Baker Academic

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Five Most Common Fallacies about the Life of Jesus—Le Donne

1) Jesus was born in the year “Zero” or “1 AD”. 

This fallacy comes to us from Dionysius Exiguus in (what we now call the year 525 of the current era). In adding the number of years of successive Roman officials from the founding of Rome to his own time, Dionysius miscalculated the beginning of the “Anno Domini” dating system. He calculated that Jesus was born 525 years before the date of his study.

It seems that most scholars prefer to follow Matthew and Luke concerning the role of Herod the Great in this episode of history. If Herod was involved in some way, he would have had to have been alive (or so I am told). Herod, by almost everyone’s watch, died in what we would now call 4 BCE. So the short answer is that we don’t know when Jesus was born, but it was probably not when Dionysius said it was. Most scholars give a date circa 4 BCE. There never was a year zero—Dionysius conceived of the calendar with 1 BC followed immediately by 1 AD. I should point out something that is seldom acknowledged: Dionysius’ magnificent legacy should not be overshadowed by an error of arithmetic. Math is for suckers anyway—ask my daughter.

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2) Jesus had a three year teaching ministry.

Again, we just don’t know exact dates. The notion of a three year career for Jesus comes from taking the festivals in the Fourth Gospel (John) to be representative of a literal chronology. Every John scholar will tell you that a literal chronology cannot be assumed here.** Now, as Chris has recently reminded me, there is really no reason to privilege a Synoptic (Matt, Mark, and Luke) chronology over and against John. Even so, the best answer is that we do not have an answer.

**NB: the phrase cannot be assumed means what it says. The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

3) Jesus wanted to change Judaism into Christianity.

Jesus never heard the word “Christianity”. He probably never heard the word “Christ”—much less in its titular form (yes, I said “titular form” – stop giggling). Jesus was not a Christian and he never hoped that his disciples would become Christians. This concept just wasn’t on his radar. Now, there is some debate (and it is a very interesting debate) as to whether Jesus sought to “reform” Judaism. Please keep in mind that “reform” does not mean what we Protestants think it means; it doesn’t mean “divide and conquer”. The suggestion that something should be reformed presupposes that the thing is worth keeping. The theological question remains: if first-century gentiles (non-Jews) were to take the significance of Jesus’ teachings seriously, would they find nascent Christianity a close approximation to what Jesus taught? I’ll happily admit that my answer to this question will be slanted toward my sympathy for Christianity. But I see no evidence to suggest that Jesus wanted Jews to become something other than Jewish.

It was recently suggested to me by a friend that if one were to take all the sayings of Jesus and classify them as “ahistorical” – as long as we could keep the story of the prodigal son, Christians would still have enough material upon which to base the gospel. While I see no reason to classify anything as strictly “ahistorical” (that word has almost no meaning in my historiography), this point about the prodigal son parable is interesting. Let’s say that we (as most evangelicals do) construct a salvation paradigm on that story. In Luke’s telling, God is the father (so we assume), the elder son represents Judaism (so most commentaries tell us), and the prodigal represents the newly repentant. …what does the father tell the elder son in this parable?

4) Jesus primarily taught about love and grace.

Jesus’ primary message was that the “rule of God” was being established in Judea. It’s not that loving one’s neighbor and loving God wasn’t part of this message. It was. But to reduce Jesus’ preaching career to “love and grace” is to misunderstand him. See my previous post for a more nuanced introduction to this topic.

5) Jesus was a good teacher.

Okay, he taught and he was good at it. But the claim that he “was a good teacher” says so little that it is deceptive. Bill Clinton is a teacher and he’s pretty good at it. But his career was a bit more complicated than this. If your ten-year-old child asked you, “Who is Bill Clinton” and you answered, “He’s a good teacher,” you’d be a very bad teacher (in which case, who are you to judge what a good teacher looks like?). At the very least Jesus was a preacher and a healer and leader of a grassroots movement that became the most culturally diverse religion on the planet. The term “teacher” connotes a level of secular neutrality that makes it a misnomer for Jesus.'

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If you liked this post and you've got some spare change, buy my wee book:

Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?

The book is really about two things: what sort of epistemology can be applied to historical subjects? and what were the most plausible early perceptions of Jesus' family, politics, and conflict in Jerusalem?

16 comments:

  1. Did you really just use our blog to compare Jesus to Bill Clinton? I'm bringing this up at the shareholders meeting. I appreciate the explication of the term "ahistorical" and agree entirely. Let me push a bit on your teacher comment, though, and only because I'm working on a book on Jesus as a teacher right now! Is it a misnomer? Or is it just too imprecise to be helpful?

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    1. I thought you'd like that one.

      Let me clarify: If the title of your book was "Jesus the Teacher" it would be a misnomer. But because your title is "Jesus the Controversial Teacher", you've narrowly avoided being wrong... as per usual.

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    2. About Jesus the teacher. Do you think the evidence that Paul knew of Jesus' teaching is strong?

      Btw, are you being ironic with the "ahistorical" comment? Because all he said was that it had almost no meaning. How can that be explicating?

