“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6
Is the above passage a prophecy concerning the one whom
Many conservative Christians stress the necessity of holding specific beliefs rather than doing and acting certain ways toward others (perhaps because many Christians are taught that holding the right beliefs about God and Jesus and what Jesus accomplished on the cross is what assures them that God will forgive them regardless of their actions, so actions are of lesser consequence than right belief). Some passages in the New Testament appear to present the same view that belief trumps actions when it comes to salvation:
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Mark 16:16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16“…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9-10
Romans 10 contains passages that some Christians have even nicknamed, “The Roman Road to Salvation.”
But looked at another way, one canʼt help but note that Mark 16:16 is not found in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark but is part of what textual critics agree is a later added ending. While John 3:16 (from the famous “ye must be born again” dialogue) is a similarly dubious saying attributed to the historical Jesus. To see the case against its historical authenticity click here. As for Paul, he admits he never met the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the one depicted in the synoptic Gospels. Even Paulʼs interpretation of the meaning of Jesusʼs bloody death butts head with that found in Luke-Acts (See Part 1 of this series).
Give such questions, shouldnʼt one look deeper at how Jesus answered the question, “How Can I Inherit Eternal Life?” as seen in the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke)? In the synoptics Jesusʼs main teaching and concern was “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” That was “the Gospel.” And in the synoptics you canʼt fail to notice that Jesus does little to try and get people to agree with specific beliefs “about” himself in order to gain eternal life. Jesus is depicted in the synoptics as advocating an approach to gaining eternal life that did not require outward showy religious displays or numerous rules, nor did he place major value on temple worship and blood sacrifices, instead he laid great stress on oneʼs relationships with others, as in his “Sermon on the Mount” Matt. chapters 5-7.
“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matt. 7:12
Several times in the synoptics Jesus tells people to ‘love God’ and concentrate on storing up ‘heavenly treasures’ by ‘loving others,’ and to ‘follow Jesus’ in that respect:
“Good teacher,” one person asked [Jesus], “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the manʼs face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
Mark 10
Or there is the version in Matthew:
“Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One Who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Matthew 19
There is also a Lukan version:
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Luke 18
There is this additional teaching about how to gain eternal life that is also found in the synoptics:
“‘The most important one [commandment],’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’ ‘Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’”
Mark 12“A lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He [Jesus] said to him, ‘What is written in the law? How do you read?’ And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have answered right; do this, and you will live.’”
Luke 10:25-28
Such teachings emphasize “doing” in relation to “how to gain eternal life.” This is not to say that Paul in Romans, nor the author of the Gospel of John, lack similar sayings, for they wrote:
“[God] will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life….”
Romans 2:6,7“And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
John 5
But, unlike the synoptics, Paul and the author of the fourth Gospel also have interpretations of who Jesus was that they tie up with their salvation messages:
“He who believes not [that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world] is damned already.”
John 3“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth… the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe… whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood…”
Romans 1:18; 3:22,25
But is blood sacrifice necessary for salvation? Jesus in the synoptics did not seem to think so when he instructed people to pray like this for forgiveness:
“Father… forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matt. 6:12
“Father… forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” Luke 11:4
Jesus in the synoptics taught that people who forgave the debts/sins of others would be forgiven by God without need of a blood sacrifice.
To sum matters up once again, as previously noted, Jesus is depicted as saying in Matthew:
“in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 7:12
If that sums up the Law and the Prophets, what need is there for much more to be said?
Or consider the parable of The Good Samaritan found in Luke, that ends, “Go and do likewise.” Luke 10
Go and do. Doing is the main thing. Along with Godʼs direct and ample forgiveness regardless of oneʼs specific beliefs ‘about’ Jesus. In fact according to the Gospel of Luke one of the two thieves on the cross next to Jesus called Jesus ‘a man,’ but Jesus still promised him paradise.
What did the author of Luke-Acts believe about the doctrine known as ‘the atonement?’ “There is at present no satisfactory consensus reached regarding the presentation of the death of Jesus in Luke-Acts. Many models have been proposed, but none seem to deal adequately with all that is going on in Luke-Acts.” See, the diversity of opinion in The Atonement in Lucan Theology in Recent Discussion Some argue that the Lucan Jesus is presented as an innocent martyr, righteous, or lowly man, or that Jesusʼs death was simply a means toward resurrection.
“Many scholars see no atoning significance in the Gospel of Lukeʼs presentation of the death of Jesus and no connection with the forgiveness of sins. There are three passion predictions (9:22; 9:44; 18:31-3), but nothing corresponding to the ‘ransom’ saying in Mark 10:45 and Matthew 20:28, and no ‘cry of dereliction’ from the cross in Luke 23. Even the citations from Isaiah 53 in Luke 22:37 and Acts 8:32-3 are said to demonstrate that Luke is interested ‘not in the atoning death of Jesus but in the fulfillment of scripture in the obedient passion (silence), death (humiliation), and resurrection (taking up from the earth) of the Servant.’” per David Peterson, Atonement in the Synoptic Gospels, who cites Conzelmann, H., The Theology of St. Luke, (trans. G. Buswell; New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 200-1; and, Sylva, D. D. (ed.), Reimaging the Death of the Lukan Jesus (Frankfurt: Anton Hain, 1990) which records a variety of ways in which the death of Jesus in Luke-Acts has been understood; and, Sylva, Reimaging, 146. In ‘Atonement Theology in Luke-Acts: Some Methodological Reflections,’ in P. J. Williams, A. D. Clarke, P. M. Head, D. Instone-Brewer (ed.), The New Testament in its First Century Setting (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans), 56-71.Consider the Gospel of Luke where the author mentions that John the Baptist gave his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins because of Godʼs tender mercy (Luke 1:76-78), adding that the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:2-4); and the Gospel of Luke ends the same way, by stating that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his [Jesusʼs] name to all nations” (Luke 24:46-48), but nothing about the atoning power of Jesusʼs blood sacrifice. Same with the prayer Jesus taught others to pray per Matthew and Luke, the ‘Our Father,’ that mentions God granting forgiveness to those who forgive others, i.e., without God requiring a blood sacrifice before forgiving sins.)
Scholars point out that the author of Luke-Acts neglected to reproduce crucial verses found in Mark//Matthew that describe Jesusʼ death as a ‘ransom.’ Luke reproduces much of Mark in his gospel, including material from immediately before and immediately after the passage below, but omits this particular passage:
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45 / Matt 20:28
Also, Luke 22:19-20 says “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” But some manuscripts only have “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body.’” that is, they lack the bit about a “new covenant in my blood poured out for you.”
