JESUS NEVER LIVED!

VOLUME 1

JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN

MYTH
 JESUS NEVER LIVED!

VOLUME 1

JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN

MYTH

3RD REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

Laurence E. Dalton
Shirley Strutton Dalton
 Jesus Never Lived!
Volume 1 Jesus Christ: A Pagan Myth

3rd Revised and Expanded Edition

Jesus Never Lived!

Volume 1 Jesus Christ: A Pagan Myth
3rd Revised and Expanded Edition

Copyright © April 2013

Laurence E. Dalton and Shirley Strutton Dalton

ISBN-13: 978-1484025666
ISBN-10: 1484025660

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Previously published as:

Jesus Christ: A Pagan Myth, Evidence that Jesus Never Existed

Revised Edition
Copyright © October 2008

Jesus: Pagan Christ or Jewish Messiah?

Copyright © 2000

Laurence E. Dalton and Shirley Strutton Dalton

 In Memory, Fay Marie

For everything there is a season,

And a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die . . .

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . .

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4
 A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

In this book, what Christians call the Old Testament (OT),

we will call the Jewish Scriptures (hereafter JS); the New
Testament will be called the Christian Scriptures
(hereafter CS). No one knows who wrote the four gospels,
but we will for convenience accept Mark (Mk), Matthew
(Mt), Luke (Lk), and John (Jn) as the authors of the
canonical gospels. Mk 1.2 will signify Mark Chapter 1,
verse 2. We will use BCE (Before the Common Era)
instead of BC and CE (Common Era) instead of AD.

“Gentile” (Greek ethnos or nation) is used in the Christian

Scriptures to refer to a non-Jew, that is someone not born
of a Jewish mother, or one who has not been converted to
Judaism.” We will replace the word gentile with the word
pagan, meaning only a person who is neither a Jew nor a
Christian.

Most modern commentators on the Christian Scriptures

use the phrase Jewish Christian, though it appears
nowhere in the CS. It is as if Jews are still considered a
biological race, a concept long ago discredited. Is a
Christian who converts to Judaism called a Christian
Jew? A Jew who has converted to Christianity, we will
designate a Christian of Jewish background.

Although some ancient Jews interpreted the Jewish

Scriptures symbolically, they nonetheless preserved the
 A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
literal sense of the text where needed. For example, Philo
of Alexandria was a Hellenized Jew, i.e., a person who
was familiar with Greco-Roman culture. This Biblical
commentator held that abstaining from pork reminded
people not to be enslaved to greed, but he also took the
command literally, believing that Jews should observe
the law forbidding the eating of pork.

Ancient Christians interpreted the Jewish Scriptures

symbolically, often to the exclusion of the literal meaning.
For example, in Exodus Moses parts the Red Sea so that
the Jewish people may escape slavery in Egypt. Many
Christians interpreted this passage as predicting that
Jesus would save people by baptizing them with water.

Lastly, it should be noted that the Jewish Scriptures were

completed nearly 200 years before the time of Jesus, and
all modern commentators, other than literalists,
recognize that these scriptures never refer to Jesus'
baptism or any other aspect of Christianity.
 CONTENTS

A Note on Terminology .............................................................................................. 7

Part 1 Commentary on Mark .................................................................................11

Chapter 1 Birth, Baptism and Ministry: Mark 1.1-45 ..................................13

Chapter 2 Condemning Jewish Law: Mark 2.1-3.35 .....................................39

Chapter 3 Blinding the Jews: Mark 4.1-41 .......................................................55

Chapter 4 Faithful Pagans: Mark 5.1-7.37........................................................69

Chapter 5 The Messiah and the Son Of Man ....................................................93

Chapter 6 Jerusalem: Mark 11.1-33; 12.13-44; 13. ................................... 113

Chapter 7 Arrest, Trial And Crucifixion ......................................................... 131

Chapter 8 Resurrection ......................................................................................... 163

Part 2 Who Created Jesus? ......................................................................... 173

Chapter 9 Paul and the Mysteries ..................................................................... 175

Chapter 10 The Gospel of Mark. Who Created Jesus? Part 1 ................. 231

Chapter 11 The Gospel of Mark. Who created Jesus? Part 2 ................. 287

Chapter 12 Did Jesus Ever Live? by Joseph McCabe. Rebuttal by the

Daltons. ........................................................................................................................ 335

Appendix A Early Jewish and pagan references to Christians. ............. 373

Appendix B Persecution by Christians ........................................................... 385

Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 391

 PART 1 COMMENTARY ON MARK

Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of

Scripture, since greater is that authority than all the
powers of the human mind.
— St. Augustine, On Genesis.

Belief means not wanting to know what is true.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ.

The purpose of Jesus Never Lived! Volume 1: Jesus

Christ: A Pagan Myth Part 1 is to show that the Jesus of
Mark’s Gospel is a product of the pagan Roman world. In
addition, some of Mark is composed of material taken
from the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament).

The Christ Myth Theory and Its Problems by Robert M.

Price is very useful in defending the thesis that the
gospels are fictions composed from material taken from
the Jewish Scriptures.

R. Helms’ Gospel Fictions is helpful in examining Mark’s

use of the Jewish Scriptures in creating his fictional
narrative.

11
 CHAPTER 1 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY:
MARK 1.1-45

Seeking to kill the future emperor Augustus, the Roman Senate issued an
order to have all Roman male infants killed.
— Authors

King Herod ordered all the children in and around Bethlehem, under two
years of age, to be killed, in order that the King of the Jews may not survive.
Matthew 2.16

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

Before turning to our commentary on Mark, we will

critically examine the birth stories concerning Jesus.
According to Matthew and Luke, the father of Jesus was
Joseph. Although Mark wrote his gospel about 70 CE,
well before Matthew and Luke wrote, he knows nothing
about the name of the father of Jesus. Nor does Mark
know of any divine and virginal conception of Jesus, his
birth in Bethlehem under Herod the Great (36-4 BCE),
nor of Jesus’ aristocratic ancestry (see genealogies in Mt
1.1-16; Lk 3.23-38).

Pagan divine men were depicted as having noble and/or

divine heritage. The philosopher, Pythagoras (fl 530
BCE), was said to have been descended from noble
ancestors and from Apollo, the Greek sun god. The
editors of Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament
(hereafter Boring, HCNT) point out that Diogenes Laertius
(3rd cent. CE) characterized “Plato as the supernaturally

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
conceived son of the god Apollo.” Plutarch relates that
Alexander the Great was a descendant of the divine
Hercules. [Boring, M., 37, #6, Plutarch, Parallel Lives,
“Life of Alexander” 2.1-3.2] The gens (tribes) of the Roman
kings and rulers of the Republic were also thought of as
divine.

THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS (RULED 27 BCE TO 14 CE)

Let us compare Jesus with Octavius, the future Emperor
Augustus (ruled 27 BCE to 14 CE). He was a
contemporary of Jesus (ca 4 BCE–ca 30 CE). In Matthew,
Joseph has a dream in which an angel tells him that “...
the child [Jesus] conceived in [Mary] is from the Holy
Spirit” (Mt 1.20). Plutarch says that, “[Dreams are] ... a
most ancient and respected form of divination .... (cf. Mt
1.18-2.23). He also says that birds can become pregnant
by means of a wind. [Boring, M. HCNT, 40, #9, Plutarch,
Moralia, “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men” 59A; “On
Inoffensive Self-Praise” 589D]

In Greek, pneuma, or wind, can mean spirit (cf. Mt

1.18-25). Matthew quotes Isa 7.14, “Look, the virgin shall
conceive and bear a son ....” Isaiah actually says young
woman, not virgin.

Joseph wants to protect Mary by quietly divorcing her (Mt

1.19). Suetonius writes that a serpent approached the
mother of Augustus, Attia, as she slept in the temple of
Apollo and impregnated her. [Boring, M., HCNT, 38, #7,
Plutarch “Table Talk” 8.1-3]

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Augustus’ father may have had a different reaction than
Joseph.

In Luke’s gospel, the angel Gabriel declares to Mary that

her child “will be great, and will be called the Son of the
Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of
his ancestor [King] David. He will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end”
(Lk 1.32-33).

Plutarch relates that before the birth of Augustus, a

“prediction was made that a citizen of that town (Velitrae)
would one day rule the world.” [Martin, F., 160]

KILLING THE DEMIGOD

In the ancient pagan world it was common for various

gods or rulers to attempt to prevent the birth of a demigod
or, failing that, to attempt to kill him shortly after his
birth. One of the most popular demigods of the Greek and
Roman world was Hercules. [Philostratus, 15]

In one tradition, Zeus impregnates Alkmene, the mortal

woman who was the mother of Hercules. Zeus announces
to all the gods that he will make the child who is born on
a specific day the king of Perseus’ descendants. Hera
stops the labor pains of Alkmene so that Hercules is born
one day after the date chosen by Zeus, though eventually
a compromise is worked out and Hercules survives.

In Genesis, the Pharaoh attempts to kill the infant Moses

by slaughtering all Hebrew baby boys, but Moses’ mother
saves her son by sending him down the Nile in a basket.

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
He is rescued and raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter. In
Matthew an angel warns Joseph in a dream and he and
Mary flee with the infant Jesus to Egypt (Mt 2.14-15). To
prevent Octavius from becoming king of the Roman
people, “the senate in consternation decree(ed) that no
male child born that year should be reared.” [Martin, F.,
160]

Octavius lived to become the Emperor Augustus because

of the resistance of Roman mothers. At Mt 2.16, Herod
the Great attempts to kill Jesus by ordering the death of
all babies in and around Bethlehem. There is no evidence
of any such slaughter in first-century Judea.

The similarities in the birth stories of Moses, Augustus

and Jesus include:

 The birth of all three is predicted;

 Powerful people attempt to kill the newborn

hero;

 Each grows up to be a law giver who

inaugurates a new age. In addition, Jesus
and Augustus each had a divine father and a
human mother, and miraculous signs and
portents accompany their births and deaths.

The striking similarity between Jesus and the Emperor

Augustus can be seen even more clearly in a resolution
passed by the Provincial Assembly of Asia Minor during
the reign of Augustus. Among other things, it states that
Providence has given

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
...to us Augustus Caesar whom it filled with virtue (arete)
for the welfare of mankind, and who, being sent to us and
to our descendants as a savior (soter), ... having become
visible (phaneis...) ...surpassing all the benefactors ...the
birthday of the God (viz., Caesar Augustus) has been for
the whole world the beginning of the gospel (evangelion)
concerning him, (therefore, let all reckon a new era
beginning from the date of his birth...) [Cartlidge, D.,
13-14]

According to the Christian Scriptures, the good news or

gospel (evangelion) is preached by Jesus. His divinity
becomes visible, i.e., he takes on flesh. He has come to
benefit the world; he surpasses all others and
inaugurates a new age.

FURTHER PROBLEMS IN THE BIRTH STORIES IN MATTHEW

AND LUKE

According to Mark, Jesus was born and raised in Galilee,

but Matthew relates that Joseph and his wife, Mary, lived
in Bethlehem near Jerusalem in Judea and Jesus was
born there.

Matthew also states that a widespread belief existed

among Jews in the coming of the Messiah or king of
Israel. (Matthew equates the two, Mt 2.2,4). King Herod (d
4 BCE) and “all Jerusalem” fear that the “King of the
Jews” has been born (Mt 2.3). James H. Charlesworth is
correct when he says that most Jews did not expect “the
Messiah.” [Charlesworth, J. H., The Messiah, 5]

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
The Jewish Scriptures do not mention the coming of “the
Messiah.” Josephus, the Jewish historian, and the
Jewish exegete, Philo of Alexandria, both of the first
century CE, did not know about the coming of a messiah
or king, nor does the Mishnah (published ca 200 CE).

Luke, as in Mark, has Jesus’ parents reside in Nazareth

in Galilee, not in Bethlehem as Matthew does. Luke
relates that the Emperor Augustus ordered a census to
be taken under Quirinius, the governor of Syria (Lk 1.2.)
Luke says that all people traveled to their ancestral home
towns to be registered (Lk 1.3).

E.P. Sanders, in The Historical Figure of Jesus, [Sanders,

E.P., 1996, 86-87] discusses some problems connected
with this census: 1) Quirinius was not Legate of Syria
when Jesus was born, but took office in 6 CE, ten or
eleven years after Jesus’ birth in about 4 or 5 BCE. 2)
“Rome... [took] a census of people who lived in Judea,
Samaria, and Idumaea — not Galilee,” [Sanders, E.P.,
1996, 86-87] as it was not a Roman province at that time.
Moreover, the idea that people returned to their ancestral
home towns for the census is impossible. Chaos would
result. The census was done for tax purposes [Sanders,
E.P., 1996, 86-87] and thus the Roman imperial
government was not concerned with where one’s
ancestors lived 42 generations before.

Luke identifies Bethlehem in Judea as the city of David

(Lk 2.4). It is true that the Jewish Scriptures state that
David was born in Bethlehem and later anointed king
there, but, as S. Lachs informs us, Jerusalem, is the city
of David. [Lachs, S., 29]
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
(See 2 Sam 5.7,9; 2 Sam 6.10,12,16; 1 Chr 11.5,7; 2 Kgs
9.28, 12.22.) [Lachs, S., 29] David conquered Jerusalem,
named it, built part of it (2 Sam 5.7,9), and made it the
capital of Israel. The city is even described as the city of
David in 2 Sam 6.12: he “went and brought up the ark of
God ...to the city of David [Jerusalem]....” [Lachs, S., 30,
n 8] The idea that Bethlehem is the city of David is a
Christian invention, as is the belief that “the Messiah”
would be born there. [Wigoder, G., 191.0]

Luke says that in the fifteenth year of Tiberius (ca 28/29

CE) Jesus was about 30 years old (Lk 3.1,23). Counting
backwards, we arrive at 2 BCE as Jesus’ birth year, two
years after King Herod dies. The trouble is that both Luke
and Matthew relate that Jesus was born before the king’s
death in 4 BCE.

COMMENTARY ON MARK

The Gospels of Matthew (written ca 80 CE) and Luke

(written ca 85 CE) are dependent on Mark which was
written ca 70 CE. Thus, Matthew and Luke will not be
given much weight where they disagree with Mark. In
addition we will rarely refer to the Gospel of John (written
ca 100 CE) since most critical scholars consider it
historically worthless.

We will generally not be concerned with Jesus’ teachings

but only with the alleged events of his life (such as his
baptism, arrest, trial, crucifixion), and his actions (the
choosing of his disciples, his exorcisms, cures, and
nature miracles, etc.).

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
Why this disregard for the teachings of Jesus? E.P.
Sanders explains why he did not focus on Jesus’
teachings in Jesus and Judaism, “...scholars have not
and, in my judgment, will not agree on the authenticity of
the sayings material, either in whole or in part. There are
a few sayings on which there is a wide consensus, but
hardly enough to allow a full depiction of Jesus.”
[Sanders, E.P., 1989), 4]

As to the thesis that the moral teachings of Jesus and

Paul were largely pagan, see Evidence That Jesus Never
Existed! Volume 2 The Pagan Morals Of Jesus Christ.

In our commentary, we will search Mark for answers to

questions such as the following:

 Was Jesus familiar with the religious thought and

practice of Judaism in the first century CE?

 Was the Marcan Jesus so anti-Jewish as to

preclude a Jewish milieu for the gospel? For
example, would a Jewish prophet teach contempt
for Jewish law?

 Are the accounts of Jesus’ life and death derived

from the Jewish Scriptures?

 How much of Jesus’ life is a product of the early

church? Has the early church attributed acts and
teachings to Jesus in order to provide scriptural
support for certain beliefs and practices of the early
church, e.g., baptism and the Eucharist?

 Is Mark historically plausible? For example, would

20
 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish legal authority
in Judea, meet in the darkness of the Passover
night to try Jesus?

 Does Jesus fit better in a Jewish or a pagan

matrix? Virtually all serious scholars believe that
Mark's account of a Jewish Jesus was Hellenized.
Is this true, or is Jesus a pagan figure with Jewish
dress? In other words, was Jesus a pagan Christ or
a Jewish Messiah?

THE GOOD NEWS GOSPEL: MK 1.1

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son

of God” is the first verse of the Gospel of Mark; it may
originally have been a title. It is an incomplete sentence,
untypical of Mark’, and it is missing from some important
early manuscripts.

Only Mark refers to his narrative as the gospel or good

news (Greek evangelion), a word found in surviving
pagan inscriptions. [Boring, M., HCNT, 169]

One from Pirene (9 BCE) in Asia minor is cited in the

Hellenistic Commentary of the New Testament: “...the
birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning for the
world of the good tidings (evangelion)....” [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 169, #225]

The Epicurean Lucretius (d 55 BCE) says of his teacher:

Of his revelations — he was a god,

A god indeed who first discovered
That rule of life that now is called philosophy;
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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
... [his] gospel [was...,
Broadcast throughout the length and breadth of
empires.... [Boring, M., HCNT, 170, #226]

JOHN THE BAPTIST

Mark thinks the Jewish Scriptures predict that John the

Baptist will “Prepare the way of the Lord [Jesus]” (Mk
1.3), attributing the citation to the “prophet Isaiah”
though it is a fusion of Mal 3.1 and Isa 40.3. [Lachs, S.,
37]

Matthew and Luke correct this by omitting the Malachi

cite. Malachi writes that the messenger is to prepare the
way for “the Lord of Hosts” (Mal 3.1), and Isaiah tells the
King to prepare “a highway for our God” (Isa 40.3). Lord is
the most frequently used title for God in the Jewish
Scriptures. The NRSV Exhaustive Concordance informs us
that the word Lord is used to refer to God more than
8,000 times in about 7,000 places. [Metzger, B. M., 772]

N. Beck writes, “Jesus is by implication ‘the Lord’ whose

way is prepared by John the Baptist.” [Beck, N., 140-141]
Early Christians saw Jesus as divine, an impossibility if
one assumes that Christianity derives from the strictly
monotheistic religion of Judaism.

John the Baptist’s camel’s hair clothing, leather belt, and

his diet of locusts and wild honey (Mk 1.6) are based on 2
Kgs 1.8 and Zch 13.4. The Baptist preaches in the
wilderness “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1.4). Matthew deletes
“forgiveness of sins” [Lachs, S, 45] as the status of Jesus
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
has risen and he has no sin that needs to be forgiven (cf.
Mk 2.5-7,10). Besides, Jesus can forgive sins but a
Jewish prophet cannot.

The church became embarrassed by John’s baptism of

Jesus because the Jewish prophet came to be thought of
as spiritually inferior to Jesus. Thus, the church altered
the text of Mark, forcing John to acknowledge the
superiority of Jesus. The Baptist says that “the one to
come” will be greater and more powerful than him. The
Baptist is unworthy to untie his sandals and he (John)
baptizes with water, but the one to come “will baptize
with the Holy Spirit” (Mk 1.7-8), though in the gospels
Jesus never baptizes anyone, either with water or with
the Holy Spirit. The gospel of John omits the baptism of
Jesus, as his Jesus is too divine and thus has no sin that
needs to be forgiven.

The Baptist and Jesus are non-Jewish when they

indicate that baptism can remove sins. In Judaism one
who sins must repent, make appropriate restitution, and
pray or sacrifice in the temple. [Cohen, S. J. D., 63ff]

Mark and Matthew relate that “all the people of

Jerusalem” and Judea come to the river Jordan, confess
their sins and are baptized by John (Mk 1.5; Mt 3.5).
However, Matthew increases Mark’s anti-Judaism when
he adds that John rejects many religious leaders
(Pharisees and Sadducees) who had come to be baptized,
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the
wrath to come?” (Mt 3.7). In Matthew and Luke, John
preaches that those (Jews) who will not accept Jesus will

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
be punished with “unquenchable fire” (Mt 3.12, Lk 3.17,
cf. Isa 34.10; 66.24). [Schweizer, E., 52]

The Lukan Baptist even condemns the (Jewish) crowds

who have come to be baptized, calling them a “brood of
vipers” (Lk 3.7). E. Schweizer writes that the poisonous
snake metaphor is “vitriolic... [and] used as a term of
address is very striking and is almost without parallel....”
[Schweizer, E., 49] Almost?

Later (Mk 9.11-13), Jesus says that the Baptist is the

resurrected Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah, but
neither the Jewish Scriptures nor any first-century
Jewish writings assert this.

The baptism story provides scriptural support for

baptism as an initiation rite in the early church, but there
was no such rite; baptism was not an initiation rite in
Judaism until the 5th century CE. It is true that in the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs there is a passage
involving the “Spirit of understanding and sanctification”
resting upon Jesus “in the water,” but the editors of
HCNT conclude that “in the water” is an apparent
Christian interpolation. [Boring, M., HCNT, 50-51, #21]
In the Dead Sea Scrolls water ablutions are referred to,
but they are not one time initiation rites, rather they are
repeatable purification rituals. In addition, in Judaism
baptism was never associated with forgiveness of sins at
any time. [Lachs, S., 37]

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
BAPTISM OF JESUS

When Jesus comes up out of the water, the physical

heavens are “torn apart” and the Spirit descends on him
like a dove (Mk 1.10). At Mt 3.16 the dove visibly alights
on Jesus, and at Lk 3.22 the dove appears “in bodily
form.” Yet the crowds make no response to this visible
phenomenon, indicating that the dove was a late addition
to the scene.

Mark again finds the Jewish Scriptures useful. In Ezekiel

the heavens open and the prophet sees “visions of God”
(Ez 1.1). Isaiah writes that the spirit of the Lord was upon
him because God had anointed him (61.1). God takes
some of the spirit off Moses and places it on the 70 elders
(Num 11.25). Elijah parts the Jordan River, crosses, and
is taken up to heaven and Elisha, his disciple, receives a
double portion of his master’s spirit (2 Kgs 2.9,15). S.
Lachs writes, “In Jewish sources, the dove is the symbol
of the Holy Spirit or ...is used metaphorically as the Holy
Spirit.” [Lachs, S., 46] However, for Mark the Holy Spirit
takes a physical form.

As we will see in the chapters that follow, often when a

Jewish idea parallels a pagan one, it is retained, but
when Jewish and pagan ideas are in conflict, the pagan
idea is preferred. A spirit sent to serve a person was an
idea more common among pagans than among Jews. In a
Magical Greek Papyri, [Smith, M., 98-100] a pagan
magician says that the recipient must perform a rite so
that the Lord of the Air will send him a spirit who will
serve him, obeying all his commands:

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
The recipient is to pray. A sign will occur: A
hawk “will deliver you a... stone and then
return to heaven ...you will perceive the angel
whom you besought, sent to you, and you will
promptly learn the counsels of the gods ...he
will respond concisely to whatever you wish.”
[Smith, M., 129-130]

Three of the parallels listed by M. Smith between this rite

and the baptism of Jesus are:[ Smith, M., 132]

 A bird descends on the initiate. In pagan lore a bird

was often seen as a messenger of God. The
manifestation of a spirit as a bird appears in
another magical papyrus where the initiate
achieves a nature “equal to God.” [Smith, M., 14]

 The spirit enables the initiate to do miracles. In

Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus displays
miraculous powers only after the Spirit descends
on him at his baptism.

 The initiate will be worshiped as a god. Jesus is

worshiped by the wise men in the birth story of
Matthew, and in Luke by the shepherds (Mt 2.11;
Lk 2.20), by the women who came to the empty
tomb, and by believers after his resurrection.

GOD’S SON
After the spirit descends on Jesus, a voice from heaven
says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I
am well pleased” (Mk 1.11; cf. Ps 2.7; Isa 42.1). God is

26
 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
revealing to Jesus that he has been adopted as the Son of
God.

In Matthew (and Luke), the baptism is a visible event; the

voice from heaven says to John and the crowds (Mt 3.17),
“This is my son.” Jesus knew that he was the Son of God
prior to his baptism. Matthew and Luke push Jesus’
divinity back to his conception, and in John’s gospel he is
said to be eternally divine (Jn 1.1-3). The idea, “Son of
God” or “God’s son,” appears in Ps 2.7 where the Lord
speaking metaphorically to David, says, “You are my
son....” and “You shall be a son to me” (1 Chr 17.13).
[Wansbrough, H., 1615, n d] Other parallels include: Ex
4.22, “Israel is my first born son” and Dt 14.1 which
refers to the Israelites as children of God. E. Schweizer
grants that the details of the baptism of Jesus by John
are “open to question.” [Schweizer, E., 37]

In various passages in the Christian Scriptures, the,

appears before the titles “Son of God,” “Son of the Most
High,” “Son of the Blessed,” and “Son of Man” which
indicates that there is a unique relationship between God
and Jesus. Judaism allows no such exclusiveness
between any person and the deity. In the Roman world,
the titles “Son of God” and “Savior of the World” were
applied to emperors, philosophers, divine men, and
athletes.

EXCURSUS: THE EMBARRASSMENT THEORY

The “embarrassment theory” is often employed by
modern apologists to defend the historicity of Jesus’

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
baptism as well as other stories in the Christian
Scriptures. [Schweizer, E., 37]

The theory holds, for example, that the church would not
have created and preserved the baptism story which was
so embarrassing to it unless it was in fact true. Therefore,
it must be an actual historical event.

But the church which created the earliest layer of Mark,

did not find the baptism account embarrassing. Jesus
was depicted as an ordinary sinner whose sins are
forgiven through the baptism by the Jewish prophet.
Gerd Ludemann points out that “Jesus did not
understand himself to be sinless.” [Ludemann, G., 101]
Only in the latest layer of Mark does the story become
embarrassing. Jesus is now divine, so the sandals, the
idea that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit, the
voice from Heaven, etc., were added to Mark's original
story.

Matthew further dilutes the embarrassment found in

Mark by having the Baptist say that it is Jesus who
should be baptizing him (Mt 4.14). At Lk 3.21, Jesus is
not said to be baptized by John. Luke has severed Jesus
from John. [Beck, N., 200]

Jesus is far too divine in John’s gospel, so John omits

any mention of Jesus’ baptism at all (cf. Jn 4.1-2). Jesus’
superiority to the Baptist is even clearer in the later
non-canonical Gospel of the Nazoreans. Jesus rejects the
baptism of John saying, “Wherein have I sinned that I
should go and be baptized by him?” [Beck, N., 101]

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
All of this simply shows the development of the character
of Jesus, not that the baptism actually occurred. One
should not be surprised by the evolving portraits of Jesus
or the Baptist. As we shall see, a number of characters in
the gospels grow. For example, Peter's status is raised
and Judas is depicted as increasingly evil.

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

At Mark 1.12-13, the spirit drives Jesus into the

wilderness where he stays with the wild beasts for forty
days; he rejects Satan’s (undescribed) temptations and is
waited on by angels, all of which demonstrates the
superior power of Jesus.

In the Jewish Scriptures people can be driven by the

powerful Spirit of God. [Schweizer, E., 211]

The spirit of the Lord can pick Elijah up and throw him
down on some safe mountain or in a valley (2 Kings 2.16).
In Mark, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness, but
in Matthew and Luke the divine Jesus is led by the Spirit,
not driven.

Matthew and Luke add that Jesus fasts in the wilderness

for forty days (Mt 4.2, Lk 4.2) as Moses does for 40 days
and 40 nights (Ex 34.28; cf Elijah 1 Kgs 19.8) [Lachs, S.,
50]. In addition, it rains for forty days and nights during
Noah's flood; David and Solomon each rule forty years;
Moses and his people wander for forty years in the
wilderness, etc. [Funk R. W., 55]

In Matthew and Luke the divine Jesus says to the devil

who is tempting him, you should not “put the Lord your
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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
God to the test....” (Mt 4.7; Lk 4.12; cf. Dt 6.16). Being
tempted by a demonic ruler of the world is unknown in
the Jewish Scriptures. [Smith, M., 211] Satan in the Book
of Job is wholly subordinate to the Lord and plays a
minor role in Judaism as compared to his later role in
Christianity. Paul’s letters, written only 10 to 20 years
before Mark, know nothing of any temptation of Jesus by
Satan.

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY

Mark wrongly assumes throughout his gospel that Jews

live in certain cities and areas segregated from pagans.
Galilee in northern Palestine and Judea in southern
Palestine are depicted as Jewish. Pagan territory east of
the Jordan River (the Decapolis or Ten Cities), Tyre, and
Sidon are depicted as pagan cities or regions. This
demographic scheme is artificial. The Mishnah (ca 200
CE) refers to cities and towns in Palestine which include
both Jews and pagans. [Neusner, J., 4.11C] Mark
wrongly assumes that Jews hated non-Jews and so lived
apart from them.

Mark does not tell us how long the Galilean ministry of

Jesus lasted; it could have been a few weeks or months,
but no longer than a year since the Synoptics (the gospels
of Mark, Matthew and Luke) mention only one Passover,
an annual celebration. The idea of a three-year ministry
comes from the gospel of John (written ca 100 CE) which
the apologists use to interpret the earlier gospels!

After John the Baptist is arrested (Greek delivered up),

Jesus begins to preach in Galilee, “the kingdom of God
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
has come near; repent, and believe in the good news
[gospel]” (Mk 1.14). Ancient mainstream Jews in the first
century CE rarely spoke of the kingdom of God. Philo (d
50 CE) and Josephus (d 100 CE) held that the kingdom is
present on earth and is not some future cosmic event to
be ushered in by “the Messiah.” As E. Schweizer points
out, the words gospel (good news), preaching and
repentance (Mk 1.15) are “the language of the church
(Acts 5:31; 11:18; 20:21),” [Schweizer, E., 44] not Jesus.
In what follows, we will find more early church beliefs and
practices attributed to Jesus, making their acceptance
easier.

Matthew states that Jesus leaves Nazareth and makes

his home in Capernaum, “in the territory of Zebulon and
Naphtali, so that what has been spoken through the
prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled...” (Mt 4.12-14; Isa 9.1f).
Matthew quotes Isaiah who describes Galilee as the land
of “the Gentiles” (Mt 4.15; cf. Isa 9.1). There a pagan
people were in “darkness [and] have seen a great light”
(Isa 9.1) which, according to Matthew, refers to the gospel
of Jesus (Mt 4.15-16). Jesus has come to save pagans, at
least those who convert to Christianity.

JESUS CALLS HIS FIRST DISCIPLES: MARK 1.16-20

Walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus sees four fishermen

at work and calls them as his first disciples. Simon (Peter)
and his brother Andrew know nothing of any miracles or
teachings of Jesus and yet instantly follow Jesus when he
says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people”(Mk
1.17). Philosophers, too, “fish for men.” [Schweizer, E.,
48]
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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
The magical call rarely appears in the Jewish Scriptures
but at 1 Kgs 19.19-21 the prophet Elijah throws his
mantle over Elisha who kisses his parents goodbye and
sacrifices his oxen, distributing the meat among the
people. He then follows Elijah. Miracles and teachings
play no role in the call stories of Mark, Matthew, or 1 Kgs
19.

At Luke 5.1-11, Jesus preaches to Simon Peter but this

does not induce him to follow Jesus. Instead, Jesus
produces a miraculous catch of fish, after which Simon
Peter as well as James and John (the sons of Zebedee)
immediately follow Jesus, leaving “everything” (Lk 5.11).
Herodotus writes of a story told by Cyrus of Persia about
a great catch of fish. [Boring, M., HCNT, 207, #294] In the
Jewish Scriptures miracles never cause any conversions.

In John’s gospel, Andrew and an unnamed man hear the

Baptist identify Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (Jn 1.36) and
they join Jesus on that day. Nathaniel recognizes Jesus
as “the Son of God” and “the king of Israel” and he and
Philip immediately follow Jesus (Jn 1.49).

Diogenes Laertius relates a story of a citizen of Athens

who is seeking virtue. He becomes a pupil of Socrates as
soon as the philosopher says, “Follow me and learn.”
[Balch, D. L., 27] Similarly, Xenophon hears Socrates
say, “follow me” and converts. [Balch, D. L., 27] Aristotle
writes that a “Corinthian farmer, after coming into
contact with” Plato’s dialog, Gorgias, “forthwith gave up
his farm and his vines, put his soul under Plato’s
guidance...” [Boring, M., HCNT, 54, #27] J. Fitzmyer

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
concedes that the miraculous call fits in a pagan world as
well as a Jewish one. [Fitzmyer, J. A., vol 1, 546]

EXORCISMS AND HEALINGS

Jesus goes to Capernaum in Galilee and teaches in the
synagogue on the Sabbath (Mk 1.21-28). Mark says that
Jesus’ Jewish hearers are amazed, for he preaches with
“authority, and not as the scribes” (1.22). Mark is
depicting Jesus as superior to the Jewish religious
leaders.

Jesus does not teach like a rabbi. S. Lachs says real

Jewish scribes and Pharisees would “teach the Oral Law
by citing the authorities from whom the speaker received
the traditions being transmitted.” [Lachs, S., 60] E.
Schweizer agrees and points out that “. . . the rabbis
never could have conceived of a call so radical as to make
clear that being with Jesus is more important than all of
God’s commandments (Mk 10.21).” [Schweizer, E., 49]
Quite true. Never.

In the synagogue, when Jesus expels an unclean spirit

from a man (Mk 1.23), it cries out “What have you to do
with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us?” (Mk 1.24). Jesus has come to defeat evil cosmic
powers. A stele in Egypt (525-337 BCE) states, “You come
in peace, great God, destroyer of the evil ones.” [Boring,
M., HCNT, 171-172, #231] Lucian has Ion refer “to those
who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising
the spirits...” [Boring, M., HCNT, 172, #230]

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
Again, Mark depicts Jewish religious leaders as impotent.
They are unable to cast out unclean spirits but Jesus
casts them out in a Jewish place of worship, and on the
Sabbath at that. In the gospels, virtually no Jewish
persons have sufficient faith to perform miracles other
than the disciples of Jesus. Mark concludes by saying
that Jesus; fame spread “throughout the surrounding
region of Galilee” (Mk 1.28). Originally Jesus was an
obscure figure. Mark created the summary statements
that he uses to stress the popularity of Jesus.

Exorcisms are rare in Jewish tradition. The Jewish

Scriptures and the works of the first-century CE writers,
Josephus and Philo, contain no accounts of exorcisms.

After Jesus casts out the unclean spirit, he and his four
disciples immediately leave the synagogue and go to the
house of Simon Peter and Andrew (Mk 1.29-31). Peter’s
mother-in-law has a fever. Taking her hand, Jesus lifts
her up and cures her.

Is Jesus violating the Sabbath by working (lifting her up)?

A Jewish Jesus would know that a fever which
threatened life could be healed even if labor were
required. The rabbis in the Mishnah assert that even a
minor eye problem could be treated, since it could lead to
blindness, stumbling, and possibly death. But Mark does
not say that the fever is life-threatening, so he appears to
be indicating that Jesus violated Sabbath law.

Also, if Peter’s mother-in-law was cooking or serving food

on the Sabbath, she would be breaking the Sabbath law,
as would Jesus and his disciples by accepting this
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
service. Real Jews would have served themselves food
which had been prepared before the Sabbath.

The Greek word for serves indicates a continuous,

ongoing activity. Mark here provides scriptural support
for the subordinate role assigned to women in the early
church. The high office of apostleship was not bestowed
on women (the position of deaconess was an office of low
status in the church). Christians and pagans had no
problem with allocating women a religious role as long as
they were subordinate to male authority. Jesus was not a
feminist.

In a summary statement Mark writes that at sundown

“the whole city” brought their sick and possessed whom
Jesus healed, forbidding them to tell anyone who had
helped them (part of the messianic secret where Jesus
conceals his identity and his mission). Mark says Jesus
cures many people and casts out many demons (Mk
1.32-34); Matthew and Luke upgrade the status of Jesus:
“all” are cured or exorcised (Mt 8.16-17: Lk 4.40).

At Mk 1.34, Jesus “does not permit demons to speak,

because they knew him”(another part of the messianic
secret). Originally, the demons were probably depicted as
not having recognized Jesus. Paul, writing before Mark,
says that none of the “rulers of this age” (spirits or
archons) would have crucified Jesus if they had known
who he was (1 Cor 2.7-8). Mark’s depiction of Jesus’
popularity with Jews is odd since Jesus violates Jewish
law.

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 BIRTH, BAPTISM AND MINISTRY
The Marcan Jesus tells his disciples that he and they
should go to the neighboring towns throughout Galilee
and “proclaim the message... for this is what I came out
to do” (Mk 1.38). The disciples call him rabbi (teacher),
and in Mark the Greek words for taught and teaching
appear a total of twenty times, [Schweizer, E., 50] but
Jesus has not taught much up to this point. The gospels
of Matthew and Luke are each about double the size of
Mark, and almost all of the additional material consists of
teachings attributed to Jesus. This raises his status from
exorcist and wonder worker in Mark to that of teacher in
Matthew and Luke.

Mark says that Jesus teaches in their synagogues (1.39).

Their, not our synagogues? Is Jesus not Jewish?

In the Jewish Scriptures, cures by prophets are relatively

rare and mostly confined to Moses, Elijah and Elisha.
[Smith, M., 211] God performs these miracles, or they are
done at his will, but Jesus acts on his own authority. M.
Smith notes that Jesus is depicted as superior to the
prophets and religious leaders. For example, “Miriam’s
leprosy was healed by Moses’ prayer and a leper in
Galilee [is cured] by Jesus’ command” (Num. 12.13, Mk.
1.41). [Smith, M., 212] Also, “Jesus [tells] ten lepers to go
to the priests” and they are cured before they reach the
Jewish priests (Lk 17.12ff). [Smith, M., 212]

Mk 1.40-45 relates the story of a leper who kneels before

Jesus and begs to be made clean. Jesus, like the Lord of
the Jewish Scriptures, is moved by pity. He cures the
leper and then forbids him to tell anyone. Jesus sends

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
him away, telling him to present himself to the priest (at
the temple in Jerusalem, 80 miles away?) and to do what
Moses (not God?) has commanded as an offering for his
cleansing. E.P. Sanders considers this clear evidence of
Jesus’ respect for the law (Lev. 14.2-9). [Sanders, E.P.,
129] But we think it is by no means clear that this is so.
When the Jewish priest confirms that the leper is clean,
he would be testifying to the power of Jesus. The former
leper goes out and tells so many people, “that Jesus could
no longer go into a town openly but stayed out in the
country” (Mk 1.45).

If a man had a lethal and contagious disease like leprosy,

he would not be allowed to appear in public places nor to
live in a city or town[Cotter, Wendy, 221-228] . This
practice of keeping lepers apart from the public is both a
Jewish and a pagan practice, one intended to check the
spread of contagion. Herodotus (484 BCE) writes that a
leper may not enter a town and the great Greek historian,
like Jesus, thinks that the disease is caused by sin.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 64, #49]

Some apologists argue that Mark is referring to a

non-contagious minor skin ailment. The Greek word may
be so translated, but why would a man kneel before
Jesus desperately begging for the cure of a minor skin
rash? Besides, the Synoptics indicate that only leprosy is
meant. This story of the leper is unhistorical; no location
is given, and no disciples or witnesses are present.
Matthew finally provides a setting by placing it at the foot
of the mountain after Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mt
8.1ff).

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 CHAPTER 2 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW: MARK
2.1-3.35
And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were
saying, “He is beside himself.”
— Mark 3.21

No longer will anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a pagan] prophetess of

the great God.
— Sibylline Oracles 3.811-18, 3rd Century BCE

Mark 2.1-3.6 is made up of five consecutive stories involving

hostility between Jesus and Jewish religious leaders.

HOSTILITY BETWEEN JESUS AND JEWISH LEADERS

FORGIVING SINS

In the first conflict story (Mk 2.1-12), a crowd seeking to

be healed by Jesus is so large that it blocks the entrance
to “his home” in Capernaum of Galilee (Mk 2.1). Four
people climb to the roof and dig through the ceiling,
lowering a paralyzed man on a mat into the house. Jesus
is moved by the faith of those who brought the man to
him, but why should Jesus consider their faith more
important than that of the paralyzed man?

Jesus says to the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven,” and

some scribes think Jesus is guilty of blasphemy, since
only God can forgive sins (Mk 2.5-7). Jesus, reading their
minds, cures the man so that the scribes will know “the
Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mk
2.10). The man exits the house. Through the crowd
blocking the door? The Jewish messiah has co-opted the

39
 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
divine prerogative of forgiving sins. We agree with E.
Schweizer who concludes that the forgiveness material
was added to an original story about a healing
[Schweizer, E., 62] (cf. Ps 32.5; Isa 43.25).

DINNER WITH TAX COLLECTORS AND SINNERS

In the second conflict story (Mk 2.13-17), Jesus dines at

the house of his disciple, Levi, with “many tax collectors
and sinners” (Mk 2.15). The scribes of the Pharisees
object to this and Jesus counters, “Those who are well
have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mk
2.17).

Medical metaphors were very common in the ancient

world. Diogenes Laertius reports that Antithsenes was
criticized “for keeping company with evil men...” and the
philosopher responds by saying that a physician treats a
patient without getting the fever himself. [ Boring, M.,
HCNT,75, #70] Jesus adds that he has come to save not
the righteous, but sinners (Mk 2.17). Lucian (120-185
CE) writes, “Demonax... though he assailed sins, he
forgave sinners, thinking that one should pattern after
doctors, who heal sickness but feel no anger at the sick.”
[Boring, M., HCNT, 74, #66, Demonax 7]

N. Beck [Beck, N., 144] writes that, “The presence of the

scribes of the Pharisees as observers of the meal” is one of
the reasons why some scholars think this story is fiction.
How do Jesus’ enemies know that he and his disciples
were dining with sinners and tax farmers? Are the
enemies of Jesus dining with him? Or are they looking

40
 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
through the windows? As to their function in the story,
they are there to criticize Jesus.

This dining story is very popular with many

contemporary Christian exegetes. M. Borg, for example,
argues that Jesus was a champion of outcasts, a kind of
hippie who broke the social boundaries which separate
Jews and non-Jews, the rich and the poor, males and
females, slaves and free, etc. But none of these outcasts
are depicted as present at the dinner. Nor does Jesus
elsewhere in Mark socialize with prostitutes, women,
slaves, pagans, the poor, or the sick except for a former
(?) leper at Mk 14.3. We don’t know who the sinners are at
dinner. In “Table Talk,” Plutarch relates that “the rich
should dine with the poor,” [Beck, N., 428, “Table Talk”,
I,2.3] a practice common with Stoics and members of the
mystery cults.

FASTING

In the third conflict tale (Mk 2.18-22), the disciples of

John the Baptist and those of the Pharisees ask Jesus
why his disciples do not fast. Real Jews would fast at
least on the most important Jewish holy day, the Day of
Atonement, as well as at “times of special need.”
[Schweizer, E., 68]

Jesus replies that wedding guests do not fast until the

“bridegroom is taken away from them” (Mk 2.20). This is
the first and only time that Jesus hints at his death
before he predicts it at Mk 8.31. Many scholars believe
that Jesus was not originally associated with the
bridegroom; neither the disciples nor anyone else
41
 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
responds to this allusion to his death. Nor is there a
response to the saying about putting a new patch on an
old cloak which implies that Judaism will be discarded
(Mk 2.21-23). This pericope has no location. It is a
product of the church which needed to show that Jesus
was aware of his upcoming death, and that Judaism was
to be superseded by Christianity. Mark also has provided
scriptural support for those Christians who believed in
fasting (Mk 2.20; Mt 9.15; Lk 5.35). The Didache of the
second century (8.1) names Wednesday and Friday as
days of fasting for Christians [Schweizer, E., 68].

Incidentally, N. Beck is amused that Luke or his editor

has added a verse in his parallel, “No one after drinking
old wine desires new wine...” (Lk 5.39) thus unwittingly
endorsing “the older wine — Jewish religion and culture!”
[Beck, N., 203]

PLUCKING GRAIN

In the fourth conflict story (Mk 2.23-28), the earliest

evangelist writes that Jesus and his disciples are
“making their way” through the grain fields on a Sabbath.
His disciples pluck some heads of grain to eat. “The
Pharisees” pop up and criticize Jesus for allowing his
disciples to do “what is not lawful on the Sabbath” (Mk
2.24), i.e., working. E. Schweizer says, “this story
appears to be fictitious.” [Schweizer, E., 70]

In his defense, Jesus argues that David went to the house

of God where the high priest Abiathar gave him bread
which was reserved exclusively for priests (1 Sam 21.1-6).

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
If the high priest can set aside the law, why can’t Jesus
do the same?

How good is Jesus’ argument? First, the circumstances of

David and Jesus are not analogous. David was not
seeking food on the Sabbath, and the future king was
acting in a wartime emergency. Jesus’ disciples may have
been hungry (as Matthew finally says at 12.1) but no
emergency is implied. Second, Abiathar was the son of
the high priest, Ahimelech, the man who actually helped
David (1 Sam 21.1). Matthew and Luke drop the reference
to the high priest.

Matthew adds an additional argument. The Jewish

Scriptures allow the temple priests to desecrate (NRSV
break) the Sabbath law by performing sacrifices, and yet
the priests are “guiltless” (Mt 12.5). The Jewish Scriptures
allow sacrifice, circumcision, and certain other rites to be
performed on the Sabbath in the temple, for laws can be
set aside. For example, if necessary to save a life one is
required to labor on the Sabbath. However, a Jewish
teacher would certainly know that performing a religious
ritual is not desecrating the Sabbath.

At the end of the grain field story, Jesus preaches that,

“The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not
humankind for the Sabbath” (Mk 2.27). The rabbis
agreed that, “The Sabbath is given over to you, not you to
the Sabbath.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 173, #233] But the
saying, “the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mk
2.28), is anti-Jewish and non-Jewish because Jesus (the
Son of Man) makes himself equal to God. Matthew and
Luke omit the Jewish saying about the Sabbath being
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 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
given to humans, but keep the anti-Jewish saying that
Jesus is lord of the Sabbath.

Plutarch relates that the Spartans said, “Because the

laws ought to have authority over men, and not men over
the laws...” ancient laws should not be changed. [Boring,
M., HCNT, 174, #234] M. Smith points out that
abolishing ancient customs was punishable by death
under Roman law. [Boring, M., HCNT, #234] This is one
reason why Jesus and Paul have difficulty justifying their
nullification of ancient Jewish law and custom.

HEALING OF A MAN WITH A WITHERED HAND

In the fifth and final conflict story in the cycle (Mk 3.1-6),
Jesus cures a man with a withered hand in the
synagogue on a Sabbath. His enemies have been
watching him so that “they might accuse him” of violating
Sabbath law (Mk 3.1-2,6). Would Jesus’ enemies have
believed that he could perform miraculous healings?
[Schweizer, E., 74] Jesus reads their minds and seeing
the trap, seeks to foil them by asking, “‘Is it lawful to do
good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?’
But they were silent” (Mk 3.4). Jesus then heals the
man’s hand. In pagan tradition, cures of disabilities
involving hands, legs, eyes, ears, etc., were common. For
example, according to Dio Cassius, the Emperor
Vespasian cured a man with a withered hand. [Martin, F.,
165]

The scene is a good example of Jesus’ non-dialogues.

Jesus’ enemies fall into silence, unable to refute his
superior teachings. How would Jewish religious leaders
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
have answered him if they were not straw men? They
would have known that doing good on the Sabbath is a
fundamental Jewish value, and that saving a life is
obligatory on any day, Sabbath or not. It has been so in
Jewish tradition for thousands of years. In Mark and
Matthew, the choice is not between life and death, since
the man with the withered hand is in no danger of dying.
The choice is whether to wait until sunset when the
Sabbath ends, or not to wait. The “Jewish Messiah”
chooses not to wait.

Here again Jesus shows no special concern for the sick or

disabled person being healed. [Beck, N., 147] Beck is
right when he writes, “The fundamental purpose of Mk
3.1-6 is to depict the dumbness, the silence, and the
callousness of those who oppose the developing
traditions of the followers of Jesus.” [Beck, N., 147] At Mk
3.6 Jesus’ enemies are at last identified as Pharisees.[
Beck, N., 147] They leave the synagogue and conspire
with the Herodians to figure out “how to destroy him” (Mk
3.6; Mt 12.14; cf. Lk 6.11). Why? What serious crime has
he committed?

In Hebrew, there is no word which precisely corresponds

to the Christian idea of sin. In Judaism, a sin is “An
action which breaks a law or alternatively, the failure to
observe a positive COMMANDMENT.” [This information
comes primarily from G. Wigoder’s Encyclopedia of
Judaism] This would include any action or thought which
violates the commandments of God, whether written or
unwritten (oral, not in the Jewish Scriptures). “[T]he
sinner is morally accountable to God, both for sins

45
 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
against man and for infractions of the ritual law.”
[Encyclopedia of Judaism, 658]

Wigoder, co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Judaism, points

out that there are nearly 30 different words in the Tanakh
which are associated with various kinds of sins. The most
important is het (Hebrew) which occurs almost 600 times
in the Jewish Scriptures; the root meaning is “to miss the
mark... [I]t is the only term which describes the least
offensive category of sin: an unwitting transgression of
the ritual law.” [Encyclopedia of Judaism, 659]

The third most common term is pesha. It is usually

translated as transgress, and refers to an offense more
serious than het or avon. Pesha is the term for the most
serious sin, and “is never used to refer explicitly to a
ritual sin.” [Encyclopedia of Judaism, 659] In other
words, even if Jesus had inadvertently violated the
Sabbath law (het), this would not have been a serious
offense. E.P. Sanders [Sanders, E.P., 1990, 90] writes
that even if Jesus had committed a minor violation of
Sabbath law and then presented his legal defense, all a
Jewish magistrate would say is, take “two doves as a sin
offering when you are next in Jerusalem.”

It is E.P. Sanders’ opinion that the real Jesus was

law-observant throughout his life except for minor
violations. [Sanders, E.P., 1996, 252] Against him, E.
Schweizer writes, “Undoubtedly, Jesus’ frequent
transgressing of the Sabbath commandment in his
preaching and in his conduct is historical.” [Schweizer,
E., 76] Maybe E. Schweizer is right, but why would a

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Jewish teacher discard the commandments of God? And
if he had engaged in serious violations of law, why was he
not so charged at his Jewish trial in Jerusalem? And why
would an non-Jewish Jesus attract so many Jewish
followers?

What motivation does Jesus attribute to the homicidal

Pharisees? Jesus is angry and grieves at “their hardness
of heart” (Mk 3.5). Jesus grieves for his enemies, the
Pharisees (see Mk 7). Matthew and Luke omit this.
Neither Jesus nor Mark gives any motivation for the
murderous enmity of the Herodians. Do the Herodians
see Jesus as a political threat? Do they think that he is
claiming to be a king? In Exodus the phrase “hardness of
heart” is applied to, among others, the evil Pharaoh who
tries to stop Moses from freeing the Hebrew people from
slavery in Egypt. In the Christian Scriptures, virtually all
Jews and Jewish religious leaders are depicted as
“hardened of heart,” i.e., unable or unwilling to perceive
Jesus’ truth.

Most scholars agree that Mark himself created the

summary statements in his gospel. Mk 3.7-12 is typical.
He writes, “a great multitude from Galilee” followed Jesus
(Mk 3.7), many coming to him to be cured. They came
“from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan,
and the [pagan] region around Tyre and Sidon.” Many are
healed by touching Jesus. Jesus asks the disciples to
prepare a boat so that when the crush of the crowd
becomes too great, he can escape.

Mark relates that when “unclean spirits saw [Jesus], they

fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of
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 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
God!’” (Mk 3.11). Jesus commanded the spirits “not to
make him known” (Mk 3.12; cf. Mk 1.25) and apparently
the evil spirits always obeyed, as none of the gospels
report otherwise. Neither the disciples, the people who
have been exorcised, nor witnesses show any reaction
when Jesus is called “the Son of God” at Mk 3.11, or
when he exorcises people, or silences the demons. Many
Greek heroes were noted for healing diseases, including
Hercules and Asclepius, the god of healing, but they
probably did not attempt to keep their identity secret by
silencing people or demons.

JESUS APPOINTS THE TWELVE

Jesus had ordered the disciples to prepare a boat (Mk
3.9), but at Mk 3.13 we find that Jesus is up on “the
mountain.” The boat has disappeared and will not
reappear until Mk 4.1. This is one of many errors in Mark
which show that his gospel has been much edited.
Matthew and Luke omit the boat.

Jesus calls “those whom he wanted” and appoints twelve,

designating them apostles (Mk 3.13-14). Some
manuscripts of Mark omit the appointing of the twelve
and others omit his list of the twelve. [NRSV, 52, fn. z, a]
Mark’s list at 3.16-19 conflicts with the other three lists
at Mt 10.2-4, Lk 6.14-15, and Acts 1.13. We will
comment on only a single problem relating to the list, one
that concerns Levi.

In Mark’s list the name Matthew is listed, not Levi,

although Levi was called as a disciple after the first four.
The second gospel also has “Matthew” (Mt 9.9; cf. Mk
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
2.14). Levi never appears in his gospel nor does the name
appear in the list of the twelve in Acts of the Apostles
(1.13). Matthew or his editor has added “Matthew” to the
twelve. Why? The twelve had high status in the early
church, as we can see when Jesus says, “when the Son of
Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have
followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19.28; cf. Lk 22.30). Matthew’s
association with the twelve increased his status, which in
turn made it easier for the early church to accept the
gospel falsely ascribed to him.

Until the twelve are chosen at Mk 3.14, Jesus has

referred to only five disciples. Some scholars think that
Jesus may have had only three or four disciples. Burton
L. Mack thinks that Jesus may have had none. [Mack, B.
L., 79 fn. 1] Mark drew on collections of teachings and
acts attributed to Jesus that included no disciples. The
title apostles is applied to the twelve only three times in
Mark and Matthew and is probably a late addition (Mk
3.14, 6.30 and Mt 10.2). [Schweizer, E., 129] Luke uses
the title five times, and John never applies apostle or
apostles to the twelve.

E. Schweizer writes, “There is some doubt whether Jesus

chose a more limited circle of twelve disciples.”
[Schweizer, E., 127] The twelve are only loosely connected
to the gospel stories, “usually appear[ing] in editorial
statements.” [Schweizer, E., 127, 128] Schweizer adds
that in Jewish tradition a group of twelve leaders is
virtually unknown. In 1 Corinthians and Acts some

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missionaries are called apostles, but the term is applied
only to those not associated with the twelve.

JESUS’ TRUE FAMILY: MARK 3.19B-35

Mark says that Jesus is a teacher, yet the only teaching of
Jesus presented so far is his preaching about the
nearness of the kingdom of God (Mk 1.14).

The story about Jesus’ family and Beelzebul is one of

eight “sandwich” stories in Mark’s gospel. (A sandwich
story occurs when one story is begun, interrupted by
another, and then resumed.) Mark interrupts the true
family story with an incident about Beelzebul and then
continues the first story.

Jesus and his disciples enter his home. A crowd comes,

pressing so heavily that Jesus and his disciples are not
able to eat (Mk 3.19b-20). People have been saying that
Jesus is crazy. Jesus’ mother and brothers hear this and,
believing he is crazy, attempt to reach him in order to
restrain him (Mk 3.21).

Pagans knew about wisdom and madness, too. Alciphorn

writes that a father, whose son had converted to
Cynicism, said he was possessed by an evil spirit which
drove him out of his mind. [Boring, M., HCNT, 174, #235]
In the Sibylline Oracles 3.811-18 (3rd cent. BCE), a
prophetess discloses the wisdom of god; “no longer will
anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a prophetess of the
great God.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 175, #236]

Inserted into the family story is the incident at Mk

3.22-29. Here, the scribes from Jerusalem pop up and
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
accuse Jesus of being able to cast out demons because he
is possessed by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. Jesus
counters with, “How can Satan cast out Satan?”

After the Beelzebul insertion, Mark resumes his story

about the family. Jesus’ mother and his brothers have
come to the house but are unable to enter due to the
crowd. They send Jesus a message asking him to come
out to them (Mk 3.31). Jesus responds with a shocking
teaching. He rejects his family, saying, “Here are my
mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is
my brother and sister and mother” (Mk 3.34-35).

The pagan philosophers also wrote about choosing

loyalty to wisdom over loyalty to one’s family. In a letter of
the second century CE, a pagan father states that, “a fit
of anger” which came from an evil spirit came on his son
and “drove him out of his mind.” He had become a Cynic
and now ignores his parents. [Boring, M., HCNT, 174,
#325] The real family of the Cynic philosophers were
those who accepted Cynic teachings. [Boring, M., HCNT,
222, #327] Epictetus, the Stoic, writes, “Man, the Cynic
has made all mankind his children; the men among them
he has as sons, the women as daughters; in that spirit he
approaches them all and cares for them all.” [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 119, #148] Musonius Rufus writes in Must One
Obey One’s Parents Under All Circumstances? (30-100
CE), “Your father forbids you to study philosophy, but the
common father of all men and gods, Zeus, bids you and
exhorts you to do so.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 192, #264; c.f.
221, #325] He also says that if your father forbids you to

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study philosophy, you may disobey him. [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 192, #264]

E. Schweizer writes, “There is scarcely any other passage

where Mark’s pen is as evident as it is” [Schweizer, E., 83]
in the true family story.

