Many Christians claim to believe in Jesus’ resurrection partly on the witness of the Twelve Disciples, of whom Paul tells us were the first to have seen the risen-Jesus:

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

We are told that we can trust their testimony on the basis that these disciples died for their faith, as Christian martyrs. “Why”, I am regularly asked, “would they have died for a lie?”

The question is, of course, a false dichotomy. Plenty of folk throughout history have gleefully succumbed to death on the basis of superstitious thinking – consider Mulslim suicide bombers and religious suicide cults such as Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult or Jim Jones’ ‘People’s Temple’. This alone carries enough weight to dismiss the apologetic even assuming that, yes indeed, all of Jesus’ disciples died as martyrs believing he had been raised.

But did they?

We actually don’t know the fate of most of the disciples. Most of them disappear from the historical map very early. This is accepted by many Evangelical Christian historians. Consider these quotes from Bryan M. Litfin, from his book “After Acts: Exploring the Lives and Legends of the Apostles”:

Regarding the disciple Thomas:
“Our earliest source of historical information about Thomas comes from the ‘Acts of Thomas’. It is a problematic text because it is full of dubious legends, legalistic morality, and questionable doctrine” / “The most we can say is that Thomas’s evangelical journey to India was a) widely attested, and b) physically possible along established trade routes. Yet from the perspective of a critical historian, there is no solid evidence during the first 150 years after Thomas’s lifetime to prove he went to India” (p.107)

Regarding the disciple Andrew:
“The most we can say about Andrew is that he may have travelled to Greece in the late first century…” (p.129)

Regarding the disciple James son of Zebedee:
“James is virtually lost to us as a historical figure. He certainly did not go to Spain [as some legends suggest]” (p.136)

Regarding the disciple Bartholomew (Nathanael?):
“All that can be said with any degree of plausibility is that Bartholomew may have moved eastward along the same trajectory as Thomas and Judas Thaddeus” (p.135) / “his death as a martyr by flaying is not well attested; and even the story of his martyrdom by more conventional methods has a the ring of legend to it. Though it is probable that Bartholomew evangelized the Persian east, and he might even have reached India, nothing else can be said about him with historical confidence” (p.136)

Regarding the disciple James son of Alphaeus:
“We are left with no real knowledge about the son of Alphaeus […] [his name] disappeared from recorded history after the biblical narratives ended”

Regarding the disciple Judas Thaddeus:
“The precise identity of this biblical figure is a matter of debate” (p.137) / “the most we can say about the disciple Judas Thaddeus is that he may have moved eastward toward Edessa and ministered in the regions of Syria and Persia. However, since certain men with similar names were mistakenly equated with him – either the letter-writer Jude or Thaddeus of Edessa – it is equally possible that the biblical apostle never even left his homeland. In the end, we can not know much for sure about him”

Regarding the disciple Simon the Zealot:
“Church traditions about Simon are spread all over the place – literally. He shows up in Jerusalem, Samaria, Egypt, North Africa, Persia, Babylon, the eastern Black Sea region, and even Britain” (p.139) / “It seems no one really knew where Simon went, so he was one of the few original disciples still up for grabs in the early Middle Ages” (p.140)

Summary:
“Simon the Zealot, Philip, James son of Alphaeus and James son of Zebedee are disciples whose activities after Acts are a complete mystery to us. The information about Andrew, Bartholomew, and Judas Thaddeus isn’t much better. All we can do is make educated guesses about the regions where they ministered. Although Acts 1:8 affirms that Jesus’ disciples would evangelize “to the end of the earth,” history doesn’t actually tell us what happened to seven out of the eleven faithful apostles” (p.140)

 

It is becoming increasingly common to find scholars dating Luke-Acts to the 2nd century CE. Below is a collection of scholarly quotes:

“The Acts of the Apostles is not history. Acts was long thought to be a first-century document, and its author Luke to be a disciple of Paul – thus an eyewitness or acquaintance of eyewitnesses to nascent Christianity. Acts was considered history, pure and simple. But the Acts Seminar, a decade-long collaborative project by scholars affiliated with the Westar Institute, concluded that Acts dates from the second century”
– Dennis E. Smith & Joseph B. Tyson (editors), “Acts & Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report”, blurb

“A number of factors serve to locate Luke-Acts in the second century […]. Luke-Acts shares genre conventions with both the Apocryphal Infancy Gospels and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, all products of the second (and/or third) century. The Apocryphal Acts are, in turn, heavily influenced by the Hellenistic novels. They also manifest the apologetical and theological agendas of the emerging “nascent Catholicism” that is on full display in the Pastoral Epistles. With the late second-century Apologists and heresiologists Irenaeus and Tertullian, Luke-Acts asserts possession of a definitive way of interpreting scripture allegedly received from the original apostles. Paul, for instance, tells the elders of the Ephesian church that God has appointed them bishops (episcopoi, “overseers, supervisors”) of the flock of Christ (Acts 20:28). Here is the “apostolic succession of bishops,” the cornerstone of the church governance policy of Orthodoxy and Catholicism even today. Acts 21:29-30 has Paul warn “in advance” that the heretics of Asia Minor will, after his death, appeal to him as the source of their Gnostic, Marcionite, and Encratite heresies. This represents our author’s attempt to wrest the apostolic figurehead away from these sects, and it plainly presupposes a standpoint long after Paul. Luke-Acts is the prime example of what F.C. Baur identified as the Catholicizing tendency of the second-century church.”
– Robert M. Price, “Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith”, p.202

“[Luke-Acts] belongs to the second decade of the second century (c.115). The author’s use of Paul’s letters and his probable knowledge of the Antiquities of Josephus rule out a date before 100. And whereas the Gospel of Matthew, for example, seeks to justify the existence of the Jesus movement as an increasingly gentile body, Luke and Acts justify an existing boundary between two religions, “Judaism” and “Christianity,” the latter of which is the valid heir of God’s promises. Acts is also familiar with the organization and issues of Christian groups during the first decades of the second century. The author we call Luke writes narratives like those of the evangelists (for example, Mark, John, Matthew) who told their stories for believers, but his mind is partly occupied with the questions of the “apologists,” who, from the middle of the second century onward, defended the faith against its polytheist critics and those who they thought were betraying it. Acts is also aware of the different understandings of the Christian message that would give rise to “orthodox” and “heretical” formulations of the faith.”
– Richard Pervo, “The Mystery of Acts”, p.9

“[Luke-Acts] can be seen in part as responding to both the [second century] difficulties of Jewish-Christians and the challenge of Marcion. Regarding Jewish-Christians, Acts suggests that Gentile Christians welcome them into their fellowship by respecting their sensibilities in dietary and sexual practices. The work also espouses many views that [second century Jewish-Christian] pseudo-Clementine-like Christians would find appealing. In particular, Acts has treated Paul in a way that would make him acceptable to Jewish-Christians without alienating Gentile Christians. As for Marcion, the author of Luke-Acts has a response to him as well. The author would accept [Marcion’s hero] Paul without the theology of his epistles. To do so the author replaced Marcion’s canon with a two-volume work of his own. He merely expanded Marcion’s gospel with added traditions, but he rejected entirely the Pauline epistles as theologically unacceptable. In their place the author of Luke-Acts wrote a separate volume affirming the importance of all the apostles. In particular he singled out Peter, the Jewish-Christian hero of the pseudo-Clementine literature, and Paul, the hero of Marcion. […] In summary, the date when Luke-Acts was written cannot be determined conclusively because of a lack of evidence; however, whatever evidence exists is compatible with a date that approaches the middle of the second century. In such a situation the work can be understood in part as responding to situations faced in the church of that period.”
– John T. Townsend, “The Dating of Luke-Acts” … in Charles Talbert (ed.), “Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar”, p.56-58

“It would not surprise me that the first two chapters [of Luke-Acts] take an anti-Marcionite view. In the first two chapters, Jewish piety is terrific. There is reference to John the Baptist’s circumcision, to Jesus’ circumcision, to people going to the Temple and making offerings. It looks like Old Testament wonderland! It’s fabulous! And you don’t see much of that particular view of Jewish piety, that particular view of the Temple and ritual in the rest of [Luke-Acts]. Everything in the first two chapters rings an anti-Marcionite bell. […] I put [the bulk of Luke] to probably the 90sCE, [and] I put Acts in the early second century. By the same author”
– Amy-Jill Levine, “Trinities Podcast Episode 236”

“[While] we cannot prove beyond doubt that Luke knew the writings of Josephus […], Luke’s product is much more difficult to explain if he had no knowledge of [them] […]. If he did not [know of the writings of Josephus] we have a nearly incredible series of coincidences, which require that Luke knew something that closely approximated Josephus’ narrative in several distinct ways. The source (or these sources) spoke of: Agrippa’s death after his robes shone; the extra-marital affairs of both Felix and Agrippa II; the harshness of the Sadducees toward Christianity; the census under Quirinius as watershed event in Palestine; Judas the Galilean as an arch-rebel at the time of the census; Judas, Theudas, and the Egyptian as three rebels in the Jerusalem area worthy of special mention among a host of others; Theudas and Judas in the same piece of narrative; the Egyptian, the desert, and the sicarii in close proximity; Judaism as a philosophical system; the Pharisees and Sadducees as philosophical schools; and the Pharisees as the most precise of the schools. We know of no other work that even remotely approximated Josephus’ presentation on such a wide range of issues. I find it easier to believe that Luke knew something of Josephus’ work than that he independently arrived at these points of agreement. Nevertheless, we await a thorough study of the matter. Of course, if Luke did know Josephus, then we can fix the date of Luke in the mid-90s or later, for Josephus finished Antiquities, the major work in question, in 93/94. Luke may have heard an earlier version or only a part of the work recited, perhaps in 90 or so. But a date of 95 or later for Luke would seem most plausible if he knew Antiquities 18-20. Although such a late date may seem troubling at first, I see no cause for concern. Even without the hypothesis that Luke knew Josephus, most scholars date Luke-Acts to the 80s or 90s (or later), on entirely different grounds. Recall that the author does not identify himself at all; the name “Luke” became established only in the mid-second century as far as we know. He implies that he is not an eyewitness of Jesus’ life (Luke 1:2). He takes Paul’s career up to the mid-60s (Acts 28), and seems to know about the destruction of the temple in AD 70 (Luke 19:41-44). Most important, he reflects a period when the era of the apostles was seen as a bygone “golden age” of serenity; the sharp intramural conflicts of Paul’s letters appear only as mild disputes, resolved with good will. Furthermore, the author assumes that a high degree of church structure is normal. So the acceptance of Luke’s knowledge of Josephus would not have radical implications for dating Luke-Acts”
– Steve Mason, “Josephus and the New Testament: 2nd Edition”, p.234-235

“There are problems of dating [Luke-Acts] in light of current theories of Gospel relations […], since the Gospel of Luke must be later than both Mark and Matthew, and thus no earlier than 80-85CE […]. A recent trend among scholars has seen the date edge slightly later, to about 90-110CE, and this now seems more likely”
– L. Michael White, “From Jesus to Christianity”, p.248

“Acts makes sense if we see it as relating to many problems of the early second-century Church […]. The historical details Luke gives normally relate to the circumstances existing at the turn of the century. […] For example, […] the degree of civic autonomy evidenced at Ephesus is only consistent with a dating in the late first and early second centuries […]. The whole sequence of Paul’s trial, too, which represents the judicial process terms ‘provocatio’ [also fits this period]. Likewise, the question of jurisdiction, which is reflected uniquely in Luke’s Passion account (see Luke 23:6-7), was important only at this period, when there was a move away from hearing cases in the ‘forum delicti’, where the crime was committed, to that of the ‘forum domicilii’, where the defendant lived. The evidence we have of the change shows it was only at the end of the first-century and the beginning of the second-century, when the new practice, which was unworkable, was ‘on trial’, that the situation in Luke-Acts can be substantiated. This too suggests it should be dated to this period. […] [Regarding the issue of whether Luke used Josephus as a source], from the evidence it seems more than likely that Luke used Jewish Wars [c.75-79CE], quite likely that he used Jewish Antiquities [c.93-94CE], and possible that he used Against Apion [c.95-96CE]. This too supports a dating for Luke-Acts c.100CE.”
– Barbara Shellard, “New Light on Luke”, p.28-34 [In the same book, Shellard argues strongly that Luke-Acts is also dependent on the Gospel of John, which she dates (in line with the general consensus) to the “early 90sCE” (p.15)]

“The Gospel of Luke […] was certainly written after the time of the composition of the works of Flavius Josephus and probably a decade after the composition of the Gospel of Mark, so c.AD 110-120”
– Bartosz Adamczewski, “Hypertextuality and Historicity in the Gospels”, p.111

