Excursus 1: Jesus’s Death and Contemporary Scholarship
Excursus 1
Jesus’s Death and Contemporary Scholarship
As part of the Gospel message at the center of earliest Christianity, it is no surprise that the death of Jesus Christ by crucifixion has gotten widespread attention from the community of critical scholars. In this excursus, we will view multiple aspects of this topic with the overall purpose being to determine the scholarly “lay of the land.” To what extent does recent scholarship consider these features to be well established? What are major researchers saying about Jesus’s death by crucifixion?
This effort fits as a cog in our overall minimal facts methodology. This approach rests on two foundations, with the initial one being far more crucial. First, the crucifixion needs to be established from multiple arguments to indicate that it is a historical event. To that end, in the previous chapter we studied in depth the factual foundations for establishing the historicity of the crucifixion, viewing a wide variety of historical, medical, and additional considerations each pointing to this occurrence. With at least twelve separate considerations in its favor, we concluded that it would be difficult to find a historical fact from ancient history more firmly grounded than Jesus’s crucifixion.
Second, the other minimal facts criterion is that the vast majority of critical scholars who have studied this material also agree that Jesus’s crucifixion is a historical event due to reasons such as those we just raised earlier. So how do these scholars deal with the crucifixion event and many of the surrounding questions?
Critical Views of Crucifixion Historicity
Exceptionally few critical scholars today challenge the fact of Jesus’s death by crucifixion. No matter where they are across the critical range of views, from skeptical to conservative, it is not difficult to find an array of positive comments from contemporary researchers that Jesus’s death by Roman crucifixion is virtually a “given” as the best-evidenced and most widely known aspect of the historical Jesus’s life.
Examples even from more skeptical authors are not at all difficult to locate. Atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, who makes it clear that he is not a Christian, sums it up this way: “The most certain element of the tradition about Jesus is that he was crucified on the orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. The crucifixion is independently attested in a wide array of sources and is not the sort of thing that believers would want to make up about the person proclaimed to be the powerful Son of God.”1 John Dominic Crossan states similarly: “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”2 Elsewhere, Crossan asserts, “I take it absolutely for granted that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate.”3 Marcus Borg agrees with Ehrman that “the most certain fact about the historical Jesus is his execution as a political rebel.”4
Jewish historian Geza Vermes reports that it is “hardly questionable” that Jesus died by crucifixion,5 including “being crucified under Pontius Pilate” as “one of the non-controversial facts concerning Jesus’ life and activity.”6 James Tabor, one of the more skeptical scholars, adds: “I think we need have no doubt that given Jesus’ execution by Roman crucifixion he was truly dead and that his temporary place of burial was discovered to be empty shortly thereafter.”7 Elaine Pagels adds: “There is only one fact on which nearly all accounts about Jesus of Nazareth, whether written by persons hostile or devoted to him, agree: that, by order of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, he was condemned and crucified (c. 30).”8
Jesus Seminar cofounder Robert Funk includes the crucifixion of Jesus among the historical facts we may count as common ground.9 Then he adds, “The bare facts that Jesus was executed in Jerusalem on the authority of Pontius Pilate have stood up under close and repeated examination.”10 Even atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann allows that “the fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”11
The views of mostly skeptical authors were listed purposely here. For if these plus still additional critical scholars present this degree of unanimity on the facts surrounding Jesus’s crucifixion, imagine how many times over these sorts of comments could be multiplied by other skeptics as well as by liberals, moderates, and conservatives.12 Reminiscent of the comments by Ehrman and Borg just mentioned, John Carroll and Joel Green proclaim in one of the most detailed volumes on the death of Jesus, “The historian’s interest is piqued, first by the certainty of the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in human history. In fact, on the continuum of historical probability, Jesus’ crucifixion ‘under Pontius Pilate’ is the most certain of all claims related to Jesus.”13 Justin Bass provides a list of still more critical scholars and their positive reasons and citations on this well-settled subject.14
The Date of the Crucifixion15
By far, the majority of scholars think that the crucifixion of Jesus occurred in the spring of AD 30. Even a few examples should provide a cross section. Some scholars are very specific. For example, Thomas Sheehan and Hans-Reudi Weber place this event on April 7, AD 30.16 Raymond Brown thinks the most likely dates are either April 7, 30, or April 3, 33, but he reports that he cannot choose between them: “I see no possibility of coming to a decision choosing one of the two years.”17 John Meier decides in favor of a week later, on April 14, AD 30.18 Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, Elaine Pagels, James Tabor, Martin Hengel, Craig Blomberg, Gerard Sloyan, Mike Licona, Donald Goergen, as well as Bart Ehrman all likewise prefer AD 30, as do many others as well.19 E. P. Sanders computes some dates while pointing out that most scholars are simply content to place the crucifixion somewhere between AD 29 and 33. But in the end, he settles for approximately 30.20 Still other researchers such as Dale Allison also similarly acknowledge the dates of 30 and 33, whatever their personal preferences.21
After having done an intricate set of calculations, New Testament scholar Harold Hoehner is one of the best known scholars to opt for AD 33, as do historians Paul Barnett and Paul Maier.22 Others make this move as well.23 But as remarked above, Brown also thinks that 33 is a strong choice as well. Hoehner, among others such as those already cited above, thinks that AD 33 and AD 30 are really the only viable options, though several opt for the latter rather than the earlier date.
Barnett points out some of the key dates for these views to consider, including the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry and Paul’s arrival in Corinth. Tiberius Caesar was proclaimed Roman emperor in September, AD 14. Tiberius’s fifteenth year would have been AD 29, which according to Luke 3:1 is when John the Baptist began his preaching. If Jesus began preaching the same year as did John, then for those scholars who opt for AD 30 as the date of his crucifixion, Jesus’s public ministry actually appears to have lasted for only one full year.24
On the other hand, for those who think that Jesus’s ministry lasted for more than a year, the only other viable option according to some scholars is AD 33. According to this scenario, Paul would have been converted after 33, perhaps 34 or 35,25 but before AD 36 or 37 when Paul left Damascus. Other dates of importance include Emperor Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome in 49, Paul’s probable arrival in Corinth in 50 for a stay of eighteen months, and Gallio’s one-year term as proconsul of Corinth from 51 to 52.26 According to Barnett, this time frame fits well with the fourteen years that Paul mentions in Gal 2:1. Incidentally, on this calculation, Galatians may have been written a mere fifteen years after the crucifixion.27
Hoehner adds a number of additional items as well, ranging through astronomy, history, and the New Testament. As with Barnett, Jesus’s ministry lasting longer than one year is a major consideration here, although as Hoehner points out, there are other ways for someone to prefer a crucifixion date of AD 30 and still allow a little more than two years for Jesus’s ministry.28 Hoehner adds three additional historical arguments for a date of 33, all concerning Pilate, Herod, and Emperor Tiberius, but frankly, none seems very strong, and each is rather perspectival in nature. In the end, Hoehner thinks that of all the dates that have been proposed, only AD 30 or 33 are plausible.29
Since Hoehner’s “bottom line” is shared by many scholars, this last point is a fair way to conclude the matter of the historical date for the crucifixion of Jesus. The possibilities, then, seem to have been narrowed to either AD 30 or 33. There is no need to push the matter further, and it is questionable whether we could do so anyway. As Barnett states, “Nothing hangs on absolute precision” here.30 However, for the purposes of our approach in this study, because we are embracing the minimal facts method, we will follow the vast majority of recent scholars and opt for AD 30 as the date for Jesus’s crucifixion, even if it is meant to be a general date.
