Q&A

Acknowledgements

(1:41:20) Leandro, so let me thank some other supporters who have been donating. Thank you so much to Colin Care, to Galen Dcasta, to Diana Patterson, to Nancy Barnett, Alan Young, Melinda Craig, Charles Reynolds, Michael Steerman, Gregory Lond, Frederick Patton, Clifton Stucky, Susan Gregory, Scott Heiny, Steven Slayback, Eric Nordquist, John Clinker, the American Legacy Construction, Jason Bishop, Neil de Atley, Steven Hack, Ron Wagner, and the Ken Rector Foundation. Thanks so much for all of the contributions that you've been making on

Date of the Last Supper

(1:41:58) PayPal and other ways and other means. We really appreciate that. Winston Barquez also asks about the date of the Last Supper: why would the synoptic Jesus eat a Passover meal while the Johannine Jesus would eat an ordinary Last Supper meal? So, in the case of the synoptics, what's possibly being done here is what we've already seen happen elsewhere. So, in some ways, Christianity, which is coming out of Jewish roots and is nevertheless fully ensconced in its context as a Jewish sect, so in the same way that

(1:42:43) John the Baptist is taking an existing Jewish practice of mikvah bathing—of a washing for purity ritual—and he's changing that into a fully spiritualized practice of baptism for remission of sins. He's not taking that out of nowhere; he's taking an existing spiritual practice that has meaning within the community and he's repurposing it to something else. So, in the same way, the possibility is that, okay, here you take this particular meal—Passover meal—that already has all of these understandings, and now we're

(1:43:20) repurposing this as a new kind of sacred meal that is going to be important in the Christian community: the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Communion, or Eucharist. And so that could be the understanding of the placement of this for Mark and Matthew and Luke. And it also could just be that there's a tradition that this is when it actually happened, so that could be part of just a historical memory that is part of that community that has placed it at that time. And then, why would

(1:43:56) the Johannine Jesus eat an ordinary meal instead of the Passover meal? It's because it's so important to the Johannine community to equate Jesus' death with the death of the sacrificial lambs. This is the end of blood sacrifice. The new covenant has Jesus having made a one eternal covenant as the Lamb of God. Jesus conquers not in the expected way. In the Book of Revelation, which is another Johannine book, John looks and he sees and he thinks that there's this lion that's going to conquer, the

(1:44:34) Messiah that he's been expecting, the Lion of Judah. And then when he sees who actually is there in this place, he actually sees a lamb, and it's a lamb that has been sacrificed, but he conquers in being a sacrifice. And so, this is central imagery to the Johannine community, and so it's more important to them to place symbolically and meaningfully Jesus' crucifixion at that moment when the Passover lambs are sacrificed. Julie Bizooki says, "The charge of blasphemy has always confused

The Charge of Blasphemy

(1:45:15) me. Someone had to be the Messiah, and later Bar Kokhba claimed to be him. Why wasn't that blasphemy?" It's not blasphemy when Bar Kokhba does it because the rabbis agreed with him. So it would have been blasphemy for some of the rabbis; some would have said there's no way this guy's the Messiah. But we know that some of the rabbis did agree, and that's one of the reasons why he then had legitimacy from the religious authorities. For the ones who wouldn't

(1:45:46) have agreed, it's blasphemy to them. So, the way blasphemy works, and heresy works, is one group's orthodoxy is another group's heresy, and so it is a little bit relative. Things that are viewed in Latin Catholicism now as doctrine—some other things, let's say, that the Jehovah's Witnesses teach about Jesus are considered heretical because that's the perspective of the one group against the other group. And the

Augustine and Harmonization

(1:46:26) Jehovah's Witnesses think that they have the only truth, and so on. Because they also don't have control over it, they can't just kill him for blasphemy—presumably, it's not entirely sure, but that's how the gospels portray it—they need to have a civic charge in order to get Pilate to kill him anyway. Fire Everliving: "How did early Christian scholars like Augustine understand these contradictions?" Early Christian scholars tended to prefer to set the table where they could for harmonizing.

(1:47:07) And I talked about how Christians have inherited this idea of harmonizing, where they read all the things together. That's how early Christians tended to like to understand it. They're living in a time before they had the academic discipline of history, where they were able to weigh the sources and understand them, reading them for their biases and deciding based on the evidence that we have what is likely to be the case and what is not. They weren't looking at

(1:47:44) it that way at all. Augustine is looking at it as: these are all sources of authority; they're saying different and contradictory things, so how can we explain that and retain them all? And so, if there's a terrible contradiction, they might explain that one of the texts must be in error, but they will try to get away from doing that if they can at all. So they would rather try to harmonize it if at all humanly possible. And that has been a long-standing tradition which lots of