“[Luke-Acts is from] around the year 120 C.E”
– Burton L. Mack, “Who Wrote the New Testament?”, p.167

“In those first few chapters of Acts, you’ve got characters saying things right out of the gate after the event of Jesus’ execution and resurrection that it took close to 90 years to develop in thought. Sorry! You don’t get to do that. But you do when you’re writing in the year 120CE or so, and you’re looking back and writing this retrospective ‘historia’, which is different from history. Peter says things that there is no way he would be saying. Paul says and does things that he never talks about in his own letters – in places where it would be really helpful to reference if it had been true.”
– Jennifer Grace Bird, “MythVision Podcast: Anti-Judaism in The New Testament with Dr. Jennifer Bird”

“I hold that the Acts of the Apostles was composed in the second century of the Common Era, sometime between 100 and 130CE, likely toward the latter end of that date range”
– Shelley Matthews, ‘Does Dating Acts to the 2nd Century Affect the Q Hypothesis?’, in “Gospel Interpretation and the Q Hypothesis”, p.246

“Acts of the Apostles was written in the early 2nd century, roughly 50 years after Paul’s last letter [Romans] was written”
– Laura Nasrallah, “Yale Divinity School Open Courses: The Letters of Paul”, Part 5: Canon Part 1 Video 4

“Dating Luke-Acts to the 80s or 90sCE is far too early. Analysis of various parallels suggest that Luke knew not only Matthew (c.85-95CE), but Papias’s Exposition as well (c.110CE). I date Luke-Acts to c.115-120CE”
– Dennis R. MacDonald, “Two Shipwrecked Gospels: The Logoi of Jesus and Papias’s Exposition”, p.47, 78, 89 (paraphrased)

“I lean toward the idea that the author of Acts used Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (c.93CE) as a source”
– Laura Robinson, “Interview with Laura Robinson: When the historical evidence isn’t enough”, youtube.com/watch?v=HYW5qG2OCnE&t @ 46:53

“Luke looks much more like a 2nd or 3rd generation text than Matthew does. When you look at the very opening of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:1-1-4), [the author] self consciously refers to the “many” who have written narratives before him. And for someone to write in such a self conscious way makes it much more likely that he might be a little bit later than Matthew. What’s more is that Luke goes on to narrate in his second volume, Acts of the Apostles, a whole load of history that happens after the Jesus movement, all the way up to Paul arriving in Rome. Luke feels like a later document. Plus, Luke also seems to know the ‘Antiquities of the Jews’, written by the Jewish historian Josephus in the 90sCE. If that’s the case, then Luke-Acts would be written either in the 90s or the early 2nd century.”
– Mark Goodacre, “The Synoptic Problem: Did Luke Rework Matthew’s Gospel? Q Source with Dr. Mark Goodacre”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t563ah5i7iw @18:05

“It would be only natural if the later canonical Gospels [including Luke/Acts] were created in close proximity to each other, in both time and location, most likely at Rome beginning in the 140sCE.”
– Markus Vinzent, “Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament”, p.92

“I follow F.C. Baur‘s placement of Acts and canonical Luke in the second century […]. The following stages of development seem clear: The prototype of the text, already established, originating in Marcion‘s circle as an anonymous composition ca. 100; (b) the intercalation of sayings – traditions (Q), independently of Matthew‘s use of the same tradition; (c) a second century ― “Lukan” redaction, including the dedication, an infancy story, editorial additions (e.g., temple-finding), an expanded resurrection account, and ascension story carried over into a still later composition, the Acts.”
– R. Joseph Hoffman, ‘Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus’ , p.30

“How can we measure the gap between these two different sensibilities, the incandescent apocalyptic expectations of the original community circa 30 C.E., and the calmer, de-eschatologized perspective of Luke, circa 110 C.E., who provides our only ‘history’ of this moment of that community?”
– Paula Fredriksen, “When Christians Were Jews”, p.104

“Whoever was updating Luke, was doing so in conscious reaction to Marcion”
– M. David Litwa, “Mythvision Podcast: The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea”

“I concur with the conclusion that the Paul of Acts is a rehabilitated version of the Paul of the letters, a Paul who was recast in terms more attractive to the church of the late first or early second century.”
– Thomas E. Phillips, “Paul, His Letters, and Acts”, p.197

“While a precise date is impossible to establish, Acts was most likely composed early in the second century CE”
– Gary Gilbert, “The Jewish Annotated Jew Testament”, p.197

“I’m getting later and later with Luke […]. I’m almost willing to go into the 2nd century now, when for years I’ve said [it] was written around the 80s or 90s. But there’s just good evidence that it might even be later – what we call Luke, that is…”
– James Tabor, “Dead Messiahs Who Don’t Return”, https://youtu.be/NrPK_7NFCO4?t=3207

We are regularly told by Christian Apologists that the scholarly consensus on the historicity of the empty tomb is strong enough that it can be counted as a “fact”. Is that so? In this thread, I intend to create a list of modern scholars and their comments that would beg to differ. I’ll edit the post as I find more. So stay tuned.

Marcus J. Borg

Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture, Oregon State Univ.
“The truth of Easter does not depend upon [the historicity of] an empty tomb. Did something utterly remarkable happen to the corpse of Jesus so that the tomb was empty? How much of the content of this story could we have captured on a videotape? And how much does that matter? [One] has to begin to wonder, “Maybe it’s not that kind of story.” Rather, the story looks to be a metaphorical narrative with rich resonances of meaning […] As a Christian, I am very comfortable not knowing whether or not the tomb was empty.”
– ‘The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions’, p.173-175

Günther Bornkamm

Professor of New Testament, Univ. Heidelberg
“As it is told, this story [of the women at the empty tomb], like the stories from the material peculiar to the other evangelists, is obviously a legend.”
– ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, p.183

Joel Carmichael

– Columbia Univ. & Oxford trained Historian, author of ‘The Death of Jesus’, ‘The Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth, and ‘The Unriddling of Christian Origins: a Secular Account’
“[The origin of the belief in Jesus’ Resurrection] is of course one of boundless complexity and obscurity […]. The most primitive tradition relies on the appearance of Jesus to some of his disciples in a vision, first to Peter, then presumably to others. The mere discovery of an empty comb could never have launched the faith in Jesus’ Resurrection. He would have had to be seen somewhere else first; the empty tomb alone would mean nothing. The proof of its significance ultimately rested on the interpretation of the vision of Jesus resurrected. Thus, in the logic of the situation, it must have been the conviction of Jesus’ reappearance that started the stories about his having been laid in a tome later found empty. This logic is simply confirmed by the incoherence of all the details of the tomb story.”
– ‘The Death of Jesus’, p.207-208

Richard Carrier

Independent, Ph.D. (Ancient History), author of ‘On the Historicity of Jesus’
“There simply was no empty tomb. Mark made it up.”
– ‘Why Did Mark Invent an Empty Tomb?’, richardcarrier.info/archives/16366

Maurice Casey

Emeritus Professor of New Testament Languages & Literature, Univ. Nottingham
“Jesus was probably buried in a common criminals’ tomb, where his body rotted in a normal way.”
– Maurice Casey, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, p.497

James Crossley

Professor of Bible, Society and Politics, St. Mary’s Univ., Twickenham
“The earliest evidence for the empty tomb has no genuine eyewitness support (in contrast to the resurrection appearances) and Mk 16.8 suggests that the story was not well known. The first resurrection appearances are more likely to be visionary experiences interpreted as a bodily raised figure, which meant that the early accounts of Paul and Mark could assume an empty tomb even if historically this was not the case.”
– ‘Against the Historical Plausibility of the Empty Tomb Story and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus’, in ‘Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus’, June 2005)

John Dominic Crossan

New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, fmr. Catholic priest, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar
“What must have happened normally was that the soldiers who executed the crucifixion guarded the cross until death and made sure it was over by burying the crucified one themselves […] No amount of [Gospel] damage control can conceal what its intensity only confirms. With regard to the body of Jesus, by Easter Sunday morning, those who cared did not know where it was, and those who knew did not care. Why should even the soldiers themselves remember the death and disposal of a nobody?”
– ‘The Historical Jesus’, p.392-394

Bart D. Ehrman

Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill
“We don’t know whether the tomb was discovered empty because we don’t know whether there even was a tomb.”
– ‘How Jesus Became God’, p.165

Christopher F. Evans

Professor of New Testament, King’s College, London
“The status of [the empty tomb story] in Mark is not easy to discern. The empty tomb does not seem to have belonged to the earliest kerygma of the resurrection, and should probably not be read out of either the references to the burial (1 Cor. 15.4; Rom. 6.4; Col. 2.12) […] Attempts to establish an historical kernel of [Mark’s] empty tomb story are not very convincing […]. It is in itself the proclamation of the resurrection, and is made so by the non-naturalistic elements, i.e the contradiction in the women setting out with the question, ‘Who will roll away the stone?’, and the presence of the interpreting angel, who, in place of the Lord, utters the vital statements. It is difficult to see what historical nucleus would be left if these were removed. And The very basis of the narrative, a visit for a delayed embalming of a body already buried, is itself improbable, and is dropped by Matthew and John.”
– ‘Resurrection and the New Testament’, p.75-77

Robert W. Funk

Biblical scholar, founder of the Jesus Seminar and the Westar Institute
“[I take the position that] the empty-tomb story found in the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark is a late legend, introduced into the tradition for the first time by Mark. It was unknown to Paul. It was also unknown to the Sayings Gospel Q and the Gospel of Thomas. Evidently the empty-tomb story and the reports of appearances did not come to play a central part in the Jesus tradition until several decades after Jesus’ death.”
– ‘Honest to Jesus’, p.259

Randel Helms

Professor at the Department of English, Arizona State Univ., author of ‘Gospel Fictions’ & ‘Who Wrote the Gospels?’
“Paul did not know the Gospel resurrection stories, for the simple reason that they had not yet been invented, and the four evangelists, who wrote twenty to fifty years after Paul, either did not know his list of appearances or chose to ignore it. Perhaps most surprisingly of all the differences is Paul’s failure to mention the legend of the empty tomb, which was, for the writer of the earliest Gospel, the only public, visible evidence for the resurrection… Indeed, [Paul] had probably never heard of it; it was a legend that grew up in Christian communities different from his own.”
– ‘Gospel Fictions’, p.130

Michael Goulder

Professor of Biblical Studies, Univ. Birmingham
“Romans almost always left the bodies of crucified criminals on the cross, where unburied and a prey to birds, they would be a horror and a warning to passers-by […]. We should assume that Jesus’ fate followed [this] normal pattern and that his body was left hanging for perhaps forty-eight hours. For the Jerusalem view of resurrection all that was necessary was that Jesus should have been seen. […] The trouble [of the empty tomb story] is that at so many points it is implausible, and even contradictory. If Jesus’ body is to be found missing, it will have to be buried in the tomb of a wealthy sympathizer. Joseph of Arimathaea supplies this need: he is an honorable councilor and has been expecting the kingdom of God. But then surely this is what Jesus has spent the week proclaiming in the temple; and if he is a councilor, presumably that means a member of the Sanhedrin, and he will have been present at the recent meeting, and so have been part of the unanimous vote condemning Jesus for blasphemy. A group of women goes out to anoint Jesus’ body “exceedingly early,” not knowing who is to roll away the enormous stone covering the tomb: although they are part of a community of tough men, some of them their relations, they would rather take a chance on meeting a gardener, or some such person, who happened to be around at 4 a.m. The point of the angel’s message is to have the disciples directed to Galilee, but the women say nothing to anyone in their fear, so the whole tale is pointless. The thought must arise that it is a late development of the Markan church, and that the women’s silence is an explanation of why it has not been heard before. In a divided church, those who thought physical resurrection an absurdity would not take kindly to a brand new story that Jesus’ body was buried in a stranger’s tomb, and had left it in the night. They would inevitably ask, “Why have we never heard this before?” “Ah,” replies the wily evangelist, “the women said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid.” ”
– ‘Jesus Without Q’, in ‘Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus’, p.1310-1311

Peter Kirby

Historian, author/maintainer of peterkirby.com & earlychristianwritings.com
“The empty tomb narrative is a fiction. It is the invention of the author of Mark, from which all other reports are dependent on. There are signs of fictional creation in the narrative, and it contains several improbabilities. There are several plausible alternate reconstructions of the events that exclude the discovery of an empty tomb.”
– ‘The Case Against the Empty Tomb’, in ‘The Empty Tomb’, p.233-234 (paraphrased)

Gerd Lüdemann

Chair of History and Literature of Early Christianity,  Univ. Göttingen
“Investigation into the burial of Jesus [suggests] that his followers did not even know where their leader had been buried […] Either the Jews entrusted Joseph of Arimathea with putting the body of Jesus in a tomb or Jews unknown to us ‘buried’ the corpse in a place which can no longer be identified […] None of the [empty tomb narratives] come from eyewitnesses; they have passed through the hand of the community and/or a theologically trained figure. So the historical yield is unsatisfactory.” 
– ‘What Really Happened to Jesus?’, p.79+81+131