How Did Jesus Die: What Are Critical Scholars Saying?
In the previous chapter we viewed the historical and medical data that provide the best indications of how Jesus died on the cross. Here we are interested in the views within the critical community of scholars. What is reported about the nature of crucifixion? How do these researchers think that Jesus died?
Many contemporary researchers have mentioned that crucifixion was such a heinous form of death that the ancients often did not wish even to discuss it or to provide the gory details. As a result, when early Christians began to preach the gospel message, it was frequently a difficult hurdle to overcome.31 For instance, after examining a couple of Qumran texts (especially 4QpNah), Joseph Fitzmyer concludes that we have “pre-Christian evidence that Jews did regard crucifixion practiced in that period as a form of the ‘hanging’ to which Deut 21:22–23 could be referred.”32 This would indicate that Jesus’s death by crucifixion seemed to the Jews to be a cursed death. As Carroll and Green point out, “What is more, it is apparent from both Christian and non-Christian sources of the first centuries C.E. that it was the offense of the abhorrent death of Jesus that opponents of the Christian message seized upon to discredit the claims made by Christians and that Christians had to overcome to render their faith intelligible within the wider world.”33 James D. G. Dunn argues that today’s Christian message has been softened and is nowhere near as offensive as it was in the earliest church.34
Researchers agree that those who were crucified in antiquity were most often nailed to crosses, stakes, posts, trees, boards, or any other structures, though Cook, in possibly the most detailed volume on this general subject, points out that the Romans probably did not crucify people on boards or walls.35 Martin Hengel, in another meticulously researched little volume on crucifixion, states that the use of nails was the “norm.” Actually, tying the sufferers is only mentioned rarely.36 The first-century crucifixion victim whose bones were discovered in 1968 (Jehohanan) had one or more nails at least through his heel bones, and earlier reports concluded that he had suffered crurifragium.37 While it is still too early to determine for sure, the bones of a couple of other crucifixion victims may also have been found in recent years, likewise with nails appearing to be used, but more work needs to be done in these cases.38
James Tabor reports more details than most scholars regarding death by crucifixion, perhaps in part because, as an archaeologist, he has studied many Jewish tombs. He notes that crucifixion was a very slow process that might take as long as two or three days. Indicating his familiarity with the research literature, he concludes as we did in the previous chapter: “Depending on the angle in which the arms and legs were nailed, death could be brought on more quickly, or extended.”39
It might be expected that New Testament researchers, historians, theologians, and scholars in similar fields would also read the medical literature concerning death by crucifixion. To whatever extent this may be true, it is perhaps no surprise or coincidence when the majority view among the critical scholars we are discussing here, just as it is among their medical colleagues, is that Jesus probably died due to asphyxiation. In fact, few other options even seem to be discussed. For instance, Tabor holds that
death resulted from a combination of shock, exhaustion, muscle cramps, dehydration, loss of blood, and finally suffocation or heart failure. . . . Over time, as fatigue set in breathing became acutely difficult. If there was a reason to hasten death, the legs of the victim could be broken, causing the body to slump and making breathing impossible after just a short time.40
Carrol and Green speak similarly to Tabor. They comment that “death came slowly, sometimes over several days, as the body surrendered to shock or to the painful process of asphyxiation as the muscles used in breathing experienced paralysis brought on by fatigue.”41
Crossan also mentions the breaking of ankles to hasten death by crucifixion, which thereby “rendered breathing impossible so that one died swiftly of asphyxiation or shock.” He illustrates this with what he dates as a second-century account of the apostle Andrew’s crucifixion and martyrdom, where the apostle’s executioners are forbidden to use nails or to break or cut his legs so that he will suffer longer.42
Many other scholars make similar comments regarding the central importance of asphyxiation. N. T. Wright states, “When crucified people had their legs broken, they died very quickly, from asphyxiation.”43 Pheme Perkins reports, “It was customary to hasten the death (by suffocation) of a crucified person by breaking his legs.”44 Zias and Sekeles point out that death by crucifixion was obviously quite painful and was caused by asphyxiation due to the effects that hanging had on the intercostal and diaphragm muscles.45 Others who agree with these and other assessments regarding asphyxiation include Sloyan,46 Goergen,47 and Weber.48
This is not to say that these researchers believe asphyxiation alone was responsible for all these medical effects. Like their medical colleagues, they agree that other aspects were involved as well. For example, Crossan, Tabor, Carroll and Green, plus Weber all mention shock among a few other options. But for all of these scholars, asphyxiation is viewed as the most central factor. On the other hand, after a detailed survey of many well-known medical sources, Brown also includes the comment that pathologist Zugibe’s research opposed the asphyxiation findings.49 Notably, Zugibe’s findings were also opposed by others.50
Why Did Jesus Die: What Are Critical Scholars Saying?
Of all the potential questions regarding the general issues surrounding Jesus’s crucifixion beyond the medical thoughts alone, the theological implications are among the most interesting. The classic response for the reason Jesus died has often been that Jesus offended most of the Jewish leaders for basically religious reasons. He was eventually charged with blasphemy for reasons such as claiming alternately to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, or even the Son of God. Some think that his claim to sit at God’s right hand was the most offensive for the Jewish leaders.51
The most authoritative text here may be Mark 14:61–64. Standing before the Jewish leaders, several witnesses make charges against Jesus, such as having heard him assert that he would destroy the temple and then build it again (15:55–60). Perhaps not liking the direction of the comments so far, in verse 61 the high priest takes over the questioning. He asks Jesus if he were the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. Jesus responds confidently in the affirmative, attesting, “I am” (ego eimi). Then he goes further and proclaims that the Son of Man would sit at God’s right hand and come on the clouds, presumably in judgment on the Jewish leaders and others (15:61–64). The resulting public verdict in this text is that he was guilty of blasphemy and deserved to die.