Jesus’ relatives do not merely reject his religious mission,

but in the original story they believe he is a slave of
Beelzebul or Satan. The story was changed in order to
rehabilitate Jesus’ mother and his siblings. Jesus’ status
had grown within the early church and with it that of his
family. The church no longer wanted to see the family
portrayed so negatively. For example, James, the brother
of Jesus, is the head of the Jerusalem church (Acts
15.13-19; Gal 2.9,12) and Mary is shown as a believer in
Acts 1.14 and in John where she appears at the foot of
the cross (Jn 19.25-27). Thus, the accusation that Jesus
was allied with Beelzebul or Satan is shifted away from
the family; now the scribes from Jerusalem claim that
Jesus is possessed. Luke wants not a whisper about the
family’s faithlessness. The “true family” material is
separated from the Beelzebul story (Lk 8.19-21; Lk
11.14-16). In the gospels of Matthew and Luke there is no
reference to the family believing that Jesus is crazy,
much less that he is possessed.

But in Mark why does Jesus denigrate his own family?

Pagans converted to Christianity and some undoubtedly
alienated their families by rejecting the parents’ pagan
religious beliefs. Jesus explicitly encourages people to
choose Jesus over their own families; he preaches that

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those who have left “house or brothers or sisters or
mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for
the sake of the good news” will be rewarded a
hundredfold in family and property and will receive
eternal life in the age to come (Mk 10.29-30). But family
was sacred in the Greco-Roman world and so the editors
of Mark and Matthew softened this attack on the family.
Jesus quotes Moses saying that one should honor one’s
parents, and “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother
must surely die...” {Mk 7.10; Mt 15.5). Also, in the story of
the rich young man, Jesus requires people to “Honor
[their] father and mother” in order to inherit eternal life
(Mk 10.19).

The “true family” story is another example of Jesus’

non-dialogues with his “opponents” (Mk 3.22-30). The
scribes from Jerusalem accuse Jesus of working miracles
through Beelzebul. When Jesus argues, “How can Satan
cast out Satan?” (Mk 3.22-23), his enemies can think of
no response and disappear from the story. Pseudo
debates like this appear throughout the four gospels.
They usually consist of a hostile objection to Jesus’
teachings or the behavior of Jesus or his disciples. Jesus
then harangues his opponents with a tongue-lashing
monologue to which there is no response other than
silence. The Pharisees, scribes, chief priests, etc., are
simply foils for Jesus’ diatribes (see Mk 7.1-23; Mt
23.1-36; Lk 11.39-52).

SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT: MK 3.28-29

Near the end of Mark Chapter 3, Jesus teaches that all
sins and blasphemies can be forgiven except blasphemy
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 CONDEMNING JEWISH LAW
against the Holy Spirit (Mk. 3.28-29). In Matthew and
Luke Jesus preaches that blasphemy even against the
Son of Man (Jesus) is forgivable (Mt 12.31-32; Lk 12.10).
Many Christians are shocked and puzzled by this
teaching. They needn’t be. This saying was added by the
church because after Jesus was gone, it claimed that its
spiritual guidance came solely from the Holy Spirit. How
else could the church justify new rules, beliefs and
practices? To blaspheme the Holy Spirit was to reject the
authority of the church. John realizes that after Jesus'
death, he will no longer be present to supply truth, so his
Jesus states that the Father will send the Holy Spirit (the
paraclete) to teach the disciples and remind them of what
Jesus has taught (Jn 14.26)

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CHAPTER 3 BLINDING THE JEWS: MARK 4.1-41
For those outside [the kingdom of God], everything comes in parables; in order
that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and indeed listen, but not
understand... so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.
— Mark 4.11-12

Communicate this to no one else, but hide it, by Helios, since you have been
thought worthy by the Lord God to receive this great mystery.
— Magical Papyrus of Paris IV.475-830.

AGRICULTURAL PARABLES: MK 4.1-34

THE SOWER: MK 4.1-20; 21-25

Jesus, sitting with his disciples in a boat on “the sea,”
speaks in parables to “a very large crowd” on the shore
(Mk 4.1). He tells how the seed is sown by the sower,
falling on the path, rocky ground, and among thorns, but
none of the seed produces grain. Some seed falls on good
soil and, without birds or thorns to hinder it, produces
bountiful crops, thirty- and sixty- and a hundred-fold.

Jesus is alone with “those who were around him” and the
twelve (Mk 4.10). (Note the vague reference to those other
than the twelve. The editor of Mark is harmonizing the
gospel with Luke which depicts Jesus as having many
disciples and followers.) They ask Jesus about the
parables, (though he explains only one) and he tells them
in plain language that Satan, worldly concerns, and
persecutions cause some to fall away from the word (leave
the religion), but the seeds on good soil grow and bear
fruit, i.e., produce a lasting religious commitment.

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What is the meaning of the sower? It deals with a
universal problem, one found in all religions. If one’s faith
is true, why is it that some abandon their faith while
others do not?

Most serious scholars ascribe the sower parable and

Jesus’ explanation of it to the early church. Many words
appear in the parables which are found only in the letters
of the early church. [Schweizer, E., 96]

Jesus says all that is hidden will be revealed; in the

future the church will teach all in plain language
(4.21-22), that is, after his death. He teaches that the
kingdom of God is like a seed which grows in a secret and
mysterious way which the believer need not understand
or even be aware of; the sower can then sleep night after
night while the plants mature. Matthew, Luke, and John
interpreted the Marcan Jesus as teaching that the spread
of the faith requires no human effort. In other words, God
alone causes the church to grow. This saying was
threatening to the missionary work of the early church,
so the later gospel writers omit it.

Burton L. Mack in his influential book A Myth of

Innocence, points out that the sower and other seed
parables were common in the world of pagan rhetoric.
[Mack, B., 160] He writes, “The ‘sower’ was a stock
analogy for the ‘teacher,’ ‘sowing’ for ‘teaching,’ ‘seed’ for
‘words,’ and ‘soils’ for ‘students’.” [Mack, B., 160] Even in
the 21st century, we still talk about teachers “sowing the
seeds of wisdom” in their students.

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Mark’s use of agricultural metaphors does not prove that
Jesus operated in a rural setting. Pastoral writing by
urbanites, including images of shepherds and sheep and
sowing seed, etc., were well known in Greek and Roman
literature long before Mark. Aristotle writes of a farmer
who, after reading Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias, “forthwith
gave up his farm and his vines, put his soul under Plato’s
guidance, and made it a seed-bed and a planting ground
for Plato’s philosophy.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 54, #27]

B. Mack emphasizes the use of agricultural metaphors by

the Cynic philosophers, [Mack, B., 160] but there is no
need to do so. Stoics influenced early Christianity more
than the Cynics did and they were familiar with such
figures of speech. The Roman Stoic, Seneca (d 65 CE)
writes, [Seneca, Epistle 38:2] the “word should be
scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be,
if it once has found favorable ground, it unfolds its
strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its
greatest growth.” [Mack, B., 159] Jesus teaches that the
smallest seed is the mustard seed, and yet it grows and
“becomes the greatest of all shrubs” (Mk 4.30). Though
starting small, the faith or church will grow and blossom.

DIVINE DECEPTION

THE PURPOSE OF PARABLES

Before Jesus relates the parables, the twelve “and others”
had asked Jesus why he teaches the Jewish crowd only
in parables. Jesus replies, “To you has been given the
secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside,
everything comes in parables...” (Mk 4.11). Why? So the
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 BLINDING THE JEWS
Jewish people (the crowds) will not understand and be
saved. In view of the Holocaust, many modern Christians
are shocked by this anti-Jewish teaching and many
apologists have tried to interpret it away, but Jesus’
meaning is quite clear. He says they are taught in
parables, in “order that ‘they may indeed look, but not
perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so
that they may not turn again [to God] and be forgiven’”
(Mk 4.12). Jesus is concealing the kingdom; Jews are
predestined to hell!

The disciples are cautioned not to tell anyone. The

“messianic secret” involves Jesus hiding his mission, as
well as his identity. The secret is revealed through three
activities of Jesus:

 He commands the unclean spirits not to reveal who

he is, and orders the people whom he has cured or
exorcised not to reveal who aided them. (Note that
Jesus assumes the Messiah could be identified by
his miracles, but in Jewish tradition the Messiah
does not work miracles.)

 He teaches the crowds only in parables so they will

not understand and be saved.

 Jesus (or God) hardens their hearts (minds), so

they are spiritually blind (sometimes “the Jews”
themselves harden their own hearts).

Ancient pagans, too, believed in secrecy. “Myths have

been used by inspired poets, by the best of philosophers,
by those who established the mysteries, and by the gods

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
themselves in oracles.” [MacMullen, R., 274] The
Pythagoreans taught their disciples to keep secret the
“divine mysteries and methods of instruction...” [Boring,
M., HCNT, 92, #98] After communicating a magical
formula, a pagan magician says, “Share this great
mystery with no one [else], but conceal it, by Helios, since
you have been deemed worthy by the lord” [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 64, #50, PGM 1.130-32] (cf. Mk 1.44).

Many pagans thought that the wise person interprets

myths allegorically, i.e., symbolically, ignoring the literal
sense. Sallustius writes that only “the ignorant
Egyptians” and others would believe that earth is Isis,
moisture is Osiris, water Kronos, and so on. He asserts
that various myths are suitable for philosophers and
poets. Some are suitable for “. . . religious initiations,
since every initiation aims at uniting us with the world
and the gods.” [MacMullen, R. 275] For Sallustius the
revered myths and literature must be symbolically
interpreted in order to reconcile them with sophisticated
values and thought. Similarly, using symbolic
interpretation writers of the Christian Scriptures sought
to harmonize the Jewish Scriptures with Christian
beliefs.

SERMON ON THE MOUNT: MT 4.24-7.29; LK 6.17-7.1

Mark’s gospel contains very little of the teachings of

Jesus found in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and
Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, but we will briefly consider
some of these ethical teachings as they are still assumed
by many to be unique to Christianity.

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In Matthew, Jesus goes up to “the mountain” to escape
the crowds, and when his disciples join him, he delivers
the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5.1).

Matthew, like Mark, says that Jesus teaches the crowds

only in parables, but after three chapters of teachings
expressed in plain language, the gospel writer informs us
that “the crowds were astounded at his teaching”
(7.28-29). Lachs writes that, “the Sermon was apparently
intended only for the disciples.” [Lachs, S., 67]

Similarly, Luke says that Jesus chose the twelve and

then came down from the mountain to a level place (Lk
6.17) where he delivers his Sermon on the Plain. Luke
says that Jesus had “finished all his sayings in the
hearing of the people” (Lk 7.1). Most scholars agree with
Lachs that originally only the disciples heard the
sermons, the crowds were added by the early church.
Why? The church wanted to depict Jesus as one who was
open to all — a popular view among today’s Christians. It
was necessary to rehabilitate the elitist and secretive
Jesus of Mark.

Jesus teaches outdoors in a sitting position. This is

anachronistic since in 30 CE it was customary to teach
indoors and to stand while preaching (cf. Mt 5.1). [Lachs,
S., 67-68] Most scholars agree with Lachs that the locale
for the sermon is intended to parallel the receipt of the
law by Moses on Mt. Sinai (Ex 19.1ff). [Lachs, S., 67] The
purpose of the sermon is to depict Jesus as a teacher who
supersedes Moses. For example, “Blessed are the poor in
spirit” (Mt 5.3) is derived from Psalms of Solomon 10.7.
[Lachs, S., 71] The “poor” in Jewish literature refers to the
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people of God, i.e., Jews, but for Matthew, it refers to the
Christians.

At Mt 5.17-20, Jesus says that he has not come to

abolish the law or the prophets, but to “fulfill” them, but
fulfill means “to complete.” At Mt 5.18 Jesus says not one
iota of the law is to be erased. We agree with Lachs that
this “borders on sophistry...” [Lachs, S., 90] Jesus refers
to basic Jewish moral laws which Jesus “improves on”
but does not reject.

Mt 5.21-26 is the first of six passages which states a

Jewish law and then compares it to a teaching of Jesus,
to the detriment of the Mosaic Law.

Jesus says, “It was said to those of ancient times, you

shall not murder,... but I say to you...” (Mt 5.21-22). He
teaches that anger leads to murder. But Jesus has
ignored the Psalmist who writes, “Refrain from anger, and
forsake wrath” (Ps 37.8). In the rabbinic literature R.
Eleazar says, “He who hates his brother belongs to the
shedders of blood!” [Lachs, S., 91,94, ] Indeed, the LORD
orders Moses to tell the people not to have hatred of their
kin and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lv 19.17-18).
Seneca says that anger is a temporary madness (De Ira
1.1.2). “Man is born for mutual aid; anger, for
destruction...” (De Ira 1.5.2-3). Anger was a common
topic in Roman schools.

Jesus says “you have heard that it was said, ‘you shall
not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who
looks at a woman with lust has already committed
adultery with her in his heart” (Ex 20.14; Dt 5.18; Mt
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 BLINDING THE JEWS
5.27-20). (Apparently Jesus does not believe that women
lust after men.) But Jews and pagans also condemned
impure thought. [Lachs, S., 96-97. “He who has a pure
heart in love, looks not on a woman with thoughts of
fornication” (Test. of Benjamin 8.2). [Lachs, S., 96-97]
Seneca condemns adulterous behavior by either
husband or wife. [Motto, A. L., 60, Ep 94.26] Aristotle
writes, “What is a crime for a person to do, is a crime for a
person to think...” [Boring, M., HCNT, 58, #34] and Cicero
asserts that lust is a powerful sin. [Boring, M., HCNT, 58,
#34]

The Jewish Jesus condemns Jews who divorce and

remarry (Mt 5.31-32; 19.9), yet Dt 24.1ff clearly permits
divorce and remarriage, as does rabbinic law. Jesus
incorrectly assumes that a Jewish woman, like a pagan
woman, could initiate a divorce. The Stoic Musonius (ca
31-100 CE) condemned adultery, regarding marriage as
sacred. [Reale, G. 71]

Leviticus says that one should not swear falsely (19.12).

Jesus says, “Do not swear at all” (Mt 5.33-37). The
Anchor Bible Dictionary points out that Jesus’ teachings
on oaths, prayer, revenge, and marriage were close to the
doctrines of the pagan Pythagoreans [Freedman, D. N.,
vol. 5, 564] who were also in favor of daily prayer (cf. Mt
6.9).

Quoting Scripture, Jesus preaches, “you have heard it

was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I
say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if any one
strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also...” (Mt

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
5.38-39; Lk 6.29-30; cf. Ex 21.24f; Lv 24.20). Some
Christian commentators still argue that the ethics of
Jesus are loving and the ethics of Judaism are harsh and
primitive. But compensation for injury was a common
practice in the pagan world as it is today. Also, an eye for
an eye was a vast improvement over the older tradition of
a human life for an eye. [For more see Lachs, S., 103-104]

The Lord commands the Jewish people to love their

neighbors (Lev 19.18). Assuming Jesus means to include
non-neighbors, he has achieved superiority only by
ignoring the verse which appears at Lv 19.34 which says
that “you shall love the stranger.” [Lachs, S., 107, 110 fn.
1] Jesus adds, “Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you” (Mt 5.44; cf. Lk 6.27-28,32-36). Jesus
does not mean that one should love one’s enemy during
combat, as some modern Christians think. As Gandhi
and Martin Luther King have demonstrated, nonviolence
under certain circumstances is effective, but this is not
so if your persecutor is Hitler or the brutal Roman army.
The early church was probably advocating that a
Christian should react nonviolently when he or she is
ostracized. In addition, Matthew is anachronistic since
he refers to persecutions of Christians which did not
occur until well after Jesus’ death.

In the Jewish Scriptures one is commanded to treat one’s

enemies in a moral way; Jewish tradition teaches that if
your enemy is hungry and thirsty, give him bread and
water, etc. (see Ex 23.4-5; Dt 22.4; Prv 25.21). [Lachs, S.,
108, 111 fn. 12-14] The Qumranites express a hatred of
the Sons of Darkness, i.e., those Jews and others who
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 BLINDING THE JEWS
opposed the sect’s understanding of God but this sect
was not reflective of mainstream Judaism.

The idea that one should harm one’s enemies and help
one’s friends was ancient. “Yet in the Greek world a
different view gradually emerged when Pericles urged
overcoming enemies by generosity and virtue.”
[Thucydides 4.19,1-4 as quoted in Fitzmyer, Luke vol 1
637, note on Lk 6.27] The Stoics and Pythagoreans
taught that one should behave toward one’s enemies so
that they will turn into friends. [Diogenes Laertius 8.1,23
as quoted in Fitzmyer, Luke, vol 1, 637-38]

Jesus says, “whenever you give alms, do not sound a

trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be
praised by others” (Mt 6.2). Giving alms on the street was
common in both Jewish and pagan circles. As to
sounding a trumpet in the synagogues or streets while
giving to the poor, this nowhere appears in Jewish
literature. [Lachs, S., 112]

Jesus directs his disciples to shut the door and pray in

private to their hidden Father (Mt 6.6). So too, some
pagan magicians advised their followers to pray in
private, “to your hidden Father who sees that which is
hidden.” [Smith, M., , 131] None of the versions of the
Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and Luke are found in Jewish
literature (Mk 11.25; Mt 6.9-15; Lk 11.2-4).

Jesus says, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged”
(Mt 7.1-5; Lk 6.37-38,41-42). But the idea that we should
not judge others but rather should examine ourselves
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was a commonplace teaching among Stoic-Cynics like
Seneca, as well as many other philosophers.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s

clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Mt 7.15-20).
Matthew is again anachronistic; he refers to Christian
heretics or schismatics of his own time.

GOLDEN RULE

Jesus preaches, “In everything do to others as you would

have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets”
(Mt 7.12; Lk 6.31. Probably no saying of Jesus is more
widely known among Christians than this “golden rule.”
Apologists even today use it to demonstrate the
superiority and uniqueness of Jesus’ ethics over Jewish
ethics, but it is hardly unique to Christianity. Consider,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lv 19.18);
“And that which you hate, do to no man” (Tobit 4.15).
[Lachs, S., 143] The golden rule is found in all the major
religions of the world although the phrase Golden Rule is
an 18th century label. It also appears in ancient Greek
literature, e.g., “Isocrates, Nioles 61, ‘Do not do unto
others that which angers you when others do it to you.’
Compare also Herodotus 3.142.” [Lachs, S., 144 fn. 6]

J. Fitzmyer writes, “In antiquity many formulations, both

positive and negative, were known.” [Fitzmyer, J., vol 1,
639]

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He gives some examples of the rule:

 Lv 19.18 - “You must love your neighbor as

yourself.”

 Luke and Philo (20 BCE-50 CE) emphasize duty to

God and humanity, to love God and man. [Boring,
M., HCNT, 128-129, #165]

 R. Hillel, a contemporary rabbi of Jesus, writes,

“What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else;
that is the whole Law, all else is commentary. Go
and learn.” [Fitzmyer, J., vol 1, 639, b. Sabbat 31a]

CALMING THE STORM: MK 4.35-41

But let us return to Mark. Jesus and his disciples are in

“the boat” which, along with other boats, is crossing the
Sea of Galilee. (The other boats of vs. 36 probably
originally served as witnesses to the storm miracle that
follows this verse.)

Randel Helms points out in Gospel Fictions [Helms, R.,

76-81] that Matthew may have used both Jonah and the
Psalmist in constructing this story. The Psalmist writes
that when struck by a storm at sea, the crew and others,
“cried to the LORD in their trouble [and] he made the
storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed”
(107.28-29). In Mark, the disciples wake Jesus who was
apparently fatigued since he was sleeping during the
storm! They cry out to him in fear, asking him if he cares
that they are perishing (Mk 4.38). Jesus commands the
wind and the sea, “Peace! Be still!” and it is so (4.39).
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Jonah 1.4-17 relates that the prophet is asleep on board
a ship when God sends a storm, endangering the crew.
They cry out in fear and pray to their gods to save them
but to no avail. The captain wakes Jonah telling him to
call on his God so that they might not perish. Jonah
knows that it is because of his previous disobedience that
God has sent the storm, and he tells the crew to throw
him into the sea and the storm will cease. They do so and
the storm ends. Jonah is swallowed by a fish; he prays
and the Lord releases him. At last he obeys God’s
command to go to the pagan city of Nineveh in
Mesopotamia, and tell them to desist from their evil
behavior or else the city will be destroyed by God in forty
days. The people of the great pagan city repent of their
sins, God spares them, and all ends happily. Thus, God
has reminded Jonah that God is responsible not only for
Jews but for all people.

There are several parallels between Mark and Jonah.

Jesus, like Jonah, is asleep when the storm endangers
the boat (Mk 4.37-38; Jon 1.4-5). The disciples cry out in
fear, asking Jesus if he cares that they might perish, as
people do in Jonah (Mk 4.38; Jon 1.14). Jesus calms the
sea (in Jonah, God does so) (Mk 4.39; Jon 1.15). Jesus
criticizes the disciples for still having no faith (Mk 4.40),
and Jonah was unfaithful when he disobeyed God. After
three days in the fish, Jonah goes on to fulfill his mission
to the pagans in Nineveh. In Mark, Jesus and his
disciples finish the boat trip and arrive in the pagan
country of the Gerasenes where Jesus exorcises a
“legion” of demons from a pagan man, thus
foreshadowing the church’s mission to pagans.
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Many miracles resulted “. . . from the virtues of
Pythagoras.” He predicted earthquakes and violent
winds, and calmed the waves of rivers and seas so that
his disciples could pass through the area (cf. Mt 8.26).
[Martin, R., 173] “Jesus himself accomplishes the mighty
deed which is otherwise ascribed only to divine beings”
[Boring, M., HCNT, 66-67, Unit #54] in the pagan world.
In a story from Lucian, two of the divine sons of Zeus
calm a similar storm. [Boring, M., HCNT, 66-67, Unit #54]
In Mark, Jesus sleeps during a dangerous storm; in
Homer the hero sleeps on a dangerous battlefield (Iliad
4.223). In both there are a storm and “help from the
hero.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 66-67, Unit #54] “‘Have pity,’ I
[Clitophon] wailed and cried, ‘Lord Poseidon, and make a
truce with us, the remnants of your shipwreck, we have
already undergone many deaths through fear.’” (2nd
century CE). [Boring, M., HCNT, 69, Unit #59] Poseidon
was called “Lord” as is Jesus at Mt 8.25. In pagan myth, a
god or hero can control nature. [Cotter, W., 131] The gods
calm storms to save sailors and other people, e.g.,
Aphrodite, Poseidon, Neptune. [Cotter, W., 132ff] The
Dioscuri calmed the seas in the Homeric hymns. [Cotter,
W., 134] The Egyptian goddess, Isis, is mistress of rivers,
winds, and the sea, and calms the seas and brings on
storms. [Cotter, W., #3.8, 136]

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CHAPTER 4 FAITHFUL PAGANS: MARK 5.1-7.37
We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, Christians shall not
eat or drink with Jews...
— Pope Eugenius IV Decree, 1442 CE.

DEMONS AND PIGS: MK 5.1-20

Jesus and his disciples travel by boat to the eastern

shore of the Sea of Galilee and disembark in the pagan
region of Gerasa. Mark gives no reason for the trip. A
pagan man who is possessed appears before Jesus. He
has been living among the tombs, has broken his chains
and is wandering about (Mk 5.2,8). He bows down and
addresses Jesus, “Son of the Most High God... I adjure
you by God do not torment me” (5.7). In Mark, this pagan
is the only person to call Jesus Son of God other than the
disciples. Jesus asks him who he is and the man replies,
“My name is Legion; for we are many” (vs. 9). Mark’s text
switches from singular to plural, from one spirit to a
legion of them. (Legion is the Roman military term for a
unit of 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers.) Once again we see that
Jesus' knowledge is limited since he has to ask the
demon who he is. The unclean spirits beg Jesus “not to
send them out of the country” (vs. 10). Jesus doesn’t exile
them, but he outfoxes his foes by sending them into a
nearby herd of about 2,000 pigs which rushes down a
steep bank and drowns in the sea.

Would demons really fear being evicted from their “own

country?” Would Jesus have permitted the demons to
torment people in other areas? Mark's solution is to have

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Jesus send the demons into pigs which then drown in the
sea. Even if the pigs die, is it possible for these
supernatural entities to die? Luke attempts to correct
this latter point by asserting that the demons feared
going back “to the abyss” (Lk 8.31), but he apparently
accepts the fact that demons were mortal.

Many scholars think that originally the story was located

in a Jewish area. Mark, or his editor, knowing that Jews
are forbidden to eat pork and so would not be raising
pigs, placed the story in Gerasa. The name of this pagan
area varies from manuscript to manuscript and gospel to
gospel. Why was it so difficult to find a pagan region for
the story? Because Mark relates that the
demon-possessed pigs rushed down a steep bank into the
sea and drowned, but there is no suitable bank or cliff
bordering the Sea of Galilee. Mark and Luke placed the
pigs near the city of Gerasa, but this is about 33 miles
southeast of the Sea of Galilee. [Fitzmyer, J., vol. 1, 736]
Matthew locates the story in Gadara, but this is still
about six miles from the sea. [Fitzmyer, J., vol. 1, 736]
Mark and parallels give no hint that the pigs ran a
marathon, as E. Schweizer points out. [Schweizer, E.,
113]

The demons use God's name in begging Jesus to spare

them but they would hardly make such use of God’s
name which is why both Matthew and Luke omit this.
Incidentally, why do the devils always speak Greek?
[Fitzmyer, J., vol 1., 738, vs. 28]

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The former demoniac begs to be allowed to accompany
Jesus who politely refuses his request and tells him to go
home to his friends and tell them what the Lord has done
for him (Mk 5.18-19). Mark says that the man told all the
people what Jesus had done for him and they were
amazed. Other than the blind beggar at Jericho, the only
person who asks to follow Jesus is this man. This story
was inserted by the early church to give scriptural
support for the church’s mission to pagans (non-Jews).
[Fitzmyer, J., vol 1. 735]

Exorcisms are rare in ancient Judaism. There are none

recorded in the Jewish Scriptures, and in the Mishnah (ca
200 CE) there are only three passages that assume the
existence of demons, and none mention exorcism.
[Cotter, W., 97-98]

RESURRECTION OF JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER: MK 5.21-43

Jesus crosses the sea in “the boat,” returning to Galilee.

In Mark, Jesus raises only one person from the dead, the
daughter of Jairus, the leader (5.22), or one of the leaders
(5.38), of the synagogue. Jairus comes to Jesus, falls at
his feet and repeatedly begs him to cure his dying
daughter by the laying on of hands (Mk 5.22-23). Jesus
heads for Jairus’ house, accompanied by the father and a
large crowd (5.24).

This is another sandwich story that is interrupted by an

incident involving an unnamed woman who has been
suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years (Mk
5.25-34). Her faith is strong enough that she believes that
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 FAITHFUL PAGANS
if she only touches Jesus’ clothes, she will be cured. She
does so and the bleeding stops. Jesus knows immediately
that power has gone out of him; he turns to the crowd,
asking who touched his clothes. The woman falls down
before him and explains “all that has happened” and
Jesus says that her faith has cured her (Mk 5.34). Again
we see that Jesus is not all -powerful or all-knowing since
power leaves him and he has to ask who touched him. E.
Schweizer concludes that this story is Mark’s own
composition. [Schweizer, E., 116] The point of the story is
again to show that Jewish religious leaders are impotent,
i.e., Judaism is inefficacious.

A number of writers have interpreted this story as

meaning that Jesus is superior to Jewish religious
leaders in that he ignores Jewish ritual rules governing
blood impurity. Mary D'Angelo disagrees, arguing that
Jesus is not aware of the presence of blood but she
overlooks the fact that Jesus shows no concern even
when he becomes aware that he has inadvertently
violated a ritual law. [D'Angelo, M. A., 140-141]

E. Schweizer writes that “such miracles were attributed

to pagan Greek wonder-workers...” [Schweizer, E., 121]
Arrian relates that the soldiers of Alexander the Great
sought to touch his garment for healing. There are similar
stories in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla and Tacitus’ Histories.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 78, #74]

Pagan gods helped women, too. In an inscription from

Epidaurus, a god helps a woman named Cleo deliver a
baby after a pregnancy of five years. We can accept the

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gestation period, but we have some difficulty with the
idea that after his birth, the infant immediately washes
himself at the fountain and walks about with his mother!
[Martin, F., 225]

While Jesus is talking to the healed woman, some people

from Jairus’ house exclaim that his daughter is dead.
Jesus allows “no one to follow him [to the house] except
Peter, James, and John, the brother of James” (Mk 5.37).
(Where did the disciples come from? The flow of the
narrative is smooth if one omits vs. 37. Apparently the
disciples have been added to the original story.)

Jesus enters Jairus’ home and says, “The child is not

dead, but sleeping” (Mk 5.39). The mourners scoff, and
Jesus puts everyone outside the house except the child’s
parents and the three disciples. He takes the child’s hand
and commands her to get up. She rises and walks
around. Mark says they were amazed (Mk 5.42). Jesus
then forbids them to tell anyone what has occurred (the
messianic secret again), and orders someone to feed the
girl.

The tale of the raising of Jairus’ daughter is very much

like the standard pagan healing story:

 a person has an ailment;

 the sick person or a relative or friend begs the hero

for a cure;

 the hero cures the person by touch, spittle, or

words; and

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 FAITHFUL PAGANS
 proof is provided that the cure was effective, e.g.,
Jairus’ daughter gets up, walks around, and is
given food to eat.

Often Mark and the other evangelists will use a pagan

story but clothe it with details taken from the Jewish
Scriptures. R. Helms compares the Synoptic story about
Jairus’ daughter with the prophet Elisha’s resurrection of
a young boy 2 Kgs 4.18-37; Mk 5.21-43). He observes five
points of similarity. [Helms, R., 65-66]

In both stories:

 a parent begs the hero to come and save his or her

child who is near death;

 on the way to the child the hero receives a message

not to come since the child is dead, though this
deters neither Jesus nor Elisha;

 both healers turn people out of the house where

the child lies;

 in each story the hero touches the child, speaks,

and the child awakes;

 finally, in Mark and 2 Kings the crowds or the

parents of the resurrected child are amazed.

EXCURSUS: LUKE’S RESURRECTION AT NAIN

R. Helms also finds five points of similarity between

Elijah in 1 Kings 17.10,17-24 and Luke 7.11-17: [Helms,
R., 64]

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
 Both begin with the words, “And it came to pass.”

 In each the hero meets a woman at the gate of a

city.

 Both magic workers speak and touch the woman’s

dead son who rises and speaks.

 The miracle establishes that each of the heroes is a

prophet.

 Both end with the same words, “he gave him to his
mother.”

Helms writes that what is “striking is that all the gospel

stories of Jesus’ resurrecting a dead loved one are based
on the resurrections...” performed by Elijah and Elisha in
1 and 2 Kings. We would point out that there is one
significant difference between the stories of Jesus and
Elijah and that is that the Jewish prophet prays to the
Lord for help in restoring the boy to life (1 Kgs 17.20,22).
[Helms, R., 64] The Messiah, Jesus, never names God as
the source of power for his miraculous deeds. This is very
non-Jewish.

Resurrecting the dead were not common among pagan

magicians, but in the Jewish Scriptures they are even
rarer. [Smith, M., 118] Pagans could misinterpret signs of
death in a patient, as when Asclepiades meets a funeral
procession and ascertains that the man is still alive.
[Boring, M., HCNT,79, #76] J. Fitzmyer states that
resurrection stories appear in the pagan works of Pliny
and Apuleius, as well as other writings. [In what follows,

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 FAITHFUL PAGANS
see J. Fitzmyer, Commentary on Luke, vol 1, 656-658] In
Philostratus’ biography of the Jesus-like figure,
Apollonius of Tyana (d ca 96 CE), Apollonius stops a
funeral bier, touches the dead girl, and wakes her from
death. He then returns her to the house of her father.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 203-204, #290]

According to Apuleius, the Greek god of healing,

Asclepius, raised a man thought dead. [Martin, F., 179]
And Malodorous writes that when Alcestis died, she was
brought back from the dead by Hercules. [Martin, F., 214]
The resurrected Jesus, like Hercules and Dionysius,
descends to the land of the dead (prison) and rescues
spirits from Hades (1 Pet 3.18-19).

REJECTION IN JESUS’ HOMETOWN: MK 6.1-6

Jesus teaches on the Sabbath in the synagogue of his

hometown which remains unknown. Mark uses the word
“Nazareth” five times in his gospel, but not here in this
story. Jesus’ (former) neighbors ask, “Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and
Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here
with us?” (Mk 6.3). A Jewish child’s ancestry would not
be traced solely through the mother, since this could
imply that she had borne an illegitimate child, an insult
to both mother and child. Matthew corrects this by
adding that Jesus is “the son of the carpenter” (Mt 13.55).

In Mark and Matthew Jesus’ listeners in the synagogue

are astounded at his teachings and his “deeds of power”
(Mk 6.2), and yet turn against him. Apparently they think
that wisdom should not issue from a person with the low
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social status of a carpenter (Mk 6.2-3), but they knew his
status before he spoke. Why the change of heart?
Philostratus, writing in the 3rd century CE, states that
Apollonius of Tyana said, “Other men regard me as the
equal of the gods, and some of them even as a god, but
until now my own country alone ignores me...” [Boring,
M., HCNT, 96, #106] Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom write
of similar tales of rejection of philosophers in their own
countries. [Boring, M., HCNT, 96, #106]

According to Mark, the faith of the Jews in the synagogue

is so defective that Jesus could not perform any miracles
in his hometown, except for the healing of a few sick
people by the laying on of hands (Mk 6.5). Matthew
rehabilitates Jesus by asserting that Jesus did not do
many miracles there, and Luke omits any hint that Jesus’
power is limited.

The rejection at Nazareth is the first story of Jesus’

ministry that Luke records. By placing it at the beginning
of his gospel he seeks to depict Jesus as a teacher, not
merely the miracle monger of Mark’s gospel. In the
synagogue, Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah,
indicating that he (the Messiah) is a champion of the
oppressed, the captives, the poor, and the blind,
although as we said before, there is no such messianic
tradition in Judaism.

Luke adds two significant items to the accounts of Mark

and Matthew: First, the people identify Jesus as
“Joseph’s” son (Lk 4.22), rather than as a carpenter
(Mark) or the son of the carpenter (Mt 13.54-55). Second,
unlike Mark and Matthew, the audience takes no offense
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 FAITHFUL PAGANS
at Jesus’ humble status. Instead, in Luke Jesus teaches
that there was a severe famine in Israel, and Elijah (ca
850 BCE) was sent by God to help a pagan widow of
Sidon by multiplying food. In like manner, the prophet’s
disciple, Elisha, cleanses only the pagan leper, Naaman
the Syrian, although there were many Jewish lepers in
Israel. In response to Jesus’ pro-pagan message, the
people in the synagogue attempt to kill Jesus by throwing
him off the top of a hill.

Luke has begun his account of Jesus’ ministry with an

old pagan slander, namely that Jews hated non-Jews.

JESUS SENDS OUT THE TWELVE: MK 6.6B-13

Jesus teaches in the villages of Galilee (Mk 6.6b), and

then sends the twelve out “. . . two by two...” (Mk 6.7), as
does the early church (see Acts). Jesus gives his disciples
typical Cynic instructions: they are not to take any
possessions with them except a staff, one pair of sandals
and a single tunic (Mk 6.8-9). Also, they are to take no
bread, no bag, and no money, and they are to exorcise
unclean spirits and proclaim repentance.

Plutarch reports that holy men took no wallet and no food

on their journeys since they “devote all their time to god.”
[Boring, M., HCNT, 80, #79] Diogenes (2nd century CE),
says that the Cynics took only one cloak, a wallet and a
staff when they traveled. [Boring, M., HCNT, 81, #80] The
Stoic, Musonius Rufus (d 100 CE), relates that wearing
one cloak is better than two and it is best to wear no
sandals. [Boring, M., HCNT, 81-82, #81] The editors of
HCNT write that there are “numerous analogies between
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Cynic wandering philosophers and early Christian
wandering missionaries...”. [Boring, M., HCNT, 118,
#144]

To whom are the apostles sent? Mark implies that their

mission is to Jews in Galilee and Matthew spells this out.
Jesus commands the disciples to “Go nowhere among the
gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go
rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10.5-6).
Some apologists erroneously use this text as “a proof”
that Jesus, being Jewish, naturally dislikes non-Jews.

This pericope is anti-Jewish. In Mark, Jesus says that if

(Jewish) towns refuse to welcome or listen to the twelve,
they are to leave and “shake off the dust that is on [their]
feet as a testimony against them” (Mk 6.11). Matthew is
more explicit than Mark. He adds that for any (Jewish)
town that rejects the disciples, “. . . it will be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day
of judgment than for that town” (Mt 10.15-16).

After Mark’s long account of the death of John the Baptist

(Mk 6.14-29), the disciples abruptly reappear, reporting
to Jesus “all that they had done and taught” (Mk 6.30). E.
Schweizer asserts that this verse was added by Mark or
his editors. [Schweizer, E., 135] Matthew never reports
that the disciples returned to Jesus; they just appear in
the grain field story at Mt 12.1ff. This is another story
added by the early church to support missionary efforts.

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 FAITHFUL PAGANS
DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST: MK 6.14-29

According to Mark, Jesus’ fame has spread throughout

Galilee. Herod Antipas and others think that Jesus is
John the Baptist raised from the dead (thus Jesus is able
to do miracles). Still others think Jesus is Elijah, or a
prophet like those of long ago.

Mark relates that John the Baptist is beheaded by Herod

(Antipas), the Tetrarch who ruled Galilee under Roman
authority (Mark wrongly calls him king). Mark relates
that Herod married the ex-wife of his brother Philip,
Tetrarch of Etruria. The Baptist condemns this union of
Herod and Herodias. Because of this condemnation,
Herodias desires the death of the Baptist. When her
daughter’s dance at a banquet pleased Herod, she is
granted a favor, and her mother asks for the head of John
the Baptist. Herod agrees and, despite his “deep grief,”
orders the “holy man” beheaded (Mk 6.26,20) and
delivers his head on a platter. Note that the execution of
the Jewish prophet “is given without any exaltation of the
martyr.” [Schweizer, E., 134] However, exaltation of the
martyr is typical of later Christian Martyrologies.

Many scholars hold this story of John’s death to be

unhistorical. It contains a number of errors. E. Schweizer
mentions a few: [Schweizer, E., 134]

 Philip the Tetrarch was not married to Herodias,

but rather to her daughter, Salome.

 Josephus, the first-century CE Jewish historian,

gives a different cause for John’s death: John had a
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
large following and Herod Antipas feared an
insurrection (Ant 18.5.116-119).

 Josephus writes that the death of John took place

at the fortress Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea.
One problem is that the guests, high officials and
leading citizens of Galilee, would not fit into this
small fort. The party would have had to be held at
the Herodian palace in Tiberius, the capital of
Galilee. Neither Mark nor Matthew relates where
the banquet was held.

Schweizer writes that, “it is almost inconceivable that the

princess would dance in this way....” [Schweizer, E., 132]

We would add that John’s head being delivered on a platter

during a formal banquet is also inconceivable!

Some scholars think the section of Josephus dealing with

John’s death is a Christian interpolation. They think the
relevant passage in Antiquities (18.116-119) [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 96-97, #107] disturbs the narrative flow. King
Aretas is angry because Herod Antipas divorced his
daughter to marry Philip’s ex-wife and so declares war on
Herod. Then Josephus discusses war tactics. The
passage about John follows, after which Josephus
returns to the war plans. On the other hand, other
scholars believe that John was an historical Jewish
figure, and that only the reference to John’s baptizing,
although not for the remission of sins, was added by
Christian editors. These scholars see John as an
historical figure, but having no connection with Jesus.

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FEEDING 5,000 & 4,000: MK 6.32-44; 8.1-9

In Galilee, Jesus feeds 5,000 men with five loaves and two
fish, twelve baskets of food are left over (Mk 6.32-44). (Mt
14.21 says 5,000 men plus women and children.) Later,
in pagan territory, the Marcan Jesus feeds 4,000 men
with seven loaves and a few fish, with seven baskets of
food left over (Mk 8.1-10; Mt 15.32-39).

R. Helms argues persuasively that the feeding stories are

based on 2 Kings 4.42-44, where Elisha feeds 100 hungry
people with only 20 loaves and a sack of grain with food
left over. Jesus is more powerful than Elisha; he feeds
more people with less food. The Jewish prophet fulfills
the Lord's will; Jesus again acts on his own authority.
[Helms, R., 75]

Some apologists argue that Jesus here shows

“compassion” for the Jewish crowd, because they are
“like sheep without a shepherd” (Mk 6.34), but Jesus is
again condemning the Jewish people’s religious leaders
as inferior to himself and inefficacious.

At Mk 6.37, the disciples ask Jesus if they should “buy

200 denarii worth of bread...” and give it to the people to
eat. A single denarius was equivalent to a laborer’s pay
for one day, so 200 denarii would be the wages for a
person for about seven months. [Throckmorton, Jr., B.,
90, fn j] Where did Jesus and the disciples get this much
money? They don’t beg. We get no hint from Mark until
much later (Mk 15.40), when we learn that women
provided for Jesus while he was in Galilee. According to
many scholars, the feeding stories prefigure the
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institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.
[Schweizer, E., 138] Although pagan magicians do not
multiply food, they are commonly pictured as providing
it. [Smith, M., 118]

EXCURSUS: MIRACLE AT CANA JN 2.1-10

Pausanias assures us there were many witnesses who

verified that at the festival of Dionysius, three empty pots
behind locked doors were miraculously filled with wine.
[Martin, F., 215] So too, Jesus attends a wedding in Cana
of Galilee where there are many witnesses. When the
wine runs out, Jesus has six jars filled with water, each
holding about 20 or 30 gallons. He turns the water to
wine, which is witnessed by the steward when he tastes
the water (Jn 2.9). This is one-up-manship. The
Dionysian story has witnesses, three pots, and the
miracle occurs behind locked doors. Jesus has
witnesses, six large jars, and the miracle occurs in the
sight of all. Jesus’ wine was also the best wine. Did the
guests drink 120 gallons of wine or more? This story is
used by apologists to argue that Jesus approved of
marriage, but the early gospels know nothing of it.

WALKING ON WATER: MK 6.47-52

When the evening comes, Jesus goes alone to “a

mountain” to pray. The disciples are in a boat on the Sea
(of Galilee) heading for Bethsaida, although they will not
arrive there until two chapters later at Mk 8.22.
[Schweizer, E., 142] Early in the morning, Jesus returns
from the mountain to the sea, and sees that his disciples
are in the middle of the sea having a hard time rowing the
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boat against the wind. Jesus appears walking on the
water, “intending to pass them by” (vs. 48). Could Jesus
see a ship in distress from the shore, several miles away?
If Jesus wanted to rescue the disciples, why does Mark
say that he intended to pass them by?

The disciples are terrified when they see Jesus, fearing

that he is a ghost. Jesus reassures them, enters the boat,
and the wind ceases (Mk 6.50-51). Mark says that the
disciples are utterly astounded since “they did not
understand about the [multiplication of the] loaves, but
their hearts were hardened” (Mk 6.51-52, cf. Mk 8.17).
Mark hates the Pharisees and he here equates the
disciples with outsiders who are to be damned to hell!

Matthew adds that Peter also walks on the water.

Heading toward Jesus, Peter becomes terrified and
begins to sink (Mt 14.30). Jesus rescues him. But
Matthew ameliorates this faithlessness of Peter and the
others by omitting Mark’s comment about their “hearts
being hardened” (Mk 6.52) and by having the disciples
worship Jesus, declaring him to be “the Son of God” (Mt
14.33).

In the Jewish Scriptures, God (and sometimes prophets

like Moses, Elijah, and Elisha) miraculously control the
seas and rivers (cf. Job 9.8). [Fitzmyer, J., vol 1, 728]
“You trample the sea with your horses” (cf. Hab 3.15).
[Cotter, W., 149] “The Lord tramples the waves of the sea”
(cf. Job 9.6-11). [Cotter, W., #3.31, 149-150] The Lord
makes a way on the seas.

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E. Schweizer writes that “Greek writers asserted that
supermen and demons could walk upon the sea.”
[Schweizer, E., 141] One of Poseidon’s sons, Orion,
walked on the sea as if it were solid ground. [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 99, #111] Plutarch, Menander, Strabo, and even
the Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote of how Alexander
the Great crossed the inlet of the Pamphylian Sea,
sometimes indicating that a miracle occurred. [Martin,
F., 157-158] Josephus sees Alexander’s crossing the Sea
as miraculous (the water is held back for him), but he
states that everyone is welcome to their own opinion.
[Martin, F., 157-158]

Pagans presupposed “that divine origin is demonstrated

by great deeds. This conception is significant for the
composition of the Gospels as a whole, especially for the
idea of Jesus’ divine sonship.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 96,
#105] Great deeds indicate divinity of the one who
performs them.

Mk 6.53-56 relates that the boat with Jesus and his

disciples came to shore at Gennesaret in Galilee. At once
people recognize Jesus and bring their sick to him. The
people had come from the villages, cities and farms and
all who touched the fringe of his cloak were cured. E.
Schweizer attributes this summary statement to Mark’s
pen. [Schweizer, E., 143]

CONDEMNING ORAL LAW: PHARISEES AND SCRIBES

We must now look at Jesus’ attitude toward oral law (and

sometimes written law) and its defenders. “Among
Orthodox Jews, it is believed that both the written and
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the oral (unwritten) laws were given to Moses on Mt.
Sinai.” [Cohn-Sherbok, L., 130] Rabbinical
interpretations of the written law were collected and
published in the Mishnah ca 200 CE by Judah ha Nasi.
The discussions of the Mishnah are contained in the
Talmuds, “The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the
late 5th Century (CE) and The Babylonian Talmud in the
late 6th Century (CE)...” [Cohn-Sherbok, L., 174]

In Mark Chapter 7, Jesus condemns “the Pharisees” and

“some scribes” who have popped up from Jerusalem.
Pharisees did not live in Galilee at this time and Mark
treats scribes as if they were a unified political, social, or
religious block, but they are not depicted in this way by
Josephus.

The Pharisees and scribes observe that some of Jesus’

disciples are eating without ritually washing their hands
(Mk 7.2). Mark flatly states that “all the Jews, do not eat
unless they thoroughly wash their hands...” (vs. 3), and
they observe many other rituals concerning cups and
pots, etc. (vs. 4). The Pharisees and scribes criticize
Jesus, asking why his disciples do not live “according to
the tradition of the elders...” (vs. 5), as if oral law was not
from God.

Lachs writes, “The earliest reference to this practice [of

the ritual washing of hands] in Jewish sources is the
Mishnah (ca 200 CE) (M. Ber. 8.2-4).” [Lachs, S., 246]
Montefiore states that this practice in Jesus’ time applied
only to priests; laypersons and the pupils of the rabbis
were exempt. [Lachs, S., 246] R. Bultmann states that
this account “has all the characteristics of pure polemic
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
of the early church.” [As quoted in Beck, N., 151] Beck
asserts that Mk 7.6-13 is “vitriolic anti-Jewish polemic.”
[Beck, N., 151-152]

Jesus quotes Isaiah who writes that God commanded

him to tell Jews, “This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship
me...” (Mk 7.6-7; Mt 15.8-9; cf. Isa 29.13). As we said
above, Mark does not relate the fact that Isaiah chastises
the Israelites (the northern kingdom) but intends no
permanent condemnation of them or Jews in general.

Jesus condemns the oral law, “You abandon the

commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (Mk
7.8; cf. Mt 15.6). In Matthew, too, Jesus sees oral law as
human, “in vain do they worship me, teaching human
precepts as doctrines” (Mk 15.9). As we said above, in
Judaism, all law, oral or written, is believed to come from
God.

Pagans, too, placed divine law above human law.

Plutarch writes that we are in the world “to obey the
commands of the gods” (cf. Mk 7.8). [Boring, M., HCNT,
57, #31] Epictetus (55-135 CE) asks, should we obey
human laws, “these wretched laws of ours, the laws of the
dead, and... not [look] to the laws of the Gods...?” [Reale,
G., 86] A number of pagan writers condemned Jewish law
as Jesus does here (see Chapter 9).

Jesus goes on to say that the Pharisees and scribes do

not honor their parents because they set aside money
(corban) for the temple (see Ex 20.12; 21.17; Dt 5.16; Lv
20.9), and Jesus adds that this robs their parents of
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support (Mk 7.8-11). Corban was money put in trust for
the temple, but this does not mean that Jews were free to
starve their parents any more than it would under today’s
law. Matthew drops this.

Mk 7.19b is often used to show that Jesus rejected

Jewish food laws. Mark says that Jesus “declared all
foods clean.” But this verse is missing from the earliest
extant manuscript of Mark, the third-century CE P45, and
does not appear in Mark until the manuscripts of the 4th
and 5th centuries. It is a scribal gloss (a comment written
in the margin of a manuscript and incorporated into the
text by a later copyist.).

Here are some comments on the statement of Mark as to

Jesus “declaring” all foods as clean:

 Most scholars consider Mk 7.19b to be a late

insertion.

 Some think that Jesus is depicted as abandoning

ritual law, at least the food laws of the Jewish
Scriptures and oral law, but if Jesus had
abandoned any of the fundamental elements of
Judaism, one could hardly blame Jews and Jewish
leaders for rejecting Jesus’ claim to be a Jewish
messiah, prophet, or teacher. And why would he
have a large Jewish following?

The New Jerusalem Bible asserts that possibly the

phrase was a scribal gloss. [Wansbrough, H., 1671, fn f]

 We do not know where Jesus and his disciples are

dining, except that it is somewhere in Galilee. Are
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his enemies, the Pharisees and scribes, dining with
Jesus? The disciples make no response to what
would be an extremely controversial teaching. This
story appears to be a late addition.

DINNER WITH “GENTILES”

Christian scholars are inaccurate in picturing Jews as

exclusive in refusing to eat with non-Jews. Jewish
extra-biblical literature clearly indicates that Jews ate
with non-Jews.

In Acts of the Apostles, Peter explicitly says to his first

pagan converts, Cornelius and his household, “You...
know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or
visit a Gentile.” God, however, has shown Peter that he
“should not call anyone profane or unclean” (Acts 10.28).
There was and is no Jewish law forbidding contact
between Jews and non-Jews, not in the Jewish
Scriptures, the works of Philo or Josephus, nor any
mainstream Jewish writing.

This passage shows a misunderstanding of Jewish law. It

is not people who are unclean. Rather, ritual laws are to
be followed when a person is in an impure condition.
Generally, only Jews can cause other Jews to be in a
state of impurity, and the remedy for the condition of
ritual impurity was generally minor — immersion in
water and waiting until sunset. Most ritual rules in the
Jewish Scriptures normally applied only to the priests
and others intending to enter the temple. E. Haenchen is
right when he writes, “diaspora Jews were not
hermetically sealed off from dealings with the Gentiles...”.
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[Haenchen, E., 350, fn 4] Pagans, too, had a huge
number of ritual rules, but this did not stop them from
associating with pagans with different rules, nor with
Jesus.

There is no external support for Acts 10.28 until Irenaeus

(ca 180 CE). [ANF, Irenaeus, Bk 3.12] Cyprian (d 270 CE)
refers to “calling no man unclean” but he does not cite
10.28a which refers to the alleged Jewish law. [ANF,
Cyprian, Epistle 58.5]

The Marcan Jesus’ anti-Jewish diatribe ends with a long

list of sins attributed to the human heart: fornication,
theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, envy,
slander, and pride (Mk 7.21-22). Pagans also supplied
long lists of invective against their opponents. Dio
Cocceianus (1st cent. CE) described his opponents as
“...ignorant,... evil-spirited,... impious,... liars and
deceivers,... preaching for the sake of gain and glory...”.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 132, #169]

SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN: MK 7.24-30

Jesus’ first trip to pagan territory is in Mark Chapter 5.

He makes his only other trip into pagan territory at
7.24-9.29.

Only the first two gospels, Mark and Matthew, have the
story of the Syrophoenician woman. Mark relates that
Jesus, wanting to be alone, went to the region of Tyre
(southern Syria NW of Galilee). As soon as he enters one
of Mark’s pop-up houses, a Syrophoenician woman
having heard about him, instantly comes to the house
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begging Jesus “to cast the demon out of her daughter...”
who is at home (Mk 7.26).

Jesus says to the pagan woman, “Let the children be fed

first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw
it to the dogs [non-Jews]” (Mk 7.27). To which the woman
replies that even the dogs are allowed to eat the children’s
crumbs (vs. 28). Jesus admires her witty response and
announces that the demon has left her daughter. Mark
tells us that at home she found that this was so (vss
29-30).

Matthew is unhappy that in Mark the woman’s wit is

what saves the child, so he attributes the exorcism to the
woman’s faith (Mt 15.28). (Also, In Matthew the woman is
a Canaanite, though they no longer existed in the time of
Jesus.)

The pagan woman’s faith is very strong, as is the faith of

all other pagans in the Synoptics (including Pontius
Pilate, in that he testifies to Jesus’ innocence).

Additional stories involving the strong faith of pagans

were added by Matthew and Luke. For instance, in
Matthew a centurion comes to ask Jesus to heal his
paralyzed servant. Jesus says to the pagan, “Truly I tell
you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (Mt 8.10;
cf. Lk 7.9). Jesus adds that many non-Jews will enter the
kingdom “while the heirs of the kingdom [Jews] will be
thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 8. 11-12).

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Some Christian apologists argue that ancient Jews hated
non-Jews and use this passage about the dogs as
evidence that Jesus, being a “typical Jew,” was
prejudiced against non-Jews. But Jesus’ bias against
pagans is a creation of the early church. It is contradicted
by the fact that Jesus cures the pagan woman’s daughter
and, according to Matthew, it is because of her “faith.”
The gospel writers had a bias in favor of non-Jews not
against them. In the Matthean birth scene, the pagan
magi (wise men) are the first to pay homage to the baby
Jesus (Mt 2.11). In Mark and Matthew a Roman
centurion at the foot of the cross identifies Jesus as
“God’s Son.” Indeed, Jesus has come to save “gentiles”
though their salvation will not begin until after Jesus’
death.

HEALING A DEAF AND MUTE MAN: MK 7.31-37

Jesus leaves the area of Tyre and travels north through

Sidon and then back southeast to the area of the Ten
Cities, or Decapolis. Mark is ignorant of Palestinian
geography; one would not go north to reach the south.
Matthew omits the reference.

A deaf and mute man begs Jesus for a cure; Jesus takes
him away from the crowd, puts his fingers in the man’s
ears and touches the man’s tongue with spit (Mk 7.33). In
this story, Jesus uses common pagan magical
techniques. In Mark, Jesus commands “them” not to tell
anyone who helped them, but they spread the news
anyway. Matthew omits Jesus’ secrecy order. He also
omits the magical procedures and the whole story is
omitted by Luke and John.
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MAN
Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You
are the Messiah.”
— Mark 8.29
In Mark Jesus fourteen times refers to himself as: Son of Man.”
— Authors

The place of origin of the myth [of the ‘son of man’] is not to be sought in Iran,
or in Judea or even in Ugarit, but in the German universities.
— Paul Winter

Jesus leaves pagan territory by boat and crosses the sea

to the district of Dalmanutha (Mk 8.10) where “the
Pharisees” pop up and ask Jesus “for a sign from heaven”
(Mk 8.11). Jesus insists that no sign will be given “to this
generation,” i.e., to the Jewish people (Mk 8.12). Matthew
has “evil and adulterous generation” (16.4) and his Jesus
asserts that no sign will be given except the sign of
Jonah, referring to the prophet who spent three days in
the belly of a fish. Matthew this as a prophecy of Jesus'
resurrection on the third day. This is an allusion
foreshadowing Jesus' death, which Matthew and Luke
have added to prove that Jesus is conscious of God's plan
and willingly accepts it.

SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF DISCIPLES: MARK 8.14-21

The Marcan Jesus and his disciples are re-crossing the

sea, returning to the Decapolis. He warns his disciples to
beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, that is,
their false teachings. The disciples are worried as they

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think that Jesus is referring to real bread, and they only
have one loaf left in the boat.

Jesus, reading the disciples’ minds, denounces them for

their spiritual blindness, saying that their hearts are
hardened, that they have eyes and ears but do not see or
hear (Mk 8.14-21).

Matthew continues to rehabilitate the disciples; they are

not blind and do understand the significance of Jesus’
saying about the yeast (Mt 16.12). The early church
created this incident to combat false heretical teachings
that plagued the early church.

Jesus and his disciples disembark at Bethsaida in pagan

territory. Jesus secretly escorts a pagan blind man out of
a village, puts spittle on the man’s eyes and lays hands
on them. The man perceives people as trees. A second
touch cures him entirely. Dio Cassius relates that the
Emperor Vespasian was magnified by heaven when he
cured a blind man using spittle, [Martin, F., 166] and
healed a blind man with a withered hand. [Martin, F.,
166] In Mark, for all practical purposes Jesus’ ministry
ends at this point. Matthew and Luke see that this story
indicates that Jesus’ power was limited, and they omit it.

