in Rome, but other missionareies were, and "signs and wonders" (healing and other miracles) were how they attracted crowds:"Now after a few days there was a great commotion in the midst of the church, for some said that they had seen wonderful works done by a certain man whose name was Simon [Simon Magus], and that he was at Aricia [a town near Rome], and they added further that he said he was a great power of God and without God he did nothing. Is not this the Christ? but we believe in him whom Paul preached unto us; for by him have we seen the dead raised, and men Delivered from divers infirmities: but this man seeketh contention, we know it (or, but what this contention is, we know not) for there is no small stir made among us. Perchance also he will now enter into Rome; for yesterday they besought him with great acclamations, saying unto him: Thou art God in Italy, thou art the saviour of the Romans: haste quickly unto Rome." (Vercelli copy of the Acts of Peter, 4)Note the detail about Simon Magus calling himself a god. This no doubt references Justin Martyr, who said that Simon Magus called himself a god. This in turn was probably based on the gnostic teachings of being one with God and having his glory. That teaching that even made it into the New Testament "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me" (John 17:22-23). So this is a story of competing ideas within the same movement.
"...haste quickly unto Rome. But he spake to the people with a shrill voice, saying: Tomorrow about the seventh hour ye shall see me fly over the gate of the city in the form (habit) wherein ye now see me speaking unto you. Therefore, brethren, if it seem good unto you, let us go and await carefully the issue of the matter. They all therefore ran together and came unto the gate. And when it was the seventh hour, behold suddenly a dust was seen in the sky afar off, like a smoke shining with rays stretching far from it. And when he drew near to the gate, suddenly he was not seen: and thereafter he appeared, standing in the midst of the people; whom they all worshipped, and took knowledge that he was the same that was seen of them the day before." (Acts of Peter, 4)Notice the smoke and dust and distance, and that Simon Magus planned this, and specified the time and exact place. These details make it plausible. With that much control, any good conjurer could choose just the right location, angle (and time of day for lighting) and props (a dummy on a string moving quickly in the distance?) for maximum effect. Before we condemn Simon Magus for trickery, recall that the same passage just said that Paul was famous for raising the dead. It sounds like Paul and Simon Magus were very similar, but the later writers wanted to make them seem different. Simon Magus was not necessarily deceptive: he might simply been a radical, saying "anybody can be a god, look what I can do!" Rather like The Amazing Randi debunking frauds. That would certainly be popular. The idea of Jesus as a man-god might appeal to him. The Acts of Peter continues:
"And the brethren were not a little offended among themselves, seeing, moreover, that Paul was not at Rome, neither Timotheus nor Barnabas, for they had been sent into Macedonia by Paul [conveniently?], and that there was no man to comfort us, to speak nothing of them that had but just become catechumens. And as Simon exalted himself yet more by the works which he did, and many of them daily called Paul a sorcerer, and others a deceiver, of so great a multitude that had been established in the faith all fell away" (ibid)So Paul was just as bad, according to people who had actually seen him working. The use of deception for a higher cause is common every new religion: just ask their critics. (And deception is used by every government as well: part of your taxes goes to a secret service that sometimes tells lies in other nations.) So this part has the ring of truth. Everything up to this point is entirely what we would expect, with no need for the supernatural. But now finally we get to Peter and the story starts to become unlikely:
"And as they [the few who still believed in Paul] prayed and fasted, God was already teaching Peter at Jerusalem of that which should come to pass. For whereas the twelve years which the Lord Christ had enjoined upon him were fulfilled..." (ibid)By this time, the gospels of Matthew and Luke had pushed Jesus' ministry back to about AD 30. "Twelve years" takes us to AD 42, when Peter disappeared from the book of Acts. But where did Jesus say that Peter should only stay in Jerusalem for twelve years? Why would he say that? It sounds like something be invented afterwards, to explain why Peter disappeared in AD 42. We know that Mark wrote his gospel to Rome, so it was reasonable to guess that Peter went to Rome. And if Peter went to Rome, this must have been in Jesus' plan, right?
"he showed him a vision after this manner, saying unto him: Peter, that Simon the sorcerer whom thou didst cast out of Judaea, convicting him, hath again come before thee (prevented thee) at Rome. [...] But delay thee not: set forth on the morrow, and there shalt thou find a ship ready, setting sail for Italy" (ibid)From this point the supernatural comes thick and fast. A vision has arranged a ship, the captain wants no money, Jesus appears to them when the ship is in the middle of the sea, and the captain is converted. When they arrive in Rome (thanks to a supernatural wind) Peter learns where Simon is hiding thanks to a talking dog:
"And Peter seeing a great dog bound with a strong chain, went to him and loosed him, and when he was loosed the dog received a man's voice and said unto Peter: What dost thou bid me to do, thou servant of the unspeakable and living God? Peter said unto him: Go in and say unto Simon in the midst of his company: Peter saith unto thee, Come forth abroad, for thy sake am I come to Rome, thou wicked one and deceiver of simple souls." (Acts of Peter, 9)After that, this is how Peter proved to the people that he was sent by God:
"And Peter turned and saw a herring (sardine) hung in a window, and took it and said to the people: If ye now see this swimming in the water like a fish, will ye be able to believe in him whom I preach? And they said with one voice: Verily we will believe thee. Then he said -now there was a bath for swimming at hand: In thy name, O Jesu Christ, forasmuch as hitherto it is not believed in, in the sight of all these live and swim like a fish. And he cast the herring into the bath, and it lived and began to swim." (Acts of Peter, 13)And so it goes on. Peter defeats Simon Magus, by using better miracles. Here is the final act of the battle of magic, where Peter won. This is Peter's prayer:
"hasten thy grace, O Lord, and let him [Simon Magus'] fall from the height and be disabled; and let him not die but be brought to nought, and break his leg in three places. And he fell from the height and brake his leg in three places. Then every man cast stones at him and went away home, and thenceforth believed Peter." (Acts of Peter, 32)What are we to make of all this? Some part of the Acts of Peter are confirmed by earlier texts:
- The believers were split between the twelve Jewish apostles based in Jerusalem, and Paul's gentile converts elsewhere in the Roman empire
- Peter used violence, to rule by fear
- Peter fought a Christian believer called "Simon Magus" who may have been a metaphor for Paul
- Peter disappeared around AD42
- Paul and Simon Magus both used signs and wonders to get a crowd's attention
- Paul went to Rome (Acts tells how he got there, but not what happened next)
- When Paul left an area rival missionaries would often teach something different (as he complains in his letters)
- By the second century Rome became the de facto capital of Christianity in the west
Conclusion: AD 42
As we saw from the book of Acts, once we strip away the propaganda, Peter was in serious trouble with the law. He made the local rulers afraid, yet did not hide. So it was inevitable that he would be caught and executed sooner rather than later. So we can see that the other chapters of Acts support the idea that Peter died early. Once Peter died, his angel went to the house of Mark: they were obviously close. So it is only natural that the person who recorded Peter's memories would be Mark. Finally, Jesus' purpose had been to tell the diaspora to come home. The biggest diaspora was in Rome, so it would be natural for Mark to write his account with Roman readers in mind. And thus we see that, based on the content of Mark and Acts, the gospel of Mark was probably written around AD 42 and aimed at the Romans.(top)
Dating Mark, 4 of 10:
The Abomination of Desolation
The argument
The primary reason for dating Mark at around AD 70 is that Mark 13 is traditionally interpreted as referring to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. But there are three serious problems with this. In order of importance:- First, sources. The idea that Mark 13 refers to AD 70 relies heavily on Matthew and Luke. Matthew (in a nearby parable) refers to the city burning (Matthew 22:7). And Luke, when quoting Mark 13, adds a new detail that Jerusalem will be "surrounded by armies". This strongly suggests that Matthew and Luke were written after AD 70. However, those details are not in Mark. And Matthew and Luke were written after Mark, so Mark cannot have relied on them. Later we will see how there is nothing in Mark 13 to link it to the events of AD 70, but there is plenty to link it to the events of AD 39.
