Speaking in Tongues and Virgin Births

written by Dr. Bart D Ehrman 

I will deal with two questions in this week’s Readers’ Mailbag.  The first has to do with why some conservative Christian theologians insist that the “gifts of the Spirit” (such as speaking in tongues and doing miracles) are no longer available to believers today (doesn’t the Bible indicate that they are?), and the second about whether the Gospel of Matthew mistranslates or misunderstands the passage of Scripture that allegedly indicated that the messiah would be born of a woman who was still a virgin.

I need to unpack the first question before giving it, since it may not make sense on first reading.  The questioner is asking about the scene in the book of Acts, chapter 2, where, on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit comes upon the apostles allowing them to speak in foreign tongues.   Peter explains to the crowds that this is a fulfillment of what had been prophesied in Scripture.

Today conservative theologians are split on the question of whether the Spirit still empowers believers to speak in tongues and do other miraculous deeds.  Some say emphatically yes, others emphatically no.  The person who asks the following question refers to this as the “cessationist debate” – that is, the debate over whether the gifts of the Spirit have now “ceased” to be given.  The questioner doesn’t understand how someone would could interpret Acts this way.  This is his question:

QUESTION:

Can you elucidate a little on the cessationist debate with respect to Pentecost and Acts 2:39 in particular where “the promise is for you and your children” bit would seem to obviously extend beyond just the very next generation of those present?  What does the Greek seem to imply?  In your view, why did so much of believing Christian intelligentsia come to sacrifice the continuity of miracle working and accept cessationism? Was it careful reading or just confronting reality?

RESPONSE

I’ll give a personal response to this question.  When I was seventeen, and just heading off to Bible school, I was involved in a charismatic Christian group where we practiced speaking in tongues, and people prophesied, and healed the sick by the laying on of hands, and did other amazing things because they had the “Spiritual gifts.”

When I went to Moody Bible Institute, I was taught that these manifestations of the Spirit were in fact from the Devil, that the gifts were no longer given.  Why?  Because Paul had said in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, in a context where he is speaking about such gifts (prophecy, tongues, healing etc.), that “Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.”  That was interpreted to mean that the spiritual gifts were given to the church only for a short time, until the perfect revelation of God, that is, the New Testament, was written.  Since now we have “what is perfect” (the Bible) then “what was imperfect” (spiritual gifts) are no longer needed or legitimate.

How committed was the faculty and administration of Moody Bible Institute to this view?  On each floor of each dormitory there was a senior student in charge, the “Resident Assistant” or RA.  Each RA had, next to the phone in his room, a card indicating what number to call in case of an emergency.  The emergencies were listed, with the appropriate phone numbers, and included “fire, medical emergency, and … charismatic activity.”  Really.

QUESTION:

I’ve read somewhere, in some atheist tract, that the original Biblical term for Mary was the Hebrew word “amah,” meaning “young girl.” The author of the tract went on to say that a mistranslation into Greek resulted in the word “virgin.” Any truth to that?

RESPONSE

This is a kind of complicated matter, and what you read was close to being right, but not exactly.  I explained the actual issue a long while ago on the blog, and this is what I said then.  The context was a discussion of the “fulfillment citations” found in the Gospel of Matthew – that is, passages where Matthew quotes a passage of the Old Testament and claims that the prophecy found there had been fulfilled by Jesus.   Matthew uses these fulfillment citations to demonstrate that Jesus really was the messiah.  One of them is in Matthew 1:22-23, a quotation of Isaiah 7:14 to show that Jesus must have been the messiah because his mother was a virgin.

There are numerous problems with these fulfillment citations.  Of most relevance to the season we are in now is the quotation of Isaiah 7:14.  As I mentioned in other posts, from what seems like many years ago (though it was just months), the author of Isaiah does not predict that a future messiah will be born of a virgin.   For several reasons.

