More Case Studies of the 'Hermeneutic of Suspicion': The Crucifixion of Jesus (Part 19)
Concerning the Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus, New Testament historian Dale Allison writes:
Critical scholars have raised some serious questions about the historicity of what is narrated. It is not just that Mark 15:6 is our sole witness to an annual custom of releasing, in response to popular request, a prisoner during the festival, nor that the darkness attending Jesus’ death has parallels in legends about Adam, Enoch, Romulus, and several Roman rulers. Even more problematic is the luxuriant intertextuality of Mark 15: everything rests upon scriptural subflooring. The chapter borrows repeatedly, for example, from Psalms 22 and 69, and whereas Tertullian and Eusebius found in this the over-ruling hand of Providence, many critical scholars find instead the creative hand of Mark and his predecessors. For [John Dominic] Crossan, the passion is “prophecy historicized.” It is not remembrance but imagination, with a lot of help from the Scriptures. (The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, p. 26)
Allison is not totally convinced, however, by this skeptical treatment of St. Mark’s Passion narrative by many of his fellow scholars. He argues that the story may have at least some kind of historical foundation, however difficult it may be to determine the details, because “Mark’s stark account mirrors… not only Jesus’ character, but also his expectations” (p. 26).
But this is hardly an adequate response to Crossan and his skeptical colleagues. Again, let us briefly trace the main arguments here. In the previous article in this series, we offered a response to the view that Mark is the “sole witness” to the Roman custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover. So, let’s concentrate on the other questions about the accounts of the crucifixion.
1. No doubt there was a tendency in the ancient world to expect portents in the heavens that would mirror the birth and death, rise and fall of great mythical, religious, and political figures, but in the case of the alleged three hours of darkness that descended at the death of Jesus, we have external verification from several ancient, extra-biblical sources. Grant R. Jeffrey sums up his research on the matter as follows:
A very early confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus is found in the writings of the pagan historian Thallus, in his Third History. This account, from the middle of the first century is significant because it may have been written close to the time when the Synoptic Gospels were being composed by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In addition it is one of the earliest historical records of an event connected with the crucifixion — the supernatural darkness. …
Thallus wrote his book in a.d. 52, only twenty years after the resurrection of Christ. Thallus wrote that darkness totally covered the land at the time of the Passover in a.d. 32. Julius Africanus, a North African Christian teacher writing in a.d. 215, mentions Thallus’ account of the event:
“This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the Passover, but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when a moon comes under the sun.”
Julius Africanus explained that Thallus’ theory was unreasonable because an eclipse of the sun cannot occur at the same time as there is a full moon, which would make a solar eclipse impossible at that time. This historical evidence by the pagan historian Thallus confirms the Gospel account regarding the miraculous darkness that covered the earth when Jesus was dying on the cross. …
Another remarkable reference to this supernatural darkness is found in the manuscript of another pagan historical writer from Lydia named Phlegon, a man who was granted freedom by the Emperor Adrian. In approximately a.d. 138, Phlegon noted the astonishing fact that this “great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun distinguished among all that had happened” occurred “in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad,’”which was the 19th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar as Emperor of Rome. In his Chronicle (a.d. 300), the Christian historian Eusebius quoted from [the thirteenth book of] Phlegon’s sixteen-volume Collection of Olympiads and Chronicles. …
The Christian writer Tertullian wrote that the event of the supernatural darkness was recorded in the Roman archives and that the record still could be consulted: “At the same time at noonday there was a great darkness. They thought it to be an eclipse, who did not know that this also was foretold concerning Christ. And some have denied it, not knowing the cause of such darkness. And yet you have that remarkable event recorded in your archives.” The martyr Lucian wrote also that the public archives contained a record of this supernatural event: “Look into your annals; there find that in the time of Pilate, when Christ suffered, the sun was obscured and the light of the day was interrupted with darkness.’”(Jesus: The Great Debate. Toronto: Frontier Research Publications, 1999, pp. 166-168)
Given the presumed innocence of multiple witnesses (Matthew, Mark, and Luke in this particular case), and the external corroboration from these other ancient writers, it seems likely that here we have a case in which the tendency of the human religious imagination to look for signs in the heavens at times of ultimate religious significance is shown to have some historical foundation. The God who made the heavens is likely to signify and confirm the redemptive work of His Son in some such way — Jesus himself believed as much (see Lk 21:25). Moreover, as C.S. Lewis has fairly argued, Christians are not duty-bound to believe that the gospel story of the Savior must be utterly unique, without any parallels in pagan mythology or folklore at all, and without any connection to the longings and intuitions of the nations. God was surely at work in the hearts and imaginations of all peoples, preparing them for the coming of his Son and for the Gospel message. The true story of Jesus, therefore, is one that must be foreshadowed to some extent in the mythopoetic imagination of humanity; for this reason, as Lewis wrote, the Son of God is not only the Word made flesh, but also “Myth become Fact.”