- Second, content. Mark refers to the desecration of the temple, rather than the destruction of Jerusalem. Those are completely different things. Mark says that the sign will be when an abomination is set up, strongly hinting at when the temple was defiled in the 160s BC. This almost happened in AD 39 under Caligula, but did not happen in AD 70. Indeed, according to Josephus, the Roman authorities did their best to avoid defiling the temple. The importance of AD 70 was the destruction of the temple, not its defiling. That is, Rome was like Babylon destroying the temple in 587 BC. Later writers (e.g. in the book of Revelation) compared Rome to Babylon. But Jesus in Mark was comparing the events to the desecration under Greece. They are different. They are not the same. Mark is describing what was expected in AD 39-41, not AD 70.
- Third, who does it. In Mark, Jesus taught that his own followers would dismantle the temple in order to cleanse it. Just as the Maccabees did after the temple was defiled. Just as Jesus showed by turning over the tables. Jesus was talking about the righteous, not about Rome.
The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is well known. But not everybody is familiar with Caligula's attempt to desecrate the temple in AD 40. This is how Philo of Alexandria describes hearing the news at the time (Gaius is Caligula's real name):
"'Our temple is destroyed! Gaius has ordered a colossal statue of himself to be erected in the holy of holies, having his own name inscribed upon it with the title of Jupiter!' And while we were all struck dumb with astonishment and terror at what he had told us, and stood still deprived of all motion (for we stood there mute and in despair, ready to fall to the ground with fear and sorrow, the very muscles of our bodies being deprived of all strength by the news which we had heard) [...] the Jews would willingly, if it were possible, endure ten thousand deaths instead of one, rather than submit to see any forbidden thing perpetrated with respect to their religion" (Philo, on the Embassy to Gaius)Caligula ordered his general Petronius to carry out the order. Petronius did everything in his power to delay the project (and finally succeeded in delaying it until Caligula was killed) because he knew it could lead the Jews to rebel in every nation, leading to war:
"[Petronius also considered that the Jews] had spread over the whole face of the earth; for it is diffused throughout every continent, and over every island, so that everywhere it appears but little inferior in number to the original native population of the country. Was it not, then, a most perilous undertaking to draw upon himself such innumerable multitudes of enemies? And was there not danger of allies and friends from all quarters arriving to their assistance? [...] for he was aware that Babylon and many others of the satrapies of the east were occupied by the Jews [...] [he was alarmed that the Jews] might on a sudden direct their march that way and surround him [...] if I comply with them [these commands] the result will very probably be war" (ibid)
Conscious parallels with the Maccabees
Throughout Mark, Jesus follows the pattern of the Maccabees: when the Greek king Antiochus IV desecrated the temple in 167 BC, Judas Maccabeus roused the nation to drive him out and make Judea independent again. In Mark 12-13 we see that Jesus sees the same pattern: the temple is defiled, so the ordinary people must re-establish God's rule (including dismantling the temple to cleanse it: 1 Maccabees 4:36-51)). Jesus' triumumphal entry into Jerusalem, where the people spread trees branches and sang, was modelled on the Maccabees:"So Simon [leader of the Maccabees...] cleansed the houses wherein the idols were, and so entered into it with songs and thanksgiving. [...] he cleansed the tower [of Jerusalem] from pollutions: And entered into it the three and twentieth day of the second month in the hundred seventy and first year, with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and with harps, and cymbals, and with viols, and hymns, and songs: because there was destroyed a great enemy out of Israel." (1 Maccabees 13:47,50-51)And this is Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem:
"And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way. And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest." (Mark 11:8-10)Jesus' first act was to enter the temple and assess the situation, then go and plan what to do about it:
"And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve." (Mark 11:11)The next day his first public act was to cleanse the temple courtyard:
"And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves." (Mark 11:14-17)But how could Jesus know the events would parallel the Maccabees situation so closely? How could Jesus know in AD 36 that in AD 39 Caligula would try to set up a new "abomination of desolation" like Antiochus?
Jesus knew all about Caligula
Jesus knew about Caligula because he knew about his best friend, Agrippa. Agrippa ruled Galilee, and was based at Tiberias, just two hours walk away from Jesus's headquarters at Capernaum. Agrippa was always wasting money, and getting bailed out by his family. That is why he was given Galilee, so he could make some money from taxes. Josephus explains:"So they sent for him, and allotted him Tiberias for his habitation, and appointed him some income of money for his maintenance, and made him a magistrate of that city, by way of honor to him. Yet did not Herod long continue in that resolution of supporting him, though even that support was not sufficient for him; for as once they were at a feast at Tyre, and in their cups, and reproaches were cast upon one another, Agrippa thought that was not to be borne, while Herod hit him in the teeth with his poverty, and with his owing his necessary food to him." (Antiquities, book 18, chapter 6)Notice that this was a humiliation at a feast: so others would have heard. Servants would be there. News gets out. Jesus, you will recall, was probably middle class: he would hear this local gossip. (This particular feast was at Tyre, not too far away.) This humiliation caused Agrippa to leave for Syria, and then Rome, where he became close friends with Caligula. Why? Because Caligula was an immature youth who was named as the next emperor, so would soon be the richest man in the world. Agrippa would never have money problems again. It was Agrippa who suggested that it would be a good idea if emperor Tiberius died, and soon after that Tiberius did die, and many suspect that Caligula killed him. Caligula's nature was well known to insiders, even in AD 36 when Jesus was active. If Jesus paid any attention to the gossip from the palace at Tiberias then he would have heard rumours. He knew that soon Rome would be controlled by a monster who only loved himself, and Caligula's best friend Agrippa would be rewarded with more power in Judaea. It was a safe bet that the present unacceptable situation with the temple (i.e. that the temple already needed to be cleansed) would only get worse. Mark, writing in AD 42, saw Caligula's efforts to place his pagan idol in the temple, and so would remember that Jesus said things would get bad. By AD 42 it looked like an inspired prophecy! This also explains why Mark was writing for an audience in Italy. Although Caligula was killed in AD 41, Agrippa was still the power behind the throne, helping Claudius to power, and one of Claudius' first acts was to expel the Jews from Rome (and when that proved impractical, at least prevent them from meeting in groups). So in AD 42, Antiochus level persecution still seemed very likely. Then Peter was killed. So the church needed to find friends in Rome! So Mark's message to the Jews of Rome became very urgent!
Jesus expected society to collapse
Like Marx, Jesus thought the system would collapse due to its in-built weakness. Like Marx, his goal was to organise "The Common Man" to survive that collapse, then take over:"And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows." ... "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains" (Mark 13:7-8,13)Why would Jesus expect this, speaking in AD 36 or 37? Because he saw both Rome and Judaea in rapid decline. Jesus grew up in the peace and prosperity of the greatest age of Rome: the reign of Augustus, and the early years of Tiberius. But as Tiberius grew older he grew worse. Suetonius, in his "lives of the emperors" describes how Tiberius grew more and more paranoid and unpredictable, until he was hated by everyone. When he finally died in March AD 37, there was rejoicing, and celebrations in the streets. Recall that the empire was still new: Augustus was the first official emperor and Tiberius the second. Then in AD 31: Tiberius adopted Caligula as his successor, after murdering Caligula's family. Outsiders thought Caligula would be like his father Germanicus and be a good ruler, but insiders knew better. Caligula was a cruel child who only cared about himself. Think of it! The first emperor is good. The second gets worse and worse. The next emperor in waiting is a nightmare child from hell. The downward spiral of Rome was obvious! And what about Judaea in particular? And especially Jesus' home region of Galilee? Galilee and Perea were ruled by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Jesus' part of Galilee was ruled by Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great. Herod the Great was bad enough, but at least he was competent. Each generation seemed less and less able to rule. Agrippa was a kid who only got the job from Antipas because Agrippa needed the Galilean tax money to bail him out, because he was always into debt from his partying and bad decisions. And now he had become best friends with Caligula, who was even worse. AD 36: the triggering event, according to Josephus, was when Herod Antipas's armies were defeated after Antipas killed John the Baptist. The Jews saw this as a sign that herod could not hold back the increasing wars. or put another way, fate - God - was finally stepping in. Aretas probably claimed some of the land near Galilee. How could Jesus interpret this chaos on his doorstep, except as a decline toward "wars and rumours of wars"? Also around this time the Samaritans tried to reclaim Moses' holy site, Mt Gerizim. Pilate then stopped them by force: this was the event that led to Pilate being recalled to Rome and (apparently) fired from his job. If the events of Mark were in AD 37 then all these things were happening very quickly. And all of this against the backdrop of a hungry and capable Parthian empire that was only held back by one man, Vitellius in Syria. "Wars and rumours of wars" indeed! Whether Jesus made a big deal over the possibility of the temple being defiled, or whether this was a passing comment that was remembered during the Caligula crisis, we cannot know. But the Caligula crisis seemed to be fulfilling everything Jesus predicted. Now let us examine Mark 13 line by line.