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    3. I wasn't being ironic, I was being serious. He said it has no meaning in his historiography, which indicates a broader set of parameters in which to understand "ahistorical"--thus an explication.

      I think it's more than a safe bet that Paul knew at least some of Jesus' teachings.

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    4. Okay, then it was just over my head. Let me see if I can un-explicate your reply. Ahistorical has meaning, just not for historiography. What are the broader set of parameters?

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    5. Hi Mark and Chris,

      I'll chime in here. It is often in the parts of the Gospels that have been deemed "redaction" by the previous generation of scholars that we find the best guideposts for postulating historical plausibility. Buy my book!

      acld

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  2. You should read Bibfeldt on the problem of year zero.

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  3. The Bill Clinton analogy is awesome. Also, I find talk of Jesus being a good teacher to be quite nuanced. If the Gospels say anything about Jesus' teaching most crowds had no idea what he meant half of the time and his closest disciples misunderstood his agenda almost as often. Jesus could have used a communications class! ;)

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  4. This is very interesting. I think for the majority of the population, their view of Jesus is based mainly on these misconceptions. It seems like Jesus has been simplified, and most people may not be aware of the true complexity of his character. Maybe the simplified nature of his character is what has allowed for the many ways in which Jesus is portrayed. I would be really interested to see some kind of research or survey done of the general population to see how much people truly know about Jesus.

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  5. I'm all on board with all of these except #3.
    I love number four. The Kingdom of God/Heaven is one of the most under-taught Biblical themes.
    As regards three, the use of the term "Jews" in John's gospel suggests that at least Jesus' disciples saw that they were VERY different from Judaism of its day. I agree that there was no notion that they were becoming something "un-Jewish", but Jesus was very clearly introducing a new Law (in accordance with Jer 31) and the new Law meant that they were no longer Jewish in the sense that they based their identity on the Law of Moses.

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  6. May I ask about Jesus's age at his death?Do we know for certain he was in his mid thirties when he died? When Jesus claimed to pre exist Abraham the gospel records people saying you a not yet fifty, they did not say forty. Could he have been in his mid forties when he died? Could he have preached for 13 years?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Thanks for your question Mike. The short answer is that it is possible that Jesus preached for longer than what folks normally calculate. But I tend to think not. If all we had was Mark's Gospel to go on, we might guess that his public career was only about one year. Traditional readings suggest three years because the Fourth Gospel has him visiting Jerusalem three times for annual celebrations. - However, there is some wiggle room here. Luke tells his readers that Jesus was "about 30" - that's pretty vague. Also, perhaps the number 30 is symbolic. Later rabbinic texts suggest that the age of 30 was a symbol for "able to hold authority"... was Luke evoking a symbol, or telling us a literal age range? Or both?

      -anthony

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  7. Could Jesus have been ten years older when he died than we think? When he said he predated Abraham, the people in the crowd said he was not even 50. Why did they say he was not yet 40?

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  8. These information that you have shared is very interesting but I think whatever the facts maybe it should not change our belief.

    mary
    Fallacies about Dissertation Writing

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  9. There are two issues with this article.

    1) Jesus was born in the year “Zero” or “1 AD”.

    First, Herod probably died in 1 BC, following a full eclipse in January, 1 BC (there was a second full eclipse in December, 1 BC). The date of 4 BC was chosen at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by Emil Schurer after he identified a partial eclipse in March 4 BC as the eclipse spoken of by Josephus in relation to Herod's death.

    Not only is there a problem between a full and partial eclipse, but there is the pressing problem of time. Josephus mentions that Herod did a number of things between the eclipse and his death and burial including ordering two rabbis burned alive, traveling from Jericho to Calirrhoe and then returning back to Jericho, sending runners throughout his kingdom to summon leading Jewish leaders to Jericho where he planned to put them to death on his death so Israel would mourn something, oversaw the arrival of the elders, execute another son, die five days after the second execution, and then hold a funeral march, complete with all the trappings of a royal funeral, from Jericho to Herodium. All these things, plus the Jewish traditional seven days of mourning, had to happen between the eclipse and the Passover.

    If the eclipse was in 4 BC, then there are just 29 days between the eclipse and Passover. If you have the eclipse in January, 1 BC, there are over 90 days between the eclipse and Passover. There just isn't enough time in 4 BC for Herod to do all the things Josephus says he did between the eclipse and his burial. There are also a couple of other items in Josephus that put Herod's death at 2 BC. This means Jesus was born in 3/2 BC, not 4/6 BC. It still is not 1 AD, but the latter date makes more since in terms of the New Testament.

    3) Jesus wanted to change Judaism into Christianity.

    Second, when Jesus came to earth, Judaism, the Mosiac Law, was to end if passages such as 1 Peter 1:20 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 are to be believed. God is not an "oops" God and He worked man through a series of covenants to bring him to the cross where he could accept grace and mercy and not rely on his own righteousness and legalism. "At the right time" Jesus came to earth to die for us and inaugurate the covenant of the cross.

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