Bart Ehrman in “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture,” makes a compelling case for why the shorter reading is the original. And this is the only passage in Luke that suggests Jesusʼ shed blood had magical atoning power.
Similar to the case found in the Gospel of Luke only a single passage in Acts suggests Jesusʼ shed blood has atoning power:
“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Acts 20:28
That is the only verse in Acts that suggests that Jesusʼ shed blood has atoning power, and much like the verse in Luke, there is a good case to be made that these words were not part of the original.
Without Luke 22:19b-20 and Acts 20:28 there is no concept of blood atonement in Luke-Acts. When Jesus died, according to Luke, it wasnʼt in place of sinners or on their behalf, instead, one need only repent and be baptized in most cases, to accept Godʼs direct mercy.
So if one need only repent and be baptized what is the cross about according to Luke-Acts?
Letʼs have a look at the preaching of Peter and Paul in Acts.
Peter preaches the following in Acts 2, Jesus was a man sent by God. We know he was sent by God because of the miracles. According to Godʼs plan he was killed. God raised him to life. God made him Lord and Messiah. God gave him the Holy Spirit, which he now pours out on his followers. In order to get the Spirit you need to repent and be baptized in Jesusʼs name. Peterʼs message is that forgiveness comes through repentance and baptism and then you get the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 3, Peter preaches that forgiveness comes through repentance and baptism isnʼt mentioned.
In Acts 4, Peterʼs message to the Sanhedrin is that salvation is found in Jesus, but this appears linked to his exalted current status, not to his death.
In Acts 5, Peterʼs words suggest that God exalted Jesus the role of savior after his resurrection, so it was neither the death or resurrection that has saving power, but rather Jesusʼs current exalted status.
In Acts 7 Stephenʼs preaching does not include a ‘gospel’ message, but it is clear that it is the power of the risen Jesus that matters.
In Acts 8, the topic is how you get the Holy Spirit. Again, this seems to be the objective of preaching in Acts.
In Acts 10, Peter preaches to Cornelius, informing him that what God did to Jesus after his ascension is what matters, and believing in the risen Jesus is the way to receive the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 13 Paul preaches the same message, namely that Jesus was a good man, wrongly killed, vindicated by God, raised, and then made Son of God and Savior.
In Acts 17 Paul basically repeats his message in Acts 13.
The preaching of the apostles in Acts repeats the same basic message, Jesus was a good man, wrongly killed. He was vindicated by God and raised from the dead. He became the Son of God and Savior. He can forgive the sins of the repentant and send the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, scholars have noted that a blood atonement is not the major focus of preaching in Acts. It might not be the focus at all in fact if two questionable passages that mention the ‘blood’ are later additions, as textual scholars suspect they are.
The gospel message in Luke-Acts is this: repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit.
To add to the above case, note that Luke 19:19ff (NASB), talks about ‘salvation’ coming to Zaccheus after he repents and returns ill gotten gains. This understanding of salvation precedes Jesusʼ death on the cross, and as in every other case mentioned differs from the traditional Christian view that “without shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.” It also differs from the story of the rich young man in which Jesus told him to give away all of his possessions that he might have treasure in heaven and how difficult it was for a rich man to enter heaven, since Zaccheus only gives away half of what he owns, not all, and still, ‘salvation’ is his. Hereʼs the story in Luke 19:
He [Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. 3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. [The Greek is ambiguous as to whether or not Zaccheus or Jesus was ‘small in stature,’ though the former is probably meant, though if the latter is meant, it would be the only time in the New Testament where some description of the physical Jesus is presented. Though like I said, it is probably just talking about Zaccheus.] 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” 6 And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. 7 When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Nor does the passage demonstrate that everyone is “lost,” nor do these other Gospel passages:
“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.“ Mark 2:17
“But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9.12-13
“And Jesus answered them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” Luke 5:31-32
In fact Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke does not say everyoneʼs heart is evil and wicked above all things, but rather states:
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” Matthew 12:35
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45
Jesus also says to “love God with all your heart” which seems impossible if the heart can will only evil choices and is desperately wicked in everyone at all times.
Moreover, the Bible is a big book and you can find passages that put forth the notion that God does not require blood atonement sacrifices because sometimes grain sacrifices are fine, but even more to the point are passages where God directly forgives people who repent. Such passages state outright that repentance and doing good takes the utmost precedence above all types of sacrifices, so at best atonement sacrifices are secondary in Godʼs eyes:
“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
“Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah! “The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!’” Isaiah 1:10-15
“Hear, you earth: I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law. What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me.” Jeremiah 6:19-21
Or, to quote Jesus himself…
“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 7:12
Thatʼs it. Sounds pretty straightforward, not like the the merry-go-round of questions Christian theologians continue to debate, involving questions like, “Do I have enough faith, love, devotion, correct beliefs, etc.” How much and how fervently and exactly what must I believe in order to be saved? How many doubts and questions can I continue to harbor and remain “saved?” etc. Also see Part 2 of this series.
Isaiah 53 is not a prophecy of Jesus, unless you ignore its original context and only focus on the potential ‘hits’ and ignore the clear ‘misses,’ using a hazy ‘pesher’ approach to its interpretation.
The trouble for Evangelical apologists is that there are no clear ‘dying/resurrected Messiah’ passages in the OT. And Isa. 53 is only advantageous to Christian apologists if they pick and choose which parts of it to emphasize and which to de-emphasize. For instance:
Was Jesus “despised [and] shunned by men?” According to Luke 4:15, he taught in the synagogue and everyone praised him. And huge crowds supposedly followed him, and he was described as making a ‘Triumphal Entry’ into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:8-11; John 12:12-13,17-19).
Was Jesus ‘familiar with disease’ and ‘stricken by God’ (where the Hebrew word for ‘stricken’ is one that is used in the Hebrew Scriptures to stand only for leprosy as at Leviticus 13:3,9,20 and 2 Kings 15:5).