Not one stone left on another
"And as he went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Teacher, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, 'Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.'" (Mark 13:1-2)Thrown down by whom? Jesus' first act on entering Jerusalem was to overturn the tables at the temple. He was showing what would happen: he would dismantle the temple in order to cleanse it. This was his purpose from the beginning (Mark 1:2): to cleanse the temple. Jesus at his trial, like Stephen, the first martyr, at his trial, were both accused of wanting to dismantle the temple. This is what the Macabbees did when the temple was defiled, and Jesus modelled himself on them (entering Jerusalam) and modelled this prophecy on them ("the abomination of desolation"). The whole plan, from the beginning was to dismantle Herod's gigantic noisy money sucking temple in order to create something more like God intended. And Jesus knew that would get him killed. To remove any doubt, the disciples asked:
"Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are all about to be accomplished?"Jesus then gave the order of expected events:
- Many shall come in my name, saying, I am he; and shall lead many astray
- ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars [...] but the end is not yet
- nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall be famines
- they shall deliver you up to councils; and in synagogues shall ye be beaten [...] they lead you to judgment
- brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children shall rise up against parents
- ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake
- when ye see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not (let him that readeth understand), then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains
- there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders
- then shall they see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory
"And in his teaching he said, Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, and to have salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts: they that devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; these shall receive greater condemnation. And he sat down over against the treasury, and beheld how the multitude cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a poor widow, and she cast in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, This poor widow cast in more than all they that are casting into the treasury: for they all did cast in of their superfluity; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. And as he went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Teacher, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down."Jesus did not like the religious elites showing off their wealth. And that was the whole purpose of Herod's temple! Herod built it to show off his wealth. Jesus considered the temple to be defiled, and he came to cleanse it. That was his very first action when he first entered Jerusalem:
"And they come to Jerusalem: and he entered into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold the doves; and he would not suffer that any man should carry a vessel through the temple. And he taught, and said unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of robbers." (Mark 11:15-17)The idea that the temple was defiled and had to be rebuilt was a common one. Jesus called himself "the son of man", the title used by Ezekiel: Ezekiel's message was that the temple was defiled as a result of the people's sins:
"My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it. Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled." (Ezekiel 7:22-24)Ezekiel (the "son of man") then spent many chapters describing a new temple to be built to replace the old one. Others felt the same way. For example, the Essenes, and the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essenes felt that the temple was defiled, and the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Temple Scroll describes a new and better temple to replace it. John the Baptist is often linked to the Essenes and Jesus was John's successor. Would Jesus really dismantle the temple? Yes, because that is what the Maccabeees did. When Antiochus defiled the temple in 167 BC, the stones of the temple had to be removed, in order to completely cleanse, rededicate and rebuild the site as holy again:
"Then said Judas and his brothers, 'Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it.' So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. In the courts they saw bushes sprung up as in a thicket, or as on one of the mountains. They saw also the chambers of the priests in ruins. Then they rent their clothes, and mourned with great lamentation, and sprinkled themselves with ashes. They fell face down on the ground, and sounded the signal on the trumpets, and cried out to Heaven. Then Judas detailed men to fight against those in the citadel until he had cleansed the sanctuary. He chose blameless priests devoted to the law, and they cleansed the sanctuary and removed the defiled stones to an unclean place. They deliberated what to do about the altar of burnt offering, which had been profaned. 45 And they thought it best to tear it down, lest it bring reproach upon them, for the gentiles had defiled it. So they tore down the altar, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them. Then they took unhewn[d] stones, as the law directs, and built a new altar like the former one. They also rebuilt the sanctuary and the interior of the temple, and consecrated the courts. They made new holy vessels, and brought the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table into the temple. 50 Then they burned incense on the altar and lighted the lamps on the lampstand, and these gave light in the temple. They placed the bread on the table and hung up the curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken." (1 Maccabees 4:36-51)Another reason to dismantle the walls is simply to demonstrate the power of the prophet. Josephus recalls another self-styled messiah a few years later, and he said he could throw down the walls as well:
"Moreover, there came out of Egypt about this time to Jerusalem one that said he was a prophet, and advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city, and at the distance of five furlongs. He said further, that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down; and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those walls, when they were fallen down." (Josephus, Antiquities 20:8:6)So Jesus was not talking about the Romans removing the stones of the temple. He was talking about the temple being defiled, so that the believers must rise up, take power, dismantle the temple and rebuild it. This could not happen in AD 70, when a vast army destroyed everything. But it was a realistic plan in AD 40, when all they had to do was drive some unpopular people out and then get permission from Rome to rebuild.
"I am the anointed"
"Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." (Mark 13:6)A "christ" is just "an anointed one" and includes not just charismatic leaders but any princes or priests. There will be hundreds or thousands of priests preaching what they say is God's word at any time. So if this is what Jesus meant by "there will be messiahs" he may as well have said "the sky will be blue". However, later verses narrow down what he meant: people claiming to represent Jesus himself. Which implies people trying to lead his own movement. This implies a time at the beginning of the Jesus movement. Because if they continued to "deceive many" after that point then the movement would not survive. "If the trumpet has an uncertain sound who will follow it?" That is exactly what happened: in Mark we see how the apostles disagree with Jesus over what greatness means. When Jesus leaves we see three competing factions: Peter (confrontational), James (peace making) and Paul (a gentile church). For the movement to survive, one had to win. By AD 70 Paul was the clear winner: there were still schisms, but they were less then in the early 40s.
Rumours of wars, but be not troubled
"When ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet." (Mark 13:7)This cannot possibly refer to AD 70! that was not a rumour of war, that was an actual war! The Roman legions marched into Judea! "Be not troubled?" That was exactly the opposite: that was the time to be very, very troubled indeed! However, this applies perfectly to AD 36. It was the last days of Tiberius' reign, where rumours were flying about the old man being a tyrant, and bad things happening in other countries. Yet the reality, as historians how, was that the Roman world was still stable and peaceful. So be not troubled: the end is not yet.
The beginning of sorrows
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows." (Mark 13:8)This was not true in AD 70. It was not "nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom", it was a single war in otherwise peaceful empire. There were no earthquakes (at least, no more than usual: the "earthquake" described by Josephus sounds more like a noisy storm). At it was not "the beginning of sorrows" it was the height and climax of war! However, the description is exactly what would be expected in AD 37: Caligula finally became the emperor and Tiberius compared him to Phaedrus: he just wanted to watch the world burn.
