I got another comment from a believer asking me about the gospels, and I answered it in place. On re-reading my answer, however, I realized that this would be a good addition to my series on Gospel Disproofs, so I’m re-posting it here.
[Update: Aly responded in the comments and writes, “I’m neither a ‘believer’ ~which provokes+implies so much contempt on this blog (I don’t think that’s fair, considering they’ve been lied to their entire lives); nor a ‘grumpyoldfart’. I’m just a teenager questioning my ‘faith’” — Apologies to Aly for jumping to a false conclusion.]
The original commenter, Aly, writes:
I’m curious about the complete lack of your explanation of Jesus’ proclamation that he would ‘rebuild the temple in three days’ after it was pulled down. If you say that this statement was not related to the resurrection, then why do you suppose he said so? I’m disinclined to think that he might have been boastful and arrogant about his abilities, because this isn’t evident in other writings on him. I’m under every impression that he was a humble man. However, if you are able to prove otherwise, then I am willing to accept that.
If you would say that someone might have planted that statement in, I do not think that possible. Mostly because many people have reported him saying that [something that appears in the books by Matthew, Mark, and John and the book of Acts; whereas like you say, the resurrection story et all is only in the one by Matthew which makes it questionable], and the different varieties of ‘tear (it) down and (it) will be rebuilt in three days’. Also because of the fact that the Jews were present during this declaration by Jesus and countered saying (paraphrase) ‘it took forty years to build it, what are you saying man’.
So, in effect my question is this: Why do you think Jesus said ‘I will rebuild my temple in three days’? What did he mean by this?
Here is my reply:
Hello, Aly, thanks for writing. I’m not sure why you would find it “curious” that I have not yet answered a question you haven’t asked until just now, but in any case I’m happy to do so now that you have.
You pick an interesting story to ask about. You seem to think multiple people report that Jesus said this, however I’m not sure you’ve looked up the actual references. The earliest reference to any such story is in Mark 14, where it is explicitly declared to be a false testimony.
Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any. For many were giving false testimony against Him, but their testimony was not consistent. Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’” Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent.
Mark’s gospel is the oldest surviving gospel of course, followed by Matthew and Luke, and lastly by the gospel attributed to John, which does not appear until almost the second century (if not later). Chronologically speaking, then, Mark’s report is the closest to any actual event which might have occurred, and Mark records it as an explicit lie told by the enemies of Jesus in order to find an excuse to put him to death.
Notice too that in Mark’s report, Jesus is not supposed to have said that someone else would destroy the temple of his body and then he would raise it in three days, but rather that he himself would destroy “this temple made with hands.” That’s clearly a reference to the temple building, which was made with hands, and not a reference to his own body, which was not. It might also be worth noting that the “temple made with hands” was neither destroyed by Jesus nor rebuilt 3 days after it was destroyed, so this is clearly a false prophecy even if we didn’t have Mark’s word for it.
Luke makes no mention of any such prophecy, but Matthew essentially echoes Mark’s report—with just a bit of evolution.
Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, and said, “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’”
You can see how the story is gradually inching towards the traditional version. Mark knew it was a lie and said so, but the magical “three days” meme is just so…tempting. Not to mention the idea of “temple” being a metaphor for the body. Matthew isn’t quite ready to turn the lie into an authentic part of the Gospel just yet, but you can tell he’d like to, because he changes the bit about “this temple made with hands” into a more ambiguous reference to “the temple of God.” Notice, too, that though he follows Mark’s report about how the Sanhedrin was seeking false testimony against Jesus, he sets this story a little bit apart by saying, “…many false witnesses came forward. But later two men came…” You could read that as stating that after the false testimony was done, two men came and testified truly. In fact, Matthew seems to want us to read it that way, since he deletes Mark’s report that “Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent.”
Fast forwards to several decades later, when most or all of the original “false witnesses” would have been dead. In the late first or early second century, someone who never claims to be the Apostle John writes a gospel that the church would later designate as being the Gospel according to John. Now, at last, we have the first (and only) report that everyone is so familiar with.
The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
Unlike Mark and Matthew, “John” moves the entire story from the end of Jesus’ ministry to the beginning. Now, it’s no longer a false testimony—and in fact, when “John” gives his version of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, he completely removes any reference to any false testimonies at all. Nor is it a reference to “this temple made with hands,” as in the original story, nor even an ambiguous “temple of God,” as in Matthew’s modified version. “John” tells us explicitly that Jesus is speaking of the “temple” of his body. The evolution is complete: what started out as a lie told by Jesus’ enemies has become Jesus’ own prophecy, and a fondly-recounted part of the Gospel.