Was Jesus silent before his accusers? In each of the four gospels Jesus opened his mouth and said something before his accusers, such as “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Also, Jesus is accused of many things throughout the Gospels, like being a drunkard or possessed or breaking the law, or committing blasphemy and we can read his defense in each case, so Jesus had plenty of words for his accusers throughout his life per the Gospels. Christians read into the text that these were formal accusations as at a trial, but the text in Isaiah says no such thing, and as already stated, Jesus was not silent at his trial either, but is depicted as pronouncing counter judgment on his accusers by declaring that they would see the Son of Man coming soon.
Was Jesusʼ “grave set among the wicked, and with the rich, in his death.” According to some Gospel passages there were no other bodies in the tomb in which Jesusʼ body was placed. So his grave was with himself, not with the wicked or with the rich. (“Among the wicked and with the rich” in Isa. 53 might also refer to two equally notorious groups if this is a Hebrew poetic parallelism). Nor does this passage say anything about a rich man providing a place for the servant. Christians read Gospel stories into such vague statements. (And perhaps the earliest Gospel author invented his story, adding “two bandits” on either side of Jesus on the cross, and having a man bury Jesus in “a tomb hewn of rock”—a tomb only a rich person could afford so that his Jesus story deliberately echoed the passage in Isaiah?)
Was Jesus crushed by disease? “the Lord chose to crush him by disease, that if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life…” Did Jesus see any offspring, or have a long life?
“Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” Not sure how that applies to Jesus.
Does Isaiah 53 mention the Messiah? Verse 1 does not actually say that the servantʼs message would not be believed, but merely asks, “Who can believe what we have heard?” There seems to be no prophecy there at all. Nor is there any indication that the servant would be arrested as a criminal or scourged or crucified with criminals or make intercession for his persecutors. None of that is in there. Verse 6 does say, “the Lord visited upon him the guilt of us all,” but there are other interpretations of that than the Christian one.
There is a Judaic interpretation of Isaiah 53 that seems plausible. The suffering servant is the nation of Israel which is represented by King Uzziah, who was its king in Isaiahʼs time and who died of leprosy. According to Shmuel Golding, Isaiahʼs message may have been: “Here is your leprous king, who is in type suffering under Godʼs hand for you the backslidden servant nation of Israel” (which explains verse 6). Uzziah was taken away from the royal palace because of his affliction as a leper and spent his remaining years in isolation, which fits verse 8. Golding says the following:
Israel is portrayed as a suffering servant on account of its anointed leader being stricken with leprosy. Israel, like the leper, is a suffering servant of God. Both have suffered humiliation at the hand of their fellowmen: the leper because of his unsightly appearance; Israel through its defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The gist of the message is that Israel like the leper has suffered, but nevertheless will retain its identity in the form of the exiled Jewish people and that they will prosper in this form. [Shmuel Golding, The Light of Reason, volume II (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, 1989), p. 36.]
This interpretation of Isaiah 53 seems preferable to the Christian one because it does not suffer from drawbacks (1)-(6) mentioned above. It would also better explain the many changes of tense that occur in the chapter. And Israel is indeed referred to as ‘Godʼs servant’ (e.g., at Isa 49:3). However, the given interpretation does not make the chapter into a prophecy so much as an explanation of Israelʼs situation at around the time of Isaiah. At the very least, it shows, I think, that Isaiah 53 is not a clear example of a fulfilled prophecy (or set of fulfilled prophecies) in the Bible. So it is not any good support for premise (1) of the Argument from the Bible.
Also, per Ehrman, Many readers fail to consider the verb tenses in these passages in Isa 53. They do not indicate that someone will come along at a later time and suffer in the future. They are talking about past suffering. The Servant has already suffered — although he “will be” vindicated.
Christians thought that Jesus was the messiah, and they knew that he had been crucified. And so they developed the idea that the messiah was supposed to be crucified. (And they started to appeal to non-messianic texts such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 in support of their views.)… Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), almost universally thought by scholars to be written by a different author from chapters 1-39 (themselves written by Isaiah of Jerusalem in the 8th c. BCE). Second Isaiah was writing after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem (including the temple) in 586 BCE, while the leaders of the people and many of the elite had been taken into exile in Babylon, in what is known as the Babylonian Captivity… Several important points concerning Isaiah 53:
The book of Second Isaiah itself indicates who the Servant of the Lord is. It is Israel, Godʼs people. In Isaiah 53, when the author describes the servantʼs past sufferings, he is talking about the sufferings they have experienced by being destroyed by the Babylonians. This is a suffering that has come about because of sins. But the suffering will be vindicated, because God will now restore Israel and bring them back to the land and enter into a new relationship with them.
It may be fairly objected that the Servant is said to suffer for “our” sins, not “his” sins. Scholars have resolved that problem in a number of ways. It may be that the author is thinking that the portion of the people taken into exile have suffered for the sins of those in the land — some of them suffering for the sins of all. Those who have been taken into captivity have suffered displacement, loss, and exile for the sake of everyone else. But now the servant — Israel — will be exalted and restored to a close relationship with God — and be used by him to bring about justice throughout the earth.
There may be problems with this interpretation — as there always are with every interpretation! — but the facts remain that the suffering servant is never described as the messiah, his suffering is portrayed as past instead of future, and he is explicitly identified on several occasions as “Israel.”
The “Servant of the Lord” in Isaiah: General Bibliography [Last updated 2015-05-18] click here.
Who Is the Servant of the Lord?: Jewish and Christian Interpretations on Isaiah 53 from Antiquity to the Middle Ages by Antti Laato, 2013, in-depth review by Alphonso Groenewald, click here.
“Kingship and Servanthood in the Book of Isaiah” by Ulrich Berges from a highly acclaimed volume published in 2014, The Book of Isaiah: Enduring Questions Answered Anew by Richard J. Bautch (Ed.), J. Todd Hibbard (Ed.), click here to read part of the article.
“For fundamentalists only: Isaiah 53 in context,” click here
Award winning Christian seminarian leaves the fold after examining the so-called Old Testament “Prophecies of Jesus” in detail: George Bethune English, The Grounds of Christianity Examined. For a bit of his story click here. For his view of Isaiah 53, click here and start reading at the paragraph beginning, “The next prophecy proposed to be considered, is the celebrated prophecy of Isaiah, consisting of part of the 52nd, and the whole of the 53rd chapter…”
Rabbi Tovia Singer (a conservative Jew who agrees that Scripture is inspired) defends Judaism against the Christian missionary selective quotation approach to the Hebrew Bible. Also does debates, and has recently re-edited his encyclopedic work that responds to numerous claims made by Christian missionaries, click here.