Earthquakes
Sediments suggest a significant Earthquake in Judea some time between AD 26 and 36. The previous big one was in 31 BC. it's a tiny sample size, but it was reasonable for Jesus to think that perhaps earthquakes were increasing. So it was rational to expect another within a couple of years (before AD 40). It was less rational to expect then to increase at some random point in the future (e.g. before AD 70), and so MArkj would have no reason to draw attention to it. So this argues for Mark being written very close to AD 36.Deliver you up to synagogues
"They shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. (Mark 13:9)This emphasis on Jewish synagogues argues more for an early date, when the movement was strictly Jewish. And for this to be "a testimony against" rulers and kings, this implies that the rulers and kings both cared what the Jesus people said, and might be ashamed when they broke Jesus' laws. Again this implies that the "rulers and kings" were more likely Jewish. A Jewish context argues for an early date, whereas a gentile context would argue for a later one.
The good news to all nations
As we saw earlier, Saul did not visit Jerusalem often, as his role was to find Jesus' followers preaching to the diaspora. So that was Jesus' plan right at the start: to tell the "ev-angelos" that the hated Herods were on their way out, and tell the Jews in other lands to come home and help in the revolution. This does not make sense in AD 70 because by then "preach to all nations" had changed its meaning and now meant "everybody should hear about Jesus". That was an impossible task, because new people are being born all the time, and there are so many nations. But the smaller task in AD 36, of telling the Jews to come home for the revolution was much more practical.Take no thought beforehand
"But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. (Mark 13:11)This fits well in AD 36: there was no formal church structure, no formal structured texts, and no formal list of new beliefs. But in AD 70 the church had a collection of writings of Paul, for people to premeditate upon, telling them what they should and should not think. So this statement fits AD 36 better than AD 70.
Divided families
Verses 12-13 describe families violently divided over the message. This is exactly what Jesus would expect: he is telling the mainstream churches (and hence believers) that they are seriously wrong. And he is doing so by appealing to the things they say they believe! This is highly inflammatory, and it is easy to see how families would become violently divided over this message. However, it is also possible to imagine scenarios where the AD 70 message (supernatural Jesus, supernatural second coming) could also lead to violence within families. My feeling is that a return to Judaism would be more likely to split up Jewish families than a completely new religion, but this is not a "slam dunk", "smoking gun" kind of proof. Unlike the next verse...The Abomination of Desolation
"But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:" (Mark 13:14)This is what Daniel said:
"Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?" (Daniel 8:13)
"And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." (Daniel 9:26)
"And arms shall stand on his [a mighty foreign king's] part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." (Daniel 11:31)
"And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." (Daniel 12:11)Daniel was talking about Antiochus IV placing a pagan statue in the temple in 168 BC. This did not happen in AD 70, there was no abomination "set up". On the contrary, Josephus describes how the emperor wanted to avoid defiling the temple if possible, and eventually just destroyed the place. But Caligula tried to do it between AD 39 and his death in 41. This also gives an idea of the time frame: Jesus may have expected the conflict to be over in about three and a half years. If Mark saw the period begin when Caligula demanded the statue in AD 39, AD 42 was the last year of the prophecy.
Flee to the mountains
"...then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains"This does not fit the AD 70 theory, because then the believers were warned to flee to the town of Pella, which is below sea level definitely not in the mountains!
"The people of the Church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by revelation before the war to those in the city who were worthy of it to depart and dwell in one of the cities of Perea which they called Pella. To it those who believed on Christ travelled from Jerusalem, so that when holy men had altogether deserted the royal capital of the Jews and the whole land of Judaea" (Eusebius, Ecclesiasitcal History 3.5.3)"Them that be in Judea" implies fleeing out of Judea, or at the very least, away from Jerusalem. The obvious mountains to choose are the mountains in Galilee, with their caves where the zealots hide. That agrees with the ending of Mark, where believers are urged to go to Galilee. This suggests an early date for Mark: Galilee was the heart of the movement in AD 36, not in AD 70.
Don't hesitate
"Let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter." (Mark 13:15-18)This cannot refer to AD 70, because they had years of warnings. But this applies perfectly to the situation expected under Caligula: he was a force for chaos and could not be predicted. Jesus correctly predicted that Caligula (or his opportunistic sidekick Agrippa) would cause disaster, but only insiders knew this: according to Suetonius, most people at the start loved Caligula, and thought of his just as the sweet little boy (when he was the three year old nicknamed "little boots"), son of the wise and beloved leader Germanicus. So for most people (not insiders) Caligula's unpredictable evil came as a shock. When you hear that Caligula or his friend are after you, do not go back into your house to pick up your coat, run!!!
Worse than anything, ever
"For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." (Mark 13:19)This did not apply to AD 70. Terrible though the war was, it was not the worst thing since God created the world. It was not worse than the destruction of Jerusalem under the Babylonians, an event familiar to all Jews. Plenty of other cities had been destroyed and even ploughed up, including the nearby city of Tyre, and its sister city Carthage. These were all famous events. The destruction of Jerusalem was just business as usual for Rome. However, in AD 36 things looked very different. The Roman empire (as opposed to the republic) was very new. The first emperor, Augustus, died only twenty two years earlier. Never before in history had one man so directly controlled so much of the world. The second emperor, One "good" emperor, then the second slides into madness, and appoints a monster bent on destroying everything! What is coming next? Surely there could be nothing so bad in the history of the world! If Mark was written in AD 42 it was still possible for a rational person to expect the very worst. But any later and it becomes obvious that Claudius (who replaced Caligula) is a better leader, and the Pax Romana is real: the world is actually more stable than usual. By AD 70 there had been good emperors, bad emperors, the system had settled down. Now sure, an irrational Christian might still think AD 70 was the end. But any rational person could see that "worst tike ever" looked possible in AD 36, but was not realistic in AD 70.
The days shortened
"Except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days." (Mark 13:20)That actually happened: events moved very quickly, and the chaos returned to normal. Caligula was assassinated in AD 41 and a sensible man replaced him. Of course, Jesus could not have known Caligula would be assassinated, but he could see that a mad teenager's reign could not last long. In contrast, if the prophecy is dated at AD 70 then we are talking about Titus and Vespasian, two seasoned statesmen who are in the game for the long haul. And "no flesh should be saved" would make no sense: Titus and Vespasian were not mad. They just wanted the world back to (their) normal and they got it.
Signs and wonders
"And then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ; or, Lo, there; believe it not: for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect." (Mark 13:21-22)In AD 36 Jesus was crucified, and his followers were in flux. So any random conjurer or healer could claim to be the new leader. That had all changed by AD 70: the apostles had established themselves as the authorities, and they had established networks with a track record. So no outsider could come in and claim to lead the church.