This legend is a picture in miniature of the evolution of the whole gospel. In only a few decades, stories that started out as lies told by Jesus’ enemies became great and profound truths revealed by Jesus himself, driven by people’s fascination with mystical symbology, popular sensationalism, and the inherent human desire to have something transcendent to believe in. The only thing unusual about this story is the conciseness with which it allows us to see the process in action. I’m grateful to Aly for directing my attention to it.
Just a quick addition note: all of the Gospels post-date the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity in general, in the first Jewish-Roman war ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_wars ), and even the earliest of them cannot be conclusively dated to before the suppression of Judaism under Hadrian – see for example Carrier’s comments on the difficulties of getting any kind of firm date: http://richardcarrier.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/ignatian-vexation.html
As such, there’s not even any particular reason to suppose that even the earliest of them refers to any particular historical event or character. Rather, they’re fictions set in a poorly remembered time several generations back and the other side of a massive disruption.
Good point. I forgot to add “according to conservative estimates” when I mentioned the dates. I’ve just started reading Dr. Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (finally) and it’s a jaw-dropping experience for me. I figured there was evidence I wasn’t aware of, but yikes! He’s even citing data points I was already aware of and never fully considered, and it’s mind boggling. I can see why some people feel so strongly that Jesus never existed.
This is one I had not seen before and am glad to see laid out so cleanly. One of the fascinating things about it is you can see how a believer, particularly one who does not know the chronological history of the Bible’s construction or the fact that the Gospels weren’t all written (if any of them were) by the people they’re named after, would think that the stories in Mark and Matthew support John rather than contradict it. The false testimonies in Mark and Matthew are seen as the Sanhedrin taking Jesus’ statement from John out of context to accuse him, even though the “original” statement (and such an important contextual one) is strangely absent from Mark and Matthew.
I got this far into the questioners email
“I’m under every impression that he was a humble man”
And though “he hasn’t read much John”.
Thanks for the info. I wish I had the patience to read through the bible carefully enough to find things like that.
I’m still agnostic on mythisism, which I think is the most anyone can be with the available evidence.
However what is starting to push me to the no historical jesus side, is the realization of how massive the coincidence is, that after the destruction of the temple, a small Jewish cult that opposed the temple cult and piled all its functions and symbolism into the figure of a son of god, should start to write literary biographies about him.
And if you accept that the gospels are literature or parables, and reject the idea of monogrammed source documents all the way down, for me its pushing coincidence and credulity too far.
Well Superman originally couldn’t fly, only leap long distances, nor did he have x-ray or heat vision, just really good eyesight, so the tradition of evolving fictional characters is pretty common.
Hey hey hey guys.
I feel really important now, you’ve dedicated an entire blog post to me! This I really appreciate. Lol.
No need to get this worked up about my question. I’m neither a ‘believer’ ~which provokes+implies so much contempt on this blog (I don’t think that’s fair, considering they’ve been lied to their entire lives); nor a ‘grumpyoldfart’.
I’m just a teenager questioning my ‘faith’. You cannot expect me to know stuff like
Thanks for the follow-up, and I apologize again for misreading/misinterpreting your first comment. I was a Christian myself for most of my adult life, and in fact the information that finally led to the collapse of my Christian faith came a seminary-level course I was taking in preparation for possible ordination as a member of the clergy. I know what its like to be raised in a belief and to spend all my energy thinking up ways to convince myself it’s all true anyway—I did it for literally decades, even when I should have known better. Good for you for questioning your faith and checking out the evidence. I wish I’d done so when I was younger, it would have saved me a lot of wasted time and effort.
Sorry I messed up the html. I meant to quote
“Unlike Mark and Matthew, “John” moves the entire story from the end of Jesus’ ministry to the beginning. Now, it’s no longer a false testimony—and in fact, when “John” gives his version of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, he completely removes any reference to any false testimonies at all. ”
and
“This legend is a picture in miniature of the evolution of the whole gospel. In only a few decades, stories that started out as lies told by Jesus’ enemies became great and profound truths revealed by Jesus himself, driven by people’s fascination with mystical symbology, popular sensationalism, and the inherent human desire to have something transcendent to believe in. ”
but that first quote got cut off and everything else got block-quoted instead. You can see I’m new to this.