However, when Jesus is taken before Pilate, the religious verdict can no longer be the main charge, for that would be interpreted as a Jewish theological dispute in which the Romans would have no interest (as in John 18:31). For the local Roman ruler’s ears, then, this Jewish religious charge may have given way to a more political complaint, into a basic tension whereby Pilate either had to condemn Jesus to death or else he would have indicated that he was no friend of Caesar’s (John 19:12). Although he attempted other maneuvers, Pilate eventually acceded to the crowd’s demands and turned Jesus over to his soldiers to be crucified (Mark 15:12–15).
Arguably, one of the most intriguing parts of the contemporary theological dialogue is how the theological sides line up along “party lines.” Guesses on the specific parameters will probably be correct much of the time. If the commentator tends to be a little more conservative or even somewhat moderate, Jesus was condemned for religious reasons, even for teaching a high Christology, with little or no mention of political causes. But if the commentator is more liberal, often all that gets mentioned is that Jesus was perceived by the authorities to be a political rebel who was a definite danger to the state.
Why do these different groups seem to approach this issue with seemingly airtight categories? Of course, there are reasons in both cases. The “conservatives” and certain moderates may respond that they are following Mark’s key text in 14:61–64, along with other key passages, and that is simply what the best-evidenced sources record. However, it was the Romans who did the actual crucifying and they did not care one iota about Jesus’s theology, whatever it was, except where the controversy may have affected the well-being of the state. But conservatives often leave out the latter part. For the latter scholars, one of their chief concerns is who Jesus thought he was and what he actually claimed on his own behalf.
But it often seems that the most interesting moves are made by the “liberals.” For many decades now, this group has usually opposed the placing of any high Christological utterances whatsoever on Jesus’s own lips. Such an understanding is always intriguing when it is more than obvious to other scholars that this was the case. Why not simply respond that the best data now affirm that Jesus did teach some of these lofty things—as indicated by the latest and strongest research52—but that he was simply mistaken? After all, some of these critical scholars do respond precisely like this on certain other matters.
But that often will not do on this topic. It is often not spoken out loud, and the analysis provided here could be pronounced as simply being mistaken. But it seems that more “liberal” commentators respect Jesus so much that they cannot deal with him having made any high Christological pronouncements, let alone being mistaken in so doing. Hence they often prefer to characterize the whole situation in political terms.
On the other hand, if what we have referred to as the “more conservative” blasphemy charge is correct, precisely what more did Jesus claim? Where did Jesus cross the line? For Raymond Brown, it was Jesus’s assertion that he was the “apocalyptic Son of Man” that went too far and was blasphemous because it revealed “arrogant intentions infringing on divine prerogatives.”53
A particular theme from Mark 14:62 is perhaps the most popular among these scholars. For Evans, when Jesus declared that he would sit at God’s right hand, “Jesus anticipated sharing God’s chariot throne. Such a claim would have been scandalous, for the idea of a mortal sitting on God’s throne was unthinkable.” Then Evans concludes, “Surely Jesus’ claim to share God’s throne . . . would have prompted the High Priest to accuse Jesus of blasphemy.”54
Similarly, N. T. Wright thinks that Jesus referred here to Dan 7:13–14, Psalm 110, and thereby echoed key passages in 1 Enoch. This combination equaled an extraordinary claim by Jesus to “an enthronement in which the Messiah, or the ‘son of man’, would share the very throne of Israel’s god.”55 Witherington adds Ps 80:17 to what he terms “a creative conglomerate” specifying that Jesus “deliberately” combined these ideas to produce a “definite enthronement” theme.56 Darrell Bock has probably done the most study and publishing on this particular text, and his conclusion is quite close to that of Evans, Wright, and Witherington.57
On what has been referred to as the “more liberal” political view, some of the Jesus Seminar leaders are among those who have responded. John Dominic Crossan refers to “my understanding of Jesus as a peasant revolutionary, but a radically social rather than an aggressively military one.”58 For Marcus Borg, “the most certain fact about the historical Jesus is his execution as a political rebel.”59 Elsewhere Borg states that Jesus’s death by crucifixion was due to his being perceived by the Romans “as a political threat to Roman order.”60 Robert Funk thinks that there may have been more than one option here: Jesus was “probably executed summarily as a threat to public order” during a crowded Passover season, or “as a pretender to the Davidic throne” or for his “hostile act directed against the temple.”61
Richard Horsley raises questions concerning the possible political implications of Jesus’s ministry. He states that “Jesus was clearly condemned to crucifixion as a figure whom the Roman authority found politically dangerous, actually or potentially disruptive of the Roman order.”62 E. P. Sanders states that Jesus was crucified “as an insurgent.”63
Given the quick look at Mark 14:61–64 above and the exceptionally influential critical scholars who took these views, Sloyan’s comment on this exact same text appears rather strange. Sloyan charges that Jesus did not die for blasphemy simply because he never proclaimed anything that would make him guilty of this charge. In fact, nothing in the Gospels would bring us to this conclusion!64
N. T. Wright provides a nice summary that includes both of these major perspectives that have been mentioned here, asking what Jesus looked like from the viewpoint of the Jewish authorities and providing five reasons for his condemnation. (1) Jesus was thought by the Jewish leaders to be a false prophet. (2) Jesus’s actions in the temple and his words about destroying the temple, the chief Jewish symbol, were highly offensive. (3) Jesus thought of himself in some sense as the Messiah, involving the possibility of “serious revolutionary activity.” (4) Jesus was “a dangerous political nuisance” that might bring on Roman retribution. (5) Then, while standing before his accusers, “at the crucial point in the hearing, he not only . . . pleaded guilty to the above charges, but also did so in such a way as to place himself, blasphemously, alongside the god of Israel.”65
Something that emerges during this discussion is that both of the major positions that we have outlined above (complete with many nuances in between) are correct regarding a portion of the overall picture. From what has been termed the conservative angle, as well as being probably the predominant concern of the Jewish leaders, Jesus did make many explicit and implicit comments regarding what could only been taken as a very high view of himself—the sorts of things that certainly would have been outrageous and offensive had they not been true. Was he the Son of God, or the Son of Man (especially in a Jewish context), or going to be a co-occupant on God’s throne? In spite of Sloyan’s comments above, it seems many Jews found his teaching to be highly blasphemous.
