I’m a little out of order today, Barber’s essay being near the end of the book, but there were some things that are worth addressing now so here we go!

Jesus predicting his passion and resurrection is multiply attested to throughout scripture.  However, as Ehrman points out these run contrary to the fact that Mark, despite his Pauline bias promoting the passion and resurrection, contrarily also has Jesus preach ways to salvation different from his death.  To begin his ministry, Jesus preaches the Kingdom, not himself.  He tells of the rich young man who is saved by following the law and giving his money to the poor.  This echoes the image of the sheep and goats in Matthew.  It seems then since Mark is going against his bias to portray the cross and resurrection as the salvific element, Mark has included some ideas about Jesus that go behind Paul and Mark’s use of him.  On Mark’s use of Paul see HERE . 

In terms of Jesus’ death, I’d like to look at the Lord’s supper that preceded it.  Carrier comments:

This is how Mark reifies a revelation in Paul, relating Jesus’s celestial instructions for performing a sacrament and its meaning, into a narrative historical event. Mark has even taken Paul’s language, about Jesus being “handed over,” which in Paul means by God (Romans 8:32, exact same word) and even by himself (Galatians 2:20, exact same word), not by Judas, and converted it into a whole new narrative of a betrayal by “the Jews” (the meaning of Judas, i.e. Judah, i.e. Judea). Paul has no knowledge of a betrayal. Indeed in Paul, all of “the twelve” get to see Jesus right after his death and are recognized as apostles (1 Corinthians 15:5; see Proving History, pp. 151-55).

Mark has taken the only instance in Paul of an event in Jesus’ life predicting his death (Carrier argues it is a vision Paul had of what happened just prior to Christ’s death) where no one was present and Jesus was just speaking to all future Christians, and Mark perhaps changed it and invented the idea that the disciples were present to counter the idea that Jesus never predicted his death and resurrection as salvific.  Mark would then supplement this with Jesus repeatedly predicting his passion, yet the disciples couldn’t understand. The issue seems to be it was well known the disciples had gotten violent and fled at the arrest, and so it was not on anyone’s radar Jesus was supposed to die. After all, if Jesus’ death was salvific and predicted, why was Judas the bad guy? We might suppose the meal where no one was present and Jesus in his prison speaking a prayer and meal ritual for future Christians. We might know these details like we know the prayer in Gethsemane details because ancient writing was more forgiving when it came to evidence. For instance, the death story also seems fictional because of us being told what Jesus said from the cross, but also what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and what Jesus and the crowd said to each other (who would have been around to record these conversations?).

On the other hand, it may be that Paul is not claiming a vision but saying he got a tradition about the Lord’s Supper that goes back to the historical Jesus, like he got the Corinthian Creed/poetry.  Barber comments:

Special attention might be given to Paul’s account of the Last Supper, which constitutes the only report of an episode from Jesus’s life found in the apostle’s letters. Paul explains that he received the account “from the Lord” (apo tou kyriou), using the technical language of the transmission of tradition (1 Cor 11:23: paralambanō, paradidōmi; cf. 11:2; 15:3). The point then is not that Paul received the story from some sort of visionary experience but, rather, as E. P. Sanders says, “that he is passing on material that he believes goes back to Jesus.”21 Significantly, Jesus here speaks of his body being given “for you.” Moreover, the combination of Jesus’s blood with the language of “covenant” evokes the sacrificial scene of Exod 24. In other words, Jesus’s death is here described in sacrificial terms. Recognizing the strength of the Last Supper tradition, even Fredriksen acknowledges that these traditions may indicate that, in the end, Jesus understood he would not escape Jerusalem with his life.

Paul thought of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the beginning of the apocalypse that was underway:

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. (1 Cor 15:20-23)

Mark recapitulates Paul,

1 And he said to them, “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.” (Mark 9:1) 

This was a problem for Mark because Paul was long gone and the apocalypse certainly wasn’t underway, which undermined Paul and Jesus.  So, Mark reimagines Paul’s comment

30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or at cockcrow or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” (Mark 13:30-37)

As I noted in an earlier post, Mark has expertly crafted a satirical Jewish trial scenario (e.g., meeting on Passover eve) to show the Jewish elite manipulating God’s word and Jewish tradition in order to provide “surface respectability” to the process even though they knew God wouldn’t let them kill Jesus and so they tricked Rome into doing it.  To flesh out Paul’s description of the Lord’s Supper, Mark has superimposed two scriptures from Paul, the one about the Lord’s supper (1 Cro 11:17-34) and the one that the Jews killed Christ (1 Thess 2:14-16), inventing the character of Judas, as the name suggests representing the Jewish people who turned on the historical Jesus. 