First, Isaiah is not talking about a future messiah.  Read all of Isaiah 7 and you’ll see – the messiah is not mentioned in the passage.  That is, the world “messiah” does not occur.  And Isaiah is not talking about a future savior of any kind.  The context is quite clear.   Ahaz the king of Judea is in a bad way because the kings of Syria and Israel have ganged up upon him and laid siege to his capital city of Jerusalem.  Ahaz is in a panic and doesn’t know what to do.  He calls in Isaiah, who tells him.  He has to do nothing.   There is a young woman who has become pregnant.  Before the child to be born to her is old enough to know right from wrong, he will be eating curds and honey (that is, there will be prosperity in the land) and the two kings who are now threatening will be dispersed.  That’s the context of Isaiah 7:14, which in its original context does not say that “a virgin will conceive and bear a son” but instead “a young woman is with child and will bear a son.”

The word Isaiah uses is “ALMA,” a word that means young woman without reference to whether she has ever had sex or not (as opposed to the Hebrew word “BETHULAH” which does mean a woman who has never had sex, a virgin); and he says that the woman is already pregnant, not that she will become pregnant.

Matthew, of course, did not read Isaiah in Hebrew but in Greek, and the Greek translators (of the “Septuagint” – i.e., the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures) translated ALMA with the Greek word PARTHENOS, which also meant “young maiden” but eventually took on the meaning of “young maiden who has not yet had sex” – i.e., virgin.   Matthew read the passage that way, and interpreted it to refer not to something in Isaiah’s time but in the distant future, with reference to the messiah.

It’s hard to know whether Matthew is simply misinterpreting Isaiah as predicting the messiah would be virgin-born or if – to be more generous to him – he thinks that Jesus “fills the prophet’s words full of meaning” in the second sense of “fulfillment” I mentioned above.  In that sense, Isaiah may have one thing in mind, but the appearance of Jesus gives that thing fuller meaning, salvation again not from one’s political enemies but from the greatest enemy of all, the sin of the world.

Aisha’s marriage revisited

BY PAUL WILLIAMS on SEPTEMBER 5, 2017 • ( 3 )

Problems with Some Bible Translations, including the King James: A Blast from the Past

In my Introduction to the New Testament undergraduate class this semester, I have told the students that they can use most any Bible translation they want, but I prefer the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), and I do *not* want them using either a paraphrase or the King James.  Some of them want to know why, and so I explain to them.  Here is a post on the topic from almost exactly five years ago.  (Note: I’m talking about undergraduates; my graduate students read the NT in Greek) (and also note: despite what I say about the NIV I certainly allow students to use it in class, since it is the most popular translation on college campuses today)

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I have indicated that my preferred translation is the NRSV. Everyone, of course, has their favorite. My judgment is that among main-line, serious biblical scholars, the NRSV is far and away the preferred translation. But it is not so among general readers. I believe the King James Bible (the KJV) (or its slight revision: The New King James) and the New International Version (NIV) are better sellers among the population at large. So let me say a few words about these two. (Some readers of this blog will want to write to me to ask what I think of their own preferred translation: the Jerusalem Bible; the New English Version; the New American Standard Bible; etc etc. Most of the time I tell them that it’s fine. It just isn’t the one that I think is the best)

First: The King James. Published in 1611, the KJV (or “Authorized Version” as it was called, since it was a translation “authorized” by the head of the Anglican Church – guess who? King James of England), is one of the great classics of the English language and ought to be read and learned by everyone. If you want to read a fascinating account of the making of the KJV, see Adam Nicolson’s terrific study, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.

Even though it is a great piece of English literature, the KJV is not a great study Bible.  That is for a couple of reasons.  First, when the KJV translators were doing their work at the beginning of the 17th century, they did not have access to most of the thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament that have been discovered and studied in the intervening centuries.  As a result, especially for the NT, the KJV is based on poor manuscripts, and that has a serious effect on the translation.  The KJV includes numerous passages that were not originally part of the NT and altered forms of yet other passages (most famously: the “final twelve verses” of Mark; the story of the woman taken in adultery in John; the passage affirming the Trinity in 1 John 5:7-8; etc.).  Not good, if you want to know what Mark, John, Paul, etc. “originally” wrote.

Second, as much as people (somewhat ignorantly) want to deny it, the English language has changed dramatically over the past four hundred years.  There are places where the KJV just doesn’t seem to make sense in our modern language.  Worse, there are places where the words do seem to make sense, but in fact they meant something different in 1611 from what they mean today.  As just one of my favorite examples:  in Revelation 17 the prophet has a vision of the horrid “Whore of Babylon” who is a terrible and frightening figure seated on a beast with seven heads and ten horns, and who is “drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”  And after the author describes this horrific woman, he says that he “looked upon her with great admiration.”   (!)   400 years ago “admiration” meant “astonishment.”  It doesn’t carry the same meaning today, leading to a very real possibility that someone reading the passage may be more than a bit confused.