But from what has been labeled as the general liberal angle, Jesus’s ministry certainly exhibited some political overtones. It must be remembered here that “political” in these terms does not indicate a desire to run for office or wanting to be a literal king. Anyone who was capable of gathering a huge crowd at a moment’s notice could turn that crowd against the much-hated Romans. This was even more the case when the individual was a charismatic, electric figure, especially one who reputedly performed miracles!
So even if Jesus were only preaching and healing, seemingly apart from any political inclinations whatsoever, he would still have to be watched by the Romans, simply in terms of the pervasive Jewish reputation for rebellion and violence. Further, this heightened awareness from the Romans would have been at its very apex during the time of the Passover, when the environs of Jerusalem would be swollen by many visitors, many of whom presumably were possessed by great amounts of nationalistic pride.
This was certainly a multifaceted issue. Jesus himself, not to mention his teachings and actions, certainly evoked many responses. For just an example or two, what would someone think about him if he had just healed them or a family member from a long, very painful, and debilitating disease?
On the other hand, how would a religious teacher feel about Jesus if the former were really trying to do and teach the right things, and Jesus looked into his eyes and pronounced that he was on the wrong theological path? Very likely, the simple human emotion might be hatred or even loathing that Jesus was getting all the attention while the other religious teachers were sometimes being ignored or even criticized. Thus, we should be aware of attempts to see Jesus from only one angle.
Craig Blomberg is one of the many scholars who has turned things in a different direction here. Blomberg probes further as to whether anyone would have sentenced Jesus to the death penalty if he were only the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar—the Cynic philosopher, societal critic, and gadfly without much of a specific religious message.66 Quite similarly, Dunn inquires of Crossan during a written dialogue: “That’s a much easier message to translate into the twenty-first century . . . but it leaves us back with the modernizers of the nineteenth-century quest, with a Jesus who is far too nice to be worth crucifying.”67 Or what about scholars who favor the very popular image of an egalitarian Jesus who more closely fits our sensibilities today, with our “enlightened” notions of women’s rights, a general tolerance, and political correctness? Who would kill him for being such a fine, liberated fellow?68
The Significance of Jesus’s Death
One of the main issues here is this: Did Jesus think of his death in any way as a substitutionary sacrifice or as an atoning payment for the sins of others? More liberal and skeptical scholars frequently find these notions to be simply appalling, and sometimes go as far as to label them as child abuse or remark that it is impossible that one person’s sacrifice could pay for another’s sin.69
This subject is somewhat related to the previous one, in that there is often a huge gulf between more conservative plus some moderate critical scholars on the one side and their more liberal and skeptical colleagues on the other, with all the many nuances in between.70 It is also amazing that some commentators often seem unable to locate the particular teaching of an atonement or payment for the sins of others in Jesus’s teachings at all but attribute it to the teachings of the church. However, conservatives and some moderates locate it regularly in Jesus’s own teachings. Ironically enough, many of these moderate scholars in particular, who have no problem tracing the teaching to Jesus himself and think there are many reasons for doing so, are very influential researchers, as we will see.
On the more liberal side, Marcus Borg recognizes that “this central emphasis on the unique achievement of Jesus’ death as the sin-offering, once-for-all liberating act of Israel’s God remained at the center of early Christian thought.” However, Borg does not think that it was Jesus’s own teaching.71 He also rejects Wright’s proposal that Jesus thought his death was central.72 Borg notes “five meanings of the completed pattern of death and resurrection found in the New Testament itself.” These are the ideas of “rejection/vindication; defeat of the powers; revelation of the way; revelation of the love of God; sacrifice for sin.”73 After summarizing these five meanings in almost the same way, Borg adds, “All of these interpretations make enormous sense to me when I view them as the product of the early community. They are central to the community’s proclamation of the significance of what had happened in Jesus.” But then he goes on to say once again that none of these five aspects is central to Jesus’s own teaching or understanding.74
Sloyan agrees with Borg. He thinks that, as far as we know, Paul was the earliest writer to construe Jesus’s death “as expiating human sin and sinfulness.” We just do not know what either earlier Christians or Jesus thought on the subject.75
But no less a New Testament scholar than Martin Hengel objects to Borg’s and Sloyan’s assertions. Hengel emphasizes that “the Christian message fundamentally broke apart the customary conceptions of atonement in the ancient world and did so at many points.”76 Here Hengel provides several examples such as universal atonement, offered “for all human guilt,” performed by God rather than by a human superhero, and affirmed particularly in eschatological terms.77
Later Hengel asserts, “Methodologically, then, we are justified, indeed compelled, to push our enquiry back to Jesus himself. . . . It should no longer be doubted that he reckoned with the possibility of his own execution . . . a violent death . . . Jesus wanted to prepare the way for the coming of the kingdom of God through his sacrificial death.”78 Answering the question about whether this atonement teaching goes all the way back to Jesus, Hengel concludes, “we find explicit formulae” in two places where the words of Jesus are cited: Mark 10:45 and Mark 14:24, at the Last Supper.79
This last comment by Hengel is quite significant. To argue that there are specific “formulae” here is to contend that the earliest church’s arranging of Jesus’s teachings into creedal statements that could be memorized easily probably goes back to the pre-Pauline period. In other words, for Hengel in his comments above, the content of the teachings were from Jesus himself, while the formulae were standardized forms of that teaching from just a short time later. Thus, the point here is that the specific formulation of the words still happened at a very early date.
One solid reason for this conclusion is that the early formula in Mark 14:24 is closely related to Paul’s citation of another early pre-Pauline tradition on the same topic in 1 Cor 11:23–26. In fact, Paul specifically states here that this rendition came from the Lord. Further, the apostle claims he received these teachings at an even earlier date than his preaching and writing to the Corinthians. Critical scholars almost uniformly hold that Paul is here citing a creedal tradition that extends back to the very earliest church. For instance, Ulrich Wilckens declares, “The material collected here indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.”80 It is possible that the version that Mark cites in 14:24 could be equally early,81 but whether or not this is the case, the main point being made here is Hengel’s argument that Mark 10:45 and 14:45 are the Greek creedal forms that ultimately extend back to Jesus’s own teaching.
But as we saw, Sloyan comments that we just do not know what anyone earlier than Paul thought about the topic of the atonement. But this is surely mistaken, for if all we had were Paul’s citations of the early traditions in 1 Cor 11:23–26 and 15:3–8 alone (also usually dated to the early 30s),82 we would still know that these primary atonement texts predate Paul, and as it turns out, by perhaps even one to two decades before Paul’s earliest epistle. From just these two texts alone, we have Paul’s citation of these earlier creeds, and we must not forget his declaration that the first one went back to Jesus himself.