Compare Jesus’ ministry in Mark with a papyrus as

described by M. Smith. Here is what a spirit can do for a
pagan wonder worker: (It) sends dreams and calms the
wild beasts; it raises up winds from the earth and
restrains the foam of the sea. The spirit exorcises many
evil demons, and is able to bring down stars as in Mk
13.25. [Smith, M., 130-131]
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PETER’S DECLARATION: MK 8.27-30

The Jewish people do not understand who Jesus is or

why he has come. The following incident makes this
clear. Jesus and his disciples are on the way to the pagan
region of the city of Caesarea Philippi in the Decapolis.
Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
(Mk 8.27). They answer that some people think that he is
John the Baptist, others that he is Elijah, and still others
think that he is one of the prophets. Peter is asked who
he thinks Jesus is. The chief disciple answers, “You are
the Messiah” (Mk 8.29), the other disciples apparently
concur. Mark, Matthew and Luke again bring in the
messianic secret; the disciples are not to tell anyone
about Jesus.

Plutarch writes about the hidden identity and divine

powers attributed to Romulus, the co-founder of Rome.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 95, #104] He also quotes Homer, “No
god am I; why likenest thou me to the immortals?”
[Boring, M., HCNT, 104, #120] The HCNT editors state
that, “Among enlightened Greeks the tradition of
rejecting divine predications about human beings was
widespread,” which is why the Synoptic Jesus never
explicitly identifies himself as a god. [Boring, M., HCNT,
105, #120]

The status of the disciples in Mark is further elevated by

Matthew when he changes Peter’s response from, “the
messiah,” to “the messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt
16.16). Jesus blesses Peter saying that he has received
this from God, not from men (Mt 16.17). The trouble with

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this is that the disciples have already addressed Jesus as
“the Son of God” after Jesus walked on water (Mt 14.33),
and there Jesus made no response. M. Smith informs us
that pagan magicians sometimes identified themselves as
“the Son of the living God.” [Smith, M., 165]

In Matthew, Jesus not only praises the chief disciple for

his answer, but he miraculously predicts that Peter will
found the future church, “You are Peter and upon this
rock I will build my church” (Mt. 16.18). (In church
tradition, Peter was the first bishop of Rome.) Jesus also
says the church will have the keys to let people into the
kingdom of heaven. In some pagan myths heaven is
locked, and keys are needed to enter. Virtually all critical
scholars agree that these rock and key sayings came from
the early church.

Benefiting as many people as possible was the principal

task of the divine man. He cured people and, after his
death, his disciples passed on his teachings, benefiting
future generations. Philo saw Moses in this way, as
others saw various kings, generals, and philosophers.
And so early Christians saw Jesus.

Pythagorean philosophy was “understood as a divine

revelation...”. [Reale, G., 249] Their founder was seen
“not so much as a perfect man but as a Daimon or God
or, more generally, a prophet or a superior human being
who is in contact with the Gods.” [Reale, G., 249] A
fragment attributed to Empedocles (5th century BCE)
states, “But I go about [among] you as an immortal God,
no longer as a mortal....” The philosopher relates that
when he goes to men and women, “I am honored by
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
them... they follow after me... in their thousands, to
learn...” some seeking wisdom and others seeking
healing. [Boring, M., HCNT, 171, #229] Unusual here is
that Empedocles, himself, claims that he is a god. In the
ancient world, some followers thought of a philosopher as
divine, but the individual himself usually did not claim to
be divine, did not “grasp at divinity.” Bad emperors, like
Caligula, were severely criticized for making such claims.

EXCURSUS: MESSIAH AND THE SON OF MAN

MESSIAH
In Hebrew, messiah refers to an anointed one (Greek
Christos). In the Jewish Scriptures, messiah is applied to
priests, kings and prophets of Israel, and even to one
pagan, the Persian king Cyrus who freed Jews from
captivity in Babylonia. A messiah is one who serves God’s
purposes; he is an instrument of God. After the fall of
Israel (both the northern and southern kingdoms), a
future Messiah was expected who would restore the
kingdom and usher in the reign of God. But is “the
Messiah” of the Christian Scriptures compatible with the
Jewish concept of messiah? Was this idea derived from
Judaism?

The Messiah is an anthology edited by James H.

Charlesworth in 1992. In his own contribution, he
correctly asserts that Matthew’s concept of “the Messiah”
was not Jewish, [Charlesworth, J., 186] nor was the belief
that there was a widespread expectation of a coming
messiah. Jesus did not fulfill Jewish messianic
prophecies. [Charlesworth, J., 5] Charlesworth says that
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 THE MESSIAH AND THE SON OF MAN
the idea that Jesus is the Messiah who is put to death by
Jews is anti-Jewish. [Charlesworth, J., 4] He concludes
that messianic Jews did not have a unified vision of a
messiah. [Charlesworth, J., 4]

Contradictorily, the conservative Charlesworth also

argues that there is some evidence that before Mark,
there was an idea of a Christian-type messiah among
Jews, but he is wrong. He concedes that the death of the
messiah in 4 Ezra is not efficacious which contradicts the
Christian idea that Christ’s sacrifice saved humanity
from its sins. [Charlesworth, J., 8] He rejects the rabbinic
evidence of a dying messiah as too late (post 2nd cent.
CE). He also stipulates that there is no reference to a
Davidic messiah in the pre-70 CE period and informs us
that scholars agree that “the Messiah” is not referred to in
the Jewish Scriptures. [Charlesworth, J., 8-9] But
Charlesworth accepts the dying messiah of 4 Ezra 7.29
even though he admits that 4 Ezra was edited by the
church!

The term messiah rarely appears in any Jewish literature

written between 250 BCE and 200 CE. The Mishnah (ca
200 CE), Philo, and Josephus omit any mention of a
coming messiah, as do the thirteen books of the
Apocrypha. Most of the passages referring to messiah are
found in the Pseudepigrapha (52 documents) and in the
Dead Sea Scrolls. [Charlesworth, J., 11-12,16] Here are
some of Charlesworth’s conclusions about three of the
four documents that he believes were put in their final
state between 50 BCE and 100 CE which contain the
term Messiah or Christ. [Charlesworth, J., 20-24] Is the
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messiah portrayed as a king? One verse in Psalms of
Solomon is ambiguous. God is the chief figure, not the
messiah. In 4 Ezra and in 2 Baruch, though the messiah
is present, he has no functions. Does the messiah
resurrect the dead? Only in 4 Ezra 7.28-29, a Christian
interpolation. Is the messiah human rather than divine?
Yes. The Pseudepigrapha illustrate that the concept of
messianism was not universal, uniform, or Christian-like
by the first century CE.

Turning to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Charlesworth writes

that of the more than 170 documents “created, written,
or redacted at Qumran” only three referred to a messiah:
the Rule of the Community (1QS), the Rule of the
Congregation (1QSa), and the Damascus Document (CD).
[Charlesworth, J., 24,25] The messiah of the Dead Sea
Scrolls bears little resemblance to the messiah of the
gospels.

Charlesworth rightly asserts that, “The gospels and Paul

must not be read as if they were reliable sources for
pre-70 Jewish beliefs in the messiah.” [Charlesworth, J.,
35] We conclude that the Christian Messiah is a creation
of the early church and does not derive from Judaism.

SON OF MAN: DANIEL CHAPTER 7

The son of man passages in the gospels derive from

Daniel 7. In a vision, Daniel sees four animals in
succession. Then “one that is ‘ancient of days’ takes his
seat on a throne of fiery flames....” At the end of the
dream, Daniel writes:

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 THE MESSIAH AND THE SON OF MAN
I was looking in a night vision and, behold,
one like a son of man was coming with the
clouds of heaven
and went as far as the Ancient of Days and
was brought near him.
Sovereignty, glory and kingship were given
him,
and all the peoples, nations and languages
were to serve him.
His sovereignty was to be an eternal
sovereignty never to cease
and his kingship imperishable. (Daniel 7.13,14 [as
quoted by Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 169])

The Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71) suspiciously

contains the only reference to son of man as a title in
pre-70 CE Jewish literature, but it is found 14 times in
the gospel of Mark where Jesus, and only he, applies the
title to himself.

Geza Vermes dates the Parables to the last quarter of the

first century CE. [Vermes, G., 160-191] In Jesus the Jew,
he asserts that the phrase son of man is used as a
substitute for the personal pronoun “I.” [Vermes, Geza,
163] It is normally used this way in the Jewish Scriptures
and in rabbinic literature. Vermes writes, “...no trace
survives of its titular use, from which it must be inferred
that there is no case to be made for an eschatological or
messianic officeholder generally known as ‘the “son of
man”’” prior to Mark in 70 CE. [Vermes, Geza, 163]

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Dan 7.9-14 was seen by second-century exegetes as
depicting an exalted David or messiah, not a suffering
and dying one [Vermes, G., 175] which would be
incompatible with the triumphal image of the son of man
in Daniel 7. [Vermes, G., 175] H. Conzelman asserts that
“...all the ‘son of man’ utterances [are] foreign to Jesus.”
[Vermes, G., 177] In addition, the Jewish literature
written before 200 CE contains no evidence of a messiah
whose death is efficacious, nor one to whom divine
functions are attributed, such as judging the dead,
forgiving sins, etc., and, of course, we do not find a
messiah who is depicted as divine or the Son of God. We
agree with Vermes and H. Conzelman that the messianic
exegesis of Dan 7.13 does not go back to Jesus. [Vermes,
G.,186] Where does son of man as a messianic title come
from? Vermes concludes his chapter in Jesus the Jew on
the son of man with a quote from Paul Winter. Reviewing
Norman Perrin’s Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, P.
Winter writes, “If Perrin’s interpretation of the ‘son of
man’ sayings in the Synoptic Gospels is correct — and it
is supported by Vermes’s... study of the linguistic use of
‘bar-nash(a)’ in Jewish Aramaic — then the place of origin
of the myth [of the ‘son of man’] is not to be sought in
Iran, or in Judea or even in Ugarit, but in the German
universities.” Ibid., n 91, p 261. P. Winter, Deutsche
Literaturzeitung 89 (1968), col. 784]

JESUS’ FIRST PREDICTION OF HIS DEATH: MK 8.31-33

Immediately after Peter’s declaration, Jesus makes the

first of three predictions concerning his own suffering,
death, and resurrection. In private he instructs the
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disciples that the son of man must suffer greatly, “and be
rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk 8.31).
(Matthew names the place of Jesus’ death as Jerusalem;
Mark does not.) Taking Jesus aside, Peter strongly
condemns him for this prophecy. In response Jesus
curses Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mk 8.33).
He denounces Peter for thinking of human rather than
divine things. Matthew continues to rehabilitate Peter.
His Peter, referring to Jesus’ death, says only, “God forbid
it, Lord! This must never happen to you” (Mt 16.22). Luke
goes further than Matthew, and drops all reference to
Peter’s rebuking of Jesus. The other disciples make no
response to any of this.

The detailed nature of the three predictions of Jesus’

death has caused most scholars to conclude that these
prophecies come from Mark or the early Marcan
community, not from Jesus. Originally Jesus was not
aware of his upcoming death.

Jesus tells the disciples and the crowd to take up the

cross and follow him (Mk 8.34,38). Again, the church
indicates that Jesus knows of his death and voluntarily
submits to it. But how did Jesus know that the method of
execution would be crucifixion as this was a Roman, not
a Jewish method of execution?

Certain people from India tell Alexander the Great that he

“must die at the hands of [his] own people.” [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 105, #121 Pseudo-Callisthenes] Plutarch says
that Heracles, the son of Zeus, suffered painfully in
performing his labors. [Boring, M., HCNT, 106, #122]
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Jesus is virtuous like Alexander and suffers like
Heracles. The HCNT editors think that these traditions
perhaps were familiar to the early Christians.

The custom of giving divine titles like Son of God to rulers

was common in Egypt and the East. The Rosetta Stone
proclaimed the Greek king of Egypt, Ptolemy V Epiphanes
(210-180 BCE), to be divine; he is described as
“...restorer of the life of man... child of the Gods through
the love of the Father... living image of Zeus, Son of the
Sun... priest of [the divine] Alexander and the Savior
Gods and the Benefactor Gods and the Gods of the love of
the Father, the God visible, for whom thanks be given.”
[Cartlidge, D., 14] Jesus is called Son of God thirty-nine
times in the Christian Scriptures. The Egyptian king has a
special relationship with the Father. When “the high
priest [asks Jesus], ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the
Blessed One?’ Jesus says, ‘I am;...’” (Mk 14.61-62).

The pagan Celsus complains that if Christians believe in

the miracles of Jesus, such as his miraculous birth, and
if they accept that Jesus was raised from the dead and
ascended to heaven, “then how can [they] refuse to
believe precisely the same stories when they are told of
other Savior Gods: Herakles, Asklepios, the Dioscuri,
Dionysos, and a dozen others I could name?” [Cartlidge,
D., 17, quoting from Origen’s Against Celsus] For more on
the Savior Gods, see Chapter 9.

Cartlidge and Dungan point out that for the ancients

there were two kinds of savior gods. First, there are gods
like Hercules who have divine and human parents and

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perform great deeds that benefit humankind “and so...
were rewarded with immortality, and worshiped as
Saviors.” The second type of savior god is identified with
“great leaders, especially kings, [who are] in fact
temporary manifestations or appearances (epiphaneia) of
the eternal Gods themselves” [Cartlidge, D., 18], for
example, Julius Caesar and Augustus. Plutarch points
out that many eastern kings were given the title, god, or
son of a god (cf. Mk 8.27-30). [Boring, M., HCNT, 104,
#120] Also, the editors of HCNT point out that the
suffering of the Son of God, “was not a completely
unfamiliar tradition” to the Christians. [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 106, #122]

TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS: MK 9.2-10

Six days after the first prophecy of his death, Jesus takes
Peter, James, and John to a high mountain (Mk 9.2)
where he is transfigured, his clothes become a dazzling
white (9.3). Homer writes that “from the divine body of the
goddess a light shone... so that the strong house was
filled with brightness as of lightening....” [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 107, #125] The editors of HCNT conclude that
“light on the face or the whole body points as such to
one’s nature as son of God...”. [Boring, M., HCNT, 108,
#126]

Elijah and Moses appear and talk with Jesus, (about

what we do not know). A voice comes from a cloud,
announcing that this is “my Son, the Beloved; listen to
him!” (Mk 9.7). The Jewish prophets suddenly disappear

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in a cloud; only Jesus remains. Jesus replaces Moses (the
Jewish law) and Elijah (the prophets).

Matthew continues to elevate the status of Jesus. The

disciples fall on their faces before the divine Jesus. Luke
at last reveals what Jesus has been talking about with
the prophets, his departure “which he was about to
accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9.31).

Coming down the mountain, Jesus commands the

disciples to be silent “about what they had seen, until
after the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (Mk 9.9).
Mark sticks with his depiction of the disciples as
spiritually blind; they wonder what the “rising from the
dead” might mean. But Jews had known about the
concept of resurrection at least since ca 165 BCE when
the book of Daniel was written. Matthew, elevating Jesus
again, drops the wondering. Luke, growing
uncomfortable with the messianic secret, merely states
that the disciples told no one what they had seen (Lk
9.36).

THE LAST EXORCISM

After the transfiguration, there is a final exorcism. This

cure brackets Jesus’ public ministry; he begins with an
exorcism of a Jewish man in the synagogue, and ends
with an exorcism of a pagan, another foreshadowing of
the church’s mission to non-Jews. Effectively, the
ministry ended before Peter’s declaration. Why was this
exorcism added to Mark’s text? Probably because in
Matthew, Luke and John there is a tendency to elongate
Jesus’ ministry right up to the time of his arrest. For
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example, in Matthew he cures people in the temple in
Jerusalem (21.14).

After Jesus and his three disciples come down from the
mountain, a father complains that Jesus’ disciples could
not cast out an unclean spirit from his son. Jesus
exorcises the spirit and says to his disciples that this
kind requires prayer (Mk 8.29), though Jesus has not
prayed, and one would have thought that he would
already have taught his disciples to pray.

The pagan philosopher, Empedocles, had power over evil

spirits, too. He led the soul of a dead man from Hades.
[Martin, F., 175-76] In this Marcan exorcism story, the
father asks that Jesus help his unbelief (Mk 9.24) which
is paralleled in a pagan inscription in which a woman
named Ambrosia is healed of her blindness and unbelief.
[Martin, F., 226]

SECOND PREDICTION OF JESUS' DEATH

Jesus is passing through Galilee. He makes a second

prediction of his death, again privately to the disciples
who still do not understand why he must die, but are too
fearful to ask him about it (Mk 9.31-32). Matthew
substitutes “distressed” for “fearful” and drops the
reference to the disciples’ lack of understanding.
Amazingly, Luke writes that the meaning of Jesus’
passion “was concealed from them, so that they could not
perceive it” (Lk 9.45). God is concealing the kingdom from
Jesus’ disciples!

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Jesus leaves pagan territory and returns to Capernaum
in Galilee. In “the house” Jesus asks the twelve what they
had argued about on the way to Capernaum. They inform
him that they were disputing as to who was the greatest
among them (Mk 9.33). Were they fighting over political
power?

The disciple, John, says to Jesus that a non-follower of

Jesus was using his name to cast out demons (Mk 9.38).
The disciples inform Jesus that they had tried to stop the
exorcist, but Jesus says, “Whoever is not against us is for
us” (9.40). Luke agrees, but Matthew has the opposite,
“Whoever is not with me is against me....” (Mt 12.30).

Mark states that Jesus teaches, “it is better for you to

enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two
eyes and be thrown into hell [Gehenna], where the worm
never dies, and the fire is never quenched” (Mk 9.47-48;
cf. Isa 66.24). Plato says, “Men are prepared to have their
own feet and hands cut off if they feel these... to be
harmful” to their virtue. [Boring, M., HCNT, 113, #136]

ON DIVORCE: MK 10.2-12

Jesus leaves “that place” for “the region of Judea and

beyond the Jordan” (Mk 10.1). He teaches the crowds, “as
was his custom,” but he does he do so in parables?

Some Pharisees, wanting to trap Jesus, asked him, “Is it

lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus asked them
what Moses had said, and they answer that Moses’
commandment allowed a man to divorce his wife by
writing a certificate of dismissal and giving it to her.

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Jesus responds, “Because of your hardness of heart
[Moses] wrote this commandment...” (Mk 10.2-5), and
Jesus forbids all divorce (Mk 10.9). Note that it was not
Moses who allowed divorce, for the Commandments are
from God.

When Jesus is alone in “the house” with his disciples, he

explains that if a husband or wife divorces his or her
mate and marries another, she or he commits adultery
(Mk 10.12); however a Jewish woman could not initiate a
divorce (cf. Dt 24.1). In a Jewish certificate of divorce
from Masada (ca 111 CE), a man initiates a divorce and
both are allowed to remarry. [Boring, M., HCNT, 58, #35]
Also, under Roman law, a husband or wife could initiate
a divorce and both are free to remarry. [Boring, M., HCNT,
117, #142] Against Mark, Matthew’s Jesus allows divorce
if pornai is involved, i.e., an impropriety which would
include adultery, but is not limited to it (Mt 19.9). The
Pythagoreans also forbade divorce. [Boring, M., HCNT,
117, #142]

THE RICH MAN

A rich man asks Jesus what he must do to “inherit

eternal life” (Mk 10.17; Mt 19.29). Jesus lists five of the
Ten Commandments: the prohibition against murder,
adultery, theft, bearing false witness, and dishonoring
one’s father or mother (Mk 10.19). He adds a
commandment of his own, i.e., not to defraud people.
Matthew and Luke correct this by omitting it (Mt 19.18;
Lk 18.20). Note that Jesus omits the specifically Jewish
commandments: the acceptance of only one God, the

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prohibition against graven images (idols), keeping the
Sabbath, the prohibition against the misuse of God’s
name. The rich man says that he has observed these
moral laws since his youth. Jesus tells him to go and “sell
what you own and give the money to the poor” (Mk
10.21). The Marcan Jesus and his disciples never
give money to the poor, and this is the only place where
Jesus advises anyone to do so. The man goes away
grieving, not wanting to part with his wealth.

Jesus tells the disciples how hard it is for the rich to enter
the kingdom of God, “It is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for” the rich “to enter the
kingdom of God” (Mk 10.25). Despite the modern image of
Jesus favoring the poor over the rich, there are a number
of pro-rich stories in Matthew and Luke (see Mt 25.14-28;
Lk 19.11-27; Lk 16.10-13). The church gradually
attracted rich, as well as poor, people and thus the
presence of both pro rich and anti-rich sayings.

Pagans, too, taught the worthlessness of wealth and flesh

compared to the soul. The Pythagoreans taught, “When
the body is left behind you will achieve eternal liberty,
you will be an immortal and incorruptible God, no longer
a mortal being.” [Reale, G., 261]

For the Stoics, the soul is a divine spark, “a fragment of

God...” [Reale, G., 84, quoting Epictetus] Seneca writes,
“God is near you, he is with you, he is within you... a holy
spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and
bad deeds...” [Reale, G., 59, Reale’s ital.). Seneca believes
that “the untamed spirit” waits “only to be released from
the body before it soars to highest heaven.” [Reale, G., 61,
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and following two quotes] The soul is burdened by the
flesh, the mind is free and “candid to the Gods....” “This
poor body [is] the prison and fetter of the soul.” And the
Pythagoreans teach, “When the body is left behind you
will achieve eternal liberty, you will be an immortal and
incorruptible god, no longer a mortal being.” [Reale, G.
261] Epictetus holds a similar attitude, “But the body is
nothing to me: the parts of it are nothing to me. Death?
Let it come when it chooses....” [Epictetus, Bk 3.22]

With reference to entering the kingdom, Mark says that

all things are possible with God (Mk 10.27; Mt 19.26; Lk
18.27). The pagan magical papyri state that, “All things
are possible to this god.” [Smith, M., 205, PGM XIII.713]

To the rewards one will get in this life, Jesus adds

“persecutions” (Mk 10.30). Apparently the early church
felt oppressed. This is another passage created by the
early church to provide moral support for the ostracized
Christians. Suffering in and of itself is a positive good in
Christian thought, but not in Jewish thought.

THIRD PREDICTION OF JESUS' DEATH - MK 10.32-34

Predictions of his death (1st-Mk 8.31; 2nd Mk9.31) 3 rd – Mk

10.32-34

At last, Mark tells us where Jesus is heading, namely to

Jerusalem (Mk 10.32). Jesus takes the twelve aside and
predicts his death for the third and last time, “the Son of
Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes,
and they will condemn him to death...” . (Mk 10.33) This
is the first time that Jesus adds that “the Gentiles” will
mock, spit, scourge, and kill him. He also adds that after
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three days he will rise again. As to the suffering, again
Mark is using the Jewish Scriptures to construct Jesus’
biography. Compare Isa 53.10, “Yet it was the will of the
LORD to crush him with pain... his life [is] an offering for
sin...” Luke adds that “everything that is written about
the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished” (Lk
18.31). Luke again says that the twelve did not
understand his prediction because its meaning “was
hidden from them” (Lk 18.34). God is still concealing the
plan from Jesus' own disciples.

Mark reveals (Mk 10.35-45) that the disciples still have

no faith; they are expecting an earthly kingdom. James
and John ask that they be allowed to sit on the right and
left hand of Jesus when he comes in power. Hercules and
Asclepius also fight over who should be ranked above the
other. [Cotter, W., 27, #1.30] Jesus asks if they are able
to “drink his cup” and “accept his baptism.” They say
they are. Jesus then predicts that they will be martyred
(Mk 10.39), an early church tradition.

As Robert M. Price points out on page 117 of The

Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems by Price, “This whole
Markan episode comes right out of that of Elisha’s
request of Elijah just before his ascension. … “ Jesus has
just predicted his death for the third time. Now the
brothers, James and John, are asking for high positions
in the kingdom of God.

Jesus preaches that he has come “to give his life [as] a
ransom for many” (Mk 10.45). But to whom will God pay
the ransom? To Satan, who is holding humanity captive.

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This view was not abandoned by the church for more
than a thousand years.

At some point Jesus arrives at Jericho (Mk 10.46-52)

about ten miles from Jerusalem; he then leaves Jericho.
(Not a lot of activity in this city.) As Jesus leaves Jericho,
he cures a blind beggar who addresses him as “Son of
David.” This is a royal messianic title, a hint that Jesus is
a political Messiah, a king. After the man is cured, he
follows Jesus (Mk 10.46-48,52). In the pagan culture,
spiritual blindness was often symbolized by physical
blindness, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, etc.

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12.13-44; 13.
Brown and Fitzmyer simply do not want to accept the fact that Jesus has
deceived the Jewish crowds and that they perceive him as a king.
— Authors

And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,... these I will bring to my
holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt
offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall
be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
— Isaiah 56.6-7

My house... you have made it a den of robbers...

— Mark 11.17

Mark relates that Jesus left “that place,” heading for “the
region of Judea beyond the Jordan” (Mk 10.1; Mt 19.1-2).
Luke dramatically announces that Jesus “set his face to
go to Jerusalem” (Lk 9.51), again emphasizing Jesus’
deliberate intent to carry out the plan of God in
Jerusalem.

ROYAL RECEPTION: MK 11.1-10

Jesus, his disciples, and a large crowd travel from

Jericho, about ten miles east of Jerusalem, to Bethphage
and Bethany, which are near the Mount of Olives, a
stone’s throw from the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem in
Judea. Actually Bethany would have come first, since
Jesus was traveling from east to west (Matthew drops
Bethany, 21.1). Jesus orders two (unnamed) disciples to
go ahead to (an unnamed) village near the Mount of
Olives, and says that they “...will find tied there a colt

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that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it...” (Mk
11.2). Jesus says that if the owner asks why the two
disciples need the donkey, they are to say, “The Lord
needs it and will send it back here immediately” (Mk
11.3). Note that Jesus refers to himself as Lord (kyrios), a
title commonly used as a reference to God in the Jewish
Scriptures, and also one that is used in the pagan
mystery religions. The two disciples bring the donkey to
Jesus.

Jesus mounts the colt and rides toward the Eastern Gate
of Jerusalem. Many people spread their cloaks, as well as
leafy branches, on the road in front of the colt Jesus is
riding (Mk 11.8). Matthew again says explicitly that Jesus
is fulfilling ancient prophecies from the Jewish
Scriptures. “Look, your king is coming to you, humble
and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a
donkey” (Mt 21.4-5) 9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh
unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and
riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. Zch
9.9).

Matthew has misunderstood Hebrew parallelism and

thinks the prophet is referring to two animals and has
Jesus sit on both (Mt 21.7)! Scholars identify the prophet
as Zechariah, even though Zch 9.9 was not applied to the
messiah until well after the time of Jesus.

Luke, against Mark and Matthew, says the crowd is

composed of “the whole multitude” of Jesus’ disciples (Lk
19.37-38), apparently thousands from Galilee (Lk 12.1).
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Many people welcome Jesus, shouting, “Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mk 11.9-10; cf. 2 Sam
14.4; 2 Kgs 6.26). This is a variant quote of the royal
Psalm (118.25-29; cf. 2 Sam 7.16) used in blessing the
king at his coronation.

Only Luke has some Pharisees in the crowd warn Jesus

to order his disciples to stop accepting this royal welcome
(Lk 19.39). Luke realized that a powerful Roman official
like the prefect Pilate, would recognize that the
acceptance of royal honors was a treasonous act under
Roman law, one punishable by death. Needing to fulfill
the divine plan, Jesus rejects the advice of the Pharisees,
saying, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would
shout out” (Lk 19.40). (Luke has made clear that Jesus is
presenting himself as a political Messiah, a king.
Editors.)

J. Fitzmyer asserts that Luke is telling us that “the Jews”

have misunderstood Jesus’ ministry. [Fitzmyer, J., vol 2,
1241-1252] Misunderstood? Jesus has preached about
the kingdom of God during his ministry. He is perceived
by his own disciples as a royal claimant. At Jericho Jesus
accepts the royal title Son of David from the blind man
and here, approaching the capital of Judea, Jesus
purposefully rides a colt in fulfillment of a royal Psalm
(118.26), and accepts the shouts of the crowd
acknowledging his kingship. All of this makes it clear that
Jesus intends to convey the idea that he is a king, one
who is about to come into his power.

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R. Brown, like Fitzmyer, argues that the Jewish crowd
misunderstands Jesus’ mission and expects a nationalist
hero. [Brown, R., 1966, 1, 462] According to Brown, the
crowd should have understood Jesus as what? A
peaceful, humble, and non-treasonous messiah since
Zach 9.9 talks of a peaceful and humble king! We would
agree, if the crowds were composed of scholarly Christian
exegetes like Raymond Brown and Joseph Fitzmyer.

R. Brown concedes that a “triumph” was “the normal

Greek expression used to describe joyful reception of
Hellenistic sovereigns into the city.” [Brown, R., 1966, vol
1, 462] Titus was greeted this way at Antioch and when
Cato retired from the military, his soldiers threw “their
mantles down for him to walk upon.” [Boring, M., HCNT,
Plutarch, 123, #156] But Brown still sticks to his guns —
the crowds were expecting what, a spiritual messiah?

Brown and Fitzmyer simply do not want to accept the fact

that Jesus has deceived the Jewish crowds who thus
perceive him as a king.

RIOT IN THE TEMPLE: MK 11.11,15-19

At Mark 11.11, Jesus enters Jerusalem and immediately

goes to the temple. He looks around but since it is late in
the day he leaves, traveling with the twelve to Bethany.

The next day on the way back to Jerusalem, Jesus is

hungry but finds no figs on a tree by the roadside, since it
is not the right season. He curses it, “May no one ever eat
fruit from you again” (Mk 11.14). The following day, after
the temple riot, Jesus and the disciples again travel to
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Jerusalem and the disciples see that the tree is withered
(Mk 11.21-22). The fig tree is Judaism. Jesus is teaching
that a truly divine religion would never be out of season;
it would always provide spiritual sustenance for its
believers. Judaism is to be replaced by Christianity.

Between the cursing of the fig tree and its withering,

Jesus returns to the temple and violently drives out those
who buy and sell the animals intended for sacrifice; he
overturns the tables of the money-changers, and the
seats of those who sell doves. No Jewish messiah would
riot against people for performing tasks necessary for
worship in the temple. Animals are needed for sacrifice
and, if all those pagan coins describing the emperor as
“Son of God” and “Savior of the World” are to be kept out
of the temple, money changers are needed to exchange
the pagan coins for Jewish ones.

Jesus preaches, “My house... you have made it a den of

robbers” (Mk 11.17)

Is this house, which is called by my name, become

a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have
seen it, saith the LORD. Jer 7.11.

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and

make them joyful in my house of prayer: their
burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be
accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be
called an house of prayer for all people. Isa 56.7).

The Synoptic Jesus thinks that selling animals for

sacrifice is thievery. John omits the reference to robbers,

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but still sees business in the temple as wrong. At least
John has changed Jesus’ phrase “my house” to “my
father’s house,” recognizing that it would be
blasphemous for Jesus to refer to God’s temple as “my
house.”

For Luke the story of the temple riot involves much too
much violence on the part of the Prince of Peace. Fitzmyer
notes that Luke has removed all details of violence from
the story. [Fitzmyer, J., 2, 1261] Well, most of it — Jesus
still “drives out” those who are selling things (Lk 19.45).
Luke adds that “the chief priests, the scribes and the
leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him”
(Lk 19.47).

Origen (ca 240 CE), the best Christian exegete of the third
century, pointed out that Jesus would have been arrested
immediately, which is why he rejects the scene as
unhistorical. Fitzmyer agrees that Jesus’ attack on the
temple “would have provoked an immediate reaction from
the priests and officials in the Temple,” as rioting was a
death penalty offense under Roman law and a criminal
act under Jewish law. [Fitzmyer, J., 2, 1264] Fitzmyer
counters that Jesus was put on trial “quickly.” But the
temple police and Roman authorities would hardly have
waited several days to arrest the law breaker. And John,
placing the riot at the beginning of Jesus' three-year
ministry, rather than arresting Jesus immediately, has
“the Jews” blandly inquire, “What sign can you show us,
authorizing you to do these things?” (Jn 2.18).

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Let us examine some additional problems connected with
the temple riot. Jesus prophesies, “My house shall be
called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mk 11.17; Isa
56.7). Matthew and Luke, thinking that the temple was
destroyed before Jesus’ prophecy could be fulfilled, omit
the prophecy. But non-Jews were already praying at the
temple in the time of Jesus (see Josephus and Philo).
Mark relates that the riot occurred on the day after Jesus
entered Jerusalem. Conversely, Matthew and Luke depict
the riot as occurring on the day that Jesus enters
Jerusalem. And John places it at the beginning of Jesus’
ministry, some years earlier (Jn 2.13-17).

Jesus invalidates the temple by his actions, but no

Jewish prophet or messiah would dream of abolishing a
fundamental institution of Judaism. The temple is
mentioned over 900 times in the Jewish Scriptures. Many
modern Christian apologists argue that there was a
strong Jewish anti-temple movement in first-century
Judaism. Yet in Mark, Jesus praises the widow’s
contribution to the temple treasury (Mk 12.42-44), and
he pays the temple tax for Peter and himself, granted
without great enthusiasm (at Mt 17.24ff). There is no
mention of an anti-temple faction in the works of either
Philo of Alexandria or Josephus. In the Dead Sea Scrolls,
the Qumranites opposed the priestly administration of
the temple in Jerusalem, but not the sacred temple itself.

SOME TEACHINGS IN THE TEMPLE: MARK 12.13-44

We will discuss the story of the “wicked tenants” (Mk

12.112) in Chapter 7.

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“They” send some Pharisees and Herodians to the temple
to trap Jesus by asking him if it is lawful to pay taxes to
Caesar, knowing that to withhold taxes was treason
under Roman law. Jesus replies that one should render
to God the things that are God’s and to the emperor what
is his (Mk 12.13-14; cf. Acts 5.37). Josephus condemned
Judas the Galilean in 6 CE because the rebel refused to
pay Roman taxes (Mk 12.13-17; cf. Acts 5.37). [Boring,
M., HCNT, 126, #160] Jesus is careful to command his
followers to obey secular law. Thus the theory that Jesus
is a freedom fighter (held by H. Maccoby, S.G.F. Brandon
and others) who opposes Roman tyranny is not feasible.

Jesus is asked by a scribe what is the most important

commandment (Mk 12.31-33). Jesus quotes part of the
Shema, an important Jewish prayer. In part it states that
one should love God and love one’s neighbor (Mk
12.28-29). The scribe responds, “This is much more
important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”
(Mk 12.33); compare Amos 5.21-24 which relates that the
Lord says he hates festivals and sacrifice, preferring
justice and righteousness (cf. Ps 40.6-8; 1 Sam 15.22).
However, Amos is referring to a balance between ethical
and ritual law, not to a rejection of sacrifice, etc. Mark
tells us, “After that, no one dared to ask [Jesus] a
question” (vs. 34)! Another non-dialogue.

We will not dwell on the convoluted argument at Mk

12.35-37 which says that Jesus can’t be David’s son,
because in the Jewish Scriptures he is called David’s Lord
(cf. Ps 110.1). We would merely note that Mark, or his

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editor, does not always want to associate Jesus with the
Jewish messiah.

JEWISH LAW

In the temple, a large crowd listens to Jesus “with delight”

(Mk 12.37b). Jesus says to beware of the scribes; they
wear long robes and want respect in the market places,
and to have “the best seats in the synagogues and places
of honor at banquets!” (Mk 12.38-39). Jesus preaches
that the scribes “devour widows’ houses, and for the sake
of appearance say long prayers” (Mk 12.40). He says,
“They will receive the greater condemnation.” A Jewish
audience would hardly be happy with a Jewish teacher
who slanders and condemns their religious leaders.

Matthew and Luke greatly expand the anti-Jewish

material of Mk 12.38-40. In Matthew Jesus lacerates the
religious leaders while in the temple. He says the scribes
and Pharisees are hypocrites and “are as graves” and
whitewashed tombs (Mt 23.27). Jesus preaches that the
scribes and Pharisees are hypocrites, “For you lock
people out of the kingdom of Heaven...” S. Lachs states
that rabbinic tradition held that hypocrites, liars, etc.,
could not “...receive the face of the Shekinah,” i.e., God
would not receive them. [Lachs, S., 368, n 32] Jesus adds
that they “make the new convert twice as much a child of
hell [Gehenna] as [themselves]” (Mt 23.13,15), but the
Pharisees had no authority outside of Judea.

Matthew and Luke provide scriptural support for the

widely-held but erroneous Christian belief that Jews
consider the law to be a burden which they groaned
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under. The scribes and Pharisees, Jesus says, load
people with heavy burdens hard to bear, and do not “lift a
finger” to ease them (Mt 23.4; Lk 11.46). It is true that
obeying all the 613 commandments is more demanding
than keeping the few ethical commandments required of
non-Jews. However, for Jews, observing God’s law is a
privilege. The Psalmist writes, “The law of the Lord is
perfect, reviving the soul.... the precepts of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart...” (Ps 19.7). “I delight in the way
of your decrees... I will delight in your statutes; ...” (Ps
119.14,16). There are many more such passages
throughout the Jewish Scriptures (cf. Ps 40.8; Prv 29.18,
etc.), as well as in the rabbinical writings.

The Lukan Jesus is heading for Jerusalem but, while still

in Galilee, he and others are invited by a Pharisee to dine
in his home (Lk 11.37). The host is amazed that Jesus
has not ritually washed his hands before dinner (Lk
11.38). One has to marvel at the audacity of the Lukan
Jesus; reading his host’s mind, Jesus launches into a
long, ill-tempered diatribe against his host and the other
guests. What has happened to the traditional hospitality
of the Near East, the courtesy paid to the host by the
guest?

Jesus says they (the Pharisees) are “full of greed and

wickedness,” and condemns them for giving alms instead
of giving of themselves, for tithing “everything” and
neglecting “justice and mercy and faith” (Lk 11.39-42; Mt
23.23). No Jewish teacher would think of tithing as a
trivial commandment, as compared to faith, justice, and
the love of God, for all are considered sacred, coming from

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God. [For extensive information concerning first-century
Judaism, see the works of E.P. Sanders, especially Paul
and Palestinian Judaism, Jewish Law from Jesus to the
Mishnah and Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE]

The Lukan Jesus states that “their” Jewish ancestors

killed the prophets (cf. Mt 23.30-31). He continues to
denounce the lawyers, “You build the tombs of the
prophets whom your ancestors killed” (Lk 11.47; Mt
23.29). Jesus charges that Jews have killed all the
prophets “since the foundation of the world,” from Abel to
Zechariah (Lk 11.50-51). Of course, the Jewish Scriptures
do not indicate that the Jewish people have “killed all the
prophets” from Genesis to 2 Chronicles. Luke and
Matthew simply want to condemn Jewish leaders and the
Jewish people as faithless murderers.

Jesus adds “I will send [to Jews] prophets and apostles,

some of whom they will kill and persecute” (Lk 11.49).
Matthew’s Jesus says, “some... you will kill and crucify,
and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue
from town to town” (Mt 23.34-35; cf. Mk 13.9). nowhere
in Acts of the Apostles, Paul's letters, or later Christian
history is there a record of Jews crucifying Christians. As
to mark 13.9, there is no organized persecution of
Christians by Jews until Acts, written long after Mark's
gospel.

There is still more — the lawyers take away “the key of

knowledge;...” (Lk 11.52), i.e., Jews misunderstand the
Jewish Scriptures, that is, they don’t have Jesus’
Christian understanding of the Scriptures. Finally, the
Lukan diatribe ends, and Jesus leaves the Pharisee’s
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home. The scribes and the Pharisees lie “in wait for him,
to catch him in something he might say” (Lk 11.54).
(Haven’t they heard enough already?)

Compare the list of slanders aimed at the Pharisees in Mk

12.37-40 and Mt 23.1-31 with this pagan list of insults.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 132, #169] Dio Cocceianus (1st cent.
CE) gives this list of his opponents’ vices: he calls them
sophists, ignorant, boastful, unlearned, evil-spirited,
impious, liars. He also says that his opponents teach for
money and that they are mindless and shameless and
deceive others and themselves. [Boring, M., HCNT, 132,
#169]

Many writers view Jesus as a Jewish reformer. This is

surely not based on the rage of these passages. Could
Jewish soil have produced such fundamental
anti-Jewishness?

Jesus praises a widow who gives her food money to the

temple treasury (Mk 12.41-44). Euripides (485-406 BCE)
writes that those who are poor and give small gifts to the
gods have more piety than “those that bring oxen to
sacrifice.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 178, #244]

APOCALYPSE: MARK 13

Arriving at the temple, Jesus and his disciples marvel at

the largeness of the temple stones and buildings. Was
this their first visit? One assumes that Jesus and his
disciples had in the past traveled to Jerusalem for the
festivals. Luke states that “some” spoke of the temple as
“adorned with noble stones and offerings” (Lk 21.5). Luke
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cannot imply that Jesus has never seen the temple
complex before, since in Luke’s birth narrative he
maintains that Jesus’ parents came to the temple every
year for Passover (Lk 2.41). John omits the whole
incident.

In Mark, on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem, Jesus

speaks privately to four of his disciples, coldly predicting
the destruction of the temple. “Do you see these great
buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another;
all will be thrown down” (Mk 13.2). The temple is a
central institution of Judaism, yet Jesus’ disciples
respond only by blandly inquiring as to when this
destruction will occur and what are the signs of the end
(Mk 13.4). [Boring, M., HCNT, 135, 136, 137, 142, 82]
Jesus teaches that wars and rumors of war, earthquakes
and famines, will proceed the destruction (Mk 13.8), but
in what time period do these not occur?

From Price (p 127-130) Comparison of passages from

Mark and Jewish Scriptures.

Mark 13:8 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.

2 Chronicles 15:6 “They were broken in

pieces, nation against nation and kingdom
against kingdom.”

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Mark 13:12 “And brother will deliver up brother to
death, and the father his child, and children will
rise against parents and have them put to death.”

Micah 7:6 “for the son treats the father with

contempt, the daughter rises up against her
mother, the daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men
of his own house.”

Mark 13:24 “But in those days, after that

tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the
moon will not give its light”

Isaiah 13:10 “For the stars of the heavens

and their constellations will not give their
light; the sun will be dark at its rising and
the moon will not shed its light”

Mark 13:25 “and the stars will be falling from

heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be
shaken”.

Isaiah 34:4 “All the host of heaven shall rot

away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All
their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the
vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.”

Mark 13:26 “And then they will see the Son of man
coming in clouds with great power and glory”

Daniel 7:13 “I saw in the night visions, and

behold, with the clouds of heaven there came
one like a son of man, and he came to the

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Ancient of Days and was presented before
him.”

Mark 13:27 “And then he will send out the angels,

and gather his elect from the four winds, from the
ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

Deuteronomy 30:3-4 “then the LORD your

God will restore your fortunes, and have
compassion upon you, and he will gather
you again from all the peoples where the
LORD your God has scattered you. If your
outcasts are in the uttermost parts of
heaven, from there the LORD your God will
gather you, and from there he will fetch you.”

The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the

world is judgmental in Mark. This passage (Mk 13.9-13)
has been interpreted by some writers as pointing to the
destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, and by others as
predicting a distant cosmic apocalypse. Many argue that
Jesus predicted an imminent end of the world.

In Mark, Jesus preaches that “there are some standing

here who will not taste death until they see that the
kingdom of God has come with power” (Mk 9.1),
indicating Jesus is expecting that the end of the world
will be soon. Luke emphasizes that salvation is
accomplished now, in the present (realized eschatology),
and John nearly obliterates the idea of future salvation in
favor of the view that salvation has already occurred.

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Josephus relates how the leading Jewish citizens and the
Roman procurator, Albinus, reacted to predictions of
doom. [BJ VI.8.3, as quoted by S. Lachs, 419-421] A
farmer named Jesus predicts the coming destruction of
the temple, Jerusalem, and its inhabitants. After several
years of these prophecies, the farmer is chastised by the
leading citizens and turned over to Albinus who scourges
him and, thinking him crazy, releases him. The farmer
later dies during the first war with Rome. Is this not a bit
of evidence that possibly the evangelists may have used
the writings of Josephus in composing their gospels?

Greco-Romans, too, knew about an apocalypse. Compare

Revelation 8 & 9 with the Stoic Seneca’s (ca 3 CE-ca 65
CE) description of the end of the world in his letter to
Marcia. In Revelation, the angels of destruction destroy
one-third of all trees and all green grass, and a third of
the sea becomes blood. The bottomless pit is opened (Rev
9.1ff). “They were allowed to torture [those without seals]
for five months but not to kill them” (Rev 9.5). An army of
200,000 destroys people, one-third are killed by fire,
smoke, and brimstone, “...if they did not repent,
worshiping devils and idols of gold and silver and stone
and wood....” (9.20). In the end, all of the heavens and the
earth are destroyed (Rev 21.1).

For Seneca and some other pagan Stoics, there is going to

be a fiery conflagration in which the cosmos is
temporarily destroyed, that is, recycled. Seneca describes
this end time, “I am behold the rise and fall of future
kingdoms, the downfall of great cities, and new invasions
of the sea... know that nothing will abide where it is now

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placed, that time will lay all things low and take all things
with it.” [Seneca, II, 95] This includes “...places,
countries, and the great parts of the universe. It will level
whole mountains... it will drink up seas....” [Seneca, II,
95] There will be plagues, earthquakes and floods, which
will kill all creatures. The fire will destroy all. The world
will be blotted out in order to begin life anew. “... when it
shall seem best to God to create the universe anew — we,
too, amid the falling universe, shall be added as a tiny
fraction to this mighty destruction and shall be changed
again into our former elements.” [Seneca, II, 95,97] For
many Stoics, the cycles of destruction and reconstruction
are infinite in number

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Jesus says the owner, “will come and destroy the tenants and give the
vineyard to others.”
— Mark 12.9

My God, my God, why did you abandon me?

— Mark 15.34; The Scholars Bible

The death story of Jesus dramatizes the central message

of the Gospel of Mark — Judaism is invalid and is to be
replaced by Christianity. This theme is most clearly
spelled out in the wicked tenant story of Mark 12 which
we will now discuss before turning to the Passion.

TENANT STORY: MARK 12.1-12

Jesus relates that a man planted a vineyard, leased it to

his tenants and moved away. When the harvest season
arrived, the owner sent a slave to collect the owner’s
share of the produce, but the tenants beat the slave and
kicked him out. The owner sent many others who were
also beaten, ejected or killed. Finally, the owner sent his
“beloved Son” whom the tenants killed, thinking that he
had come for their inheritance. Jesus asks, what will the
“owner of the vineyard do?” The owner, Jesus says, “will
come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to
others” (Mk 12.9). “They” realize the story was told
“against them” (vs. 12) and want to arrest Jesus but are
afraid of the crowd. (“They” apparently refers to the
priests, scribes and elders at Mk 11.27.) The tenant story
is loosely based on Isa 5.1-7, but Isaiah knows nothing
about a son being killed.

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Isa 5.1-7

Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved

touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a
very fruitful hill:

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and
planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the
midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked
that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild
grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah,

judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have

not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I

will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and
break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but
there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command
the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for
judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but
behold a cry. Isa 5.1-7

In Mark, the tenants are the Jewish people, those sent to

collect the owner’s share of the produce are the prophets of
the Jewish Scriptures, and the son is Jesus. The meaning of
the allegory is that the Jewish covenant is only temporary. It
will be nullified by “the Jews” when they reject and kill the
Son of God. They will then no longer be the people of God; the

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non-Jews will replace them and be given the vineyard, that is,
the kingdom of God. Christianity will replace Judaism

The tenant story is clearly a product of the early church.

THE PASSION: MARK 14.1-72

Most scholars concede that the accounts of the death

story of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are dependent on
Mark, but some argue that John’s account of the passion
is independent of Mark. Even an admirer of the fourth
gospel like Raymond E. Brown writes, “It seems plausible
to us that the final writer of Jn knew at least part of the
Synoptic tradition, and, in particular, some written form
of Mark.” [Brown, R. E., 1965, 149] Burton L. Mack in his
influential A Myth of Innocence, argues that John’s
passion is dependent on Mark and is fiction. [Mack, B.,
225, fn 12] Thus, we will rarely refer to John’s late
account of Jesus’ passion.

In Bethany just outside of the holy city, at the home of

Simon the leper, an unnamed woman anoints the head of
Jesus, preparing him for his burial (Mk 14.3,8,32,33; Mt
26.12). In Luke the anointing occurs much earlier (Lk
7.36-50) and is not a funeral rite.

In the Synoptics the Pharisees play no role in the arrest,

trial, and death of Jesus. John is in error when he depicts
the Pharisees as playing a powerful role as there is no
evidence that in 30 CE they had any such power. They
are stand-ins for the Jewish rabbinical leaders of John’s
day (circa 100 CE).

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The chief priests and scribes are looking for a way to
arrest and kill Jesus (Mk 14.1). Judas goes to them and
says that he wishes to betray Jesus; they are “greatly
pleased, and promise to give him money” (Mk 14.10-11).
Where did Judas and the priests meet? How did Judas
know that these powerful priests needed help in arresting
Jesus? [Brown, R., 1998,1, 242]

Matthew begins the process of satanizing Judas by

having him ask the priests for money, rather than the
priests volunteering it as in Mark. In Matthew’s gospel,
Judas receives 30 pieces of silver. This is based on Zch
11.12-13, though Matthew wrongly attributes it to
Jeremiah. [Crossan, J. D., 1995, 111]

Only in Matthew does Judas repent, return the money to

the temple, and hang himself (Mt 27.1-10). This is
derived from 2 Sam 12.23 and 17.23, where Ahithophel
betrays David, and then hangs himself. [As quoted by
Helms, R., 116] Acts contradicts Matthew by relating that
Judas died when he fell and his body burst open (1.18)
but oddly, in the Gospel of Luke, the supposed author of
Acts is not aware of Judas' death by hanging, bursting, or
any other method.

What reason is given for the betrayal of Jesus by Judas?

In Mark none is given; in Matthew it is money. To Luke, it
was not appropriate that the Son of God be betrayed for
mere lucre, so Satan enters into Judas before the Last
Supper (Lk 22.3) and during the Last Supper in John (Jn
13.26-27).

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THE LAST SUPPER: MK 14.17-25
In Judaism a festival is a time set aside to commemorate
some historical event or religious concept. Passover
celebrates the escape of the Hebrew people under Moses’
leadership from Egyptian slavery. The four Gospels do
not discuss the meaning of Passover or any other Jewish
festival.

For John the Last Supper is characterized as a “supper,”

not a Passover meal (Jn 13.2,4). Jesus is executed the
day before Passover in John and on the first day of the
Passover in the Synoptics. John Chrysostom (fl 400 CE)
was so anti-Jewish that he thought the Jews postponed
Passover for a day to allow them to kill Jesus!

In Mark, Jesus orders the disciples to prepare for the

Passover meal. They do so on Thursday a little while
before sunset (Mk 14.16), but Jesus would not have
waited until it was this late, since in Jewish tradition,
15-30 days is recommended. [Lachs, S., 403-404]

Various kinds of food and drink are regarded as sacred

and used in religious rituals. In the Jewish Scriptures,
unleavened bread and wine are so used, but in Jewish
tradition such rituals do not produce mystical effects. In
some pagan magical papyri “the food is identified with the
body and/or blood of a god with whom the magician is
identified; thus the food becomes also the body and the
blood of the magician; whoever eats it is united with him
and filled with love for him.” [Smith, M., 122]

Jesus, referring to the consumption of the bread and

wine, says, “this is my body... this is my blood of the
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covenant...” (Mk 14. 22,24). Eating the blood of an animal
is explicitly forbidden in the Jewish Scriptures and eating
human blood and flesh, even symbolically, occurs
nowhere in all of Jewish tradition.

The Jewish Scriptures are again handy for Mark as he

creates the Jesus story. At the supper, Jesus says that
his blood is poured out for many (Mk 14.14). “The
righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities... he bore the sin of
many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa
53.11-12), or vicarious atonement. Jesus removes the
punishment for sin. This is not Jewish; in Judaism each
person must atone for his or her own sins.

Jesus predicts that one of the twelve will betray him, the
one who is dipping the bread into the bowl with him (Mk
14.20). The name of the betrayer is not given in Mark.
Matthew identifies Judas, and adds that the Son of Man
is fulfilling Scripture (Mt 26.24). It is, of course,
unthinkable that the disciples do not condemn the one
whom Jesus has just identified as the betrayer.

After the meal, Jesus and his disciples head for

Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (Mk 14.32) which is
within sight of the temple in Jerusalem. On the way,
Jesus miraculously predicts that his disciples will desert
him, that Peter will deny him three times before the cock
crows twice, and that Jesus will meet them in Galilee
(after his resurrection).

Mark again utilizes the Jewish Scriptures, in this case to

prove that Jesus’ disciples’ desertion has been
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prophesied and is thus in accordance with the divine
plan. Alluding to Zechariah Jesus says, “You will all
become deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the
shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’” (Mk 14.27; Mt
26.31; cf. Zch. 13.7). [Helms, R., 112] Luke softens this
harsh image of the disciples as faithless deserters,
omitting the prophecy of their desertion (22.31).

In the garden, while the disciples sleep, Jesus

experiences great mental agony although he assents to
God’s will, i.e., God’s plan (Mk 14.34,36). L. Feder rightly
points out that Hercules’ most impressive trait “is his
power to endure the burden of great toil and danger and
agonizing personal sorrow” and his gruesome death by
fire. [Feder, L., 161]

THE ARREST OF JESUS: MK 14.43-52

In the earliest gospel, Jesus and the twelve leave for the
Mount of Olives after the Last Supper. At Gethsemane
Judas pops up with the crowd coming to arrest Jesus
even though Mark has not related that Judas had left the
group. John knows this is a problem, and his Judas
leaves during the supper at Jesus’ command.

In Mark, the chief priest, scribes and elders send the

crowd to arrest Jesus, but Luke has the aristocratic chief
priests and elders personally appear to arrest Jesus! It is
incredible that such powerful and aristocratic men would
join the Temple police at night to make an arrest, and on
Passover at that!

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John’s gospel fixes this. The dignitaries are not present.
Rather, they have sent some officers to arrest Jesus. Yet,
unbelievably, John has added a Roman captain with a
cohort of 600 soldiers! This seems a bit much. At least the
fourth gospel writer knew that only Roman authority
could arrest a man for treason, that is, claiming to be a
king.

Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss (cf. 2 Sam 20.9ff where

Joab kisses Amasa just before killing him with a sword).

In Mark, a man near Jesus draws a sword and cuts off

the ear of a slave of the high priest. Over time the gospel
writers developed some of their fictional characters more
fully. The name of the disciple (Simon Peter) and the
name of the slave (Malchus) are finally revealed in John’s
gospel (18.10). Consider how much of Judas' story is
lacking in the earliest account of Mark. He knows nothing
about the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas nor that he is a
thief; he is not named at the Last Supper and Mark omits
Judas' repentance and death. After the arrest of Jesus,
Judas disappears. [Maccoby, H., 37] In Matthew, Jesus
says he could call on twelve legions of angels to protect
himself if he desired (26.53); again demonstrating that
Jesus is not accepting the divine plan against his will. He
is fulfilling Scripture (Mk 14.49; Mt 26.56).

Mark says that at Jesus’ arrest, “All of [the disciples]

deserted him and fled,” Mk 14.49-50 (cf. Isa 53.2,12),
fulfilling Jesus’ own prophecy.

Regarding the lack of historicity in the passion

narratives, the reader should recall the number of
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miracles performed by Jesus. He miraculously predicts
his arrest, the desertion of his disciples, Judas' betrayal,
Peter’s denial of Jesus, and his own trial, suffering,
death, and resurrection. In addition, in John the
arresting crowd miraculously falls to the ground. Also,
the Johannine Jesus commands the authorities to let his
disciples go, which fulfills Jesus’ prophecy that he would
not lose any of his disciples. (Presumably John means
other than Judas!)

DID JUDAS EXIST?

R.E. Brown in The Death of the Messiah, writes, “Judas is
mentioned 22 times in the NT: Mark 3, Matt 5, Luke-Acts
6, John 8.” [Brown, R., 2, 1394] Judas is chosen as one of
the twelve (Mk 3.19) and is not heard of again until
14.10-11 where he conspires to betray Jesus, and is not
identified by name at the Last Supper in Mark.

The names, Judas, derives from the name of one of the

twelve tribes of Israel, Judah, but R. Brown thinks the
name is not suspect, though he grants that, Judas “is
etymologically related to ‘Jew’....” [Brown, R., 2, 1395]
(Greek Judah) and he concedes that Judas could be seen
as the hostile “quintessential Jew,” as Augustine does
when he holds that Peter represents the church and
Judas represents the Jews. [Brown, R., 2, 1395]

W.B. Smith, G. Volkmar, and Hyam Maccoby, among

others, have argued that Judas never existed. R. Brown
[Brown, R., 2, 1397] disputes this, but lists some of the
arguments advanced for this thesis:

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 the paucity of evidence in the Christian Scriptures;

 “John (the brother of James) is named more

frequently than is Judas (30 times)... compared to
22” mentions of Judas;

 “the staged nature of the scenes” as at the Last

Supper where each disciple asks if he is the one
who will betray Jesus, Judas speaking last (Mt
26.21-25);

 Judas appears in a setting in which an earlier

gospel does not have him, e.g., the anointing at
Bethany (Jn 12.4-5);

 the conflicting accounts of Judas' death in

Matthew and Acts.

R. Brown concedes that nearly all of the gospel evidence

about Judas is unreliable, but wrongly insists on the
historical existence of Judas. [Brown, R., 2, 1396-97] We
would add that Paul, writing before Mark, knows nothing
of Judas.