Sun and moon darkened, stars fall, heaven shakes
"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken." (Mark 13:24-25)Jesus is using the language of Isaiah and Ezekiel:
"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. [...] Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger." (Isaiah 13:9-13)Ezekiel, the "son of man" who foresaw the destruction of Jerusalem and then a new people and new temple, says the same:
"And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God." (Ezekiel 32:7-8)This is a vivid description of how war feels: especially the smoke of burning buildings that blocks out the sun. Maybe the sky is not really shaking, or the stars falling, but that is how it feels: the sky is full of moving smoke, and burning embers are falling everywhere. Because invaders always burn the enemy homes:
"And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire." (2 Kings 25:9)Some translations make clear that the sun and moon going dark is because of clouds (presumably clouds of smoke):
"And if one looks at the land, there is only darkness and distress; even the sun will be darkened by clouds." (Isaiah 5:30, NIV)Burning a city also creates a lot of falling embers, looking like falling stars. Isaiah visualises them floating down like withered leaves (just the way that embers fall):
"all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree." (Isaiah 34:4, NIV)Seeing smoke in the distance was key to inspiring the Jews to defeat Antiochus' armies. This is what happened the day after the Maccabees suffered a defeat:
"But as soon as it was day, Judas shewed himself in the plain with three thousand men, who nevertheless had neither armour nor swords to their minds. And they saw the camp of the heathen, that it was strong and well harnessed, and compassed round about with horsemen; and these were expert of war. Then said Judas to the men that were with him, Fear ye not their multitude, neither be ye afraid of their assault. Remember how our fathers were delivered in the Red sea, when Pharaoh pursued them with an army. Now therefore let us cry unto heaven, if peradventure the Lord will have mercy upon us, and remember the covenant of our fathers, and destroy this host before our face this day: [...] As Judas was yet speaking these words, there appeared a part of them looking out of the mountain: Who when they perceived that the Jews had put their host to flight and were burning the tents; for the smoke that was seen declared what was done: When therefore they [their enemies] perceived these things, they were sore afraid, and seeing also the host of Judas in the plain ready to fight, They fled every one into the land of strangers." (1 Maccabees 4:6-10,19-22)This is what Jesus expected in the battle to free Israel. It is the story of the faithful Jews driving out the invaders. This makes sense in AD 40, but not in AD 70. AD 70 could never be a triumph because Rome was united against a handful of rebels. But if Caligula had defiled the temple in AD 40 as intended, then the rebels would have a lot of sympathy in Rome. Many Roman leaders hated Caligula. That is why he was killed. That is why Petronius delayed obeying the command as long as he could. Jesus had followers among the Romans: this would not be handful of Jews against a united empire. It would be a tough battle, but it might be won. AD 40 makes sense: the burning city might be followed by Jewish victory. It would be a repeat of 167 BC. But rebelling in AD 70 could only led to defeat.
The son of man coming in clouds
"And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." (Mark 13:26)The "son of man" just means the common man. It was especially used by Ezekiel when he spoke of how the elites had corrupted the church: he, the common man, was chosen to warn the elites, and tell them that their temple and city would be destroyed so that a new better one could be created. Jesus saw himself in the same role: the common man against the corrupt elites. The word "clouds" refers to clouds of smoke that represented God on Sinai and then on the desert exodus:
"used of the cloud which led the Israelites in the wilderness" (Strong's Greek concordance, word 3507).Remember how the Maccabees' inspired the people with stories of the pillar of cloud that led the children of Israel to the promised land (i.e. the smoke from the fire that was carried at the front of the people). That is how Jesus saw himself, arriving like Moses, bringing the diaspora back to the promised land, carrying a fire before them, and finding the land full of smoke because the previous corrupt regime had destroyed itself in war. Later gospels changed this referring to "clouds of heaven", as if Jesus would fly through the sky. That was the understanding by AD 70, and of course it makes no sense. People do not fly! But the earlier meaning, coming out of the smoke of the old nation, ready to build a new one, works if we imagine fighting Caligula with other Romans on our side.
The plan to gather Jews from other countries
"And then shall he send forth the angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven." (mark 13:27)"Angel" just means "messenger"."Uttermost part of heaven" is just a way to visualising a great distance: it is sometimes translated horizon. E.g. Nehemiah talks about gathering scattered Israel from other countries (the thing that Jesus plans to do):
"But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there." (Nehemiah 1:9. KJV)The same verse in a more modern translation:
"but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name." (Nehemiah 1:9. NIV)The phrase "four winds of heaven" means the same thing, but in all directions. it adds the poetic idea of people being pushed far away by the wind (e.g. wind in a boat's sails). For example:
"I will bring against Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven; I will scatter them to the four winds, and there will not be a nation where Elam's exiles do not go." (Jeremiah 49:36)
"Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven, declares the Lord. (Zechariah 2:6)So we can see Jesus plan: at Passover, Jews from all nations come to Jerusalem. It looks like Jesus hoped to send the message back with them to gather the true believers to come back. Jesus also had supporters among the Romans, so together they could take back control of Israel from the Herodians, Pharisees and Sadducees. It's an interesting plan. It was a little too ambitious, but at least it makes sense if placed around AD 40. it makes no sense is placed around AD 70, decades after Jesus died.
This generation shall not pass
"Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch. (Mark 13:30,35-37)The shorter the time frame, the more sense this makes. If it is spoken in AD 36 and published in AD 42 then it retains some urgency, and most of "this generation" is still alive. But if it is allegedly spoken in AD 33 but really not published until around AD 70? Half of Jesus' generation must be dead before the prophecy can be fulfilled.Based on this verse, a late publication is possible, but an early date is more likely.
Jesus leaves to plan
The chapter ends: (Mark 13:24-37)"For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house" (Mark 13:34)Jesus is obviously planning something. One big clue was the so-called "mount of transfiguration" when, looking up the hill into the sunlight, people further up the hill in white robes seemed to glow in the sun. Jesus was planning something with people he code-named "Moses" and "Elias". Soon after he told the regular disciples where to find a donkey and also a room already booked: clearly he had another group working in secret. Jesus' plan to be rescued from the cross and survive crucifixion is another clue, as is is instruction to meet back in Galilee. It looks like he planned to leave, continue planning in Galilee, then come back in a big way. But history shows that it didn't work out that way.
"and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch."This is one of many passages where Jesus follows the pattern set as Ezra, the great reformer (and some say, the founder of Judaism as we know it: the scriptures can be traced back to Ezra's time, circa 450 BC, but it is hard to trace them back much further). Ezra was one of the captives in Babylon: the Babylonians took the rulers and educated people to Babylon, and left a few farmers and junior priests behind. As Ezra and the others left for Babylon, they would of course urge the remaining people to care for the land until the captives return.
"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:Eventually the rest of the Jews, including Ezra, would return to claim the land, but they did not know when.
"Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping."When Ezra did return he found the work was progressing slowly and the people were not keeping the law. Much as Jesus found Israel to be asleep at the watch.
"And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."The time for complacency was over! Soon the signs will be fulfilled, the sleepers will be shaken awake, and Jesus, like Ezra, would lead the rebuilding off the kingdom the way it was supposed to be. All of this makes sense if Jesus expected the people to come back fairly soon, perhaps in two or three years. It makes no sense for Jesus to make people wait until AD 70! However, Jesus' plan did not work as expected. Caligula was stopped, he was not able to persuade many of the Pharisees, whatever foreign Jews he approached were obviously not interested, and he probably did not survive the crucifixion. This created a problem for the later church, so they created new revised gospels that tried to force the prophecies onto AD 70, and papered over any cracks with appeals to the supernatural. But if we stick to just the words of Mark, the events described in Mark 13 really only work if set around AD 40, as seen from AD 36.
More support for AD 42
The conscious parallels with the Maccabean revolt strengthens the case for an early visit of Simon (Simon Peter) to Rome. The Maccabeean revolt took years, and the fighting ended by making a deal with the current ruler. In 142 BC the last surviving Maccabee brother, Simon, made a deal to support the Seleucid king Demetrius II Nicator, and in return Judea no longer had to pay tribute. Judea was finally independent! To follow this pattern, the final step after the battle would be for a modern Simon to visit Rome and negotiate terms. Events did not turn out as planned of course, but a visit to Rome by a modern day Simon must have been Jesus' plan from the beginning.(top)
Dating Mark, 5 of 10:
David Strauss and the supernatural
The argument
Mark is often assumed to contain supernatural events. This means the story has been changed. Changes take time. Those changes also make Mark very similar to Matthew and Luke, leading to a similar late date. However, a closer look shows that there is nothing supernatural in Mark. This means that Mark is fundamentally different from Matthew and Luke: it takes an opposite direction: natural, not supernatural. Such a complete reversal is far more likely to take place early in the life of an organisation, before its nature is set in stone. For the gentile side of the church, this would have to be before Paul established the supernatural Jesus in the 40s. For the Jewish side of the church, this would have to be when it was still realistic for Jesus to return and take charge of Jerusalem without supernatural means. After that it made no sense to write Mark, which is all about Jesus returning with the diaspora to cleanse the temple. This was only a naturalistic possibility during the reign of Caligula or soon after, when it was still possible for a weakened Rome to coincide with a chaotic Judaea and a rapidly growing force of converts led by a Jesus who survived. Within a year of Caligula's death Claudius had clearly set the empire back on a stable footing, and the chance of Jesus still hiding somewhere with a hug band of converts was vanishingly small. So whether we look at the gentile church or the Jewish church, a non-supernatural Jesus only makes sense in the early 40s or before.Strauss's argument
Supernatural claims can be used to date the text. For example, here David Strauss, the father of modern gospel dating, examines the birth of John the Baptist as described in Luke.