Further, what Hengel takes to be essentially the content of Jesus’s own teaching in two more traditional statements in Mark 10:45 and 14:24 is also crucial. These four texts from Paul and Mark combine to make a seemingly insurmountable case for the pre-Pauline teaching of Jesus’s sacrificial death as well as a strong case for tracing that doctrine back to Jesus. We occupy a strong foundation here.
Many other highly influential critical researchers seem to agree with Hengel’s assessment here. One such scholar, Jürgen Moltmann, also affirms that the view of vicarious atonement comes from “very early” in Christianity, as Jesus Christ’s passion and death are at the center of the Christian message.83 For G. B. Caird, modern persons have a difficult time with the notion of sacrifice due to its foreignness. “For Jesus, however, sacrifice was a vital concept.”84 Ben Meyer affirms that “Jesus himself offered numerous clues to his view of the human dilemma. The expiatory motif in the ransom-word (Mark 10:45/Matt 20:28) and the eucharistic words (Mark 14:24/Matt 26:28) allows us to infer that an inevitable state of sin and death constituted the human problem.”85
Gerald O’Collins has much to say on this subject, sometimes in considerable detail. Jesus did indeed think of his death as “a saving event.”86 In particular, the pre-Pauline traditions “abundantly” indicate “that Jesus’ crucifixion was a death ‘for us’ which representatively atoned for human sin.” But the best indication that this widespread atonement teaching was in the church at a very early date is that the doctrine goes back to Jesus himself.87 As far as the meaning of the statement that Jesus died for others, O’Collins thinks that “various levels” can be delineated. These include (1) “a saving, beneficial value for others”; (2) Jesus “death atones for and rescues sinners”; (3) Jesus died for our sins as “the Messiah himself.”88
As Hengel brings his own informed study to a close, he asks the question regarding the origin of the atonement message.89 Against those who taught a few decades ago that the message of atonement developed later in the church rather than at its origin,90 Hengel argues (along with other scholars such as those listed above) that the doctrine is plainly found without question in the pre-Pauline creedal statements. After mentioning several of these, Hengel contends further with the statement we cited above that bears repeating here: that these teachings go back from the pre-Pauline creeds to Jesus himself, as “Jesus wanted to prepare the way for the coming of the kingdom of God through his sacrificial death.”91
What, then, is the significance of Jesus’s death—where do the data lie?92 If the assessment here is correct, it depends on whether one takes the predominantly conservative-moderate option, or the liberal-skeptical option, or something in between. It is clearly the case that the idea of Jesus’s atoning death was a central doctrine in the very earliest church. Numerous authors conclude that the latest possible point of origin for this belief would be the time of the pre-Pauline creedal traditions, which is exceptionally early.93
But some of these same authors do not always answer the chief question that we have been asking, as to whether or not they think the doctrine extends back beyond these early confessions to Jesus himself. Still, we have seen that numerous researchers mentioned here have concluded that. Paul Barnett, like Hengel and O’Collins, is another scholar who states quite clearly that the very best way to account for the importance and centrality of these ideas that combine Jesus’s death with atonement in the earliest church is that Jesus himself was the originator of these teachings.94
Conclusion
The chief purpose of this chapter was a straightforward one: not to repeat the material from the minimal fact chapter on Jesus’s resurrection, but to survey the field of contemporary researchers mostly in the areas of New Testament and theology for the answers to several questions surrounding the death of Jesus by crucifixion. Do these researchers think that the crucifixion of Jesus was a historical fact? What are some preliminary considerations on when this event should be dated? We already detailed the cause of Jesus’s death in the previous chapter, but how do those who research in the general area of the New Testament think he died? Why was he executed? What is the significance of Jesus’s death?
Just as a brief reminder, this overall chapter served as part two of the minimal facts criteria regarding our first historical fact: the crucifixion of Jesus. Having laid a solid historical and medical foundation for the fact and cause of the event itself in the previous chapter, we were chiefly interested here in overviewing where many scholars were on this fact. Amazingly, even though we largely surveyed only the views of skeptical scholars in this chapter, there was still an incredible amount of unanimity on the fact of Jesus’s death by crucifixion.
But as we noted carefully above, only the first section of this chapter on the facticity of Jesus’s death was part of our minimal facts argument, hence it was the only area where the virtual agreement of critical scholars was necessary. Throughout the remainder of the chapter, the questions that we surveyed were only for the sake of attaining an overview of a few related issues pertaining to Jesus’s death.
We saw that the scholarly responses to the last two issues we surveyed, namely, why Jesus was executed and the significance of his death, largely depended on the theological inclinations of the respondents. In other words, as we so often observe, worldview proclivities often trump the facts. Frankly, with the major studies that have emerged in recent years on the shape of the very earliest Christology,95 the conservative aspects of these two questions have received a huge boost. This is especially so with regard to the question of Jesus’s deity relative to how he perceived himself.96
Notes
1 Ehrman, New Testament, 233 (see chap. 4, n. 34). Concerning his own personal viewpoint, Ehrman specifies: “I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings.” Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 5 (see chap. 2, n. 15).
2 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 145; cf. 154, 196, 201, as well as chap. 6, n. 44.
3 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 372; cf. 372–75 (see chap. 6, n. 44).
4 Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, 179; cf. the context of this comment here, 178–84 (see chap. 2, n. 32).
5 Vermes, Resurrection, 2 (see chap. 5, n. 14).
6 Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism, 3 (see chap. 5, n. 11).
7 Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 230 (see chap. 1, n. 18).
8 Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, 84; cf. 8 (see chap. 6, n. 129).