Dale B. Martin

Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University
“If the empty tomb stories were historically true, [one] would strongly expect that the tomb would have become a place of veneration among early Christians. If they knew where it was, why didn’t they go back? It was very popular in the ancient world for people to have picnics around tombs. The family and the loved ones would get together on the anniversary of the death and they would actually celebrate the person’s memory with a picnic. If they knew the tomb where Jesus had been raised from, why did it take over 200 years for Christians to start venerating the tomb? And then they had to pick one that doesn’t seem to fit the archaeology of the Biblical narratives! It took basically Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, to go back and choose period traditions about where the tomb might have been. [And] she said, ‘OK, this is the tomb, build the church of the sepulchure here!’ That’s in the 4^th century! If [earlier Christians] knew where the tomb was, why didn’t they use it as a place to pray, as a place to hold Easter worship services? There’s no evidence that early Christians knew where the tomb was until too late to count as historical evidence.”
– ‘Did Jesus Physically Rise From the Dead?’ A debate between Mike Licona and Dale Martin, https://youtu.be/oU5z4AlxJ4U @ 1:03:52

Robert M. Price

Professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute
“That the Empty Tomb story is Mark’s own creation is evident from the fact that he knows about the young man, his message, and the women’s refusal to tell anyone about this encounter. If they told no one, how does Mark know? He is ‘the omniscient narrator’—of fiction!”
– ‘Holy Fable Volume 2’, Kindle location 1867

John Shelby Spong

Episcopal Bishop, Prolific author on early Christianity
“The angels of the empty tomb, the tomb itself with its massive stone and its female visitors, to say nothing of the entire burial tradition, must be dismissed as not factual. These parts of the tradition were quite simply the myths and legends that arose later in a Jerusalem setting.”
– ‘Resurrection: Myth or Reality’, p.235

others… quotes forthcoming….

Hector Avalos

Gerald Boldock Boston

Rudolf Bultmann

Peter Carnley

Robert Eisenman

Maurice Goguel

Hans Grass

Charles Guignebert

Uta Rank-Heinemann

Herman Hendrickx

Roy Hoover

Helmut Koester

Hans Kung

Alfred Loisy

Burton L. Mack

Dennis R. MacDonald

Willi Marxsen

Norman Perrin

Marianne Sawick

Howard M. Teeple

John T. Theodore

Robyn Faith Walsh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pibg5caajs)

Adela Yarbro Collins (?)

The following is a response to Erik Manning’s video titled “A Case for the Early Dating of the Gospels”, produced by ‘Sunday School Apologetics’. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYx6re1zTRg

I can’t comment on everything in the video otherwise I’d be here all day. But here are few points to consider:

[Firstly, as a side note, I find it funny how Bart Ehrman has become every fundamentalist’s punching bag! He cops it from both sides – the fundamentalist Mythicists for whom his gospel datings are way too early, and the fundamentalist Christian Apologists, for whom his datings are way too late!]

So…

AT BEST Manning’s video points out that some sayings and traditions in the canonical gospels might pre-date 70CE. But it does not follow that the Gospels are therefore entirely a product of a pre-70CE period. It just means they occasionally preserve some earlier material. But even the supposedly hard-nosed skeptic Bart Ehrman, whose views Manning is attempting to argue against, accepts that the canonical gospels contain early, pre-70CE, traditions. So the video essentially creates a strawman of Ehrman’s views to punch down by not articulating this important nuance of Ehrmans’ views to his viewers.

I don’t find the common apologetic argument for dating Luke-Acts to the 60sCE on the basis that it does not mention Paul’s death at all convincing. The latter chapters of Acts certainly imply an awareness of Paul’s impending death. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price puts the argument to bed nicely:

“[Apologists often argue that] if the author of Acts knew of Paul’s heroic martyrdom, why the heck didn’t he even mention it? ​Oh, but he did. The whole narrative structure of Acts parallels Paul’s career with that of Jesus: both undertake an itinerant preaching mission, performing healings and exorcisms, only to wind up at the Jerusalem Temple, sparking a disturbance there, which leads to arrest by the Romans and trials before the Jewish Sanhedrin, Herodian kings, and Roman procurators. You mean this writer didn’t know Paul wound up being put to death by Rome? If that weren’t enough, Paul even makes Passion predictions (Acts 20:22-25; 21:10-14). Do you seriously believe the author did not only know that Paul was dead as a doornail but that his readers already knew it, too? And do we even know when Paul died? The only indications are found in the anonymous and undateable 1 Clement and the grossly legendary Acts of Paul. In other words, we don’t know.”
– “Holy Fable Vol.2”, EPUB edition, location 3663

Regarding Mark 13:14-18’s command to those in Judea to “flee to the mountains” without looking back and to “pray that it may not be in winter”, this strikes many scholars as a reference to the events of late (i.e. winter) 67CE. To quote Catholic scholar Francis J. Maloney:

“In the winter of 67, as the Zealots were temporarily confined to the inner court of the temple, escape was possible. According to Josephus (J.W.4.99), at that time a number of groups saw that they must escape”
– “The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary”, p.261.

As such, the detail makes perfect sense in a post-67CE setting.

It is interesting also to note how Manning quotes Irenaeus as “external evidence” for dating the Gospel of Matthew to a time when Peter and Paul were still alive (i.e. prior to ~65CE). Manning quotes the following portion from Irenaeus as follows:

“Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, laying the foundations of the church … “

But Manning then FAILS to continue on with the rest of what Irenaeus immediately says about when he thought Mark was composed:

“… after their death, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, handed on his preaching to us in written form” (emphasis added)

This means Irenaeus dates Mark to the same time Ehrman does – c.65-70CE.

Such conveniently selective quoting here makes me think Manning is not being as objective as he could be. This is either a very dunce oversight or he’s not being entirely honest.

I surely also don’t need to point out the well known problem that Irenaeus’ description of the Gospel of Matthew (as a Hebrew text) is evidently not the text we are familiar with (a Greek one dependent on the Greek Mark). All in all, Irenaeus is pretty useless evidence here.

At the end of the day, the canonical gospels’ awareness of the destruction of the Temple remains a generally solid reason for dating the completion of the Gospels as we know them to a post-70CE period. One doesn’t need to have a bad case of “anti-supernatural bias” to see this. Even conservative Christian scholars like Craig Evans and Michael F. Bird accept the dating of Mark to c.65-70CE and that Matthew and Luke are dependent on it. Good luck trying to pin them as ones with an “anti-supernatural bias”!

Paul was an Apocalypticist who believed the end was nigh. He believed that the resurrected pneumatically-bodied Jesus was to return to instigate the Apocalypse (or whatever one wants to call it) very soon within his generation. Consider these quotes from his authentic epistles (with emphasis added):

1 Corinthians 7:29
“I mean, brothers, the appointed time has grown short. From now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away“

1 Corinthians 10:11
“These things [i.e. Old Testament stories he has been using to warn the Corinthians
against idolatry] happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come“

1 Corinthians 15:51
“Listen, I will tell you a secret! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”

1 Thessalonians 4:13
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words”

Romans 8:18-23
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies”

Romans 13:11
“You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. The night is far gone, the day is near…”

^ If Paul is writing his Epistle to the Romans in the 50sCE, some 20yrs after Jesus’s supposed resurrection, does this quote not imply that Paul expects the return to happen in less than 20 years?

Romans 16:20
The god of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.

1 Corinthians 4:9
“I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals”

1 Corinthians 15:23
Paul describes Jesus as the “first fruits” of the expected ‘General Resurrection’ – a farming imagery for the first pickings of the seasonal harvest, again the point being that they are living in the season of the coming Apocalypse.

Paul was evidently wrong in his expectations.

---

Below are a selection of scholarly quotes:

“For Paul […] Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, and his resurrection is as fateful for humanity as the sin of Adam had been. In short, Paul argues that the resurrection of Jesus must be understood in the context of a general resurrection and presupposes a full scenario such as as we find in the historical apocalypses. Since one person has already been raised, the rest cannot be far behind. The end is at hand”
– John J. Collins, “The Apocalyptic Imagination (2nd Edition)”, p.264

“[Paul] conceived of the whole sweep of history, or of God’s programme for the world, as climaxing in the acts of the apostles. The apostles constituted the last act on the stage of cosmic history”
– James Dunn, “Jesus, Paul and the Gospels”, p.144

“Paul anticipated the end of the age to come within his lifetime […] Paul’s mission was to convince others so that they too could be transformed into imperishable beings when the end of this age came to a grand climax with the appearance of Jesus from heaven. No wonder he saw his mission as so urgent. The end was upon him, and people needed to be told”
– Bart Ehrman, “Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene”, p.120

“[1 Thessalonians 4:13-18] indicates that Paul believed Jesus’s Second Coming and the end of the age to be imminent”
– Gerd Lüdemann, “1 Thessalonians: The Earliest Christian Text” p.56

“When and how the final step of glorification takes place is fortunately a subject that Paul addresses in some detail in several places in his letters. Paul believes that he is living at the end of the age, very near the time when Christ will return from heaven. He expects to live to see Jesus appear visibly in the clouds, in the lower atmosphere”
– James Tabor, “Jesus & Paul”, p.115

“Throwing all caution to the wind, Paul boldly asserted – as a certainty based on Christ’s promise – that he and his flock would participate in the great encounter, which he sketched with masterly strokes [in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17]. Such a firm announcement of the imminence of the Second Coming, which continued to be ardently expected until as late as the end of the 1st century CE, turned out to be dangerous as it clearly unsettled some of the faithful”
– Geza Vermes, “Christian Beginnings”, p.104

“[Coming to the belief that] Jesus had come as the Messiah of Israel meant further, for Paul, that the apocalyptic end times had commenced and would be consummated soon when Jesus came back again”, and “It is clear from [the concern of the Thessalonians discernible in 1 Thessalonians], as well as Paul’s own summary statement in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, that in his earlier preaching Paul had stressed apocalyptic themes regarding the Messiah, an imminent eschaton, and divine wrath”
– L. Michael White, “From Jesus to Christianity”, p.158 and p.176

“We learn here [in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18] that Paul and his contemporaries expected Jesus’s Second Coming in the very near future, and, indeed, Paul expected to be alive for the events”
– Vincent Smiles, “New Collegeville Commentary on the New Testament”, p.662

“[For Paul] the Parousia is clearly to be in [his] lifetime. It will ensure upon the crisis of Evil and, though preceded by certain signs, yet will come ‘as a thief in the night’. The event itself is painted in typical apocalyptic colours – Christ with attendant angels descending from heaven, the archangel’s voice, the sound of the trumpet, etc. The Parousia is also the ‘Day of Judgement’. On that Day, Anti-christ will be annihilated, and the wicked doomed to ‘eternal destruction’”
– A. M. Hunter, “Paul and His Predecessors”, p.101

“Paul believed that his singleness enabled him to devote greater time and energy to his ministry and claimed to possess a gift of celibacy. Because Paul placed a premium upon his own singleness and imminently expected the eschaton, he recommended that other single believers also remain single”
– Thomas E. Phillips, “Paul, His Letters and Acts”, p.84

“[Paul’s] answers [in 1 Corinthians 7] are conditioned by his belief that the community is living in the last days of the end-time and that the Lord’s second coming is quickly approaching”
– Maria A. Pascuzzi, “New Collegeville Commentary on the New Testament”, p.486

“A problem derives from the gospel which Paul proclaimed and to which the Thessalonians were converted – ‘For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep’. In other words, the problem arises out of the consideration of a fundamentally human event like death seen in the light of the gospel and its soteriological, eschatological, and apocalyptic aspects. If Jesus trued ‘died and rose again,’ if God has indeed ‘destined us… to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us’, and if ‘we who are alive’ have to wait ‘until the coming of the Lord’, then what happens to the Christians who actually die in the interim, in the time between the resurrection of Jesus and his coming on ‘the day of the Lord’? Paul, evidently, judged the period between the two events to be within the span of a single lifetime. Indeed, he expected ‘the day of the Lord’ within his own lifetime – ‘we who are alive, who are left…’ ” […] “The conviction of the imminence of the parousia remained with Paul to the end. The idea is not abandoned even in Romans – ‘For salvation is nearer to us now that when we first believed’ (13:11, see 8:19, 23). If this statement is anything more than a jejune truism, its reference must be to Paul’s expectation of the parousia”
– Stanley B. Marrow, “Paul: His Letters and His Theology”, p.76-77