Fiddler Zvi disputes the Christian use of OT passages, including Isaiah 53, in an informative and entertaining fashion, click here.
Gerald Sigal, Isaiah 53: Who is the Servant? 307 pages, but a summary can be read for free by clicking here.
Uri Yosef, Counter Missionary Articles and Lessons, The Jewish Home. Click here then scroll down and click on the links to Identifying the “Suffering Servant.”
David Berger and Michael Wyschogrod, Jews & Jewish Christianity, a shorter work that discusses the use of Old Testament passages by Christians. Available for free along with many other pro-Jewish and anti-Christian missionary works, click here.
Rabbi Moshe Shulman, Judaismʼs Answer features many articles on Isaiah 53
Charles C. Hennell, An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity, 2d ed. (London: T. Allman, 1841), ch. 13, “On the Prophecies of Isaiah,” click here. See also, ch. 12, “On the Prophecies,” and ch. 14, “On the Prophecies of Daniel,” pp. 325-403
Michael Arnheim, Is Christianity True?, 1984, ch 6, “Fulfillment of Prophecy?”
Dewey M. Beegle, Prophecy and Prediction, 1978. An Evangelical Bible scholar and translator whose book on prophecy was composed in reply to various conservative views of Old Testament prophecy. Not available to read online, but copies can be obtained at oneʼs local library via inter-library loan. Info for Amazon purchase, click here. Beegleʼs testimony is also featured in Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists.
Donʼt Christians ever wonder why killing Godʼs son (whom they believe to have been “God the Son,” the second person of the “Trinity”) was not the greatest sin humans could ever commit? Humans killed God?! Isnʼt that the greatest sin anyone could possibly dream of ever committing? How could the humans who committed such a deed ever be forgiven except maybe by killing another divine savior to “atone” for killing the first one? And so on and so forth? At some point the cycle of “atonement” has to be broken by direct forgiveness. At some point direct forgiveness, not based on a bloody sacrifice, has to intervene to break the endless loop. Maybe thatʼs why Jesus himself did not believe that Godʼs forgiveness depended on a bloody sacrifice, but instead taught everyone to pray “in this way…Our Father…Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Simple. Direct forgiveness.
Has any theologian ever been able to demonstrate how “atonement” works, how physical pain unto death of an animal or person makes up for that time I talked back to my mother, or desired my neighborʼs wife or car? Sounds exactly like sympathetic magic. Or as comedian Doug Stanhope says, “‘Jesus died for your sins.’ How does one affect the other? I hit myself in the foot with a shovel for your mortgage. I donʼt get it.”
Or as my friend Tony Atkinson once asked, “How do ‘sins’ become something substantial in and of themselves? There are memories of being hurt, but ‘sins’ as substantial entities one can collect together and then place inside a body or soul? How do ‘sins’ become collected and where do they exist apart from being past acts? Are ‘sins’ the ‘bad’ memories of God? Do such memories ‘soil’ Godʼs mind? And he has to dispose of them? Is killing his own son a form of forgetfulness, a means of dissolving such memories? None of this makes sense.”
And is the Bible right about the life being “in the blood?” No, the life is in the brain and nervous system. We think nothing of blood transfusions, but cutting out part of oneʼs brain and replacing it with someone elseʼs is another more serious matter.
Also, Christianity comes along and suddenly all those bleeding animal sacrifices were for naught, because none of that animal blood did a thing, not if Christianity is true.
Also the scapegoat, the goat upon which the peopleʼs sins were placed, was NOT BLED, it “took the sins of the people” out into the desert. As for the Passover lamb in the Exodus story it did not die for anyoneʼs sins! It was so that the angel of death already saw death on the door posts of the Hebrews and didnʼt go in and kill their first born children. It was passing over those homes, but had nothing to do with any of the Jewish firstborn children inside those homes being sinners.
Though I admire Jesus for deploring the temptations of wealth, organized religion and its powerful sway, as well as hypocrisy, I no longer find the doctrines of either “original sin,” or “imputed righteousness” believable. I donʼt think the cosmos is the way it is simply because one human couple failed a test, nor do I believe that a man being executed 2000 years ago “paid the price” for the “worldʼs sins,” and we ought to “eat his flesh and drink his blood” for the forgiveness of sins, not even metaphorically. Sounds rather paganish, echoing vampirism or cannibalism, a theology taken right out of the ancient superstitious caldrons of blood sacrifice and appeasement. Sympathetic magic.
That being said, I saw the film, The Passion, and was moved when Jesusʼ mother ran toward him when he was being forced to carry the cross. As she struggled to reach out to her son who had just fallen carrying the cross she recalled the time Jesus fell as a child and she rushed to help him. My eyes teared up at that scene in the film. But the rest of the film was a blood orgy that did not move me any more than seeing any other human being unjustly tortured and murdered. I didnʼt feel ‘forgiven’ after watching the film, nor closer to God.
Though when I was young and raised Catholic I felt such a connection, and even cried after reading the Gospel stories of Jesusʼ death “for me, for me, for me.” (Ah, the self interest angle of Christianity, so prominent even in its hymns. Jesus loves me… This I know. Died for me. Me. Me. Me.) The Christian schema doesnʼt make sense to me anymore, neither intellectually nor emotionally. But direct forgiveness and people showing compassion to other people does.
Whenever I forgive someone Iʼm relatively straightforward and direct about it. But for God it takes a bloody miracle.
After the missionary explained the Bibleʼs superior civilized plan of salvation to several natives, one of them replied, “Like you, we love our gods and seek to love one another. What we do not understand is why your god tried to pin down sin by using His son as a voodoo doll.”
Christianity is merely paganism with a more successful advertising campaign.
Christianity teaches that Jesus had to die, or God couldnʼt forgive sins, not a single sin, not unless Jesus died first.
So why isnʼt Judas a “Saint?”
A: Have you heard the latest?
B: No, whatʼs happened?
A: The world has been redeemed!
B: You donʼt say!
A: Yes, the Dear Lord took on human form and had himself executed in Jerusalem; and with that the world has been redeemed and the devil hoodwinked.
B: Gosh, thatʼs simply lovely.