9 Funk, Honest to Jesus, 32; cf. 34 (see chap. 5, n. 7).
10 Funk, 220.
11 Lüdemann with Özen, What Really Happened to Jesus, 17 (see chap. 1, n. 41).
12 Far more examples could be produced here. Peter Stuhlmacher argues for the reliability of the Gospel crucifixion accounts; see Stuhlmacher, Was geschah auf Golgatha? Zur Heilsbedeutung von Kreuz, Tod und Auferweckung Jesu (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1998), 14. Traugott Holtz thinks that one of the few things we can be sure about regarding the historical Jesus is the place and type of death that he suffered, as per Holtz, “Kenntnis von Jesus und Kenntnis Jesu: Eine Skizze zum Verhältnis zwischen historisch-philologisher Erkenntnis und historisch-theologischem Verstandnis,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 104 (1979): 5. James D. G. Dunn attests, “That Jesus was crucified on the direct authority of Pilate himself need not be doubted for a minute.” Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 775 (see chap. 1, n. 3). John Meier asserts that “just about any quester for the historical Jesus—could agree that Jesus ‘was crucified under Pontius Pilate and suffered death.’” See Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:10 (see chap. 1, n. 27). E. P. Sanders states that Jesus’s execution by Pilate is a fact that is “almost beyond dispute.” See Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 10–11, cf. 280 (see chap. 1, n. 44). Jürgen Moltmann states, “Jesus was crucified publicly and died publicly. . . . Those are the relatively well-attested historical facts.” See Moltmann, “Resurrection of Christ,” 74 (see chap. 1, n. 44). Hans Küng states that the death of Jesus can be historically verified; see Küng, On Being a Christian, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 349. Luke Timothy Johnson notes that we can know with “the highest degree of probability” that Jesus was “executed by Roman authority in Palestine.” Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 159; see also 160, and chap. 1, n. 3. Helmut Koester reports that it is certain that Jesus died by crucifixion. See Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 84 (see chap. 4, n. 47). In spite of his agnosticism regarding the resurrection, A. J. M. Wedderburn thinks that Jesus’s death by crucifixion is very probable, in Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 4–5 (see chap. 1, n. 42). John A. T. Robinson definitely opts for the facticity of crucifixion, in Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, 114–20, 127 (chap. 1, n. 43). Walter Kasper proclaims that “the execution of Jesus of Nazareth on a cross is among the most securely established facts of his life.” Kaspar, Jesus the Christ, trans. V. Green (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist, 1977), 113. Skeptic John Shelby Spong states forthrightly that Jesus’s crucifixion is a fact; see Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 240–41, 255. Stephen Davis thinks that “virtually all scholars who write about the resurrection of Jesus, whether they believe it happened (in some sense or other) or not, agree that . . . Jesus of Nazareth died and was buried.” Davis, Risen Indeed, 180–81; see also 15, cf. 171 (see chap. 1, n. 16). George Ladd thinks that the details surrounding Jesus’s death make it one of the certain historical facts about his life; see Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 93, 132. For Craig Evans, “one of the most significant areas of consensus” among scholars today is that “virtually all agree” regarding the historicity of the crucifixion. Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research,” 34 (see chap. 1, n. 44). Gerard Sloyan judges that “there seems to be little reason to doubt” the fact of Jesus’s death by crucifixion; see Sloyan, The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 9; also 1, 43, 212. Charles Perry agrees with so many others that “even most skeptics” accept the historicity of Jesus’s crucifixion as a fact, in Perry, The Resurrection Promise (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 4. For those interested in this sort of comment, even a radical nonspecialist like Tim Callahan states, “Personally, I have no doubt that Jesus . . . was put to death by crucifixion.” Callahan, The Secret Origins of the Bible (Altadena, CA: Millennium, 2002), 419; similarly, 370.
13 John T. Carroll and Joel B. Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 166. In discussing the historical question of why Jesus died, Carroll and Green state, “Historical scholarship arises out of the virtual certainty of Jesus’ execution by means of crucifixion (21).
14 Bass, Bedrock of Christianity, 91–110 (see chap. 4, n. 85).
15 It should be noted very carefully, so as not to remove us overly far from our minimal facts approach, that the methodology that we have set forward at the beginning of this study does not include any further conclusions regarding the remainder of the questions in this chapter. In other words, aspects such as the likely date of the crucifixion, why Jesus was executed, or the significance of his death are not a part of either the Minimal Facts or the larger list of historical data we originally mentioned. We are simply responding to some key, oft-asked questions in the remainder of this chapter, again, to emphasize sort of a scholarly “lay of the land.” So the lack of scholarly agreement on some of these additional issues from this point on in the chapter does not impinge whatsoever on the requirement of there being virtual agreement from critical scholars on the actual minimal facts themselves, because these remaining issues are simply not a part of those lists.
16 Thomas Sheehan, The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986), 91–92, 101, 111; Weber, Cross: Tradition and Interpretation, 26–27 (see chap. 9, n. 103).
17 Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1350–78; the quotation is on 1376 (see chap. 4, n. 40).
18 John Meier, “Dividing Lines in Jesus Research Today: Through Dialectical Negation to a Positive Sketch,” Interpretation 50 (1996): 369.
19 Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 11. They also date Jesus’s birth from approximately 4 BCE. Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 128 (see chap. 2, n. 19); Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, 84, cf. 8; Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 251; Hengel, Atonement, 1 (see chap. 6, n. 86); Craig L. Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” in Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 29; Sloyan, Crucifixion of Jesus, 1, 11; Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 223, 318n174 (see chap. 2, n. 13); Donald Goergen, The Death and Resurrection of Jesus: A Theology of Jesus (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988), 35. Cf. Ehrman, New Testament, 43–44; Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 90 (see chap. 6, n. 173); Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 131, 251 (see chap. 2, n. 15). If the earliest Christian events are dated AD 31–32 (251) and Paul was converted in 32–33 (246), then Jesus could not have been crucified in 33, so Ehrman himself must prefer AD 30.
20 Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 283–90.
21 Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 50n85, 23.
22 For Paul Maier, see “Sejanus, Pilate, and the Date of the Crucifixion,” Church History 37 (1968): 3–13. For Hoehner and Barnett, see the sources below.
23 This includes all three authors, Andreas J. Köstenberger, Justin Taylor, and Alexander Stewart, in The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 27.
24 Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 24–25 (see chap. 1, n. 23).
25 Barnett opts for placing Paul’s conversion in AD 34; see Barnett, 26.
26 As dated by the inscription from Delphi, published in 1905.
27 Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 24–26, cf. 7–9.
28 Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 1978), 102–3. New Testament chronology was a lifelong pursuit for Hoehner, who had already done much work on this and related topics before this book. This includes a series of journal articles in Bibliotheca Sacra out of which this volume grew, his first unpublished doctoral dissertation, “Chronology of the Apostolic Age” (ThD diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1965), and his volume Herod Antipas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).
29 Hoehner, Chronological Aspects, esp. chap. 5.
30 Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 9.
31 Hengel, Crucifixion, 25, 28 (see chap. 6, n. 57); Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 25n10.
32 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 509; also 511.