Second: the NIV.   I will admit that the NIV is a very, very readable translation, and that it was produced by some very fine scholars.   The problem is that to be on the NIV translation committee a scholar had to be a committed evangelical Christian with specific views about the infallibility of the Bible (I don’t recall just now the specific doctrinal statement on the Bible that they had to sign off on, but it involved a high view of biblical inspiration).  That means that there was one perspective on the Bible represented on the committee, and it had a real effect on translation decisions that were made.

Rather than spell out the differences for you, I’ll suggest that if you’re really interested, you just do an exercise yourself.   Compare the three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9, 22, and 26 in the NRSV and notice the detailed differences; then do the same thing with the NIV, and see if any of these differences have been smoothed over.  Or do the same thing with the sale of Joseph by his brothers to the Midianites (or was it the Ishmaelites?) in Genesis 37.

My view is that a Bible translation should not be driven by a theological view of the text but by the science of philology, and that translating the Bible is in principle no different from translating Homer, Plato, Epictetus, or Ignatius of Antioch.   The translation should be made with an eye of communicating in the new language the words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs of the original language, as readably, but also as accurately, as possible.  I think the NRSV does this better than most, if not all, the other translations.

it was Ishmael Pbuh

Qur’anic Evidence

In Surah As-Saffat, Allah gives tidings of Isma’el, then there is a narration of the story of sacrifice, then Allah gives tidings of Is’haq, followed by Ya’qoob:

وَقَالَ إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّي سَيَهْدِينِ رَبِّ هَبْ لِي مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ فَبَشَّرْنَاهُ بِغُلَامٍ حَلِيمٍ فَلَمَّا بَلَغَ مَعَهُ السَّعْيَ قَالَ يَا بُنَيَّ إِنِّي أَرَىٰ فِي الْمَنَامِ أَنِّي أَذْبَحُكَ فَانْظُرْ مَاذَا تَرَىٰ ۚ قَالَ يَا أَبَتِ افْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ ۖ سَتَجِدُنِي إِنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ فَلَمَّا أَسْلَمَا وَتَلَّهُ لِلْجَبِينِ وَنَادَيْنَاهُ أَنْ يَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ قَدْ صَدَّقْتَ الرُّؤْيَا ۚ إِنَّا كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِي الْمُحْسِنِينَ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَهُوَ الْبَلَاءُ الْمُبِينُ وَفَدَيْنَاهُ بِذِبْحٍ عَظِيمٍ وَتَرَكْنَا عَلَيْهِ فِي الْآخِرِينَ سَلَامٌ عَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِي الْمُحْسِنِينَ إِنَّهُ مِنْ عِبَادِنَا الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَبَشَّرْنَاهُ بِإِسْحَاقَ نَبِيًّا مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ وَبَارَكْنَا عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَىٰ إِسْحَاقَ ۚ وَمِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِهِمَا مُحْسِنٌ وَظَالِمٌ لِنَفْسِهِ مُبِينٌ

And [then] he said, "Indeed, I will go to [where I am ordered by] my Lord; He will guide me. My Lord, grant me [a child] from among the righteous." So We gave him good tidings of a forbearing boy. And when he reached with him [the age of] exertion, he said, "O my son, indeed I have seen in a dream that I [must] sacrifice you, so see what you think." He said, "O my father, do as you are commanded. You will find me, if Allah wills, of the steadfast." And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead, We called to him, "O Abraham, You have fulfilled the vision." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, this was the clear trial. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice, And We left for him [favorable mention] among later generations: "Peace upon Abraham." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, he was of Our believing servants. And We gave him good tidings of Isaac, a prophet from among the righteous. And We blessed him and Isaac. But among their descendants is the doer of good and the clearly unjust to himself.