We have to wait more than a hundred years after Mark’s

gospel (written about 70 CE or later) to find a mention of
Judas outside the Christian Scriptures. Bishop Irenaeus
of Lyons, writing about 180 CE, uses neither Matthew
nor Acts in discussing Judas' fate, and the Bishop knows
only that Judas was kicked out of office, not that he died.
[ANF, Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1, 388] It is only with
Origen in the early third century that we find a writer who
refers to Judas' death by hanging (Matthew), though he

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does not know of the alternative death by bursting (Acts).
We do not find a reference to both of the accounts of
Judas' death in Matthew and Acts until the late fourth
century CE.

TRIAL OF JESUS BY JEWISH AUTHORITIES:

Mk 14.53-65; (Daniel 6:4 LXX; Mark 14:53-72)… Price p 140

Jesus is led to the (unnamed) high priest late on

Thursday evening where “all the chief priests, the elders,
and the scribes [are] assembled” (Mk 14.53-54). (The
Sanhedrin never met at night; thus, Luke places the trial
in the morning.)

In Mark, the “whole” Sanhedrin (all 71 members

apparently) is “looking for testimony against Jesus to put
him to death” (Mk 14.55). Matthew has the trial take
place at the high priest’s house, but the Sanhedrin was
not convened there, [Lachs, S., 398] nor did the high
priest preside over the Sanhedrin at this time. [Lachs, S.,
419] Against Luke and John, Mark and Matthew relate
that some witnesses falsely charge that Jesus had said he
would destroy the Temple, but their testimony is not in
agreement and is dismissed (Mk 14.56-59; Mt 24.60-61).
According to the Scriptures, at least two witnesses are
required for a verdict in a criminal trial (Num 35.30; Dt
17.6, 19.15). Mark has no valid witnesses. Matthew adds
the two witnesses.

14:53 And they led Jesus away to the high priest:

and with him were assembled all the chief priests
and the elders and the scribes.

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14:55 And the chief priests and all the council
sought for witness against Jesus to put him to
death; and found none.

14:56 For many bare false witness against him, but

their witness agreed not together.

Again, the Jewish Scriptures provide material for Mark’s

fictional portrait of Jesus. (cf. Dan 6.4 LXX). [Helms, R.,
118]

Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion

against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could
find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was
faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
Daniel 6:4.

Mk 14:60 And the high priest stood up in the

midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou
nothing? what is it which these witness against
thee?

14:61 But he held his peace, and answered

nothing.

Is 53.7 He was oppressed, and he was

afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth.

Mk 14.61-62 But he held his peace, and answered

nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said

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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.

Dan 7:13-14 I saw in the night visions, and,

behold, one like the Son of man came with
the clouds of heaven, and came to the
Ancient of days, and they brought him near
before him.

And there was given him dominion, and

glory, and a kingdom, that all people,
nations, and languages, should serve him:
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.

In Mark and Matthew at the end of the trial Jesus is

convicted of blasphemy, but claiming to be Messiah was
not a crime. Could other charges have been leveled
against Jesus? Some have suggested that Jesus’ death
could have been brought about because of his conflict
with the Pharisees and scribes over ritual law, i.e.,
healing on the Sabbath, ritual washing of hands, etc. In
Mark and Matthew, no such charges are raised, even
though Jesus was tried in Jerusalem, the seat of what
power the Pharisees had.

Also, criminal charges could have been brought by the

Sanhedrin against Jesus since he attributed to himself

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divine characteristics by allowing himself to be called
Lord and claiming the authority to forgive sins and
regulate the Sabbath, etc. If Jesus claimed to be the
“only” Son of God in a literal, not metaphorical sense, this
would be non-Jewish and perhaps a criminal offense.

At the trial, the high priest asks Jesus if he will defend

himself, but he is “silent and [does] not answer,” fulfilling
Isa 53.7. The high priest asks, “Are you the Messiah, the
Son of the Blessed One?” But how does the high priest
know that any of the titles, Messiah (Christ), Son of the
Blessed, Son of Man, Son of God, apply to Jesus? Jesus is
called the “Son of God” by demons, but they are silenced
at his command, and none of the people even suspect
that these titles apply to him; at most, the people think
Jesus is a prophet (Mk 8.28) or maybe one who cures
illnesses or exorcises demons.

Asked if he is the Messiah, Jesus answers, “I am; and you

will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power,
and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk 14.61-62), a
union of Dan 7.13 and probably Ps 110.1. [Lachs, S.,
420] Hearing Jesus’ admission, the high priest tears his
garments and judges that Jesus is guilty of blasphemy.
The priest asks the Sanhedrin for its decision and “All of
them [condemn] him as deserving death” (Mk 14.64). S.
Lachs points out that the high priest “was not allowed to
tear his clothes in mourning for the dead” [Lachs, S., 420]
and probably he would not do so here either. He also
points out that the rabbinic writers held that blasphemy
could not be punished by a court, but only by God.
[Lachs, S., 420] Some members of the Sanhedrin and

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some of the guards spit on Jesus and beat him (Mk
14.65), behavior hardly likely to occur during a meeting
of this distinguished court.

The historical inconsistencies and implausibilities

contained in the accounts of the arrest of Jesus and his
trial before the council force us to agree with Burton L.
Mack, John Dominic Crossan, and others that these
events are fiction, a good deal of which has been
constructed from passages in the Jewish Scriptures.

TRIAL BY PILATE: MK 15.1-20

Leviticus 16:7-10.
7And he shall take the two goats, and present them
before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation.
8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one
lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the
LORD's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
10But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the
scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD,
to make an atonement with him, and to let him go
for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

Mark relates that the whole council again meets, and

then in broad daylight parades Jesus through the streets
of Jerusalem bringing him to Pilate, the Roman prefect
(Mk 15.2-20). It is still the Passover, a holy day on which

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work is forbidden. What happened to the idea of arresting
Jesus secretly?

Mark does not tell us why Pilate is in Jerusalem. The

elders, scribes and the whole council who brought Jesus
to Pilate apparently stay, and yet Mark does not relate
that anyone other than Pilate witnesses Jesus’ trial (Mk
15.2-5). The prefect asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the
Jews?” Jesus answers ambiguously, “You have said so.”
Mark says that the chief priests accuse Jesus of many
things, but Jesus makes no response. Pilate is amazed at
Jesus’ silence, but he needn’t have been astonished.
Mark is again borrowing from the Jewish Scriptures.
Isaiah 53.7 says, “He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like the lamb
that is led to the slaughter....”

Suddenly a crowd pops up and asks Pilate to release a

prisoner on the festival day as was his custom (Mk 15.8).
(There was no such pagan or Jewish custom.) Pilate,
based on Jesus’ ambiguous answer and his silence,
concludes that Jesus is innocent and offers to release
Jesus, “the King of the Jews.” But stirred up by the chief
priests, the crowd demands that Barabbas, an
insurrectionist and murderer, be freed instead and yells,
“Crucify him!” Why is a murdering rebel freed? To keep
the peace one assumes!

In Matthew, Mrs. Pilate needs even less evidence of Jesus’

innocence than her husband. She has had a dream that
Jesus is innocent, and sends word to her husband that
he should have nothing to do with the death of this
“innocent man” (Mt 27.19). Pilate washes his hands
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saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood...” (Mt 27.24).
This is based on Deuteronomy 21.6-8, where the elders of
the town wash their hands saying, “Our hands did not
shed this blood.” This practice is also found among the
Greeks and Romans (cf. Virgil, Aeneid 2.719). The
powerful prefect, Pilate, is portrayed as a strong and cruel
official in the works of both Philo and Josephus. They
know nothing of the weak and vacillating Pilate offered in
the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

In a passage that has caused much bloodshed, Matthew

intensifies the guilt of all Jews throughout all time when
he has the Jewish crowd cry out, “his blood be on us and
on our children” (Mt 27.25). Compare this with Sam 1.16
where an Amalekite killed Saul at his own request and
David says to the killer, “Your blood be on your head; for
your own mouth has testified against you, saying ‘I have
killed the LORD’s anointed [Messiah].’”

Did the Sanhedrin have the power to try Jesus for a

capital offense? The first-century Jewish historian,
Josephus (Ant 20.202-203), relates that a high priest
convened the Sanhedrin and tried and executed some of
his enemies. This was done between procurators. When
the new one arrived in Jerusalem, the high priest was
removed from office. Luke and John know that the
council could not try capital cases, which is why the third
and fourth gospels omit the formal trial of Jesus by the
Sanhedrin. In John, “the Jews” tell Pilate that Jesus is a
criminal, and the prefect tells the chief priests to “judge
him by your own law” (Jn 18.29-32). “The Jews said to
him, ‘It is not lawful for us to put any man to death’” (Jn

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18.31). Did not the powerful Roman official know that
under Roman law, only he could try and execute someone
for a capital crime?

According to Mark after the murderer, Barabbas, is

released, the Roman soldiers take Jesus away, mock and
spit on him and strike him on the head.

Mk 15:19 And they smote him on the head with a

reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their
knees worshipped him.
15:20 And when they had mocked him, they took
off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on
him, and led him out to crucify him. 15.19-20.

Is 50.6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my

cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I
hid not my face from shame and spitting.
50.6). [Helms, R., 120, describes a similarity
between Isaiah and the beating of Jesus
before the Sanhedrin]

But a Roman governor would never have executed a man

after publicly announcing his innocence.

After the scourging by the Roman soldiers, Jesus is led

away to be crucified, carrying his cross (Mk 15.20). In
Mark, Matthew and Luke, a stranger, Simon of Cyrene,
carries Jesus’ cross part of the way to the place of
execution.

It is unlikely that it was a Roman custom for the victim to

carry his own cross. The condemned, especially one who
had been flogged, would not have been physically able to
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carry a large and heavy cross, the vertical beam alone
being about nine feet long. The upright beam of the cross
was probably permanently embedded at the place of
crucifixion, the cross beam being supplied at the time of
execution.

Why does John contradict the Synoptics by flatly saying

that Jesus carries the cross by himself? Perhaps R.
Helms is correct when he says that John may be
attempting to counter the Gnostic claim that Jesus was
not crucified, that instead Simon took his place on the
cross. [Wilde, R., 153]

Mark uses cross in a metaphorical sense when he has

Jesus say, “whoever wishes to follow me, let him deny
himself, let him bear his cross and let him follow me” (Mk
8.34). Luke takes this saying of the early church too
literally, and has Simon actually follow behind Jesus
while carrying the cross (Lk 23.26).

To “bear your cross” is an ancient metaphor. The idea

that a divinely inspired man or a demigod could be
unjustly convicted and die on the cross was not alien to
the Greco-Roman world. Martin Hengel in his book
Crucifixion, concedes that in Stoic thought “... an ethical
and symbolic interpretation of the crucifixion was still
possible.” A staple of the ancient novel was the hero who
barely escapes crucifixion. [Hengel, M., 1977, 89]

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CRUCIFIXION

Introduction

The issue of who was present during the crucifixion again

illustrates the confusion of the passion accounts in Mark
and the other gospels. In addition to the centurion’s
presence at the crucifixion, Mark includes women,
among whom Mark names Mary Magdalene, Mary the
mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome
(Mk 15.39-40). (Mark says these are the women who
ministered to Jesus out of their own funds in Galilee,
though up to 15.41 he has not mentioned any such
women.) The disciples in Mark Matthew are not present
at the crucifixion.

Luke, against Mark and Matthew, says that the disciples

did not desert Jesus at his arrest and Luke claims that
“all his acquaintances” are present at the cross (23.49).
Luke is again rehabilitating the disciples.

Only the late gospel of John relates that at the cross

Jesus entrusts his mother to the care of the “disciple
whom he loved” (Jn 19.26). But why is Jesus’ mother not
given into the care of her surviving sons?

CRUCIFIXION: MK 15.22-39

22And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is,
being interpreted, The place of a skull.

On the cross, Jesus is offered drink, “they gave him wine

mixed with gall, but having tasted it he refused to drink”

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(Mk 15.23; Mt 27.34). Compare this with Psalms 69 (17),
“they gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink
vinegar...” (Ps 69 [70]:21). John fuses Ps 69 with Ps 51.7,
and adds that Jesus is offered the wine on a branch of
hyssop (Jn 19.21-30). John is heavily into the lamb of
God imagery and hyssop was used for sprinkling the
blood of the Passover lamb on the door posts of Jewish
homes (Ex 12.21).

Mk 15.24) “‘they parted my garments...

The soldiers cast lots to see who gets Jesus’ clothing (Mk
15.24).

Mk 15.24 And when they had crucified him, they

parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what
every man should take.

Ps 22.18 They part my garments among

them, and cast lots upon my vesture - “‘they
parted my garments... among themselves,
and cast lots for my raiment.”

The seamless tunic in John (19.23) comes from Ex 28.32.

The gospels indicate Jesus’ clothing is removed before the
crucifixion (Mk 15.24). The Mishnah concludes that the
inclusion of nudity in an execution would violate Jewish
religious laws. [Brown, R., John, 2, 902] As Brown points
out, nudity would cause conflict in the community which
Rome was anxious to stabilize. [Brown, R., John, 2, 902]

Mk 15.25 And it was the third hour, and they

crucified him.
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COMMENT ON CRUCIFIXION
Some conservative exegetes have tried to explain why
Jews in the gospels are depicted as embracing the
crucifixion, a Roman method of execution much hated in
Jewish tradition. The apologists claim that Jews accepted
crucifixion. But Paul Winter is surely correct when he
says that we do not know of a “single instance [during the
war, 66-70 CE] in which the Jewish guerrillas... resorted
to the method of crucifixion in disposing of those who had
fallen into their hands. Crucifixion was not a punitive
measure used by Jews or adopted by Jewish judicial
institutions at any time in history.” [Winter, P., 66] The
Jews accept this cruel form of punishment because Mark
wishes them to do so. He cannot make the representative
of the pagans, Pilate, the murderer of Jesus.

Mk 15.26 Sign on cross

According to Mark, a sign reading, “The King of the Jews,”

was affixed to the cross indicating the charge for which
Jesus was executed (Mk 15.26)

R. Brown concedes that, “we have no evidence of the

custom of affixing [a sign] to the cross.” [Winter, P., 66]
And where is the sign located? Mark does not say;
Matthew indicates that it is over Jesus’ head; Luke has it
over Jesus, and John, trying to smooth things out, says
that the sign was “on the cross.”

Mark 15.27-28 Two Thieves

Mk 15.27-28 And with him they crucify two

thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on
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his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which
saith, And he was numbered with the
transgressors.

Ps 22:16 For dogs have compassed me: the

assembly of the wicked have inclosed me:
they pierced my hands and my feet.

Jesus is crucified along with two (unnamed) bandits, one

on each side of him (Mk 15.27). The Psalmist writes, “For
dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles
me” (Ps 22.16). Isaiah writes, “he poured out himself to
death, and was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa
53.12; cf. Mk 15.27). Mark and Matthew describe those
crucified with Jesus as bandits, a word which has strong
political connotations. Luke, wishing to de-politicize
Jesus’ death, changes the word to criminals (Lk 23.32).

Mk 15.29-31 And they that passed by railed on

him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou
that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three
days, Save thyself, and come down from the
cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said
among themselves with the scribes, He saved
others; himself he cannot save.

Ps 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; a

reproach of men, and despised of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they
shoot out the lip, they shake the head,
saying, He trusted on the LORD that he
would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing
he delighted in him.
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Mk 15.32-33 Let Christ the King of Israel descend
now from the cross, that we may see and believe.
And they that were crucified with him reviled him.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was
darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

The evangelists were children of their time. They believed,

as did pagans, that miraculous events accompany the
death of a great or divine man. Mark 15.33 records that
the whole Earth was in darkness between noon and three
on Friday afternoon. Some apologists say that this refers
to an eclipse of the sun, but modern astronomy shows
that no solar eclipse was visible from Judea at the time
Jesus died in the early 30's CE.

Mk 15.34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a

loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?

Ps 22.1 My God, my God, why hast thou

forsaken me?

In Mark and Matthew, Jesus’ despairing last words on

the cross are, “My God, my God, why did you abandon
me?” (Scholars Bible, Mk 15.34; cf. Mt 27.46; Ps 22.1). In
Luke and John this is too much for their divine messiah;
they change the last words, removing Jesus’ deficient
faith. Luke’s Jesus calmly commends his spirit to God
(23.46). John's Jesus triumphantly proclaims, “it is
finished”( 19.30).

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Mk 15.35-36.( Mk 9.12; 15.29-32) And some of
them that stood by, when they heard it, said,
Behold, he calleth Elias.36 And one ran and filled a
spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and
gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see
whether Elias will come to take him down.

Is53.3 “He was despised and rejected by

others; a man of suffering...”

Mk 15.37 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and

gave up the ghost.

Mark 15.38 Veil of the Temple Torn

Mk 15.38 And the veil of the temple was rent in

twain from the top to the bottom.

All of the Synoptics state that the curtain which closed off
the inner Holy of Holies in the temple is torn in two. The
divine presence has deserted the temple. The evangelists
are supersessionists. They claim that Christianity
replaces Judaism.

The Centurion at the Cross

Mk 15.39 And when the centurion, which stood

over against him, saw that he so cried out, and
gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the
Son of God.

This obviously is the work of the early church. Crucifixion

was a common Roman method of execution. The death of
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Jesus would hardly draw from a Roman soldier the
conclusion that he was a son of God, much less, the son
of God - unless he were a Christian writer of the early
church.

Epictetus wrote that since one’s true ancestors are the

gods, we should cheerfully be willing to die for God.
[Reale, G., 77] The pagan centurion at the foot of the
cross after Jesus’ death exclaims that Jesus was “ Truly
this man was the Son of God.” (Mk 15.39). Luke thinks it
is too much that the pagan soldier would miraculously
draw this conclusion and changes it to “Surely this man
was innocent” (Lk 23.47).

BURIAL OF JESUS: MK 15.42-47

Mark relates that Joseph of Arimathea, a respected

member of the council who was looking for the “Kingdom
of God,” “boldly” goes to Pilate and asks him for Jesus’
body for burial (Mk 15.43). The problem is that Joseph,
as a member of the Sanhedrin, must have voted to
condemn Jesus, since Mark and Matthew relate that the
vote of the council was unanimous. Luke can only weakly
argue that Joseph had “not agreed to their plan and
action” (Lk 23.51). As a known follower of Jesus, Joseph
should have been arrested. Why wasn’t he? And the
disciples, too?

In Matthew, Jewish authorities request guards to watch

over Jesus’ tomb because Jesus said that he would be
raised on the third day (Mt 27.64), but Jesus had
predicted his resurrection only in private to his disciples.
After Jesus is raised from the dead, the soldiers are
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bribed by the priests to say that Jesus’ body was stolen
while they slept. If Roman soldiers admitted they were
asleep on duty, there would have been more crucifixions,
and soon!

R. Helms correctly asserts that “... the [passion] accounts

are... fiction, composed for theological purposes.” [For
additional Jesus material used in the gospel passions see
Helms, R., Gospel Fictions, 123ff]

EXCURSUS ISAIAH 53: WHY DID JESUS DIE?

It is curious that in the Passion of the Gospel of Mark

there is no mention as to why Christ dies. There are no
real clues in the arrest, trial or death of Jesus as to what
is accomplished by his death.

John the Baptist preaches:

Mk 1:4-5 John did baptize in the wilderness, and

preach the baptism of repentance for the remission
of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of
Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all
baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing
their sins.

Did Jesus die for the remission of sins?

Mk 1:14-15 Now after that John was out 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.

Jesus preached the gospel.

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Mk 1:36-39 And Simon and they that were with
him followed after him. And when they had found
him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee. And
he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns,
that I may preach there also: for therefore came I
forth. And he preached in their synagogues
throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils.

Jesus says that he is a ransom for many (Mk 10.45). But

in the passion of Mark's Gospel no explanation is offered
for his death. Granted, in Chapter 7 the Vineyard story
indicates that the killing of the Son transfers salvation
from the Jews to the non-Jews. But in this story there is
no mention of saving people from their sins. (Most
modern biblical scholars think that the Vineyard story
was added to the gospel by the early church.)

Ransom for many - Mk 10.45; Mt 20.28 KJV

Mk 10.45 For even the Son of man came not to be

ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many.

Mk 10.45: The Son of Man did not come to be a

slave master, but a slave who will give his life to
rescue many people. CEV

Again, Mark’s Jesus does not mention that through his

death he will save people from their sins. In time this
became the standard teaching of Orthodox Christians.
The Gospel of Mark does not explicitly teach this central
doctrine. It is to be kept a secret. What evidence do we
have for this? Well, let us consider Isaiah, Chapter 53.

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Suffered and/or died for our sins?

Is 53, 1-12: Who hath believed our report? and to

whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form
nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it
were our faces from him; he was despised, and we
esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of
our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we
are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all.
…for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for
the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an
offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD
shall prosper in his hand.
my righteous servant justify many; for he shall
bear their iniquities.

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and he bare the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors.

Is Mark referring to the suffering servant?

Isaiah states that “... he was wounded for our

transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was
the punishment that made us whole...” (Isa 53.5; cf. Rom
4.25; 1 Cor 15.3). What Isaiah means by the “suffering
servant” is the subject of much debate, but he certainly
was not referring to Jesus or to a Jewish Messiah.

For an exhaustive look at the relationship between the

Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) and the material of
the New Testament, see The Christ Myth Theory And Its
Problems by Robert M. Price.

Comment:

Isaiah in chapter 53 seems to be talking about the pain

and suffering endured by a person perhaps suffering
from a disfiguring disease. In some places in the Jewish
Scriptures and the New Testament disease is thought to
be a punishment by God for sin. Here, Isaiah seems to be
putting forth the idea that this suffering person bears the
pain/punishment for others.

Though written several centuries before Christ, the

Christians saw Isa 53 as a prophecy of the suffering of
Christ. Modern scholars assert Isa 53 provided Mark with
material which he could use to describe the suffering and
death of Jesus (Isaiah 53.12). The problem is that Mark
in his Gospel does not say that Jesus suffered and/or
died for our sins. Though ancient Jews took the suffering
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servant of Isaiah as the nation of Israel, one could easily,
as the Christians did, take it as a reference to the idea
that the suffering servant suffered and died to save
people from sin. The problem was that in the crucifixion
scene Mark does not say this is why Jesus died. Nor does
he do so anywhere else in his Gospel. Of course the
ancient Christian reader already believed that Christ died
to save the Christians from their sins.

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The women “fled the [empty] tomb...and they said nothing to

anyone, for they were afraid.”
— Mark 16.8

The hero, thinking his wife is dead, comes to mourn, and finds
the tomb empty.
Ancient pagan novel.

THE EMPTY TOMB: MK 16.1-8

For the Greco-Romans, physical resurrection was seen as

superstitious and repulsive. So, isn't Mark opposing
pagan values when he states that Jesus is physically
resurrected from the dead? Let us see.

According to Mark, after the Sabbath on Sunday morning

Mary Magdalene and two other women travel to the tomb
of Jesus in order to anoint his body with spices (Mk
16.1-2). They discover that the large stone that had
blocked the entrance has been moved. They enter the
tomb and are alarmed when they see an angel (“a young
man”) who informs them that the crucified Jesus of
Nazareth has been raised. The angel orders them to tell
Peter and the other disciples that Jesus will meet them in
Galilee. Mark relates that the women fled the tomb in
terror, “and... said nothing to anyone, for they were
afraid” (Mk 16.8). It is widely accepted by scholars that
the original version of Mark ends at 16.8 with the empty
tomb, because Mk 16.9-20 appears only in very late
manuscripts (fourth and fifth century). Thus, for Mark
there is no physical resurrection. There are no
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 RESURRECTION
appearances to anyone. Jesus' body has simply
disappeared.

Nearly all serious scholars agree that the variant

resurrection accounts of the gospels cannot be
reconciled. A few examples of the inconsistencies
involved will suffice to show why. In Mark, Luke, and
John, when the women (or a woman in John) arrive at the
tomb, the stone has already been rolled away from the
entrance. But in Matthew’s account, when the women
arrive, the stone is still in place and is rolled away by an
angel of the Lord in their presence and that of the guards.

In Mark three women go to anoint Jesus’ body, though

earlier an unnamed woman has already anointed Jesus.
In Mark and Matthew, Jesus appears first to Mary
Magdalene and some other women. In Luke, Jesus
appears only to men. In John, Mary Magdalene is alone
when Jesus first appears to her. Matthew says that the
women had come to “see” the sepulcher (Mt 28.1), and
John gives no reason why Mary Magdalene comes to the
tomb.

ANCIENT GRECO-ROMAN NOVELS: LIFE AFTER DEATH

The best place we know of to examine the basic issues
concerning the historical Jesus is the Journal of Higher
Criticism edited by Robert M. Price. (See his website of the
same name at [Link]/jhc.) For the
following, we have depended on Robert M. Price’s book,
Deconstructing Jesus. [Price, R. M., 2000, 213-221]

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
The plot line for certain ancient pagan novels, mostly of
the Hellenistic period (ca 300-30 BCE), is primitive. In
these novels, the wife or fiancé of the hero is in a coma
and is prematurely buried. The hero, thinking she is
dead, comes to mourn, and finds the tomb empty. He
concludes that a god has taken his fiancé or wife to
heaven because of her beauty.

In searching for her, the hero runs across a ruler who

wants the heroine for himself and orders that the hero
and those who stole the woman’s corpse from the tomb be
crucified. This being a romance novel, the hero survives.
When the couple finally is reunited, they think at first
that they are seeing ghosts.

The similarities between Mark and, for example Chaereas

and Callirhoe, are obvious:

 condemning the hero to be crucified;

 the entombment of the victim who is (apparently)

dead;

 the removal of the stone;

 the empty tomb;

 the temporary inability of the lovers to recognize

each other (in Mark, the women think that the
angel is a ghost and in John, Mary Magdalene
doesn’t recognize Jesus at first).

There are parallels in other novels as well. Note that

sometimes mistaken identity is involved, as in Achilles

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 RESURRECTION
Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon. This novel echoes the
Gnostic accusation that Jesus did not die, another man
takes his place on the cross. Also in this novel, a woman
discovers on the third day that the tomb is empty. In the
Latin novel, The Golden Ass by Apuleius (ca 123 C.E.),
there are two scenes involving crucifixions, one of which
involves the actual, if temporary, raising of a dead
person.

In a fragment of Petronius’s Satyricon, a woman decides

to starve herself to death in her dead husband’s tomb.
Nearby, thieves are crucified. Guards are placed to keep
other thieves from breaking into the tomb and removing
the corpse. The woman is encouraged to eat proving that
she is alive. Matthew, Luke and John provide witnesses
to prove that Jesus has risen. In these pagan novels
many people witness the empty tomb. As with Mark's
gospel, these popular novels contain empty tombs, but
this does not indicate physical resurrection.

TRANSLATION
In The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, an
anthology edited by P. Borgen & S. Giversen, “Apotheosis
and Resurrection,” an article by Adela Yarbro Collins
argues persuasively that the empty tomb in Mark “is
shaped by Greek and Roman traditions of the translation
and apotheosis of human beings.” [Collins, A.Y., 88-100]
According to Ovid, Hercules’ body was destroyed and he
received a divine form, and Plutarch relates that
Hercules’ body disappeared. The Jewish Scriptures
record that some people like Elijah, Enoch, Moses, and
Melchizedek were translated, i.e., transformed after
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
death not physically resurrected, and disease Jewish
figures are not depicted as becoming divine. [Maccoby,
H., 1963, 62]

Although Paul wrote in the 50's, only 10-20 years after

the supposed death of Jesus (about 30 CE), his letters
show no awareness of the empty tomb or anything else
that would indicate a physical resurrection. Paul agrees
with Mark – Jesus was not resurrected, but translated.

A.Y. Collins believes that the Gospel of Mark ended at the

death of Jesus on the cross; there was no empty tomb
and no resurrection of Jesus. [Collins, A.Y., 88] Virtually
all serious scholars think that the resurrection
appearances at Mk 16.9-20 were created from material
extracted from the other gospels. For Mark, Jesus was
transformed after death; he was translated, not
resurrected. But what happened to his body? According
to A. Y. Collins, when a person is translated, the body
may remain behind or can disappear as in the case of
Enoch, Elijah and Hercules. [Collins, A.Y., 88]

Mark, the earliest Gospel writer, indicates that Jesus is

translated. Physical resurrection was developed by
Matthew and Luke. Matthew indicates that Jesus was
physically resurrected; the women take hold of Jesus’ feet
and worship him (Mt 28.9). Luke supplies more evidence
of physical resurrection; Jesus shows the wounds on his
hands and feet to the disciples, and points out that
ghosts don’t have flesh and bones; he then asks for food
and eats a piece of fish (Lk 24.38-43). In John’s gospel
Jesus eats food, appears in a closed room, and the

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 RESURRECTION
doubting Thomas physically examines the wounds in
Jesus’ hands and side (Jn 20.26-27).

In the Roman world, it was required that witnesses testify

to seeing the emperor’s shade or soul ascending toward
the heavens before the emperor could be deified. Not
satisfied with witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, the
author of Acts supplies witnesses to Jesus’ ascension,
“When he [Jesus] had said this, as they were watching,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight”
(Acts 1.9; cf. Mk 16.19; Lk 24.50-53).

Lucian (120-185 CE) says that Hercules “was burned and

deified on Mount Oetna: he threw off the mortal part of
him that came from his mother and flew up to heaven,
taking the pure and unpolluted divine part with him...”.
[Boring, M., HCNT, 177, #242, Lucian in Hermotimos, or
Concerning the Sects 7] (In Greco-Roman tradition the
mother supplies the body; reason and virtue, etc., come
from the father!)

EXCURSUS: ZOROASTRIANISM

Christian apologists, assuming that Christianity was a

Jewish sect, suggest that we look to the Jewish Scriptures
for the origin of the idea of resurrection. Yet the term
resurrection appears rarely in the Jewish Scriptures. As
the Anchor Bible Dictionary states, the term resurrection
“...does not appear except in texts that are rare, obscure
with regard to their precise meaning, and late.”
[Freedman, D., vol 5, 680] Resurrection is not clearly
mentioned until Daniel (ca 165 BCE). The usual biblical
view is that the soul goes to Sheol after death.
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Perhaps, then, we should look at the later Jewish
writings of the Second Temple period (ca 200 BCE to ca
100 CE). The problem is that in Daniel and in
pseudepigraphic literature such as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, 2
and 4 Maccabees, we find the concept of a general
resurrection, not an individual resurrection, much less
one where the Messiah is resurrected.

Eastern religions had for a long time influenced the

Roman world. Zoroastrianism was widespread, especially
in the eastern empire where Christianity originated. The
idea of apocalyptism in Persian Zoroastrianism was
taken over by ancient Judaism in the exilic period. By the
sixth century BCE, Zoroastrianism had worked out its
basic eschatology.

Some of the following items found in Zoroastrianism are

also found in Christianity: the evil god, Angra Mainyu, or
Ahriman (cf. Satan), rules a demonic world. Zoroaster
teaches that after death the soul hovers around the body
for three days before going to its judgment. After the
judgment, the soul goes to either heaven or hell, or an
intermediate state, which we may call purgatory.

In Zoroastrianism, the cosmos lasts for twelve thousand

years. There are three saviors who will follow Zoroaster,
all born to virgins. Each savior’s work lasts a thousand
years, which reminds one of the thousand-year rule of
Christ in Revelation. The third savior, Soshyant,
overcomes evil and at the final judgment raises the dead
(as Christ does in Revelation). Each individual is judged.
The body and soul are purified and all (some in
Christianity) are reunited with God. At this time the earth
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 RESURRECTION
returns to its original perfection. Christianity is close to
this latter idea in Revelation when, after people are
judged, the cosmos is destroyed, a new heaven and a new
earth are created, and the heavenly Jerusalem descends
to the new earth.

We conclude that:

 The resurrection material in the gospels contains

too many inconsistencies and contradictions to be
harmonized.

 As time passed, the four gospels gradually

eliminated the role of women regarding the
resurrection of Jesus.

 The idea of translation is more compatible with the

pagan culture than with Jewish tradition. For Paul
and Mark, Jesus is translated, but by the early
second century CE, the idea of a physical or bodily
resurrection became dogma.

 Physical resurrection was derived from the religion

of Zoroastrianism.

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MARK: CONCLUSIONS

 Jesus is non-Jewish; he is grossly ignorant of

Judaism and things Jewish..

 The Marcan Jesus is a radically anti-Jewish

Christian; he is a supersessionist, believing that
Judaism is to be replaced by Christianity.

 Jesus’ biography was created by the early church.

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 His death story was written for theological reasons
and is largely based on Jewish Scriptures.

 Jesus fits better in a pagan, rather than a Jewish

milieu. He is a pagan savior in Jewish dress.
Mark’s gospel is a fiction. It is a myth, and one that
is not based on an historical figure.

That Jesus was non-Jewish needs to be emphasized.

Virtually all modern scholars accept the gospels’
portrayal of Jesus as a first-century CE Judean Jew. J.H.
Charlesworth writes, “To me as a scholar Jesus’
Jewishness seems redundant. Obviously Jesus was a
Jew...”. [Charles, J. H., 1991), 13] Cardinal Martini
agrees, “In its origins Christianity is deeply rooted in
Judaism... Jesus is fully Jewish, the apostles are Jewish,
and one cannot doubt their attachment to the traditions
of their forefathers.” [Martini, 19] All this is wrong. As we
have shown, one can have serious doubts about Jesus’
Jewishness, indeed about his very existence.

According to the Marcan Jesus, the Jews were the chosen

people of God but they severed their covenant with God
when they rejected and killed God's Son. Thus, non-Jews
will replace them as the people of God. Christians have so
interpreted the Gospels for nearly 2000 years and today
conservative Christians, still faithful to the Gospels,
preach this message of supersessionism. Mark's gospel
is, on a fundamental level, far too anti-Jewish to have
been created in a Jewish milieu. Mark was created by the
church, but who created the church? We will turn to this
question in Chapter 10 of this book after exploring Paul's
contribution to the creation of Christian orthodoxy.
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 RESURRECTION
Chapter 10 will also deal with why Mark's Gospel
contains both a low and high Christology, that is, is
Jesus is depicted as both a fallible human failure and a
divine like being.

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 PART 2 WHO CREA TED JESUS?

Using the hope of heaven and the punishment of

hell as the proper motives for virtue falls “...far
below the best of the ancients [pagans]....”

—John Milton, On Liberty

Note on Part 2

In Part I of this book we showed that Mark's Jesus was a

literary fiction. In Part 2, Chapter 9 we demonstrated that
Paul, allegedly the earliest literary witness to Jesus, was
not aware of the existence of Mark's historical Jesus. If
Jesus was an imaginary figure, who invented him? The
Paulinists created Jesus as we will show in Chapter 10.

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Paul founded or joined a syncretistic mystery cult.

He fused this cult with Gnosticism and stoic-cynicism, and
added a Jewish veneer.
Paul never knew the historical Jesus.
— Authors.

QUOTES ON THE APOSTLE PAUL ([Link])

Note by Editors. We would agree with the quotations

listed below except for one important difference: the
ethics of Jesus were hardly that of the loving kind. He
was not sympathetic to the outcasts, the poor, the sick,
women etc. Also Jesus, like Paul, was very big on
condemning people to Hell who did not accept Jesus as
their Savior. For more, see Volume 2 and 3 in our Series,
Evidence That Jesus Never Existed!

George Bernard Shaw, winner of the Nobel Prize for

Literature in 1925; in his Androcles and the Lion:

"There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in

the characteristic utterances of Jesus. . . . There
has really never been a more monstrous imposition
perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul
upon the soul of Jesus. . . . It is now easy to
understand how the Christianity of Jesus. . . . was
suppressed by the police and the Church, while
Paulinism overran the whole western civilized
world, which was at that time the Roman Empire,
and was adopted by it as its official faith."

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Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize,
called "one of the greatest Christians of his time,"
philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman,
missionary, and theologian in his The Quest for the
Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul:

"Paul. . . . did not desire to know Christ. . . . Paul

shows us with what complete indifference the
earthly life of Jesus was regarded. . . . What is the
significance for our faith and for our religious life,
the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the
Gospel of Jesus?. . . The attitude which Paul
himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is
that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus,
and does not appeal to its authority. . . . The fateful
thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the
Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul
in a form which does not continue the Gospel of
Jesus, but displaces it."

Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most respected theologians

of this century, in his Significance of the Historical Jesus
for the Theology of Paul:

"It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the

words of the Lord in support of his. . . . views. when
the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered,
it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus.
Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes --
irrelevant for Paul."

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Walter Bauer, another eminent theologian, in his
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity:

"If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly

the Apostle Paul was the only Arch-Heretic known
to the apostolic age."

THE SILENCE OF PAUL ON THE HISTORICAL JESUS

Traditional Christians hold that Paul’s Christ is Mark’s

Jesus. In his letters, Paul appears to refer to the
historical Jesus and his associates, Peter, James, etc. We
will examine these passages to see if this is correct, but
first we will briefly consider the authenticity and integrity
of Paul's letters.

Virtually all modern scholars believe that of the thirteen

letters attributed to Paul, only seven are genuine: 1
Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians,
Philippians, and Philemon. Traditionally they have
sought to have been written between 45 and 62 CE.
These letters were edited, that is material was added to or
subtracted from them as the needs of the church
changed. In The Journal of Higher Criticism, Hermann
Detering briefly reviews some of the evidence offered by
the Dutch school in the 19th-century as regard the
integrity of the Pauline letters. [Detering, H.,163-193]
There are a number of anachronisms in Paul’s epistles.
The highly-developed theology and international
organization of the church which is apparent in Paul’s
letters assumes “a longer period of incubation and could
not possibly have been arrived at within two decades” of
Jesus’ death [Detering, H., 181. Detering’s ital]. Paul
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
writes that he fought at Ephesus with wild animals (1 Cor
15.32), [Detering, H., 190] but we have no evidence that
Christians were fed to the lions until about 117 CE in the
letters of Ignatius of Antioch.

There are other problems with Paul’s letters. Apologists

argue that Paul wrote to individual churches, but 1
Corinthians is addressed to the church in Corinth at 1
Cor 1.2a, and to the churches “everywhere” at verse 2b.
Scholars claim that Paul deals with specific problems of
individual churches, but the subjects of his letters are
universal in nature. The Apostle deals with faith versus
works, morality, the theological meaning of Christ’s
crucifixion and resurrection; he writes of false apostles,
false gospels and false “Christs,” and of the end times,
divorce, and ascetic practices, among other subjects.
These topics are so general in scope, they could have
been addressed to the church in general at any time.
[Doughty, Darrell J., 112-113]

Another problem with the historicity of Paul’s

correspondence is that the situation in which the letters
were produced is confused. Often we do not know when
or why Paul wrote a given letter, whether he is in prison
or not, etc. Paul claims to be Jewish, but his letters “have
in many places a completely un-Jewish character.”
[Detering, H., 187, fn 66] Van Manen argued that Paul
was a “Gentile Christian.” [Detering, H., 175]

Nearly every subject that Paul writes about is treated in

an ambiguous and often contradictory manner. For
example, there have been two centuries of debate about

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who the opponents of Paul are in Galatians (54-55 CE).
Some of the guesses are: 1) Jews, 2) Christians of Jewish
background, 3) gentiles who observed the ritual laws of
Judaism, 4) Gnostics of pagan background, 5) Gnostics
of Jewish background, 6) spirit-filled enthusiasts.
Another problem with Galatians is that the accounts of
the Jerusalem meeting in Galatians 2 and Acts 15 have
long been seen as inconsistent and even as fiction.

Some scholars think 1 Corinthians (ca 56-57 CE) is a

composite document that has been interpolated. [Brown,
R. E., 1997, 512] (Most think that this is true of 2
Corinthians as well.)

JESUS
Now let us see what, if anything, Paul knew about the
historical Jesus, his disciples or family. We will focus
primarily on Galatians and 1 Corinthians, as these two
letters contain virtually all of Paul's supposed references
to the historical Jesus, his brother, and his disciples.

Paul says that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under

the law” (Gal 4.4), but the Apostle supplies no historical
detail. Paul knows of no birthplace and Jesus could have
been born a hundred years before Paul. In his single
reference to Jesus’ ancestry, Paul says that Jesus “was
descended from David according to the flesh,” i.e., was of
Jewish royal descent [Rom 1.3-4). We agree with Earl
Doherty, (The Jewish Puzzle) that Paul does not know
that Christ is a descendant of David. We think the entire
passage (1.1-7) is an interpolation, since Paul nowhere
else gives any historical data as to the ancestry of Jesus;
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
and Rom 1.1-4 contains too much detail unknown to
Paul and Mark, the earliest gospel. Many scholars have
questioned the integrity of these two passages from
Galatians and Romans.

Paul describes the “Lord’s Supper” at 1 Cor 11.23-29, but

the integrity of this passage has been much questioned.
Jesus’ words, “this is my body and blood... Do this in
remembrance of me,...” are closest to Luke’s account, but
Paul died about 64 CE, 25 years before Luke wrote his
gospel (ca 85 CE).

Paul’s most detailed depiction of the human nature of

Jesus occurs at Phil 2.6-11. This pre-Pauline hymn says
that Jesus Christ “was in the form of God,... that he
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in
human likeness... he humbled himself, and became
obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”
Finally, the hymn adds that after Jesus’ death, God
“exalted him” above all others. There is nothing else in
the “genuine” letters of Paul about a divine figure
descending from heaven and becoming human. The
hymn was inserted by later editor.

Paul refers to Jesus’ crucifixion but again gives no

historical detail. At I Thess 2.14-15 Paul says that “the
Jews” killed “the Lord Jesus.” R. Brown lists some
arguments that scholars have given against the Pauline
authorship of this passage (which Brown, nevertheless,
accepts as genuine): [Brown, R., 463]

1) The letter gives a second thanksgiving,

indicating that the letter is a composite.
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
2) The passage says that Jews are “enemies of the
human race,” a common pagan slander.

3) The letter says that divine wrath has overcome

the Jews, a reference to the first war with Rome (66-70
CE) which occurred after Paul’s death about 64 CD..

Against Brown, most modern scholars have concluded

that 1 Thess 2.14-15 was inserted by the early church.
Earl Doherty in The Jesus Puzzle, lists some of the
scholars who have found this to be so: [Doherty, E. 299]

 Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament? p

113;

 Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians, p 9, n

117;

 Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament,

vol. 2, p 113;

 Pheme Perkins, Harper’s Bible Commentary, p

1230,1231-2;

 S.G.F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the

Christian Church, p 92-93;

 Paula Fredericksen, From Jesus to Christ, p 122.

 We would add J.D. Crossan who, in Who Killed

Jesus?, asserts that the whole account of the
Jewish trial is fiction.

Paul knows that Christ was “resurrected,” but he does

not know where or when. In 1 Corinthians, Paul preaches

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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
that, “Jesus died, was buried, and raised on the third day
according to the scriptures” (15.3-4), a passage which
many scholars think is a creedal formula added by a later
editor. Following this is Paul's list of resurrection
appearances: Jesus first appeared to Cephas and the
twelve (1 Cor 15.5); then to the 500 disciples (vs. 6); then
to James and all the apostles (vs. 7); and finally to Paul
(vs. 8). Scholars have found many problems with this
passage, one of which is that it is inconsistent with the
other passages dealing with Jesus' resurrection
appearances as described in the four Gospels and in Acts
of the Apostles.

As we saw in Chapter 8, Mark does not assert that Jesus

physically arose from the dead, but was translated or
transformed after death. This is also true of Paul.

Paul's Savior is not Mark's historical Jesus, but the

Christ, a triumphant and divine figure of glory from the
mythic past.

PETER
There is much evidence in Paul’s letters of general conflict
within the early church. Paul warns his flock to watch out
for those who would cause dissensions and offenses
contrary to what they have learned (Rom 16.17). He says
there are false apostles who preach a perverted gospel
and “another Jesus” (2 Cor 11.4-8,13-14,22-33; Gal
1.6-9); he says they “will pay the penalty” (Gal 5.10,12).

What was Paul’s relationship to Peter? Paul's references

to Peter, John and James were added by an editor in an

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attempt to prove that the Apostle knew these associates
of Jesus, thus establishing a link between Paul's Christ
and the historical Jesus. But are the references genuine?

Paul says that his gospel “is not of human origin; for I did
not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it,
but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal
1.11-12). He says, God “set me apart before I was born”
and revealed “his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him
among the Gentiles” (Gal 1.15-16; 1 Cor 1.1; 2 Cor 1.1,
Phil 1.1, Rom 1.1). Paul writes that after his conversion,
he “did not confer with any human being, nor did [he] go
up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles
before [him], but... went away at once into Arabia....” (Gal
1.16-17). In about 40 CE, three years after his
conversion, Paul says he visited Cephas for fifteen days in
Jerusalem and also saw James, the Lord’s brother (Gal
1.19), but Paul insists that he did not receive any part of
his gospel from Peter, Cephas, James, or any other
human being.

About 14 years after his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul

writes that he received a revelation from God, and again
went to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas and Titus
(Gal 2.1-2). Paul meets privately in Jerusalem with the
supposed “acknowledged leaders” (James, Cephas and
John) but he again flatly asserts that they “contributed
nothing to me,” (Gal 2.2, 6). Paul insists that his gospel
did not come from Jesus of Nazareth through his
disciples or Jesus' brother. Even if Peter is Cephas, Paul
does not indicate that he received truth from Peter either.
Also, it would be anachronistic for Paul to refer to Peter is

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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
Cephas, since Peter was not called this until John 1.42,
written decades later (ca 100 CE) long after Paul's death
about 64 CE.

An editor of Galatians attempted to convince his readers

that Paul knew Peter by having Paul explicitly say that
Peter’s gospel, as well as his own, came from God (Gal
2.7-8). We do not find any reference to this passage in
Christian writings until Irenaeus about 180 CE.
Tertullian, writing about 207 CE, knows about the
Jerusalem leaders shaking hands with Paul, i.e.,
approving of his mission to the non-Jews, but he knows
nothing of the statement that Peter's gospel came from
God.

Paul says he met with James, whom he describes as the

brother of Jesus, but only once, at Gal 1.19; a passage
which many scholars are wary of. After all, we last saw
James in Mark’s gospel, where he is depicted as an
unbeliever who thinks that Jesus is crazy and maybe
even possessed by Satan, and yet at the meeting in
Jerusalem we find James is apparently the head of the
church of Jerusalem!

Paul knows nothing about the disciples as depicted in

Mark and the other gospels. Paul never even hints that
Peter, James (excluding the brother passage), John, or
anyone else ever met Jesus, much less that they were his
disciples.

Finally, how can it be argued that all knew of the

historical Jesus when he is wholly ignorant of the Marcan
traditions about Jesus? Here are some items found in
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Mark’s gospel but omitted in the Apostle’s letters. Paul
omits Bethlehem, Capernaum, Galilee, Nazareth, and
Judea. Paul does not know of Judas, John the Baptist,
Herod Antipas, the high priest, or Pontius Pilate. He
doesn’t mention the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin (which
tried Jesus), the scribes, or even that Jesus had disciples,
and he applies the name Pharisee only once (to himself at
Phil 3.5). The apostle refers to Cilicia but fails to mention
the city of Tarsus, though Acts says that he was born
there. He mentions the twelve one time at 1 Cor 15.5, but
does not associate the twelve with apostles. A major
element of Judaism which he ignores is the temple in
Jerusalem, having only a single reference to it at 1 Cor
9.13.

Also Paul does not know about Jesus’ special teachings,

his cures, exorcisms, or other miracles. Paul knows only
of Jesus’ ahistorical death. He does not know of an
historical man who lived and died in Palestine about 30
CE. Paul's Christ was crucified in the mythic past and
returned to life as a god, a spiritual Christ. His Christ is
in the tradition of pagan gods like Osiris, Dionysius,
Mithras, and Hercules, all of whom suffered and died,
were transformed after death and became divine. For
additional analysis of the silence of Paul about Jesus, see
Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle.

PAUL AND PAGAN SYNCRETISM

If Paul was unaware of the existence of Jesus, and thus

was not a Christian, what was his religion? To answer
this, one must fully appreciate the powerful and

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pervasive syncretism of the ancient Roman world that
produced him.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the verb

syncretize as an “...attempt to unite and harmonize
especially without critical examination or logical unity.”
[Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary,
Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1998, 1873] The word has been
applied to both religion and philosophy.

Religious syncretism is ancient, existing long before Paul.

In Herodotus’ History of the Persian Wars, (5th cent. BCE),
we find Greeks identifying the Egyptian Osiris with the
Greek god Dionysus. [Griffiths, J. G., 250] When Rome
conquered Greece, the chief god, Zeus, was identified
with the chief Roman god, Jupiter. In the syncretistic
world of the first century CE we should not be surprised
to find that Paul's religion was a mix of many elements.
We shall examine that religion, but first a note on Paul's
Jewishness.

PAUL WAS NOT A JEW

Paul claims to be Jewish but 90 percent of the evidence of

his Jewishness is contained in Acts of the Apostles, a late
fantasy that we need not consider here. Paul does not
know Hebrew. He writes in Greek (Koine), and quotes the
Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures (the Seventy),
and when it differs from the Hebrew, he always prefers
the Greek. Paul was neither a rabbi nor a Pharisee and
was not even Jewish. (See H. Maccoby’s books The
MythMaker and Paul and Hellenism.)

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Greco-Romans today are described as anti-Jewish and
Paul is said to love Jews since he was Jewish himself. But
as we shall see, pagan opinions of Jews and those of Paul
are virtually identical.

Both Paul and paganism wrongly claimed that Jews

hated non-Jews. At 1 Thess 2.15-16, Paul claims that
“the Jews” are against humanity, and have attempted to
prevent him from saving non-Jews. Posidonius (fl 2nd
and 1st cent. BCE) says that pagan writers believed that
Jews disliked non-Jews. He says that Jews would neither
eat with “gentiles” nor “...show any good will towards
them.” [Wilde, R., 45] Diodorus says that the Syrian king
should “wipe out the Jews completely” on the ground that
they look upon all non-Jews as I know I didn't dare out
and their enemies. He says Moses “ordained their
misanthropic ways.” [Feldman, L. H, 1993, 10.141]
Apollonius Molon (fl 1st cent. BCE) reproaches the Jews
for hatred of non-Jews, intolerance, superstition, and the
immorality of the law. [Wilde, R., 46-47] Tacitus claimed
that Jews held as sacred all things which were impure to
the (non-Jewish) Romans. According to Josephus, Apion
insisted that by law Jews kidnapped a non-Jew each year
and sacrificed and ate him and swore an oath of hostility
to the Greeks. [Feldman, L., 1996, 386] Later Christians
adopted this slanderous myth and held it until the 19th
century CE!

Paul was pro non-Jews. He writes that Israel has been

blinded until the fullness of the gentiles is in (Rom
11.19,21). Jews are the enemies of God in order to save
non-Jews (Rom 11.28-30). “I am an apostle to the gentiles

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in order to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save
some of them” (Rom 11.1-14). Loyalty to the ethnic or
religious traditions of one’s ancestors was greatly valued
by the Romans, so here and elsewhere Paul claims that
he has strong feelings for his “kinsmen,” and indeed he
does love “some” of the Jews — if they become non-Jews,
i.e., Paulinists.

Some pagans wrote that Jews were atheists because they

rejected the pagan gods. Some pagan writers charged
Jews with worshiping idols; Plutarch implies that Jews
worship a donkey [Feldman, L., 1996, 363, 10.81] and
Tacitus explicitly says so. [Feldman, L., 1996, 363] Some
scholars say Paul argues that Jews were idolatrous (see
Gal 4.9) and he accuses Jews of unbelief in that they
reject the “true” God and his son, Jesus.

Feldman writes, “Circumcision was regarded by the

Greeks and Romans as a physical deformity and hence,
like others who had various deformities, circumcised
men were not permitted to participate in the Olympian
Games.” [Feldman, L., 1996, 377]

Paul warns the Philippians to “Beware of the dogs,

beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate
the flesh!” (are circumcised, Phil 3.2).

Seneca, Tacitus and Suetonius all ridiculed the

observance of the Jewish Sabbath, as did Horace, Ovid,
the satirist Persius, Plutarch, etc. [Feldman, L., 1996,
366] So does Paul. He rejects Jewish dietary law, which
was viewed derisively by Greco-Roman writers. For
instance Plutarch writes about the Jews “honoring the
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pig.” [Feldman, L., 1996, 374] Juvenal says that Jews feel
“merciful” toward pigs. [Feldman, L., 1996, 377] Paul
asserts that observing ritual law contributes nothing to
salvation.

The Apostle to the “gentiles” insists that the law causes

sin. He says the law was given to Jews because they were
morally degenerate. [Downing, F., 69] No Jewish thinker
would condemn the ritual or ethical law by characterizing
it as non-efficacious, as Paul does. [Downing, F., 62]

A number of texts in which “the Jews” are spiritually

blinded appear in Paul's letters, and Acts. often they
depend on Isa 6.9-10:

The Lord orders the prophet Isaiah to tell

“this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

keep looking, but do not understand.' Make the mind
of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their
eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and
listen with their ears, and comprehend with their
minds, and turn and be healed [saved].”
The authors of the Christian Scriptures tear this passage
from its historical context. Isaiah is labeling the
inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel as
faithless. He is not rejecting all Jews for all time.

In the Jewish Scriptures, God at times spiritually blinds

people in order to accomplish his purpose. In Exodus, for
example, God hardens the Pharaoh's heart or that of the
Egyptians. Sometimes the king himself does it (Ex 8.32;
Ex 4.21, 10.20). God's purpose is accomplished, e.g., the
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King's army pursues the Israelites into the Red Sea and
drowns (Ex 14.17), thus freeing the Jews from slavery.

The following passages illustrate how the early church

explained why Jews rejected Jesus and the Kingdom of
God, i.e., the church:

 In Rom 11.25, Paul states that part of Israel has

been hardened “until the full number of the
Gentiles has come in.” The agent seems to be God
(cf. 2 Cor 3.14; Heb 3.7-8, 4.7; and Mk 7.6-7).

 Paul argues that the gospel is “veiled to those who

are perishing” (2 Cor 4.3). Unbelievers have been
blinded “by the god of this world [Satan]... to keep
them from seeing the light of the Gospel” (2 Cor 4.4)

 At Acts 28.25-28, Paul describes the Jewish heart

as having grown dull; their ears do not hear, eyes
do not see, etc. Jews have blinded themselves.

 At Rom 9.16, 18-20, Paul asserts that whether one

is saved or not depends on the mercy of God. He
writes that it is God who “hardens the heart of
whomever he chooses” (vs. 18). Paul discounts
human will or exertion. He writes that people say
that if God blinds people, why does Paul find fault
with unbelievers? Paul answers that human beings
are not to argue with God. God has made us the
way we are and we have no right to complain; it is
like the pot criticizing the potter.

 At Rom 11.7-8, Paul argues that the elect have

received salvation. The Apostle then paraphrases
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Isa 6.9-10, “God gave them a sluggish spirit, eyes
that would not see and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.”

Why does the early church depict Jesus as teaching that

Jews are spiritually blinded by God? Paul in Acts spells it
out, “Let it be known to you then that this salvation of
God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts
28.28). The mission to the Jews, if there ever was one,
had failed. The church needed to explain why few Jews
converted to Christianity. Note that no mission to Jews is
related in Paul's letters, but only in the late fantasy, Acts,
with a mission to “the Jews” fails.

From the preceding, one can see that Paul shares

anti-Jewish views very similar to many pagan writers.
Paul is hardly pro-Jewish or anti-pagan. R. Ruether
writes, “For Paul, there is, and has always been, only one
true covenant of salvation.” And this covenant was “given
apart from the Law, to Abraham and now [is] manifest in
those who believe in Abraham's spiritual son, Christ. The
people of the Mosaic covenant do not now and never have
had any way of salvation through the Torah itself.”
[Ruether, R. R., 106] Jews can only be saved by becoming
non-Jews, a view with which many pagan writers would
agree.

While Greco-Romans like Tacitus were quite

anti-Semitic, it has to be granted that Paul is even more
so. Why is this? Paul must make sure that
Greco-Romans do not mistakenly believe that he is
accepting Judaism as the true religion. Thus, while many
pagans were certainly critical of Judaism, Paul
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invalidates it, replacing it with Paulinism, that is,
proto-Christianity.

STOIC-CYNICISM

If Paul was a pagan, why did he embrace a belief in only

one true God? Many ancient Greeks and Romans rejected
polytheism of the pagan religions, including Plato and
Aristotle, the Stoic-Cynic philosophers, and others.

Diogenes the Cynic “...expressed contempt for the

Eleusinian mysteries... his teacher Antisthenes, who
attacked all religious conventions including the belief in a
multitude of gods, maintained that there existed one God
beyond all visible phenomena.” Griffiths, J., 253] The
Sophist and atheist, Protagoras, said, “I am unable to
know whether [the gods] exist or do not exist, nor what
they are like in form; for the factors obstructing
knowledge are many: the obscurity of the subject and the
shortness of human life.” [Griffiths, J., 252-253]

Paul shared many beliefs with Stoic-Cynics. Here are a

few items held in common by Paul and the Stoic-Cynics.