“[After analysis of the Pauline corpus] We can summarize the main ingredients of Paul’s Announcement. Positively, Paul understands Jesus in apocalyptic terms. Jesus died and rose to save humanity in some way, and this salvation will be completed in very concrete terms with Jesus’s imminent return from heaven to evacuate his followers”
– Steve Mason, “Paul’s Announcement”, in “Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins”, p.295

“Paul would probably have discouraged [his fellow Christians] from taking part [in zealot-like uprisings]. He always told his disciples to “live quietly” until the Messiah returned to establish his kingdom – an event that he firmly believed would happen in his own lifetime (see 1 Thessalonians 4 and Romans 13)”
– Karen Armstrong, “St. Paul: The Misunderstood Apostle”, p.40

“[Paul’s understanding of his mission] was part of a deep conviction that God was finally putting things right. So much of Paul’s theological language was rooted in that conviction – language dealing with justification, judgment, wrath, the new creation, and the outpouring of the spirit. So much of his activity was driven by the belief that he lived in the last generation of this world age and that he along with his addressees would participate in that final eschatological moment: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up!” (1 Thess 4:17). So much of the energy of his mission came from the belief that he was playing a powerful role as herald of the good news that all must hear before the end. Paul’s coupling of emphases on the approaching end and the mission to the Gentiles, though hardly unique, was certainly central to his self-understanding”
– Calvin Roetzel, “Paul: The Man and the Myth”, p.62

“[Paul] believed passionately that the Second Coming was imminent […]. Paul claimed to be a Jew but he was extending Judaism into a new context in which the dominant force was Christ and his imminent coming”
– Charles Freeman, “A New History of Early Christianity, p.50, 52

“The temple’s destruction [in 70CE] broke a crucial bond. Yahweh had missed a perfect opportunity to show his power; Jerusalem would have been the perfect stage for a scenario all expected – the return of Jesus and the ensuing end of the world. But Jesus had not returned. This non-event exacerbated existing psychological unrest at the failure over the previous forty years of his promised reappearance in power. Followers expected his Second Coming within their own lifetimes. Twenty years or more before the temple’s doom, Paul had already had to settle rustlings of uneasiness about Jesus’s non-appearance. He had to make constant assurances that the end was near (see Romans 13:11-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 5:2). And yet it had not happened, even as more and more people died who had known Jesus or been personally inspired by his message”
– Robert Knapp, “The Dawn of Christianity: People and Gods in a Time of Magic and Miracles”, p.208-209

“After the death of Jesus, his disciples continued to be confident of the imminent end of the world, to some degree because they were still under the spell of their master’s frequent promises (“the kingdom of God is at hand”; “there willl be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power”; “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled”), and they went about in search of portents. The same illusion was shared by Paul. His Epistles testify amply to his conviction that the wait would be of the briefest (συνεσταλμένος, sunestalmenos) and that the Great Day was imminent (ἐνεστῶσαν ἀνάγκην, enestōsan anankēn), certain to arrive before he and his contemporaries had died”
– Marcello Craveri, “The Life of Jesus: An Assessment through Modern Historical Evidence”, p.332

“One ingredient of Paul’s apocalyptic outlook is his dualistic doctrine of two ages. He senses that he lives on the boundary of two worlds, one dying and the other being born. He expects the last trumpet to sound soon. “Not all of us will fall asleep” (1 Cor. 15:51). While he cannot fix the precise time and date, he assures the believers at Thessalonica that “the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2). They should, therefore, prepare themselves (5:4)”
– Joe E. Barnhart & Linda T. Kraeger, “In Search of First-Century Christianity”, p.65

“The expectation of the end of the present world order – one of Paul’s central convictions – appears too in what may be his last surviving letter, Romans: ‘Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand.’ (Rom 13:11-12). Thus Paul, as long as we can follow his thought, continued to expect the arrival of the Lord. He had to alter aspects of this hope for certain situations – the crisis over the dead in Thessalonica and the possibility of his own death – and he also made use of the idea of individual immortality. But to the end his basic conviction remained”
– E.P. Sanders, “Paul (Past Masters Series)”, p.33

“Paul expects the Lord to come soon; his statement [in 1 Cor 15:51] that “we shall not die” suggests this. And he clearly states in 1 Cor 7:29, 31 that “the appointed time has grown short” and that “the present form of this world is passing away.” The inclusive “we” in 15:51 indicates that he himself expects to live to see that day. The transformation of the living, asserted here, also suggests or is congruent with this. That the apostle includes the living in the end-time change is clear from the assertion “We will not all die but we will all be changed.” […] In 1 Cor 15:52 and 1 Thess 4:13-18 Paul hints that he expects to be alive at this completion. In 2 Cor 4:14 as well, he presumes that the Corinthians will also then be alive. As 1 Cor 7:25-31 clearly shows, Paul is convinced that he is living in the last generation on earth. Suddenness is a common motif in NT apocalyptic. It occurs in 1 Thess 5:2 and also in Luke 17:24 and Matt 24:27 (Q). But while the eschatological parables and 1 Thess 5:2-3 mention, by means of suddenness, the unpredictability of the Lord’s coming and hence the need to be ready for it, [some commentators are cautious in attributing to Paul an imminent expectation] […] But to Paul’s thinking, the parousia has not receded into the distant future; he keeps on talking about the near approach of the end. In Phil 4:5 he asserts, “The Lord is near” and in Rom 13:11-12 he states, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” […] That in 1 Cor 15:50-55 Paul implies that his is the last generation is evident also from the early textual emendations … ” [goes on to describe scribal emendations in later manuscripts]
– Joseph Plevnik, “Paul and the Parousia”, p.158-160

“The Kingdom of God, Paul proclaimed, was at hand. His firm belief that he lived and worked in history’s final hour is absolutely foundational, shaping everything else that Paul says and does”
– Paula Fredriksen, “Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle”, preface

“Province by Roman province, Paul aimed to spread the news of Jesus to the world. And fast. Paul believed time was running out. The world was about to end. Christ’s return in a blaze of glory was hourly expected. So off he went. ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand!’ [he taught] (Rom 13:12). Except it did not turn out that way. Time did NOT come to and end. Paul did NOT live to see the return of Christ. We have to remember always [this facet of Paul’s teaching]”
– Tom Holland, “The Bible: A History: Episode 6: St. Paul”, 14:36 + 37:30 (paraphrased)

“[Paul believes that] for some faithful, that is, those who will have died by the time of parousia, this change [from a perishable to an imperishable body] will come about by the resurrection: they will be raised imperishable. In their case, the metaphor of the seed (1 Cor. 15:35-38, 42-44) is illuminating. But there are others (and, seemingly, Paul still counts himself among them), that is, those who are alive at the parousia (cf. also 1 Thess. 4:15), who will be changed without having to die first and, therefore, without the resurrection”
– Lionel Swain, “The People of the Resurrection: Volume 1: The Apostolic Letters”, p.135

“Here [in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17], Paul speaks to the faithful in Thessalonica in no uncertain terms – imminent apocalyptic terms. Paul expects to be at the Parousia of Jesus Christ. And just as [seen] in the Synoptic tradition, Paul faced a period of time (approximately five or six years, if we accept the dating of 1 Thessalonians c. 49 CE and Romans c. 55 CE) in which he personally was confronted with the delayed Parousia. […] [Paul] left evidence not only of the prevalence of apocalyptic expectation [in his own thought and of early Christian communities’] but also of some measure of its unsustainability”
– David A. Sánchez, ‘The Apocalyptic Legacy of Early Christianity’, in “The Letters and Legacy of Paul: Fortress Commentary on the Bible”, p.166-167

“For Paul possession of the [Holy] Spirit was one of the surest signs of the imminence of the divine kingdom. Of course, Paul always assumes the distinctive mark of the eschatological hope, namely, that the kingdom of heaven is nigh, always ahead. He is never forced to prove it expressly because for him and his time, being a Christian and “waiting for the Lord” are identical. But when, following the impression given us by Paul’s letters, we inquire as to the basis for his conviction that “the ends of the ages have come upon us” (1 Cor. 10:11)” or that “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31) and a new one approaching, then we can confidently reply that this conviction rests on his pneumatic experiences”
– Hermann Gunkel, “The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View of the Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul”, p.84-85

“It scarcely needs saying that here [1 Cor 7:29-31] there is more than avoice of mankind’s universl experience of the swift passage of time. The reason why time is foreshortened and running out is that Christ’s imminent coming again and the end of the world are at the very door – so near that many in Paul’s own generation would live on to experience them (1 Thess. 4:15 ff.; 1 Cor. 15:51 ff.; cf. Phil. 4:5). Even though no one knows the day and the hour, and the “day of the Lord” will come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:1 f.), this makes no difference to Paul’s conviction that it is near.”
Günther Bornkamm, “Paul”, p.206

“Like other apocalyptic authors of the first century, Paul is convinced that the created universe is divided into two orders, heaven and earth. What is happening on earth has been anticipated in the heavens. Only God, the good angels and the apocalypticists, to whom the mysteries have been revealed above, know the heavenly, and therefore what will happen in the earthly sphere. Paul, in particular, thinks that the heavenly plan of God has been revealed to him for the end of time, the new covenant, and a all that He has already executed, and will execute, through the Messiah. Paul is convinced that he is living in the last days of the world, that history came to an end in his generation. His different intellectual environment as a Jew of the diaspora led him to think not of a Kingdom of God only in the land of Israel, but in a universalist, supramundane, heavenly one. The whole creation must be part of the glory of this kingdom, for the universe will finally be free from corruption.”
Antonio Piñero, “A Guide to Understanding Paul of Tarsus: An Interpretation of Pauline Thought”, p.52 (translated)

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest surviving gospel. It portrays Jesus as one who thought and taught the Apocalypse / the infamous ‘Day of Wrath’ / the gathering of the elect / the great Parousia moment (whatever one wishes to call it) was imminent. Mark’s Jesus admits to not knowing the “day or the hour”, sure, but he incorrectly teaches it be expected within the generation of his followers:

Mark 1:14
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near! Repent, and believe in the good news.”

Mark 8:38
Jesus: “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come with power.”

^Evidently, the Kingdom of God has not yet arrived. The Son of Man was not ashamed at the generation because he didn’t arrive before they all died.

Mark 13:24
Jesus: “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

Mark 14:61
The High Priest asked [Jesus], “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power, coming with the clouds of heaven.”

^Mark’s Jesus goes as far as telling the High Priest that he would see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. The High Priest also died before the gathering of the elect.

In 9:13, Mark’s Jesus also teaches John the Baptist as the fulfillment of the return of Elijah, as prophesied in Malachi 4, whom it was believed would return just prior to the “great and terrible day when the Lord comes”, the day when “all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble”, “ashes under the soles of your feet”. Evidently this didn’t happen either.

What are we to make of all this when the earliest surviving Gospel text portrays a Jesus whom we can see in hindsight was wrong?

Scholarly thoughts:

“The author [or Mark] makes the destruction of the Temple not the eschatological event itself, but merely the “birth pangs” for the eschaton. In other words, the Markan audience was being told that the traumatic events that had so recently transpired in Jerusalem were – like the onset of labor – the signal that the eschatological age was now about to dawn, in fact within the lifetime of that very generation (13:24-32). Despite their previous misunderstanding, Jesus would return soon.”

– L. Michael White, “Scripting Jesus”, p.266

“More important for the question of the writer [of Mark] and his recipients is the apocalyptic discourse, 13:3-37, which contains the phrase used to date the gospel (“desolating sacrilege,” 13:14), but also has an aside, “Let the reader understand” (13:14). If this phrase was not added later, it implies that the discourse is addressed not only to those in the story, Jesus’ twelve disciples, but to Mark’s intended readers at the time of writing. As the context puts it, “the disciples” are being led astray by false Christs (verses 5-7); they are undergoing tribulation and persecution (verses 8-13); and they are seeing “the desolating sacrilege set up where he out not to be” (verse 14), which has led to more tribulation and to an increase in the activity of false Christs and false prophets (verses 19-23). Yet, the End is near, the Son of Man will soon be seen “coming in clouds with great power and glory” (verse 26); one must now “Take heed, watch” (verses 33-37). If the “desolating sacrilege” in Mark 13:14 refers to the destruction of the Temple by the Roman Titus in 70 C.E., this shattering event would have brought apocalyptic fervor and expectation to a fever pitch. Such an event had to be the beginning of the End. Mark wrote to support this view, to encourage his readers to wait and hope, and to instruct them that as Jesus himself had to go through his passion to his glory, they had to be prepared for discipleship that involves suffering.”

– Dennis C. Duling & Norman Perrin, “The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History”, p.299

“Whatever one makes of Mark 9:1 and 13:30 […], one must come to terms with parables that advise people to watch for the coming of the Lord or the Son of Man, with the pronouncements of eschatological woes on contemporaries, and with the miscellaneous complexes that either announce or presuppose that the final fulfillment of God’s saving work is nigh. Those who dissociate Jesus from imminent eschatological need to show us […] that it misrepresents what Jesus was all about.”