Qur’an 37:99-113 (Sahih International translation)

It may be concluded that the above-mentioned verses are relating the story in sequence. If so, then the sacrifice was Isma'el. However, it is well known that the word and in Arabic does not necessarily indicate sequence. For example, in Qur’an 54:18, Allah says: “'Aad denied; and how [severe] were My punishment and warning.” Allah’s punishment occurred after His warning, but the verse mentions the word "punishment" first (not in sequence).

When the Qur'an mentions the good tidings of Is'haq:

وَلَقَدْ جَاءَتْ رُسُلُنَا إِبْرَاهِيمَ بِالْبُشْرَىٰ قَالُوا سَلَامًا ۖ قَالَ سَلَامٌ ۖ فَمَا لَبِثَ أَنْ جَاءَ بِعِجْلٍ حَنِيذٍ فَلَمَّا رَأَىٰ أَيْدِيَهُمْ لَا تَصِلُ إِلَيْهِ نَكِرَهُمْ وَأَوْجَسَ مِنْهُمْ خِيفَةً ۚ قَالُوا لَا تَخَفْ إِنَّا أُرْسِلْنَا إِلَىٰ قَوْمِ لُوطٍ وَامْرَأَتُهُ قَائِمَةٌ فَضَحِكَتْ فَبَشَّرْنَاهَا بِإِسْحَاقَ وَمِنْ وَرَاءِ إِسْحَاقَ يَعْقُوبَ قَالَتْ يَا وَيْلَتَىٰ أَأَلِدُ وَأَنَا عَجُوزٌ وَهَٰذَا بَعْلِي شَيْخًا ۖ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَشَيْءٌ عَجِيبٌ

And certainly did Our messengers come to Abraham with good tidings; they said, "Peace." He said, "Peace," and did not delay in bringing [them] a roasted calf. But when he saw their hands not reaching for it, he distrusted them and felt from them apprehension. They said, "Fear not. We have been sent to the people of Lot." And his Wife was standing, and she smiled. Then We gave her good tidings of Isaac and after Isaac, Jacob. She said, "Woe to me! Shall I give birth while I am an old woman and this, my husband, is an old man? Indeed, this is an amazing thing!"

Qur’an Hud 11:69-72 (Sahih International translation)

It is mentioned that Ibrahim was informed about Is'haq, and after Is'haq comes Ya'qoub. We know now that Ya'qoub was Is'haq's son, but from the verse it could be that he would be Is'haq's son, or another son of Ibrahim after Is'haq, and so on. There is no explicit mention in the verse that Ya'qoub would be Is'haq's son.

Hadiths’ Evidence

The most famous hadith that mentions Isma’el by name was documented in Musnad Ahmad:

إن جبريل ذهب بإبراهيم إلى جمرة العقبة فعرض له الشيطان فرماه بسبع حصيات فساخ ثم أتى الجمرة الوسطى فعرض له الشيطان فرماه بسبع حصيات فساخ ثم أتى الجمرة القصوى فعرض له الشيطان فرماه بسبع حصيات فساخ فلما أراد إبراهيم أن يذبح ابنه اسماعيل قال لأبيه: يا أبت أوثقني لا أضطرب فينتضح عليك من دمي إذا ذبحتني فشده فلما أخذ الشفرة فأراد أن يذبحه نودي من خلفه أن يا إبراهيم قد صدقت الرؤيا

Jibril went with Ibrahim to the Jamrah of Aqaba, the Shaitan appeared to him, so Ibrahim threw seven pebbles at the Shaitan. The Shaitan disappeared. When Ibrahim reached the middle jamrah, the Shaitan re-appeared to him, so Ibrahim threw seven pebbles at the Shaitan. The Shaitan disappeared again. When Ibrahim reached the farthest jamrah, , the Shaitan re-appeared to him, so Ibrahim threw seven pebbles at the Shaitan. The Shaitan disappeared again. When Ibrahim wanted to slay his son Isma’el, Isma’el told his father: O father, tie me up so that if I jitter, my blood does not get on you when you slay me. So Ibrahim tightened the knot, then when he took the knife to slay him, he heard from behind: "O Abraham, You have fulfilled the vision."

— Musnad Ahmad, Hadith #144283 (my own translation, so treat with care).

This hadith is narrated through the authority of ‘Ataa’ ibn Al-Sa’eb through ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas. Although ‘Ataa’ ibn Al-Sa’eb is considered a trusted source, during his last years, his memory became weaker, and as such with this particular hadith which is not definite when he narrated it, it is not considered an authentic hadith by some scholars.