For Epictetus, the Cynic is a mediator between god and

humanity (cf. 2 Cor 2.17 to 3.9). [Boring, M., HCNT, 446,
#721] The Cynic is a representative of god who has been
sent by Zeus to humans to teach them how to live (cf. Gal
1.1). [Boring, M., HCNT, 459, #753]

Chrysippus, head of the Stoic school in 232 BCE, used

allegory or symbolism in an attempt to prove that Homer
and Hesiod were actually Stoics. [Ferguson, E., 334] The

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Stoics rearrange “the letters in the name of the goddess
Hera (ERA) [giving] the word for air (AER).” [Ferguson, E.,
336] Similarly, Paul (and Jesus) rejects the literary
meaning of the Jewish Scriptures. Interpreting them
symbolically enabled Paul to “prove” that the Jewish
Scriptures predicted long ago that Jesus Christ would be
crucified, etc.

Seneca says, “What is my object in making a friend? To

have someone to be able to die for, someone I may follow
into exile....” [Seneca, Letters, Letter 9, 50] Some parallels
from Paul are: Gal 5.14 says love your neighbor; Rom
12.14, bless those who persecute you. Note that Paul is
not as universal as some think, “Do not be unequally
yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6.14-17).

Seneca says that the slave “has the same good sky above
him, breathes as you do, lives as you do, dies as you
do...”. [Seneca, Letters, Letter 47, 93] He also says, “treat
your inferiors in the way in which you would like to be
treated by your own superiors.” [Ibid] Plutarch (45-125
CE) says we should give good for evil. [Boring, M., HCNT,
384, #609] Paul says to “overcome evil with good” (Rom
12.17,19-21; cf. Prv 20.22 — do not repay evil with evil).

Epictetus says we are “all children of god, and that god is

the father of gods and men...”. [Epictetus, Discourses
1.3.1; 11] Paul teaches that God is our father (cf. Rom
1.7; Rom 8.15-17; 1 Cor 8.6; Gal 4.6; Mk 11.25).

Seneca writes that one should love one’s country, father,

and wife. [Seneca, Letters, Letter 88, 153] He writes that
the wise man “remains self-content even when he
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marries, even when he brings up his children.” [Seneca,
Letters, Letter 9, 52] He would rather not live at all than
to give up human companionship. Of Musonius Rufus
(30-101 CE) it was said, “...he is the clearest of any
ancient writer on the equality of man and woman (Frgs.
Nos 3 and 4); he believed marriage to be a complete
partnership” with sex being confined to marriage for the
purpose of procreation. [Ferguson, E., 344]

Epictetus states that men get married and beget children

because they wish to be happy. [Epictetus, Discourses
1.11.3; 28] Family feeling is good and natural. [Epictetus,
Discourses 1.11.17; 30] He also says that the man who
commits adultery destroys friendly feeling toward his
neighbor, destroys friendship, and the country
[Epictetus, Discourses 2.4.1-3; 82] (cf. 1 Cor 6.9-12,
adulterers will not inherit the kingdom). Seneca writes
that many things encumber us in our pursuit of wisdom,
the “body, property, brother, friend, child, and slave...”.
[Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.14; 6] The fundamental
purpose of philosophy is to learn how to live. [Seneca,
Letters, Letter 55, 107]

Judaism celebrates life. Stoic-Cynics varied as to the

value they put on marriage but most accepted it if it was
not perceived as an obstacle to the pursuit of wisdom.

Paul’s view on marriage is similar to Stoic-Cynics in that

he does not explicitly forbid it, yet like some Stoics, he
writes that the people should be celibate as he is (cf. 1
Cor 7.7-8) and that a man should not touch a woman (1
Cor 7.1). He also says that women should be silent in

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church and subordinate to the husband, a view that most
Greco-Romans would find acceptable.

Stoicism and Paul share the same terminology, “Spirit,

conscience, Logos, virtue, self-sufficiency, freedom of
speech, reasonable service, etc.” [Ferguson, E., 346] Also,
both believe in the human tendency toward evil (stronger
in Paul), the need for self-examination, human kinship
with the divine, denial of the world’s values, and
emphasis on inner freedom from external circumstances.
[Ibid., 346]

Other parallels between Paul and the Stoic-Cynics are:

[Ibid., 346]

 Both the Stoic-Cynics and Paul believed in

proselytizing, and posited founders whose
teachings were passed down.

 Both saw externals as neutral or indifferent,

playing no role in salvation. Examples of externals
would be marriage, wealth, politics, as well as
whether one was a Greek or barbarian, slave or
free, male or female.

 Both argued that one must not fear death or

suffering in the pursuit of truth.

 Both thought of conscience as the source of ethical

truth.

In general, Paul was influenced by the ideals of the pagan

ethicists, “especially by the Cynic-Stoic synthesis of

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popular philosophy” (cf. Gal 5.19-23). [Boring, M., HCNT,
474, #782]

“Seneca’s sentiments have more nearly approximated

Christian teaching than those of any other classical
philosopher. Tertullian described him as ‘always our
Seneca’ (On the Soul 20),” [Ferguson, E., 343] though, of
course, the letters supposedly written by Paul and
Seneca to each other are bogus.

The fundamental difference between Paul and the

Stoic-Cynics is that the latter sought virtue in this world,
while Paul sought salvation in the next world. For Paul,
life begins after death.

So Paul’s ethics were a syncretistic mix of Stoicism and

Cynicism, but what of his views on salvation? Were they
Jewish?

GNOSTICISM

To Paul's syncretistic soup, we must add a large measure

of Gnosticism. Gnosticism existed by the first century
CE. [Cohn-Sherbok, D., 56. In the description of
Gnosticism that follows, we have relied on this book] J.
M. Robinson dates it to this century or earlier.
[Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, The: An Illustrated
Encyclopedia (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962)
Supplemental Volume, 364] A number of scholars
concede that incipient Gnosticism coexisted with
Christianity’s beginnings.

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In Gnosticism, souls (sparks) have been expelled from
heaven (the pleroma) and are trapped in the flesh,
[Maccoby, H., 188] i.e., bodies. [Maccoby, H., 187] The
gnostic savior, a spiritual being, descends from the
heavenly hierarchy and imparts gnosis (mystical
knowledge) to the elect (pneumatics) which enables them
to be reunited with God. Some souls can be saved by the
elect; others are doomed. When enough sparks have
returned to God, the material cosmos will collapse back
into chaos.

Hyam Maccoby in Paul and Hellenism identifies some

elements common to Paulinism and Gnosticism.
[Maccoby, H., 186] The rulers of the cosmos are evil
spiritual entities (archons) and the purpose of the savior’s
mission is to break the power of these evil forces led by
the demiurge (Satan), and save the elect. Both Gnostics
and Paulinists believed that humans fell from grace, from
innocence to irredeemable sin; they are cut off from the
true God and can only be rescued by a divine redeemer.

In ancient Judaism there was no such radical alienation

from God. The sin of Adam and Eve simply explains why
God’s children do not live in Paradise, why men must
labor to make a living, and women must give birth in
pain. After Genesis, the Jewish Scriptures rarely refer to
the Eden story. Judaism does not require a divine
redeemer.

Additionally, Paulinism and Gnosticism admired figures

in the Jewish Bible who are non-Jewish, for example,
Abraham, Seth, Enoch, and Melchizedek. According to

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Paul, all of the Jewish prophets thought that Judaism
was only temporarily valid. [Maccoby, H., 188] Against
Exodus, Paul asserts that the law was given to Moses not
by God, but by angels who also authored it. [Maccoby, H.,
41] (The Greek word diatageis in Galatians 3.19 means
ordained not transmitted. [Ibid] ) Similarly, for the
Gnostics the law was composed and delivered by the evil
demiurge, not by God.

Paul obliterates the literal text of the Jewish Scriptures

by allegorizing it, turning it into a Paulinist anti-Jewish
book. [Maccoby, H., 51] Similarly, Gnostics turned “bad
guys” into the good Gnostics, e.g., the snake in Eden is
the cosmic savior. Plato (428-349 BCE) pointed out that
pagans allegorized their sacred myths and writings.
Plato’s Socrates says, “these fine poems are not
human...,” “the poets are merely the interpreters of the
gods,...” [Boring, M., HCNT, 460, #754] The editors of
HCNT assert that Paul “totally agrees” with the pagan
idea of inspiration (cf. Gal 1.1). H. Maccoby concludes
that Paul is “close to the Gnostics in his view of God,
Satan and Torah.” [Maccoby, H., 52-53]

As regard anti-Jewishness, the Gnostics on the whole did

not view the Jews as evil incarnate but as simply
spiritually ignorant. However, they opened the doors for
diabolization of the Jews by Christians, e.g., Jews are the
people of the devil (cf. Jn 8.44). [Maccoby, H., 37]

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THE MYSTERIES

Another large influence on Paul was the mysteries, or

savior religions.

In the mystery cults, a savior god or one close to him or

her dies and is brought back to life. Members of the cult
undergo sacred secret rites, e.g., baptism and sacred
meals. Through these rites they receive benefits such as
health, protection from drowning at sea, and bliss after
death and some argue that they achieve immortality.
Momigliano writes that the “Imperial cult and [the
mysteries] are, in fact, two of the most important features
of Roman religion in the imperial period.” [Momigliano,
A., 222]

From the 6th century BCE in the Greek world there were
local mystery cults that, like the Christians, included
women, foreigners, and slaves, and which, as E.
Ferguson grants, may have involved the concept of an
afterlife. [Ferguson, E., 236-237] The mysteries “became
truly universal after the conquests of Alexander, being
expressly made available to citizens of the Roman
Republic and then the empire.” [Ferguson, E., 238]

Orpheus

The mysteries each had their associated myths. Orpheus

was initiated into the Samothracian Mysteries and
descended into the land of the dead, attempting to rescue
his wife Eurydice. He was killed by the women of Thrace.
[Grimal, P., 315-316] Some said that he instituted the
mysteries; in one tradition, the soul of Orpheus was
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taken to the Elysian Fields (heaven) and brought out the
secrets of how to reach the land of the blessed. [Ibid.,
316]

Eleusinian Mysteries

In the myth of the Eleusinian mystery, Kore, the daughter

of the grain goddess Demeter, is kidnapped by Hades and
taken to the underworld, the land of the dead. After
Demeter negotiates with Zeus, Kore is allowed to spend
part of the year on earth with her mother, thus benefiting
humanity by preserving the agricultural seasons.
Demeter assures her initiates of happiness after death.
This mystery cult predates Jesus and Christianity by
about 600 years.

Dionysius

The cult of Dionysius was widespread during the Roman

imperial period. In its myth Zeus inadvertently kills his
human consort, Semele, with a lightning bolt which
makes their unborn son, Dionysus, immortal. Dionysius
engages in missionary activity from Greece to India
preaching that he is an Olympian god. He and his
followers are persecuted. Like Osiris he is hacked to
pieces but is brought back to life by Zeus. Later the son
travels to the underworld, bringing his human mother’s
shade back from Hades [Ferguson, E., 238-241, 243] (cf.
Jesus' trip after his death to preach to the spirits in
prison 1 Pet 3.19-20). Dionysius then ascends to Mount
Olympus to take his place among the immortals.

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Isis

By 38 CE the cult of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, had

spread throughout the empire. (The following information
on Isis is from E. Ferguson.) [Ferguson, E., 253, 255,
297-300] She describes her powers in an inscription (1st
cent. BCE to 1st cent. CE). In part Isis says that she is the
oldest daughter of Cronus, and the wife and sister of
Osiris who was dismembered by their brother, Set, who
scatters his body throughout Egypt. Isis brings Osiris
back to life. She is called God by women. She divided
earth from heaven, created the courses of the stars and
the sun and moon, made justice strong, coupled woman
and man, set the pregnancy of women at nine months,
ordered that children will love their parents and that
humans will love truth. She punishes those who act
unjustly. Lucius in The Golden Ass says that Isis ruled
the world, and was the savior of the human race.
Devotees of Isis repented of their sins. Meals were
commonly associated with mysteries, and in the cult of
Isis, the elect are “saved,” i.e., given immortality or bliss
after death.

Adonis and Attis

E. Ferguson tells us that the Phoenician deity, Adonis, is

killed by a wild boar and brought back from the dead. In
the late second century BCE, the cult of the Phrygian
gods, Cybele and Attis, was received in Rome by the
Senate. Attis dies a violent death. [Ferguson, 260, 264] R.
Price writes up an “... effigy of ashes crucified to a pine
trunk. On the third day he would be proclaimed
gloriously risen from the dead...” [Price, R. M, 2000, 87]
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Mithras

According to Ferguson, Plutarch says that, as a mystery,

the Persian cult of Mithras existed by 67 BCE. A shrine to
Mithras was built into Hadrian’s wall (d 135 CE) in what
is now England. Like Jesus in the birth stories of
Matthew and Luke, Mithras was not a product of sexual
union. He slays the sacred bull from whose blood all life
arises and is associated with the sun god, Sol, with whom
he shares a sacred meal. As with the deified Roman
emperors, Mithras ascends to heaven. E. Ferguson
concedes that the Persian god offered a form of salvation
to his adherents. An inscription in Rome says, “You saved
us by shedding the eternal blood.” [Ferguson, 271, 274,
275] Many scholars assert that Mithrans believed that
baptism of blood made them immortal. This cult like that
of Isis had “a supernaturally sanctioned ethic”
comparable to Christianity. [Ferguson, 281]

Hercules

Hercules was one of the most universally worshiped gods

in the Greco-Roman world and was said to have been
initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. He was punished
by Zeus for freeing Prometheus, who had saved humans
by providing them with fire. Hercules, after much
physical and psychological suffering, climbed onto his
burning funeral pyre on Mount Oetna, and was raised to
the heavens on a cloud, becoming one of the immortals.

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Asclepius

Asclepius, the god of healing, raised so many people from

the dead that Zeus killed him, after which he was
divinized. [Price, R. M., 2000, 62-63, 189, 193-195] Price
writes that, “the Greco-Roman world was up to its hips in
mystery gods.” [Price, R. M., 2000, 88] We would add that
it was also up to its hips in other gods who were
associated with violent death and helping humankind.

*****

Like most pagan saviors, Paul’s Christ is an ahistorical

being. The apostle gives no date or place for Jesus’ birth,
crucifixion, or death. His Christ is crucified and
translated in the mythic and vague past where, according
to Greco-Roman tradition, Hercules, Asclepius, Kore,
Dionysus, Osiris, Mithras, and many other demigods and
gods died violent deaths.

The savior gods were associated with the translation of a

person after his or her death. H. Maccoby writes,
“Dionysius... is brought to life again by Rhea. Adonis... is
raised on the third day. Baal... comes back to life. Attis,
after dying of his wounds, comes back to life and dances.
Osiris... is put together again and revived, after which he
becomes a god. In Mithraism, the bull killed by Mithras
was not itself resurrected, but it provided life, through its
body and blood, for the whole created universe.”
[Maccoby, H., 71] Paul makes many references to the
raising up of Jesus. But as Maccoby points out, there is
no reference to a dying messiah in Judaism until the
Talmud of the fifth century [b. Sukkah 52a]. “[W]e find
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the antecedents of the death of Christ...” in the mystery
religions. [Maccoby, H., 63, 65]

Most scholars vigorously deny that Paul was a member of

a mystery, arguing that the myth of dying and rising gods
did not predate Paul. R. Price asserts that perhaps the
strongest argument “that the resurrection of the Mystery
Religion saviors preceded Christianity is the fact that
ancient Christian apologists did not deny it! Only so
would they have reached into left field for the desperate
argument that Satan foreknew the resurrection of Jesus
and counterfeited it in advance, so as to prejudice pagans
against Christianity as a mere imitative also-ran, which
is just what they thought of it” [Price, R. M, 2000, 91].
That is, Satan supplied myths of the dying and rising
gods so that pagans could later claim that Christians
copied the Mithran and other pagan savior cults!

H. Maccoby concludes that, “In general, we must

conclude that there is good evidence that the concept of
salvific revival or resurrection of a violently-dying god
existed in the mystery cults by the time of Paul.”
[Maccoby, H., 73]

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EXCURSUS: THE PAGAN THEOLOGY OF PAUL

THE PAGAN THEOLOGY OF PAUL FROM THE JEWISH

ENCYCLOPEDIA (1906)
The Apostle Paul

SAUL OF TARSUS (known as Paul, the Apostle of the

Heathen): (Redirected from PAUL OF TARSUS.) (From
Jewish Encyclopedia - 1906) Edited by the Daltons.

The actual founder of the Christian Church as opposed to

Judaism; born before 10 C.E.; died after 63. The records
containing the views and opinions of the opponents of
Paul and Paulinism are no longer in existence; and the
history of the early Church has been colored by the
writers of the second century, who were anxious to
suppress or smooth over the controversies of the
preceding period, as is shown in the Acts of the Apostles
and also by the fact that the Epistles ascribed to Paul, as
has been proved by modern critics, are partly spurious
(Galatians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and
others) and partly interpolated.

Not a Hebrew Scholar; a Hellenist. “HELLENISM - Word

used to express the assimilation, especially by the Jews,
of Greek speech, manners, and culture, from the fourth
century B.C. through the first centuries of the common
era.”

Note by the Editors. Was Paul Jewish? He was a non-Jew,

perhaps one that became a proselyte and then dropped
out of the program and thus, knew only a little bit about
Judaism as his letters reflect.
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
Most modern Christian scholars assume that Paul was
Jewish and explain away the evidence of his paganism by
simply stating that he was a Hellenized Jew, like Philo. Of
course, they ignore the fact that Philo, while acquainted
with Greek culture, nevertheless remained Jewish; for
example, he speaks of the logos but his logos is not a
personal being as it is in the Gospel of John 1.1.

The writer in the Jewish Encyclopedia correctly insists

that Paul had no rabbinical training and that he was a
pure Hellenist. He also concedes that Paul made
mistakes relating to his alleged Jewish ancestry etc. and
yet the writer states that Paul was born of Jewish parents
which is doubtful. End of Note.

Saul (whose Roman cognomen was Paul; see Acts xiii. 9)

was born of Jewish parents in the first decade of the
common era at Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts ix. 11, xxi. 39, xxii.
3). The claim in Rom. xi. 1 and Phil. iii. 5 that he was of
the tribe of Benjamin, suggested by the similarity of his
name with that of the first Israelitish king, is, if the
passages are genuine, a false one, no tribal lists or
pedigrees of this kind having been in existence at that
time.

Nor is there any indication in Paul's writings or

arguments that he had received the rabbinical training
ascribed to him by Christian writers, ancient and
modern; least of all could he have acted or written as he
did had he been, as is alleged (Acts xxii. 3), the disciple of
Gamaliel I., the mild Hillelite. His quotations from
Scripture, which are all taken, directly or from memory,

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
from the Greek version, betray no familiarity with the
original Hebrew text.

… —he was, if any of the Epistles that bear his name are
really his, entirely a Hellenist in thought and sentiment.
As such he was imbued with the notion that "the whole
creation groaneth" for liberation from "the prison-house
of the body," from this earthly existence, which, because
of its pollution by sin and death, is intrinsically evil (Gal.
i. 4; Rom. v. 12, vii. 23-24, viii. 22; I Cor. vii. 31; II Cor. v.
2, 4; comp. Philo, "De Allegoriis Legum," iii. 75; idem, "De
Vita Mosis," iii. 17; idem, "De Ebrietate," § 26; and
Wisdom ii.24). As a Hellenist, also, he distinguished
between an earthly and a heavenly Adam (I Cor. xv.
45-49; comp. Philo, "De Allegoriis Legum," i. 12), and,
accordingly, between the lower psychic. life and the
higher spiritual life attained only by asceticism (Rom. xii.
1; I Cor. vii. 1-31, ix. 27, xv. 50; comp. Philo, "De
Profugis," § 17; and elsewhere). His whole state of mind
shows the influence of the theosophic or Gnostic lore of
Alexandria, especially the Hermes literature recently
brought to light by Reizenstein in his important work
"Poimandres," 1904 (see Index, s. v. "Paulus," "Briefe des
Paulus," and "Philo"); hence his strange belief in
supernatural powers (Reizenstein, l.c. pp. 77, 287), in
fatalism, in "speaking in tongues" (I Cor. xii.-xiv.; comp.
Reizenstein, l.c. p. 58; Dieterich, "Abraxas," pp. 5 et seq.;
Weinel, "Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister,"
1899, pp. 72 et seq.; I Cor. xv. 8; II Cor. xii. 1-6; Eph. iii.
3), and in mysteries or sacraments (Rom. xvi. 25; Col. i.
26, ii. 2, iv. 3; Eph. i. 9, iii. 4, vi. 19)—a term borrowed
solely from heathen rites.
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
ANTI-JEWISH ATTITUDE
Whatever the physiological or psychological analysis of
Paul's temperament may be, his conception of life was
not Jewish. Nor can his unparalleled animosity and
hostility to Judaism as voiced in the Epistles be
accounted for except upon the assumption that, while
born a Jew, he was never in sympathy or in touch with
the doctrines of the rabbinical schools. … It is quite
natural, then, that not only the Jews (Acts xxi. 21), but
also the Judæo-Christians, regarded Paul as an "apostate
from the Law" (see Eusebius, l.c. iii. 27; Irenæus,
"Adversus Hæreses," i. 26, 2; Origen, "Contra Celsum," v.
65; Clement of Rome, "Recognitiones," i. 70. 73).

Note by the Editors. Paul's attitude toward the Jews is

typical of some Roman writers like Tacitus: Jews hate
non-Jews etc. but Paul's hatred is pathological. This is
because if Jews interpreted the Jewish Scriptures
correctly (literally), then Christianity would be
invalidated. In addition, the vast number of converts to
Christianity were non-Jews (Gentiles). What does it mean
if the people of God do not convert? Thus, Paul had to
twist the words of Genesis so that Abraham would
become the father of those who are saved i.e. non-Jews.
End of Note.

JEWISH PROSELYTISM AND PAUL

(Non-Jews were allowed to convert to Judaism long
before Paul. Editors.)

… Why did Paul find it necessary to create a new system

of faith for the admission of the Gentiles, in view of the
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
fact that the Synagogue had well-nigh two centuries
before opened its door to them and, with the help of the
Hellenistic literature, had made a successful
propaganda, as even the Gospels testify? …(Matt. xxiii.
15) …. See Schürer, l.c. i. 126) and others (who wanted to)
reserve the claim of universality for Christianity, (denied)
the existence of uncircumcised proselytes in Judaism ….

Note by Editors as to Mt 23.15:

Mt 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,

hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him
twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Very few modern biblical scholars would accept this

passage by Matthew as an accurate statement. The power
of Pharisees was limited to Judea. Scribes were not a
political or religious group but rather an occupation.
However, we certainly would not deny that Judaism
accepted converts in the ancient world as it does to this
day. End of Note.

This was the question at issue between the disciples of

Jesus and those of Paul; the former adhering to the view
of the Essenes, which was also that of Jesus (Few modern
scholars would accept the connection between Jesus and
the Essenes – Eds.); the latter taking an independent
position that started not from the Jewish but from the
non-Jewish standpoint. Paul fashioned a Christ of his
own, a church of his own, and a system of belief of his
own; and because there were many mythological and
Gnostic elements in his theology which appealed more to
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
the non-Jew than to the Jew, he won the heathen world
to his belief.

Note by Editors. Of course, the real issue was not about

circumcision. It was rather about the rejection of Jesus
as the Jewish Messiah since he did not have the
characteristics of the Messiah. Another problem was that
the vast majority of Jews were not expecting a Messiah,
much less a divine, Crucified Messiah. For example, a
messiah is not mentioned by Philo or Josephus. This is
simply a Christian fiction. End of Note.

PAUL'S CHRIST (A DIVINE CHRIST WOULD MAKE JUDAISM A

POLYTHEISTIC RELIGION)
Multiple gods would not have been a problem for the
polytheistic pagan world. It would not have been a
problem for Roman philosophers and other the educated
pagans; for example for the Roman Stoics there was one
God with many names. Editors.)

In the foreground of all of Paul's teaching stands his

peculiar vision of Christ, to which he constantly refers as
his only claim and title to apostleship (I Cor. ix. 1, xv. 8; II
Cor. xii. 1-7; Phil. iii. 9; Gal. i. 1, 12, 16) …. The other
apostles saw Jesus in the flesh; Paul saw him when, in a
state of entrancement, he was carried into paradise to the
third heaven, where he heard "unspeakable words, which
it is not lawful for a man to utter" (II Cor. xii. 2-4)…. To
him the Messiah was the son of God in a metaphysical
sense, "the image of God" (II Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15), "the
heavenly Adam" (I Cor. xv. 49 … the mediator between
God and the world (I Cor. viii. 6), "the first-born of all

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
creation, for by him were all things created" (Col. i.
15-17), identical also with the Holy Spirit manifested in
Israel's history (I Cor. x. 4; II Cor. iii. 17 …. [Note: In any
case, the Christ of Paul was a spiritual, heavenly being,
not a human being; much less was he a Jewish historical
figure of the recent past.]

It is, however, chiefly as "the king of glory" (I Cor. ii. 8), as

ruler of the powers of light and life eternal, that Christ is
to manifest his cosmic power. He has to annihilate Satan
or Belial, the ruler of this world of darkness and death,
with all his hosts of evil, physical and moral (I Cor. xv.
24-26). Paul's "gnosis" (I Cor. viii. 1, 7; II Cor. ii. 14; I Tim.
vi. 20) is a revival of Persian dualism, which makes of all
existence, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, a battle
between light and darkness (I Thess. v. 4-5; Eph. v. 8-13;
Col. i. 13), between flesh and spirit (I Cor. xv. 48; Rom.
viii. 6-9), between corruption and life everlasting (I Cor.
xv. 50, 53). The object of the Church is to obtain for its
members the spirit, the glory, and the life of Christ, its
"head," and to liberate them from the servitude of and
allegiance to the flesh and the powers of earth. In order to
become participants in the salvation that had come and
the resurrection that was nigh, the saints were to cast off
the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light,
the breastplate of love, and the helmet of hope (Rom. xiii.
12; II Cor. x. 4; Eph. vi. 11. I Thess. v. 8; comp. Wisdom v.
17-18; Isa. lix. 17 ….

THE CRUCIFIED MESSIAH

How then can this world of perdition and evil, of sin and
death, be overcome, and the true life be attained instead?
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
… was apparently the one uppermost also in the mind of
Paul (see Kabisch, "Die Eschatologie des Paulus," 1893);
and in the form of a vision of the crucified Christ the
answer came to him to "die in order to live." This vision,
seen in his ecstatic state, was to him more than a mere
reality: it was the pledge ("erabon") of the resurrection
and the life of which he was in quest. Having seen "the
first-born of the resurrection" (I Cor. xv. 20-24 …. he felt
certain of the new life which all "the sons of light" were to
share. No sooner had the idea taken hold of him that the
world of resurrection, or "the kingdom of God," had come,
or would come with the speedy reappearance of the
Messiah (or a Savior God), then he would invest with
higher powers "the elect ones" who were to participate in
that life of the spirit. There can be no sin or sensual
passion in a world in which the spirit rules. Nor is there
need of any law in a realm where men live as angels. … To
bring back the state of paradise and to undo the sin of
Adam, the work of the serpent, which brought death into
the world—this seems to have been the dream of Paul.
The baptism of the Church, to which sinners and saints,
women and men, Jews and Gentiles, were alike invited,
suggested to him the putting off of the earthly Adam and
the putting on of the heavenly Adam (Rom. vi.). He was
certain that by the very power of their faith, which
performed all the wonders of the spirit in the Church (I
Cor. xii., xv.), would the believers in Christ at the time of
his reappearance be also miraculously lifted to the clouds
and transformed into spiritual bodies for the life of the
resurrection (I Thess. iv.; I Cor. xv.; Rom. viii.). These are
the elements of Paul's theology – a system of belief which

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endeavored to unite all men, but at the expense of sound
reason and common sense.

PAUL'S CONVERSION
Note by Eds. Acts of the Apostles is a fantasy of the late
first century or early second century CE. It is in our
opinion historically worthless. Many modern scholars
agree with this.

There is possibly a historical kernel to the story related in

the Acts (vii. 58-ix. 1-31, xxii. 3-21, xxvi. 10-19), that,
while on the road to Damascus, commissioned with the
task of exterminating the Christian movement
antagonistic to the Temple and the Law (ib. vi. 13), Paul
had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him, saying,
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (comp. I Sam.
xxvi. 18); that in consequence of this vision he became,
with the aid of Ananais, one of the Christian seers, "a
chosen vessel unto me [Christ], to bear my name before
the Gentiles." According to the Acts (vii. 58; ix. 2; xxii. 5;
xxv. 1, 10-12), Paul was a young man charged by the
Sanhedrin of Jerusalem with the execution of Stephen
and the seizure of the disciples of Jesus. (The Sanhedrin
of Jerusalem had no such power outside of Judah and
certainly no power outside of Palestine. Nor, outside the
New Testament, is there any evidence of the persecution
of Christians by Jews. Eds.) The statement, however (ib.
xxii. 8-9), that being a zealous observer of the law of the
Fathers, "he persecuted the Church unto death," could
have been made only at a time when it was no longer
known what a wide difference existed between the
Sadducean high priests and elders, who had a vital
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interest in quelling the Christian movement, and the
Pharisees, who had no reason for condemning to death
either Jesus or Stephen. In fact, it is derived from the
Epistle to the Galatians (i. 13-14), the spuriousness of
which has been shown by Bruno Baur, Steck, and most
convincingly by Friedrich Maehliss ("Die Unechtheit des
Galaterbriefs," 1891). The same is the case with Phil. iii.
5. Acts xxii. 17-18 speaks of another vision which Paul
had while in the Temple, in which Jesus told him to
depart from Jerusalem and go with his gospel to the
Gentiles. Evidently Paul entertained long before his
vision those notions of the Son of God which he afterward
expressed; but the identification of his Gnostic Christ
with the crucified Jesus of the church he had formerly
antagonized was possibly the result of a mental paroxysm
experienced in the form of visions.

INFLUENCE OF THE GREEK MYSTERIES (BAPTISM.

COMMUNION. PREDESTINATION)

Paul, the Hellenist, however knowingly or unknowingly,

seems to have taken the heathen cult associations as his
pattern while introducing new features into the Church
(see … Hatch, "Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon
the Christian Church," 1890, pp. 281-296; Cumont, "Die
Mysterien des Mithra, Deutsch von Gehrich," 1903 ….).
To him baptism is no longer a symbolic rite suggestive of
purification or regeneration, as in Jewish and
Judæo-Christian circles … but a mystic rite by which the
person that enters the water and emerges again
undergoes an actual transformation, dying with Christ to
the world of flesh and sin, and rising with him to the

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
world of the spirit, the new life of the resurrection (Rom.
vi. 1-10). (In all of history Jews never accepted baptism as
an initiation rite. Jews did not become Jews through any
water ceremony. Eds.)

Still more is the partaking of the bread and wine of the

communion meal, the so-called "Lord's Supper,"
rendered the means of a mystic union with Christ, "a
participation in his blood and body," exactly as was the
Mithraic meal a real participation in the blood and body
of Mithra (see Cumont, l.c.). To Paul, the Holy Spirit itself
is not an ethical but a magic power that works
sanctification and salvation. It is a mystic substance
permeating the Church as a dynamic force, rendering all
the members saints, and pouring forth its graces in the
various gifts, such as those of prophesying, speaking in
tongues, and interpreting voices, and others displayed in
teaching and in the administration of charity and similar
Church functions (Rom. xii. 4-8; I Cor. xii., xiv.; see
Kabisch, l.c. pp. 261-281). The Church forms "the body of
Christ" not in a figurative sense, but through the same
mystic actuality as that by which the participants of
heathen cults become, through their mysteries or
sacraments, parts of their deities. Such is the expressed
view of Paul when he contrasts the "table of Christ" with
the "table of the demons" (I Cor. x. 20-21). While Paul
borrows from the Jewish propaganda literature,
especially the Sibyllines, the idea of the divine wrath
striking especially those that commit the capital sins of
idolatry and incest (fornication) and acts of violence or
fraudulence (Rom. i. 18-32; I Thess. iv. 5).… (W)hile he
accordingly wishes the heathen to turn from their idols to
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God, with desire of being saved by His son (I Thess. i.
9-10), his Church has by no means the moral perfection
of the human race for its aim and end, as has Judaism.
Salvation alone, that is, redemption from a world of
perdition and sin, the attainment of a life of incorruption,
is the object; yet this is the privilege only of those chosen
and predestined "to be conformed to the image of His
[God's] son" (Rom. viii. 28-30). It is, accordingly, not
personal merit nor the greater moral effort that secures
salvation, but some arbitrary act of divine grace which
justifies one class of men and condemns the other (ib.
ix.). It is not righteousness, nor even faith—in the Jewish
sense of perfect trust in the all-loving and all-forgiving
God and Father—which leads to salvation, but faith in
the atoning power of Christ's death, which in some
mystic or judicial manner justifies the undeserving (Rom.
iii. 22, iv., v.; comp. Faith; for the mystic conception of
faith, πίστις, in Hellenism alongside of gnosis, see
Reizenstein, l.c. pp. 158-159).

THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS

(A Pagan Myth. God’s wrath is appeased by the death of
Jesus. Polytheism. Editors.)

Heathen as is the conception of a church securing a

mystic union with the Deity by means of sacramental
rites, equally pagan is Paul's conception of the crucifixion
of Jesus. While he accepts the Judæo-Christian view of
the atoning power of the death of Jesus as the suffering
Messiah (Rom. iii. 25, viii. 3), the crucifixion of Jesus as
the son of God assumes for him at the very beginning the
character of a mystery revealed to him, "a
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
stumbling-block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks" (I
Cor. i. 23-ii. 2, ii. 7-10). It is to him a cosmic act by which
God becomes reconciled to Himself. God sent "his own
son in the likeness of sinful flesh" in order to have His
(God’s) wrath appeased by his death. "He spared not his
own Son, but delivered him up," so that by his blood all
men might be saved (Rom. v. 8; viii. 3, 32). To a Jewish
mind trained by rabbinical acumen this is not pure
monotheistic, but mythological, thinking. Paul's "Son of
God" is, far more than the Logos of Philo, an infringement
of the absolute unity of God. (It is polytheism, a belief in
multiple gods. Editors) While the predicate "God" applied
to him in Titus ii. 13 may be put to the account of Paul's
school rather than to his own, throughout all the Epistles
a share in the divinity is ascribed to Jesus in such a
manner as to detract from the glory of God. He is, or is
expected to be, called upon as “the Lord" (I Cor. i. 2; Rom.
x. 13; Phil. ii. 10-11). Only the pagan idea of the
"man-God" or "the second God," the world's artificer, and
"son of God" (in Plato, in the Hermes-Tot literature as
shown by Reizenstein, l.c.), or the idea of a king of light
descending to Hades, as in the Mandæan-Babylonian
literature (Brandt, "Die Mandäische Religion," 1889, pp.
151-156), could have suggested to Paul the conception of
a God who surrenders the riches of divinity and descends
to the poverty of earthly life in order to become a savior of
the human race (I Cor. xv. 28, with ref. to Ps. viii. 6-7;
Phil. ii. 6-10). Only from Alexandrian Gnosticism, or, as
Reizenstein (l.c. pp. 25-26; comp. pp. 278, 285)
convincingly shows, only from pagan pantheism, could
he have derived the idea of the "pleroma," "the fulness" of
the Godhead dwelling in Christ as the head of all
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
principality and power, as him who is before all things
and in whom all things consist (Col. i. 15-19, ii. 9).

PAUL'S OPPOSITION TO THE LAW

Paul's attitude toward the Law was by no means hostile
from the beginning or on principle, as the interpolated
Epistle to the Romans and the spurious one to the
Galatians represent it. Neither is it the legalistic
(nomistic) character of Pharisaic Judaism which he
militates against, as Jesus in the Gospels is represented
as doing; nor was he prompted by the desire to
discriminate between the ceremonial and the moral laws
in order to accentuate the spiritual side of religion. … All
such interpretations fail to account for Paul's
denunciation of all law, moral as well as ceremonial, as
an intrinsic evil (Hausrath, "Neutestamentliche
Zeitgeschichte," 2d ed., iii. 14).

According to his arguments (Rom. iii. 20, iv. 15, vii-viii.),

it is the Law that begets sin and works wrath, because
without the Law there is no transgression. … For Paul,
the world is doomed: it is flesh beset by sin and altogether
of the evil one; hence home, family life, worldly wisdom,
all earthly enjoyment are of no account, as they belong to
a world which passes away (I Cor. vii. 31). … In fact, they
ought to live in celibacy; and only on account of Satan's
temptation to lust are they allowed to marry (ib. vi. 18-vii.
8). … As regards eating and drinking, especially of
offerings to idols, which were prohibited to the proselyte
of the gate by the early Christians as well as by the Jews
(comp. Acts xv. 29), Paul takes the singular position that
the Gnostics, those who possess the higher knowledge
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
("gnosis"; I Cor. viii. 1, xiii. 2, xiv. 6; II Cor. iv. 6; comp.
Reizenstein, l.c. p. 158), are "the strong ones" who care
not for clean and unclean things and similar ritualistic
distinctions (Rom. xiv. 1-23; I Cor. viii. 1-13). Only those
that are "weak in faith" do care; and their scruples should
be heeded by the others…. The Gnostic principle
enunciated by Porphyrius ("De Abstinentia," i. 42), "Food
that enters the body can as little defile free man as any
impurity cast into the sea can contaminate the ocean, the
deep fountain of purity" (comp. Matt. xv. 11), has in
Paul's system an eschatological character: "The kingdom
of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17; comp.
Ber. 17a; Jew. Encyc, v. 218, s.v. Eschatology). …

The original attitude of Paul to the Law was accordingly

not that of opposition as represented in Romans and
especially in Galatians, but that of a claimed
transcendency. (Christ is the end of the law and death.)
He desired "the strong ones" to do without the Law as
"schoolmaster" (Gal. iii. 24). The Law made men servants:
Christ rendered them "sons of God." That is, their nature
was transformed into an angelic, if not altogether divine,
one (Rom. viii. 14-29; I Cor. vi. 1-3).

Comment by the Editors on Paul's Opposition to the Law:

For the purpose of this book the editors are not
concerned as to exactly when Paul became obsessed with
condemning Jewish law. To us, the crucial point is in his
last paragraph which we quote immediately below.

"The original attitude of Paul to the Law was accordingly

not that of opposition as represented in Romans and
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
especially in Galatians, but that of a claimed
transcendency. (Christ is the end of the law and death.) "

Our only disagreement with the author is that he states

that Paul originally was not opposed to the law; Paul only
insists that the law must be transcended. But how can
you insist on transcendency without opposing the law?
How could Christ be the end of the law and death without
being opposed to the law? Perhaps, the author would
agree with our interpretation of his writing. This appears
in the next paragraph.

The Stoics thought that being slave or free, male or

female, Jew or non-Jew or having blue eyes or preferring
chocolate ice cream was irrelevant to salvation, that is,
were neutral. So with Paul. The death of Christ on the
cross, baptism, and communion were taken mystically
and this for Paul resulted in salvation. Morality does not
save. A mystical faith in the death of Jesus and in
sacraments brings salvation. Stoicism had a huge
influence on early Christianity, even on the New
Testament. The Stoics thought that ethical conduct
saved people. Paul rejects this Stoic idea that ethical
behavior brings salvation in this life - and rejects the idea
of any supernatural world or salvation. For more on
moral salvation see volume 2 of our series on the
nonexistence of Jesus. The Editors.

ANTINOMIANISM AND JEW-HATRED

His antinomian theology is chiefly set forth in the Epistle

to the Romans, many parts of which, however, are the
product of the second-century Church with its fierce
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
hatred of the Jew, e.g., such passages as ii. 21-24,
charging the Jews with theft, adultery, sacrilege, and
blasphemy, or ix. 22 and xi. 28 (comp. iii. 2). (As we have
shown above in Part One of this book, hatred of Jews and
Judaism existed long before the second century. Indeed,
this bigotry was present when the religion came into
being. Eds.) The underlying motive of Paul—the tearing
down of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile—is
best expressed in Eph. ii. 14-22, where it is declared that
the latter are no longer "gerim" and "toshabim" (A. V.
"strangers" and "foreigners"), but "fellow citizens with the
saints" of the Church and fully equal members "of the
household of God." In order to accomplish his purpose,
he argues that just as little as the heathen escapes the
wrath of God, owing to the horrible sins he is urged to
commit by his clinging to his idols, so little can the Jew
escape by his Law, because "the law worketh sin and
wrath" (Rom. iv. 15). Instead, indeed, of removing the
germ of death brought into the world by Adam, the Law
was given only to increase sin and to make all the greater
the need of divine mercy which was to come through
Christ, the new Adam (ib. v. 15-20). By further twisting
the Biblical words taken from Gen. xv. 6, which he
interprets as signifying that Abraham's faith became a
saving power to him, and from Gen. xvii. 5, which he
takes as signifying that Abraham was to be the father of
the Gentiles instead of nations, he argues that the saving
grace of God lies in faith (that is, blind belief) and not in
the works of the Law. And so he declares faith in Jesus'
atoning death to be the means of justification and
salvation, and not the Law, which demands servitude,
whereas the spirit of Christ makes men children of God
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
(Rom. iv.-viii.). The Pauline Jew-hatred was ever more
intensified (see ib. ix.-xi., and comp. ix. 31)—which is
clear evidence of a later origin—and culminates in Gal.
iii., where, besides the repetition of the argument from
Gen. xv. 6 and xvii. 5, the Law is declared, with reference
to Deut. xxviii. 26 and Hab. ii. 4 (comp. Rom. i. 17), to be
a curse from which the crucified Christ—himself "a
curse" according to the Law (Deut. xxi. 23; probably an
argument taken up from controversies with the
Jews)—was to redeem the believer. Another sophistic
argument against the Law, furnished in Gal. iii. 19-24,
and often repeated in the second century (Heb. ii. 2; Acts
vii. 38, 53; Aristides, "Apologia," xiv. 4), is that the Law
was received by Moses as mediator from the angels—a
quaint notion based upon Deut. xxxiii. 2, LXX.; (In Deut.
the law is received by Moses from God, not from Angels.
Eds.) comp. Josephus, "Ant." xv. 5, § 3—and that it is not
the law of God, which is a life-giving law of righteousness.
Furthermore the laws of the Jews and the idolatrous
practises of the heathen are placed equally low as mere
servitude of “the weak and beggarly elements"
(="planets"; Gal. iv. 8-11), whereas those that have put on
Christ by baptism have risen above all distinctions of
race, of class, and of sex, and have become children of
God and heirs of Abraham (ib. iii. 26-29; what is meant
by the words "There shall be neither male nor female" in
verse 28 may be learned from Gal. v. 12, where
eunuchism is advised; see B. Weiss's note ad loc.).

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW

The Pauline school writing under Paul's name, but

scarcely Paul himself, worked out the theory, based upon
Jer. xxxi. 30-31, that the Church of Christ represents the
new covenant (see Covenant; New Testament) in place of
the old (Rom. xi. 27; Gal. iv. 24; Heb. viii. 6-13, ix. 15-x.
17; and, following these passages, I Cor. xi. 23-28).
Similarly the interpolator of II Cor. iii. 6-iv. 4, in
connection with ib. iii. 3, contrasts the Old Testament
with the New: the former by the letter of the Law offering
but damnation and death because "the veil of Moses" is
upon it, preventing God's glory from being seen; the latter
being the life-giving spirit offering righteousness, that is,
justification, and the light of the knowledge (gnosis) of the
glory of God as reflected in the face of Jesus Christ. It is
superfluous to state that this Gnostic conception of the
spirit has nothing to do with the sound religious principle
often quoted from I Cor. iii. 6: "The letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life." The privilege of seeing God's glory as
Moses did face to face through a bright mirror held out in
I Cor. xiii. 12 (comp. Suk. 45b; Lev. R. i. 14) to the saints
in the future is claimed in II Cor. iii. 18 and iv. 4 as a
power in the actual possession of the Christian believer.
The highest hope of man is regarded as realized by the
writer, who looks forward to the heavenly habitation as a
release from the earthly tabernacle (II Cor. v. 1-8).

SPURIOUS WRITINGS ASCRIBED TO PAUL

This unhealthy view of life maintained by Paul and his
immediate followers was, however, changed by the
Church the moment her organization extended over the
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
world. Some epistles were written in the name of Paul
with the view of establishing more friendly relations to
society and government than Paul and the early
Christians had maintained. While Paul warns his
church-members not to bring matters of dispute before
"the unjust," by which term he means the Gentiles (I Cor.
vi. 1; comp. Jew. Encyc. iv. 590), these very heathen
powers of Rome are elsewhere praised as the ministers of
God and His avengers of wrong (Rom. xiii. 1-7); and while
in I Cor. xi. 5 women are permitted to prophesy and to
pray aloud in the church provided they have their heads
covered, a later chapter, obviously interpolated, states,
"Let your women keep silence in the churches" (ib. xiv.
34). So celibacy (ib. vii. 1-8) is declared to be the
preferable state, and marriage is allowed only for the sake
of preventing fornication (Eph. v. 21-33), while, on the
other hand, elsewhere marriage is enjoined and declared
to be a mystery or sacrament symbolizing the relation of
the Church as the bride to Christ as the bridegroom (see
Bride).

A still greater change in the attitude toward the Law may

be noticed in the so-called pastoral epistles. Here the Law
is declared to be good as a preventive of wrong-doing (I
Tim. i. 8-10), marriage is enjoined, and woman's
salvation is declared to consist only in the performance of
her maternal duty (ib. ii. 12, 15), while asceticism and
celibacy are condemned (ib. iv. 3). So all social relations
are regulated in a worldly spirit, and are no longer
treated, as in Paul's genuine epistles, in the spirit of
otherworldliness (ib. ii.-vi.; II Tim. ii. 4-6; Titus. ii.-iii.;
comp. Didascalia).
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
HIS SYSTEM OF FAITH
(Paul) construed a system of faith which was at the very
outset most radically in conflict with the spirit of
Judaism: (1) He substituted for the natural, childlike
faith of man in God as the ever-present Helper in all
trouble, such as the Old Testament represents it
everywhere, a blind, artificial faith prescribed and
imposed from without and which is accounted as a
meritorious act. (2) He robbed human life of its healthy
impulses, the human soul of its faith in its own
regenerating powers, of its belief in its own self and in its
inherent tendencies to goodness, by declaring Sin to be,
from the days of Adam, the all-conquering power of evil
ingrained in the flesh, working everlasting doom; the
deadly exhalation of Satan, the prince of this world, from
whose grasp only Jesus, the resurrected Christ, the
prince of the other world, was able to save man. (3) In
endeavoring to liberate man from the yoke of the Law, he
was led to substitute for the views and hopes maintained
by the apocalyptic writers the Christian dogma with its
terrors of damnation and hell for the unbeliever, holding
out no hope whatsoever for those who would not accept
his Christ as savior, and finding the human race divided
between the saved and the lost (Rom. ii. 12; I Cor. i. 18; II
Cor. ii. 15, iv. 3; II Thess. ii. 10). (4) In declaring the Law
to be the begetter of sin and damnation and in putting
grace or faith in its place, he ignored the great truth that
duty, the divine "command," alone renders life holy; that
upon the law of righteousness all ethics, individual or
social, rest. (5) In condemning, furthermore, all human
wisdom, reason, and common sense as "folly," and in

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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
appealing only to faith and vision, he opened wide the
door to all kinds of mysticism and superstition. (6)
Moreover, in place of the love greatly extolled in the
panegyric in I Cor. xiii.—a chapter which strangely
interrupts the connection between ch. xii. and xiv.—Paul
instilled into the Church, by his words of condemnation
of the Jews as "vessels of wrath fitted for destruction"
(Rom. ix. 22; II Cor. iii. 9, iv. 3), the venom of hatred
which rendered the earth unbearable for God's
priest-people. Probably Paul is not responsible for these
outbursts of fanaticism; but Paulinism is. It finally led to
that systematic defamation and profanation of the Old
Testament and its God by Marcion and his followers
which ended in a Gnosticism so depraved and so
shocking as to bring about a reaction in the Church in
favor of the Old Testament against the Pauline
antinomianism. Protestantism revived Pauline views and
notions; and with these (a hatred) of Judaism and its Law
took possession of Christian writers, and prevails even to
the present (comp., e.g., Weber, "Jüdische Theologie,"
1897, where Judaism is presented throughout simply as
"Nomismus"; Schürer's description of the life of the Jew
"under the law" in his "Gesch." 3d ed., ii. 464-496;
Bousset, "Religion des Judenthums in
Neu-Testamentlichen Zeitalter," 1903, p. 107; and the
more popular works by Harnack and others; and see also
Schechter in "J. Q. R." iii. 754-766; Abrahams, "Prof.
Schürer on Life Under the Jewish Law," ib. xi. 626; and
Schreiner, "Die Jüngsten Urtheile über das Judenthum,"
1902, pp. 26-34).

End of Encyclopedia Article

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
MYSTICISM

The mysteries associated death and mysticism. Paul

alludes more than 150 times to a mystical union of
himself (or other believers) and Christ or the holy spirit. “I
have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2.20). Many have
put on Christ and been baptized in him (Gal 3.27). At the
Lord’s Supper, many participate in the body and blood of
Christ (1 Cor 10.16). Paul says that believers will unite
with Jesus Christ in the resurrection (Rom 6.5). [Boring,
M., HCNT, 361-362, #570]

Paul believes that God caused Jesus’ death, “as a

sacrifice of atonement by [Jesus’] blood” (Rom 3.24-25).
In the religions of Cybele and Mithras, atonement was
through the blood of sacrificed animals. The Mithran
initiate is reborn for eternity (cf. Rom 6.1-10). [Boring, M.,
HCNT, 364, #572]

According to Apuleius (ca 125 CE), a mystical union with

the deity occurs during a religious meal (cf. Mk
14.22-25). [Boring, M., HCNT, 149, #194, Apuleius, The
Golden Ass, 11] He also says the cult of Isis involved an
ecstatic state on the part of the initiate, visions of hell and
heaven, and contact with the realm of the dead. Lucius
says that he was “given new life [immortality]” by Isis (cf.
Rom 5.1-11). [Boring, M., HCNT, 361-362, #570]

ORGANIZATION

Lastly, we must note the similarity of the organization of

Paul's churches with that of the voluntary associations
common in the Greco-Roman world. Under Augustus,
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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
many private groups met under the auspices of a god;
these voluntary associations (funeral societies, the
mysteries, etc.) were regulated by the Roman senate.
[Beard, M., 292-294, 12.2] Note the organizational
features held in common by the mysteries and the early
Pauline churches.

For example, compare the inscription from Philadelphia

in Asia Minor (Lydia, late 2nd cent. or early 1st cent. BCE)
with Gal 3.28; 5.13 to 6.10. [Boring, M., HCNT, 416-418,
#670]

Here are some of the traits shared by voluntary

associations and the Paulinists:

1. the “equality of women and men, slaves and free is

emphasized”;

2. hospitality and belonging to a community;

3. the group is morally elite, superior to the culture at

large;

4. anti-magic, as in Acts Ch 8, also see 13.8-12,

19.18-19, Rev 9.21;

5. lists of activities that are considered immoral;

6. a strict code of sexual ethics;

7. an oath at time of initiation;

8. the presence of the god in the cult (cf. Mt 18.20).

The Statutes of the Associates of the Worshipers of Diana

and Antinous (2nd cent CE) [Boring, M., HCNT, 468-469,
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
#771] are important for understanding the Christian
Eucharist texts:

1. the common meal is religious;

2. the organization revolves around the meal;

3. there was conflict involved during the celebration

of the meal; the meal is institutionalized as in 1 Cor
11. In paganism, “The festive meals serve as
memorials to important events in the lives of
honored figures in the life and history of the
group.” [Boring, M., HCNT, 427, #687]

CONCLUSIONS

R. Price is correct in pointing out that it is difficult for

Christian apologists “to see extensive and basic
similarities between [the mysteries] and the Christian
religion. But somehow Christian scholars have managed
not to see it, and this, one must suspect, for dogmatic
reasons. Those without such a Maginot Line mentality
have less trouble.” [Price, R., DJ, 88]

Many Christian writers reject equating Paul’s religion

with the mysteries and Gnosticism. R. Price rightly asks,
“How close does a parallel have to be to count as a
parallel? Does the divine mother have to be named Mary?
Does the divine child have to be named Jesus?” [Price, R.,
DJ, 89] Does the dying and rising god have to mirror
Christ in every respect? Must members of every mystery
cult believe that she or he will be physically resurrected
in a manner identical to that of the early Christian

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 PAUL AND THE MYSTERIES
church? We need not assert that Paulinism was a mirror
image of a pagan mystery, as did F. Cumont, Richard
Reitzenstein, and R. Bultmann in the early 20th century.
Paul’s religion was a kaleidoscope, reflecting many
syncretistic elements of the Greco-Roman world; it was
not an identical copy of any particular pagan religious
phenomenon. The Pauline church played a creative role
in the development of its own myth.

R. Price asks whether when members of the mystery cults

were mystically united with the god, was “it possible for
them to participate in the god’s death and resurrection in
some way and so gain an immortality like his? Sure it
was. And the Mystery Religions were born.” [Price, R., DJ,
87] And so was Paulinism.

Paul was a pagan. He was not a Jew and he was not a

Christian in that he did not know of, or follow, the
Marcan Jesus. His cult was not based on the life and
teachings of an “historical” Jesus. In the next chapters
we will see who created Jesus and why and who equated
him with Paul's ahistorical Christ, thus creating orthodox
Christianity.

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 CHAPTER 10 THE GOSPEL OF MARK. WHO
CREATED JESUS? PART 1
Pilate asked [Jesus], “What is truth?”
— John 19.38

Paul’s “belief that he received the myth from the heavenly Jesus himself has
obscured his own role in creating it.”
Hyam Maccoby, Paul and Hellenism.

COMMENTS ON PROTO-MARK AND THE GOSPEL OF MARK

WHO CREATED JESUS?
"It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words
of the Lord in support of his. . . . views. When the
essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear
that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is --
to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul." Rudolf
Bultmann, one of the most respected theologians of this
century, in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the
Theology of Paul.

We agree with this quote by Bultmann.

PROTO-MARK WAS CREATED BY A WING OF PAULINISM:

But if Paul did not know of the historical Jesus, how
could he have created the Gospel of Mark? The answer is
simple. He did not create the Gospel. Proto-Mark was
created by a wing of Paulinism. In time it became the
current Gospel of Mark.

Proto-Mark presented Jesus as a human being, an

obscure figure with a ministry of a few weeks or months.
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 WHO CREATED JESUS? PART 1
He thinks the world is about to end and that he is about
to become a triumphant King in the Kingdom of God.
(Whether Jesus claimed to be a Messiah or prophet is
irrelevant. For our purpose it is enough to say that he is
pictured as one who would become King when the
Kingdom of God arrived.) He dies a failure, rejected by
Jewish authorities who engineered his death through
Roman authorities.

He died on the cross in despair, saying My God, my God,

why hast thou forsaken me? (Mk 15.34) He desperately
wanted to know why God had abandoned him. God
deserted him because the plan of God was not to set up a
political kingdom as Proto-Jesus had thought.

But why would a Pauline wing want to produce a Savior

which would replace the purely spiritual Christ of Paul
with a human Messiah and one that died a failure at
that? Christians will object. Is not Jesus triumphant?
Yes, but that comes later in the gospel of Mark. In
Proto-Mark Jesus is a failure.

Albert Schweitzer

In this chapter, as the reader will see below, we have

relied a good deal on these works by Schweitzer: The
Mystery of the Kingdom of God (1901) and The Quest of
the Historical Jesus (1906).

ALBERT SCHWEITZER FROM WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE

ENCYCLOPEDIA:

Albert Schweitzer, (14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965)

was a German and then French theologian, organist,
philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at
that time part of the German Empire. Schweitzer, a
Lutheran, challenged both the secular view of Jesus as
depicted by the historical-critical methodology current at
his time in certain academic circles, as well as the
traditional Christian view. He depicted Jesus as one who
believed the end of the world was coming in his own
lifetime and believed himself to be a world savior.
Schweitzer received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his
philosophy of "Reverence for Life"

A REVIEW OF THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD BY

ALBERT SCHWEITZER

“The Mystery of the Kingdom of God (EDS - 1906) is an

important theological work. In it, Schweitzer offers a life
of Jesus radically unconventional for its times which
changed the nature of theological inquiry, and which is
still seriously regarded by theologians today. Schweitzer
analyzed the Gospels, and became convinced that Jesus'
message was essentially eschatological. That is, it was
about the forthcoming end of the world. The Kingdom of
God which Jesus expected early in his ministry was not a
ethical revolution to come after his death, as many before
and since have preached, but a true end of the world
followed by the judgement of all people. In fact, he (Jesus)
expected it (the end of the world) to happen … at any
moment. When he made his commission to the twelve
disciples to go about the country and preach, he told
them to preach the Kingdom, Repentance, and the
Judgment. In fact, he expected the end to come before
they returned. When it didn't, he realized that the Son of
Man must atone for Israel's sins before the Kingdom
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 WHO CREATED JESUS? PART 1
arrives. He understands that his own death is required,
and therefore not only does nothing to prevent it but
rather goes out of his way to encounter it. During his
Passion, Jesus expected the Kingdom--the literal end of
the world--to come about immediately following his
death." ([Link])

Schweitzer believed that when the world did not come to

an end, Jesus knew that his death was necessary to bring
about the Kingdom and offered his life. Unlike Schweitzer
we do not believe that Jesus came to believe that he must
die in order to bring on the Kingdom of God. Proto-Jesus
may have been apprehensive about an early death as he
was claiming that he would become a King; claiming to be
a King, one not appointed by the Roman government was
risky. In any case, he tried to set up a political kingdom,
came to Jerusalem, was arrested for treason and
executed by Roman authorities.