33 Carroll and Green, Death of Jesus, 166.
34 James D. G. Dunn, “Response to John Dominic Crossan,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 146–47. As a related aside to this comment, Dunn remarks that today’s church needs to recover the sense of total commitment that so characterized the early church. On this last angle, see Dunn’s volume Jesus’ Call to Discipleship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
35 Cook, Crucifixion, xxxv, cf. also 451 (see chap. 6, n. 57).
36 Hengel, Crucifixion, 25, 31–32; Sloyan agrees here in Crucifixion of Jesus, 17, as does Küng, On Being a Christian, 333. Cook includes an array of sources for the use of nails versus ropes or other means; see Crucifixion, 95, 98, 190, 194, 195, 197, 243, 293, 425–26, 430–32, 451, with 425n45 documenting a list of nails versus ropes, with the former being far more common. Almost a century ago, Joseph William Hewitt argued against the presence of nails in “The Use of Nails in the Crucifixion,” Harvard Theological Review 25 (1932): 29–45. When compared to Cook’s highly detailed study mentioned in this footnote, the closing line in Hewitt’s last paragraph is easily out of place: “To sum up, there is astonishingly little evidence that the feet of a crucified person were ever pierced by nails” (45). Dale Allison is surely correct when he states concerning Hewitt’s case that “his argument . . . is specious,” in Allison, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Criticism, History (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 105n74, which is quoted from Allison’s own earlier work, Resurrecting Jesus, 361n633 (see chap. 1, n. 30).
37 For some of the details and discussions here, see the ongoing evaluations in Nicu Haas, “Anthropological Observations,” 38–59; Tzaferis, “Jewish Tombs,” 18–32 (see chap. 9, n. 79); Vilhelm Moller-Christenson later confirmed Haas’s account in a subsequent journal article; Moller-Christensen, “Skeletal Remains,” 35–38 (see chap. 6, n. 164). Cf. also Hans-Ruedi Weber, Cross (see chap. 9, n. 103), though Moller-Christensen, Tzaferis, and Weber were all written before the influential follow-up evaluation by Zias and Sekeles, “Crucified Man,” 22–27 (see chap. 6, n. 164). Maslen and Mitchell in their article “Medical Theories,” 186–87 (see chap. 9, n. 61), supported the latter conclusions of Zias and Sekeles.
38 Killgrove, “Line on the Left” (see chap. 9, n. 70). Though published too recently to report on a final verdict here, see also Gualdi-Russo et al., “Calcaneal Trauma in Roman Italy,” 1–9 (see chap. 9, n. 70); cf. Cook, Crucifixion, 463–74, who is more skeptical here.
39 Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 219.
40 Tabor, 219.
41 Carroll and Green, Death of Jesus, 168.
42 Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, 135 (see chap. 6, n. 151). As noted, Crossan dates the account of the apostle Andrew’s martyrdom to earlier than AD 200. However, M. R. James, the editor and translator of The Apocryphal New Testament (see chap. 9, n. 101), thinks that it is a third-century document, from approximately 260. In all fairness to Crossan, however, a lot has happened in New Testament scholarship over the last century and ideas on the dating of this work could well have changed too.
43 N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 33.
44 Pheme Perkins, “Reconciling the Resurrection: The Central Act of Christian Faith,” Commonweal 112 (1985): 203.
45 Zias and Sekeles, “Crucified Man,” 26.
46 Sloyan, Crucifixion of Jesus, 17.
47 Goergen, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, 33–34.
48 Weber, Cross, 6–7.
49 Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1188–92. Also interestingly, Brown was more up-to-date on the research regarding the crucifixion victim Jehohanan (1176), whereas Tabor still presented some of the older views in Jesus Dynasty, 218–20. Like Tabor, Fitzmyer also thought that Jehohanan’s legs were broken, but it should be noted that Fitzmyer wrote his article in 1978, before the later corrective research by Zias and Sekeles (1985) and by Charlesworth and Zias (1992). See Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine,” 508.
50 For just a couple of examples mentioned in the previous chapter, see Maslen and Mitchell, “Medical Theories,” 186–87, as well as Cook, Crucifixion, 434–35.
51 For prominent German New Testament scholar Peter Stuhlmacher, there are several major elements here. In Was geschah auf Golgatha? Zur Heilsbedeutung von Kreuz, Tod und Auferweckung Jesu, Stuhlmacher discusses some of these reasons in a fairly lengthy section on Jesus’s death (9–45). Besides what Jesus claimed about himself (as discussed immediately below), another offensive teaching for some in his day was the connection between Jesus’s death and the forgiveness of sins, as the early Christian creed in 1 Cor 15:3–4 proclaims (see also the early tradition in Rom 4:24–25). Stuhlmacher refers here to Jesus’s “ransom death” (33–34). Incidentally, Stuhlmacher also includes some brief statements regarding the reliability of the death accounts (14), including archaeological indications (15–16).
52 This would involve particularly the groundbreaking research by the likes of Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, Martin Hengel, and James D. G. Dunn. But there is also the excellent and relevant work being published by a host of other strong scholars, such as N. T. Wright, Craig A. Evans, Darrell Bock, Ben Witherington, Simon Gathercole, Craig Keener, Michael Bird, Craig Blomberg, Charles Hill, and Chris Tilling, along with still others. We will not provide the relevant sources until later, so as not to divert the discussion here. But the specific works will be mentioned throughout, some of them immediately below in this chapter. It should not be assumed that all these researchers would necessarily want to be identified as “conservatives.”
53 Brown, New Testament Christology, 96 (see chap. 8, n. 17).
54 Craig A. Evans, “In What Sense ‘Blasphemy’? Jesus before Caiaphas in Mark 14:61–64,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 30 (1991): 221, 222, respectively.
55 N. T. Wright, “Looking Again for Jesus,” Stimulus 4 (1996): 34–35.
56 Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 258–61.
57 Darrell L. Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53–65 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 222–25. Still other major scholarship should be mentioned in this context as well, such as many of the major essays found in the volume edited by Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature—A Response to Bart Ehrman (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014). Some of these themes include Bird, “The Story of Jesus and the Story of God,” 19; Bird, “Did Jesus Think He Was God?,” 70; Simon J. Gathercole, “What Did the First Christians Think about Jesus?,” 99–102, 111; Chris Tilling, “Misreading Paul’s Christology: Problems with Ehrman’s Exegesis,” 146; Bird, “Concluding Thoughts,” especially 202–3 for a crucial summary.
58 Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, 212.
59 Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, 179 (emphasis added); cf. 178–84.
60 N. T. Wright and Marcus Borg, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 89–91.
61 Funk, Honest to Jesus, 221, 229.
62 Richard A. Horsley, “The Death of Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 405–8, 414.
63 E. P. Sanders, The Human Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 13.
64 Sloyan, Crucifixion of Jesus, 31, also 20–21, 27, 32, 37, cf. 40.
65 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 551–52.
