Jesus, Interupted

In Jesus, Interrupted Bart Ehrman lays bare many contradictions in the New Testament and explains why they exist. Although many people are familiar with the stories that make up the Bible, a historical perspective of the text is one only found in academia. Ehrman presents an understanding of the Bible based on the historical-critical method. This view of the Bible is accepted by a wide variety of scholars and taught in seminaries yet it is not communicated to Christian communities or the public at large.

The starting point for Jesus, Interrupted is for Ehrman to highlight some of the key contradictions found in the New Testament. He then uses the discrepant accounts to tell us something interesting about the motivations and beliefs of the various authors. For example, the birth of Jesus is only described in two of the Gospels – Luke and Matthew but the accounts diverge. Luke has the more familiar story; Mary and Joseph are living in Nazareth when Mary finds herself pregnant. Before she gives birth a census is ordered and every man has to return to his ancestor’s town - Bethlehem for Joseph. They can’t find a place to stay and Jesus ends up being born in a stable. Later, the new family returns to Nazareth where Jesus grows up. Matthew has a different take; Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem where Jesus is born. Visiting wise men that followed a star from the East come to see the new King of the Jews. King Herod then orders a mass slaughter of all infant boys but Joseph is forewarned and flees with Mary and Jesus to Egypt. After Herod has died they return but this time to live in Nazareth where Jesus is raised. Apart from the historical difficulties (there was no such census or infanticide), both accounts are clearly contradictory. They also tell their virgin birth story for different reasons, the Gospel of Matthew is trying to fulfill prophecy while the Gospel of Luke is trying to emphasise that Jesus is the son of God.

After explaining several more significant contradictions between the New Testament writers Ehrman then details the different viewpoints that each author had and their varying approaches to the Christian faith. Paul, writing first, emphasises that salvation is through belief in the resurrection of Jesus not works. Paul goes so far as to say that those following the Jewish laws may be putting themselves at risk by believing in alternate paths to God. Paul believes that the apocalypse will soon occur and everyone should be on the side of Jesus if they want to be rewarded by God. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus preaches an imminent apocalypse where God’s kingdom will come to Earth and overthrow all evil. Jesus is not divine but is the ‘Son of Man’ who will play an important role in the Utopian theocracy. Jesus dies to pay for everyone’s sins and to bring God to the masses. In the Gospel of Luke the emphasis of Jesus’ death is not on atonement but on innocence. Jesus, the literal son of God (not Man), is completely innocent and his unwarranted execution is symbolic of all human sin. The only way to God is to repent for your sins, not by paying for them by sacrifice, but by asking God for forgiveness. This is a judgment against the Jewish system of worship. In contrast, the Gospel of Matthew argues that Christians must follow all the Jewish laws if they want to be accepted by God. This gospel contains the story of the goats and sheep where the righteous but unbelieving sheep are allowed into heaven whereas the believing goats are barred from entering (sorry, couldn’t help myself). Matthew is also terribly keen to use prophecy to show Jesus had been sent by God. In this Gospel Jesus refuses to do miracles which might offer proof of his divine nature. The last Gospel written is John’s and by this time it was clear that the ‘immanent apocalypse’ predicted by Jesus was not going to occur. The interpretation given in this Gospel is that Jesus was a pre-existing divine being, ‘the word made flesh’. There is no virgin birth or baptism; instead Jesus does miracles to prove he is God (signs, so-called). His message is not that the Kingdom of God is coming to Earth, but that we must get to the Kingdom by being ‘born from above’. If we accept God and are ‘born again’ we will get to heaven after death. As can be seen the narratives in the New Testament vary widely in their messages. Ehrman does a great job of explaining all the contradictions between the different accounts and the reasons why the authors thought the way they did.

The most interesting chapter for me was the one on the historical Jesus; Ehrman starts off by talking about the sources. The Gospels are the best sources as there are multiple accounts of the same story, unfortunately they were written by neither eyewitnesses, nor contemporaries (35 – 65 years after Jesus’ death). They are also wildly inconsistent, not independent, and not averse to making up stories (e.g., the virgin narrative). Paul never met Jesus and claimed only to see him in a vision, his writings also vary with the Gospel accounts significantly. When we look outside the New Testament we find that Jesus appeared to be completely insignificant in his time. In the century after his death Ehrman finds two compelling sources that mention Jesus. One is a Roman source from 115CE where Tacitus explains that the troublesome Christians take their name from “Christus” and the other is the Jewish historian Josephus who in 90CE wrote a passage about Jesus and the Christian movement that occurred after his crucifixion. After considering all this Erhman thinks that we can build a realistic picture of the historical Jesus. Jesus was most likely a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who preached the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God and the removal of all evil. Upon arriving in Jerusalem with a small band of followers he annoyed the local Jewish authorities (possibly causing a ruckus at the temple and/or blasphemy) and was handed over to the Roman authorities for execution. I found Ehrmen to be compelling enough of these points to be convinced of this part of his case. He does stretch it a bit further getting into some details about what Jesus probably taught, but given that I’d just read the previous chapters about how the Gospel authors were using the story of Jesus to make their own theological points this part of the book rings a bit hollow.

Overall, a fascinating read into the history of the New Testament. Unfortunately, Ehrman is not the best writer so I give it 8/10.