Ehrman draws a helpful distinction between the traditional view of Jesus dying on the cross as atonement vs the forgiving dying Jesus and Stephen of Luke-Acts where no payment to God is needed or implied. The argument is the historical Jesus taught forgiveness, and his disciples changed the message to atonement when they thought they saw him after he died so thought the death wasn’t some random thing but a sacrifice.

As the word itself indicates, “for-give-ness” involves a gift—and in its purest sense, a gift is never required or obligatory. It is freely given. In the discussion that follows, I will be promoting a bold thesis: “forgiveness” as a free gift was not part of moral discourse or practice in the Greek and Roman worlds. (Ehrman, Bart D.. Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West (p. 69). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.)

The God of the Hebrew Bible could forgive without payment/sacrifice, such as with the story of Jonah and the penitential psalms:

This concept of forgiveness is not to be confused with “atonement,” although the terms are often muddled up, even among theologians and other thinkers. “Atonement” literally refers to a restored relationship in which two individuals (or groups) who were at odds become “at-one” (“at-one-ment”) because a price has been paid, a penalty assessed, or a punishment meted out. By its very nature, atonement is not freely given. It is a kind of retributive justice. (Ehrman, Bart D.. Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West (p. 71). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.)

Ehrman argues that modern notions of forgiveness in contemporary ethical theory can be traced back to Jesus:

As I stated earlier, the concept of forgiveness as understood by contemporary ethical philosophers could not be found in the Greek and Roman worlds. It arrived through the teachings of Jesus. This is a radical claim, but I am not the first to make it. It was most famously asserted by the great philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, decidedly not a Christian apologist, who maintained: “The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth.” (Ehrman, Bart D.. Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West (p. 72). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.)

Last time I talked about the Stoic notion of Universal Love in Paul, Paul coming from Tarsus – the birthplace of the Stoic enlightenment, and next time I’ll return to Goicoechea’s reading of Paul and move on to Ehrman on the Jewish Roots of Jesus’s ethics.