There is a number of other hadiths that say the sacrifice was Is’haq, but all of them do not go above the level weak (weak, very weak, or fabricated). Thus, in terms of hadiths, there is no conclusive evidence that the sacrifice was either Isma’el or Is’haq.

Scholars' Opinions

There are several books that discussed the topics from Zahrat At-Tafasir to Al-Dorr Al-Manthour to At-Tafsir Al-Kabir to Zaad Al-Mi'aad to Al-Bedaya Wa Al-Nehaya, among others. There is a difference in opinions. In summary, Abdullah ibn 'Abbas, 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ood, 'Umar ibn Al-Khattab, and 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Al-Zohry, among others, said that the sacrifice was Is'haq. Abdullah ibn 'Umar, Sa'id ibn Al-Musayyib, Hassan Al-Basry, Mujahid, 'Ataa' ibn Abi Rabah, among others, said that the sacrifice was Isma'el.

We know from the Seerah that Isma'el was in Mecca, and that Is'haq was in Jerusalem, and that the sacrifice act took place in Mecca. However, from a scholarly point of view, this is not enough evidence to draw a conclusion.

The bottom line is we do not know which son was the son of sacrifice, neither should we be too bothered about it. As Muslims, we believe both Isma'el and Is'haq were prophets of Allah, and that Ibrahim was a mighty prophet of Allah. We also believe that Allah tests his prophets at the highest level of tests (as their faith is also at the highest level). It was a test from Allah to Ibrahim and his son, and they passed. May Allah's blessings be on all of them.

Jesus’ Arrest and Malchus’ Ear

It often amazes me, what portions of the New Testament receive comment, and what portions are lightly discussed. Take, for example, the incident during Jesus’ arrest, when someone slices off the ear of the servant of the high priest. This has to be one of the oddest stories found in the Gospels, but this oddness is rarely talked about.

This incident deserves more attention for many reasons. For one thing, it is (I believe) the only time that anyone associated with Jesus commits an act of violence against the person of another. Arguably, Jesus committed acts of violence during the Temple-cleansing incident, when he overturned the tables of the money changers and others selling animals for sacrifice, and “drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple.” But the Gospels do not report that Jesus struck or injured anyone in the Temple cleansing.

In contrast, during Jesus’ arrest, someone associated with Jesus sliced off the ear of someone else in Jesus’ arresting party. Under any normal circumstances, slicing off someone else’s ear is considered a serious, violent attack. Slicing off an ear is a common feature of torture. The victim of an ear amputation (particularly in ancient times) might die from blood loss or infection (the painter Vincent Van Gogh nearly diedfrom his infamous ear-severing incident). Even today, the surgical reattachment of a severed ear is not a simple procedure.

But the Gospels treat this ear amputation as no big deal. Mark tersely reports the incident as follows:

Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Mark report the ear-slicing without comment, or evident interest. He does not bother to tell us who struck the servant – or possibly, he wants to protect the identity of the attacker (more on this later). He does not tell us that the attacker was a disciple of Jesus, though I think such an identity is implied (no one seems to be present at Jesus’ arrest except for Jesus, his disciples and the forces come to arrest Jesus). Mark reports no reaction by Jesus to this armed assault: there is no concern shown by Jesus for the wounded servant, or any criticism leveled by Jesus against this act of violence. Instead, Mark tells us that Jesus rebuked the arresting force for carrying arms.

“Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”

This is indeed a strange thing for Jesus to have said! Since when is it unusual for a police force or a group of soldiers to carry arms? This is what police and soldiers do. If Jesus had been arrested in the temple courts, as he indicated would have been more appropriate, his captors still would have been armed. Besides … why should Jesus be indignant that his captors were armed, when at least one person in Jesus’ party (Luke tells us that there were more than one) was also armed? Indeed, the only person reported to have used arms during Jesus’ arrest was a member of Jesus’ party, yet Mark has Jesus complain about the unused arms carried by his opponents. This is weird, to be honest. It doesn’t sound right.