But the skeptics won’t quit. Marcus Borg writes:
“[T]o imagine that darkness really covered the land for three hours leads to a very negative perception of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the temple authorities. How could they be so obdurate as to miss the significance of what was happening? Why were they not terrified and led to rethink what was happening?” (Jesus, p. 332)
Most of the population of the city, however, was not present at the scene of the crucifixion; they were in the midst of celebrating the Passover week, and therefore some may not have directly connected the mysterious three hours of darkness with the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. Of those who were present on Calvary to the end, the gospels tell us that “all the multitudes who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts” (Lk 23: 48). And the Roman centurion who had supervised the crucifixion was led to exclaim: “Truly, this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39). Perhaps this also helps to explain the rapid success of Christian evangelism in that city just a few weeks later (Acts 2:41).
2. The fact that St. Mark’s account is full of allusions to Old Testament prophecy, such as those found in Psalms 22 and 69, does not necessarily make it probable that the story was mostly the product of Mark’s creative genius — unless we assume form the outset that ancient Messianic prophecy could not have been providentially fulfilled in the life of Jesus (which is simply to read the gospels through an erroneous and biased philosophical lens). Is St. Mark’s account of the Passion of Jesus more likely “prophesy historicized” (as Crossan put it) or “prophecy fulfilled”?
To answer this question, we need to ask another one: how likely is it that the earliest Christians, and St. Mark too, largely during the lifetime of some of the apostles themselves and of numerous other eyewitnesses to the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus, used their “creative hand” to pass on a largely fictional account of the trial and death of Jesus, his death being considered by the whole early Christian community one of the items of “first importance” in the gospel story (I Cor 15:3), a story which they were dedicated to preserving in their preaching (I Cor 15:2, 11), and for which they regularly risked their lives?
Surely, to ask this question is to answer it.
Finally, Jewish scholar Geza Vermes offered a very careful and judicious critique of the entire narrative of the four Gospels, from the arrest to the burial of Jesus. He lists seven areas of agreement among the four accounts (seven points with maximum multiple attestation, we might say):
They all place the arrest of Jesus in a garden outside of Jerusalem late in the evening, after supper. John expressly mentions that the soldiers sent to look for Jesus were carrying lanterns and torches (Jn 18:3).
The following morning Jesus was transferred from the palace of the high priest (Caiaphas) to the residence of the Roman governor, to be tried by Pontius Pilate on a political charge.
During the hearing the question of the Passover amnesty was brought up by Pilate.
Pilate condemned Jesus to death and an inscription affixed to the cross stated that Jesus was crucified as ‘The King of the Jews.’
Jesus’ garments were divided among the members of the execution squad, four Roman soldiers according to John (Jn 19;23).
Jesus died on the cross.
He was immediately buried in a rock tomb, the entrance of which was closed by the rolling of a large stone.