Arthur Shopenhauer
We relate to the suffering of a wide range of species not just human suffering. It was even discovered that deer react to the sound of a crying baby of almost any mammal species, not just the cry of a baby deer. But how does such empathy in nature provide evidence for the truth of any one religion in particular? It doesnʼt. Which reminds me of a poem…
No chipmunk had to be crucified
on a tiny cross of twigs
To save all the other chippies,
Had to have nails pounded
through his little paws,
Had to take upon himself
all the sins of all the chippies
that ever were or would be
and die in agony
So that after they died
all the chippies
could live again forever,
But only if they believed
in all the sayings and doings
of the chipmunk crucified
on the tiny cross of twigs.
Antler, Last Words
Letʼs not forget that Jesus (after a few hours of pain) rose from the dead and ascended to a throne in heaven. So in essence, nobody really “killed” Jesus; it was more like a fraternity hazing, or an early version of the TV show, “Fear Factor,” where you endure all kinds of [fill in blank with favorite expletive] to win a valuable prize.
SOURCE: T-Shirt Hell Newsletter, 2/25/04
In the beginning God was perfect and whole, needing nothing.
Then he said, “I need an itch to scratch, Iʼll create humans. Of course I see that most of them will suffer, first on earth (where they shall be born into a world of pain, ignorance, swept up by hormonal waves of emotion, and experience uncertainty, dread, miscommunication), with eternal woes to follow for those who didnʼt ride the right waves of holy emotion by falling head over heels in love with Jesus of Nazareth and/or the writings of his disciples, nor interpret what was written with theological correctness.”
“Also, be it known that I cannot forgive anyone anything, not until Blood Is Shed. I know I had Jesus teach people that I would forgive those who forgave others—but I only truly forgive after BLOOD is shed. And a millennia of shedding animalʼs blood will be just for show, but ineffective. No genuine atonement will be achieved until Jesus of Nazareth bleeds to death. And even the blood of Jesus was shed in vain for the vast majority of doomed humanity who are going to wind up in hell anyway.”
For those who defend the idea of eternal wrath being meted out to people after mere decades spent in a “fallen,” confusing, painful and frustrating cosmos, one with fear, prejudice, cultural biases, mental blindness, ignorance, and demons running free (thank God for leaving Satan and his demons on earth), then I guess thereʼs not much in the way of reasonable conceptions of justice anyone can say to such a person. Because they believe it is perfectly just for God to arrange things such that people get born in a frying pan, only to be tossed into the fire, without reprieve, forever.
I say to such people, you can have your jealous God of wrath, who kills millions in the Bible while Satan kills a handful (and Satan even has to beg Godʼs permission to do so, so all the killings are ultimately Godʼs in the Bible).
Jews do not make material sacrifices on their holiest day of the year, the day of atonement. They offer a contrite heart on that holiest of days, based on teachings in the psalms and books of their prophets. The prophets in the Bible were at odds with the priests on the matter of the importance of material/animal sacrifices and the “shedding of blood.” Jesus himself taught people to pray, “Forgive us Father as we forgive others.”
Christians have differed in their understandings of what Jesusʼ death signified. Limited atonement or universal? Bloody or nonviolent (see the book listed at the end)? Theological brouhahas have continued throughout the history of Christian theology over the meaning and significance of Jesusʼ death. Some examples below:
The apostle Paul — in both his speeches and writings—made extensive use of the late apocryphal work known as The Wisdom of Solomon — not to be confused with the Book of Proverbs, but instead, a late non-canonical apocryphal work attributed to “Solomon”:
Romans 1:19-23 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-5
Romans 1:24-23 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 14:22-31
Romans 5:12-21 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 2:23-24
Romans 9:19-23 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 12:12-18 and 15:7
Romans 13:10 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 6:18
1 Corinthians 2:9 (compare the non-canonical Ascension of Isaiah 11:34; also note that the early church father Origin said this verse in 1 Cor. was from the non-canonical, Apocalypse of Elijah — Origen, Commentary on Matthew 27.9. Originʼs idea was bitterly disputed by Jerome (Letter 57 [to Pammachius] §9 [NPNF, 2nd series, vol. 6, p. 117]), who claimed the verse was taken from Isaiah 64:3-4 “according to the Hebrew text.” In fact, however, the Hebrew is only a very rough approximation of Paulʼs language in 1 Corinthians 2:9, so Jerome may well have been wrong on this point. So, compare the Ascension of Isaiah 11:34 as originally noted.)
1 Corinthians 6:2 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 3:8
1 Corinthians 10:4 (Jewish tradition)
2 Corinthians 11:14 (Life of Adam and Eve)
Galatians 3:19 (Jewish tradition; cf. also Acts 7:38, Acts 7:53, and Hebrews 2:2)
Ephesians 5:14 (Apocalypse of Elijah — So identified by Epiphanius, Against Heresies 1.3.42; see also Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 3.5.15.)
Ephesians 6:11-17 (compare Wisdom of Solomon 5:17-20
James King West writes: “Among the characteristics of Wisdom as depicted in The Wisdom of Solomon, two are of particular interest. First, the afterlife is described in terms of the Hellenistic dualism which debases matter in contrast to the immortality of the soul, rather than the Judaic concept of the resurrection of the body (cf. the remarkably beautiful passage in 3:1-9, also such vss. as 8:13). Second, the personification of wisdom, introduced, for example, in Proverbs 1-9, is here carried much farther than in any parallel Judaic literature. In the book of Proverbs the personification of wisdom is symbolic, but in this book wisdom is described in terms intended to be taken quite seriously as:
These descriptions of wisdom, especially the crucial passage in 7:22-8:21, reflect the increasing emphasis on the transcendence of God characteristic of later Judaism, combined with an unmistakable influence from Hellenism. How far the author intended his definition of Wisdom as an intermediary between God and the world is impossible to say. Viewing his words from the perspective of Greek thought, it would probably be easy to read too much into them. Whether consciously or not, he nevertheless spoke a language that during the next two centuries and later was to play a profound role in religious development.” (Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 464-465)
As I have noted in another post, the Pauline idea about a “spiritual body” and living in “heaven” rather than on a recreated earth is the earliest formulation of the “resurrection” according to the earliest documents we possess, and certainly seems to agree with what is found in The Wisdom of Solomon. Even Paulʼs Christology seems to owe something to the way Wisdom has grown more like a person than a metaphor according to The Wisdom of Solomon.