Whether Jesus consciously believed that he must force

the hand of God by dying is irrelevant. The point is that
he was a deluded prophet; the end of the world and the
Kingdom of God did not arrive. We agree with Schweitzer
that Jesus died a failure. Proto-Jesus is pictured as dying
in despair since God had not intervened, had not ended
the world and set up the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ last words on the cross are about his

abandonment by God.

Mk 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud

voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is,

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?

Robert M. Price, reviewing Bruno Bauer’s Christ and the

Caesars: The Origin of Christianity from Romanized Greek
Culture. (Translated by Frank E. Schacht. Charleston
House Publishing.) writes:

“If David Friedrich Strauss showed that the historical

Jesus had become obscured behind the myth-screen of
the gospels, Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical
Jesus had never had any existence at all, being rather a
fictive character created by…” Mark.
([Link]/reviews).

Our books in the series, Evidence That Jesus Never

Existed argue that Jesus never lived. We are merely
presenting the thesis that Proto-Mark was the earliest
version of the Gospel myth.]

Some critics on Schweitzer’s view that Jesus believed

that the Kingdom is coming soon:

We would agree with the critics of Albert Schweitzer that

in The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) he pushes too
hard to find eschatology or apocalypse in every passage of
the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke).
However, we agree with Schweitzer’s picture of Jesus as a
person who preached that the end of the world and the
Kingdom of God were coming soon.

Jesus sometimes teaches that the Kingdom of God would

come soon.

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 WHO CREATED JESUS? PART 1
Mk 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him
with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me.

Mk 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you,

That there be some of them that stand here, which shall
not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of
God come with power.

Schweitzer’s critics argued that these passages were

added to the Gospel of Mark by the early church.

1. We agree with Schweitzer that the early church

would not have assigned such a huge false
prophecy to Jesus; Mark is thought to have been
written in 70 CE and the end has not come yet. The
trouble with his reasoning is that the church did
not do so; Mark’s Jesus does not clearly say that
the end of the world is to come soon. The words of
Jesus on the subject are ambiguous. Jesus says
that some will live to see the kingdom of God. But
the early church taught that the church was the
Kingdom of God or the Kingdom was within us or
was not of this world. So it was safe to say that
some would live to see the Kingdom. In Mark Jesus
does not clearly say that some will live to see the
world come to an end.

2. Jesus is also vague in the current Gospel of Mark

as to the time the world will come to an end.
Modern scholars take Mark 13 to be a reference to
the coming war between Rome and Palestine.

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
Others think that the chapter is referring to the
apocalypse. However, there is nothing in this
chapter that gives any hint as to when this will
occur. When was there ever a time when there were
not wars and rumors of war?

3. We think that in Proto-Mark the immanent end of

the world was a strong belief because in the
current Gospel of Mar, the disciples still believe
that the Kingdom will come soon.

We think the answer to all of the above is that in the early

Christian church there were believers that felt the end of
the world would come soon. As time passed and the end
did not come, many Christians came to believe that the
apocalypse would occur in the distant future when Christ
would return, as in the Book of Revelation. This reliance
on ambiguity is common in the Gospels. There are
inconsistent passages on sex and marriage, on anger,
bigotry, vengeance, Platonic love, women, alcohol, etc.

REPLACEMENT THEORY OR SUPERSESSIONISM

Proto-Jesus fails to accomplish the mission of God.

However, the Jesus of the current Gospel of Mark does
not fail to do so. Jesus willingly accepts his death, which
is engineered by the Jewish authorities. Thus, the
non-Jews (Gentiles) replace Jews as the chosen people of
God and Judaism is replaced by Christianity
(supersessionism or what we call Replacement). Thus,
the Jewish Scriptures and salvation belong to the
Christians.

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 WHO CREATED JESUS? PART 1
In both Ur-Mark and the current Gospel of Mark the plan
of God succeeds but the Proto-Markan Jesus does not
know that the replacement plan of God was to be
accomplished when the Jews engineered the death of the
Messiah, Jesus.

Supersessionism or Replacement Theory may shock the

reader but as the reader will see in what follows it was
taught by Christianity for nearly 2000 years and is still
taught today by many Christians.

SUPERSESSIONISM FROM WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE

ENCYCLOPEDIA
Supersessionism, fulfillment theology, and replacement
theology are terms for the view that the New Covenant
replaces the Old Covenant, the latter also known as the
Mosaic Covenant of the Hebrew Bible. The terms do not
appear in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,
however the view they cover is considered part of most
traditional Christian views of the Old Covenant, viewing
the Christian Church as the inheritor of the promises
made to the children of Israel. This view contrasts with
the minority views of dual-covenant theology and
abrogation of Old Covenant laws.

1. Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.: "The

word designates the traditional Christian belief
that the covenant between God and the People of
Israel, established through the mediation of Moses
at Mount Sinai, has been replaced or superseded
by the 'New Covenant' of Jesus Christ. This implies
that the Mosaic covenant, with its ritual and

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
dietary requirements, Sabbath observance, etc., is
no longer valid for the Jewish people, since God’s
revealed will is for Jews, as well as all Gentiles, to
enter into the New Covenant by means of baptism
and faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah."
[[Link] article]

2. Christians and Jews: Starting Over - Why the Real

Dialogue Has Just Begun by Dr. Luke Timothy
Johnson: "It is an odd word, supersessionism. The
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, a
reference work that defines almost everything, has
no entry for it. The term is traditionally used for the
conviction that the church has replaced Israel as
God's chosen people. Israel has lost its place and
Christianity now occupies it. Supersessionism is
shorthand for the dominant Christian theological
position regarding the Jews."

TYPES
Both Christian and Jewish theologians have identified
different types of supersessionism in Christian reading of
the Bible.

R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of

supersessionism identified by Christian theologians:
punitive, economic, and structural.

 Punitive supersessionism is represented by such

Christian thinkers as Hippolytus, Origen, and
Luther. It is the view that Jews who reject Jesus as
the Jewish Messiah are consequently condemned
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by God, forfeiting the promises otherwise due to
them under the covenants.

 Economic supersessionism does not refer to money;

rather it is used in the technical theological sense
of function (see economic Trinity). It is the view that
the practical purpose of the nation of Israel in
God's plan is replaced by the role of the Church. It
is represented by writers such as Justin Martyr,
Augustine, and Barth.

CHURCH FATHERS
Many Early Christian commentators taught that the Old
Covenant was fulfilled and replaced (superseded) by the
New Covenant in Christ, for instance:

 Justin Martyr (about 100 to 165): "For the true

spiritual Israel ... are we who have been led to God
through this crucified Christ."
 Hippolytus of Rome (martyred 13 August 235):
"[The Jews] have been darkened in the eyes of your
soul with a darkness utter and everlasting."
 Tertullian (ca.160 – ca.220 AD): “Who else,
therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught
by the new law, observe these practices,—the old
law being obliterated, the coming of whose
abolition the action itself demonstrates. . . .
Therefore, as we have shown above that the coming
cessation of the old law and of the carnal
circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance
of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has

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shone out into the voluntary observances of
peace.”
 Augustine (354–430) followed the views of the
earlier Church Fathers.

In short, the new covenant is a replacement for the old

covenant; Judaism is replaced by Christianity and Jews
by Christians. It should be added that all other religions
are replaced by Christianity as the only way to be saved.
Also, it should be noted that traditionally Christianity
has also damned all non-Orthodox Christians as well as
unbaptized babies. Liberal Christians tend to reject
replacement theory.

God's plan was to replace Judaism with Christianity. The

Christian church would be victorious. But how could the
writer of the current Gospel of Mark know all this? Was
he a prophet? No, his Gospel was the product of the early
church. Mark is predicting that the Christian church will
arise after it had already arisen. The Gospel of Mark is a
product of the early church.

Paul may have attempted to convert to Judaism. The

Roman world was heavy into prophecy. Perhaps that's
why the Paulinists and the Gospel writers accepted the
oldest book in the Western world (the Jewish Scriptures)
as prophecy. The problem was that Judaism, its
Scriptures and its people were Jewish. It was necessary
to establish that non-Jews (Gentiles) were the chosen
people, were slated for salvation. God cannot break his
promises. The killing of the Jewish Messiah would break
the covenant between God and the Jews. It was

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necessary for Replacement Theory to enter. Jews are out;
non-Jews are saved.

Messianic consciousness grew in Jesus. As time passed,

the status of Jesus grew; he became a semi-divine being
and eventually, in the Gospel of John, God. The Markan
Jesus knew that the true plan of God was to save the
non-Jews and Jesus purposely fulfills it through his
death. All of this is in the current Gospels of Mark,
Matthew, Luke and John.

COMMENTS ON THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND ON PROTO-MARK

Let us now take a look at the Gospel of Mark and see what
evidence this Gospel provides for our thesis as regard
Proto-Mark and its relationship to the Canonical Mark.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK FROM WIKIPEDIA, THE

FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA

However, most contemporary scholars now regard it as

the earliest of the canonical gospels (c 70)….

It focuses particularly on the last week of his life

(chapters 11–16) in Jerusalem. … An important theme of
Mark is the Messianic Secret. Jesus silences the
demoniacs he heals, tries unsuccessfully to keep his
messianic identity secret, and conceals his message with
parables. Meanwhile, the disciples fail to understand
both the implication of the miracles of Jesus and the
meaning of the things he predicts about his arrest, death
and resurrection.

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BRUNO BAUER FROM WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bruno Bauer (September 6, 1809 – April 13, 1882) was a
German philosopher and historian. As a student of G. W.
F. Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy,
politics and Biblical criticism. Bauer investigated the
sources of the New Testament and, beginning with
Hegel's Hellenophile orientation, concluded that early
Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy
(Stoicism) than to Judaism. Bruno Bauer is also known
by his association and sharp break with Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels, and by his later association with Max
Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Starting in 1840, he
began a series of works arguing that Jesus was a
2nd-century fusion of Jewish, Greek, and Roman
theology.

VIEWS ON CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

Bauer's criticism of the New Testament was highly
deconstructive. David Strauss, in his Life of Jesus, had
accounted for the Gospel narratives as half-conscious
products of the mythic instinct in the early Christian
communities. Bauer ridiculed Strauss's notion that a
community could produce a connected narrative. Rather,
only a single writer could be responsible for the first
Gospel. His own contention, embodying a theory of
Christian Gottlob Wilke (Der Urevangelist, 1838), was
that the original narrative was the Gospel of Mark.

For Bruno Bauer, the Gospel of Mark was completed in

the reign of Hadrian [76 CE-138 CE] (where its prototype,
the 'Ur-Marcus,' identifiable within the Gospel of Mark by
a critical analysis, was begun around the time of
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Josephus and the Roman-Jewish Wars). Bauer, like
other advocates of this 'Marcan Hypothesis', affirmed
that all the other Gospel narratives used the Gospel of
Mark as their model within their writing communities.

In 1906 Albert Schweitzer wrote that Bauer "originally

sought to defend the honor of Jesus by rescuing his
reputation from the inane parody of a biography that the
Christian apologists had forged." However, he eventually
came to the belief that it was a complete fiction and
"regarded the Gospel of Mark not only as the first
narrator, but even as the creator of the gospel history,
thus making the latter a fiction and Christianity the
invention of a single original evangelist" (Otto Pfleiderer).

Although Bauer did investigate the 'Ur-Marcus,' it was

his remarks on the current version of the Gospel of Mark
that captured popular attention. In particular, some key
themes in the Gospel of Mark appeared to be literary. The
Messianic Secret theme, in which Jesus continually
performed wonders and then continually told the viewers
not to tell anybody that he did this, seemed to Bauer to be
an example of fiction. If the Messianic Secret is a fiction,
Bauer wrote, then the redactor who added that theme
was probably the final redactor of our current version of
the Gospel of Mark. In 1901, Wilhelm Wrede would make
his lasting fame by repeating many of Bauer's ideas in his
book, The Messianic Secret.

Also, for some influential theologians in the Tübingen

School, several Pauline epistles were regarded as
forgeries of the 2nd century. Bauer radicalised that
position by suggesting that all Pauline epistles were
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forgeries, written in the West in antagonism to the Paul of
The Acts. Bauer observed a preponderance of the
Greco-Roman element, over and above the Jewish
element, in Christian writings, and he added a wealth of
historical background to support his theory; though
modern scholars such as E. P. Sanders and John P.
Meier have disputed this theory and attempted to
demonstrate a mainly Jewish historical background.
Other authors, such as Rudolf Bultmann, tended to agree
that a Greco-Roman element was dominant.

According to Bruno Bauer, the writer of Mark's gospel

was "an Italian, at home both in Rome and Alexandria";
that of Matthew's gospel "a Roman, nourished by the
spirit of Seneca"; Christianity is essentially "Stoicism
triumphant in a Jewish garb."

What Bruno Bauer added was a deep review of European

literature in the 1st century. In his estimation, many key
themes of the New Testament, especially those that are
opposed to themes in the Old Testament, can be found
with relative ease in Greco-Roman literature that
flourished during the 1st century. Such a position was
also maintained by some Jewish scholars.

Bauer's final book, Christ and the Caesars (1877) offers a

penetrating analysis that shows common key-words in
the words of 1st-century writers like Seneca the Stoic and
New Testament texts. While this had been perceived even
in ancient times, the ancient (Christian-eds) explanation
was that Seneca 'must have been' a secret Christian.
Bruno Bauer was perhaps the first to attempt to carefully
demonstrate that some New Testament writers freely
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borrowed from Seneca the Stoic. One modern
explanation is that common cultures share common
thought-forms and common patterns of speech; that
similarities do not necessarily indicate borrowing.

In Christ and the Caesars, Bauer argued that Judaism

entered Rome during the era of the Maccabees, and
increased in population and influence in Rome since that
time. He cited literature from the 1st century to
strengthen his case that Jewish influence in Rome was
far greater than historians had yet reported. The Imperial
throne was influenced by the Jewish religious genius, he
said, citing Herod's relation with the Caesar family, as
well as the famous relationship between Josephus and
the Flavians, Vespasian and Titus, and also one of the
poems of Horace.

According to Bruno Bauer, Julius Caesar sought to

interpret his own life as an Oriental miracle story, and
Augustus Caesar completed that job by commissioning
Virgil to write his Aeneid, making Caesar into the Son of
Venus and a relative of the Trojans, thereby justifying the
Roman conquest of Greece and insinuating Rome into a
much older history.

By contrast, said Bauer, Vespasian was far more

fortunate, since he had Josephus himself to link his reign
with an Oriental miracle. Josephus had prophesied that
Vespasian would become Emperor of Rome and thus
ruler of the world. This actually happened, and in this
way the Roman conquest of Judea was justified and
insinuated Rome into an even older history.

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According to Albert Schweitzer, Bruno Bauer's criticisms
of the New Testament provided the most interesting
questions about the historical Jesus that he had seen.

Judging by the second-to-last chapter of his Quest,

Schweitzer's own theology was partly based on Bauer's
writings. The title of that chapter is Thoroughgoing
Skepticism and Eschatology. In that chapter Schweitzer
clashes head-on with Wilhelm Wrede, who had recently
(in 1905) proposed the theory of a Messianic Secret.
Wrede's theory claimed that Jesus' continual commands
to his followers to "say nothing to anybody" after each
miracle was performed could only be explained as a
literary invention of this Gospel writer. (That is, Wrede
was the thoroughgoing skeptic, and Schweitzer was the
thoroughgoing eschatologist.) Schweitzer began by
showing that Wrede had merely copied this idea from
Bruno Bauer. Then Schweitzer listed another forty
brilliant criticisms from Bruno Bauer (pp. 334–335) some
of which he disagreed with (such as the so-called
Messianic Secret) and some of which he considered
indispensable for any modern theology of the Gospel.

This line of criticism has value in emphasizing the

importance of studying the influence of environment in
the formation of the Christian Scriptures. Bauer was a
man of restless creativity, interdisciplinary activity and
independent judgment. Many reviewers have charged
that Bauer's judgment was ill-balanced, but history has
barely begun to review his life. It is not surprising, given
the institutional response to his ideas. Due to the
controversial nature of his work as a social theorist,

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theologian and historian, Bauer was banned from public
teaching by a Prussian monarch. After many years of
similar censorship, Bauer came to resign himself to his
place as a free-lance critic, rather than as an official
teacher. …

[Link] ON BRUNO BAUER

(eds. - As far as we know, none of Bruno Bauer’s work on biblical
criticism has been translated into English.)

BRUNO BAUER
Bauer's political and theoretical radicalization is
evidenced in his biblical studies. The series is comprised
of CRITIQUE OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (1840), and the
three-volume CRITIQUE OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
(1840– 42).

Bauer's critique of John convinced him that the gospel

narrative was a purely literary product, and he now
argued that the Synoptics too contained no historically
authentic material.

The third volume of the series denied the historicity of

Christ.

In the Synoptics texts, Bauer explicitly equated

Christianity and feudalism, and defended the freedom
and equality of self-consciousness. Religion and the
absolutist state were mutually sustaining, sharing the
essential features of alienation and repression.

The churches were now impotent to perpetuate their own

existence without the support of the state.

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3. Bauer's Late Work, 1850–1882

Like Nietzsche, he continued to repudiate tradition and

religion. Because of his anti-Semitism, Bauer was
claimed as a precursor by some National-Socialist
authors, though Ernst Barnikol, for example, disputes a
direct connection (Barnikol 1972, pp. 350–53).

In common with many post-1848 intellectuals, Bauer's

abandonment of metaphysics led him to a new
conception of critique as a positive science or empirical
investigation. Bauer no longer contended that history
represents an unfolding dialectic of self-consciousness.
Critique was to permit the observer to examine historical
phenomena without distortion or partiality, and without
an a priori systemic concern. Bauer maintained that
scientific research must remain independent of
ecclesiastical and political tutelage.

Bauer likened the present crisis to the end of the classical

world in Roman imperialism. His studies in the 1850s
located the origins of Christianity in the second century
CE, concluding that the first gospel was written under
Hadrian (117–138 CE), though slightly predated by some
of the Pauline epistles. Bauer traced the evolution of
Christian ideas from Hellenism and Stoicism, deriving
the logos doctrine of John's gospel from Philo and
neo-Platonic sources. As in HERR DR.
HENGSTENBERG, he denied that Christianity had
emerged directly from Judaism. More than in his early
work, though, he now stressed the revolutionary power of
the early Christian religion, as a source of liberation for

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the excluded and impoverished elements of the Roman
Empire. His final book described Christianity as the
socialist culmination of Greek and Roman history.
Responding to this argument in his very positive obituary
of Bauer, Friedrich Engels acknowledged the importance
of Bauer's late work for the socialist critique of religion
(Sozialdemokrat, 1882). In 1908, Karl Kautsky's book,
The Origins of Christianity, applied Bauer's thesis.

Bauer's late writings identified sentiment and pietistic

feeling-certainty, rather than autonomous reason, as the
principal force in shaping modern subjectivity. His
studies of the Quakers and of pietism described passive
inwardness and sentiment as the dominant
characteristics of the German Enlightenment. The
practical reason of Kant and Fichte merely translated the
inner voice of pietist conscience into a rationalist idiom.
Bauer also described pietism as the end of Christianity,
since it destroyed dogma in favour of inner illumination
and personal moral rectitude. Consistent with his
CHRISTIANITY REVEALED, Bauer continued to define
positive or statutory religions by their exclusive dogmas
and symbols; and he still saw the general course of
history as dissipating these dogmas, as mere illusions. …
The new world empire would end with the inner erosion of
religious belief. Not rational speculation, but sentiment,
would effect this transformation. [End of Stanford Entry]

ALBERT SCHWEITZER ON BRUNO BAUER (1809-1882): THE

QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS, CHAPTER 11 BRUNO BAUER
(1910) EDITED BY THE DALTONS.
[Schweitzer, Albert, 1875-1965; Montgomery, W. (William),
1871-1930; The Quest of the Historical Jesus: a critical study of its
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
progress from Reimarus to Wrede (1910) Kindle Locations 73-75).
London: A. and C. Black.]

Bruno Bauer was born in 1809 at Eisenberg, in the

duchy of Sachsen-Altenburg.… He died in 1882. His was
a pure, modest, and lofty character.

The Fourth Gospel is in fact a work of art. …

Bauer treats, in his work of 1840, the Fourth Gospel only.

…

(H)ow far did he still retain a belief in the historical

character of the Synoptics? It looks as if he had intended
to treat them as the solid foundation, in contrast with the
fantastic structure raised upon it by the Fourth Gospel.
But when he began to use his pick upon the rock, it
crumbled away. Instead of a difference of kind he found
only a difference of degree. The "Criticism of the Gospel
History of the Synoptists" of 1841 is built on the site
which Strauss had levelled. "The abiding influence of
Strauss," says Bauer, "consists in the fact that he has
removed from the path of subsequent criticism the
danger and trouble of a collision with the earlier orthodox
system."

Bauer finds his material laid ready to his hand by Weisse

and Wilke. … The Marcan hypothesis was no longer on its
trial. (Eds. - Mark was written first. Bauer thought Mark
might be of purely literary origin.)

But what if Papias' statement about the collection of

"Logia" were worthless, and could be shown to be so by
the literary data? In that case Matthew and Luke would

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be purely literary expansions of Mark, and like him,
purely literary inventions.

In this connexion Bauer attaches decisive importance to

the phenomena of the birth-stories. If these had been
derived from tradition they could not differ from each
other as they do. If it is suggested that tradition had
produced a large number of independent, though
mutually consistent, stories of the childhood, out of
which the Evangelists composed their opening
narratives, this also is found to be untenable, for these
narratives are not composite structures. The separate
stories of which each of these two histories of the
childhood consists could not have been formed
independently of one another; none of them existed by
itself; each points to the others and is informed by a view
which implies the whole. The histories of the childhood
are therefore not literary versions of a tradition, but
literary inventions.

If we go on to examine the discourse and narrative

material, additional to that of Mark, which is found in
Matthew and Luke, a similar result appears. The same
standpoint is regulative throughout, showing that the
additions do not consist of oral or written traditional
material which has been worked into the Marcan plan,
but of a literary development of certain fundamental
ideas and suggestions found in the first author. These
developments, as is shown by the accounts of the Sermon
on the Mount and the charge to the Twelve, are not
carried as far in Luke as in Matthew. The additional
material in the latter seems indeed to be worked up from

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suggestions in the former. Luke thus forms the transition
stage between Mark and Matthew. [Note by Editors:
Virtually all modern scholars hold that Mark came first
and then Matthew, Luke and John.] The Marcan
hypothesis, accordingly, now takes on the following form.
Our knowledge of the Gospel history does not rest upon
any basis of tradition, but only upon three literary works.
Two of these are not independent, being merely
expansions of the first … . Consequently there is no
tradition of the Gospel history, but only a single literary
source (Mark).

But, if so, who is to assure us that this Gospel history,

with its assertion of the Messiahship of Jesus, was
already a matter of common knowledge before it was fixed
in writing, and did not first become known in a literary
form? In the latter case, one man would have created out
of general ideas the definite historical tradition in which
these ideas are embodied.

The only thing that could be set against this literary

possibility, as a historical counter-possibility, would be a
proof that at the period when the Gospel history is
supposed to take place a Messianic expectation really
existed among the Jews, so that a man who claimed to be
the Messiah and was recognised as such, as Mark
represents Jesus to have been, would be historically
conceivable. This presupposition had hitherto been
unanimously accepted by all writers, no matter how
much opposed in other respects. They were all satisfied
"that before the appearance of Jesus the expectation of a

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Messiah prevailed among the Jews"; and were even able
to explain its precise character.

But where -- apart from the Gospels -- did they get their
information from? Where is the documentary evidence of
the Jewish Messianic doctrine on which that of the
Gospels is supposed to be based? Daniel was the last of
the prophets. Everything tends to suggest that the
mysterious content of his work remained without
influence in the subsequent period. Jewish literature
ends with the Wisdom writings, in which there is no
mention of a Messiah. In the LXX (Greek translation of
the OT) there is no attempt to translate in accordance
with a preconceived picture of the Messiah. In the
Apocalypses, which are of small importance, there is
reference to a Messianic Kingdom; the Messiah Himself,
however, plays a quite subordinate part, and is, indeed,
scarcely mentioned. For Philo He has no existence; the
Alexandrian does not dream of connecting Him with his
Logos speculation. There remain, therefore, as witnesses
for the Jewish Messianic expectations in the time of
Tiberius, only Mark and his imitators. This evidence,
however, is of such a character that in certain points it
contradicts itself.

In the first place, if at the time when the Christian

community was forming its view of history and the
religious ideas which we find in the Gospels, the Jews
had already possessed a doctrine of the Messiah, there
would have been already a fixed type of interpretation of
the Messianic passages in the Old Testament, and it
would have been impossible for the same passages to be

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interpreted in a totally different way, as referring to Jesus
and His work, as we find them interpreted in the New
Testament. Next, consider the representation of the
Baptist's work. We should have expected him to connect
his baptism with the preaching of "Him who was to come"
— if this were really the Messiah -- by baptizing in the
name of this "Coming One." He, however, keeps them
separate, baptizing in preparation for the Kingdom,
though referring in his discourses to "Him who was to
come."

The earliest Evangelist did not venture openly to carry

back into the history the idea that Jesus had claimed to
be the Messiah, because he was aware that in the time of
Jesus no general expectation of the Messiah had
prevailed among the people. When the disciples in Mark
viii. 28 report the opinions of the people concerning Jesus
they cannot mention any who hold Him to be the
Messiah. Peter is the first to attain to the recognition of
His Messiahship. But as soon as the confession is made
the Evangelist makes Jesus forbid His disciples to tell the
people who He is. Why is the attribution of the
Messiahship to Jesus made in this surreptitious and
inconsistent way? It is because the writer who gave the
history its form well knew that no one had ever come
forward publicly on Palestinian soil to claim the
Messiahship, or had been recognised by the people as
Messiah.

The "reflective conception of the Messiah" was not,

therefore, taken over ready-made from Judaism; that
dogma first arose along with the Christian community, or

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rather the moment in which it arose was the same in
which the Christian community had its birth.

Moreover, how unhistorical, even on a priori grounds, is

the mechanical way in which Jesus at this first
appearance at once sets Himself up as the Messiah and
says, "Behold I am He whom ye have expected." In
essence, Bauer thinks, there is not so much difference
between Strauss and Hengstenberg. For Hengstenberg
the whole life of Jesus is the living embodiment of the Old
Testament picture of the Messiah; Strauss, a less
reverent counterpart of Hengstenberg, made the image of
the Messiah into a mask which Jesus Himself was
obliged to assume, and which legend afterwards
substituted for His real features. …

"It was only now that the vague, ill-defined, prophetic

representations were focused into a point; were not only
fulfilled, but were also united together by a common bond
which strengthened and gave greater value to each of
them. With His appearance and the rise of belief in Him, a
clear conception, a definite mental picture of the Messiah
became possible; and thus it was that a Christology first
arose."

While, therefore, at the close of Bauer's first work it might

have seemed that it was only the Gospel of John which he
held to be a literary creation, here the same thing is said
of the original Gospel. The only difference is that we find
more primitive reflection in the Synoptics, and later work
in the representation given by the Fourth Evangelist; the
former is of a more practical character, the latter more
dogmatic.
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Nevertheless it is false to assert that according to Bauer
the earliest Evangelist invented the Gospel history and
the personality of Jesus. … It was only in the course of
his investigations that Bauer's opinion became more
radical. …

The story of the temptation embodies an experience of the

early Church. This narrative represents her inner
conflicts under the form of a conflict of the Redeemer. On
her march through the wilderness of this world she has
to fight with temptations of the devil, and in the story
composed by Mark and Luke, and artistically finished by
Matthew, she records a vow to build only on the inner
strength of her constitutive principle. In the sermon on
the mount also, Matthew has carried out with greater
completeness…. It is only when we understand the words
of Jesus as embodying experiences of the early Church
that their deeper sense becomes clear and what would
otherwise seem offensive disappears. The saying, "Let the
dead bury their dead," would not have been fitting for
Jesus to speak, and had He been a real man, it could
never have entered into His mind to create so unreal and
cruel a collision of duties; for no command, Divine or
human, could have sufficed to make it right for a man to
contravene the ethical obligations of family life. So here
again, the obvious conclusion is that the saying
originated in the early Church, and was intended to
inculcate renunciation of a world which was felt to belong
to the kingdom of the dead, and to illustrate this by an
extreme example.

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The mission of the Twelve, too, is, as an historical
occurrence, simply inconceivable. It would have been
different if Jesus had given them a definite teaching, or
form of belief, or positive conception of any kind, to take
with them as their message. But how ill the charge to the
Twelve fulfils its purpose as a discourse of instruction!
What the disciples needed to learn, namely, what and
how they were to teach, they are not told; and the
discourse which Matthew has composed … implies
quite a different set of circumstances. It is concerned
with the struggles of the Church with the world and the
sufferings which it must endure. This is the explanation
of the references to suffering which constantly recur in
the discourses of Jesus, in spite of the fact that His
disciples were not enduring any sufferings, and that the
Evangelist cannot even make it conceivable as a
possibility that those before whose eyes Jesus holds up
the way of the Cross could ever come into such a position.
The Twelve, at any rate, had no sufferings to encounter
during their mission, and if they were merely being sent
by Jesus into the surrounding districts they were not
very likely to meet with kings and rulers there.

That it is a case of invented history is also shown by the

fact that nothing is said about the doings of the disciples,
and they seem to come back again immediately, though
the earliest Evangelist, it is true, to prevent this from
being too apparent, inserts at this point the story of the
execution of the Baptist.

All this is just and acute criticism. The charge to the

Twelve is not a discourse of instruction. What Jesus there

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sets before the disciples they could not at that time have
understood, and the promises which He makes to them
are not appropriate to their circumstances.

Many of the discourses are mere bundles of

heterogeneous sayings, though this is not so much the
case in Mark as in the others. He has not forgotten that
effective polemic consists of short, pointed, incisive
arguments. The others, as advanced theologians, are of
opinion that it is fitting to indulge in arguments which
have nothing to do with the matter in hand, or only the
most distant connexion with it. They form the transition
to the discourses of the Fourth Gospel, which usually
degenerate into an aimless wrangle. In the same
connexion it is rightly observed that the discourses of
Jesus do not advance from point to point by the logical
development of an idea, the thoughts are merely strung
together one after another, the only connexion, if
connexion there is, being due to a kind of conventional
mould in which the discourse is cast.

The parables, Bauer continues, present difficulties no

less great. It is an ineptitude on the part of the apologists
to suggest that the parables are intended to make things
clear. Jesus Himself contradicts this view by saying
bluntly and unambiguously to His disciples that to them
it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God,
but to the people all His teaching must be spoken as
parables, that "seeing they might see and not perceive,
and hearing they might hear and not understand." The
parables were therefore intended only to exercise the
intelligence of the disciples; and so far from being

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understood by the people, mystified and repelled them;
as if it would not have been much better to exercise the
minds of the disciples in this way when He was alone with
them. The disciples, however, do not even understand the
simple parable of the Sower, but need to have it
interpreted to them, so that the Evangelist once more
stultifies his own theory.

Bruno Bauer is right in his observation that the parables

offer a serious problem, seeing that they were intended to
conceal and not to make plain, and that Jesus
nevertheless taught only in parables. The character of the
difficulty, however, is such that even literary criticism
has no explanation ready. Bruno Bauer admits that he
does not know what was in the mind of the Evangelist
when he composed these parables, and thinks that he
had no very definite purpose, or at least that the
suggestions which were floating in his mind were not
worked up into a clearly ordered whole. …

The way in which Jesus makes known His Messiahship is

based on another theory of the original Evangelist. The
order of Mark can give us no information regarding the
chronology of the life of Jesus, since this Gospel is
anything rather than a chronicle. We cannot even assert
that there is a deliberate logic in the way in which the
sections are connected. But there is one fundamental
principle of arrangement which comes quite clearly to
light, viz. that it was only at Caesarea Philippi, in the
closing period of His life, that Jesus made Himself known
as the Messiah, and that, therefore, He was not
previously held to be so either by His disciples or by the

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people. This is clearly shown in the answers of the
disciples when Jesus asked them whom men took Him to
be. The implied course of events, however, is determined
by art, not history – as history it would be inconceivable.

Could there indeed be a more absurd impossibility?

"Jesus," says Bauer, "must perform these innumerable,
these astounding miracles because, according to the view
which the Gospels represent, He is the Messiah; He must
perform them in order to prove Himself to be the
Messiah—and yet no one recognises Him as the Messiah!
That is the greatest miracle of all, that the people had not
long ago recognised the Messiah in this wonder-worker.
Jesus could only be held to be the Messiah in
consequence of doing miracles; but He only began to do
miracles when, in the faith of the early Church, He rose
from the dead as Messiah, and the facts that He rose as
Messiah and that He did miracles, are one and the same
fact."

Mark, however, represents a Jesus who does miracles

and who nevertheless does not thereby reveal Himself to
be the Messiah. He was obliged so to represent Him,
because he was conscious that Jesus was not recognised
and acknowledged as Messiah by the people, nor even by
His immediate followers, in the unhesitating fashion in
which those of later times imagined Him to have been
recognised. Mark's conception and representation of the
matter carried back into the past the later developments
by which there finally arose a Christian community for
which Jesus had become the Messiah. "Mark is also
influenced by an artistic instinct which leads him to

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develop the main interest, the origin of the faith,
gradually. It is only after the ministry of Jesus has
extended over a considerable period, and is, indeed,
drawing towards its close, that faith arises in the circle of
the disciples; and it is only later still, when, in the person
of the blind man at Jericho, a prototype of the great
company of believers that was to be has hailed the Lord
with a Messianic salutation, that, at the triumphal entry
into Jerusalem, the faith of the people suddenly ripens
and finds expression."

It is true, this artistic design is completely marred when

Jesus does miracles which must have made Him known
to every child as the Messiah. We cannot, therefore,
blame Matthew very much if, while he retains this plan in
its external outlines in a kind of mechanical way, he
contradicts it somewhat awkwardly by making Jesus at
an earlier point clearly designate Himself as Messiah and
many recognise Him as such. And the Fourth Evangelist
cannot be said to be destroying any very wonderful work
of art when he gives the impression that from the very
first any one who wished could recognise Jesus as the
Messiah. …

Difficulties of the Messianic Entry

The difficulty involved in the conception of miracle as a

proof of the Messiahship of Jesus is another discovery of
Bauer's. Only here, instead of probing the question to the
bottom, he stops halfway. How do we know, he should
have gone on to ask, that the Messiah was expected to
appear as an earthly wonder-worker? There is nothing to
that effect in Jewish writings. And do not the Gospels
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themselves prove that any one might do miracles without
suggesting to a single person the idea that he might be
the Messiah? Accordingly the only inference to be drawn
from the Marcan representation is that miracles were not
among the characteristic marks of the Messiah, and that
it was only later, in the Christian community, which
made Jesus the miracle-worker into Jesus the Messiah,
that this connexion between miracles and Messiahship
was established. In dealing with the question of the
triumphal entry, too, Bauer halts half-way. Where do we
read that Jesus was hailed as Messiah upon that
occasion? If He had been taken by the people to be the
Messiah, the controversy in Jerusalem must have turned
on this personal question; but it did not even touch upon
it, and the Sanhedrin never thinks of setting up
witnesses to Jesus' claim to be the Messiah. When once
Bauer had exposed the historical and literary
impossibility of Jesus' being hailed by the people as
Messiah, he ought to have gone on to draw the
conclusion that Jesus did not, according to Mark, make a
Messianic entry into Jerusalem.

It was, however, a remarkable achievement on Bauer's

part to have thus set forth clearly the historical
difficulties of the life of Jesus. One might suppose that
between the work of Strauss and that of Bauer there lay
not five, but fifty years—the critical work of a whole
generation.

The stereotyped character of the thrice-repeated

prediction of the passion, which, according to Bauer,
betrays a certain poverty and feebleness of imagination

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on the part of the earliest Evangelist, shows clearly, he
thinks, the unhistorical character of the utterance
recorded. The fact that the prediction occurs three times,
its definiteness increasing upon each occasion, proves its
literary origin.

It is the same with the transfiguration. The group in

which the heroic representatives of the Law and the
Prophets stand as supporters of the Saviour, was
modelled by the earliest Evangelist. In order to place it in
the proper light and to give becoming splendour to its
great subject, he has introduced a number of traits taken
from the story of Moses.

Bauer pitilessly exposes the difficulties of the journey of

Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, and exults over the
perplexities of the "apologists." "The theologian," he says,
"must not boggle at this journey, he must just believe it.
He must in faith follow the footsteps of his Lord! Through
the midst of Galilee and Samaria — and at the same time,
for Matthew also claims a hearing, through Judaea on
the farther side of Jordan! I wish him Bon voyage!"

The eschatological discourses are not history, but are

merely an expansion of those explanations of the
sufferings of the Church of which we have had a previous
example in the charge to the Twelve. An Evangelist who
wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem would have
referred to the Temple, to Jerusalem, and to the Jewish
people, in a very different way.

The story of Lazarus deserves special attention. Did not

Spinoza say that he would break his system in pieces if
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he could be convinced of the reality of this event? This is
the decisive point for the question of the relation between
the Synoptists and John. Vain are all the efforts of the
apologists to explain why the Synoptists do not mention
this miracle. The reason they ignore it is that it originated
after their time in the mind of the Fourth Evangelist, and
they were unacquainted with his Gospel. And yet it is the
most valuable of all, because it shows clearly the
concentric circles of progressive intensification by which
the development of the Gospel history proceeds. "The
Fourth Gospel," remarks Bauer, "represents a dead man
as having been restored to life after having been four days
under the power of death, and having consequently
become a prey to corruption; Luke represents the young
man at Nain as being restored to life when his body was
being carried to the grave; Mark, the earliest Evangelist,
can only tell us of the restoration of a dead person who
had the moment before succumbed to an illness. The
theologians have a great deal to say about the contrast
between the canonical and the apocryphal writings, but
they might have found a similar contrast even within the
four Gospels, if the light had not been so directly in their
eyes."

The treachery of Judas, as described in the Gospels, is

inexplicable.

The Lord's Supper, considered as an historic scene, is

revolting and inconceivable. Jesus can no more have
instituted it than He can have uttered the saying, "Let the
dead bury their dead." In both cases the
objectionableness arises from the fact that a tenet of the

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early Church has been cast into the form of an historical
saying of Jesus. A man who was present in person,
corporeally present, could not entertain the idea of
offering others his flesh and blood to eat. To demand from
others that they should, while he was actually present,
imagine the bread and wine which they were eating to be
his body and blood, would be for an actual man wholly
impossible. It was only when Jesus' actual bodily
presence had been removed, and only when the Christian
community had existed for some time, that such a
conception as is expressed in that formula could have
arisen. A point which clearly betrays the later
composition of the narrative is that the Lord does not
turn to the disciples sitting with Him at table and say,
"This is my blood which is shed for you," but, since the
words were invented by the early Church, speaks of the
"many" for whom He gives Himself. The only historical
fact is that the Jewish Passover was gradually
transformed by the Christian community into a feast
which had reference to Jesus.

As regards the scene in Gethsemane, Mark, according to

Bauer, held it necessary that in the moment when the
last conflict and final catastrophe were coming upon
Jesus, He should show clearly by His actions that He met
this fate of His own free will. The reality of His choice
could only be made clear by showing Him first engaged in
an inner struggle against the acceptance of His vocation,
before showing how He freely submitted to His fate.

The last words ascribed to Jesus by Mark, "My God, my

God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" were written without

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thinking of the inferences that might be drawn from
them, merely with the purpose of showing that even to
the last moment of His passion Jesus fulfilled the role of
the Messiah, the picture of whose sufferings had been
revealed to the Psalmist so long beforehand by the Holy
Spirit.

It is scarcely necessary now, Bauer thinks, to go into the

contradictions in the story of the resurrection, for "the
doughty Reimarus, with his thorough-going honesty, has
already fully exposed them, and no one has refuted him."

Summary

The results of Bauer's analysis may be summed up as

follows:—

The Fourth Evangelist has betrayed the secret of the

original Gospel, namely, that it too can be explained on
purely literary grounds. Mark has "loosed us from the
theological lie." "Thanks to the kindly fate," cries Bauer,
"which has preserved to us this writing of Mark by which
we have been delivered from the web of deceit of this
hellish pseudo-science!"

In order to tear this web of falsehood the critic and

historian must, despite his repugnance, once more take
up the pretended arguments of the theologians in favour
of the historicity of the Gospel narratives and set them on
their feet, only to knock them down again. In the end
Bauer's only feeling towards the theologians was one of
contempt. "The expression of his contempt," he declares,
"is the last weapon which the critic, after refuting the
arguments of the theologians, has at his disposal for their
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discomfiture; it is his right to use it; that puts the
finishing touch upon his task and points forward to the
happy time when the arguments of the theologians shall
no more be heard of."

These outbreaks of bitterness are to be explained by the

feeling of repulsion which German apologetic theology
inspired in every genuinely honest and thoughtful man
by the methods which it adopted in opposing Strauss.
Hence the fiendish joy with which he snatches away the
crutches of this pseudo-science, hurls them to a
distance, and makes merry over its helplessness. A
furious hatred, a fierce desire to strip the theologians
absolutely bare, carried Bauer much farther than his
critical acumen would have led him in cold blood.

Bauer hated the theologians for still holding fast to the

barbarous conception that a great man had forced
himself into a stereotyped and unspiritual system, and in
that way had set in motion great ideas, whereas he held
that that would have signified the death of both the
personality and the ideas; but this hatred is only the
surface symptom of another hatred, which goes deeper
than theology, going down, indeed, to the very depths of
the Christian conception of the world. Bruno Bauer hates
not only the theologians, but Christianity, and hates it
because it expresses a truth in a wrong way. It is a
religion which has become petrified in a transitional
form. A religion which ought to have led on to the true
religion has usurped the place of the true religion, and in
this petrified form it holds prisoner all the real forces of
religion. …

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The question which has so much exercised the minds of
men— whether Jesus was the historic Christ (= Messiah)
– is answered in the sense that everything that the
historical Christ is, everything that is said of Him,
everything that is known of Him, belongs to the world of
imagination, that is, of the imagination of the Christian
community, and therefore has nothing to do with any
man who belongs to the real world.

Historical Existence of Jesus Denied

Thus the task which Bauer had set himself at the

beginning of his criticism of the Gospel history, turned,
before he had finished, into something different. When he
began, he thought to save the honour of Jesus and to
restore His Person from the state of inanition to which the
apologists had reduced it, and hoped by furnishing a
proof that the historical Jesus could not have been the
Jesus Christ of the Gospels, to bring Him into a living
relation with history. This task, however, was given up in
favour of the larger one of freeing the world from the
domination of the Judaeo-Roman idol, Jesus the
Messiah, and in carrying out this endeavour the thesis
that Jesus Christ is a product of the imagination of the
early Church is formulated in such a way that the
existence of a historic Jesus becomes problematical, or,
at any rate, quite indifferent.

Bauer of the Second Period

But it was a mistake to bury, along with the Bauer of the

second period, also the Bauer of the first period, the critic
– for the latter was not dead. It was, indeed, nothing less

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than a misfortune that Strauss and Bauer appeared
within so short a time of one another. Bauer passed
practically unnoticed, because every one was
preoccupied with Strauss. Another unfortunate thing
was that Bauer overthrew with his powerful criticism the
hypothesis which attributed real historical value to Mark,
so that it lay for a long time disregarded, and there
ensued a barren period of twenty years in the critical
study of the Life of Jesus.

The only critic with whom Bauer can be compared is

Reimarus. Each exercised a terrifying and disabling
influence upon his time. No one else had been so keenly
conscious as they of the extreme complexity of the
problem offered by the life of Jesus. In view of this
complexity they found themselves compelled to seek a
solution outside the confines of verifiable history.
Reimarus, by finding the basis of the story of Jesus in a
deliberate imposture on the part of the disciples; Bauer,
by postulating an original Evangelist who invented the
history. On this ground it was just that they should lose
their case. But in dismissing the solutions which they
offered, their contemporaries also dismissed the
problems which had necessitated such solutions; they
dismissed them because they were as little able to grasp
as to remove these difficulties.

But the time is past for pronouncing judgment upon

Lives of Christ on the ground of the solutions which they
offer. For us the great men are not those who solved the
problems, but those who discovered them. Bauer's
"Criticism of the Gospel History" is worth a good dozen

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Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now
coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and
most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of
Jesus which is anywhere to be found.

Unfortunately, by the independent, the too loftily

independent way in which he developed his ideas, he
destroyed the possibility of their influencing
contemporary theology. The shaft which he had driven
into the mountain broke down behind him, so that it
needed the work of a whole generation to lay bare once
more the veins of ore which he had struck. His
contemporaries could not suspect that the abnormality of
his solutions was due to the intensity with which he
grasped the problems as problems, and that he had
become blind to history by examining it too
microscopically. Thus for his contemporaries he was a
mere eccentric.

But his eccentricity concealed a penetrating insight. No

one else had as yet grasped with the same completeness
the idea that primitive Christianity and early Christianity
were not merely the direct outcome of the preaching of
Jesus, not merely a teaching put into practice, but more,
much more, since to the experience of which Jesus was
the subject there allied itself the experience of the
world-soul at a time when its body—humanity under the
Roman Empire—lay in the throes of death. Since Paul, no
one had apprehended so powerfully the mystic idea of the
supersensible. Bauer transferred it (the mystic Jesus) to
the historical plane and found the "body of Christ" in the
Roman Empire. [end]

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MARK'S GOSPEL

Mark's Gospel is layered. The first layer, Proto-Mark, was

followed by a second layer. These two layers make up the
earliest Gospel, that of Mark.

In what follows below all Gospel cites with no name

attached are from the Gospel of Mark.

1-- JESUS IS HUMAN.

In Proto-Mark, Jesus is not divine; he is merely a man,
a deluded one who wrongly believes that he is the
Messiah King. He believes he will become King of God’s
Kingdom once God intervenes and brings about the end
of this world. Jesus feels pity, anger, compassion and
other human emotions as we can see in what follows.

Genealogies of Jesus

There are no genealogies in the first Gospel, the Gospel of

Mark.

Matthew 1.1-17 The book of the generation of Jesus

Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew's genealogy commences with Abraham and then

from King David's son Solomon follows the legal line of
the kings through Jeconiah, the king whose descendants
were cursed, to Joseph, legal father of Jesus.

Luke 3.23-38 Luke gives a different genealogy going back

to Adam, through a minor son of David, Nathan, and
apparently again to Joseph.

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(The two genealogies are in conflict and many apologists
have attempted unsuccessfully to reconcile them.)

Birth of Jesus

Mk 3.31-35 There is no birth scene in Mark, though

Jesus has a mother (named Mary), a father, and brothers
and sisters.

The father of Jesus is unnamed as this would create

problems for Christians who later were reading Matthew
and Luke.

Mt 1.18: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:

When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph,
before they came together, she was found with child of
the Holy Ghost.

See Luke 1.34-35 where Jesus is semi-divine and John

where Jesus is God, Word or Logos. John 1.1: In the
beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and
the Word was God.

John the Baptist Preaches Repentance

Mk 1:4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach
the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Mk 1:5 And there went out unto him all the land of
Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized
(by John) in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.

The fame of John the Baptist was widespread. This is the

first passage in Mark that hints that the fame of Jesus
may have been widespread since the followers of John
apparently switched over to Jesus. Most of the verses
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indicating the fame of Jesus occur in the Markan
narrative. This is important since many modern scholars
believe that there was first a collection of sayings and
miracles which was then put into a narrative form by
Mark. Thus, material primarily found in the Markan
narrative is sometimes thought less reliable than
material found elsewhere in the Gospel.

Baptism of Jesus
Mk 1:7 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.

(This is to make it clear that John the Baptist his inferior

to Jesus. This is necessary, since over time Jesus was
seen as semi-divine and then divine.)

Mk 1.5, 9-11 Would Jesus come to be baptized by John

the Baptist where people were confessing their sins? If
Jesus were divine would he have any sins?

1:9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came

from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in
Jordan.

1:10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he

saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove
descending upon him:

1.11 The voice from heaven says this is my beloved son.

Verse 11 was added by a later editor after the birth

scenes in Mt and Lk make Jesus semi-divine. This savior
is far from the obscure human failure of Proto-Mark.

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Jesus’ Family

Jesus disowns his mother, brothers and sisters. Mk

3.31-35 (CEV)

3.31 Jesus' mother and brothers came and stood

outside. Then they sent someone with a message for
him to come out to them.

3.32 The crowd that was sitting around Jesus told him,
“Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside
and want to see you.”

3.33 Jesus asked, “Who is my mother and who are my

brothers?”

3.34 Then he looked at the people sitting around him

and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.

3.35 Anyone who obeys God is my brother or sister or

mother.”

This passage shows that Jesus is not a spiritual being

but rather a member of a normal family. However, verses
34 and 35 well they do not show divinity that
nevertheless indicate a high status for Jesus.

Also, note that he has brothers and sisters so that we can

see that Mary was not a perpetual virgin as the Catholic
Church maintains even to this day.

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Some human traits of Jesus:

Mk 4.37- 39 Jesus Sleeps

Jesus can be fatigued; he is found sleeping during the

storm he is about to still (Mk 4.38).

4:37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the

waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

4:38 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? (Jesus then
calms the storm and indicates that the disciples have
defected faith.)

No Infinite Power or Knowledge

He does not have infinite power at his disposal as the

power flows out of Jesus in the story of the woman with
the hemorrhage. Also he is not omniscient; he has to ask
who touched his robe (Mk 5.30-34).

5:30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that

virtue [power] had gone out of him, turned him about in
the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

5:31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who
touched me?

5:32 And he looked round about to see her that had

done this thing.

5:33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing

what was done in her, came and fell down before him,
and told him all the truth.
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5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy
plague.

Amazement

The lack of faith among the people in Jesus' hometown

amazes him and makes him unable to do any wonders
other than cure a few sick people (Mk 6.5-6).

Indignation

He is indignant when the disciples do not want him

bothered by parents seeking a blessing for their children
(Mk 10.13-14).

10:13 And they brought young children to him, that he

should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those
that brought them.

10:14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased,

and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come
unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
kingdom of God.

Anger

In Jerusalem, he expresses great anger at those carrying

out the normal business of the temple (Mk 11.15-16).

11:15 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;

11:16 And would not suffer that any man should carry
any vessel through the temple.
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Jesus us not all-knowing

Mk 5:25 Woman, which had an issue of blood twelve

years:

Mk 5:30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself

that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the
press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

Jesus is not all powerful: Rejection in his own country

Mk 6:1-6 Jesus preaches in the synagogue of his own

country

6.3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the

brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon?
and are not his sisters here with us? And they were
offended at him. (In Mark Jesus is a human being, not
semi-divine as in Mt and Lk, or God as in John.)

Lack of Faith Amazes Jesus

The lack of faith among the people in Jesus' hometown

amazes him and makes him unable to do any wonders
other than cure a few sick people (Mk 6.5-6).

Mk 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that

he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

Mk 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And

he went round about the villages, teaching. (Marveling
is a human trait.)

Mt 13.58 And he did not many mighty works there

because of their unbelief. (Jesus did not have infinite
power. Luke and John omit this limitation on the power
of Jesus.)
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Human Despair on the Cross

The last words of Jesus on the cross in Mark and

Matthew ask why have you deserted me? But in John’s
Gospel the Divine Christ triumphantly announces that
all is accomplished or finished. (Jn 19.30)

In Mk, Mt and Luke Jesus suffers at the hands of the

Jewish chief priests and is scourged by Pilate’s Roman
soldiers.

John 18.3 Judas then, having received the Roman

cohort (Ed-600 soldiers) and officers from the chief
priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and
torches and weapons. (New American Standard Bible)

18:6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he,

they went backward, and fell to the ground (all 600!).
(The divine Jesus is in charge!)

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2— JESUS: DIVINE AND SEMI-DIVINE AND FAMOUS

Who is Jesus?

Mk1.23-25

1:23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an

unclean spirit; and he cried out,

1:24 Saying, let us along; what have we to do with thee,

thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thous come to destroy is? I
know thee who thou art, the Holy one of God.

1:25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace,

and come out of him.

This is the first example of the Messianic Secret in the

Gospel of Mark. The unclean spirit identifies Jesus as
‘the Holy One of God’ and Jesus commands him not to
speak. We assume Jesus is forbidding the spirit from
telling anyone who Jesus is. See #3 Messianic Secret
below.

Forgiving Sins

Mk 2:7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies?

Who can forgive sins but God only?

2:10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins …

2:28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the

Sabbath.

This passage is by a later editor who viewed Jesus as

divine and so had the power to forgive sins or was given
the power to do so.
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Mk 3:11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell
down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of
God. (The Devils know that Jesus is the Son of God.)

3:12 And he straitly charged them that they should not

make him known.

The unclean spirits identified Jesus as the Son of God

and Jesus commands them not to make him known.

Mk 6:14 And King Herod heard of him (Jesus); (for his

name was spread abroad) and he said, That John the
Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore might
works do show forth themselves in him.

6:15 Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That

it is a prophet, or one of the prophets. (Note, that in the
Gospel none of the people suspect that Jesus is the
Messiah.)

Fame of Jesus Mk 3.7-10

Mk 3:7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to

the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed
him, and from Judaea,

3:8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from

beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great
multitude, when they had heard what great things he
did, came unto him.

(More pop-up people from Mark, probably to explain why,

if his mission was in Galilee, how can one say his
message reached beyond Galilee? Those visitors from
Tyre and Sidon would explain how his message reached
Gentiles (non-Jews. Mark says that the mission of Jesus
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is to Jews, to the lost sheep of Israel. The early church
can now say that he ministered to non-Jews but did not
break this rule since Gentiles came to him. He did not go
into their territory to preach.)

3:9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship

should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they
should throng him.

3:10 For he had healed many; insomuch that they

pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had
plagues.

4.1-11 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and

there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that
he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole
multitude was by the sea on the land.

Mk 6:32-33

6:32 And they departed into a desert place by ship

privately.

6:33 And the people saw them (Jesus and his disciples)
departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither
out of all cities, and out went them, and came together
unto him. (Mark wants to make sure that people in the
cities have no excuse for not accepting his message.)

Mk 6.35- 44 Jesus feeds 5000 men.

Mt 13.21 Matthew increases the status of Jesus. Jesus

feeds 5000 men plus women and children.

Jesus feeds the 5000. Note that this does not endanger
the secret of his identity or mission. He gives no
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command to anyone not to tell of this miracle, as the
people do not know that a miracle has been done. Of
course, the 5,000 would indicate a large following. The
problem is that modern scholars do not accept that this
story goes back to Jesus; that is a later interpolation.

Mk 6:45-6:53 Walking on the Sea

There are no witnesses other than the disciples.

Healing the sick

6:55 And ran through that whole region round about,

and began to carry about in beds those that were sick,
where they heard he was.

6:56 And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or

cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and
besought him that they might touch if it were but the
border of his garment: and as many as touched him
were made whole. (This passage is unusual since it says
Jesus enters cities where he cures the sick, etc. Other
than Jerusalem, Jesus does not much care for cities.)

9:17 And one of the multitude answered and said,

Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a
dumb spirit;

3--THE MESSIANIC SECRET

Above we have mentioned the Messianic Secret. We will
now give the reader our thoughts on this subject.

In Biblical criticism, the Messianic Secret refers to a

proposed motif primarily in the Gospel of Mark in which
Jesus is portrayed as commanding his followers to
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silence about his Messianic mission. This is a modern
motif and the first theory for it was proposed in 1901 by
William Wrede. [from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Part of Wrede's theory involved statements in the New

Testament by Jesus to his followers not to reveal to
others that he is the Messiah. Wrede suggested that this
theme was not historical but was an addition by the
author of Mark.

Wrede’s theory

Wrede proposed that the author of Mark invented the

notion of secrecy to reduce the tension between early
Christian beliefs about Jesus being the Messiah, and the
non-Messianic nature of his ministry.

Editors’ Note: In other words, the earliest views of Jesus

had not pictured him as a Messiah. Mark explained this
by saying that Jesus was not famous because he had
commanded the Devils and people to keep his mission
and identity a secret. Later, Wrede more or less dropped
his theory.

We would modify Wrede’s theory by saying that we believe

that the earliest version of Jesus was a failed Savior or
Messiah. This is not compatible with the current Gospel
of Mark with its triumphant Savior. Therefore, Jesus is
pictured as commanding silence as to his identity and
mission. But why would Jesus do this? The Gospels of
Mark is a secret Gospel. There is very little even in the
current Gospel of Mark that explains the mission of
Jesus. Why was Jesus not famous in proto-Mark? The
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Roman government did not praise people who were
traitorous, claiming to be a King not authorized by Rome.