Then Vermes lists five areas of disagreement (which he later discusses and categorizes largely as intractable differences between the accounts, in some cases flat-out contradictions among them):
The date of the Last Supper, arrest, and crucifixion of Jesus (Here the reader needs to know that for the Jews the day ended at 6pm, so the new day started at the same time): Thursday evening to Friday evening, 15 Nisan = the Passover for the Synoptics; but Thursday evening to Friday evening is 14 Nisan, the eve of the Passover for John. In John, 15 Nisan, the Passover itself falls on Friday evening to Saturday evening (Jn 19: 14, 31). So was Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover (Synoptics) or the day of preparation for the Passover (John)? [Note: this is my paraphrase of Vermes’ argument]. Several attempts have been made by scholars to explain the difference between John and the Synoptics here, including (a) that the Jews of the day differed among themselves about the best date to celebrate the Passover, and that Jesus may have celebrated the Passover one day before the official event or (b) that for theological reasons John deliberately changed the chronology of events so that Jesus would die on the day of preparation for the Passover meal, when the Passover lambs were actually being slaughtered in the Temple. But these solutions are unlikely, and lack sufficient corroborating evidence. The best explanation is one of those offered by The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, entitled “The Paschal Proposal” (p. 188):
“Another solution contends that John’s Gospel follows the same chronology as the Synoptics when its historical notations are considered more carefully. On this view, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper [the Passover meal] on Thursday night, along with the rest of Jerusalem, and the notion that John puts the [start of the] Passover on Friday night is simply a misunderstanding of the Evangelist’s use of the terminology. Four considerations may be said to favor this hypothesis. (1) It is important to recognize that the word “Passover,” both in Hebrew (pesah) and in Greek (pascha) has a wider range of meaning than just “Passover lamb” or “Passover meal.” It can also designate the entirety of “Passover week” (Lk 22:1), as well as “the peace offerings sacrificed and eaten during the Passover week” (Deut 16: 2-3; Mishnah, Pesahim 9,5). In light of this latter usage, one could say that the Jewish authorities in Jn 18:28 probably fear that defilement will disqualify them from partaking not of the Passover Seder (held the night before), but of the celebratory sacrifices eaten during the Passover week. Peace offerings, after all, could not be eaten in a state of ritual defilement (Lev 7:19-20). (2) The supper that Jesus attends in John 13:2 is the same as the Synoptic Last Supper, in which case it was a Passover meal. This is not stated explicitly, but John’s description of the meal highlights features that, taken together, are distinctive of the Passover banquet (e.g., the participants reclined, Jn 13:23; morsels were dipped , Jn 13:26; some thought that Judas was sent with an offering for the poor Jn 13:29; the meal took place at night, Jn 13:30). Thus, the comment that Jesus contemplated his hour “before the feast of the Passover” (Jn 13:1) puts this reflection not a full day before the paschal celebration began, but on the afternoon of Passover eve, only a short time before the start of the feast. (3) The RSV takes John 19:14 to mean that Jesus was sentenced to death on “the day of the Preparation of the Passover.” This translation is not impossible, but neither is it preferable. The Greek term rendered “day of Preparation” is simply the common word for “Friday,” the day when the Jews made preparations for the Sabbath (Mk 15:42; Lk 23:54). Since John himself seems to use the term primarily in relation to the Sabbath (Jn 19:31, 42), it is likely that the expression means “Friday of Passover week” and is not meant to identify the afternoon of Good Friday as Passover eve. (4) Christian theologians who have favored this solution include Saint John Chrysostom (Homilies on John 83) and Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II, 46,9).”
The reason why the apostles left Jesus: they fled (Synoptics) or were allowed to go (John). But this is not necessarily a contradiction among the accounts: the apostles could have been in the process of fleeing when Jesus convinced the guards not to pursue them (Jn 18:8-9). Peter using his sword to cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave Malchus might have happened before this moment, or more likely, as John suggests, just after it (Jn 18:10-11): perhaps Malchus was in pursuit and Peter cut off his ear as a rear-guard action, so to speak. This violent event, according to all the Synoptics, happens after the kiss of betrayal from Judas but just before the actual arrest of Jesus. What makes matters confusing is that the kiss of Judas is not mentioned in John’s account, and the gospels report different words that Jesus said to Judas and the guards on their arrival, and to Peter (he speaks at greater length to Peter in Matthew). In short, what we have here is an account of several things happening in the space perhaps of one minute – and the Evangelists, like most ancient biographers, were not so much concerned with including everything, or with the precise order of events as with which of the statements and deeds of Jesus they wanted to include (and sometimes paraphrase or elaborate on) in order to bring out the significance of what was happening.