Not only Paul but other authors of the New Testament employed — and even appealed to the authority of — non-canonical ideas, oral traditions, deuterocanonical, extracanonical writings, and varying textual recensions (like the Greek Septuagint Bible where it said something different from the Hebrew Bible):
Also, the structure of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 most likely was familiar to many Jews in the first century BCE, since they were already evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls before Jesusʼ day:
Of course thereʼs also the book of Enoch, mentioned by Jude and passages of which are cited by the author of Revelation. In fact recently scholars are acknowledging that the “Son of Man” figure mentioned in Enoch probably influenced early Gospel authors: “Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift” And the Dead Sea Scrolls even mention a fascinating “Melchizadek” figure who is to “judge the holy ones of God, executing judgement.”
The above is just one aspect of NT writings being derivative of their day and age. But larger more general aspects of Hellenistic and Jewish cultures and their ideas about deity also lie behind ideas and stories in the NT. At any rate, sticking with the way NT authors cite such inter-testamental non-canonical works, I always get a chuckle at how one NT writer, the author of the letter of Jude, says “Enoch the seventh from Adam… spoke a prophecy…” then cites some lines from the book of Enoch and applies them to his own day about how thousands of angels would come from heaven and the whole earth would be judged, including the deceivers inside the first century church whom the NT author was so worried about.
I also get a chuckle out of Paul citing an inter-testamental and non-canonical tale about a rock that rolled around on its own, following the Israelites around in the desert for decades, a rock that also have a stream of water flowing from it as needed, providing water for them as they remained on the move each day for forty years. And that rolling rock was Christ, Paul says.
Reminds me of how one famous British guy (a former prime minister of Britain during the Victorian era who was also a classics scholar) wrote a thick whole book claiming that Homerʼs works were inspired by God and pointed to Christianity being true. And in the days of the early church the Syballine Oracles and Virgilʼs poetry were cited as inspired in some sense and were interpreted as pointing to the truth of Christianity. I guess when you have the hammer of dogma in your hand everything looks like a nail.
Why were some of Jesusʼs most spectacular nature miracles only seen by a few (unlike Mosesʼ alleged miracle of dividing an entire sea which would have been viewed by the multitudes)? Jesusʼs nature miracles include the stilling of the storm and the walking on water allegedly seen only by some people in a boat. While only three apostles apparently saw Jesusʼs transfiguration on an unidentified “mountain.” Quite a miracle, Jesus shining bright as the sun and speaking with Moses and Elijah. But only for the eyes of three people? And Jesus told them to “tell no one” about it until later? (That might just be a convenient excuse for how and why such a tale arose later among some Christians.)
As for the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, I doubt that large groups of people would go out to the “wilderness” (an unidentified “wilderness” in the first two Gospels) to hear either the Baptist or Jesus speak without also taking some food like bread or dried fish. Thereʼs also no indication in the earliest telling of the story in Mark that anyone saw a miracle taking place, nobody says anything about being awestruck, nor is any miracle described such as extra fish appearing out of thin air or the flesh on the fish being instantly replaced as soon as one piece was torn off. The apostles also are depicted a little later as still worrying over where their next meal was going to come from, and rebuked for not understanding concerning the multitude being fed. But instead of Jesus mentioning how they saw fish coming out of thin air, or any other miracle they allegedly would have seen taking place, he points them to the baskets of leftovers. By the time of the fourth Gospel the people do proclaim it as a miracle taking place, but still no description as to how it occurred, and in the fourth Gospel it is Jesus himself handing out the food.
Why did the three towns in Galilee in which Jesus performed most of his Gospel miracles reject him? Jesus allegedly performed most of his miracles in or around those three towns, what scholars call “the Evangelical Triangle” (Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum), and Jesus says those towns will be judged more than Sodom and Gomorrah for having rejected him. Also, there is no record of Jesus performing miracles in large cities in the same region such as Sepphoris which was located near Nazareth, nor did he perform miracles in other large cities like Caesarea Philippi, Tiberius, Hippos (the last two being on the shores of the Lake of Galilee), nor any miracles performed in the large city of his final destination, Jerusalem, at least none that the earliest Gospels mentions, aside from the resurrection which in Mark is merely an empty tomb tale, because no one sees the miracle of Jesus exiting the tomb, and the young man in the tomb says “He has gone before you to Galilee, there you will see him.” In other words the earliest Gospel has the risen Jesus not appearing in Jerusalem at all.
The Lukan version is different from Mark or Matthewʼs in that the message at the tomb has undergone changes so that it no longer says Jesus has gone on before them to Galilee to be seen there. Instead, the message at the tomb is simply, “Remember when Jesus spoke to you in Galilee saying he would be resurrected?” So thereʼs no longer anything about Jesus going before them to Galilee to be seen there. Instead, Jesus appears in Luke and tells them to “remain in Jerusalem.” And he demonstrates he is not a spirit at all, but has flesh and bone, and escorts them (in a non-spirit but bodily state) out of Jerusalem, through the streets all the way to Bethany, “he led them to Bethany.” Imagine being escorted by a flesh and bone resurrected Jesus out of the city of Jerusalem, through its streets, and to a nearby city, but no Hosannas, no cries of He is risen! No knocking on Pilateʼs or Ciaphasʼs doors. Itʼs like Jesus tiptoed with his apostles out of the big city.
Even the story of the “empty tomb” is acknowledged by Evangelicals like Michael Licona to be questioned by many historical Jesus scholars because in its earliest telling in the Gospel of Mark that Gospel ends with women fleeing the empty tomb and “telling no one” what they saw. The Greek is very emphatic involving the doubling of a word for emphasis, hence they did not tell anyone anything. But if literally no one was told such a tale then we do not know when the tale about an “empty tomb” first began to circulate. Nor do the women in Mark, the earliest Gospel, meet a raised Jesus along the way as in later written Gospels.
In light of the above questions what are we expected to believe? Has God ensured we are reading historically authentic stories in the Gospels?
Nor does anyone with such questions have to claim that everyoneʼs personal religious or supernatural experiences are false in order to ask the question, How can God expect us to know what to make of such a diversity of miracle stories, visions and NDEʼs from people around the world with different beliefs? They represent quiet a mixed bag of evidence, see here.
And comparing the Gospels with say, the works of an ancient historian like Herodotus, please note:
The Gospels plainly do not equal elite and historiographical biographies of the Roman era.