Price comments:

All critics recognize the seed of the last supper story in Psalm 41:9, “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Frank Kermode has traced (pp. 84-85) the logical process whereby the original, entirely and abstractly theological claim that Jesus had been “delivered up” (paredoqh, Romans 4:25) has been narratized. From God having “handed over” his son for our sins grew the idea that a human agent had “betrayed” him (same Greek word). For this purpose, in line with anti-Jewish polemic, a betrayer named Judas was created. His epithet “Iscariot” seems to denote either Ish-karya (Aramaic for “the false one)” or a pun on Issachar, “hireling” (Miller, p. 65), thus one paid to hand Jesus over to the authorities. Much of the Last Supper story is taken up with this matter because of the mention of the betrayer eating with his victim in Psalm 41.

The anti-Jews passage from Paul is an important text for mythicists to dismiss as an interpolation because it says the Jews killed Christ: SEE CARRIER HERE.  The claim is further that references to destruction in the verses identify the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, and so is post-Paul.  Either it was an interpolation, or it was original to 1 Thessalonians which makes that entire letter inauthentic.  Mythicists claim the anti-Judaism in the text reflects something the movement later grew into over time.  Benjamin White disagrees and does not find reason to dismiss it as an interpolation.  Paul seems to be a first century apocalyptic Jew navigating through other Jews like the pharisees, Essenes, he says he is not of the super apostle Christ group, etc., and we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls these groups were always going after one another as to who the true people of God are.  In this way it was common back then for Jews to be calling other groups of Jews mean and nasty things. It is certainly possible Paul speaking among gentiles to speak badly of Jews he thought killed Christ.  I would note too Paul thought the apocalypse was underway, he says the resurrected Christ being the first fruits of the general resurrection harvest of souls at the end of the age, so he thought the judgment of the enemies of God had begun, and so need not refer to post-70 CE destruction of Jerusalem.  Clearly, then, the satirical conspiracy of the Jewish high council and the way the crowd turns against Jesus in Mark may very well reflect Mark bringing to narrative Paul’s point that the Jews killed Jesus.

So, we see in Mark both the idea that Jesus’ passion was predicted and salvific, and also not on the radar.  I think we can resolve this by supposing Jesus’ death as moral influence vs substitutionary atonement.  Barber comments:

The notion that Jesus anticipated his own death or went to it willingly is attested in numerous sources. Here we can point to (1) Pauline texts; (2) material often identified as belonging to the Q source; (3) data found only in Mark; (4) traditions only attested in Matthew and Luke; (5) logia from the Gospel of Thomas; and (6) other early sources…At the outset, however, we should mention that there are other aspects of the Jesus tradition that would seem to reinforce the likelihood that Jesus anticipated being rejected and suffering. One feature we can mention here is Jesus’s apparent association with John. That Jesus was baptized by John is typically regarded as a reflecting history.12 It is also widely accepted that Jesus’s relationship with John likely involved more than a one-time interaction. Their messages seem to have had some overlap.13 What is more, from Mark, Matthew, and Josephus we learn that John was arrested and killed due to his preaching (Matt 14:3–12 // Mark 6:17–29; A.J. 18.116–119). Though the gospel and Josephan accounts diverge on the details, that John’s death was in some way attributable to his ministry is therefore broadly accepted.14 Would Jesus have been unaware that his activities could bring him to a similar end? That seems highly unlikely. Furthermore, Jesus is remembered as contrasting John the Baptist with a “reed shaken in the wind,” an expression that is linked to an affirmation of John’s identity as a prophet (Matt 11:7–9 // Luke 7:24–26 [Q?]). The saying highlights John’s resolve to proclaim a dangerous message. The saying comports well with a Jewish tradition that observed that prophets were often rejected and killed by their contemporaries.15 John’s death, then, would easily have been seen as consistent with a prophetic identity. In fact, Jesus is said to have known and applied the notion that prophets are typically rejected to himself (Matt 13:57 // Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24 // John 4:44 // Gos. Thom. 31; cf. Luke 13:33). That Jesus saw himself as having some sort of prophetic role is generally accepted.16 Regardless of what we make of the historical value of any particular tradition, if he had seen himself as taking up a role akin to John’s or other prophetic figures, he would have had good reason to think he would suffer a violent end…Once again, the notion that the eschatological age—the coming “everlasting kingdom”— will only arrive after a period of tribulation and suffering. What is especially noticeable in all of this is that the vision also includes the account of the famous “Son of Man” figure. After the appearance of the fourth beast.. Here we simply see that Jesus’s passion predictions seemed to be remembered in Danielic terms….Indeed, Allison offers a long list of traditions—mostly but not solely derived from the Synoptics (and Q?)—that indicate Jesus believed he would play “a starring role in the eschatological drama.”54 Some of these are especially difficult to dismiss as later innovations. Take, for instance, Jesus’s appointment of a group of twelve disciples. That Jesus had such a group and that they were in some way related to eschatological hopes for the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Matt 19:28 // Luke 22:30) is accepted by Jesus scholars from a wide array of perspectives.55 Our earliest writer, Paul, attests to the twelve being known to early believers (1 Cor 15:5). It also seems unlikely that the twelve emerged as a group only after Jesus’s ministry.56 That Jesus likely appointed such a group, then, is suggestive of his own self-understanding. There is no evidence that he counted himself among the twelve. Rather, it seems that he chose them and led them.57 This suggests he saw himself as having a leadership role of the eschatological Israel. Also worthy of special attention is the tradition that Jesus was crucified as “the King of the Jews.”58 Crucifixion was the penalty suffered by thieves, murderers, and political insurrectionists, but there is no evidence that Jesus was accused of the first two crimes. The most probable explanation of Jesus dying on a cross, then, is that, as John Collins puts it, he “was viewed as a messianic pretender.”59 Furthermore, the wording of the titulus, “King of the Jews,” is unlikely to have its origin in Jesus’s disciples.60 The title reflects non-Jewish tendencies; Jews more probably would have used the expression “King of Israel” (Matt 27:42; cf. also 1 Sam 24:14; Prov 1:1; John 1:49).61 Finally, that Jesus was derided as “King of the Jews” at his crucifixion is congruent with the parodic features of Roman crucifixion.62 The titulus, then, is widely thought to be significant for historical reconstructions of Jesus.63 Paula Fredriksen acknowledges, “Whether at any time in his ministry Jesus claimed for himself the title messiah—the evidence on this point is extremely ambiguous—he certainly died as if he had.”64 Yet, although I find great value in Fredriksen’s work, her proposal that Jesus died as a result of losing his audience is unnecessary. Whatever we conclude about whether Jesus spoke of himself explicitly as the messiah, he most probably preached about the kingdom, and it seems unlikely that he thought he would play a marginal role in it. More likely than not that, like Paul, he would have understood that this message was dangerous. Moreover, Jesus’s message likely included echoes to Jewish apocalyptic traditions. It seems the Next Quest’s exploration of Jesus’s outlook will bring us full circle back to Schweitzer. Informed by Jewish eschatological tribulation traditions, Jesus most probably anticipated his death. Martyrdom and Comparable Figures Allison points out that figures like Justin Martyr, Martin Luther King Jr., and Óscar Romero knew that their activities would end with their deaths; why should we conclude Jesus was significantly less self-aware?65 Here a brief word about these individuals is necessary since they provide concrete examples of others who recognized that their commitments would have fatal consequences for themselves. That these three realized that their convictions would lead to their doom is well attested….While it is true that Justin, King, and Romero each lived in vastly different historical contexts than the first-century Jewish world of Jesus, there is no reason to insist their stories are completely irrelevant to the question of Jesus’s own outlook. Their stories witness to the plausibility of individuals holding convictions greater than fear of death. That Jesus anticipated his own death is recurrently attested, coherent within Second Temple Jewish beliefs, and makes sense in light of his effects. The best explanation of the historical data we possess, then, is that the memory of Jesus predicting his own demise likely reflects impressions he himself made on others during his public ministry.

We seem to have the idea that Jesus knew he would suffer, but does that reflect a moral influence death (e.g., “Truly this is the son of God/an innocent man), or substitutionary atonement.  To decide this it would be worth reviewing my 3 Walsh essays: A B C .  Clearly, non atonement salvation stories like the rich young man and the sheep and goats are problematic for the traditional vicarious atonement position.

Bibliography

Barber, Michael.  Death and Martyrdom in Crossley, James; Keith, Chris. The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (p. 735-763). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.