The venue and character of the proceedings during the night following the arrest: Jesus was taken to Caiaphas and tried and sentenced on the religious charge of blasphemy (Mark and Matthew with a revised scenario in Luke) or he was first interrogated by the former high priest Annas and then sent to Caiaphas without religious trial or sentence (John). … Again, these are not necessarily contradictions. The fact that Luke tells us that the trial before the Sanhedrin happened “when the day came” rather than in the dead of night, as Mark and Matthew imply, can be harmonised (maybe it happened around 3 or 4 AM, because it took some time to assemble most of the Sanhedrin for an emergency meeting – and 3 or 4 AM fairly can be described either as very late at night or “the wee hours of the morning”). And the fact that John does not mention at all the gathering of the Sanhedrin for a late-night trial does not mean that it did not happen. Perhaps John’s high priestly contacts got him into the house of Annas that night, but not into the palace of Caiaphas, so of the former interrogation he was more confident, being a first-hand witness. If John’s desire was to supplement the Synoptic accounts more than just to repeat them, then it is understandable that he discusses only the interrogation by Annas, which does not appear in the Synoptics. Also, writing ca. 90 AD he was probably more concerned about explaining what the Romans (and in particular Pontius Pilate) did, and why, than with what the Jewish priestly authorities had done at that time (anyway, their attitudes had already been presented in John 11). John shows more clearly than anyone how the Jewish leaders out-maneuvered Pilate into ordering the death of Jesus to save Pilate’s own political skin.
The identity of the persons at the cross: Galilean women (Synoptics) or the mother of Jesus and his beloved disciple as well as Galilean women (John). Again, a “gospel” is not meant to be a complete chronicle of everything that happened, so that the fact that the three Synoptic Gospels do not discuss the presence of John and Mary at the foot of the cross is not clear evidence that they were not there. John actually would have heard the words that Jesus spoke to him and to Mary just before Christ’s death on the cross, something the other evangelists may not have known, or more likely, they may not have understood their significance, as John apparently did. Again, if one of John’s main intentions was to supplement rather than just repeat the Synoptic accounts, it is no wonder that he added this detail.
The identity of the men who buried Jesus: Joseph of Arimathea (Synoptics) or Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (John). And again: an omission from some gospel accounts does not necessarily add up to a contradiction between accounts, since none of the gospel writers were trying to record everything that they knew – in each case they were just trying to record what they thought was of significance to their audience, and to the main points they were trying to make. John evidently mentions the presence of Nicodemus at the burial because he alone among the evangelists recorded the involvement of Nicodemus earlier in the Jesus story (Jn 3:1-10 and 7:50-52): perhaps John wanted to reassure his readers that Nicodemus too had remained faithful to the end. And this, by the way, is evidence that John is not an anti-Semitic gospel: he alone records two members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, Nicodemus and Joseph, who did not approve of what their leaders were doing; Luke specifically says that Joseph had not supported the verdict Jesus (Lk 23:50-56). Luke tells us that Jesus forgave his persecutors from the cross (“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Lk 23:34), a line omitted from some ancient codices of St. Luke’s gospel, perhaps by Christian anti-Semites who thought it did not fit with the words Matthew recorded of the Jerusalem crowd that had clamored for Christ’s death, “his blood be on us and on our children,” Matthew 27:25. But this latter statement was meant literally — and later became an explanation for the calamity that happened to the Jews of Jerusalem when the Romans destroyed the city and the Temple in 70 AD. It certainly cannot be interpreted as a curse that all of the world’s Jews brought down upon all of their descendants for all time! Such anti-Semitism finds no solid basis in the Gospels, nor in the New Testament as a whole, for that matter (see, for example, Romans 9:1-5).
When all is said and done, we can be confident that the gospels provide fairly accurate reports of the arrest, condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus. To be sure, not every single discrepancy between the gospel accounts can be explained by the historian (For example, when was Jesus flogged? John clearly states, and Luke implies, that it was before his condemnation to death, while Matthew and Mark say it happened afterward.). But there is no significant detail of the story that has been overturned by historical research to date, and much that has been corroborated by everything we know about the time, place, and political realities surrounding the death of Jesus Christ.
Robert Stackpole, STD
© The Mere Christian Fellowship, 2018