– Dale C. Allision, “Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet”, p. 150

“In sum, Mark 9:1 furnishes the clearest substantiation of the view that Jesus envisaged the coming of the Kingdom in his age, in the first century AD. It is not surprising therefore that we witness all kinds of exegetical acrobatics on the part of ecclesiastical interpreters of this passage”

– Geza Vermes, “The Authentic Gospel of Jesus”, p.281

“[Regarding Mark 9:1], the difficulty that has been felt about this interpretation [viz. that the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in its full and final form lies in the very near future] is that it makes our Lord foreshorten the perspective drastically and sets definite bounds to the extent of his accurate foreknowledge in the days of his flesh. Nevertheless … the interpretation is to be accepted, and numerous writers have shown that admission of such ignorance, and even error, on the part of our Lord is fully compatible with belief in the Incarnation”

– Dennis Nineham, “The Gospel of Saint Mark”, p.231

“Jesus’ soliloquy in Mark’s text thus ties all these religiously portentous events in a specifically Christian concern: knowing the time of the Parousia, the reappearance from heaven of Jesus Christ as the triumphant Son of Man. “When will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?” ask some apostles after Jesus predicts the Temple’s destruction. In so doing, they set up Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse. He answers by detailing what must come first: false Christs, wars, famine, persecution of those loyal to him, and the preaching of the gospel to Gentiles.

After these events come the abominations, which the understanding reader knows must mean the End; after these comes the Temple’s total destruction (“no stone upon another”); after these, then – since the Lord has already shortened the days – will come the End, and the return of the Redeemer. Mark, in short, sees time stereoscopically. From the perspective of those around Jesus, “the faithless and adulterous generation,” no sign had been given. But from the perspective of his own generation – a faithful generation who had witnessed to Christ before councils and governors, who had withstood the allurements of “false christs and false prophets” working signs and wonders, and who had preached the gospel to the Gentiles – the great and unmistakable sign of Christ’s Second Coming had been given; the destruction of the Temple. The End, Mark thus knew, really was at hand; and some from Jesus’ own generation were still alive to see it (13:30; cf.9:1)”

– Paula Fredriksen, “Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews”, p.86

“[Early] Christians prophesied that the end of the world would come within the lifetimes of those hearing the good news. Which [failed to come to fruition]. But the cognitive dissonance caused by those earlier failures would explain the eventual success of a ‘reinterpretation’ that couldn’t be falsified: a messiah who triumphs in heaven, and reveals this fact from heaven, in secret, to a select few. That Christians taught that Jesus had predicted the imminent end is undeniable – see Mark 13…”

– Richard Carrier, “On the Historicity of Jesus”, p.85

“The early Church expected the parousia to take place within the first generation of Christians. For our purpose it is less important that Paul held this belief than that it appears in the gospel tradition. It is impossible to make Mark 13 mean anything less than that Christians contemporary with Mark believed that they would see the whole story through up to the coming of the Son of Man. Mark 13.30 alone is decisive, unless strained meanings are to be given to either γενεὰ (generation) or ταῦτα πάντα (all these things), and this verse is not contradicted by 13.32, which states that within the general nearness of the end no one can name the precise moment of its arrival.

The hearers of this discourse are encouraged to endure to the end, notwithstanding the universal hatred they will incur for Jesus’ sake (v. 13). They will see (ὅταν ἴδητε, when you see, second person plural) the abomination of desolation standing where he out not (v. 14). The Lord has shortened the days of suffering so that the elect may survive (v. 20). The hearers of the discourse will see the signs of the end (v. 29, ὅταν ἴδητε, when you see, again), and will be able to deduce from them that it (or the Son of Man?) is already at their doors. This early dating of the end became a source of embarrassment, and, especially in the later gospels, traces appear of editorial and theological steps taken in view of the “delay of the parousia”; it is most improbable that the Church created this embarrassment for itself, and probable therefore that the conviction that the vindicating parousia would happen soon has deep roots in the tradition”

– C.K. Barrett, “Jesus and the Gospel Tradition”

“Critical difficulties emerge with [Mark] 13:30: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place.” Interpreters struggle with this saying, and many attempts have been made to interpret “this generation” in a way that eases the impression of Jesus’ support for the imminent return of the Son of Man. If Jesus told his contemporaries that the end would come about in their time, then we have a prophecy from Jesus that did not come true. Attempts to avoid the obvious meaning of “this generation” are not convincing. Similarly the reference to the imminence of the end of the world must be maintained.”

– Francis Moloney, “The Gospel of Mark”, p.268

“[Mark 13:30-31] declare that the [preceding] events prophesied will take place within the existing generation. They answer the question: ‘When shall these things be?’ (13:4). […] The ταῦτα πάντα (“all these things”) are all the events described in 13:5-27, including the Messianic woes, the persecutions, the heavenly portents, the Parousia, and the gathering of the Elect. [13:30-31 serve] the interest of [the author’s] contemporary apocalyptic [outlook].”

– Vincent Taylor, “The Gospel According to St. Mark”, p.521

Did Paul think Jesus was God? I doubt it. I’m not opposed to the idea. Paul believed plenty of other things I think are just plain wrong. If he did believe Jesus was God, then this would just be another stroke in a large tally of things I disagree with him on. But I’m not at all convinced he did believe such a thing in the first place. Indeed, I think it is more likely he did not. Here’s why.

Firstly, it is striking given the regularity with which the authentic epistles of Paul touch on Christology (directly and indirectly) that he never just comes out and says it straight – that Jesus is the capital-G sole God of his Jewish monotheism. Why not? Paul does this regularly for the figure known as “the Father”, but never for “the Son”. Specifically, note how Paul speaks of “God the Father” in 1 Thessalonians 1:1; Philippians 2:11; Galatians 1:1, 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6, but never “God the Son”, despite referring to “the Son” on many, many occasions.

Secondly, Paul regularly makes statements that appear contradictory to a notion of Jesus being synonymous with God. One of the clearest examples is 1 Corinthians 11:3, where Paul speaks of “God” being “the head of Christ”. Paul compares this headship to how “[Christ is] the head of every man”, and how “[man is] the head of his wife”. Paul seems to be listing some sort of hierarchical order: God -> Christ -> Man -> Woman. How can Paul understand Jesus to be synonymous with God if God is listed hierarchically above him?

Similar distinctions between God and Jesus are found in 2 Corinthians 1:3 and Romans 15:6. In these verses, Paul speaks of “the god and father of our lord Jesus the Messiah”. An almost identical phrase is found in 2 Corinthians 11:31, where Paul speaks of “the god and father of the lord Jesus”. How are we to imagine Paul the monotheist believing Jesus to be God if he understood Jesus to have had a God that wasn’t himself?

A different type of example is found in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28. In this passage, Paul appears to say that Jesus’ coming reign of the kingdom will be temporary, and that eventually even Jesus himself will hand the reign over to “the God and Father” and subjugate himself to the Father’s ultimate rule. “The Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him”. Again, how are we to imagine Paul the monotheist believing Jesus to be God if Jesus is understood to one day be subjugated to “the God and Father”?

The above examples are positive evidence for Paul thinking Jesus to be distinct from the God of his Jewish monotheism. Let me now turn to the two passages most commonly appealed to by those who think Paul did believe Jesus to be God, and explain why I do not find them satisfactory.

Perhaps the passage most commonly appealed to is 1 Corinthians 8:6. Here, Paul adds to the great Jewish monotheistic declaration of Deuteronomy 6:4 (“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our god, Yahweh alone / is one” – referred to as “the Shema”) with his new insight: “For us there is one god, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one lord, Jesus the Messiah, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

The initial reading is not at all that Paul is saying Jesus is God. “The Father” is specifically identified as the “one God” of the Shema. Jesus though is identified with the title “lord”, with a very distinctive “and” (Greek: καὶ) separating the two.

The usual response to this initial reading is to point out that Paul and his audience were primarily Greek speakers, and as such, would have been familiar with the Hebrew Bible through Greek translations. In such translations, the Hebrew name of God, “Yahweh”, was commonly translated to the Greek “κυριος” (“lord”). Thus, Deuteronomy 6:4 would likely have been familiar to Paul and his audience as: “Hear, O Israel: The lord is our God, the lord alone / is one”. So the argument goes that when Paul states “lord, Jesus the Messiah”, it should be understood as linking “Yahweh” with “Jesus the Messiah”.

But this is not at all required, and there are good reasons to doubt this interpretation. Most obviously would be the clunkiness of initially saying there is “one god” only to then follow this up with listing two individuals, “the Father”, and “lord Jesus the Messiah”. Secondly, the context of the wider passage suggests that Paul’s use of κυριος / “lord” in verse 6 need not be synonymous with the Hebrew divine name. Just a verse earlier, Paul speaks of “many gods and many lords” (θεοὶ πολλοὶ καὶ κυριοι πολλοὶ) believed in by pagans. Verse 6 then contrasts the “many gods and many lords” of the pagans with the “one god […] and one lord” of the Christians. If we are not to think of these pagan “lords” as synonymous with the pagan “gods”, or that we should think Paul is calling these pagan lords “Yahwehs”(!), why should we think the singular “lord” he refers to is to be thought of as synonymous with his “one god”? Furthermore, Paul uses the term “lord” in other contexts that do not require a synonymity with Yahweh. In Galatians 4:1, Paul uses “lord” to refer to earthly heirs who are the “lord” of their inherited property. Surely Paul is not saying that these heirs are Yahwehs! At the end of the day, the Greek word just means “lord”, and, just as in English, it need not necessitate capital-G Godly synonymity. 1 Corinthians 8:6 does not cut the mustard for equating Jesus as synonymous with God. Indeed, given the context and fluency of the passage, it actually works better as evidence for Paul keeping Jesus distinct from the one God of his Jewish monotheism. Jesus is no more the God of Paul’s monotheism than the “many [pagan] lords” are to be understood as completely synonymous with the “many [pagan] gods” he also speaks of.

Another passage found in the authentic epistles of Paul regularly put forward to support the idea that he believed Jesus to be synonymous with God is the passage known as the Philippian Hymn of Philippians 2:5-11. I will begin my discussion by conceding this passage to be the best piece of evidence against the view I am arguing for in this essay. But it is certainly not the ‘slam-dunk’ many think it is.

The passage describes the pre-incarnate Jesus as once having been “in the form of God”, and that, despite this, this Jesus “did not regard equality with God as something to be αρπαγμος”. I have deliberately left the last word in Greek, because that is where much of the debate is centered. According to Strong’s Greek/English dictionary, the word αρπαγμος means “the act of seizing / or the thing seized”. If Paul is saying equality with God is something already seized by the pre-incarnate Jesus, then Paul can be fairly interpreted as equating Jesus synonymously with God. However, if Paul is using αρπαγμος in the sense of the act of seizing, then the interpretation can just as easily be that equality with God was not (yet?) a property of the pre-incarnate Jesus. In this view, the pre-incarnate Jesus chooses not to grasp for such equality. So the issue is not resolved on that phrase.

But isn’t Paul’s describing the pre-incarnate Jesus as “in the form of God” a statement of synonymity? Not necessarily. Firstly, one wonders why, if this were Paul or the Hymn’s composer’s intent, he didn’t just say “was God”? Secondly, the Greek word translated as “form” is μορφη. Strong’s Greek/English dictionary summarizes μορφη as used to describe “form / shape / outward appearance”. It does not require total synonymity. For example, μορφη is used in 4 Maccabees 15:4 to describe parents impressing on their children a likeness of “mind and form (μορφη)”. Nothing in that passage requires children to be completely synonymous with their parents. It should also be noted that Paul does not use a definite article before the term “God”. Had he done so, the synonymity argument would be stronger. However without one, the passage is plausibly interpretable as “in the form of a god”. Paul is not averse to using the term “god” (lower-case g) in ways that do not require synonymity with the one God (capital G) of his Jewish monotheism (i.e. Yahweh). For example, Paul seems to describe Satan as a “god” in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” All these factors make it difficult to read the Philippian Hymn as necessarily speaking of a synonymity between Jesus with God.

To conclude, there are several passages in Paul’s writings that seem to indicate he held Jesus and the God of his Jewish monotheism to be distinct. Paul speaks of “God the Father” regularly, but never “God the Son”. Paul also describes Jesus in several different ways as having a God above him in a hierarchical sense. Finally, the two passages most commonly put forward to display Paul’s equating Jesus with the God of his Jewish monotheism are ambiguous to say the least, and actually may point in favor of distinction.