Hi Aly,
No you arent expected to know stuff, especially if you come from a tradition where its up to authority to know and understand and impart that knowledge. Particularly if the people who are telling you stuff are learning it from others who dont know.
Most people , christian and Atheist alike will tell you that Mathews gospel was written shortly after Mark at about 80-90 AD. The Christians will tell you closer to 80 and the atheists probably closer to 90 as it suits their particular world view.
Up until 10 minutes ago I would have agreed but I read the link Sawells posted up at #1
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/ignatian-vexation.html
now its obvious that no one can be sure within a range of 50 years (conservative estimate based on other dates being right) but I can guarantee that those who have an interest in your hypothetical soul will keep on telling you it was written in 75 AD.
Have a read of the link, it was an eye opener for me.
Oh, and remember that the only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask 😉
I was under the impression that the statement about destroying the Temple and rebuilding it was a metaphor for the Crucifixion and Resurrection. That’s what Christians told me anyway.
Why not read the OP?
I did and the article made good points, but the story still reminds me of the common gospel trope where Jesus makes some kind of mystical statement and other people, apparently having never heard a figurative statement before look foolish because they don’t understand it.
Nicodemus doesn’t understand Jesus’s reference to being born again despite being a religious leader who should be familiar with concepts of spiritual renewal regeneration. The disciples don’t understand the parables and need step by step explanations.
On the other hand it makes sense that Jesus’s enemies might have accused him of threatening the actual Temple, though in a time period without explosives available except maybe in China, tearing down such a large building would only be something he could conceivably do AFTER seizing total power and organizing and paying a large group of workers.
But while not a credible threat, it might have been some kind of terrible blasphemy in that culture to speak that way about the Temple; thus making it an effective lie for his enemies. In their place, I’d have probably gone with a more believable story about an assassination plot against leading priests and Pharisees, though.
More to the point, even if a man existed who proclaimed himself to be The Messiah and preached ‘love thy neighbour’ and all that, what separates his particular claim to messianic divinity from every other loon of the time who, also, would be claiming to be a son, brother, relative, prophet or, for that matter, god itself?
That we can witness even in our modern times the creation of religious cults with followers of madmen of every description means there would need to be something truly remarkable about this particular messiah and, given that, even if he did exist, he probably suffered from the same type of delusional messianic complex that David Ike suffers from, one where it is still all about some notion of ‘love’ being promoted over the traditional fire-and-brimstone, there isn’t anything ‘special’ about Big J other than all the claimed ‘miracles’ which are promoted by those who have a motivation to elevate their particular ‘messiah’ over every other one when they were drafting up their little stories centuries after the guy died.
Fact is, what is *more* likely is that he and his followers didn’t expect him to die, as he was meant to be the holy warrior who would destroy the Roman Occupiers, so when he even failed to actually come back to life after inconveniently dying as any normal human being does after being executed, it isn’t too much of a stretch to suppose that a few of his devoted followers, the ones who stood to lose far more from him turning out to *not* be The Messiah, took his corpse from the tomb and out into the desert to await its reanimation which, when it didn’t happen, prompted them to resort to citing fantastical tales of him popping up in ethereal form in front of a few key players before swooshing up into the sky, ne’er to be seen again . . . except on toast.
Big J wasn’t the only ‘messiah’ of his time, it was a far less outrageous claim to make during the Bronze Age, that’s what people should remember.
Speaking of which, I was directed by a friend to a book/documentary that actually lays out why they believe that Jesus never existed. I’m in the middle of reading so many books at the moment and so opted to watch the documentary which is about an hour and a half long.
( goo.gl/o52SU6 redirects you to the YouTube video)
It’s called Caeser’s Messiah. Speaks of how the Jesus myth actually helped the Romans their in the control of the local population, draws parallels between Jesus and Moses- thereby called Jesus an ‘inspired’ person, and talks about the fact that the Romans destroyed all other historical documents and made this the sole *supposed* historical text of the time; among various other things. It is quite interesting. it understandable doesn’t quite cite sources because it was probably meant for tv, but the fact remains that it is compelling to think about. Maybe the citations exist in the book, but I wouldn’t know.
Perhaps you could tell me what you think about the same.
Also, Deacon Duncan, you might want to check this out.
Aly