Did Jesus Exist? - The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth by Bart Ehrman (ebook reader browser .TXT) 📗

So Paul probably is not referring to the betrayal of Judas in the passage about the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:22–24. But he is clearly referring to a historical event. It is important to note that he indicates this scene happened at night. This is not some vague mythological reference but a concrete historical one. Paul knows that Jesus had a Last Supper with his disciples in which he predicted his approaching death, the very night he was handed over to the authorities.

Moreover, Paul thinks that Jesus was killed at the instigation of “the Jews.” This is indicated in a passage that is much disputed—in this instance, not just among mythicists. In 1 Thessalonians Paul narrates a number of wrongful doings of his Jewish opponents who live in Judea:

Be imitators, brothers, of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus, because you yourselves suffer the same things by your own fellow citizens as they do by the Jews (or the Judeans), who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us, and are not pleasing to God and to all people, who forbade us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, in order to fill up the full measure of their sins always. But wrath has come upon them at last. (1 Thessalonians 2:14–16)

It is this last sentence that has caused interpreters problems. What could Paul mean that the wrath of God has finally come upon the Jews (or Judeans)? That would seem to make sense if Paul were writing in the years after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans, that is, after 70 CE. But it seems to make less sense when this letter was actually written, around 49 CE. For that reason a number of scholars have argued that this entire passage has been inserted into 1 Thessalonians and that Paul therefore did not write it. In this view some Christian scribe, copying the letter after the destruction of Jerusalem, added it.

I myself do not agree with this interpretation, for a number of reasons. To begin with, if the only part of the passage that seems truly odd on the pen of Paul is the last sentence, then it would make better sense simply to say that it is this sentence that was added by the hypothetical Christian scribe. There is no reason to doubt the entire passage, just the last few words.

But I do not doubt even these. For one thing, what is the hard evidence that the words were not in the letter of 1 Thessalonians as Paul wrote it? There is none. We do not of course have the original of 1 Thessalonians; we have only later copies made by scribes. But in not a single one of these manuscripts is the line (let alone the paragraph) missing. Every surviving manuscript includes it. If the passage was added sometime after the fall of Jerusalem, say, near the end of the first Christian century or even in the second, when Christians started blaming the fall of Jerusalem on the fact that the Jews had killed Jesus, why is it that none of the manuscripts of 1 Thessalonians that were copied before the insertion was made left any trace on the manuscript record? Why were the older copies not copied at all? I think there needs to be better evidence of a scribal insertion before we are certain that it happened. And recall, we are not talking about the entire paragraph but only the last line.

The other point to stress is that Paul did think the wrath of God was already manifesting itself in this world. A key passage is Romans 1:18–32, where Paul states unequivocally, “For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven on all human ungodliness and unrighteousness, among those who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” When Paul says that God’s wrath is “being revealed,” he does not simply mean that it is there to be seen in some ethereal way. He means it is being manifested, powerfully made present. God’s wrath is even now being directed against all godless and unrighteous behavior. In this passage in Romans Paul is talking about God’s wrath now being directed against pagans who refuse to acknowledge him here at the end of time before Jesus returns from heaven. It would not be at all strange to think that he also thought that God’s wrath was being manifest against those Jewish people who also acted in such ungodly and unrighteous ways. And he has a full list of offenses against which God has responded.

In short, I think that Paul originally wrote 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16. He certainly wrote everything up to verse 16. What this means, then, is that Paul believes that it was the Jews (or the Judeans) who were ultimately responsible for killing Jesus, a view shared by the writers of the Gospels as well, even though it does not sit well with those of us today who are outraged by the wicked use to which such views were put in the history of anti-Semitism.

Finally, Paul is quite emphatic throughout his writings that Jesus was crucified. He never mentions Pontius Pilate or the Romans, but he may have had no need to do so. His readers knew full well what he was talking about. Crucifixion was the form of punishment used by Romans and could be used on criminals sentenced by Roman authorities. Jesus’s crucifixion is one of Paul’s constant themes throughout his letters. One brief summary statement of his view can be found in 1 Corinthians 2:2: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Or consider 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, a passage that stresses that this teaching about Christ’s death was the very core of Paul’s message: “For I delivered over to you as of first importance what I also received,