I hope to continue this train of thought in a future post to explain what I think Paul believed more specifically about Jesus and his relationship to Yahweh. So stay tuned!

This post is a response to the esteemed New Testament scholar N.T. Wright’s TIME article, ‘The New Testament Doesn’t Say What Most People Think It Does About Heaven’, published in December 2019.

In this article, Wright argues that the widely held belief of many Christians today – that the faithful will go to heaven after they die – is not reflective of the beliefs of “the early Christians”. Wright makes some excellent points throughout, exposing readers to many verses in the New Testament that do not fit this widely held model. However, I see Wright’s article as potentially overreaching in his rebuttals against, and ignoring, many of the verses most often used to support the alternative – that some “early Christians” did indeed believe such a thing.

“Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise…”

Contrary to Wright, I think Luke 23:43 – where Jesus tells the faithful bandit crucified alongside himself that “today you will be with me in paradise” – is an example of “early Christians” thinking they would go to heaven after they die.

[Before I proceed, let me first acknowledge that the verse is obviously not historical. As is well known, the saying has been put onto the lips of Jesus. It is a clear example of Luke’s re-writing of his primary source, the Gospel of Mark. As such, the verse is clearly secondary. However if we are defining “early Christians” to be those living within the period of the composition of the New Testament, as Wright seems to, then Luke’s re-writings still count as reflective of beliefs of “the early Christians”]

Wright tones down the passage’s most immediately obvious interpretation – that Jesus is telling the bandit he’s about to go to heaven – by suggesting that Jesus is instead talking about some sort of “blissful rest”. But if that is the case, it is curious that Luke’s Jesus was not clearer on this point. Perhaps “today you will sleep, but on that coming day of resurrection you will be rewarded” would have been more appropriate and equally succinct? But that is not what is recorded. What Luke has Jesus say fits seamlessly into the view Wright is attempting to argue against.

Presently Enjoying the Spoils of Abraham’s Bosom

Strengthening this idea that at least some early Christians believed that the righteous would go to up to heaven immediately after death is a gospel parable found on the lips of Jesus which seems to presuppose such a thing. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus found in Luke 16:19-31 is curiously overlooked by Wright in his article. In the parable, the righteous poor man Lazarus is “carried away by angels” to heaven, enjoying the spoils alongside Abraham, all while the unrighteous Rich Man suffers in flames in Hades (Hell). That the Rich Man looks “up” and pleads to Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of the horrors of Hell shows that these events are not supposed to be in some ‘post-renewed-Earth’ era as Wright’s “early Christians” are supposed to only have believed. While it is true that the scene is told as a parable, and as such was not necessarily intended to be taken as an actual occurrence, the genre of parables was usually not one of science-fiction. Parables tended to reflect common understandings of the cosmos. If some early Christians did not believe that their ultimate fate would be their souls being taken to heaven soon after death, it is curious that some early Christians (and potentially the Historical Jesus himself) composed parables that seemed to presuppose such a thing.

An Imminent Rapture in the Earliest Sources

Wright also overlooks 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18 in the article, a passage from the earliest surviving Christian text. There, Paul states that on the great Parousia day (a “day” he mistakenly believed was imminent) that “We [the remaining and recently-risen faithful] will be caught up in the clouds […] to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever”. The place where one is to “be with the Lord forever” seems to be “up in the clouds”. Mark 13:26-27 (also ignored in Wright’s article) also speaks of coming angels from “the clouds” to “gather” the elect “from the ends of the earth” – a surely synonymous conceptual event as the one described by Paul.

Wright’s handling of Philippians 1:23 and linking it alongside John 14:2 seems similarly questionable. There’s nothing in Paul’s stating that his “desire is to depart [i.e. die] and be with the Messiah, for that is far better” to suggest that Paul is thinking about some “waiting room”. Furthermore, even Wright’s translation of John 14:2’s Greek word μοναι to “waiting room” is suspect. The word just means an abode / lodging / dwelling-place / room / mansion. In 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Paul describes having already once been taken “up” into the third heaven, which he describes as “paradise” (παραδεισω, the same Greek word used in Luke 23:43) – not as a “waiting room”. Paul is apparently conscious while briefly experiencing this paradise.

Conclusion – Wright’s Wrongs

Wright correctly understands that the texts in question need to be interpreted in light of their historical contexts in order to tease further historical insight from them about what the early Christians believed. One of the contexts Wright admits is an important lens through which to view the texts is that of “Greek thought”. Yet, as far as I can see, this admission somewhat undercuts his argument. On the one hand Wright wants to say that only contemporary ‘Middle Platonists’ believed in the kind of heavenly-fate he’s trying to argue against and that early Christians were not ‘Middle Platonists’. Yet ‘Middle Platonism’ is certainly a subcategory within “Greek thought”. So if “Greek thought” needs to be taken into consideration when interpreting verses like Luke 16:19-31, 23:43 or 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18, or Mark 13:26-27 (where the teachings seem to presume an ‘up there’ heavenly fate as opposed to a ‘down-here’ renewed-earthly one), ‘Middle-Platonic’ ideas about ascending to heaven after one’s death cannot be so easily dismissed. In other words, those passages make excellent sense had they arisen within that Middle-Platonic / Greek thought paradaigm that Wright seeks to downplay.

The mistake to make is to assume that the New Testament is necessarily consistent in its teaching on the fate of the faithful – that it either teaches one specific view or the other. Indeed, there is significant debate among Pauline scholars about the coherence of Paul’s thought (i.e. whether his epistles are consistent enough to warrant a systematization of his theology). I believe Wright is making the very mistake he is concerned others do when they “squash and chop” the New Testament to “fit their own expectations” – only from the opposite end of the theological tug-of-war rope. Wright’s misguided expectation is of a theologically consistent New Testament devoid of any of its writers having even the briefest moment of Middle-Platonic thought. To conclude, I think it’s easier to recognize that the New Testament expresses a variety of ideas on this issue of the fate of the faithful, some of which include the idea that Wright seeks to deny.

This is a list of all the published books, audiobooks, lecture series, podcasts and documentaries, etc., on the topic of ‘Judeo-Christian Origins’ that I have completed as of 24/8/2019. Truth be told, probably ~70% of these I’ve finished completely. ~10% I maybe haven’t finished completely, but have read enough to get the gist. And another ~20% are still on my ‘to finish’ list. All entries are physical books that I own, unless otherwise noted with an asterisk.

Abegg, Martin G., Flint, Peter., & Ulrich, Eugene The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (HarperOne 2002)

Abegg, Martin G., Wise, Michael., & Cook, Edward The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation with Commentary (Holder & Stoughton 1996)

Akyol, Mustafa The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (St. Martin’s Press 2017)

Aland, Kurt & Barbara (trans. Rhodes, E.) The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. 2nd Edition (Eerdmans 1981 / 1989) *Library Loan

Alexandre, Yardenna (et al.) Mary’s Well, Nazareth: The Late Hellenistic to the Ottoman Periods (Israel Antiquities Authority 2012) *e-book

Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (Prometheus 1992)

Allison, Dale C. The Historical Christ & the Theological Jesus (Eerdmans 2009)

Allison, Dale C. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Fortress 1998)

Armstrong, Karen The Bible: A Biography (Grove Press 2007) *Audiobook

Armstrong, Karen St. Paul: The Misunderstood Apostle (Atlantic 2015)

Aslan, Reza Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House 2013)

Atwill, Joseph Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus: Flavian Signature Edition (Createspace 2011)

Avalos, Hector Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (Baker Academic 1999)

Baden, Joel The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (HarperOne 2013)

Barker, Dan God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (Sterling 2016)

Barrett, C. K. Jesus and the Gospel Tradition (SPCK 1967)

Barrett, C. K. The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text: 2nd Edition (SPCK 1955 / 1978)

Barrett, C. K. A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (A&C Black 1973)

Bauckham, Richard God Crucified: Monotheism & Christology in the New Testament (Eerdmans 1998) *Library Loan

Bauckham, Richard Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Eerdmans 2008)

Bauckham, Richard Jesus: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2011)

Bauckham, Richard Kistemaker Academic Lectures Series: The Gospels as Histories (Reformed Theological Seminary 2011) *4 Audio Lectures

Bauckham, Richard Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology (Baker Academic 2015)

Beale, G. K Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic 2012)

Beale, G. K. & Gladd, Benjamin L. Hidden But Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery (InterVarsity Press 2014) *Audiobook

Beker, J. Christian The Triumph of God: The Essence of Paul’s Thought (Augsbury Fortress 1990)

BeDuhn, Jason D. The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon (Polebridge 2013)

Bellinger Jr., W. H. New International Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers (Hendrickson 2001)

Bielby, James K. & Eddy, Paul Rhodes (ed.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views – With Contributions by R.M. Price, J.D. Crossan, L.T. Johnson, J.D.G. Dunn, D.L. Bock (InterVarsity Press 2009)

Bird, Michael F. & Crossley, James G. How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Non-believer Examine the Evidence (Hendrickson / SPCK 2008)

Bird, Michael F. A Bird’s Eye View of Paul: The Man, His Mission, and His Message (InterVarsity Press 2008)

Bird, Michael F. (ed.) How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature (Zondervan 2014)

Bird, Michael F. The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Christians Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans 2014)

Bird, Michael F. Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology (Eerdmans 2017)

Bissell, Tom Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve (Pantheon 2016)

Blackwell, Ben C. & Goodrich, John L. & Maston, Jason (ed.) Reading Romans In Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism (Zondervan 2015)

Blomberg, Craig L. Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey (B&H Academic 1997)

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary (Apollos / InterVarsity Press 2001)

Bloom, Harold Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (Riverhead 2005)

Boccaccini, Gabriele (ed.) Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (Eerdmans 2007)

Bockmuehl, Markus Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory: The New Testament Apostle in the Early Church (Baker Academic 2012)

Boin, Douglas Coming out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire (Bloomsbury 2015)

Bond, Helen The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark 2012)

Bond, Helen Jesus: A Very Brief History (SPCK 2017)
Borg, Marcus J. Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (HarperOne 2008)

Borg, Marcus J. Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and How They Can Be Restored (HarperOne 2011) *Audiobook

Bornkamm, Günther Jesus of Nazareth (Hodder & Stroughton 1960)

Bourgeault, Cynthia The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity (Shambhala 2010)

Boyarin, Daniel The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (The New Press 2012)

Brakke, David Gnosticism: From Nag Hammadi to the Gospel of Judas (The Teaching Company 2015) *24 Audio Lectures

Brakke, David The Apocryphal Jesus (The Teaching Company 2017) *24 Audio Lectures

Brandes, Georg (trans. Byörkman, E.) Jesus: A Myth (Albert & Charles Boni 1926) *e-book

Brandon, S. G. F. The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (B. T. Batsford 1968)

Brenton, Lancelot C.L. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (1851)

Brotzman, Ellis R. Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Baker Academic 1994)

Brown, Peter Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton University Press 2012) *Audiobook

Brown, Raymond E. The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (Paulist Press 1973) *Library Loan

Brown, Raymond E. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (Image Books 1977)

Brown, Raymond E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (Paulist Press 1979)

Brown, Raymond E. The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (Paulist Press 1984)

Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday 1996)

Brown, Raymond E., Donfried, Carl P., Reumann, John (ed.) Peter in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars (Wipf & Stock 2002)

Bruce, F. F. New Testament History (Doubleday 1969)

Bruce, F. F. Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Eerdmans 1977)

Bultmann, Rudolf Primitive Christianity: In Its Contemporary Setting (1949)

Bütz, Jeffery J. The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity (Inner Traditions 2005)

Caird, George B. The Pelican New Testament Commentaries: St. Luke (Pelican 1963)

Carmichael, Joel The Death of Jesus (Macmillan 1963)

Carrier, Richard Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed (Morrisville 2009) *Audiobook

Carrier, Richard Proving History: Bayes’ Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Prometheus 2012) *Audiobook

Carrier, Richard On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason to Doubt (Sheffield Phoenix Press 2014)

Carrier, Richard Science Education in the Early Roman Empire (Pitchstone 2016) *Audiobook

Carter, Warren Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor (Michael Glazier / Liturgical Press 2003)

Carvalho, Corrine L. & Niskanen, Paul V. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament: Ezekiel & Daniel (Liturgical Press 2011)

Cary, Phillip Augustine: Philosopher & Saint (The Teaching Company 1997) *12 Audio Lectures

Cary, Phillip The History of Christian Theology (The Teaching Company 2008) *36 Audio Lectures

Casey, Maurice Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 (SPCK 1979) *Library Loan

Casey, Maurice Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (T&T Clark 2010)

Casey, Maurice Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Bloomsbury 2014)

Cassuto, Umberto (trans. Abrahams) The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Eight Lectures (Hebrew University 1941) *Library Loan

Chapman, Cynthia R. The World of Biblical Israel (The Teaching Company 2013) *24 Video Lectures

Charles, R. H. (trans.) & Oesterley, W. O. E. (ed.) The Book of Enoch (SPCK 1917 / 2006)

Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volumes 1 & 2 (Hendrickson 1983)

Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Yale 1992)

Cheetham, Samuel History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries (Librivox c.1875) *Audiobook

Chilton, Bruce Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography: The Jewish Life and Teachings that Inspired Christianity (Doubleday 2000)

Churton, Tobias The Missing Family of Jesus: A Historical Account of Jesus’ Family, their Heritage, and their Destiny (Watkins Media 2010)

Coggins, Richard, & Han, Jin H. Blackwell Bible Commentaries: Six Minor Prophets Through the Centuries: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi (Wiley-Blackwell 2011) *Audiobook

Collins, John J. The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (Doubleday 1995)

Collins, John J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament: Joel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Liturgical Press 2016)

Comfort, Philip W. A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament (Kregel 2015)

Conner, Miguel (ed.) Voices of Gnosticism: Interviews with Leading Scholars (Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio 2011) *11 Audio Podcasts

Coogan, Michael The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text (Yale 2014)

Cook, Joan E. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament Vol.2: Genesis (Liturgical Press 2011)

Copan, Paul, & Tacelli, Ronald K. (eds.) Jesus Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate Between William Lane Craig & Gerd Lüdemann (InterVarsity Press 2000)

Corey, Catherine A The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.12: The Book of Revelation (Liturgical Press 2005)

Cotter, Wendy J. The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait Through Encounter (Baker Academic 2011)

Craig, Mark The Christ Myth: If Jesus Did Not Exist, Would Christianity Survive? (Independent 2016)

Craveri, Marcello The Life of Jesus: An Assessment through Modern Historical Evidence (Martin Secker & Warburg 1967)

Crossan, John Dominic The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (Harper Collins 1989)

Crossan, John Dominic The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (Harper Collins 1991)

Crossan, John Dominic Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (HarperOne 1991)

Crossan, John Dominic Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (HarperOne 1994)

Crossan, John Dominic The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer (HarperOne 2011) *Audiobook

Crossan, John Dominic The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus became Fiction about Jesus (HarperOne 2012)

Crossan, John Dominic, & Borg, Marcus J. The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (HarperOne 2007)

Crossan, John Dominic, & Borg, Marcus J. The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth (HarperOne 2009) *Audiobook

Crossan, John Dominic, & Reed, Jonathan L. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (Harper 2001)

Crossley, James G. The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (T&T Clark 2004) *Library Loan

D’Ambrosio, Marcellino When the Church was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers (Servant Books 2014) *Audiobook

Davies, Philip R. (ed.) The Prophets (Sheffield Academic 1996)

Davies, Philip R., Brooket, George G., Callaway, Phillip R. The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Thames & Hudson 2002)

Davies, Stevan L. Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance and the Origin of Christianity (Continuum International 1995)

deSilva, David A. An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation (IVP 2004)

deSilva, David A. Apocrypha: Witness Between the Testaments (2015) *9 Video Lectures

Dodd, C. H. History and the Gospel (Nisbet 1938)

Dodd, C. H. The Founder of Christianity: What Do We Really Know About Jesus? And How Do WeKnow It? (Collins 1971)

Dunn, James D. G. Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Eerdmans 2011)

Duvall, J. Scott The Heart of Revelation: Understanding the 10 Essential Themes of the Bible’s Final Book (Baker 2016)

Ehrman, Bart D. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. 2nd Edition (Oxford University Press 1997 / 2011)

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford University Press 1999)

Ehrman, Bart D. The Historical Jesus (The Teaching Company 2000) *24 Video Lectures & Coursebook

Ehrman, Bart D. The New Testament (The Teaching Company 2000) *24 Video Lectures & Coursebook

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (The Teaching Company 2002) *24 Video Lectures & Coursebook

Ehrman, Bart D. (ed.) Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford University Press 2003)

Ehrman, Bart D. After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (The Teaching Company 2005) *24 Audio Lectures

Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (HarperOne 2005)

Ehrman, Bart D. The History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon (The Teaching Company 2005) *12 Video Lectures & Coursebook

Ehrman, Bart D. Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford University Press 2006)

Ehrman, Bart D. The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at the Betrayer and Betrayed (Oxford University Press 2006)

Ehrman, Bart D. God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer (HarperOne 2008)

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them) (HarperOne 2009)

Ehrman, Bart D. Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (HarperOne 2011)

Ehrman, Bart D. Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne 2012)

Ehrman, Bart D. Forgery & Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford University Press 2012) *Audiobook

Ehrman, Bart D. The Greatest Controversies in Early Christian History (The Teaching Company 2013) *24 Audio Lectures

Ehrman, Bart D. The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford University Press 2013)

Ehrman, Bart D. How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne / The Teaching Company 2014) *Book, Audiobook & 24 Video Lectures

Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior (HarperOne 2016)

Ehrman, Bard D. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World (Simon & Schuster 2018)

Eisenman, Robert The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early Christians: Essays and Translations (Element 1996)

Eisenman, Robert James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Viking 1997)

Eusebius (trans. Cruse, C. F.) Ecclesiastical History: Complete and Unabridged (Hendrickson 1998)

Evans, Christopher F. Resurrection and the New Testament (SCM 1970)

Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (InterVarsity Press 2006) *Library Loan

Evans, Craig A. Jesus and his World: The Archaeological Evidence (Westville John Knox 2012)

Evans, Crag A., & Mishkin, David (eds.) A Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (Hendrickson 2019)

Finkelstein, Israel, & Silberman, Neil Asher The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts (Touchstone, 2002)

Friedman, Richard Elliott Who Wrote the Bible? (Jonathan Cape 1987)

Fredriksen, Paula From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ. 2nd Edition (Yale 1988 / 2000)

Fredriksen, Paula Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews – A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (Knopf 1999)

Fredriksen, Paula Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (Yale 2017) *Audiobook

Funk, Robert W. Honest to Jesus: Jesus For a New Millennium (Hodder & Stoughton 1996)

Gafni, Isaiah M. The Beginnings of Judaism (The Teaching Company 2010) *24 Audio Lectures

Garrett, Susan R. No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus (Yale 2008)

Gathercole, Simon J. The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Eerdmans 2006) *Library Loan

Gibson, Shimon The Cave of John the Baptist: The First Archaeological Evidence of the Historical Reality of the Gospel Story (Century 2004)

Girard, René I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Novalis 2001)

Given, Mark D. (ed.) Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives of the Apostle (Baker Academic 2010)

Goodacre, Mark The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze (T&T International 2001) *e-book

Goodacre, Mark, & Perrin, Nicholas (ed.) Questioning Q (SPCK Publishing 2004)

Goodacre, Mark Thomas and the Gospels: The Making of an Apocryphal Text (SPCK Publishing 2012)

Goodacre, Mark The NT Pod: A Historical Approach to the New Testament (Duke University 2009-2018) *81 Audio Podcasts

Goulder, Michael D. Midrash and Lection in Matthew (Wipf & Stock 1974)

Grant, Michael Jesus (Rigel 1977)

Grant, Michael Saint Peter: A Biography (1994)

Grant, Robert M. The Earliest Lives of Jesus (SPCK 1961) *Library Loan

Grant, Robert M. Jesus after the Gospels: The Christ of the Second Century (SCM Press 1990) *Library Loan

Gray, Timothy C. The Temple in the Gospel of Mark: A Study in Its Narrative Role (Baker Academic 2008) *Library Loan

Greaves, Sheldon Discovering the Old Testament (Independent 2013) *50 Audio Podcasts

Gundry, Robert H. Peter: False Disciple and Apostate According to Saint Matthew (Eerdmans 2015)
Hamm, Dennis The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.5: The Acts of the Apostles (Liturgical Press 2005)

Harrington, Daniel J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.11: The Letter to the Hebrews (Liturgical Press 2005)

Harrington, Daniel J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: 1st & 2nd Maccabees (Liturgical Press 2012)

Hartin, Patrick J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.10: 1st & 2nd Peter, James, Jude (Liturgical Press 2005)

Hayes, Christine Introduction to the Old Testament (Yale Open Courses 2006) *24 Video Lectures

Hays, J. Daniel The Message of the Prophets: A Survey of the Prophetic and Apocalyptic Books of the Old Testament (Zondervan 2010) *Audio Lectures

Heaton, Eric The Book of Daniel (SCM Press, 1956)

Helyer, Larry R. The Life and Witness of Peter (Apollos / InterVarsity Press 2012)

Hoffman, Joel M.The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing From Your Bible (Thomas Dunne 2014) *Audiobook

Hoffman, Joel M. And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning (Thomas Dunne 2015) *Audiobook

Hoffman, Joel M. The Bible Doesn’t Say That: 40 Biblical Mistranslations, Misconceptions, and other Misunderstandings (Thomas Dunne 2016) *Audiobook

Hoffmann, R. Joseph (ed.) Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth (Prometheus 2010)

Holland, Glenn S. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World (The Teaching Company 2005) *48 Audio Lectures

Hoppe, Leslie J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament: Isaiah (Liturgical Press 2011)

Horsley, Richard A. & Hanson, John S. Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus (Harper & Row 1985)

Hunter, Archibald M. Paul and His Predecessors (Westminster Press 1939)

Hurtado, Larry W. New International Biblical Commentary: Mark (Hendrickson 1989)

Irenaeus (trans. Rambaut, W. & Alexander, R.) Against Heresies. Books I-V (T&T Clark 1885) *Audiobook

Johnson, Luke Timothy Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of Luke (The Liturgical Press 1991)

Johnson, Luke Timothy The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (HarperOne 1997)

Johnson, Luke Timothy Apostle Paul (The Teaching Company 2001) *12 Audio Lectures

Johnson, Luke Timothy Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine (The Teaching Company 2002) *24 Audio Lectures

Johnson, Luke Timothy Jesus & the Gospels (The Teaching Company 2004) *36 Video Lectures

Johnson, Luke Timothy The Story of the Bible (The Teaching Company 2006) *12 Audio Lectures

Johnson, Luke Timothy The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (The Teaching Company 2012) *36 Audio Lectures

Johnson, Thomas F. New International Biblical Commentary: 1, 2, and 3 John (Hendrickson 1993)

Josephus The Jewish War (Audio Connoisseur 2012) *Audiobook

Josephus (trans. Whiston, W.) The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. New Updated Edition (Hendrickson 1998)

Kahl, Joachim The Misery of Christianity: A Plea for a Humanity Without God (Penguin 1968)

Karris, Robert J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.6: Galatians & Romans (Liturgical Press 2005)

Keck, Leander E. Who Is Jesus? History in Perfect Tense (T&T Clark / Bloomsbury 2001) *Audiobook

Keegan, Terence J. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.9: 1st & 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon (Liturgical Press 2005)

Keith, Chris Jesus Against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict (Baker Academic 2014)

Klitsner, Judy Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mime and Undermine Each Other (The Toby Press 2011)

Kloppenborg, John Q, the Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus (Westminster John Knox 2008)

Knapp, Robert The Dawn of Christianity: People and Gods in a Time of Magic and Miracles (Profile 2017)

Koester, Craig R. The Apocalypse: Controversies and Meaning in Western History (The Teaching Company 2011) *24 Audio Lectures

Koester, Craig R. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (The Teaching Company 2016) *36 Audio Lectures

Koterski, Joseph S. J. Biblical Wisdom Literature (The Teaching Company2009) *36 Audio Lectures

Kruger, Michael J. Kistemaker Academic Lectures Series: The Origins of the New Testament Canon (Reformed Theological Seminary 2012) *4 Audio Lectures

LaSor, William S., Hubbard, David A., & Bush, Frederic W. Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form and Background of the Old Testament: 2nd Edition (Eerdmans 1982 / 1986)

Law, Timothy Michael When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press 2013) *Audiobook

Levine, Amy-Jill Old Testament (The Teaching Company 2000) *24 Audio Lectures

Levine, Amy-Jill Great Figures of the New Testament (The Teaching Company 2000) *24 Audio Lectures

Levine, Amy-Jill The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperOne 2006)

Levine, Amy-Jill Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (HarperOne 2014) *Audiobook

Lewis, Scott M The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.4: The Gospel According to John & the Johannine Letters (Liturgical Press 2005)

Lincoln, Andrew T. Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology (Eerdmans 2013)

Litwa, M. David Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Fortress 2014)

Livingston, G. Herbert The Pentateuch in its Cultural Environment (Baker 1974)

Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, Eli The Jewish Gospel of John: Discovering Jesus, King of All Israel (Independent 2016) *Audiobook

Lüdemann, Gerd, with Özen, Alf What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection (SCM Press 1995)