"the birth of the Baptist could not have been preceded and attended by these supernatural occurrences. The question now arises, what positive view of the matter is to replace the rejected literal orthodox explanation?" (Strauss, The Life of Jesus, part 1 chapter 1)Strauss then methodically looks for more likely explanations, and eventually is left with only one possibility: the event in question is simply fabricated:
"it is impossible that a narrative so disfigured, (we should rather say, so embellished,) could have been a family record" (ibid)Such a "disfigured" story is evidence of changes. By reconstructing those changes we can reconstruct a likely history of the document, and hence its age. Supernatural events are the best place to start, both because they imply changes, and also because they indicate that the writer cannot be trusted. Matthew, Luke and John are so full of supernatural events, and other changes, that they it is easier to think of them as late forgeries, not early histories. But Mark is different.
Nothing supernatural in Mark
As we saw in the synoptic section, we cannot judge Mark based on Matthew and Luke. Because Matthew and Luke were not written when Mark was written. We can only judge Mark based on the documents available at the time. That is, using the old meanings of words, before the church added its new meanings. When we judge Mark based on earlier documents, we see that Mark contains no supernatural elements. Mark's "miracles" are simply "dynamic acts": the Greek word is "dunamic", the root of the English word "dynamic". They are no more supernatural than the dynamic acts of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Here for example are some of the Julius Caesar's dynamic acts. We will then look at Jesus' dynamic acts for comparison:- Winning battles against impossible odds. It is almost as if Caesar had a miraculous power, including miraculous healing ability. Because soldiers who should have lain down to die instead kept on fighting. For example, "Scaeva, with one eye gone, his thigh and shoulder wounded, and his shield bored through in a hundred and twenty places, continued to guard the gate of a fortress put in his charge. Acilius in the sea-fight at Massilia grasped the stern of one of the enemy's ships, and when his right hand was lopped off, rivalling the famous exploit of the Greek hero Cynegirus, boarded the ship and drove the enemy before him with the boss of his shield." (Seutonius)
- Giving his armies impossible speed: most armies struggle to march forty miles in a day. Caesar's army sometimes marched for ninety miles in a day! They would then suddenly appearing behind enemy lines, as if by a miracle.
- Caesar himself had inhuman speed: sometimes he would send a swift messenger, a trained runner, to announce Caesar's approach to some distant city, and then Caesar would arrive first.
- Suetonius records signs and omens in nature when Caesar died.
- The military success was due to Caesar's ability to inspire his soldiers. He could inspire more more sacrifice than other generals. We will look at why in a moment.
- Ninety miles in one day was achieved by marching for twenty two hours (all day and all night) through rigorous training, carrying merely weapons and no supplies.
- Caesar's personal speed was simply his exceptional skill and insane desire to create his legend at all costs.
- Suetonius was merely looking hard for natural events: strange natural events are actually common if we look hard enough.
A Caesar-like miracle
A good example of a Caesar-like miracle, based on speed and inspiring others, is when Jesus rescued his friends. Here is the account in Mark:"And straightway he constrained his disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side to Bethsaida, while he himself sendeth the multitude away. And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray. And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night..." (Mark 6:45-48)Imagine the scene: Jesus is many miles away praying or sleeping. The men have been rowing all night against the wind. They must be ready to collapse with exhaustion but are still (as far as they know) miles from the shore. The fourth watch of the night is 3 am. It is pitch black. They are so tired, so in despair of ever reaching the other side against that relentless wind. Imagine how you would feel! And then this happens:
"about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking "epi" the sea; and he would have passed by them: but they, when they saw him walking "epi" the sea, supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw him, and were troubled. But he straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves; for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened." (Mark 6:48-51)I have left one word as Greek, "epi", to not distract from the story. Because the story is of the character of Jesus as a leader and an object of love. He is supposed to be miles away and asleep, but in their hour of greatest need he has somehow found them and rescued them! Like Caesar, Jesus must walk with phenomenal speed! How stunned and overjoyed the men must feel! What a leader! How they must love him! What an unforgettable experience that describes Jesus' character more than any words could! They had "forgotten the loaves": they had forgotten how much Jesus cared for his followers, how even when it seemed hopeless, he would give up his loaves and fishes, his sleep, even his life, for his friends. So how did Jesus reach the boat? Well it was 3 am, so everything was pitch black. But the boat itself probably had an oil lamp, so they could at least see a short way. But that map means others can see them from miles away. Jesus sent his days walking around that lake, so he knew the weather patterns. Clearly he saw a wind was growing, so he hurried along the side of the lake watching the boat's distant light. And eventually, at 3 am, the boat happened to be close enough to the shore (that was too dark for them to see) that Jesus could shout and be clearly heard. There is nothing supernatural here, just a story of tremendous love and skill. So, what about that word "epi"? It is the root of the modern words like "episode", "epilog", "epidemic", etc. It's a very generic word and can mean "to", "by", "at, "on", "before", etc. Clearly in this case it should be read as "by": Jesus walked by the sea, concerned for his friends in the boat. But later gospel writers wanted Jesus to have supernatural powers. So they came to see "epi" as "on", as if Jesus could walk on water! Other gospels then added supernatural details like Peter walking on the water as well, but sinking because he did not believe. Mark is not supernatural, but other gospels are.
Another Caesar-like miracle
One of Caesar's famous stories is when he showed his bravery by remaining calm in a storm:"Wishing, therefore, to sail to Italy in person and unattended, he embarked on a small boat in disguise, saying that he had been sent by Caesar; and forced the captain to set sail, although there was a wind. 3 When, however, they had got away from land, and the gale swept violently down upon them and the waves buffeted them terribly, so that the captain did not longer dare even under compulsion to sail farther, but undertook to return even without his passenger's consent, than Caesar revealed himself, as if by this act he could stop the storm, and said, "Be of good cheer: you carry Caesar." Such spirit and such hope had he, either naturally or as the result of some oracle, that he felt firm confidence in his safety even contrary to the appearance of things. Nevertheless, he did not get across, but after struggling for a long time in vain sailed back." (from "Roman History" by Cassius Dio)Jesus had the same unnatural confidence and need to inspire confidence in others:
"And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side [of the sea of Galilee]. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." (Mark 4:34-9)Note that it was Jesus' idea to cross the lake, and other little ships went too. Jesus was clearly very intelligent, and he spent his time walking around the sea of Galilee, so he had a very good idea of how storms behave. So did all the other captains who chose to come with him. The storm cannot have been very bad - he slept through it. But some of the disciples did not know the sea, so they panicked. Now part of being charismatic is knowing how to put on a show. It was Jesus who decided to command the storm: if the storm looked likely to continue then he would not have put on that show.