As to the editor who added The Messianic Secret, it

perhaps was necessary to explain why a victorious and
triumphant Savior would not have widespread fame
during his ministry. As the reader will see there is very
little even in the current Gospel of Mark that indicates
that Jesus was famous.

Maybe it was simply necessary to explain why the early

Jesus was considered an obscure Messiah and one that
failed to achieve the plan of God to save the non-Jews
(and Jews too and others -- if they converted.

Mk 1.40-1.45 Curing the Leper

1:44 And saith unto him, Say thou say nothing to any
man …

1:45 But he went out, and began to publish it much,

and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus
could no more openly enter into the city, but was
without in desert places: and they came to him from
every quarter. (Perhaps verse 45 is to explain why Jesus
did not have a mission to any cities -- until the trip to
Jerusalem at the end of his life.)

Swine Story

Mk 5:1-20 Man with unclean spirit

5:1 And they came over unto the other side of the sea,
into the country of the Gadarenes.

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5:2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately
there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean
spirit ….

5:6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and

worshipped him,

5:7 [Unclean spirit] cried with a loud voice, and said,

What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most
high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me
not.

5:13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the

unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine:
and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the
sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked
in the sea.

5:18 And when he was come into the ship, he that had
been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might
be with him.

5:19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto

him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great
things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had
compassion on thee.

5:20 And he departed, and began to publish in

Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and
all men did marvel. (Is it significant that Jesus tells the
man who is a Gentile, a non-Jew, to go home and tell
people what Jesus has done for them?)

9:30 And they departed thence, and passed through

Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it.

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CREATED JESUS? PART 2

4—THE MISSION OF JESUS IN PROTO-MARK AND IN THE

GOSPEL OF MARK: REPLACEMENT OF JUDAISM WITH
CHRISTIANITY.
The Mission of God

The mission of God in Proto-Mark as well as in the Gospel

of Mark is what we call Replacement or supersession.

By Replacement we mean that the plan of God is to

replace Judaism (and all other religions) with
Christianity. This will be accomplished when the Jews
and their leaders engineer the death of Jesus. Then
Christians are the only people of God.

The Mission of Jesus

In Proto-Mark both Jesus and his disciples wrongly

believe that the mission of God is that Jesus is to be the
king when the political kingdom of God comes. But the
kingdom does not come, and Jesus dies on the cross, a
failure.

The use of the Old Testament quotes for the construction

of the Gospels is taken from The Christ Myth Theory and
its Problems by Robert M. Price; American Atheist Press.
Kindle Edition.

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REPLACEMENT: DISINHERITING THE JEWS IN PROTO-MARK

AND IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK

Hiding the Kingdom of God: Parables

The Purpose of Parables

Mk 4.2,10-12 The Purpose of Parables is to spiritually

blind Jews so that they will not be saved.

In Mark's Gospel Jesus teaches in parables so that Jews

will not be saved! This will appear shocking to many
readers. But the reader should keep in mind that Jesus
preaches only to the lost sheep of Israel, i.e., Jews. Why?
If the Jewish people and their leaders do not engineer the
death of Jesus, the Gentiles or non-Jews do not become
the people of God and so cannot be saved. (It makes no
difference that Jews did not believe that all gentiles were
condemned even if they remained pagans. Jews had also
accepted converts and had done so for centuries - see Isa
60.3. This Mark is a Christian Gospel and reflects the
erroneous views of ancient Christians as regards Jews
and Judaism.)

Mk 4:2 And he taught them many things by parables,

and said unto them in his doctrine …

Mk 4.10-12 (The mission of Jesus is to ‘the lost sheep of

Israel’ and he teaches to Jews in parables so they will
not be saved !)

4:10 And when he was alone, they that were about him
with the twelve asked of him the parable.

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4:11 And he said unto them Unto you it is given to know
the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that
are without, all these things are done in parables;

4:12 That seeing they may seem and not perceive; and
hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any
time they should be converted, and their sins should be
forgiven them.

Mt 13:10-17

Mt 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him,

Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is

given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven, but to them it is not given

Lk 8:9-10

8:9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might

this parable be?

8:10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the

mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in
parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing
they might not understand.

John 12:37-40

12:37 But though he had done so many miracles before

them, yet they believed not on him:

12:38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be

fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our

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report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been
revealed?

12:39 Therefore they could not believe, because that

Esaias said again,

12:40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their

heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor
understand with their heart, and be converted, and I
should heal them.

MISSIONS OF JESUS, HIS DISCIPLES AND GOD. IDENTITY OF

JESUS

Mk 8.27-30, The Royal Messiah of the Disciples. Political

kingdom.

The Jesus of the Gospel of Mark does not explicitly teach

that his kingdom is not political. We will not explicitly
hear that the kingdom of God is not of this world until the
Gospel of John.

The first hint that the Kingdom is not political is in

chapter 8 where Jesus predicts his death. Peter is upset.
A dead king could not rule a political kingdom. Of course
Jesus could be resurrected and then be the king (Mk
8.31).

Mk 8:27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the
towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his
disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I
am?

8:28 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some

say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.

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8:29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I
am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art
the Christ. (The Anointed One, Messiah.)

Anointing

The High Priest and the king are each sometimes called
"the anointed" (Leviticus 4:3-5, 4:16; 6:20; Psalm
132:10). Prophets were also anointed with the Holy
anointing oil (1Kings 19:16; 1Chronicles 16:22; Psalm
105:15).

Christian Gospels

Distinct from the Jewish view, Christians believe the

"anointed" one referred to in various biblical verses such
as Psalm 2:2, Daniel 7:13 and Daniel 9:25-26 is the
promised Christian Messiah.

(There was no widespread belief among Jews in the

coming of “the Messiah”. This is a Christian view.)

8:30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of

him. ( Jesus continues to hide his identity and mission by
commanding humans, devils and his disciples to be
silent.)

The 3 Predictions of His Death by Jesus are there

primarily to show that Jesus is aware of the plan of God,
that Jesus must die if the Kingdom is to come. Peter
condemns Jesus for predicting his death for then there
could be no political kingdom.

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Mk 8.31-33 1st Prediction of His Death

8:31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man

must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders,
and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and
after three days rise again.

But the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark, Mk 16.9-20,

was not added until the second century CE. Thus, Mark
would not have known of the myth that Jesus rose from
the dead on the third day.

8:32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took

him, and began to rebuke him.

8:33 But when he had turned about and looked on his

disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me,
Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God,
but the things that be of men.

8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with
his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will
come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow me.

Matthew follows Mark in the first prediction of the death

of Jesus. The divine status of Jesus is growing so that
Luke omits the dialogue between Jesus and Peter (Lk
9.22-27). The passage about Peter and Satan is not
suitable for the apostle whose status is rising.

Note that Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah but

violently objects to his statement that he will die in
Jerusalem. Peter is still expecting a political kingdom and
a dead Messiah would mean no kingdom. In the
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Proto-Gospel the disciples and Jesus continue to expect a
coming political kingdom along with the end of the world.

Kingdom of God Soon?

Mk 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you,

That there be some of them that stand here, which shall
not taste of death, till they have seen the Kingdom of
God come with power.

This was added by the church. The Kingdom of God is the

church. The New Testament is inconsistent as to how
soon the world will end. This is due to the fact that some
Christians believed the end would be soon and others
believed the end would be in a more distant future.

Replacement

Mk 9:2-15 Transfiguration

On a mountain Jesus appears to the disciples along with

Elisha and Moses (v. 4).

9:7 And there was a cloud that overshadowed them:

and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my
beloved Son: hear him.

9:8 And suddenly, when they had looked round about,

they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with
themselves.

Elisha and Moses disappear leaving only Jesus behind.

Judaism is to be replaced by Jesus, that is, Christianity.

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Reference to Death of Jesus

Mk 9:12 And he answered and told them, Elias verily

cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is
written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many
things, and be set at nought (eds- die).

Mk 9.30-32 2nd Prediction of His Death

9:30 And they departed thence, and passed through

Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it.
(Jesus is still continuing with the Messianic Secret,
hiding his identity and mission.)

9:31 For he taught his disciples, and said unto them,

The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and
they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall
rise on the third day.

9:32 But they understood not that saying, and were

afraid to ask him.

Mark 10 Replacement Again

What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

Mk 10:17-21 And when he was gone forth into the way,

there came one (eds. of the people) running, and
kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

Jesus tells him to obey the ethical commandments which

he says he has always done. But when told him to give his
possessions away to the poor, and “come, take up the
cross, and follow me”. He then grieves and goes away for
he had many possessions. The reference to the cross is
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an obvious interpolation by the early church. Jews will be
replaced by Christians.

Mk 10.32-34 3rd Prediction of His Death

Mk 10:32 And they were in the way going up to

Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were
amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he
took again the twelve, and began to tell them what
things should happen unto him,

10:33 Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the

Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and
unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death,
and shall deliver him to the Gentiles:

10:34 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him,
and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the
third day he shall rise again.

Look at what Luke adds: Lk 18.34: And they understood

none of these things: and this saying was hid from them,
neither knew they the things which were spoken. (At last
we get an explanation as to why the disciples don't
understand the plain language of Jesus. God has
spiritually blinded the disciples (!) so that they will not
understand that Jesus must die.

Allusions to the death of Jesus and His predictions of his

death are considered by most modern biblical scholars to
be interpolations by the early church.

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Political Kingdom. Who will be the greatest?

Mk 9:33 And he came to Capernaum: and being in the

house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed
among yourselves by the way?

Mk 9:34 But they held their peace: for by the way they
had disputed among themselves, who should be the
greatest.

The disciples are still expecting a kingdom with Jesus as

the King.

Mk 10.35-37 Sitting on the right hand of God.

10:35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came

unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest
do for us whatsoever we shall desire.

10:36 And he said unto them, What would it is in the ye

that I should do for you?

10:37 They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may

sit, one on they right hand, and the other on thy left
hand, in thy glory.

Allusion to the death of Jesus.

10:38 But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye

ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

10:39 And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said
unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink
of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall
ye be baptized (eds: they will die as martyrs):

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10:40 But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is
not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom
it is prepared.

10:41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be much
displeased with James and John.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ask that they be

given the highest positions in Jesus' kingdom when he
comes to “his glory.” The other ten disciples are angry, for
all of the twelve expect that Jesus will be the head of an
earthly kingdom.

A Ransom for Many

10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be

ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many.

(The Jews are disinherited so that the many non-Jews

may be saved.)

Mt 10:28 follows Mk 10:45

Lk 22:24-27 keeps the thought but omits the ransom

John 13:4-5, 12-17 also omits “ransom.”

Political Messiah (king)

Mk 10:46 Jericho: The King

Up to this point only the disciples believe that Jesus is

the Messiah and only a political one (a king) at that.
Jesus asked Peter “who do people think that I am”? The
people think that Jesus is John the Baptist; but some

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say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets (Mk 8.28).
Now as Jesus approaches Jerusalem the blind
Bartimaeus recognizes Jesus as the Son of David, that is,
a political Messiah or King.

Mk 10:46 And they came to Jericho: and as he went out

of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of
people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by
the highway side begging.

10:47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth,

he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David,
have mercy on me.

As Jesus exits Jericho, a blind beggar, Bartimaeus,

addresses him as “Son of David,” one of the signs
Christians believed would identify the Messiah, although
Jews held no such belief by the time of Jesus (died ca 33
CE).

Mk 10.48 And many charged him that he should hold

his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son
of David, have mercy on me.

10:52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; they faith
hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his
sight, and followed Jesus in the way. (A rare mention of
a person being allowed to follows Jesus.)

Mark 11 Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

Many modern scholars believe that the triumphal entry

was fiction that was added by the early church.

Mk 11.1-7:

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Jesus miraculously produces a colt and enters
Jerusalem, greeted as a king.

Mark 11:7. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and

threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it.

Old Testament:

Zechariah 9:9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king
comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble
and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.

Though Mark does not make it explicit, it is evident that

the scene of Jesus entering the holy city on donkey back
is a fleshing out of Zechariah 9:9. The actions and words
of the crowd come right from Psalms 118:26-27, “Blessed
is he who enters in the name of the LORD! … Bind the
festal procession with branches …” “Hosanna in the
highest” comes from the Hebrew or Aramaic of “Save
now!” in Psalms 118:25 and from Psalms 148 (LXX):
“Praise him in the highest!” (Helms, p. 104). Of course the
Psalm means to offer its blessings on any pilgrim into the
holy city. Price.

Mark does not say that the following comes from the OT
but he implies that it is a prophecy which shows that
Jesus is executing the plan of God.

11:10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that

cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the
highest. (Mk 11.9-10; cf. 2 Sam 14.4; 2 Kgs 6.26).

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This is a variant quote of the royal Psalm (118.25-29; cf. 2
Sam 7.16) used in blessing the king at his coronation.
(See Chapter 6 of this book.)

Unlike Mark 11.1-7, Matthew flatly says that the event

occurs so that the prophet’s prediction would be fulfilled
(vss 21.4-5). References to the Scriptures being fulfilled
are more common in Matthew and Luke. All this
increases the status of Jesus and indicates that Jesus is
willingly executing the plan of God.)

Mt 21.10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the

city was moved, saying, Who is this?

Mt 21.11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the

prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

The mission of Jesus was primarily in Galilee. Mark and

Matthew don't give any real reason why the Jews of
Jerusalem give Jesus a big welcome.

Luke 19.37: “as they approach the mount of Olives, the

whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice …”)

(Well, a multitude of disciples came a couple hundred

miles down from Galilee!)

John is again trying to fix up the errors of the Synoptic

Gospels: why did so many people come to greet Jesus in
Jerusalem when his mission had been in Galilee?

John: 12.12 says that a “great crowd” heard that Jesus

was coming to Jerusalem.

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12.13 the crowd says" Hosanna! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!"

12.16 These things understood not his disciples at the

first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered
they that these things were written of him, (eds.
remembered the Scriptures) and that they had done
these things unto him.

12.17-18 In the Gospel of John we are told that the

people showed who were with him when he raised
Lazarus from the dead or who had heard about the
great miracle.

As for the mission in Judea in John's Gospel: Judeans do

not understand that the Messiah has not come to set up a
political kingdom.

Jesus Enters Jerusalem and Divine Dishonesty Mk

11.1-12

According to the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus

triumphantly enters Jerusalem he leads people to believe
that he is their king. Does he not cause them to falsely
believe that he is a political Messiah by fulfilling
prophecy, by riding on an ass, etc.? Is not all of this
massively dishonest of Jesus?

Did not Jesus teach the Jews with parables so that they
will not understand and be saved?

Did not God blind the Egyptians so that the Jews could
escape slavery in Egypt?

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The Proto-Markan Jesus did not know what the plan of
God was but Jesus in the current Mark is fully aware of
the divine plan. And that plan was supersessionism. The
Jewish people and their religion are to be replaced by
non-Jewish Christians.

The bottom line is that the Jews must accept Jesus as the
true Savior, not as a political Messiah. True, they are
tricked into believing he is a political Messiah but then
again that is God's plan. The Proto-Markan Jesus did not
know of the plan of God and so dies in despair. But in
both Proto-Mark and the canonical Mark the result is the
same supersessionism. Non-Jews are saved.

Mk 11.8-10 Jews in Jerusalem think Jesus is a political

Messiah (King). He enters Jerusalem.

Mark gives no real explanation as to why the people in

Jerusalem know and admire Jesus. The best that Mark
can do is to state earlier that the fame of Jesus had
spread and people came up from the Judea to Galilee,
etc.

Mk 11:8 And many spread their garments in the way:

and others cut down branches off the trees, and
strawed them in the way.

11:9 And they that went before, and they that followed,
cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord:

Jesus “has been perceived by his own disciples as a royal

claimant. At Jericho Jesus accepts the royal title “Son of
David” from the blind man and here, approaching the
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capital of Judea, Jesus purposefully rides a colt in
fulfillment of a royal Psalm (118.26), and accepts the
shouts of the crowd acknowledging his kingship. All of
this makes it clear that Jesus intends to convey the idea
that he is a king, one who is about to come into his
power.” See Chapter 6 of this book.)

Jesus has convinced the crowds that he is the Messiah

King. This is necessary since the power of the Sanhedrin
lay in Judea, especially in Jerusalem. If the Jewish
authorities do not think he is a political threat (claiming
to be the King of the Jews) why should they engineer his
death? And if they do not get him killed then the covenant
with the Jews is not broken and the non-Jews cannot be
saved.

Fig Tree: Replacement: Jews will be replaced by

Christians.

Mk 11:11-14 Fig Tree

11:11 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.

11:12 And on the morrow, when they were come from

Bethany, he was hungry:

11:13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he

came, if haply he might find anything thereon: and
when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for the
time of figs was not yet.

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11:14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat
fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard
it.

Fig Tree Again

Mk 11:20 And in the morning, as they passed by, they

saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. (Judaism is to
be replaced by Christianity.)

11:21 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto

him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is
withered away.

11:22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith

in God.

As anyone can see, the tree is made to stand for

unrepentant Jerusalem, and the episode is then seen
[Miller, pp. 274-275] to stem from Psalms 37:35-36. Here
is the source of Jesus seeking figs on the tree but finding
none, and of the note that it was in passing the spot again
they discovered the tree blasted. [Price]

Fig Tree Parable: Mk 11.11-14 & Mk 11.20-22

“The fig tree is Judaism. Jesus is teaching that a truly

divine religion would never be out of season; it would
always provide spiritual sustenance for its believers.
Judaism is to be replaced by Christianity.” Chapter 6 of
this book.

Mk 11:27-33 And they come again to Jerusalem: and as

he was walking in the temple, there come to him the
chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders … .

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Jewish leaders seek to trap Jesus by questioning him
about John the Baptist. Mark wishes to make sure that
the reader understands that Jewish authorities and
sometimes Jewish crowds are determined to destroy
Jesus.

Mk 11.15-19 Riot in the Temple

Replacement

Note that in the passage below Jesus, supposedly a Jew,

takes the normal activity which takes place in the Temple
as sacrilegious. The temple will be replaced by the
Christian Church.

11:15 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

11:16 And would not suffer that any man should carry
any vessel through the temple.

11:17 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.

11:18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and
sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him,
because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.
Also, notice the blind hatred of Jesus by the scribes and
chief priests Mk 11.18

11:19 And when even was come, he went out of the city.

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Old Testament

Malachi 3:1. Behold, I send my messenger to prepare

the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will
suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the
covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming,
says the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 56:7. My house shall be called a house of prayer

for all the nations.

Jeremiah 7:11. Has this house, which is called by my

name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? {124}.
Price.

Mt 21.15 And when the chief priests and scribes saw

the wonderful things that he did, and the children
crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of
David; they were sore displeased … .

Mk 11:27-33 And they come again to Jerusalem: and as

he was walking in the temple, there come to him the
chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders … .

Jewish leaders again seek to trap Jesus by questioning

him about John the Baptist.

Mark 12

The death story of Jesus dramatizes the central message

of the Gospel of Mark — Judaism is only temporary and
is to be replaced by Christianity. This theme is most
clearly spelled out in the wicked tenant story of Mark
12.1-12 which we will now discuss before turning to the
passion.

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Mk 12.1-12 The Vineyard (Wicked Tenants) Parable:
Replacement Theory - Christianity will Replace Judaism.
(For more, see Chapter 7 of this book.)
11:27 And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was
walking in the temple, there come to him the chief
priests, and the scribes, and the elders … .

12:1 And he began to speak unto them by parables. (So

they will not understand and be saved. See Mk 4 above.)
A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge
about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a
tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country.

12:2 And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a

servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of
the fruit of the vineyard.

12:3 And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him
away empty.

12:4 And again he sent unto them another servant; and

at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head,
and sent him away shamefully handled.

12:5 And again he sent another; and him they killed,

and many others; beating some, and killing some.

12:6 Having yet therefore one son, his well beloved, he

sent him also last unto them, saying, They will
reverence my son.

12:7 But those husbandmen said among themselves,

This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours.

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12:8 And they took him, and killed him, and cast him
out of the vineyard.

12:9 What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he

will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give
the vineyard unto others.

12:10 And have ye not read this scripture; The stone

which the builders rejected is become the head of the
corner:

12:11 This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in

our eyes? (Psalms 118)

12:12 And they (the chief priests, and the scribes, and
the elders of Mk 11.27) sought to lay hold on him, but
feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the
parable against them: and they left him, and went their
way. (Apparently they understood parables – Mk 12.1)

Summary of the Comment on Wicked Tenants Parable:

Jesus relates that a man planted a vineyard, leased it to

his tenants and moved away. When the harvest season
arrived, the owner sent a slave to collect the owner’s
share of the produce, but the tenants beat the slave and
kicked him out. The owner sent many others who were
also beaten, ejected or killed. Finally, the owner sent his
“beloved Son” whom the tenants killed, thinking that he
had come for their inheritance. Jesus asks, what will the
“owner of the vineyard do?” The owner, Jesus says, “will
come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to
others” (Mk 12.9). “They” realize the story was told
“against them” (vs. 12) – (the chief priests, scribes and

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elders of Mk 11.27). and want to arrest Jesus but are
afraid of the crowd. (Chapter 7 Part 1 of this book.)

Comment on the Wicked Tenants Parable

‘‘In Mark, the tenants are the Jewish people, those sent to
collect the owner’s share of the produce are the prophets
of the Jewish Scriptures, and the son is Jesus. The
meaning of the allegory is that the Jewish covenant is
only temporary. It will be nullified by “the Jews” when
they reject and kill the Son of God. They will then no
longer be the people of God; the non-Jews will replace
them and be given the vineyard, that is, the kingdom of
God.

The tenant story is clearly a product of the early church.

(Chapter 7 of this book.)

Borrowing from the Old Testament: Isaiah 5.1-7

Most biblical scholars point out that Isaiah 5:1-7 is one of

the main sources for the vineyard parable.

The tenant story is loosely based on Isa 5.1-7, but Isaiah

knows nothing of slaves or a son being murdered.

Isa 5:1 Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my

beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a
vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

5:2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones

thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built
a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress
therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes,
and it brought forth wild grapes.
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5:3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of
Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard,

that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that
it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild
grapes?

5:5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my

vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall
be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it
shall be trodden down:

5:6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor

digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will
also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house

of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and
he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for
righteousness, but behold a cry.

Christianity will replace Judaism.

Mk 12:18 The Sadducees: there is no resurrection.

12:26 (Jesus) And as touching the dead, that they rise:

have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush
God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

12:27 (Jesus says) He is not the God of the dead, but

the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

The God of the Jews will be replaced by the God of the

Christians. Also, the Christians only know how to
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properly interpret the Jewish Scriptures. That is why
they can find Jesus in the Old Testament and the Jews
cannot.

Mark 13 End of the World

Mk 13:1-37

13:1 And as he went out of the temple, one of his

disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of
stones and what buildings are here!

13:8 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.

2 Chronicles 15:6 “They were broken in pieces, nation

against nation and kingdom against kingdom.”

Mk 13.26 And then shall they see the Son of man

coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

This is obviously based upon Daniel 7:13 : (“I saw in the

night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there
came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of
Days and was presented before him.”). Jesus is still
fulfilling OT prophecies.

Mk 14 Judas Iscariot

14:10 And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto

the chief priests, to betray (Jesus) unto them.

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Judas Iscariot From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He is infamously known for his kiss and betrayal of Jesus

to the hands of the chief Sanhedrin priests in exchange
for a payment of thirty pieces of silver coins. His place
among the Twelve Apostles was later replaced by
Matthias.

Etymology

"Judas" … is the Greek form of the common name

Judah (‫יהודה‬, Yehûdâh, Hebrew for "God is praised").

Modern interpretations

Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby, suggests that in the New

Testament, the name "Judas" was constructed as an
attack on the Judaeans or on the Judaean religious
establishment held responsible for executing Christ. The
English word "Jew" is derived from the Latin Iudaeus,
which, like the Greek Ιουδαίος (Ioudaios), could also
mean "Judaean".

(So Judas, the betrayer, is named after ‘the Jews’.)

Gethsemane:

14:32 And they came to a place which was named

Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here,
while I shall pray.

14:34 And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding

sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

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14:36 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible
unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not
what I will, but what thou wilt.

This is a passage which shows that Jesus is subordinate

to the father. But the chief purpose is to show that Jesus
is not forced to die but willingly accepts the plan of God.

14:43 And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh

Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great
multitude with swords and staves, from the chief
priests and the scribes and the elders.

14:46 And they laid their hands on him, and took him.

14:49 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and

ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled.

Jesus has divine powers but the prophecies of the OT

must be fulfilled.

14:50 And they [the disciples] all forsook him, and fled.

Jewish Trial

14:53 And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and
with him were assembled all the chief priests and the
elders and the scribes.

14:55 And the chief priests and all the council sought
for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and
found none.

This passage emphasizes that the Jewish authorities are

determined to engineer the death of Jesus even on their is
no evidence to suggest that he is guilty of anything. In the
gospel of John Jews are said to be children of the devil.
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14:56 For many bare false witness against him, but
their witness agreed not together.

14:61 … Again the high priest asked him, and said unto
him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

14:62 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.

14:63 Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith,
What need we any further witnesses?

14:64 Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?

And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.

Actually, claiming to be a Messiah was not against

Jewish law.

14:65 And some began to spit on him, and to cover his

face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy:
and the servants did strike him with the palms of their
hands.

Mark 15.1-15 Trial by Pilate

15:1 And straightway in the morning the chief priests

held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the
whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away,
and delivered him to Pilate.

15:2 And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the
Jews? And he answering said unto them, Thou sayest
it.

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15:3 And the chief priests accused him of many things:
but he answered nothing.

Even in the trial by Pilate Jewish authorities are allowed

to make accusations against Jesus. Mark wants to make
sure that we know that it is the Jewish chief priests who
want Jesus condemned, not the non-Jewish Pilate.

Barabbas

15:6 Now at that feast he released unto them one

prisoner, whomsoever they desired.

15:7 And there was one named Barabbas, which lay

bound with them that had made insurrection with him,
who had committed murder in the insurrection.

15:9 But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I

release unto you the King of the Jews?

15:10 For he knew that the chief priests had delivered

him for envy.

15:11 But the chief priests moved the people, that he

should rather release Barabbas unto them.

“The people” is another one of Mark’s pop-ups. Mark does

not say where they came from.

15:12 And Pilate answered and said again unto them,

What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call
the King of the Jews?

15:13 And they cried out again, Crucify him.

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Mk 15:14 Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil
hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly,
Crucify him.

Matthew 27.23-25

27:23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he

done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be
crucified.

27:24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing,

but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and
washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am
innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

27:25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood
be on us, and on our children.]

Mk 15.15-20

15:15 And so Pilate, willing to content the people,

released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus,
when he had scourged him, to be crucified.

15:16 And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called
Praetorium; and they call together the whole band.

15:17 And they clothed him with purple, and platted a

crown of thorns, and put it about his head, 15:18 And
began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

15:20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the
purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and
led him out to crucify him.

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Note that the Roman soldiers take Jesus to be a criminal,
one who claims to be King of the Jews. Note that these
words are the inscription on the cross.
Here is an example of Old Testament passages used in
the story of the Death of Christ.

The Crucifixion Mk 15.22-32

15:22 And they bring him unto the place Golgotha,

which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull.

15:23 And they gave him to drink wine mingled with

myrrh: but he received it not.

15:24 And when they had crucified him, they parted his
garments, casting lots upon them, what every man
should take.

15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

15:26 And the superscription of his accusation was

written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

15:27 And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on
his right hand, and the other on his left.
15:28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And
he was numbered with the transgressors.

15:29 And they that passed by railed on him, wagging

their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the
temple, and buildest it in three days,

15:30 Save thyself, and come down from the cross.

15:31 Likewise also the chief priests mocking said

among themselves with the scribes,

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15:32 Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the
cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were
crucified with him reviled him.

Last Words

Mk 15:33 And when the sixth hour was come, there was
darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud

voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is,
being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? (The Gospels of Luke and John dump
these last despairing words of Jesus.)

15:35 And some of them that stood by, when they heard
it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.

15:36 And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar,

and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let
alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him
down.

15:37 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up

the ghost.

15:38 And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from
the top to the bottom.

15:39 And when the centurion, which stood over

against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the
ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.

Obviously this was the work of the early church.

Crucifixion was a common Roman method of execution.
The death of Jesus would hardly draw from a Roman

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soldier the conclusion that he was a son of God, much
less, the son of God - unless this was written by a
Christian writer of the early church.

Psalm 22 [Link] -- (King James Version)

All scholars know that the crucifixion is based on Psalm

22.

22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art

thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my
roaring?

2O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not;

and in the night season, and am not silent.

3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of

Israel.

4Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou

didst deliver them.

5They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted

in thee, and were not confounded.

6But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and

despised of the people.

7All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out

the lip, they shake the head, saying,

8He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let

him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

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9But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou
didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's
breasts.

10 I
was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God
from my mother's belly.

11Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is
none to help.

12Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of

Bashan have beset me round.

13 Theygaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening

and a roaring lion.

14I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out
of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of
my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my

tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me
into the dust of death.

16For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the

wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and
my feet.

17 I
may don't tell all my bones: they look and stare upon
me.

18Theypart my garments among them, and cast lots

upon my vesture.

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Albert Schweitzer in The Quest of the Historical Jesus
says that Jesus expected the kingdom to come soon.
When it did not come Jesus came to believe that it was
necessary for him to die; he headed for Jerusalem. We
agree with Schweitzer except that we do not believe that
Jesus came to believe that he must die. We believe that
the Proto-Jesus simply went to Jerusalem believing that
the kingdom would come soon and that he would become
King. The kingdom did not come and thus Schweitzer and
we believe that Jesus died a failure.

Mark 16.1-8 The Empty Tomb

16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,

and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought
sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

16:2 And very early in the morning the first day of the
week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the
sun.

16:3 And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us

away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?

16:4 And when they looked, they saw that the stone was
rolled away: for it was very great.

16:5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young

man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white
garment; and they were affrighted.

16:6 And he saith unto them, 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.

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16:7 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.

16.8 The young man in white told the women that Jesus
had risen. The women ran away, telling no one, because
they were afraid.

These verses constitute the original ending of the gospel

of Mark.

Mk 16.9-20 The longer ending of the Gospel of Mark. The

victorious Jesus

The idea that until after his resurrection nobody can

believe that Jesus is the Messiah who will die in
Jerusalem was a later church belief. Most modern
scholars think the resurrection scenes were added to the
Gospel of Mark in the second century CE or later.

The vast majority of modern biblical scholars believe that

verses 9-20 were added to Mark in the early second
century or later. So the original Gospel of Mark ended
without any reference to the resurrection of Jesus and
without any witnesses of such an event.

The longer ending is obviously a forgery as it is composed

of material taken from the other Gospels.

In The Quest Of The Historical Jesus (1910) Albert

Schweitzer writes:

Jesus . . . in the knowledge that he is the coming Son of

Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on
that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history
to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself on it.

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Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing
in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them.
The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one
immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to
think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to
bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That
is His victory and His reign.

“Then it does turn; and crushes Him.”

And Schweitzer, too. But then again all moral idealists, in

“trying to bend history,” are crushed. So people look up
towards Heaven or down to Hell.

For more on the passion of Jesus, see part one of this

book.

PROTO-MARK

Proto-Mark was not threatening to the Paulinists:

Paul's divine and spiritual Christ was not threatened by

Proto-Mark's Jesus, a human Messianic failure. Jesus
had brothers and sisters; a divine father was not created
for Jesus until the birth scenes in the Gospels of Matthew
and Luke (80 CE). Proto-Jesus may have been
apprehensive about an early death but he was not clearly
aware of the fact that he must die so that the plan of God
could be accomplished.

For the Paulinists, Paul remained “the apostle.” Truth

came from Paul's mystical union with Christ not from
Jesus through Peter. Even in the present Gospel of Mark
the disciples, especially Peter, are spiritually dense.
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Mk 14:66-72

14:72 And the second time the cock crew. And Peter
called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him,
Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
And when he thought thereon, he wept.

A Failed Messiah and Supersessionism or Replacement

Theory

Why did the Paulinists create a failed messiah? God does

not break His promises. But people can break their
covenant with God. God presents to Jews a royal
claimant, a messianic figure who believes that the end of
the world will come soon and he will be the king in God’s
kingdom. Jewish leaders engineer Jesus’ death with the
approval of Jewish crowds. When the end does not come,
Jesus dies on the cross in despair, crying out “My God,
my God why did you abandon me?” (Scholars Bible Mk
15.34). The Jesus of Proto-Mark failed. The political
kingdom of God had not come.

Thus, Paulinism superseded Judaism. The Jewish

Scriptures are now true (as interpreted by the Paulinists.

The Current Gospel of Mark was a threat to the Paulinists.

The current Gospel of Mark threatened the Paulinists,

some of whom had believed that Jesus was the failed
Messiah. The Jesus of the current Gospel of Mark is
divinely empowered at his baptism. He is a threat to the
followers of Paul. The later editors of Mark’s Gospel added
the title Son of God and other divine characteristics to
Jesus. For example, like God Jesus forgives sins,

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regulates the Sabbath, walks on water, and calms the
sea. He raises the dead. In Mark Jesus is aware of God's
plan and consciously and deliberately executes it. Jesus
three times clearly predicts his death (Mk 8.31-33, Mk
9.31-32 Mk 10.32-34) but many modern biblical scholars
agree that these predictions of his death are later
interpolations. After Peter angrily reprimands Jesus for
predicting that the Messiah-King will suffer and be killed,
Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” and strongly condemns him for
his unbelief.

In the current Gospel of Mark, Jesus no longer merely

predicts that the mysterious Son of Man will come in the
future, nor that he himself will become this figure after
his death. Now, during his lifetime, Jesus is the “Son of
Man,” the “Son of God.” “Messiah” is now interchangeable
with these divine terms. The title “Christ” becomes his
last name.

In time Matthew and Luke will add semi-divinity in the

birth scenes. And eventually, John will declare that
Jesus is God. But regardless of whether the nature of
Jesus is human, semi-divine or entirely divine, what
would really upset the Pauline applecart is that Jesus is
now a victorious, a triumphant figure. As we said above,
he knows the will of God and consciously seeks his own
death to accomplish the plan of God. His death will
establish the Christian religion and the Christian church
will save the non-Jews (also Jews and others if they
convert to Christianity). Christianity superseded
Paulinism. Jesus Christ replaced the heavenly Christ of
Paul. Acts of the Apostles portrays Peter and Paul as

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apostles of the Christian church but in time the Apostle
Paul would be superseded by Peter.

Matthew and Luke continued to rehabilitate Jesus and

Peter. In the birth scene in Matthew, Jesus' mother Mary,
goes from thinking he is crazy (Mark) to a pious
Christian. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is divine from his
birth and in John's Gospel, he is divine before the cosmos
was created through him; “... the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.” (Jn 1.1, 3). Peter replaces Paul as the
founder of the Church. Matthew’s Jesus says he will
build his church upon this rock (Peter's faith). The
human failure, Jesus, replaces the heavenly Christ of
Paul. In the resurrection appearances in Matthew, Paul's
leadership is challenged by the chief disciple of Jesus,
Peter. (Mark has resurrection scenes also but as modern
scholars concede, they were added to Mark at a much
later time.)

Summary

In Proto-Mark, Jesus is not clearly conscious that part of

his mission is to go to Jerusalem and die, but in the
current Gospel of Mark the divine Jesus is well aware of
the fact that he must die in Jerusalem and consciously
executes the plan of God. A political Messiah who is a
failure, that dies having failed to set up the political
Kingdom of God, would not be threatening to the
Paulinists. A victorious Messiah is a threat to Paulinism.
The incarnate human/God (Jesus Christ) replaces the
pure, spiritual Christ of Paul. Peter replaces Paul. The
Bible belongs to the believers in Jesus. Christianity
replaces Judaism and Paulinism.
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The Polarization of the Paulinists

By the end of the first century CE, the church had

polarized. It now had the Jesus and Pauline wings, each
defending its own faith and founder. Those that stayed
with Paul's ahistorical and spiritual Christ made up the
Paulinist wing. The supporters of the historical Jesus
made up the Jesus wing.

Conclusion: Both Proto-Mark and the current Gospel of

Mark served the same purpose: supersessionism,
Judaism is replaced by Christianity and the Jewish
people are no longer the chosen people of God; they have
been replaced by non-Jews. Over time, as the divine
status of Jesus increased, Jesus and his disciples were
rehabilitated. Christianity replaced Paulinism and
Judaism. The spiritual Christ of Paul was replaced by the
human deified version of Jesus; Paul was replaced by
Peter. Orthodox Christianity had arrived.

What is the evidence that the church was polarized into

these two wings? When we look at the church writings
that appeared between Paul (d. ca 64 CE) and Justin (fl
ca 150 CE), we find they reflect two traditions:

1. the Pauline tradition as seen in Paul's letters, the

pseudo-Pauline letters, and the writings of Ignatius
– none of which mention the historical Jesus;

2. the Jesus tradition as reflected in the Gospels and

in the writings of Justin Martyr who is unaware of
Paul, Ignatius or other writers in the Pauline
tradition.

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In reviewing the Paulinist literary tradition, we find that
Paul's letters, aside from the interpolations that we
discussed in Chapter 9, know nothing of an historical
Jesus who died on a cross in Jerusalem. Paul knows only
of a demigod who was crucified in the mythic past and
transformed after death into a spiritual Christ. In this
mythic past, many pagan gods had lived, died and come
back to life. The pseudo-Pauline letters, too, (Ephesians,
Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus)
are unaware of the historical Jesus except for a bare
reference to Pontius Pilate in the late and fraudulent 1
Timothy (6.13) which was written about 150 CE.

1 Clement (ca 95 CE) briefly refers to Peter and Paul as

“illustrious apostles,” indicating that the Jesus and
Pauline traditions were united, i.e., that Paul's Christ is
Mark's historical Jesus. This letter is unsigned and the
earliest manuscript is late 4th century CE.

Bishop Ignatius (d ca 117 CE) mentions Peter and Paul

only once as apostles in his letter to the Romans at 4.3. It
is hard to explain why no other early Orthodox Christian
author knows of a united church (both Peter and Paul)
until the end of the second century (Irenaeus and
Tertullian).

Bishop Ignatius appears to know the Jesus tradition

when he mentions Jesus’ virginal conception, his
crucifixion under Pontius Pilate and his resurrection but,
according to many critical scholars, these historical
references are part of a creedal formula added to
Ignatius's writings at a later date. He has no knowledge of
the birth stories of Jesus contained in the Gospels of
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Matthew and Luke. Indeed, Ignatius never mentions any
written gospel.

We will now deal with the Pauline letters and Acts of the
Apostles that depict both Peter and Paul as operating in a
united church, allegedly in the first century CE.

As to the meeting in Acts 15.6-29, surely Robert M. Price

is correct when he asserts that this meeting is an
insertion that attempts to prove Peter and Paul were
harmonious fellow apostles. [Price, R. M., 1995, 95] The
passage was added to attempt to prove that the Marcan
historical Jesus, represented here by Peter, and the
Pauline ahistorical Christ are the same personage. Acts
of the Apostles, as John Knox demonstrated in Marcion
and the New Testament, reached its final form by the
second half of the second century CE. One can reject this
late date for Acts, but how then could one explain why no
one refers to this fantasy before Irenaeus (ca 180 CE), 95
years after its alleged composition by Luke in about 85
CE?

The second tradition (the Jesus wing) is anchored in the

four Gospels, supposedly written by about 100 CE. The
next writings used by the apologists to show that the
apostolic writers of the second century were aware of the
gospel tradition are those of Justin Martyr (fl ca 150 CE).
Justin quotes a variant form of Matthew's birth narrative
(although he uses Isaiah 7.14, not Matthew or Luke, to
prove that Jesus was conceived by a virgin). Although he
quotes Jesus (or “the Lord”) and he knows of Pilate, the
crucifixion, etc., Justin's knowledge of Jesus' life is
sketchy. In any case, he knows nothing of Paul or his
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letters. He does not refer to the pseudo-Pauline letters, or
the letters of Ignatius, i.e., the Pauline literary tradition,
though he was writing nearly 100 years after the last
letters of Paul were written in the early 60s CE.

In summary, by the end of the first century CE the

church was divided into the Pauline ahistorical wing and
the gospel historical Jesus wing. Ignatius knew only the
Pauline wing, and Justin knew only the Jesus wing
(variant Matthew). In short, there is no definitive evidence
before Marcion (ca 145 CE) that any apostolic writer
embraced both the Pauline and Jesus traditions. There
may have been a movement which attempted to unify the
Jesus (Peter) and Paul traditions, but the evidence is
thin. If the apostolic fathers knew of the dual tradition,
they did not choose to reflect that knowledge in their
writings. Tertullian says in Against Marcion that there
was a Canon uniting the Gospels and Paul before
Marcion. Even taking Tertullian into account, there is
still very little evidence to support the existence of a
united church until Irenaeus (ca 180 CE).

Unified Church

But what united to Jesus and Pauline wings, producing a

single canon and a single, unified church? Probably the
answer lies in the work of the wealthy Gnostic Marcion
(ca 144 CE).

Marcion traveled from Pontus (in modern Turkey) to

Rome, joined the church there and was kicked out about
144 CE as a heretic. He founded many Marcionite
churches across the Roman Empire. Marcionism
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threatened to split the church. Marcion denied both the
Jewishness and humanity of Jesus. He severed any
connection between Christianity and Judaism. The
canon that Marcion created rejected the Jewish
Scriptures, omitting any mention of things Jewish in his
version of Luke, the ten Pauline letters which he accepted
as valid, or in his own writings. He asserted that the
“cruel” God of the Jewish Scriptures and the “loving” God
of his Christian Scriptures were not the same God.
Marcion's ahistorical and bodiless savior was compatible
with Paul's ahistorical, spiritual Christ, but Marcionism
threatened to sever the Jesus wing from the polarized
church. Thus, Marcion stimulated the formation of a
united church which identified the historical Jesus with
Paul's ahistorical, divine Christ, forming a Canon – Paul's
letters, the Gospels, etc., in the process.

Who reconciled the two wings? The centrists, or

moderates, did so. By 180 CE, Bishop Irenaeus knows of
the spiritual Christ of Paul and the historical Jesus of the
Gospels; for him they are one and the same. Irenaeus
copiously quotes the Jewish Scriptures, the Pauline
corpus, the pseudo-Pauline letters, the Gospels, and Acts
(mostly the first half). He struggles mightily to pull the
Pauline and Jesus wings together, forcefully insisting
that the church had never been divided, that it came
unified from God. He asserts that the canon had from the
beginning contained only four gospels since there are
only four principal winds, four faces of the cherubim, etc.
[Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. Bk. 3, Ch 11 in ANF vol 1, 428] He
writes that, “the very ancient, and universally known
church (was) founded and organized at Rome by the two
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 WHO CREATED JESUS? PART 2
most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul.” [Irenaeus, Adv.
Haer. Bk. 3, Ch 3 in ANF vol 1, 415] But no writings
reflect any such tradition before him, other than the
interpolated letter, 1 Clement, Ignatius, and Acts of the
Apostles, which we have discussed above. The apologists
argued there was One Truth, united from the beginning.

SUMMARY OF PART 1 COMMENTARY ON MARK

 The Marcan Jesus is not Jewish. He fits better in a

pagan, rather than a Jewish milieu. He is a pagan
savior in Jewish dress.

 He is grossly ignorant of Judaism and is radically

anti-Jewish. He is a supersessionalist, believing
that Judaism is to be replaced by Christianity.

 Mark’s gospel is a fiction. It is a myth, and one that

is not based on an historical figure. Jesus’
biography was created by the early church. The
four Gospels are massively inconsistent and
historically contradictory. The death story of Jesus
was written for theological reasons and is largely
based on the Jewish Scriptures.

SUMMARY OF PART 2 THE JESUS AND PAUL FACTIONS

In summary, Christianity began with Paulinism. Its

apostle was Paul who supposedly experienced a mystical
union with a spiritual Christ who died in the mythic past
and was then glorified. Current Mark took the Pauline
Christ and historicized him, in time producing a unified
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orthodoxy. The divinized human Jesus of Mark caught
on, leaving the Gnostics far behind. A god-man who
recently lived on earth (Matthew and Luke) differentiated
Christianity from all other mystery religions and from
Gnosticism.

The polarized wings of the church had struggled with

Gnosticism, the popular Mysteries, Jews, Stoic-Cynics,
and “heretics.” In the end, Irenaeus and the other
centrists triumphed, but only at a great cost, namely the
sacrifice of the original religion, Paulinism. The founder,
Paul, was reduced to a mere apostle, and at that, one who
was soon to be eclipsed by Peter. The centrists accepted
Mark’s historicization of Paul’s mythic Christ and the
religion became “orthodox” Christianity.

Jesus Christ was declared God at the Council of Nicaea in

325 CE.

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CHAPTER 12 DID JESUS EVER LIVE? BY JOSEPH
MCCABE. REBUTTAL BY THE DALTONS.

Quotes by McCabe:

The chief teachings, even the phrases and sentiments to

a great extent, were common to priests of Isis, Serapis,
Esmun, Apollo, Mithra, Ahura- Mazda, and Jahveh, as
well as wandering Stoic apostles. (As to the moral
teachings of Jesus, as we have shown above, much of his
moral teachings are from the Stoics except for all that
punishment in Hell and rewards in Heaven.)

Every single moral sentiment attributed to Christ in the

Gospels has several parallels in the literature of the time.
There is not one point in the "teaching of Christ" that was
new to the world.

The chief doctrinal features of the Christ of the Gospels --

the birth, death, and resurrection -- were familiar myths
at the time, and were borrowed from "the pagans."

End of McCabe quotes.

DID JESUS EVER LIVE? BY JOSEPH MCCABE.

THE MODERN DENIAL

THERE were hundreds of Jesuses. A life of the Rabbi

Hillel, if we had one suitably embroidered with miracles,
would be a life of Jesus. A life of the slave-moralist,
Epictetus, if we had one, would be a perfect life of Jesus.
The life which we have of the wandering apostle
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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
Apollonius of Tyana is a life of Jesus. ( He was not the
product of virginal conception; therefore, he was not
semi-divine. He did not work miracles nor rise from the
dead. ) The chief teachings, even the phrases and
sentiments to a great extent, were common to priests of
Isis, Serapis, Esmun, Apollo, Mithra, Ahura- Mazda, and
Jahveh, as well as wandering Stoic apostles. (As to the
moral teachings of Jesus, as we have shown above, much
of his moral teachings are from the Stoics except for all
that punishment in Hell and rewards in Heaven.)

Every single moral sentiment attributed to Christ in the

Gospels has several parallels in the literature of the time.
There is not one point in the "teaching of Christ" that was
new to the world. Even the parables were borrowed from
the Jewish Rabbis. (The parables of the Rabbis were too
late for Jesus to have borrowed them. Most modern
scholars would, however, agreed that the moral teachings
of Jesus have much in common with Stoicism.) The chief
doctrinal features of the Christ of the Gospels -- the birth,
death, and resurrection -- were familiar myths at the
time, and were borrowed from "the pagans." (We agree
though many modern scholars would not agree. But see
Robert M. Price who believes that the " historical " data of
the New Testament and much else was created by
symbolically interpreting material from the Jewish
Scriptures (Old Testament). Also, Price, like McCabe,
believes that the NT derived much from pagan myths that
were popular in the Ancient World.

What we see, in fact, is evolution in religion. The ideas

pass on from age to age, a mind here and a mind there

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adding or refining a little. The slow river of human
evolution had entered its rapids. The mingling of twenty
nations in a series of world-empires had brought about
such a clash of ideas as the world had never seen since
until our time. Every possible shade of moral idealism
and religious thought was represented, from Alexandria
to Rome. (Well, the reader will note that in our present
book, as well as our previous book on Jesus, that we
believe that the first century of the Roman Empire was
the main source of Christianity.) You could blot Christ
out of the history of the first three centuries of the
"Christian Era" -- what happened after that is a different
matter, as we shall see in due time -- and it would make
no more difference than cutting a single tree out of a
well-wooded landscape.

Blot out Christ! Yes, that is what many serious scholars

are now attempting to do, and we must consider that
first. It is, to the Rationalist, to any man who resents this
long distraction of the (human) race by the Christian
religion, a tempting proposition. Suppose we could prove
that there never had been on this earth such a person as
Jesus! What an ironic consummation! Yet this modern
denial is so weighty that we find so cautious and courtly
an authority as Sir J.G. Frazer writing, in his
introduction to Dr. P.L. Couchoud's recent "Enigma of
Jesus," that "whether Dr. Couchoud be right or wrong" in
denying the historicity of Jesus, "he appears to have laid
his finger on a weak point in the chain of evidence on
which hangs the religious faith of a great part of civilized
mankind." (For modern scholars, see Robert M. Price
above.)
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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
THE FICTION OF THE GOSPELS

No Christian writer mentions one of our four Gospels

until a hundred years after the death of Christ or makes
any clear and certain quotation from any one of them.

It is not until about 140 or 150 A.D. that Christian

writers refer to and quote from the Gospels. (Agree.)

The less learned of the clergy pour fine scorn on the

modern denial of the historicity of Jesus. It is a humorous
illustration, they say, of the extravagances of the spirit of
denial. There is a legend amongst them that an
archbishop once showed that on the same principles you
could prove that Napoleon I never existed: which
certainly would be a humorous thing to do, as there were
plenty of people still living in the archbishop's time who
had actually seen Napoleon! I have myself known old
ladies who remembered his death.

The ordinary believer is startled by, and is apt to be

impatient of, the very question which forms the title of
this chapter. But a very little reflection, if he will
condescend to it, will show him that it is a quite serious
question. A number of characters whose historical
existence was as certain as the sun to whole ages -- King
Arthur, Homer, William Tell, etc. -- have proved to be
legendary. Adam is certainly a legend: Moses and
Abraham are most probably legends: Zarathustra is
doubtful. if the historicity of Jesus is so very certain,
there must be some quite indisputable witnesses to it.
Who are they?

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The Gospels. Now, just as science is said to be
"organized common sense," so modern scientific history
organizes or directs common sense in these matters. Who
wrote the Gospels? No one knows. They are entitled
"According to Matthew," etc., not "by Matthew," etc., in
the oldest Greek manuscripts and in early references to
them. Indeed, even if they professed to be written by
Matthew, etc., it would not follow that they were. But they
do not profess this. Many scholars think, on very slender
grounds, that the third Gospel was actually written by
Luke. We shall see; though it matters little for our
purpose, as the writer expressly says that he was not an
eye-witness. He is, he says (i, 1-3), writing down for a
friend, as "many" others have done before him, an
account of what they have heard about Jesus.

What we want to know about the Gospels is whether the

men who wrote them were in a position to know the facts.
In ordinary history we ask two questions about any
writer: what was his knowledge of the facts, and is he
truthful? In dealing with religious documents, especially
Oriental documents, we have to be particularly critical.
Let me illustrate this.

About twenty years ago Mr. Myron H. Phelps wrote an

account ("Life and Teachings of Abbas Effendi") of the
origin of the new Babi or Babai religion which was then
finding adherents in America. It arose out of the teaching
of a Persian reformer, Ali Mohammed, called "the Bab"
(gate). Like Christ, but in the year 1844 A.D., Ali
Mohammed set out to reform the accepted creed and to
bring people back to the worship of a purely spiritual

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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
God. He and hundreds of his followers were put to death,
in 1850, by a combination of Persian priests and
government; and what Sir J.G. Frazer calls "the bribe of
immortality" had no place in the faith of those fearless
martyrs. But the significant point is this: two or three
years after the death of the Bab his life was written, and it
was a purely human account of a Christ-like man; but
some decades later a new life appeared richly
embroidered with miracles in the Gospel manner!

What happened in the East in the nineteenth century

could, surely, happen in the first century. If these lives of
Jesus, the Gospels, were not written until some decades
after his death, we must read them with great caution. (
Another good argument by McCabe that the Gospels
should not be taken as evidence of an historical Jesus.)
The American Fundamentalist, who is the last to realize
this, ought to be the first. He knows well how Catholic
enthusiasm still makes miracles at Lourdes and St.
Anne. Enthusiasm, even innocently, always glorifies its
cause with miracles. In the early days of Spiritualism an
eminent British judge published some remarkable
experiences he had had a few years before; and he was
compelled, in great confusion, to admit that his memory
was entirely wrong and he had misstated the facts in
every important detail. It is therefore most important to
know when the Gospels were written. If they were not
written until several decades after the death of Christ -- if
the stories about Christ passed merely from mouth to
mouth in an Oriental world for a whole generation at least
after his death -- it is neither reasonable nor honest to
put implicit faith in them. There were no journals in those
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days. Few people could read and write. Moreover, the
Jews were scattered over the earth by the Romans in the
year 70 A.D.; and the Christians had previously been
scattered by the Jews themselves. What should we make
of a story going from mouth to mouth in such conditions
as these for several decades?

However, let us approach the subject on common-sense

lines. How are we to test whether the writers of the
Gospels knew the facts and did not merely put on
parchment what was being said in the obscure and
scattered Christian communities? Some Christian
writers try to apply what are called internal tests. They
say that the description of places and customs and daily
life in Judea is so confident and precise in the Gospels
that the writers were evidently familiar with the country
in the time of Christ.

Tests of this kind are very delicate and uncertain. In one

of Mr. H.G. Wells' novels -- "Marriage," I think -- the story
is partly located in Labrador, which is minutely and
accurately described. I found that few people had any
doubt but that Wells had been there. But, when the able
novelist was writing that book, he told me that he had
just collected all the available books on Labrador and was
"steeping himself" in the subject. He has never been near
Labrador. Similarly, Prescott, the vivid American
historian of the conquest of Mexico and Peru, never saw
either land. He was blind.

A careful writer can easily "get up" a country in this way

-- Keeping common sense as our guide, however, we will
not suppose that a number of early Christians "got up on"
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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
Galilee and Judea in order to write lives of Jesus. In point
of fact, they have only a very general and often inaccurate
knowledge. Mark is generally admitted to be the oldest
Gospel, and it is by no means detailed and precise in
topography. (True the semiliterate of Mark did not get
even the geography of Palestine correct but it should be
added that neither Mark nor any evangelist has any
accurate picture of the fundamentals of the religion of
Judaism, nor did Jesus or Paul.) In others, such as Luke,
there are historical errors. Luke admittedly did not know
Judea.

But we need not linger over tests of this sort. Take the
book of Daniel. It is as vivid and precise and
circumstantial as any Gospel; and it is quite
demonstrably a forgery written centuries after the time it
describes. We should say the same of a very great deal of
the Old Testament. Such tests are useless. They would
break down hopelessly in Homer. They would prove that
Dante had really visited hell. They would make Keats a
native of Corinth.

The first condition of any confidence in the Gospels is to

ascertain that the writers lived within a reasonable time
of the events described; and one hundred and fifty years
of biblical scholarship have not succeeded in finding any
proof of that. At present the general opinion is that Mark,
the oldest Gospel, was written between 65 and 70 A.D.;
and Matthew and Luke in the last decade of the first
century; and John in the second century. ( Modern
scholars would agree with these dates more or less.)
Mark, it will be remembered, knows nothing about the

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miraculous birth of Christ; the first account of that turns
up at least ninety years after the supposed event!
Moreover, the resurrection story and other details are not
supposed, and cannot be proved by anybody, to have
been in Mark by the year 70. (It should be noted that
modern scholars recognize that the resurrection
appearances in Mark were added to his gospel more than
a century after it was written.)

Scholars have come to the conclusion that there existed

at first a simple sketch of the life of Jesus which is the
groundwork of the first three Gospels (and is best seen in
Mark) and a collection of teachings which is most used by
Matthew. At what date this sketch was written nobody
knows. What precisely was in it nobody knows. You
cannot put your finger on a single verse and say that it is
part of the original Gospel. (True) And, even if you could,
there is not a scrap of evidence that it was written within
thirty years of the death of Christ. Remember Ali
Mohammed and his miracles!

If a religious reader thinks that he can dismiss all this as

"Higher Criticism stuff," and points out how much these
critics have changed their theories and how contradictory
they are, let him reflect on his own position. He trusts the
Gospels without any evidence whatever; without making
the least inquiry into their authority. His preachers
dogmatically say that the Gospels were "inspired" --
though the opening verses of Luke plainly say the
contrary -- and he takes their word as simply as a child
does.

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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
This "Higher Criticism," which he hears so much reviled,
is a very serious and conscientious effort of Christian
divines, sustained now for more than a hundred years, to
prove that the Gospels are worthy of ordinary historical
credence. In the case shall that a given item It has failed.
The miraculous birth, the death on the cross, the
resurrection and ascension, and the healing miracles, it
is compelled to sacrifice altogether. By great effort it then
concludes that some sort of, small Gospel or life of Jesus
was in existence thirty years after the death of Christ; but
that is too late to be reliable, and no one knows exactly
what it said.