Evidently, Mark’s account didn’t sound exactly right to Matthew, either. Matthew provides some additional detail to address our concerns:

Suddenly, one of those with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?” At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

Matthew confirms what we suspected in Mark: it was “one of those with Jesus” who attacked the slave of the high priest. Matthew also adds an important element to Mark’s account: a condemnation by Jesus of violence. This seems only appropriate for the evangelist who reported Jesus telling us during his Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies and not to get angry. But in comparison to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ condemnation of violence at his arrest is positively tepid. At his arrest, Jesus makes two arguments about violence. The first is that violence leads to violence. This is an important point to make, but it falls well short of Jesus’ blanket condemnation of violence in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ condemnation of violence at his arrest sounds utilitarian: the violence we do unto others is ill-advised, because the same violence may eventually be done back unto us. Jesus’ condemnation of violence here is also worded in an oddly detached manner: a literal translation of Matthew 26:52 might be “those having taken the sword, by the sword will perish.” This sounds more like a proverb than a critique of a specific person whose violence has left a specific man seriously wounded. More troubling, however, is Jesus’ second argument against use of violence: that Jesus might himself call for overwhelmingly violent force (more than 12 legions of angels) where appropriate. Note what Jesus doesn’t say: he doesn’t say that he could summon armies of angels to fight for him if he wanted to, but that he’d never do so, because violence is never an appropriate response in any situation. Instead, Matthew has Jesus say that he chose not to summon angels in this case, because in this case Jesus’ opponents were doing what Jesus wanted them to do (i.e., fulfill scripture). At his arrest, Jesus seemed to allow for violence when he calls for it, against forces opposing his will. This leaves much more room for violence than was apparent from the Sermon on the Mount.

Let’s consider the third Gospel, that of Luke. Like Matthew, Luke’s account of the ear-removal seems designed to address elements missing from Mark’s Gospel:

When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”

It is in Luke – and only in Luke – where Jesus shows concern for the servant of the high priest. From the other three Gospels, we might understand that Jesus was willing to let the servant bleed to death, or die from infection, or remain disfigured.

But while Luke’s Jesus is more compassionate than in Mark or Matthew, Luke’s Jesus does not clearly condemn the ear-slicing. In the translation above, Jesus does seem to order an end to the violence: “No more of this!” These words might be read as a statement by Jesus that the ear removal was wrong. But these words have been translated in different ways. The Greek phrase Luke has Jesus utter is “Ἐᾶτε ἕως τούτου,” pronounced eate heōs toutou. This is not an easy phrase to understand. These three Greek words in order seem to indicate (1) a reluctant permission or allowing, with implied misgiving, such as the way one might point to a lurking danger, (2) a prepositionwith the sense of “until” or “as far as,” and (3) a demonstrative pronoun like “this” or “it.” A more literal translation of the phrase eate heōs toutou might be “suffer you thus far,” or perhaps “allow you as far as this.” A more modern way to translate this phrase this might be “I’m not going to permit this to go any further,” or even “That’s enough violence and bloodshed for the moment.” It’s really, really hard for me to say which of these readings is best, given my nonexistent knowledge of Greek. But even giving Luke the most generous of readings, his Jesus does not clearly say that the sword-blow was wrong, or even ill-advised. All we can say for certain is that in Luke, Jesus wanted no further sword-play.

Finally, we turn to John’s Gospel. John gives us an account of the ear amputation that is nearly as disinterested as Mark’s:

Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

John gives us detail we don’t find in the Synoptic Gospels: namely, the identity of the attacker (Peter!) and the name of the servant. But otherwise, John’s account is as remote as Mark’s. As in every Gospel other than Luke’s, John’s Jesus shows no concern for the servant of the high priest. As in every Gospel other than Matthew’s, John’s Jesus issues no principled condemnation of the violence.

And the strangeness of this scene does not stop there.

• The only violence reported is the single sword-blow by Jesus’ associate. We might imagine (as do some artists, and as does Reza Aslan in his book Zealot) that there was a brief battle or melee where Jesus’ disciples clashed with the force come to arrest Jesus. But the Gospels report no such thing. The Gospels report a single swing of a single sword, resulting in a single injury to a single person.