A Caesar-like health miracle
I mentioned how Caesar inspired people to rise and work when they should have lain down sick. A related aspect is Caesars intelligence: he could see what people were capable of. We see both of these aspects, judging others' ability and inspiring it in them, in the time when Jesus was told that a girl was dead:"And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." (Mark 5:39)Early Christians, desperate to believe that Jesus was supernatural, recalled this as "raising the dead." But Jesus himself said that she was not dead. In ancient times they did not have modern medicine. If they could not find a pulse (or did not even know to look for one) they could easily assume somebody was dead when they were merely weak. In this case Jesus realised the girl was not dead, and she recovered. Also note that the girl was 'twelve years' old, the age of bar mitzvah for girls: her coming of age. And it sounds like Jesus knew her already, which helped her to regain consciousness and gave her the strength to sit up. Perhaps she was under great emotional pressure? There may be more to this story than meets the eye. The one thing we can be sure of is that she was not actually dead: Jesus said so. But later gospels wanted to make Jesus supernatural: so they not only said she was dead and Jesus was presumably joking, but they add other far more dramatic stories of Jesus raising other people from the dead. People like Lazarus, or... himself. Jesus' most common healings can be explained like this: people getting up because they feel social pressure. Typically Mark will talk about a noisy crowd of people, and one or two will feel so excited and inspired that they feel they have been healed physically. The lame walk, the blind see, etc. We see the same in modern faith healing. It works because there are many degrees of blindness, many degrees of lameness, and so on. A moderately lame man can often walk a few yards, and a functionally blind man can often see vague shapes in good light. The nose and crowds remind us that this is not a scientific study: we do not see the person beforehand, we do not see them after, and we do not see the statistics of how people hope to be healed but remain sick.
Like Caesar, Jesus had tremendous force of character
Most of the "healing miracles" in Mark are just Jesus facing other men down. Julius Caesar would understand! For example:"And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Nazarene? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him." (Mark 1:23-27)An "unclean spirit" just meant the person was angry or stressed. Much as we might say an angry man has his demons. For example, Israel's first king, Saul, never wanted his job, and found the stresses of fighting the surrounding tribes often made him angry or depressed. At those times young David would play music to calm him down, driving out the evil spirit:
"And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." (1 Samuel 16:23)"Spirit" is just the Greek "pneuma" meaning breath. "Unclean" in the context of a synagogue just means against the law of Moses: it could be ritually unclean, or breaking some rule. We know the man "cried out" - as others with "unclean spirits" do, so it seems to refer to someone shouting and raving. This would be very disturbing to the worshippers. Imagine a stranger today bursting into a wedding or funeral or solemn church service, to shout and swear. Luckily the man had heard about Jesus, because John (who according to Josephus was very famous) had said that Jesus was chosen by God. So he as mentally prepared to listen to Jesus. Jesus had the man visualise his anger as a separate entity so he could push it out. The key to Jesus' success was how he spoke "with authority". He had tremendous confidence and charisma. His personality dominated the weaker man. Dominant personalities are not supernatural: they can be explained by social dominance theory. Every social group, animal or human, creates hierarchies: the ones at the top are followed, it's just our instinct, it is hard to avoid, especially if the other person is clearly stronger and more intelligent and more popular and can outmanoeuvre us no matter what we do. We soon learn to shut up and be quiet. For more details, see any books on social dominance, such as Dario Maestripieri, "Games Primates Play".
Like Caesar, Jesus defied others and defied convention
Many of the so-called healings in Mark can be explained by Jesus declaring people ritually "clean" when others felt it was inappropriate:"And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him. [...] And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other." (Mark 3)The early gospel of the Nazarenes records the man as saying, "I was a mason seeking a livelihood with my hands. I beseech thee, Jesus, to restore me to my health, that I may not in shame have to beg for my food. " (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 12:13) While that account is later and is probably guesswork, it does indicate how people understood the problem: the real problem was not the hand, the real problem was that the man could not earn his living. Notice how Jesus does not actually heal anything: he just says "stretch forth thine hand" so people can see it is just as good as the other one. And notice that the critics are only concerned with whether he would heal on the sabbath: the healing itself was apparently unremarkable. The word "whole" in "restored whole" is the Greek word "hugies" or "hygies", the root of our modern word "hygiene". Hygies was personified by the daughter of Asclepius, god of medicine. Hygies was the goddess of being clean, not of healing. hence Her goddess sisters were Panacea (goddess of the universal remedy), Iaso (recuperation from illness), Aceso (the healing process), and Aglaea (splendor and adornment). Jesus did not "remedy", or "recuperate", or "heal", or "make healthy", he simply declared that the hand was "clean". Jesus used his authority to restore the hand to be as clean as the other. So what was happening here? A "withered hand" probably refers to atrophying of the muscle, such as due to an infection. It could be mild or severe: to stop a stone mason from working it would only need to be mild. But an infection makes a person ritually unclean:
"and the priest shall examine the diseased area on the skin of his body. And if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a case of leprous disease. When the priest has examined him, he shall pronounce him unclean." (Leviticus 13:3)"And as the infection healed, the hand would become more useful. But the best remedy is exercise: the hand would never be perfect until he could return to his old job. It was Catch-22: he could not fully heal until some priest had the courage to declare him fit for work. By declaring the man to be "clean", Jesus used his position as a rabbi, and as a person greatly respected in the community, to declare the man fit for work. He was saying in effect "this man's weak hand is just as clean as his other one. I challenge anyone to contradict me!" Jesus often challenged his enemies like this, asking them questions or giving them answers where they did not dare response. Jesus used his force of personality to let the man return to his job, so he no longer needed to beg.
The other "miracles" in Mark
Most "miracles" in Mark can be explained by these principles: Jesus used his charisma to change how people felt, or he used his courage to declare people ritually "clean". The remaining miracles were never miracles of any kind, they are just mundane words later being given supernatural meanings. Take the very first "miracle" in Mark for example:"And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Mark 1:11)The first voice spontaneously heard in a crowd was called "a voice from heaven":
"The Hebrew term "bath kol", literally "daughter of a voice", concerns a heavenly or divine voice which proclaims God's will or judgment. " (Jewish Encyclopedia) "The kind of divination among the Jews, termed by them Bath Kol, or the daughter of the voice, was not very dissimilar to the 'Sortes Sanctorum' of the Christians [where the first words you hear when entering church are taken as a special message from God]. The mode of practicing it was by appealing to the first words accidentally heard from any one speaking or reading. The following is an instance from the Talmud:--Rabbi Jochanau and Rabbi Simeon. Ben Lachish, desiring to see the face of R. Samuel, a Babylonish doctor: 'Let us follow, ' said they, 'the hearing of Bath Kol.' Traveling, therefore, near a school, they heard the voice of a boy: reading these words out of the First Book of Samuel, 'And Samuel died.' They observed this, and inferred from hence that their friend Samuel was dead, and so they found it. Some of the ancient Christians too, it seems, used to go to church with a purpose of receiving as the will of heaven the words of scripture that were singing at their entrance. " (from The Mirror of Literature September 15, 1827, preserved by Project Gutenberg)Who spoke the words "this is my son"? Who wanted people to know of her pride? The obvious candidate is Jesus' mother, because she followed him as he preached. After John the Baptist praised Jesus, and baptised him, Jesus' mother must have been extremely proud. So she would say what she felt, "this is my son who I love: listen to him". It was a perfect example of "bath kol". As usual, other gospels change this to make it supernatural: John 12:28-29 for example has Jesus talk to God his father, his father answers, and people say it sounds like thunder. Another example of words being redefined is "satan" and "angels":
"And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him." (Mark 1:13)Jesus was Jewish. As Wikipedia reminds us, "the rabbis usually interpreted the word satan as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to human adversaries." Jesus naturally had human adversaries: he had just been baptised by John and John had said that Jesus was more important than him. Some of John's followers would not like this, or at least they would try to tell Jesus what they felt he should do. As for the word "angels", the Greek "angelos" just means "messengers", as in "ev-angelos" (good messengers). Since Jesus had just left John, these messengers are presumably from John: in the next verse Jesus learns (presumably from messengers) that John has been put on prison. This reference to adversaries and messengers in the desert was changed in later gospels. The adversaries became a supernatural being who could fly and take Jesus to the highest peak of the temple. There the adversary told Jesus to throw himself off and promised that supernatural messengers would fly through the air and rescue him. The meaning of this simple event - people talking to Jesus - was completely changed to become something more suited to a game or Hollywood movie. And so the book of Mark continues. In each case, Mark makes no supernatural claims. But other gospels embellish the story to make it supernatural. So we can read Mark as history, but cannot read the other gospels as history because they are willing to change stories and add events that cannot happen.