Moreover, while there is no evidence at all that the

Gospels, our Gospels, existed before the end of the first
century, there is very serious evidence that they did not.
No Christian writer mentions one of our four Gospels
until a hundred years after the death of Christ or makes
any clear and certain quotation from any one of them.
That is serious, surely. Yes, you may say, if it is true; but
it may be another bit of Higher Criticism or of
Rationalism. It is not. It is the very serious verdict of a
committee of historians and divines appointed to study
this question by the Oxford (University) Society of
Historical Theology, an ecclesiastical society. They
courageously published this disappointing result of their
labors in "The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers"
(1905). (Yes, we personally are inclined to put the Gospels
in their final state after 100 CE.)

Pope St. Clement of Rome, for instance, wrote an

important letter, which we have, about 96 A.D.; and a

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second letter bearing his name, though probably a
Christian forgery, was written later. About the same time,
or a little earlier, there were the so-called "Epistle of
Barnabas" and the first part of the "Teaching of the
Apostles." These never quote from, or refer to, the
Gospels. For the first three decades of the second century
we have the second part of the "Teaching," the "Pastor"
(supposed to be by "Hermas"), and letters of Bishops
Ignatius and Polycarp. Not one of these mentions the
Gospels or makes a clear quotation from them. They
quote certain words which roughly correspond to words
in Matthew, Luke and (at a late date) John; but this
proves nothing, as by the second century these sayings of
Christ certainly circulated in the Church. We must say
the same of the "Sayings of Our Lord" (or "Logia"), a
second-century fragment containing seven "sayings," two
of which are in the Gospels. It has no significance
whatever, unless it be to discredit the Gospels. The writer
clearly knew of no Gospel collections.

It is not until about 140 or 150 A.D. that Christian

writers refer to and quote from the Gospels. They are
clearly known to Justin, Marcion and Papias. The latter,
the Bishop of Herapolis, an ignorant and credulous man
who writes a good deal which nobody now believes, is
known to us only from quotations in the fourth century
historian Eusebius; a man who notoriously held that the
use of statements to the Church was more important
than their accuracy. This fourth-century quotation of a
second-century obscure bishop is the only "serious"
evidence for the Gospels! Papias says that he learned
from older men that Mark and Matthew really wrote
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Gospels. That is not evidence that any historian would
credit, and, in fact, divines do not believe it. (And modern
scholars too.)

In order to realize the full significance of this, it is

necessary to know a little more about the early Christian
world than a Christian usually knows. He imagines just a
loyal group of virtuous men and women meeting secretly
here and there, at Corinth or Ephesus or Thessalonica, to
break bread and pray to Jesus. On the contrary, from
about 50 to 150 A.D., early Christianity was a most
intense ferment of contradictory speculations. Greek,
Persian, Jewish, Egyptian, and all kinds of religious ideas
were blended with Christianity. We know the names of at
least a score of Christian intellectual leaders and sects of
the time. Gradually, of course, these people were thrust
outside the Church and called "Gnostics"; but in the first
century and the early part of the second Christian
communities everywhere swarmed with these mystics.

It was in such a world that the Gospels gradually took

shape. The idea of the average believer, that someone sat
down one day and, under inspiration, wrote a "Gospel
according to Matthew," and so on, is naively unhistorical.
The writer of Luke indicates what happened. For decades
the faithful merely talked about Christ. Men like Paul
went from group to group, much as the cheapest types of
revivalists do today, and talked about Jesus. Probably
few of them could read, in any case; and Paul, to judge by
his Epistles, had very little to say about an earthly life of
Jesus. (See below the excerpt from our previous book on
Jesus on the silence of Paul as to the historical Jesus.)

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Then, here and there, some who could write put upon
parchment what was being said. All sorts of wild and
contradictory stories about Jesus were going about. (The
Gospels contain numerous contradictions and
inconsistencies both as to the teachings of Jesus and the
events of his life.) Our four Gospels are just four that were
selected in the fourth century out of a large number.
These little biographies and lists of "sayings" grew larger
and larger. There was no central authority to check them;
the various communities were a day's, or even a week's,
journey apart; and travel was costly for poor folk. There
was not the slightest approach to what we call
standardization.

So it is mere waste of time to write a Life of Jesus by a

sort of intelligent selection of what you think is probable
in the Gospels. All the Rationalist and other such
biographies, from Strauss and Renan to Papini, are just
subjective compilations. You may think it probable that
Jesus really did this or that, but you cannot call it an
historical fact because it is in the Gospels. The figure of
Jesus, the biography, grew, as time went on. And, since
that growth took place, during at least half a century of
unchecked speculation and argumentation, in a world of
Oriental mysticism and theosophy, you see the strength
of the writers who hold that Jesus (as many of the
Gnostics held) never was a man at all.

JEWISH AND PAGAN WITNESSES

We may conclude that no non-Christian writer of the

first century mentions Christ.

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On the very day on which I begin to write this chapter,
the leading Sunday newspaper of Britain, the Observer,
has a prominent article on "Jesus Christ in History." The
pretext of it -- a claim that new evidence has been found
-- I will discuss presently; but a part of the article must
have surprised many people.

The writer is an orthodox and respected English

theologian, Dr. Burch. He is going to publish a book
about this supposed new evidence for the historicity of
Jesus. Meantime, as his publishers naturally will not
allow him to give away the great secret, he writes articles
in connection with it.

In this article he deals with "the scantiness of references

to Christ in the histories which have come down to us."
He quotes "the ablest Jewish book on the whole subject,"
Klausner's recent "Jesus of Nazareth", and he shows
that, in the way of non-biblical witnesses to Christ, we
have only "twenty-four lines" from Jewish and pagan
writers, and four of those are spurious. Of the twenty
genuine lines twelve (which are almost universally
regarded as spurious) are in the Jewish historian
Josephus. In the immense Latin literature of the century
after the death of Jesus there are only eight lines; and
each of these is disputed.

Certainly a disturbing silence from the Christian point of

view. We might argue that, since the Jews were very
hostile to the Christians, their great writers, Philo and
Josephus, would be not unnaturally reluctant to speak
about them. We might suggest that the teaching and
crucifixion of Jesus, more than a thousand miles away
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from Rome, in a very despised province, would not be
likely to come even to the notice of a Roman writer. Yet
how strange, how ironic, that God should have lived on
earth, for the salvation of men during thirty years, and
consummated a great sacrifice which dwarfs every other
event in human history, and the stream of literature can
flow on for a hundred years without more than half a
dozen disputed lines on these transcendent miracles!

We are trying to take a common sense view of religious

problems, using whatever aid we can get from modern
science and modern history. Now from that point of view
there does not seem to be much importance in this
discussion of the non-Christian references to Christ. We
have to deal with them because the theme of this chapter
is the historicity of Christ, and we have to ask whether,
since there are no Christian witnesses except the late and
anonymous Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, there are
any Jewish or pagan witnesses. But for the reasons I
have just given I should not be greatly astonished if there
were none at all. What was Jesus, or the Jesus cult, to
the Greeks and Romans of the first century? One Asiatic
superstition amongst many. They would hardly hear of it.
It was only when Christianity became an organized
religion, giving trouble to the imperial authorities, that
they could be expected to notice it.

The argument is less strong as regards the Jewish

writers. The more learned of these, Philo, who was born
about the same time as Jesus, could scarcely be expected
to mention Jesus and his followers. He was an
Alexandrian Jew, and he wrote mainly on philosophy. An

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aristocrat of great wealth and culture, he would, even if
he heard during his visit to Jerusalem of the new sect,
not have any reason to speak of it in his works. His
silence can mean no more than that Christianity was not
of much importance in the world of his time.

It is very different with the historian Flavius Josephus.

He was a Palestinian Jew, born at Jerusalem in 37 A.D., a
man of high connections and great culture. He was
intensely interested in religious questions, and he gives
in one of his works so detailed an account of the Essenian
monks, with whom I shall suggest that Jesus was
connected, that many suspect that he may for a time
have lived in one of their monasteries. (The idea that
Jesus was Essenian is generally rejected by the vast
majority of scholars today, though it was a popular idea
in the time in which McCabe was writing – 1929.) After
the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) he resided in Rome
and wrote his works, the chief of which are his "History of
the Jewish War" and "Jewish Antiquities." In one or other
of these lengthy and exhaustive works he would, though
a Pharisee, reasonably be expected to speak of Jesus and
his followers. He even includes, in his "Jewish
Antiquities," a full and unflattering portrait of Pontius
Pilate; and he tells of other zealots and reformers than
Jesus in the Jewish history of the time.

Now in the "Jewish Antiquities," as we have the book, we

read the following passage (xviii, 3)

About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed

be

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should be called man. He wrought miracles, and
was a teacher
of those who gladly accept the truth, and had a
large
following among the Jews and pagans. He was the
Christ.
Although Pilate, at the complaint of the leaders of
our
people, condemned him to die on the cross, his
earlier
followers were faithful to him. For he appeared to
them alive
again on the third day, as god-sent prophets had
foretold this
and a thousand other wonderful things of him.
The people of
the Christians, which is called after him, survives
until the
present day.

This passage is so obviously spurious that it is

astonishing to find a single theologian left in our time
who accepts it. No competent theologian or historian
does. Josephus was a zealous Jew: and most of this is
rank blasphemy from the Jewish point of view. There is a
hint that Jesus was divine: he is said to have taught the
truth, to have wrought miracles, and to have risen from
the dead; and the messianic prophecies are expressly
referred to him. To imagine Josephus writing such things
is preposterous. It is a Christian interpolation.

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But was a real reference to Jesus cut out by the
Christian interpolator and replaced by this clumsy
forgery? I have always held that that is probable, though
some claim that the text of Josephus does not favor my
idea. (Most serious the Biblical scholars today reject the
clumsy forgery hypothesis that McCabe accepts.) The
passage about Jesus breaks in rather abruptly. Yet,
clumsy as the forger was -- making a zealous Jew
recognize Jesus as "the Christ (Anointed One-McCabe)"
and the Messiah at the very height of the bitter feud of
Jews and Christians -- he would hardly pick any random
page of the historian for his purpose. It seems to me not
unlikely that he found there a reference to Jesus, and it
would not be surprising if the last sentence of the
passage, which would be just as clumsy for a later
Christian to write, really is from the pen of Josephus.

We are told that an ancient Slavonic version of

Josephus' "Jewish War" (not the "Antiquities") has been
discovered, and that it contains testimony to the
historicity of Christ. This may be one of two things. It may
be a Christian interpolation in the "Jewish War"
corresponding to the interpolation in the "Antiquities": or
it may be a genuine Josephus reference to Jesus in sober
terms. The former supposition is by far the more
probable, since no later Christian would venture to cut
out a reference to Jesus from our Greek version of
Josephus (unless it was uncomplimentary-McCabe).

The next most important reference to Jesus is in the

"Annals" of the great Roman historian Tacitus (xv, 44). He
mentions the fire which burned down the poorer quarters

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of Rome in the year 64 A.D. It was suspected that Nero
had ordered the fire, which caused great misery at the
time, and, Tacitus says, the Emperor diverted suspicion
by blaming the Christians for it and persecuting them. I
will translate the entire passage from the Latin:

In order to put an end to this rumor, therefore,

Nero laid the blame on, and visited with severe
punishment, those men, hateful for their crimes,
whom the people call Christians. He, from whom
the name was derived, Christus, was put to death
by the Procurator Pontius Pilatus in the reign of
Tiberius.

Tacitus goes on to describe how "an immense multitude"

of Christians were put to death with fiendish torments,
and were convicted "not so much of the crime of arson as
of hatred of the human race."

This passage has many peculiar features. There cannot

possibly have been "an immense multitude" of Christians
at Rome in 64 A.D. There were not more than a few
thousand two hundred years later. It sounds like a
Christian interpolation. On the other hand, Tacitus has
one of the most distinctive and difficult styles in Latin
literature, and, if this whole passage is a forgery, it is a
perfect imitation. We must, however, not press that
argument too far. It is only the few words about the
crucifixion that matter, and a good Latin scholar could
easily achieve that. Professor Drews' indeed, who has a
long and learned dissertation on the passage, believes it
to be a forgery in its entirety, and argues that there was
no persecution of Christians under Nero. He is not
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convincing, and it is difficult to believe -- although there
have been other scholars who agreed with Drews -- that
the passage generally was not written by Tacitus. The
short sentence about Pilate may be an interpolation, but I
know the peculiarities of the style of Tacitus too well to
think the whole passage forged.

But why spend time over the matter? Tacitus is

supposed to have written this about the year 117 A.D., or
nearly eighty years after the death of Jesus. What does it
prove? Only that after the year 100 there was a general
belief in the Christian community that Jesus was
crucified at the order of Pontius Pilate. That is nothing
new. The reference to Pilate in I Timothy, whether Pauline
or not, must be as old as that. Three of the Gospels were
then written.

Some Christian writers argue that Tacitus must have

seen the official record of the crucifixion, It is neither
likely that any such official report would be sent to Rome
nor that Tacitus looked up the archives, seventy years
later, for such a thing. He was not the man to make such
research or to be interested in such a point. If the passage
is genuine, it shows only that there were in 117 A.D.
Christians in Rome who said these things -- which
nobody doubts; and it is not certainly genuine.

I am inclined to accept it because another Roman

historian of about the same date, Suetonius, has an
obscure passage, in his "Life of Claudius" (Chap". xxvi),
which seems to refer to the Christians: "Claudius
expelled the Jews from Rome because, at the instigation
of Chrestos, they were always making trouble." Chrestos
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was a not uncommon Greek name, and it is urged that it
may have nothing to do with Christ. Claudius died in the
year 54 A.D., and it is almost impossible to imagine that
there was sufficient sectarian fighting between Jews and
Christians at Rome over Christ -- that is the only sense
we can give to the sentence -- before the year 54. On the
other hand, the sentence would be quite meaningless as
a Christian interpolation. (As to the meaninglessness of
the Christian interpolation; this is silly the first century is
filled with documents created by Christians including the
Gospels. In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew Christ dies
on the cross with the words - why have you –God-
forsaken me?)

On the whole, since it would be too remarkable a

coincidence to find the Jews rioting about a Greek named
Chrestos when they were actually rioting about Christ, I
prefer to think that Suetonius has heard, and has written
in a confused way, about the Jewish reformer Christ.
(Jesus could not have been the Jewish reformer. His
ignorance and hatred of things Jewish, including
Judaism, is way to massive.) But it is of even less value
than Tacitus. By the year 120 or 130 the cult of Christ
was spread over the Roman world, and that is all that the
mention by Suetonius implies.

Of Dr. Burch's twenty lines there remain only five in a

letter of Pliny the younger to the Emperor Trajan. They
say that the Christians were numerous enough in the
province of Bithvnia (Asia Minor), of which Pliny was
Governor, to cause him concern. But he speaks of them
as respectable, law-abiding folk who meet to sing hymns

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at day-break to Christ "as a God." A number of scholars
have disputed the authenticity of the passage or the
whole letter; and it hardly seems plausible that a
Proconsul should write to the Emperor about such a
matter. We need not, however, go into this. It follows only
that by 113 there were a good many Christians in Asia
Minor. Apologists merely reveal the desperate poverty of
their case when they quote such things as these Latin
sentences to prove that Jesus really lived nearly a
century before. (Yes, these desperate attempts by
Christian apologist to find external evidence as to the
existence of Jesus are - desperate. Thus, these late
quotations which really proves nothing because as
McCabe says we know that Christians existed by the time
of the second century.)

We may conclude that no non-Christian writer of the

first century mentions Christ -- Josephus being equivocal
and certainly actually adulterated -- and references in
the second century are of no value at all. I repeat,
however, that this need not impress us much. Josephus
is the only writer who could reasonably be expected to
mention Christ, and we do not know whether or not be
did. The Christians remained a very obscure sect in a
world that was seething with sects. That is all we can
infer; and we knew it. (McCabe could have mentioned
that one of the big proofs offered by early Christians was
that the religion had to be valid since the rapid expansion
of Christianity which they imagined occurred, could only
have done so with the help of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it was
necessary to dig up external witnesses as to the early and
thus rapid spread of the religion.)
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A BROAD VIEW

The more the Modernist feels compelled to sacrifice the

miracles and divinity of Jesus, the more zealous he is to
magnify the grandeur of his personality.

There is no "figure of Jesus" in the Gospels. There are a

dozen figures.

Must we, then, despair of finding any human Jesus at

all, and suppose that he is a myth who became man in
the imaginations of his followers?

There are some very potent reasons why I cannot agree

with my learned friends in this.

It seems probable that the phenomena of a Christianity

in the first century imply an historical personage.

Beyond any question there were great numbers of

Christian churches in existence before the end of the first
century.

The Epistles of Paul take us back to about the middle of

the first century. (For the use of Paul to establish the
historicity of Jesus, see our excerpt below on the
significance of the silence of Paul on the historical Jesus.)

Moreover, Paul, as we saw, habitually speaks of Cephas

and others who were actual companions of Jesus.

I conclude only that it is more reasonable to believe in

the historicity of Jesus.

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(McCabe, in the first three sections, presents a pretty
good case for making the claim that Jesus never lived!
But in the “Broad View” section he presents very little
evidence for the thesis that Jesus actually existed as we
will show in what follows.)

It is a commonplace of religious literature that, if the

Jesus of the Gospels did not exist, the creation of his
personality by some obscure writers of the first century
must itself be considered a miracle. Jesus is said to be
"the grandest figure in all literature," and so on. The more
the Modernist feels compelled to sacrifice the miracles
and divinity of Jesus, the more zealous he is to magnify
the grandeur of his personality.

Let us try, on the sober common-sense lines which we

are following, to form an impartial opinion on this "figure
of Jesus." Many Rationalist writers have used language
about him just as superlative as that of the liberal
theologians. Renan thought that there was "something
divine" about Jesus. J.S. Mill was little less
complimentary. Even Conybeare uses very high
language. On the other hand, G.B. Shaw (in the preface
to "Androcles") bluntly says that Jesus was insane.
George Moore (in the preface to his "Apostle" -- one of the
most refreshing impressions of the Gospels that you
could read) says that the figure of Christ in Luke, to
which the preachers generally turn, is "a lifeless, waxen
figure, daintily curled, with tinted cheeks, uttering pretty
commonplaces gathered from 'The Treasury of the Lowly'
as he goes by." A collection of the sayings about Jesus by

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able writers would beautifully illustrate the truth that on
such subjects scarcely anybody tells the truth.

I have not the least interest in belittling the figure of

Jesus. A liberal parson once genially asked me to "take off
my hat to the universe." I replied that I was not a fool; but
that I would not mind raising my hat to the figure of
Christ on the cross -- or of Bruno at the stake or Socrates
in prison. But, mind you, these others met death more
serenely than Jesus did: I mean, if we are to take Jesus
as he is described in the Gospels. No amount of
theological ingenuity will explain that "sweat of blood" in
the garden of Gethsemane; and, if you point to the
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," I
point to the other words, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?"

If you recall how Jesus loved little children, I remind you

how by his advocacy of virginity as the higher ideal he cut
at the root of family life and blighted love, and how he
believed in eternal torment for people of weak will. If you
bring up the gentleness to the adulterous woman, I
remind you of the bitter and rather vulgar abuse of the
Pharisees, to which you will find no parallel in any pagan
moralist of the time. In the Gospels Jesus utters hardly a
single sentiment which, apart from chastity, he does not
violate. He even scorns synagogues and meeting-places,
and then founds a Church. He has not one word of
guidance in the great problems of social life because he
believes that the world is coming to an end. He is the
archetype of the Puritans: scornful of all that is fair in life,
bitter and unjust to those who differ from him, quite

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impracticable -- nay foolish -- in many of his counsels. It
is absurd to say that our modern world has any use for
Christ.

Now, the plain solution of all this tissue of

contradictions, this mixture of sentiments of humanity
with fierce intolerance, this gentleness to women and
children and scorn of love and comfort, is quite easy after
what we have seen: a dozen different conceptions of
Jesus have been blended -- or, not blended, mixed
together -- in these composite writings which we call the
Gospels. Theologians have for ages perspired in
attempting to reconcile the two different genealogies and
other contradictions. It is a waste of time. One man did
not write any Gospel. One spirit did not dictate them.
They embody the contradictory opinions of the isolated
and often hostile communities in different parts of the
Greco-Roman world. There is no "figure of Jesus" in the
Gospels. There are a dozen figures. It was not the same
man who made Jesus love children and scorn his mother.
It was not the same man who made Jesus turn water into
wine for marriage roisterers (probably singing what we
now call indecent songs) and then advise us to live on
bread and sleep on stones: who made Jesus the warm
friend of the painted lady of Magdala and the advocate of
barren isolation from all that is human. Jesus of
Nazareth became in time the Jesus of Tarsus, of
Ephesus, of Corinth, of Antioch, of Alexandria, and so on.
The figure of the pale enthusiast was shaped and colored
differently in a score of different environments. Paul's
letters picture them for us. To one group he has to talk
much about fornication and feasting, to another about
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correct ritual, to another about points of theology, and so
on. (Agreed.)

Must we, then, despair of finding any human Jesus at

all, and suppose that he is a myth who became man in
the imaginations of his followers?

There are some very potent reasons why I cannot agree

with my learned friends in this. Let it be understood that
there is no reason for bias either way. No Rationalist
could in our time -- what-ever might be said of Matthew
Arnold or Renan or Mill -- be tempted to think that
favoring the historicity of Jesus lessened the odium of his
position. Most people now do not care a cent what you
think about Jesus. (Today, there is much interest in
“finding the real Jesus".)

It seems probable that the phenomena of a Christianity

in the first century imply an historical personage. I have
not made a special study of the point, but from a general
knowledge of Hindu and Chinese sacred literature I
should say that we have less evidence of the personal
existence of Kong-fu-tse or Buddha than of Jesus. The
documents are even further removed from the events
than the Epistles and Gospels are. Yet no historian
doubts their historicity. Dr. Couchoud tells of a learned
Buddhist priest who seems to have wondered how far
Buddha was historical. But it is not clear from his five or
six words to Dr. Couchoud that he meant more than that
actual details of Buddha's life were unreliable, as in the
case of Jesus.

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Broad views are often the best views. We have a large
number of historical and literary events to explain.
Beyond any question there were great numbers of
Christian churches in existence before the end of the first
century. (Mostly this is in Acts of the Apostles, which we
believe was a late second century forgery. Note, that the
main actor in this fantasy was neither Paul nor Peter but
the Holy Spirit!) Probably Peter was never at Rome, but
the other Roman bishops named, from about 70 A.D.
onward, are not doubted.(But there is doubt in the minds
of most modern Biblical scholars.) This group was a
thousand miles from Judea; and there were churches all
the way between, with overseers (bishops), elders
(priests), and servers (deacons). Lives of Jesus were
circulating amongst them, and, with all respect to
Professor Smith, those lives or Gospels do
unquestionably represent Jesus as a man, living in
Judea. The Church made short work of the Gnostics who
held that Jesus was never contaminated by a bodily
frame. (The Christians did not make short work of the
Gnostics. See The works of Elaine Pagels and also check
out the Gnostic elements in the letters of Paul and in the
Gospel of John.) Basilides, one of the ablest of the
Gnostics, an Alexandrian, tried to teach in the first half of
the second century that Jesus was never a man; and the
whole Church promptly and emphatically repudiated
him. He had to found a special half-Persian,
half-Christian sect.

The Epistles of Paul take us back to about the middle of

the first century. There are then groups of Christians in
every large city. They have no bishops or priests in the
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modern sense, but there are "elders" (Timothy, Titus,
etc.), and there are some sort of higher men who appoint
them and consider complaints about their conduct. It is
clear that this situation existed certainly by 60 A.D. Paul
was closer in touch with them all than any other man
was. I am not relying on Acts, though part of it may be
fairly early, but on the generally accepted Epistles. And
Paul's gospel, which in these respects he does not find
challenged anywhere, is quite clear. His belief in the
physical resurrection of Jesus is, he admits, not accepted
by all. That belief is on a different plane, One could easily
be mistaken about it. But that Jesus was born, taught,
and was executed in Judea is at the very basis of Paul's
teaching; and he never mentions any member of a church
who doubts it. ( Except for one mention, he knows
nothing about the historical events of the passion of
Christ.) The Gnostics with their spiritual Jesus came
later.

Moreover, Paul, as we saw, habitually speaks of Cephas

and others who were actual companions of Jesus. (See
our excerpt below.) We have to deny the genuineness of
all the Epistles to doubt this. In II Corinthians (iv, 10)
Paul says that it is fourteen years since he first came to
believe in Jesus: that is to say, to believe that he was God,
not that he was man. So he joined the Christian body,
and mingled with them in Jerusalem, within less than
ten years of the execution of Jesus. No Jew there seems
to have told him that Jesus was a mere myth. In all the
bitter strife of Jew and Christian the idea seems to have
occurred to nobody. Setting aside the Gospels entirely,
ignoring all that Latin writers are supposed to have said
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in the second century, we have a large and roughly
organized body of Christians at a time when men were
still alive who remembered events of the fourth decade of
the century.

I conclude only that it is more reasonable to believe in

the historicity of Jesus. There is no parallel in history to
the sudden growth of a myth and its conversion into a
human personage in one generation. (It was a common
belief among educated Romans that the gods had once
been actual historical human beings. Does that mean
that they were?) Moreover, to these early Christians
Jesus is not primarily a teacher. A collection of wise
teachings might in time get a mythical name attached to
it -- though why the name "Jesus" it is hard to see and the
myth might in further time become a real person. But
from the earliest moment that we catch sight of
Christians in history the essence of their belief is that
Jesus was an incarnation, in Judea, of the great God of
the universe. (See our first book on Jesus, Jesus Christ A
Pagan Myth - Evidence That Jesus Never Existed, for
more on this subject.) The supreme emphasis is on the
fact that he assumed a human form and shed human
blood on a cross. So it seems to me far more reasonable,
far more scientific, far more consonant with the facts of
religious history which we know, to conclude that Jesus
was a man who was gradually turned into a God. ( Before
the reader swallows McCabe’s thesis please check out the
excerpt below on the silence of Paul on the historical
Jesus.)

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JESUS NEVER LIVED: REBUTTAL BY THE DALTONS.

THE SILENCE OF PAUL ABOUT (THE HISTORICAL) JESUS:

Birth

Now let us see what, if anything, Paul knows about the

historical Jesus or his disciples or family. We will focus
primarily on Galatians and 1 Corinthians, as these two
letters contain virtually all of Paul's supposed references
to the historical Jesus, his brother, and his disciples.

Paul says that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under

the law” (Gal 4.4), but the Apostle supplies no historical
detail. Paul knows of no birthplace and Jesus could have
been born a hundred years before Paul. In his single
reference to Jesus’ ancestry, Paul says that Jesus “was
descended from David according to the flesh,” i.e., was of
Jewish royal descent (Rom 1.3-4). We agree with Earl
Doherty, (The Jesus Puzzle) that Paul does not know that
Christ is a descendant of David. We think the entire
passage (Rom 1.1-7) is an interpolation, since Paul
nowhere else gives any historical data as to the ancestry
of Jesus; and Rom 1.1-4 contains much detail unknown
to Paul and Mark, the earliest Christian writings. Many
scholars have questioned the integrity of these two
passages from Galatians and Romans.

“Lord’s Supper”

Paul describes the “Lord’s Supper” at 1 Cor 11.23-29, but

the integrity of this passage has been much questioned.
Jesus’ words, “this is my body and blood... Do this in

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remembrance of me,...” are closest to Luke’s account, but
Paul died about 64 CE, 25 years before Luke wrote his
gospel (ca 85 CE).

Human Nature of Jesus

Paul’s most detailed depiction of the human nature of

Jesus occurs at Phil 2.6-11. This pre-Pauline hymn says
that Jesus Christ “was in the form of God,... that he
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in
human likeness... he humbled himself, and became
obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”
Finally, the hymn adds that after Jesus’ death, God
“exalted him” above all others. There is nothing else in
the “genuine” letters of Paul about a divine figure
descending from heaven and becoming human. The
hymn was inserted by later editor.

Again, Paul refers to Jesus’ crucifixion but gives no

historical detail. At I Thess 2.14-15 Paul says that “the
Jews” killed “the Lord Jesus.” R. Brown lists some
arguments that scholars have given against the Pauline
authorship of this passage which Brown, nevertheless,
accepts as genuine:

1) The letter gives a second thanksgiving,

indicating that the letter is a composite.

2) The passage says that Jews are “enemies of the

human race,” a common pagan slander.

3) The letter states that divine wrath has overcome

the Jews, a reference to the first war with Rome (66-70
CE) which occurred after Paul’s death about 64 CD..
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Against Brown, most modern scholars have concluded
that 1 Thess 2.14-15 was inserted by the early church.
Earl Doherty in The Jesus Puzzle, lists some of the
scholars who have found this to be so:

 Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament? p

113;

 Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians, p 9, n

117;

 Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament,

vol. 2, p 113;

 Pheme Perkins, Harper’s Bible Commentary, p

1230,1231-2;

 S.G.F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the

Christian Church, p 92-93;

 Paula Fredericksen, From Jesus to Christ, p 122.

 We would add J.D. Crossan who, in Who Killed

Jesus?, asserts that the whole account of the
Jewish trial is fiction.

Paul knows that Christ was “resurrected,” but he does

not know where or when. In 1 Corinthians, Paul preaches
that, “Jesus died, was buried, and raised on the third day
according to the scriptures” (1 Cor 15.3-4), a passage
which many scholars think is a creedal formula added by
a later editor. Following this is Paul's list of resurrection
appearances: Jesus first appeared to Cephas and the
twelve (1 Cor 15.5); then to the 500 disciples (vs. 6); then

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to James and all the apostles (vs. 7); and finally Jesus
appeared to Paul himself (vs. 8). Scholars have found
many problems with this passage, one of which is that it
is inconsistent with the other passages dealing with
Jesus' resurrection appearances as described in the four
Gospels and in Acts of the Apostles.

As we saw in Chapter 8, Mark does not assert that Jesus

physically arose from the dead, but was translated or
transformed after death. This is also true of Paul
elsewhere in his letters.

Paul's Savior is not Mark's historical Jesus, but the

Christ, a triumphant and divine figure of glory from the
mythic past.

The Silence of Paul on (the Historical) Peter and other

disciples

There is evidence in Paul’s letters of general conflict

within the early church. Paul warns his flock to watch out
for those who would cause dissensions and offenses
contrary to what they have learned (Rom 16.17). He says
there are false apostles who preach a perverted gospel
and “another Jesus” (2 Cor 11.4-8,13-14,22-33; Gal
1.6-9); he warns that they “will pay the penalty” (Gal
5.10,12).

Paul did not know Peter. His references to Peter, John

and James were added by an editor in an attempt to
prove that the Apostle knew these associates of Jesus,
thus establishing a link between Paul's Christ and the
historical Jesus.

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Paul says that his gospel “is not of human origin; for I did
not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it,
but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal
1.11-12). He says, God “set me apart before I was born”
and revealed “his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him
among the Gentiles” (Gal 1.15-16; 1 Cor 1.1; 2 Cor 1.1,
Phil 1.1, Rom 1.1). Paul writes that after his conversion,
he “did not confer with any human being, nor did (he) go
up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles
before (him) “ but... went away at once into Arabia....”
(Gal 1.16-17). In about 40 CE, three years after his
conversion, Paul says he visited Cephas for fifteen days in
Jerusalem and also saw James, the Lord’s brother (Gal
1.19), but Paul insists that he did not receive any part of
his gospel from Peter, Cephas, James, or any other
human being.

About 14 years after his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul

writes that he received a revelation from God, and again
went to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas and Titus
(Gal 2.1-2). Paul meets privately in Jerusalem with the
supposed “acknowledged leaders” (James, Cephas and
John) but he again flatly asserts that they “contributed
nothing to me,” (Gal 2.2,6). In other words, Paul insists
that his gospel did not come from Jesus of Nazareth
through his disciples or his brother. Even if Peter is
Cephas, Paul does not indicate that he received truth
from him. Also, it would be anachronistic for Paul to refer
to Peter as Cephas, since Peter was not called by this
name until John 1.42, written decades later (ca 100 CE)
after Paul's death about 64 CE.

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 DID JESUS EVER LIVE?
An editor of Galatians attempted to convince his readers
that Paul knew Peter by having Paul explicitly say that
Peter’s gospel, as well as his own, came from God (Gal
2.7-8). We do not find any reference to this passage in
Christian writings until Irenaeus about 180 CE.
Tertullian, writing about 207 CE, knows about the
Jerusalem leaders shaking hands with Paul, i.e.,
approving of his mission to the non-Jews, but he knows
nothing of the statement that Peter's gospel came from
God.

Paul says he met with James, whom he describes as the

brother of Jesus, but only once, at Gal 1.19; a passage
which many scholars are wary of. After all, we last saw
James in Mark’s gospel, where he is depicted as an
unbeliever who thinks that Jesus is crazy and maybe
even possessed by Satan, and yet at the meeting in
Jerusalem we find James is apparently the head of the
church of Jerusalem!

Paul knows nothing about the disciples as depicted in

Mark and the other gospels. Paul never even hints that
Peter, James (excluding the brother passage), John, or
anyone else ever met Jesus, much less that they were his
disciples.

The silence of Paul on Jesus:

Finally, how can it be argued that Paul knew of the

historical Jesus when he is wholly ignorant of the Marcan
traditions about Jesus? Here are some items found in
Mark’s gospel but omitted in the Apostle’s letters. Paul
knows nothing of Bethlehem, Capernaum, Galilee,
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Nazareth, or Judea. Paul does not know of Judas, John
the Baptist, Herod Antipas, the high priest, or Pontius
Pilate. Before God and Christ Jesus I (Paul) give you a
command. Jesus is the one who confessed that same
wonderful truth when he stood before Pontius Pilate. And
God is the one who gives life to everything. 1 Timothy
6:13 (Virtually all serious scholars agree that this letter
was not written by Paul. It was probably written in the
second century CE long after Paul’s death about 64 CE.)
This passage did not appear in our first book on the
non-existence of Jesus.

He doesn’t mention the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin (which

supposedly tried Jesus), the scribes, or even that Jesus
had disciples. He uses the word Pharisee only once
(referring to himself at Phil 3.5). The apostle refers to
Cilicia but fails to mention the city of Tarsus, though Acts
says that he was born there. He mentions the Twelve one
time at 1 Cor 15.5, but does not associate the twelve with
the apostles. A major element of Judaism which he
ignores is the temple in Jerusalem, having only a single
reference to it at 1 Cor 9.13.

Also, Paul does not know of Jesus’ special teachings, his

cures, exorcisms, or other miracles. Paul knows only of
Jesus’ ahistorical death. He does not know of an
historical man who lived and died in Palestine about 30
CE. Paul's Christ was crucified in the mythic past and
returned to life as a god, a spiritual Christ. His Christ is
in the tradition of pagan gods like Osiris, Dionysius,
Mithras, and Hercules, all of whom suffered and died,
were transformed after death, becoming divine. For

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additional analysis of the silence of Paul about Jesus, see
Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle.

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 APPENDIX A EARLY JEWISH AND PAGAN
REFERENCES TO CHRISTIANS.
Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a
man...
Josephus Antiquities 18.63-64

... it would seem ridiculous to have a Jewish historian imply that Jesus was
'more than a man'... But ancient Christian forgers lived in their own world.
Authors

What Jewish literary witnesses are there to the existence

of Jesus? The first to Jewish author who provides
independent evidence for the first century existence of
early Christianity is Flavius Josephus (ca 37 – ca 95 CE),
a Jewish historian. As a general, he took part in the first
war of Judea with Rome (66-70 CE) and after his capture
by the Romans, became a favorite of the Roman general is
later emperor, Vespasian. Four books by the Jewish
historian are extant, his Vita (a brief autobiography), The
Jewish war, The Antiquities of the Jews, and Against
Apion (a defense of Jews). There are three passages in
Josephus's Antiquities that refer either to Jesus, his
brother James, or to John the Baptist. We will discuss
only the first two here as we have discussed the passage
of John the Baptist above.

James, the Brother of Jesus

After the death of the Roman procurator of Judea, and

before the arrival of a new one, the high priest Ananus
tried and executed some of his enemies. One of the
victims, according to Josephus, was a man called James,
“the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ...” (Ant
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20.200). If the phrase “who was called Christ” is removed,
no one would imagine that the James referred to was the
brother of Jesus. Rather, one would have thought he was
the brother of the high priest “Jesus, son of Damneus”
(Ant 20.203) who is mentioned in the text only three
sentences after the “Christ” phrase.

We regard this reference to Christ as a Christian

interpolation. The use of the word Christ by Josephus
also occurs in the Jesus passage at Ant 18.63-64. The
only use of the word Christians appears there, too.
Origen, more than 120 years later, is the first to refer to
the passage about James (Celsus, I.47). Origen states
that Josephus, “although not believing in Jesus as the
Christ,” attributes the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Temple to the fact that “James the Just, who is the
brother of Jesus (called Christ)...” was killed. The
problem is that the extant manuscripts of Josephus do
not say that the destruction of the Temple was a
consequence of the death of James (cf. Ant 20.200-203).

Jesus, the Christ

The most famous passage used to demonstrate that

Josephus had independent knowledge of the existence of
Jesus appears in Ant 18.63-64:

“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise

man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a
doer of wonderful works... a teacher of such men
as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to
him both many of the Jews, and many of the
Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at
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the suggestion of the principal men amongst us,
had condemned him to the cross, those that loved
him at the first did not forsake him, for he
appeared to them alive again the third day, as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten
thousand other wonderful things concerning him;
and the tribe of Christians, so named from him,
are not extinct at this day.” (Our italics identify
those words which many scholars find
inauthentic.)

Some scholars believe this entire passage about Jesus

the Christ is a late Christian insertion. It breaks the flow
of the narrative, not relating to what comes before or
what follows. Origen (ca 230 CE), who knew of
Josephus's references to the stories of John the Baptist
and James, was not aware of this passage about Jesus.
This passage from Antiquities is unknown to any ancient
writer until the dishonest Eusebius who wrote more than
200 years after Josephus. [Bauer, W., 1971)]

Would a Jewish historian, a defender of monotheism,

write of the man Jesus, “if it be lawful to call him a man?”
And where do Mark or the other Gospels say that many
“Gentiles” were attracted to Jesus during his ministry?
Besides, why wasn't Josephus a convert if he believed
Jesus was (the) Christ and more than a man? the answer
is that some ancient Christians believed that Josephus
was a (secret) Christian; indeed some thought he was
Bishop of Jerusalem. The Christian who interpolated this
passage thought that Josephus was a convert, and thus
he did not see the glowing description of Jesus ascribed to

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Josephus as odd at all. Christian writings of the Imperial
period were often forged. Many forgeries survived to this
day, for example: the Protevangelium of James, Acts of
Pilate. Some, like the Shepherd of Hermas and 1 Clement,
nearly made it into the canon of the Christian Scriptures.

Often a forged reference to Jesus was a glowing tribute,

especially if the person was thought to be a secret
Christian like Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, Pontius
Pilate, Mrs. Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus. To
the modern reader it would seem ridiculous to have a
Jewish historian implied that Jesus was “more than a
man” in a book which supposedly concealed Josephus's
conversion to Christianity. But ancient Christian forgers
lived in their own world. As late as the 19th century CE,
Christians like William Whiston, Josephus's translator,
thought that Josephus was a Christian!

We conclude that these passages in Josephus's

Antiquities are Christian interpolations. None of the other
passages in Josephus contain any allusions to
Christians. Shaye J. D. Cohen writes that Josephus “...
can invent, exaggerate, over-emphasize, distort,
suppressed, simplify, or, occasionally, tell the truth.
Often we cannot determine where one practice ends and
another begins.” [Shaye J. D. Cohen, 181, as quoted in
Crossan, J. D., 91] Perhaps, but these remarks apply
equally to certain ancient Christian editors.

Other Jewish Writings

Other Jewish documents of the first century CE will not

detain us long in our search for independent witnesses to
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early Christians, since none of them mentioned
Christians. Philo, the Alexandrian (ca 20 BCE-ca 50 CE),
was a Jewish philosopher and biblical exegete. He lives in
Alexandria, Egypt, and travel to Rome to present the
grievances of Jews to the Emperor Caligula (39-40 CE).
Philo thus had the opportunity to meet and comment on
early Christians, but he knows nothing of the “famed”
Christ or his followers.

Another first-century Jewish source is the Dead Sea

Scrolls, more than 500 scrolls were found in caves near
Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea only about 20
miles from Jerusalem. The Qumranites lives that
Qumran from circa 150 BCE to circa 68 CE. Married
members of the sect apparently lived in Jerusalem and
other cities. [Most scholars today believe this sect to be
the Essenes mentioned by Josephus and later Christian
writers] There is no mention in the Scrolls of Jesus, John
the Baptist, his disciples, or early Christians.

Many apocryphal books survive which were written by

Jews between ca 200 BCE and 200 CE, like Tobit, Judith,
1 and 2 Maccabees, etc., and none of these mention Jesus
or Christians. Sixty-five pseudepigrapha have been
collected and published by James H. Charlesworth in his
two volume work, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.
Many of these books were written in the same time period
as the apocryphal books but except for a few Christian
interpolations, these works contain no allusions to
Christians either.

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Pagan References to Early Christians

This section examines the supposed early pagan literary

references to Jesus. Epictetus (ca 60-ca 138 CE), a Stoic
philosopher, uses the term “the Galileans” once
(Discourses, IV.7). He may mean Christians, but in any
case, his reference is too late. The Emperor Marcus
Aurelius (121-180 CE), a Stoic philosopher, names “the
Christians” once (Meditations 11.3). The allusion is late
second century, and may be a gloss.

Galen, philosopher and physician (ca 130-ca 200),

mentions the “followers of Moses and Christ” and “the
school of Moses and Christ.” He seems not to differentiate
between the two “schools” of Judaism and Christianity.
[Wilken, R., 72-72] Lucian, the Greek satirist, and
Apuleius, author of the Roman novel The Golden Ass,
also mention the Christians, [Wilken, R., 68] but they are
contemporaries of Galen, and their comments are too late
to be considered. These references appear too late to give
us independent verification of the existence of Jesus or
early Christianity. No one after all denies that
Christianity existed by the late first and early second
centuries. This leaves three additional pagan references
to examine, and one Christian reference.

Pliny and Trajan

In 111 CE, Pliny was appointed by his uncle, the Emperor

Trajan, as governor of the province of Bithynia (in Asia
Minor). One of his responsibilities was to investigate
some charges brought by local citizens against
Christians. Pliny wrote a letter to the emperor (No 10.96)
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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
in 112 CE inquiring how he is to deal with Christians
charged with crimes. [Meier, J., 1991, 92] Pliny does not
name the city involved. In the collection of sixty letters of
Pliny, there is no other mention of Christians. Other than
this letter, there is no evidence that would indicate that
Pliny even knew of the existence of Christians.

Pliny does not indicate what crimes the Christians were

charged with, but we agree with R. Wilken that the letter
of Pliny hints at cannibalism. [Wilken, R., 21] We also
agree with him when he writes, “...that the accusations of
promiscuity and ritual murder appear only in Christian
authors. They are not present in the writings of pagan
critics of Christianity.” [ibid. Wilken’s ital]

In seeking to find some evidence for Roman persecution

of religion, Wilken dredges up the Bacchae of the second
century BCE, some of whom were apparently repressed
by the Roman state. He admits that those who practiced
the rites of the Bacchanalia, if the rites were traditions of
long standing, were exempt from persecution. He
neglects to inform the reader that, according to Christian
evidence, Christianity was still seen as a Jewish sect in
the time of Pliny. For example, the references to
Christians in Galen at the end of the second century CE
refer to the Christians as “the school of Moses and
Christ.” Why then would Christianity not be exempted
from persecution as was the ancient religion of Judaism?

Wilken admits the romanticized martyr tradition that

accused Christians of cannibalism and so on, is from a
later time, and so, “...cannot be simply read back into...”

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 APPENDIX A EARLY REFERENCES TO CHRISTIANS
Pliny’s situation. [Wilken, R., 21] But this is precisely
what Wilken does.

Pliny had expected to find that Christians were guilty of

crimes, but states that he did not find them so. He writes
that they “chant verses... in honor of Christ as if to a
god...” [Quoted in Wilken, R., 22] And what else do the
Christians do? Well, of course, they “...bind themselves
by oath,... to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery....”
Why then would Pliny execute them? He was
conscientious enough to write the Emperor to make sure
that he made no mistakes.

Even more “curious” is the fact that Pliny proceeds with

his actions against the Christians without having
received a reply from the emperor in this matter. Wilken
admits that this is not characteristic of Pliny’s character,
which was one of “customary deliberateness.” [Wilken,
R., 22] Why would Pliny commit a criminal act by
executing a person merely because they said they were
Christian, when he knew that merely claiming to be a
Christian was not a crime? The Christian god was not in
the Roman Pantheon; this did not mean that Christianity
was a criminal organization. True, Pliny adds something
about Christians being obstinate and so should be
punished, but obstinacy was not a crime under Roman
law.

Finally, Pliny’s letter tells us that some Christians

claimed to be only former Christians, and so a test was
given by Pliny. If these people, claiming to be former
followers of Jesus, invoked the gods, offered wine and

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incense, and reviled the name of Christ, they would be let
go. Wilken admits this tale of refusal to throw a bit of
incense on the pagan altar is a later Christian tradition.
So he goes looking for a Roman legal precedent, but fails
to find a valid one.

After this letter regarding the Christians, Pliny’s letters

return to the subjects of his previous letters, which
pertain to the governor’s duties. Christians are never
mentioned again.

Tacitus

Writing a few years after Pliny’s letter of 112 CE, the

historian, Tacitus (ca 56 CE-ca 117 CE), was the most
blatant pagan anti-Semite of the ancient world that we
know of. Around 64 CE, Nero, apparently looking for
scapegoats, supposedly blamed Christians for the
burning of Rome. Of course, Rome was not burned. At
most, Tacitus claims that some parts of the city were set
afire. Modern historians think that the parts of Rome
affected were the slum areas, the working class sections
of the city. It is hard to see how Nero’s palatial buildings
could have had fire anywhere near them. In any case, he
was out of the country.

Once again, we find the usual trademarks of the

Christian forger. The Christian martyrs resemble those of
the later centuries, gloriously accepting death. Their
pagan persecutors are brutal monsters who feed their
innocent victims to wild dogs. First, Nero slaughters
admitted Christians, then a large number, not known to
be Christians, are killed, mostly for “antisocial
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tendencies.” [Hoffman, R., 60] We find passages in the
Annals of Tacitus which confirm some historical details of
the gospels. He just happens to mention that “the Christ”
was executed under Tiberius by Pontius Pilate, that
Christianity originated in Judea, and early on arrived in
Rome. Wilken characterizes Tacitus’ history as
“disinterested” testimony. [Wilken, R., 149]

The real reason for the popularity of the Tacitus witness

is that the later Christians of the ancient world saw Nero
as an “anti-Christ” who engaged in empire-wide
persecution of Christians. Evidence has led modern
apologists to lean more to blaming Domitian for a certain
degree of persecution of Christians, as opposed to Nero.
But apologists have held on to Nero as, at least, a local
persecutor or Christians.

Suetonius

The last pagan source to be examined is Lives of the

Caesars by Suetonius (ca 69 CE-ca 140 CE). His Lives
was written a little later than Tacitus’ Annals in the first
quarter of the second century. Writing in reference to
Claudius (ca 49 CE), Suetonius states that the emperor
“...banished the Jews from Rome, since they had made a
commotion because of Chrestus.” [Quoted in Hoffman,
R., 60] Some scholars think this may be a reference to
Jews being expelled from Rome (cf. Acts 18.2). It is not
clear whether this reference is to Christians or to
messianic Jews.

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In the Twelve Caesars, writing of Nero’s reign, Suetonius
mentions in passing a “...’new and mischievous’ sect...”.
[Hoffman, R., 61] No mention is made of Jesus or Judea.

These preposterous stories of the lawless persecution of

innocent Christians are not credible. Why would men of
such prestigious offices and power be concerned with a
small, innocuous sect, one of many floating around the
Empire?

Muratorian Fragment

“The document [Muratorian fragment] is best regarded as

a list of New Testament books recognized as authoritative
in the Roman church at the time.” [Bruce, F.F., 159]
Bruce thinks the time the fragment was written is
“...most probably to the end of the second century (CE).”
[Bruce, F.F., 158] But then again F.F. Bruce seems to
assume that Jesus walked around Palestine with a
secretary who took shorthand. The Muratorian fragment
is important since it is used to show that the Christians
of the second century had the basic canon of the
Christian Scriptures. But the fragment supplies no such
evidence. The Interpreter’s Dictionary, like Bruce and
most modern writers, accepts a late second-century date
for the Muratorian fragment. [Interpreters Dictionary, vol
1, 527] However, in its Supplemental Volume, the
Dictionary includes an article by A.C. Sundberg, Jr.,
which disputes the age of the Muratorian fragment.

Sundberg writes, “The early dating of the fragment has

been based almost exclusively upon the phrase
nuperrime temporibus nostris, usually translated ‘very
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 APPENDIX A EARLY REFERENCES TO CHRISTIANS
recently, in our time,’ and taken to mean, within a
generation of Pius I.” (late 2nd cent). [Interpreters
Dictionary, Supp Vol, 610] Sundberg reminds us that
such a phrase was used by ancient Christians in a way
that “...could... mean ‘most recently,’ with respect to the
previously named books; and ‘in our time’ could therefore
just as well refer to post-apostolic times in general....”
[ibid]

Sundberg writes, “This partial list of NT books, previously

held to have originated in Rome about the end of the
second century, must now probably be regarded as
Eastern, dating from the early fourth century.”
[Interpreters Dictionary, Supp Vol, 609]

The following is an abbreviated list of pagan writers who

lived at the time of Jesus or within a century thereafter
who do not mention Jesus or early Christians: Seneca,
Pliny the Elder, Juvenal, Martial, Petronius, Plutarch,
Epictetus, Lucian, Dio Chrysostom. [Remsberg, J. E.,
18-19]

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Perhaps the saddest thing to admit is that those who rejected the Cross have
to carry it, while those who welcomed it so often engaged in crucifying others.
— Nicholai A. Berdyayev, Christianity and Anti-Semitism

The man who says to men, “Believe as I do, or God will damn you,” will
presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall kill you.”
— Voltaire, Selected Works.

The Lord said, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may
reach to the end of the earth.”
— Isaiah 49.6

We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, Christians shall not
eat or drink with Jews...
Pope Eugenius IV Decree, 1442 CE

SECOND CENTURY CHRISTIAN VIEWS ON JUDAISM

The central problem with Christian scholarship on

Judaism was best expressed by Samuel Sandmel, “It can
be set down as something destined to endure eternally
that the usual Christian commentators will disparage
Judaism and its supposed legalism....” Sandmel
concludes “...that with those Christians who persist in
deluding themselves about Jewish legalism, no academic
communication is possible. The issue is not to bring
these interpreters to love Judaism, but only to bring them
to a responsible, elementary comprehension of it.”
[Sandmel, S., 35]

The Christian writers of the second century CE had no

trouble understanding the central message of the
Christian Scriptures as can be seen in the writings of
Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus.
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 APPENDIX B PERSECUTION BY CHRISTIANS
R. Wilde writes that Bishop Ignatius (d ca 117 CE) saw
Judaism as “...the old and bitter leaven, whereas
Christianity is the new leaven.” [Wilde, R., 85]

Justin Martyr (fl c 160 CE) says that the old covenant
with the Jews has been replaced by the new covenant
with the Christians. [Wilde, R., 108] Justin asserts that
the “...Israel of God is no longer the Jewish nation but the
Christians...”. [Wilde, R., 109]

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons about 180 CE, asserts that the

Christian God adopted “the gentiles” as his sons.
[Demonstratio, 8, as quoted in Wilde, R., 150] He believed
that “the Jews” lapsed into idolatry and so are
condemned. [Wilde, R., 151] The Law was given to Jews
“...because of their stubbornness and because they
would not subject themselves to Him,” [Adv. Haer.,
4:15,2; 4:16,4: in servitutem, as quoted in Wilde, R., 151]
and because of “...their blindness.” [Ibid] Irenaeus writes
that, as was prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures, “...the
crucifixion of Christ was followed by the obliteration of...”
the Jewish Law “...and the deliverance of the Jews into
the hands of the Gentiles.” [Adv. Haer, 4:33,12, as
referred to in Wilde, R., 153] Thus “...they die in torment.”
[Demonstratio, 69, as referred to in Wilde, R., 153]

JEWS ON PAGANS

According to the Jewish Scriptures, can non-Jews be

“saved?”

“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation

may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa 49.6; cf. Isa 2.2f,
386
 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
56.6-8, and 45.22, all of which refer to the salvation of
gentiles in general). Isa 66.19-20 predicts, as E. P.
Sanders reminds us, a mission to save the gentiles.
[Sanders, E.P., Paul, 214] The Jewish Scriptures never
assert that righteous pagans are doomed. E.P. Sanders
says that most Jews believed that righteous pagans
would be saved. [Ibid]

PERSECUTION OF PAGANS AND JEWS BY CHRISTIANS IN THE

4TH CENTURY

Justin addresses emperor Antoninus Pius in his First

Apology, and “argues for the unique validity of
Christianity and claims that demons were responsible for
pagan myths mimicking Christianity and for the
scandalous allegations against Christians.” [Beard, M.,
330 12.7a (i)] Justin condemns the followers of the
Gnostic Christian, Marcion, as sexually permissive and
cannibalistic. [Ibid]

Justin’s pupil, Tatian (ca 150), says the Greek religion

and culture are stupid. He says he was once in the
mysteries and that demons incited the evil in these
mysteries. [Beard, M., 331ff]

What did all this Christian intolerance lead to? If there is

any doubt as to the exclusiveness of ancient Christianity,
there can be no doubt once it attained power, i.e., was
proclaimed the official state religion in the fourth century
CE. Depriving Jews and pagans of their religious and civil
rights was intense, widespread, and brutal. We shall give
some examples. (For more details see Paganism and
Christianity by Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane
387
 APPENDIX B PERSECUTION BY CHRISTIANS
(Chapter 22), and The Death of Classical Paganism by
John Holland Smith.)

Theodore, the future Bishop of Mopsuestia (southern

Turkey), in ca 380 abjures Satan and all his angels, i.e.,
poets, pagan philosophers, heretics, and those who
believe in pagan purifications. His catechism says, “It is
service of Satan that one should indulge in the
observances of Judaism.” It also condemns Christian
heretics, the theater, the circus, contests of athletes,
secular songs and dance “...which the devil introduced
into this world under the pretext of amusement...
through which he leads the souls of men to perdition.”
[MacMullen, 279-280]

THEODOSIAN CODE 4TH CENTURY AND LATER

What follows is from the chronological chart in J. H.

Smith’s book, The Death of Classical Paganism. [Smith, J.
H., 251-267]

The Edict of Toleration (311 CE) supposedly granted

equality to all religions, but actually favored Christianity.

Between 318 CE and 789 CE, some of the laws passed by

Christians included:

318 CE: “Converts from Judaism protected,”

but not vice versa.

340 CE: Paganism banned by Emperor

Constans

379 CE: “Heretics outlawed in the East...”

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 JESUS CHRIST: A PAGAN MYTH
381 CE: “Sacrifices at any shrine prohibited...
conversion to paganism forbidden.”

391 CE: “Private sacrifices forbidden.”

397 CE: “All privileges stripped from

continuing pagans.”

398 CE: “All temples ordered destroyed.”

408 CE: “Edicts banning heretics from public

office in the East. Destruction of
W(estern) temples ordered.”

409 CE: “Astrologers banned by Honorius.”

410 CE: “Paganism totally outlawed.”

448 CE: The works of the most astute pagan

critic of Christianity, Porphyry, were
burned.

529 CE: The Christian Emperor Justinian

closed the School of Athens.

609 CE: “The Pantheon dedicated as Sancta

Maria ad Martyres,....” a Christian
Church.

742-789 New laws and ones reinforcing

previous laws forbidding pagan
practices.

Christians were forbidden to work for Jews as servants,

and later could not employ Jews as servants. Jews were
forbidden to be pupils of Christian teachers. Jewish
389
 APPENDIX B PERSECUTION BY CHRISTIANS
conversion to Christianity was allowed, but the reverse
was a capital offense. Intermarriage between Jews and
Christians was forbidden. Jews in general were required
to pay for a Christian church if it were destroyed,
allegedly by Jews, but when it was known that Christians
destroyed a synagogue, Bishop Ambrose (ca 380 CE)
successfully opposed compensation to Jews by
Christians. Eventually, even Jewish religious teachings
in the synagogue were required to have prior approval by
Christian authorities.

The last pagan emperor, Julian “the Apostate” (ca

362-363 CE), though much slandered by the Christians,
tried to restore religious freedom to the empire. He
protested that Christian writers dishonored the gods
which inspired Homer, Thucydides and others.

Jews are a small minority in the Christian-dominated

Western world of today and the ancient pagans are not
here to defend themselves. The thesis of our book can, of
course, be rejected, but if scholars are ever to unveil the
origins of one of the world’s great religions, they will have
to avoid pro-Christian bias, and prejudice against Jews
and pagans.

*****

Jn 8.32 Jesus said, “...and you will know the truth, and
the truth will make you free.”

390
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For more information on our books and to communicated
with the authors and editors, Laurence E. Dalton and
Shirley Strutton Dalton, go to our website at

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