66 Craig L. Blomberg, “Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?,” 21.
67 Dunn, “Response to John Dominic Crossan,” 146–47.
68 Very strange to the ears of some scholars is the Jesus Seminar’s explicit rule that we should “beware of finding a Jesus entirely congenial to you.” This is especially the case when the Seminar appears to largely embrace the Jesus who is the enlightened, liberal-thinking, egalitarian individual described above that seems to align so closely with their own wishes. Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 5.
69 Although we wish to be exceptionally clear that the “New Atheists” of recent years may have very little to do with the liberal or skeptical scholars with whom we are interacting here, a version of the New Atheist complaint regarding the atonement is that by Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Warner, 2007), 108–110.
70 Hence, this does not mean there is unanimity even on the central issues within these very general camps, and sometimes on the same questions. Rather, the results can be far from unanimous. For a major example of some potential differences on the issue of the atonement between world-class scholars, see N. T. Wright, Simon Gathercole, and Robert B. Stewart, eds.,What Did the Cross Accomplish? A Conversation about the Atonement (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2021).
71 Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 90, 104.
72 Borg, “An Appreciative Disagreement,” in Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, ed. Carey C. Newman (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 237–38.
73 Borg and Wright, Meaning of Jesus, 137–42.
74 Borg, “Appreciative Disagreement,” 239.
75 Gerard S. Sloyan, “Recent Literature on the Trial Narratives of the Four Gospels,” in Critical History and Biblical Faith: New Testament Perspectives, ed. Thomas Ryan (Villanova, PA: Villanova University, 1979), 68–71.
76 Hengel, Atonement, 31 (see chap. 6, n. 86).
77 Hengel, 31–32.
78 Hengel, 71–72. The contemporary situation regarding whether critical scholars think Jesus could have predicted his upcoming violent death and even possibly his resurrection from the dead has changed significantly since Hengel wrote these words in 1981. For example, see Michael R. Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, especially 284–302, 469; see also Licona, “Did Jesus Predict His Death and Vindication/Resurrection?,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8 (2010): 47–66.
79 Hengel, Atonement, 34.
80 Wilckens, Resurrection, 2 (see chap. 8, n. 17). Later Wilckens adds, “Paul quotes . . . verbally a version reaching back to the earliest period in the history of Christianity” (15).
81 In fact, Wilckens links Mark 14:24 with 1 Cor 11:23 more than once (53, 71–72).
82 We will comment on these texts at length later in this study.
83 Jürgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 40, 42; also “Resurrection of Christ,” 151 (see chap. 1, n. 44).
84 G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 411.
85 Ben F. Meyer, “Resurrection as Humanly Intelligible Destiny,” Ex Auditu 9 (1993): 22.
86 Gerald O’Collins, Interpreting Jesus: Introducing Catholic Theology (London: Chapman, 1983), 88.
87 O’Collins, 92.
88 O’Collins, Easter Jesus, 121–22, (see chap. 1, n. 19).
89 Hengel, Atonement, 65. As an aside, Hengel’s previous volume, Crucifixion (1977), seems to lead directly to his work Atonement (1981), as he concludes the prior study with a list of what we can know about Jesus’s death. Of his ten summary items in that earlier study, the last two deal specifically with the subject of Atonement, almost as if he knew that he was going to turn from the historical question to the issue of theological significance. See Hengel, Crucifixion, 88–90.
90 Rudolf Bultmann presents some intriguing give-and-take in his Theology of the New Testament, 1:46, 85–86 (see chap. 4, n. 84).
91 Hengel, Atonement, 65–75, cf. 34–39. The quotation is from 72.
92 As per its title, most of the discussion in this excursus has centered on the scholarly views. Still, some of the foundation for these scholarly positions has been expressed as well, and the latter topic of the data is also treated later in this study.
93 Some related thoughts along these lines include Johnson, Living Jesus, 82–83, 96, 108 (see chap. 1, n. 19); Donald Senior, “Crucible of Truth: Passion and Resurrection in the Gospel of Mark,” in Reginald H. Fuller et al., The Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord: A Commentary on the Four Gospels (Mundelein, IL: Chicago Studies, 1985), 24; Weber, Cross, 58; Joost Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia: A Traditio-Historical Study of Paul’s Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 184; Michael Green, The Empty Cross of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 171–75.
94 Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), esp. 161. Barnett favors the most popular recent thesis that the Gospels are written more or less in the tradition of the Greco-Roman bios or biography (see particularly chap. 8). But then he argues that the death of Jesus differs from the normal sequence of death found in the Greco-Roman bioi. He provides three major differences: (1) The death of Jesus is the central portion of the entire Gospel story. From start to finish, the fact that Jesus is going to die is the whole or chief reason for his living. (2) Jesus dies by crucifixion, an “unmentionable mode of execution” which is “the ultimate and monstrous deterrent” to his message being heard, especially when this death was often reserved for slaves and criminals. Thus, Jesus was not like one of the ancient heroes who died gloriously. (3) The place given throughout the Gospels to Jesus’s death is exceptional, especially in that it consumes by far the largest chunk of the Gospel accounts (160–61).
95 A few highly celebrated research specialists in recent years are frequently thought to be in a league by themselves on these topics and have even been referred to as the “Early, High Christology Club.” For this title, see Michael F. Bird, “The Story of Jesus as the Story of God,” in Bird, How God Became Jesus, 13–16. Those who are most frequently included among these scholars are often listed as Hengel, Hurtado, Bauckham, and sometimes Dunn. The two best volumes for the latter topics in this chapter certainly must include Larry Hurtado’s monumental work, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), which culminated decades of specialized study on the topic, and Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). Dunn has also written several major works that bear on these subjects too, such as Jesus Remembered, plus another volume with a little different perspective from that of the other scholars above: Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010). Incidentally on the theme in this footnote, Dunn dedicates this second text here “To Richard Bauckham and Larry Hurtado, partners in dialogue.” Other volumes by Hurtado and Bauckham, also highly relevant, include Hurtado’s How on Earth (see chap. 9, n. 32) and One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, 2nd ed. (London: T&T Clark, 1998). Bauckham’s earlier volume, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), is also included as the first chapter in his Jesus and the God of Israel.
96 Besides the scholars above and their works, many other well-researched books and publications on both the deity of Jesus Christ and the earliest Christology have also appeared from other authors. These include Martin Hengel, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976); Peter Stuhlmacher, Jesus of Nazareth—Christ of Faith, trans. Siegfried S. Shatzmann (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988); Witherington, Christology of Jesus; Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation; J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: What the Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006); Marshall, Origins of New Testament Christology (see chap. 8, n. 19), and a number of remarkable chapters in Bird, How God Became Jesus, some of which have already been mentioned.