• The attack itself is problematic. Peter (or whoever the attacker might have been; let’s call him Peter) struck a blow that could have been fatal and was probably intended to be fatal. How else can we imagine a blow to someone’s head, delivered with sufficient force to sever an ear? If Peter had been a soldier, perhaps he would have possessed the skill to intentionally slice off the ear of the high priest’s slave (let’s call the slave Malchus, even though it’s only John’s Gospel that so names him). But Peter was a fisherman, not a soldier. He struck at Malchus’ head, without warning (some Gospel translations say he did so “suddenly”). It is reasonable to conclude that Peter intended to kill.

• Alternatively, if we want to imagine that Peter intended only to remove Malchus’ ear, then we have to re-picture the scene. We can do so by imagining that Peter was not wielding the kind of big, heavy sword shown in many paintings of the arrest scene (such as the one at the beginning of this post). An overhead blow from such a massive weapon would have continued through Malchus’ ear and into his neck or shoulder, killing him instantly. As described here, such a blow would pretty much have sliced Malchus in two, so that “Jesus would have had to add one more to the list of folks he raised from the dead.” As Malchus survived the blow, then perhaps Peter wielded a smaller sword, or even a sharp knife, in the manner shown in the two paintings to the right. If so, then it’s possible that Peter truly intended only to wound Malchus. But because the pictured sword is shorter, it means that Peter could not have wielded this blow from a distance – he would have had to overwhelm Malchus first (in something like hand-to-hand combat, as pictured above right), or else attack him without warning from behind (below right).

• Worse: Malchus was a δοῦλον (pronounced doulon), so described in all four Gospels, and while this word is sometimes translated as “servant,” it most
  certainly meant “slave.” As a slave, Malchus was probably unarmed. We’re thus left to understand that Peter used a concealed weapon to attack an unarmed slave, perhaps from behind. To say the least, this is not a pretty picture.

• If Peter’s actions here are disturbing, the reaction of Jesus’ arresting force is impossible to understand. They reacted by doing nothing. One of their own party had been violently attacked with deadly force, yet the Gospels record no response. Peter was not arrested, or himself attacked, or restrained. He was not even disarmed! Jesus told Peter to “Put your sword back into its place,” Peter did so, and all seemed to be fine with this. I ask if you can imagine anything comparable taking place in the real world. What is the universal police or military reaction when someone resists their efforts by force of arms, even if no damage is done as a result? Resisting arrest is a serious crime, often more serious than the original crime for which the resistor is being arrested. Resisting arrest by force is more serious, by force of arms more serious than that. And the actual use of deadly force to resist arrest should have landed Peter on the cross next to Jesus.

• Let’s be clear: Peter’s action was battery: the intentional and unpermitted act resulting in harmful contact with the person of another. (Peter’s action may have been more than battery: assault perhaps, or attempted murder, but it was at least a battery). Under Jewish law, some form of punishment was called for: the payment of damages or a fine, or perhaps flogging.

• There are also questions to ask about Peter’s carrying a sword. As we’ve already noted, it may have been against Roman law for a Jew to carry a sword. But Peter’s sword-carrying may have also been in violation of Jewish law. While the question is debated in the Talmud, it appears that the Talmud position is that Jews are forbidden from carrying weapons during the first day of a Jewish holiday. According to Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ arrest took place on the first night of Passover; according to John, the arrest took place on the Day of Preparation before Passover. Was the Talmud rule in effect during Jesus’ day? If so, would Peter have violated this rule?

At this point, I hope you’re beginning to see the ear-severing story as a strange one. We have many reasons to wonder if it could have happened in the way the Gospels describe. As this piece is already a long one, I’ll pause for a week or so before I consider expert explanations for what might have occurred in the way of sword-fighting during Jesus’ arrest. In the meantime, my question for this week is: what strikes you as odd in this story? Is there anything about this incident that doesn’t seem quite right to you?

Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?

written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

QUESTION:

You mention in your book Forgeries and Counter Forgeries that John most likely did not write the Gospel attributed to him as he almost certainly could not write in Greek. I seem to remember you writing that the Greek of that Gospel was good and fairly nuanced. However, I am being told by someone who is fairly conversant in these matters that John could easily have learned the Greek necessary to write the Gospel, since he lived for over 60 years on the mission field and that his Greek is the most basic of the NT. Is he right? And if so how would you respond?