Unlike the Gospels, elite historiographical biographies “are much more prone to cite their sources, include discussion of eyewitness experiences, use direct speech and dramatic dialogue sparingly, utilize far more subordinating as opposed to coordinating conjunctions, apply more diegetic as opposed to mimetic narrative techniques, and exercise more authorial control in not borrowing large amounts material from earlier texts than what is seen in the canonical Gospels. In contrast, popular–novelistic biographies, seldom discuss their literary or historical sources, contain little overt discussion of eyewitness experiences, are replete with direct speech and dramatic dialogues, utilize parataxis and coordinating conjunctions far more often, apply more mimetic as opposed to diegetic narrative techniques, and are written highly anonymously in borrowing large amounts of material from earlier narratives, as ʻopen texts.ʼ As such, on the broad spectrum of ancient biography, I think that the Gospels far more resemble popular and novelistic biographies than they do elite and historiographical biographies”
The above quotation is from Matthew Fergusson whose Master´s thesis was on Seutonius´ biographies of the Roman Emperors and who is working on a Ph.D. thesis related to obvious distinctions between the Gospels and elite historiographical biographies of the Roman era. See also his online piece that delves deeper into such distinctions, Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament, and his posts on Ancient Biography.
And speaking of crucial writings we lack from the first century…
We do not have anything written directly by Jesus himself or any of his original disciples (I think even Michael Licona admits that the evidence that Jesusʼs earliest apostles penned any of the Gospels remains questionable, nor have Bauckhamʼs arguments for apostolic authorship based on “inclusio” taken the scholarly world by storm. His scholarly reviewers have pointed out all the questions he is still begging).
Nor do we have any written responses to Jesus from the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, or teachers of the law. Nor any from Ananias, Caiaphas, Herod or Pilate about the events we find in the gospels.(The absence of such writings even led to some early Christians forging a document titled The Gospel of Nicodemus, featuring the Acts of Pilate!)
Nor do we have a single casual letter from anyone mentioning their first hand experience of having gone to see and hear Jesus of Nazareth.
Nor do we have anything written by the Apostle Paul before he converted telling us about the church he was persecuting.
Jesus always had the last word over his opponents in the gospel accounts. His victory in debate is assured since his followers are writing such tales, like when Plato wrote Socratesʼ dialogues. But genuine debates in religion usually do not end so neatly with the opposite side having no further reply. It would be nice to know what his first century opponents said in response to Jesus, in their own words.
The Jews of Jesusʼs day believed in Yahweh and that he does miracles, and they knew their Old Testament prophecies, and yet an overwhelming number of them did not believe Jesus was the Messiah or anointed one, nor that he was raised from the dead by Yahweh. So Christianity didnʼt take by storm the very land where Jesus was seen and heard directly by people, but instead it had to reach out to the Greco-Roman world for converts. Even Paulʼs missions to Jews in the Greco-Roman world didnʼt raise as many converts as among Hellenists. So why should we believe if many of his fellow Jews who saw Jesus and heard him preach didnʼt? The city of Jerusalem was not converted. Christianity remained a small Jewish sect, one of many, until such tales reached the ears of Greco-Romans.
There are other things we donʼt have but would like to. We donʼt have the correspondence from Chloeʼs household in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:11) telling us of their church disputes, especially concerning the resurrection that Paul responded to. Nor do we have their response to Paulʼs first letter which forced him to defend his apostleship, since they questioned it afterward (2 Corinthians). Nor do we know what Paul meant when he said some of the Corinthians and Galatians had accepted a “Jesus other than the Jesus we preached” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4) or a “different gospel” (Galatians 1:6-8). What we do know is that the sectarian side that wins a debate writes the history of that debate and chooses which books to include in their sacred writings. We donʼt even have one legitimate Old Testament prophecy that specifically refers to Jesusʼs resurrection. Nor do we have any convincing present day confirmations that God works miracles like virgin births, resurrections (or ascensions into heaven) in todayʼs world, something that would be of critical importance to historians when assessing these claims.
What we have at best are second-hand or more testimonies filtered through the gospel writers. With the possible exception of Paul who claimed to have experienced the resurrected Jesus in what is surely a visionary experience (so we read in Acts 26:19, cf. II Cor. 12:1-6; Rev. 1:10-3:21—although he didnʼt actually see Jesus, Acts 9:4-8; 22:7-11; 26:13-14), everything else we are told comes second hand.
And considering WHAT WRITINGS WE DO POSSESS (dare I saw what “God” has preserved for us) FROM THE FIRST CENTURY (as if God could not preserve writings any more confounding for your average Christian apologist), those INCLUDE the Dead Sea Scrolls which raise questions as to orthodox Christian interpretations of Jesusʼs motivation and mission, since the Dead Sea Scrolls composed by that scribal community prove they were a community of apocalyptic cultists preparing for the worldʼs final judgment. The Dead Sea Scrolls include OT writings, but also inter-testamental writings like the book of Enoch, as well as books written by the scroll community such as the Book of the Wars of Sons of Light and Darkness (about the worldʼs final battle and supernatural judgment), the Melchizadek Scroll (about a divinely appointed figure that would appear in the heavens soon to judge the earth), and commentaries on OT writings in which the members of that community found clues to the soon coming final judgment. Even their community laws and ascetic practices were meant to keep them pure in preparation for the soon coming supernatural judgment of the people of earth, which only adds credence to the view that Jesus of Nazareth may very well have been the leader of an apocalyptic movement with similar failed expectations.
Wouldnʼt you agree itʼs been two thousand years since the last one? And wouldnʼt you agree that the time was far shorter from Moses to Elijah/Elisha, as well from Elijah/Elisha to Jesus, when compared with the long length of time from Jesus until today? And still no major miracle-working prophet of their stature has arrived to further expound or clarify Godʼs words for us with authority and power? Nor does it increase my confidence that the time between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament was merely a century or two while it has been almost two thousand years since the last book of the New Testament was written with no additional canonical words of God, no definitive words clarifying the older words either, just endless rival interpretations lying along a spectrum of conservative-moderate-liberal.
The tale in Acts that depicts Paulʼs conversion is later than Paulʼs letters, and even if there is some truth in it it looks like a case of “snapping,” a phenomenon that psychologists have observed in others who have undergone radical reversals in beliefs and behavior, even in our own day, click here.
Additional explanations can also be found:
Zeba A. Cookʼs Reconceptualising Conversion: Patronage, Loyalty, And Conversion In The Religions Of The Ancient Mediterranean, shows that Paulʼs case was not unique. It followed a pattern found everywhere in the Mediterranean, click here for more details.