Lüdemann, Gerd Heretics: The Other Side of Early Christianity (SCM Press 1995)

Lüdemann, Gerd Virgin Birth?: The Real Story of Mary and Her Son Jesus (Trinity Press International 1998)

Lüdemann, Gerd The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did (Prometheus 1999)

 

Lüdemann, Gerd Acts of the Apostles: What Really Happened in the Early Days of the Church (Prometheus 2005)

Lüdemann, Gerd The Earliest Christian Text: 1 Thessalonians. Revised English Edition (Polebridge 2013)

MacCulloch, Diarmaid History of Christianity (BBC 2010) *6 Video Episodes

MacDonald, Dennis R. Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero (Rowman & Littlefield 2015)

Mack, Burton L. The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (Harper Collins 1993)

Mack, Burton L. Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth (Harper Collins 1995)

Madden, Thomas F. From Jesus to Christianity: A History of the Early Church (The Modern Scholar / Recorded Books 2005) *Audiobook

Magness, Jodi Holy Land Revealed (The Teaching Company 2014) *36 Video Lectures

Magness, Jodi Jesus and His Jewish Influences (The Teaching Company 2015) *24 Audio Lectures

Mangasarian, M. M. The Truth About Jesus: Is He a Myth? (Independent Religious Society of Chicago 1909) *Audiobook

Marrow, Stanley B. Paul: His Letters and His Theology: An Introduction to Paul’s Epistles (Paulist Press 1986)

Marsh, John The Pelican New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel of St. John (Pelican 1968)

Marshall, I. Howard Last Supper & Lord’s Supper (Exeter 1980)

Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body (Yale University Press 1995)

Martin, Dale B. Introduction to the New Testament (Yale Open Courses 2009) *26 Video Lectures

Mason, Steve Josephus and the New Testament. 2nd Edition (Baker 2003)

Mason, Steve. Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (Hendrickson 2009)

Massey, Gerald The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ: Natural Genesis and Typology in Equinoctial Christianity (c.1880)

Matthews, Victor H. Manners & Customs in the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to Daily Life in Bible Times. 3rd Edition (Baker Academic 2006)

Matthews, Victor H. Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Baker Academic 2007)

McKnight, Scot The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Zondervan 2011) *Audiobook

Mendels, Doron The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism: Jewish and Christian Ethnicity in Ancient Palestine. 2nd Edition (Eerdmans 1997)

Meeks, Wayne A. (ed.) The Writings of St. Paul: Introductions, Annotations and Critical Essays (Norton & Company 1972)

Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (Yale University Press 1983)

Meggitt, Justin The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus Put to Death, but his Followers were Not? (JSNT 2007) *e-book

Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development and Significance (Clarendon 1987) *e-book

Metzger, Bruce M. & Ehrman, Bart D. The Text of the New Testament: It’s Transmission, Corruption and Restoration. 4th Edition (Oxford University Press 2005) *e-book

Meyer, Marvin The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus (Harper 2004)

Meyer, Marvin (ed.) The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts (HarperOne 2009)

Meyers, David J. (ed.) Life of Jesus: A Glorious History of his Life and Teachings (Parragon 2005) *Gospel parallels with editorial notes

Milavec, Aaron The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary (Liturgical Press 2003) *Library Loan

Mills, Ian & Robinson, Laura B. New Testament Review: Classic Works of New Testament Scholarship Discussed by Two Duke PhD Students (Duke University 2018) *7 Audio Podcasts

Montefiore, Simon Sebag Jerusalem: The Biography (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2011) *Audiobook

Moss, Candida The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (HarperOne 2013)

Nineham, D. E. The Pelican New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel of St. Mark (Pelican 1963)

Nongbri, Brent God’s Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts (Yale 2018)

Nowell, Irene The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament Vol.5: Numbers (Liturgical Press 2011)

O’Donnell, James J. Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity (Ecco 2015) *Audiobook

Osman, Ahmed Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus (Bear & Co. 1990)

Owens, J. Edward The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament Vol.4: Leviticus (Liturgical Press 2011)

Owens, J. Edward The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament Vol.6: Deuteronomy (Liturgical Press 2011)

Pagels, Elaine The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Trinity Press International 1975) *Library Loan

Pagels, Elaine The Gnostic Gospels (Random House 1979)

Pagels, Elaine Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (Vintage 1988)

Pagels, Elaine The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (Society of Biblical Literature 1989)

Pagels, Elaine The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics (Vintage 1995)

Pagels, Elaine Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Random House 2003)

Pagels, Elaine Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation (Penguin 2013)

Painter, John Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition (T&T Clark 1999)

Papahatzis, Nicos Ancient Corinth (Ekdotike Athenon S.A. 1985)

Parker, David C. Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament (Oxford University Press 2014)

Pascuzzi, Maria A. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.7: 1st & 2nd Corinthians (Liturgical Press 2005)

Patella, Michael The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.3: The Gospel According to Luke (Liturgical Press 2005)

Patterson, Stephen J. & Robinson, James M. The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age (Trinity Press 1998) *Library Loan

Patzia, Arthur G. The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon (Apollos 1995)

Perrin, Norman. & Duling, Dennis C. The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History (Harcourt Brace 1994)

Pervo, Richard I. The Mystery of Acts: Unraveling its Story (Polebridge 2008)

Phillips, Thomas E. Paul, His Letters, and Acts  (Baker Academic 2009)

Pitre, Brant Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper (Image 2011) *Audiobook

Porteous, Norman Daniel: A Commentary: 2nd Revised Edition (SCM Press 1979)

Price, Robert M. Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity (Pitchstone 1993) *Audiobook

Price, Robert M. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition? (Prometheus 2003)

Price, Robert M. The Case Against the Case for Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel (American Atheist Press 2010) *Audiobook

Price, Robert M. The Christ-Myth Theory and its Problems (American Atheist Press 2011)

Price, Robert M. The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (Signature 2012)

Price, Robert M. The Human Bible (The Center for Inquiry 2012-2014) *35 Audio Podcasts

Price, Robert M. Moses and Minimalism: Form Criticism vs. Fiction in the Pentateuch (Tellectual Press 2015) *e-book

Price, Robert M. Holy Fable Volume 1: The Old Testament Undistorted by Faith (Tellectual Press 2017)

Price, Robert M. Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith (Mindvendor 2017) *e-book

Reid, Barbara The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.1: The Gospel According to Matthew (Liturgical Press 2005)

Reimarus, Hermann S. (trans. Lessing) Fragments from Reimarus (incl. On the Intent of Jesus and His Disciples) (1778)

Rendsburg, Gary A. The Book of Genesis (The Teaching Company 2006) *24 Audio Lectures

Rendsburg, Gary A. The Dead Sea Scrolls (The Teaching Company 2010) *24 Audio Lectures

Richardson, Cyril (ed.) Early Christian Fathers (Touchstone 1996)

Robinson, James M. The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel (HarperOne 2007)

Roukema, Riemer Jesus, Gnosis & Dogma (T&T Clark 2010)

Russell, David S. Between the Testaments (SCM Press 1960)

Sabin, Marie N. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.2: The Gospel According to Mark (Liturgical Press 2005)

Salm, René NazarethGate: Quack Archaeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus (American Atheist Press 2015) *e-book

Sanders, E. P. Paul: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 1991)

Sanders, E. P. The Historical Figure of Jesus (Allen Lane / Penguin Press 1993)

Schäfer, Peter Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton University Press 2009)

Schweitzer, Albert (trans. Montgomery, W.) The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (Dover 1906)

Setzer, Claudia Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics 30-150 C.E. (Fortress 1994)

Seward, Desmond Jerusalem’s Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea (DaCapo Press 2009) *Audiobook

Shanks, Hershel The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House / Biblical Archaeological Society 1998)

Shanks, Hershel, & Witherington III, Ben The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family (Harper 2003)

Sheehan, Thomas The Historical Jesus (Stanford University 2006) *10 Audio Lectures

Simmons, William A. Peoples of the New Testament World: An Illustrated Guide (Hendrickson 2008)

Smiles, Vincent M. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament Vol.8: 1st & 2nd Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians (Liturgical Press 2005)

Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel. 2nd Edition (Eerdmans 2002)

Smith, Mark S. The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament Vol.3: Exodus (Liturgical Press 2011)

Smith, Morton Jesus the Magician: A Renowned Historian Reveals How Jesus was Viewed by People of His Time (Hampton Road 1978) *2014 Reissue with Forward by Bart Ehrman

Soards, Marion L. New International Biblical Commentary: 1 Corinthians (Hendrickson 1999)

Spong, John Shelby Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth (HarperCollins 1992)

Spong, John Shelby Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (HarperCollins 1994)

Spong, John Shelby Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes (HarperCollins 1997)

Spong, John Shelby Jesus for the Non-Religious (HarperCollins 2009) *Audiobook

Spong, John Shelby The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic (HarperOne 2013)

Sprinkle, Preston M., & Gundry, Stanley M. (ed.) Four Views on Hell: Second Edition – With Contributions by D. Burk, J.G. Stackhouse Jr., R.A. Parry, J.L. Walls (Zondervan 2016)

Stanford, Peter Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle (Hodder & Stoughton 2016)

Stevenson, J. & Frend, W.H.C (eds.) Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church AD 337-461: Revised Edition (SPCK 1989)

Strauss, David Friedrich (trans. Eliot, G.) The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1835)

Tabor, James D. The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden Story of Jesus, his Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (Simon & Schuster 2007)

Tabor, James D. Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (Simon & Schuster 2012)

Tabor, James D. & Jacobovici, Simcha. The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find that Reveals the Birth of Christianity (Simon & Schuster 2012)

Taylor, Vincent The Gospel According to St. Mark (Macmillan 1952)

Telford, William R. The Theology of the Gospel of Mark (Cambridge 1999)

Thompson, Thomas L. The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (Jonathan Cape 2006)

Throckmorton Jr., Burton (ed.) Gospel Parallels: A Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels. 5th Edition (Thomas Nelson Publishers 1992) *Gospel parallels with editorial notes

Trobisch, David Paul’s Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Fortress 1994)

Trudinger, Paul A Good Word for Jesus: A Heretic’s Testimony (Open Gate 2007)

Unterbrink, Daniel T. Judas of Nazareth: How the Greatest Teacher of First-Century Israel was Replaced by a Literary Creation (Bear & Co. 2014)

Vardy, Peter & Mills, Mary The Puzzle of the Gospels (HarperCollins 1995)

Vermes, Geza (ed.) The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin 1997)

Vermes, Geza The Changing Faces of Jesus (Penguin 2000)

Vermes, Geza The Authentic Gospel of Jesus (Penguin 2004)

Vermes, Geza The Passion (Penguin 2005)

Vermes, Geza The Nativity: History and Legend (Penguin 2006)

Vermes, Geza The Resurrection (Penguin 2008)

Vermes, Geza Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325 (Penguin 2012)

Walker, Peter In the Steps of Saint Paul: An Illustrated Guide to Paul’s Journeys (Lion Hudson 2008)

Walker, Peter In the Steps of Jesus: An Illustrated Guide to the Places of the Holy Land (Lion Hudson 2009)

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (InterVarsity Press 2009) *Audiobook

Walton, John H. & Hill, Andrew E. A Survey of the Old Testament (Zondervan 2009) *Audio Lectures

White, L. Michael From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament & Christian Faith (HarperOne 2004)

White, L. Michael Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite (HarperOne 2010)

Whittaker, Thomas The Origins of Christianity: With an Outline of Van Manen’s Analysis of the Pauline Literature (1904) *Audiobook

Whybray, Roger N. The Second Isaiah (Sheffield 1983) *Library Loan

Wilken, Robert Louis The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (Yale University Press 2003) *Audiobook

Wilson, Andrew N. Jesus (Flamingo 1992)

Wilson, Ian Jesus: The Evidence (Book Club Associates 1984)

Wilson, Ian The Exodus Enigma (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1985)

Witherington III, Ben What Have They Done With Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History (Monarch Books 2007)

Wright, N. T. The New Testament & the People of God (SPCK 1992)

Wright, N. T. Jesus & the Victory of God (SPCK 1996)

Wright, N. T. Jesus & the Victory of God (Regent College 1997) *4 Audio Lectures

Wright, N. T. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was & Is (InterVarsity Press 1999) *Audiobook

Wright, N. T. Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Fortress 2009) *Audiobook

Wright, N. T. The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion (HarperOne 2016) *Audiobook

Wylen, Stephen M. The Jews in the Time of Jesus: An Introduction (Paulist Press 1996)

Yadin, Yigael Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealot’s Last Stand (Weidenfeld Nicolson Illustrated 1966)

Yadin, Yigael Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome (Little Hampton 1971)

Young, Brad H. Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teaching of Jesus (Baker Academic 2007)