Josephus as a Historian

(1:48:16) Christians do to this day, but it's not a historically accurate or grounded tradition. So, it's an academically false tradition; you're not doing it based on history anymore, it's based on a complete truth claim that denies history. Related to this, Iman Padama says, "Wasn't Josephus a historian in the modern sense?" No. Josephus is a historian in the ancient sense, which is different from a gospel writer like Mark. Mark has an agenda, which

(1:49:02) is a religious agenda, and it's primarily twofold: it's trying to have people who read the gospel come to a testimony where they say at the end of it, "Jesus is the Messiah." Jesus is constantly asking the disciples, and therefore the readers, "Who do you say that I am?" and you want to be screaming out, "You are the Messiah!" Mark is also an apocalypticist who believes the world is going to end in his lifetime, and so he

(1:49:34) wants you to be convinced of that. That's a religious purpose as opposed to a historical purpose. Josephus is understanding the ancient pursuit of history that he's trained in, which is founded by the first great historians in Greek history, Herodotus and Thucydides. Primarily their operation is to do things like take sources and try to de-mythologize them. So they'll take something that we can tell is just a creation myth and they will

(1:50:21) want to take that story as a report and take the magic elements out of it. They might say Zeus was actually this guy, or Hercules was actually like this. They take the mythological elements out in order to rationalize it as something that might have happened. They are not able to have all of the different tools that are open to us. They certainly don't have archaeology; they don't have an extensive historical

(1:50:59) record that they can work with. They simply haven't developed the modern academic discipline of history. They're trying to write history—it is a goal—but they have other agendas also. Josephus is also a propagandist and he has especially a bunch of different agenda items, not the least of which is making himself valuable to his patrons, the Roman emperors, but also in order to try to tell the Romans that Jewish religion is very

Favorite Passion Account

(1:51:35) ancient but also totally compatible with the Roman Empire. Despite the fact that there's been these wars and rebellions, we should all be able to get along. As modern historians, we have to read people like Josephus for all of their particular biases so that we can try to reconstruct what actually happened using accounts that are flawed. Vincent Button, thank you so much for your support. Brida Visitor Stump says, "What is your favorite account of the Passion?" I don't know; I was just

(1:52:15) reading them all. They're all interesting in their own ways. We've been in my church this year having a whole Easter series where we're doing the Gospel of John, so I've been exploring the Gospel of John and enjoying it a lot, which wasn't true originally. Way back when I started studying the gospels for the first time, I started with the Gospel of John because it has the same name as me, and

(1:52:54) I really didn't like it at all because it is so far removed from the historical Jesus or anything related to what could have actually happened; instead, it's a very theological book. But I'm enjoying that a lot more than I originally would. Right now, I'm leaning towards John; that's the favorite this year. Probably normally it would be Luke. Kaiwan says, "Were the Romans as concerned about John the Baptist as they were about Jesus?" Not according to Josephus.

Romans and John the Baptist

(1:53:30) early and so I guess I don't know the order I would even say on that right now I'm I'm leaning towards John so that's like a current the favorite this year probably normally it would be Luke uh Kaiwan says were the Romans as concerned about John the Baptist as they were about Jesus um not according to well it depends on what you mean by Romans so not according to Josephus so according to Josephus um um John the Baptist was simply killed by um by uh Herod the tetrarch so um who is a he is a Roman authority but he's a

(1:54:10) According to Josephus, John the Baptist was simply killed by Herod the Tetrarch, who is a Jewish Roman authority in charge of a little part of the client kingdom—Galilee and Perea. That's the area that John is active in, and so he is the one that decides to execute him. I think that because John is running around in the area that is under a Roman client subject, the tetrarch has to be worried about him—presumably because he is leading a popular movement. He has him killed according to Josephus and also according to the

Passion Story Variants

(1:54:46) gospels. JC, thank you for your support. "How common are Passion story variants in the non-canonical gospels, Acts, and other writings? Will you also do an episode on them?" Yeah, so I'm going to bring up some of those. For example, I wanted to introduce the Gospel of Peter, which we only have in fragments. It claims to be by Peter but it's not; it's a pseudepigraphal gospel, but it might be an early one and it might

(1:55:25) represent its own tradition, or it might be another witness to this lost Passion source tradition. Or it might be somebody who has had access to the four canonical gospels but doesn't actually have a book of them in front of them. We can't really tell, but it is one other one that has some interesting variations that I'm going to bring in. We'll talk about that in the next weeks. In terms of Acts, there is a lot of difference in some of the ways the

(1:55:57) Passion story is explained in Acts. There's this idea that Jesus is "hung on a tree," which is interpreted as a metaphor for crucifixion and it's used because it's a particularly shameful death from the Torah, from Deuteronomy. In one of the recounts in Acts, Paul is essentially telling the Passion story—it's not really Paul, it's the author of Luke-Acts who is putting this in Paul's mouth—and there

(1:56:41) they're specifically saying "when they took him down from the tree." So, there are some variations that are pretty interesting that would have their own theological import. We'll bring some of that up in the next week, but then maybe when we're doing Acts and the Epistles and Apocalypse—how they're viewing the Passion or Easter—maybe we'll do that for