Neil Elliotʼs chapter, “The Apostle Paul and Empire,” includes a sub-section on “The Politics of Paulʼs ‘Conversion’” he explains Paulʼs transition from persecutor to apostle in light of the tense political situation in Judea coupled with Jewish hopes of Godʼs intervention. Elliot discusses the highly charged atmosphere of Rome's challenge to Judaism and Judaism's resistance. One might add that prior to joining the Christian movement Paul may have viewed the need for Judaism to maintain a united front against Roman pressures aimed at his Jewish faith and practice. He might have even feared that the spread of Christianity among the Jews could be used as an excuse by Rome to increase pressures on Jews/Judaism of all types. On the other hand, Paul would not merely have been repulsed by Christianity, but also attracted by their predictions of a soon coming kingdom of God that would soon replace Rome. Such a belief would have resonated with Paulʼs own hopes, and we see in Paul's early letters his own predictions of a soon coming Lord who would set up a new kingdom on earth. Paulʼs attempt to stall Roman persecution of his people by persecuting Jewish Christians who preached a soon coming kingdom of God to replace Rome would have appealed to Paulʼs own hopes. Elliotʼs chapter appears in In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance. Also see Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance. Reading Paulʼs letters Elliott points out the ways in which Paul depicted himself as a diplomatic herald speaking in the name of an approaching conqueror (Caesar was also regularly hailed as a kyrios), preparing the cities of a province for a coming change of regime. One also canʼt help but note Paulʼs false predictions that the Lord was coming to judge the world soon, and how happy the thought made Paul.
The conversion tale of Paul in the later written Book of Acts could be fabricated to some degree, a Christian urban legend, since it reflects earlier tales like Euripidesʼ play The Bacchae (where the persecutor Pentheus is ironically converted despite himself to the faith of Dionysus by an unwelcome personal epiphany of that god) and 2 Maccabees 3 (where Heliodorus, agent of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, is prevented from robbing the Jerusalem temple by a vision of angels, whereupon he is blinded, miraculously cured, and converts to the true faith).
Further questions arise as to Paulʼs veracity when you note the way his words and actions both before and after his conversion constitute those of a single-minded and controlling individual, passionate to a fanatical degree, click here.
After Jesus “appeared” to his apostles why didnʼt he show himself to Pilate, the soldiers who crucified him, the crowds who cried for him to be crucified, etc., and speak to them some words of forgiveness and hope? If they tried to crucify him again, he could demonstrate that that was impossible now. He could even transfigure in front of them. Or rise up into the air in full view of a city full of people. Or even descend from the sky above Rome and be seen by many who would probably rush to see where heʼd landed, and then preach there.
Because God concentrated so many of his prophets and miracle workers in a small circle of the ancient Near East it took 1400 years before Christians reached the New World and began preaching the Gospel there, and longer still to reach Japan, Australia, the far northern and southern hemispheres. Speaking of waiting…
Acts says the apostles waited seven weeks before preaching that Jesus was raised. Why wait seven weeks if “many risen saints” had climbed out of their opened graves (per Matt) right after Jesusʼs resurrection and “showed themselves to many in the holy city” (presumably Jerusalem)?
Why did the resurrected Jesus have to leave the earth? Couldnʼt he remain on earth, traveling, preaching, teaching, or return from time to time to correct misinterpretations of his words or prevent schisms? Or prevent the founding of rival religions like Islam? After all, in the fourth Gospel it was Jesusʼs fervent prayer that his followers would remain as one in perfect unity as evidence of the truth, the implication being that without perfect unity the truth comes into question, just as it has. Even with the Holy Spirit allegedly leading Christians into truth as promised in a NT letter the history of Christianity consists of disagreements, heresy-hunts, and schisms too numerous to mention.
(Some apologists reply that Jesus had to leave the earth before the Holy Spirit could be sent, but according to the earliest two Gospels the Holy Spirit could descend like a dove to earth even when Jesus was still there. Also after the Holy Spirit was sent, Jesus could still pop down and appear to Paul. So why has Jesus popped down so infrequently since then?)
Comparing the Gospel of John with the three synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, increases suspicions that stories may have grown and changed over time. Biblical scholars agree in viewing the sayings of Jesus in the fourth Gospel (the Gospel of John) with greater suspicion than sayings in the earlier three Gospels. Even Christian apologists for an inerrant Bible admit that Jesusʼs words in the fourth Gospel may not be historically authentic, but more like the spirit of what Jesus meant. Why? Because…
To reiterate points 2) and 3) above, there are plenty of commonsense reasons to doubt that John 3 is something the historical Jesus said. See here.
There are also plenty of commonsense reasons to doubt that the Gospel of Johnʼs tales about the raising of Lazarus (and Jesusʼs anointing by a “sister” of “Lazarus”) is something that happened. See here.
I was born again in my mid-teens, elected president of my Christian campus group. Some of the twists and turns my journey took can be read here.
Today I am what one might call an agnostic though I dislike labels. I have more questions than answers. Philosophy and theology are filled with far more questions than universally compelling answers and evidence. Meanwhile, scientists have yet to agree concerning how the cosmos began, how it will end, or what it “is” in essence, or what its limitations are, or whether other types of cosmoses exist or impinge on ours, or if our cosmos might give rise to others. Not knowing much about the cosmos, yet claiming to know so much about “God” and the region in which He revealed himself in the ancient Near East, a tiny circle where all of His “official” miracles are supposed to have occurred according to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim “holy” writings, strikes me as exclusivistic folly. Rather than exclusivistic religions Iʼd rather have all children on earth taught about the practical moral wisdom (and lessons of the importance of love) from all times and cultures, starting at a very young age and continuing every year, so that the people of earth might discover that they have more in common and might be able to think in terms of global ethics rather than trying to convert everyone to their own “one true faith.” Even then, one can only hope that the right technology arises to ensure the globe will not grow warmer, and that electric grids will not fail as power usage increases worldwide, and that the oceans and lakes and streams can be cleared of their pollutants. That may be too much to hope for. Though I was heartened to hear that some Evangelicals in the U.S. are now defending the theory of evolution (see the BIOLOGOS website), and also explaining to fellow Evangelicals that the ancient Israelites assumed the cosmos was flat, just like their neighbors assumed (see the works of John Walton). While other Evangelicals are even admitting that trying to defend the idea of “biblical inerrancy” isnʼt worth it (see the works of Peter Enns and Kenton L. Sparks).