RESPONSE

Yes, I get asked this question a lot, or rather, get told this a lot – that if an illiterate Aramaic speaking day-laborer spent a lot of time abroad, he would be able to write a Gospel in a foreign language (it  has been established on clear philological grounds that John’s Gospel, like the other books of the New Testament, is an original Greek composition, not a translation from Aramaic).    It’s clear that my thinking about this is not at *all* what (some? many?) other people think.  The problem, it seems, is that people have a massive misunderstanding about education levels in the ancient world, and of what people were capable of doing when it came to reading and writing.

To begin with, the New Testament itself indicates that the apostle John was a fisherman by trade.   How well educated were fishermen in rural Galilee?  We actually have a reliable answer to that.  They were not educated at *all*.   The vast majority of people in Galilee had zero education.  There were not day schools; the only people who got education were urban elites – the wealthy upper crust who lived in major urban areas.

John lived in a tiny rural community where there almost certainly was no school (see my bibliographical references at the end of this post).  And as a day laborer from a family of day laborers, he was in the lower classes.  He would never have learned his letters, let alone how to read a book, let alone how to copy a book, let alone how to compose a sentence in writing, let alone to compose a book.  And that is in his *own* language, which was Aramaic.  That is why the New Testament itself indicates that he was “agrammatos,” i.e., someone who didn’t know his letters, that is, someone who could not read (let alone write; let alone compose a book) (thus Acts 4:13).

Why would any experience he had on the missionary field with people who spoke a different language (Greek) suddenly make him educated, able to read any language, or the language of people he was suddenly living among, or able to compose a sentence in writing in that language, or able to write an entire book in perfectly constructed, even literarily pleasing in places, Greek?  I think the problem is that we simply assume that rural day-laborers in ancient Galilee were kind of like our next door neighbors in 21stcentury America: highly educated people with college degrees who know how to write and who, if they spent say twenty years in a foreign country, would be able to write in that other language.  But that’s not how it was at all.

For one thing, there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that John spent any time at all outside of Palestine.  Whenever he is mentioned, he is either in Aramaic-speaking Galilee or Jerusalem.  But even more important, just because someone spends time in countries speaking a foreign language that doesn’t make them qualified to write a *book* in that language.

Here is more what it is like.  I have a wonderful house cleaner from Guatemala who has been in the U.S. for about fifteen years.  Her English is barely functional, even though she has TV, radio, a computer, access to social media and American movies, and is constantly among English speaking people doing her job.  Would she be capable of writing a Gospel about Jesus in English?   Good grief –NO!  She would not be able to construct more than a very brief and improperly worded sentence or two.  And she is far more educated (in her home country) than John was (in his).

Living abroad does not allow a person to become an author.  First there has to be a preliminary education, which, in the ancient world, happened only among children of very rich people, and took years.  After those years the student needed to learn how to compose writings.  That took more years.  It was a very long drawn out process.  It was only for the rich kids because everyone else had to start working for a living at a very young age.

Could an adult who was uneducated in this way eventually learn to write?  Possibly, but we have precisely zero evidence of anything like adult education in the ancient world.  And no evidence either, at all, of people being trained in a school setting to write in a second language.

I’m afraid too many people have a completely romantic idea about what education was like in the ancient world, because they think that it must have been roughly analogous to education in the modern world.   And partly because they’ve heard so many fictions about education in Palestine, where allegedly every boy went to a synagogue school to learn to read and write Hebrew.  But that’s simply not true.

I discuss all of this in my book Forgery and Counterforgery.  But no one has to take my word for it.  Go to the real experts. It is much better to see what such established scholars who have devoted huge chunks of their research lives to such matters have to say than simply to make some guesses based on some rather romantic hunches about what life might have been like all those years ago.

If you want to learn about literacy in antiquity, the best place to start is Columbia professor William Harris’s book Ancient Literacy.  If you want to know about how literacy worked in ancient Palestine, go to Catherine Hezser’s amazing study, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (she argues that the rates of literacy at the time in Palestine were probably not a lot more than 3%; that is, only 3% or slightly more of the population could read.  And that this 3-4% were wealthy urban elites – not rural fishermen).  If you want to see how education worked – how children learned to read and write – then read the books on ancient educational systems by Raffaela Cribiore, for example her enlightening Gymnastics of the Mind.