The Role of Judas

(1:57:11) Easter of 2026. Donna Ford: "If Judas is the designated bad guy, did he sacrifice himself so that Jesus could become the Christ, or is he designated by God to do what he did?" This again, Donna, is where we have different accounts and different reasons. We saw in Luke and in John that it's Satan who decides this; Satan decides to have Judas betray Jesus, and then Satan actually enters Judas to take control of him. Whereas that isn't in

(1:58:00) Mark and Matthew. Indeed, in Mark, after Jesus is talking about someone betraying him, he says it would be better that he never had been born than the one who betrayed me. That implies that he's not designated, but it's just something that occurred and that Judas is going to have damned himself for it. So we have competing ideas. We have an idea in John that Judas is being given full fellowship, maybe, and maybe

(1:58:42) in other verses that we didn't go through, maybe he, like everybody, will be able to be redeemed too. The evangelists have different perspectives. If he had to do it, is that actually a good thing? Certainly, that he actually did it in order for the whole plan to take place is the position of one of the non-canonical gospels: the Gospel of Judas, which more or less

(1:59:19) says that he had to do this, it was important for him to do it. So although everybody looks down on Judas, Jesus is actually thankful to him. Part of the Gnostic idea here is that he needed to do that. So Judas is not looked on by all Christians as a traitor because it's essential for some people. It's a complete spectrum of opinion. Crimson 90, thank you for your support. "Any future videos on Mormonism?" I don't have any in the

Videos on Mormonism

(1:59:57) works, but if you have topic ideas, there's always interesting things that we could talk about within that field. Darthur Rama: "As we see the Hebrew Bible evolve from people who believe in Sheol to a possible afterlife, how did early Christians reconcile placing Jesus as being there from the beginning?" So we have

Early Christian Views of Jesus' Existence

(2:00:40) been able to look at the Bible developmentally; we can see that there has been a progression of ideas. But in antiquity, people didn't think that was the case. Ancient people believe that if there's any kind of progression, it's because there has been a period of forgetfulness. For them, there was an antediluvian period—this golden age before the flood—when everybody knew all this stuff. They knew about

(2:01:20) Jesus and afterlife and all of these things, and it's only because of human decay and forgetfulness that they have forgotten. Now that this knowledge has been restored to us in these latter days, now that Jesus has lived among us, they wouldn't have this idea that we have of "progress in ideas." So they have no problem placing Jesus as being present from the beginning because they now have an idea of God's word as being eternal and having existed

Historicity vs. Meaning

(2:01:56) since before the creation of time. This is a brand new idea that nobody had had before, but they understand it as having always existed because it's an eternal idea. Anthony Freeman and Patty O'Reilly have questions that are similar. Anthony says, "Since we cannot use the Passion narratives as reliable history, what metaphorical/analogous lesson can we glean from these stories?" And Patty says, "With so many contradictions, how could anybody believe this amazing, crazy story?" So, yeah,

(2:02:34) the point of it is not... if you're worried about believing it, I mean, presuming this is a question for understanding it religiously. In my church, every Sunday beyond the walls that we live stream on this channel, we are not worrying about historicity or literalism; what we are worried about is meaning. What is the underlying meaning of stories like this? There are all kinds of meanings that we take from these kinds of stories. One of these is that

(2:03:18) when we are understanding the prism through which we understand God, we understand that there is a source of meaning and truth and eternity in the universe, but that is unknowable and unseeable. It is only through that source's logos—that source's glory made manifest in creation—when we see the eternal goodness that is present among us, that we are then participating in part with that. And so the sacred story of Jesus dwelling among disciples and actually

(2:04:01) undergoing all of the human suffering is a bridge through which we connect to this unknowable source that is nevertheless present and with us in our lives today. That is one of the ways that we glean meaning from the stories. The story involves the initiation of the ritual of Communion that we have as a spiritual practice so that we can feel that we are part of the body of Christ, living as one together in sacred community and being

(2:04:42) part of that eternal presence of God's logos in the world. So those would just be a couple examples, but that's the most important thing: when we're trying to make it history or literal, then that robs it of meaning. It's just something that happened—and in the case it didn't happen, or didn't happen as written, then it's dead and gone and not meaningful. Instead, like I say, we're looking for meaning that we can live in the present. All right, that's it. Very good.

Upcoming Sessions

(2:05:17) Upcoming, we're having (as you see on the slide here) next week: Part Two, "Contradictions in the Easter Stories." We're going to talk about the Good Friday and Easter story, all of the additional suffering that Jesus has as he's carrying the cross, his crucifixion, what they do with his body, and then the resurrection stories. And then the week after that, don't forget Leandro's lecture: "How Christ Differs from the Dying and Rising Gods." As always, if you want to like and share this video, we appreciate all the

(2:05:51) likes that we got. Thanks so much.