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Dating Mark, 6 of 10:
The synoptic problem
"One of these things is not like the others".
The argument
Matthew, Mark, and Luke share a great deal of text. So it is normal for new Testament scholars to consider them together. So they use Matthew and Luke as guides to what Mark intended. This leads to a similar authorship date, of around AD 70. However, Mark was written before Matthew and Luke. That is, Matthew and Luke were not available to Mark. So it is a serious mistake to use Matthew and Luke as guides to Mark. When we consider Mark in isolation we see that it is fundamentally different from Matthew and Luke. Mark makes more sense when read as an accurate history written at the time, soon after AD 37. Matthew and Luke are attempts by a later generation to change that history in the light of Jesus' failure to deliver what he promised.What is the synoptic probem?
The synoptic problem is, "which came first, Matthew, Mark or Luke?" By the 1800s it was clear to most people that Matthew, Mark and Luke are superficially similar and superficially different from John. So it became normal to talk about Matthew, Mark and Luke as "synoptic", meaning "looks the same". John was seen as the odd one out. This led to "the synoptic problem", which of the synoptics was written first? By the 1860s the answer was clear to most scholars: it had to be Mark. But this leads to a new, much more serious synoptic problem: a mistaken reliance on Matthew and Luke when interpreting Mark. Because John is not really the odd man out. John is fundamentally like Matthew and Luke: a story about a supernatural messiah predicting the events of AD 70. John is an attempt to explain the failure of Jesus' predictions, by making him supernatural: just like Matthew and Luke. The real odd man out is Mark: Mark is a non supernatural history, predicting events at the time of Caligula. Mark is fundamentally different from Matthew, Luke and John. This section will examine the evidence, in three stages:- re-dating of Mark relies on Mark being siumilar to (synoptic with) Matthew and Luke,
- Mark is actually very different
- arguments for similarity do not work.
The re-dating of Mark relies on Mark being synoptic with Matthew and Luke.
The arguments for Matthew and Luke being late are overwhelming:- Matthew and Luke are full of evidence of changes: e.g. they change Mark's message
- they are strongly supernatural
- they were never given a precise early date - it was always vague
- late elements are very striking: e.g. Matthew's revised temple prophecy (where Mark 13 becomes Matthew 24) sounds more like the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70
- and so on and so on.
- Mark cannot change Mark's message
- Mark's so-called miracles are not supernatural when examined closely
- Mark already had a precise date, with detailed circumstances of how it was written
- the late elements are very doubtful: e.g. Mark's temple prophecy works better for AD 40
- and so on and so on.
Mark is different
Matthew is a re-working of Mark, so naturally they share similarities: they are synoptic. In the same way, the movie "300" is a reworking of Herodotus on the Battle of Thermopylae: the movie and the book are synoptic. But should Historians use "300" as a guide to Herodotus?
Just as Herodotus was changed to create "300", so Mark was changed to create Matthew and Luke. Here are some of the fundamental changes. They are discussed in more detail elsewhere in this essay.
Mark could not have been influenced by Matthew or Luke because they had not been written. So the arguments based on synoptic gospels don't work. For example:
Most modern scholars have no experience of itinerant preaching. Just as they have no experience of starting in a new religion. They usually have no experience of being a salesman of any kind. And little experience of mathematics (or they would recognise the famous "travelling salesman" problem. This is a major problem with modern New Testament studies: the scholars have no experience of the thing they study.
Here is another example of Mark's "bad" geography:
So Jesus had to be extremely careful to limit what people said. Here, for example, is the famous "tell no man" statement from Mark 8:
As you can see, papyrus was routinely folded. This should be obvious: if a text had to be carried, then folding kept it all in place. Thicker scrolls might be rolled, and expensive thicker books might be square bound with individually sewn in pages. But for small documents like Mark, folding was the cheapest, easiest way to keep the parts together. Was Mark a scroll or a codex? No surviving early Christian text is a scroll, they are all codices. This indicates that Christians were early adopters. So Mark was probably in the codex form, folded like a modern magazine or newspaper. Which means that if the first page comes off, the last page also comes off.
Remember that there are very few early copies of Mark: it seems to have been used more as a reference (e.g. for writing Matthew and Luke), and not intended to stand on its own as a missionary pamphlet for outsiders, like Matthew or Luke. So a missing start and end would not matter much: the person using it as a reference would be an insider who already knew the basics.
So the missing end could be a side effect of a missing start. But which is more likely?
The last page of a book is often blank, depending on the length of the book. Or it is often just a few lines and "The End". But the first page is always full. So the first page will tend to have more material than the last. So if something was embarrassing, it is more likely to be from the start than the end. And as we will see, the original start of Jesus life was very embarrassing to the church.
When studying Paul and Mark, trying to see how they fit together, I heard what James Tabor said about diaspora religions, and suddenly it all made sense. (See the Bart Ehrman blog, August 23, 2020.)
James Tabor's doctoral dissertation was on Paul's "third heaven" vision (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). For most scholars this is mysterious, just as Paul's doctrinal relationship to the Jerusalem church is mysterious: the subject of endless debates but no final conclusions. Yet by drawing parallels with other near eastern religions, Tabor was able to show that both Paul's vision and his teaching are, fundamentally, simple to understand. The key is that Paul lived in the diaspora. Paul's experience and teachings are a classic example of all diaspora religions in the ancient near east, and largely of all religions in all times. They simply represent the need to escape. This is why:
Religions in general, and in the ancient near east in particular, teach people to fit in. Just read any sociologist, or Noah Harari's "Sapiens", about how gods evolved as composite people representing large groups. Gods are created in order to make people fit into society. So ancient religions were about knowing your place in society, and keeping its laws. This was especially clear in the days when each tribe or city state had its own god. Even today in Christian America, being a Christian means keeping the state's laws, either out of duty to society (left leaning Christians) or because God chose your laws (right leaning Christians).
This creates a special challenge for the diaspora: people who leave their home and lives somewhere else, but still want to retain their identity. Religion in second temple Judaism, for example, meant sacrificing in the Jerusalem temple, not working on the sabbath, etc., and this was difficult or impossible if working for a non-Jewish emplpyer in a foreign land. Other religions found similar problems: how can you follow the Babylonian religion if you don't live in Babylon? Or the Greek religion when you don't live in Greece? "How can you sing the Lord's song in a strange land"? It also created opportunities: you can ignore the parts you don't like, and nobody cares! And yet you don't want to sell out, as you need to belong to a tribe, even when far from home. So, as Tabor notes in his blog post (read aloud on this podcast) that all diaspora religions become supernatual versions of their home religion. The home religion is about action more than belief. The diaspora religion is about belief more than action. And since the diaspora believer cannot gain strength from sacrificing at the ancient temple along with the rest of the town, he gains strength from imagining God in his heaven, and a better life after they die. So diaspora religions are just like Paul's religion: a focus on right belief, not works, and with the occasional heavenly vision.
As empires grew in the ancient world, more and more people lived in a diaspora state. They rubbed shoulders with people of different religions, and it was not practical for each group to have its own temple and its own sacred day. So diaspora type religions, focusing on belief and visions, gradually replaced home religions, focusing on actions and temples. The greatest example of this was Christianity: after AD 70 temple worship became impossible, and there as no "home religion". Only Paul's diaspora religion existed, and it no longer had to hold back. Mystical experiences were no longer some private add on for people for whom circumcision and temple sacrifice were impractical: private prayer and belief in life after death became the core of the religion!
Jesus was the core religion. Paul was the diaspora version. Simple as that.
Over the years, many scholars have found parallels between Mark and their favourite book or genre: