Pay No Attention to the Dead Man Behind the Curtain

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Background
Once sentenced to His fate, Jesus carried the cross to His own crucifixion, at least according to John. The other Gospels suggest that a man named Simon carried it for Him.

While hanging on the cross, Jesus possibly granted Salvation to one of the two thieves who were crucified at the same time as Him; "possibly" because Luke alone recorded this forgiveness of the repentant thief, while Matthew and Mark record that both thieves mocked Jesus instead. Then the sun stopped shining for three hours; which is an event unsubstantiated by John, or by resources outside of the Bible, or by physics, but we are talking about miracles here.

Pay No Attention to the Dead Man Behind the Curtain

Jesus died. Like everyone else will experience, His mortal body stopped its life-sustaining functions. Of course, it was only a partial death for Him, because His spirit went on living, even before His body was resurrected. Unlike anyone else, Jesus' death was accompanied by miracles as He took His last breath. Let us take a fateful look at this moment of death.

We will examine Matthew 27:50-53, Mark 15:37-38, Luke 23:45-46, and John 19:30. This time, we will begin with John.

John 19:30 goes like this:

When He had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. NIV

It was a quiet, solemn release. Jesus' work was done, for now, so, with a bow of His head, He shed His mortal body. It was an understated, yet powerful scene. Even beautiful. Now let us turn to the Synoptic Gospels to see how they will mess it up, beginning with Mark, who was the source for the other two.

In Mark 15:37-38 we find:

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last. The curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. NIV

So, no quiet, solemn release here. Instead, Jesus yelled. There are no details of what this cry was, so we can only guess, and given that it was the moment of death, a reasonable guess would certainly be something along the lines of a guttural gasp of pain or anguish.

The curtain of the Temple... what curtain are they talking about? Well, we have dig a little into the background to understand this. The layout of the Temple was strongly inspired from the mobile version of the Temple called the Tabernacle. With the Tabernacle, a perimeter fence of curtains established the Tabernacle grounds, or courtyard, where the altar for burnt offerings was on display and put into use.

Inside that courtyard was a tent, sometimes referred to as the Tent of Meeting, and that tent was subdivided into two chambers.

The first tent chamber, known as the Holy Place, where the golden lampstand, altar of incense, and table of the showbread were kept according to God's instructions.

Separating the first chamber from the second was heavy, decorative, purple curtain (Exodus 26:31-33).

The second tent chamber, known as the Most Holy Place (a.k.a. Holy of Holies), contained (among other things) the Ark of the Covenant and the Atonement Cover (a.k.a. Mercy Seat), and hosted the very presence of God. Literally, God was there, which is why prayers were directed towards it (Psalm 28:2), and why in Leviticus 16:2 we read:

The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover. NIV

This verse was obviously written with no intent of the High Priest having a close, personal relationship with God, as God would kill him if he showed up at non-appointed times. Anyway, back to the torn curtain...

The curtain which Mark referenced is undoubtedly the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. While nearly every other part of the facade of the Tabernacle and Tent of Meeting were replaced by stone or wood, this curtain remained integral to the Temple design. So ripping open the only vale between God and the people would be both symbolic of removal of the barrier between God and man, as well as a more literal indication that God had left the building.

There is a big problem here though... how did anyone know about the curtain; that it was ripped, that the rip corresponded to Jesus' time of death, and that the direction of the rip was top to bottom?

It was torn in two, so to know the direction of the tear (other than with the assistance of modern CSI technology) would have been impossible without an eye witness, but that seems unlikely. Access to this holy place was very, very restricted, thanks largely to verses like Exodus 28:43:

Aaron and his sons must wear them whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt and die. "This is to be a lasting ordinance for Aaron and his descendants." NIV

With this restricted access, and factoring that access is not permitted at non-appointed times, the chances of there being a witness to this event are statistically very small.

Yet even assume that there was a witness or two, we still have the fact that the witnesses would have been the religious elite, and would have been under no obligation, and certainly no motivation, to reveal to anyone that the curtain had been torn, let alone in what direction the tearing took place. Releasing such easily-concealed information would have been damning evidence against themselves. So, again, how is it that Mark knows anything about this curtain?

Now we come to Matthew. Matthew polished up Mark's verbiage a little more that usual, as Matthew 27:50 reveals:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. NIV

The "again" could convey a few different things. Least likely, but still possible, is inference of just some loud, nondescript utterance. Instead it may have been an intelligible cry, similar but different to the "Why have you forsaken me?" cry in Matthew 27:46, but for some unknown reason the exact words not recorded. Also possible is that Matthew intended it to mean that Jesus made the exact same cry as in Matthew 27:46.

Whatever the content of that scream, it was a far cry from being a quiet passing portrayed by John. Yet, conspicuously, we find in Matthew the "He gave up His spirit", as seen in John. Given that John's lack of mentioning a cry would not guarantee that there was not one, and with other queues from across the Gospels (at least for this particular section), believers can quite reasonably claim that these different versions appear to be be describing the same event, which enhances their credibility... at least until we consider what Matthew recorded soon thereafter.

In Matthew 27:51, the Temple curtain is torn, top to bottom. No surprise there, but Matthew also aggregated onto the story that there was an earthquake at that moment too, one powerful enough to split rocks. And in Matthew 27:52-53, we find this remarkable addition:

The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. NIV

This mini-zombie-apocalypse is not mentioned in any other Gospel. As implied above, an argument from silence is not usually a strong one, and can never be taken as solid proof, but are degrees of strength based on the circumstances of the situation. We are not talking about whether or not some speech snippet was recorded, which was essentially unessential to the story here.

Sure, the Jesus'-death-synchronized earthquake could qualify as simply just another miracle which adds trivially to the story. However, resurrected holy people is incredibly significant, possibly even more than that of Jesus! Why?

Consider this: God made man by scooping up some dirt and blowing into it (Genesis 2:7). Any God that could do that could easily bring Himself, as Jesus, back to life in the flesh. Other than it being a miracle by our standards, it is no big deal. In fact, such a God could easily bring anyone back to life.

On the other hand, the resurrection of these saints represents the fulfillment of God's promise of resurrection for the rest of us. So even more than Jesus' resurrection, the resurrection of these holy people demonstrated the veracity of God's offer of Salvation through Jesus.

The absence of this resurrection anecdote from the other Gospels, which Matthew himself barely included with a single verse, creates one of the strongest types of arguments from silence that there can be. This is because, based on the implications of the content described above, it would have been extremely advantageous to include in the other Gospel accounts, as it both reassures Salvation and it could be used to explain to those who had heard about or seen these resurrected holy people why that had occurred.

And that is just it. It probably did not occur. It is not mentioned in any other Gospel, nor in the rest of the New Testament. When you read passages like Acts 4, where Peter and John are apprehended for preaching about resurrection of the dead, their obvious, go-to defensive evidence would have been to point to these holy people coming back to life because of Jesus, but we do not find that, not even as a footnote to their speech.

OK, enough about the zombies. Let us wrap this study up with a quick look at Luke, the editor. Luke had the curtain torn in two also, but had it happen just before Jesus' death and wisely dropped the "top to bottom" directionality. Then in Luke 23:46 we read the famous line:

Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit My spirit." When He had said this, He breathed His last. NIV

I have to applaud Luke here. Other than Jesus screaming this sentence, which seems unnecessary unless God is hard of hearing, Luke really portrayed Jesus in a beautiful moment of submission to God's Plan, but, in turn, that also portrayed Jesus as being subservient to God. So it is one more verse to muddy the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

About the Image
The image is of a triptych depicting Saint Anthony the Great (a.k.a. Anthony Abbot), with the third panel illustrating his meeting with a centaur.  You cannot make this stuff up.  :-)

Cross Talk

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Background
After being tried by the Priests and investigated by Pilate, Pilate relented to the crowd's demand to have Jesus crucified. So Pilate chose to flog Jesus, and then soldiers led Him away to face His fate. Those soldiers may have mocked Jesus with purple robe and false praise of kingship (Matthew, Mark), unless that happened before Jesus was sentenced, under Herod's watch (Luke). Then, Jesus carried His own cross to the mount where He was crucified (John), unless a man named Simon carried it for Him (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

Cross Talk

One of the aspects I enjoy about the Bible is that, like many other literary works, it captures human nature fairly well. The Bible provides an unusual slice of that nature because the Gospels, in particular, were written with an intent of building credibility behind the claim of Jesus being the Messiah, among other intents. Let us take a look at this facet of nature as we examine Jesus' time on the cross up to, but not including, His death.

Matthew 27:36-49, Mark 15:25-36, Luke 23:35-45, and John 19:19-29 all cover Jesus' hang time on the cross. Let us begin with Mark, shall we?

Mark 15:25 tells us that it was 9 A.M. (the third hour) when Jesus was put on the cross. The timer begins. There were two daily sacrifices that the Priests carried out on a regular basis. The first just happened to be at around 9 A.M. Coincidence, or deliberate writing? You know the answer. ;-)

In Mark 15:26 we read:

The written notice of the charge against Him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. NIV

You may remember from the previous posts, the Priests charged Jesus with blaspheme, but instead they presented Jesus to Pilate as an insurrectionist claiming to be king.

In Mark 15:27, you find Jesus was crucified between two thieves. This seemingly benign verse is used to tie in the prophesy of Isaiah 53, in particular the verse of Isaiah 53:12 where a suffering servant of God was "numbered with the transgressors".

Any association with prophesy would bolster credibility, and that of Isaiah 53 is one of two Old Testament prophesies which, as a whole, actually come close to matching parts of the Jesus story. The language in Isaiah 53 is a bit vague, and requires context to properly discern. Please see this very detailed post discussing Isaiah 53 if you are interested in the refuting of that prophesy.

With Jesus on such a shameful display, it is a fitting portrayal of human nature that we find Him being mocked. The mocking in Mark 15:29-30 is particularly interesting, because people walking by mocked that Jesus said He would "destroy the Temple and build it in three days". However, despite the apparent commonality of the knowledge of this claim presented here, back when Jesus was being questioned before the Priests they could not get witnesses to agree that Jesus had actually made such a claim (Mark 14:58-59)! So to find people walking by using that statement as a point of mockery is strange, to say the least.

Of course, the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law also mocked Jesus, demanding that He miraculously come down from the cross to prove his Messianic status, and both of the thieves crucified with Him mocked Him as well (Mark 15:31-32). It is a great display of an unsavory side of human nature. Everyone around Jesus was united in mob mentality to pick on Him, given His lofty claims versus His then-present lowly situation.

Next, from noon to 3 P.M. (the ninth hour), it got dark outside. Three hours of darkness in "the whole land", and yet there is no recorded history of this event happening outside the Bible. This was probably just thrown in for dramatic effect. :-) The end was about to come...

3 P.M. was also the time of the second ritual, daily sacrifice for the Priests. Another likely contrived coincidence.

Speaking of contrived coincidences, in Mark 15:34 we read:

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" NIV

The Christian story behind this cry, as Gill puts it, was that Jesus was "now without a sense of the gracious presence of God" and was facing the divine wrath for the sins of mankind. It is a quaint story, but it does not hold up to scrutiny.

Given that Jesus was God, or at least some integral part of God, how could Jesus not feel the presence of God? That would be like not being aware of your own presence, which is fairly difficult to do when you are conscious. ;-)

Yet an even greater paradox than that bizarre scenario of God not feeling His own pretense is the question of "why". Not my "why", but rather Jesus' "why". For Jesus to ask why this was happening would indicate that He did not know His purpose and God's plan, and yet He did know. Why would Jesus ask such a question when He knew the answer?

I will tell you why. Because the author of this Gospel wanted you to know what "prophesy" he was using as a script for the crucifixion, so that it would appear that the prophesy was fulfilled and thus enhance his credibility. It is a quote of Psalm 22:1. Psalm 22 was allegedly written by King David, metaphorically describing the events before he was king, when King Saul had his men hunting down David. Saul had essentially labeled David as public enemy #1.

While quite a bit of Psalm 22 appears to be a good match for the Jesus story, refer to this post to see that focusing on the details reveals that Psalm 22 has quite a bit that is not about Jesus at all, and even runs contrary to Jesus' story.

Anyway, people around Jesus thought that He was calling for Elijah when He made that yelp (Mark15:35). If people standing near the cross could not understand Jesus, then it is a bit of a mystery how anyone did understand Him enough to record Jesus' cry of forsakenness.

Someone offered Jesus wine vinegar to drink, which is a tie in to Psalm 69:21 (we discussed Psalm 69 in the previous post), and others mocked Jesus some more by saying that Elijah should save Him (Mark 15:36).

OK, on to Matthew. Again, as is typical with Matthew, he essentially copied Mark with only slight wording changes, with two exceptions where he, also as typical, added material.

The first significant change is that, while the time of the beginning of the crucifixion is not mentioned, instead we have a reference to soldiers keeping watch on Jesus (Matthew 27:36). This is unique to Matthew, and the vigilance displayed here portends the soldiers which would be used to guard Jesus tomb in Matthew 27:62-66. Matthew was trying to persuade his readers that there was no possible substitution or saving of Jesus, or taking of His body afterward.

The second addition comes in the form of a particular insult hurled at Jesus by the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law in Matthew 27:43, which is mostly unremarkable other than that they are quoted as saying "He (Jesus) trusts in God" as if they did not, providing a little more slander against the Jewish religious elite.

Now, to Luke. Luke edited and rearranged the story quite a bit.

Luke 23:35 begins our study with people mocking Jesus on the cross. Noticeably absent is the mocking found in Matthew 27:39-40 and Mark 15:29-30 regarding Jesus destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days. That is no surprise, but is rather a mark of consistency for Luke, who had earlier edited out that charge against Jesus.

While Luke gets some points for consistency, we may need to subtract some for strangeness when we find in Luke 23:36-37:

The soldiers also came up and mocked Him. They offered Him wine vinegar and said, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself." NIV

The soldiers, who are implicitly Roman, somehow manage to associate being King of the Jews with having miraculous powers. Of course, it is also reasonable to guess that they had heard of the Messianic prophesies, or possibly that some Jews had been conscripted as soldiers, so we can give Luke a pass on this oddity.

In Luke 23:38 is the sign on the cross, which is essentially the same as Mark.

Next we come to the thieves on the cross. Different than Matthew and Mark, Luke 23:39-43 says that only one of the thieves mocked Jesus, while the other one claimed that Jesus was being punished without having done anything wrong. (Thanks, Luke, for that convenient, convincing reminder of Jesus' innocence.) That thief asked Jesus to remember him, and in Luke 23:43, we find this remarkable reply:

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." NIV

This is a rather problematic verse on many levels, but the main issue is the "today" part for a few reasons.

The first reason is the technical detail that death by crucifixion would often take days, so it would be unlikely for that thief to have died that day in order to be in paradise with Jesus.

The second reason is the Scriptural contradiction versus John 20:17, where, after His resurrection, Jesus had said that He had not yet been to Heaven.

The third reason is the way in which it overturns so much dogma. But do not take my word for it. Here is what Christian Dr. Charles R. Erdman inserted into John Gill's biblical commentary:

In the salvation of one of the thieves, theology finds one of its finest demonstrations. Sacrementalism was refuted, for the thief was saved without recourse to baptism, the Lord's Supper, church, ceremony, or good works. The dogma of purgatory was refuted, for this vile sinner was instantly transformed into a saint and made fit for paradise apart from his personal expiation of a single sin. The teaching of universalism was refuted, for only one was saved of all who might have been saved. Jesus did not say, "Today shall ye be with me in paradise," but "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The notion of soul-sleep was refuted, for the clear implication of the entire incident is that the redeemed thief would be in conscious fellowship with his Saviour in paradise even while his body disintegrated in some grave. Too, it is doubtful whether any other gospel incident presents the plan of salvation more clearly or simply.

Like Matthew and Mark, Luke also recorded three hours of darkness (Luke 23:44), but Luke 23:45 added this interesting detail to explain why it was dark:

for the sun stopped shining. NIV

The sun stopped shining. When a skeptic asks why were there not contemporaneous reports about Jesus outside of the Bible, a common counter is that the religious elite suppressed the reporting of Jesus. However, even if they could have done such a thing, and somehow the rumors and stories the great teaching and miracles stayed within the bounds of Jewish influence, we should still see reports about the sun not shining all over the region, which, obviously, defies the laws of physics as we know them.

That is it for Luke. He edited out the claim of Jesus calling out, asking God why He had forsaken Him. Perhaps Luke realized how ludicrous such a cry would have been for Jesus to make, even at the expense of dropping a "prophetic" reference.

Finally, we come to John. If you have been following along, you already know that John will be different. ;-) However, it is not too different, suggesting that the story of the crucifixion was an early part of the Christian tradition. Anyway...

John 19:19-22 also mentions the sign on the cross calling Jesus the "King of the Jews" (although each of the four Gospels disagree over the precise wording of the sign). John adds the details that it was written in three languages, and that the Chief Priests complained to Pilate regarding the sign.

Then John 19:23-24 discussed the casting of lots for Jesus' bloody underwear, as we discussed previously. It is a different order than the other Gospels mention this, but really that is a trivial change, given the simultaneous nature of the event.

John 19:25-27 then uniquely recorded the charming scene of Jesus giving His mother to "the disciple whom he loved" (who most Christians consider to be John), and recorded how Jesus' mom then stayed in the home of that disciple. Of course, this makes us question if Jesus' father dead at that time, or did Joseph kick Mary out of the house? There is no mention either way, so we are left with speculation.

Without either a perceived call for Elijah or soldiers mocking Him, Jesus prompted receiving a wine vinegar spong-drink by saying "I am thirsty" (John 19:28-29).

And that is it! There was absolutely no mention of mocking Jesus on the cross, including any speech at all by the thieves recorded in John. That in and of itself is not so remarkable, as mocking was likely a common occurrence of the victims of crucifixion and therefore may not have been worth noting.

However, John does not even mention the land getting dark or the sun ceasing to shine for three hours. That is precisely the kind of detail you would want to include it it had actually happened, as you could easily say to a potential convert "Hey, do you remember years ago when the sun stopped shining in the middle of the day for three hours? That was because they crucified our Savior, Jesus, at that time."

Having all of these differences across the four Gospels, and some interesting conundrums within the accounts themselves, we have a blurry picture of what occurred in what is arguably the most important moment in Jesus' life. At best, it speaks of faulty memory and the fidelity loss in communicating between an eyewitness and a third party. At worst, it is fiction; a common story point in the myth which was tweaked as each author saw fit. Given the track record of the Gospels thus far, the latter case appears to be more likely.

Premature Exoneration

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Background
After Jesus was arrested, a trial was held against Him by the Priests. They had difficulty convicting Jesus of any wrongdoing, until they decided that Jesus had blasphemed by calling Himself the Son of God. (At some point in time either before {Luke 22:63-65} or after {Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65}, that trial, Jesus was mocked and beat by soldiers.) With the charge of blaspheme, they sent Jesus to Pilate.

Yet when Jesus was before Pilate, there was no mention of a blaspheme charge from the Priests. Instead, Pilate questioned Jesus about being the King of the Jews. After that light inquisition, Pilate determined that Jesus was innocent.

Meanwhile, Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Jesus, repented of his actions and hung himself in shame.

Premature Exoneration

Innocent! Innocent, I tell you! Pontius Pilate stood there at the cusp of exonerating Jesus; realizing that He was an innocent man. This was the moment where Pilate would become either an angelic administrator or a despicable devil. You may know the rest of the story, but do you know the details? Do they add up? Let us take a look at the moment that defined Pilate's legacy in Christian lore.

Matthew 27:15-26, Mark 15:6-15, Luke 23:15-25, and John 18:38-40 + 19:1-16 all cover Pilate's handling of Jesus after he had found Him not guilty. We will begin with the Synoptic source; Mark.

In Mark, Pilate had not yet claimed Jesus' innocence. Mark began by informing us that there was a custom of releasing a prisoner during the Passover feast, that a Jewish rebel named Barabbas was in prison, and that the crowd had come forward to ask Pilate for the customary prisoner release (Mark 15:6-8). Remember that: Jesus' potential release was prompted by the crowd.

It is worthy to note as well that the name of the rebel was Barabbas, which literally means in Aramaic "son of the father"... strange to say the least. What makes it even more odd is that some early manuscripts give his full name as "Jesus Barabbas". So we have Jesus, son of the father, and Jesus, Son of the Father. Some critical scholars have suggested that there may have only been one Jesus (THE Jesus) in the original story. I speculate that this play on words was an intentional literary device; the name was used to emphasize the choice of these people between God and man. Anyway...

Pilate offered to release "the King of the Jews" to the crowd, suspecting that envy had driven the Chief Priests to arrest Jesus (Mark 15:9-10). It seems odd that Pilate would have used "King of the Jews" as opposed to Jesus' name, but, again here, I suspect that it is a literary device used to emphasize Jesus' role and the Jewish denial of it.

Speaking of strange, in Mark 15:11 we see:

But the Chief Priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. NIV

That is quite the wondrous turn of events! We have gone from the Chief Priests being afraid of the crowd's reactions (Matthew 21:26, Mathew 21:46, Mark 11:32, Mark 12:12, Luke 22:2) and having large crowds following Jesus (Matthew 21:8, Mark 12:37, Luke 14:25, John 12:19), to having the Chief Priests being able to manipulate the crowd against Jesus! How did that happen? Easy. Just refer to the plot of nearly any summer blockbuster movie. The story is driven by emotion, not internal consistency.

So the crowd asked for Barabbas' release, Pilate asked what he should do with Jesus, and they demanded His crucifixion (Mark 15:12-13). Of course, we should question why Pilate was giving them the option of selecting Jesus' punishment. Jesus was in the hands of the Roman authority now, so why would the Roman authority be asking the Jews how justice should be enacted on a prisoner? Well, because it must be that way in order for the story to make sense, that is why! As we see in Mark 15:14, the Roman authority found Jesus to be innocent:

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" NIV

Pilate's reaction in Mark 15:15 is even more peculiar:

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. NIV

OK. So Pilate yielded to the rowdy crowd. So he released Barabbas. So he sent Jesus to be crucified. But flogged? Flogged?!?! That is just adding insult to injury, and ridiculousness to dubiousness. If Pilate thought that Jesus was innocent, and was only reluctantly submitting to the will of the crowd, why would he go the extra mile to have Jesus flogged?

Mark's version just does not add up. What about Matthew? Just like in our previous study, Matthew is essentially the same as Mark, but with some aggregations. The only really significant wording change is a refinement in Pilate's initial question to the crowd. In Matthew 27:17, Pilate gave the crowd an explicit choice between Barabbas and Jesus, and, unlike Mark's "King" account, Pilate labeled Jesus more colloquially "Jesus who is called Christ".

As for the aggregations, one is trivial, while the other is epically memorable.

The first insertion involves Pilate's wife. She sent Pilate a message during the process of the judgement which told Pilate that she had a nightmare about poor, innocent Jesus, so he should leave Jesus alone (Matthew 27:19). Of course, we have to wonder how we could possibly know about this message, which is unlikely to have been public knowledge.

The second insertion is the classic scene where Pilate, convinced of Jesus' innocence and yet remarkably subject to the will of the crowd, washed his hands in front of the crowd, metaphorically washing the guilt of Jesus' judgement off of himself (Matthew 27:24-25). Yet even with this defiantly passively-aggressive stance against killing an innocent man, Matthew's Pilate, of his own volition, still had Jesus flogged before being crucified (Matthew 27:26).

While Luke is not immune to issues himself, he was a better editor than Matthew, and was not afraid to rewrite the story to make it smoother.

As opposed to Matthew and Mark, Luke 23:14-16 began with a statement to the crowd that Jesus had "done nothing to deserve death" and so He would be punished and then released. Nothing deserving death... That is a well crafted phrase. Unlike Matthew and Mark which effectively pronounced Jesus as completely innocent, Luke leaves it a little bit murky. Nothing deserving death, just a little punishment instead...

Depending on which Bible version you read, you may or may not have Luke 23:17. It is absent from early manuscripts, and it speaks explicitly about Pilate's obligation to release a prisoner at the feast. It is hard to tell with certainty if that verse should be dropped or not, as it does reasonably fit into the context of what happened next. Different to Matthew and Mark, Luke's Pilate voluntarily offered to release Jesus without provocation from the crowd, but similar to Matthew and Mark, the crowd demanded Barabbas' release instead (Luke 23:18-19).

Luke enhanced the story by adding a triple rejection of Jesus by the crowd, having Pilate appeal twice more to the crowd to only punish Jesus since He had not committed any capital crime (Luke 23:20-23).

Luke must have realized how awkward it was to flog the innocent Jesus on top of sentencing Him to crucifixion, so in his version of Pilate's capitulation, there is no reference to that punishment (Luke 23:24-25).

Finally we come to John. John's version is similar, yet quite different. Like Luke, John began with a declaration that Jesus was innocent (John 18:38).

Like Mark, Pilate offered to release "the King of the Jews" as opposed to saying Jesus' name, but he made the offer unprompted by the crowd, like Luke (John 18:39).

Of course, "they" requested Barabbas instead (John 18:40), but John's "they" is quite different. In the other Gospels, Pilate was addressing a crowd of Jewish people which included consisted of lay people, not only the religious elite (Matthew 27:15-17, Mark 15:8, Luke 23:13-14). On the other hand, John's Pilate was addressing only the religious elite; the same ones who had questioned Jesus and had brought Him to Pilate (John 18:28).

That little twist makes John's account ludicrous, because we have Pilate offering to release Jesus to the same people who had voluntarily arrested, tried, and sent Jesus to Pilate to be killed. Why would Pilate expect, or even bother asking, if they wanted Jesus to be released. If they had, they would not have brought Jesus to Pilate in the first place!

John's account becomes even more bizarre, as Pilate immediately had Jesus flogged (John 19:1). That flogging got coupled to a scene which would happen later in the other Gospels, where the soldiers mocked Jesus with a robe a crown of thorns (John 19:2-3).

That cruelty was immediately followed up with Pilate claiming that Jesus was innocent of any charges, coupled with an implicit appeal to those same religious elite to let Jesus go (John 19:4-5). Not surprisingly, they (explicitly the Chief Priests and their officials) demanded crucifixion, to which Pilate told them to do it themselves (John 19:6).

(At that point, it is a real mystery why the religious elite did not accept the offer to do just that!)

These "Jews" fired back that Jesus had committed blaspheme; claiming to be God's Son (John 19:7).

At that point, John got ahead of himself again, making Pilate "even more afraid" (despite never making him afraid to begin with), which prompted Pilate to ask Jesus' origin (John 19:8-9).

Jesus did not answer, so Pilate asked Jesus if He realized the power that he had over Him (John 19:10). In John 19:11, we find an interesting response:

Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." NIV

First, we see a confirmation of the Old Testament philosophy. The "if it were not given to you from above" implies that God is the one who controls who rules nations. All human authority ultimately comes from God. Hitler. Stalin. Castro. Kim Jong-un. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thank God.

Second, we see a gradation of sin; "a greater sin." That destroys the modern Christian mantra of all sins being equal before God.

Following this, we find in John 19:12 a persistence from Pilate:

From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." NIV

That sounds like a reasonable objection from the "Jews", except for the fact that they were asking for an insurrectionist/murderer to be freed instead of Jesus (Mark 15:7, Luke 23:19, John 18:40)! No one who releases an insurrectionist is a friend of Caesar either, but that is what Pilate did in the other three Gospels (John does not mention Barabbas actually being freed).

Despite the logic loop, John ends similarly to the other Gospels. Pilate made a last appeal, but finally relented to the crucifixion request (John 19:13-16). Again, with John's version, the outcome is even less of a surprise, given that Pilate was making the appeals to the Chief Priests (John 19:15).

Adding all of this up results in the square root of a negative number. ;-) It is imaginary. In each account, there is one implausibility after another, which collectively should not be ignored. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, so some remnant of the truth could be in these texts. Yet as they are in the Bible, they appear to have issues.

Jesus Is My Co-Pilate

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Background
Judas left Jesus and the other Disciples to enact his betrayal. After meeting with the authorities, he led them back to where Jesus was. Judas then identified Jesus to the authorities by kissing Him (Matthew, Mark), unless Jesus stopped the kiss from happening (Luke), or instead Jesus identified Himself and for arrest as soon as the authorities arrived (John).

After the arrest, the Priests struggled to find any charges against Jesus, but they ultimately decided that Jesus had blasphemed by calling Himself the Son of God. So they bound Him up, and sent Him to Pilate. (Before {Luke 22:63-65} and/or after {Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65}, that trial, Jesus was mocked and beat by the soldiers who had custody of Him.)

Meanwhile, Peter, who had been waiting outside the High Priest's house, ended up denying three times that he had known Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:56-62, John 18:17-27). That happened just as Jesus had predicted.

Jesus Is My Co-Pilate

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Besides the more mundane administrative affairs of state, one crucial role is ensuring that the rule of law is enforced. Without law, you have chaos. You might as well be ruling cats. Law requires some form of justice. Let us take a look at the justice rendered by arguably the most infamous prefect in history; Pontius Pilate.

The Priests had bound Jesus, and delivered Him to Pilate for ultimate justice. Like any good minister of justice, Pilate questioned Jesus about His crimes. Well, not really. In this post, we will cover that inquisition captured in Matthew 27:1-14, Mark 15:1-5, Luke 23:1-16, and John 18:28-38.

We will start with the source, Mark. According to Mark, right after Jesus was handed over to Pilate (Mark 15:1), in Mark 15:2 we see this question and answer:

"Are you the King of the Jews?" asked Pilate.
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. NIV

This leaves us with the question of how Pilate came to think that Jesus should be called the "King of the Jews". As we know from last time, blaspheme was the charge against Jesus, so when did it come up that Jesus was a King?

Plus, there is the even bigger question of how this little snippet of dialog is recorded! There were no Disciple eye-witnesses here.

Anyway, after that question, the Chief Priests accused Jesus of "many things", and Pilate was amazed that Jesus gave no reply to these multiple charges against Him (Mark 15:3-5). What are these "many" accusations, when there was only the charge of blaspheme against Him? Who knows? Of course, again, we should also ask who knows that there were actually "many" accusations, given the lack of Jesus-aligned eye-witnesses?

That is it. With that paltry investigation, Pilate was allegedly able to discern both that Jesus had been arrested out of jealousy (Mark 15:9-10) and that Jesus was innocent (Mark 15:14). That would make for a pretty shoddy episode of CSI!

Seriously though, while we should not assume that all of the pertinent information about the investigation is recorded here, we do have a lack of details which are critical to Pilate reaching a judgement on Jesus, which is odd, to say the least. It is as though the story-teller could not think of a crafty way to reasonably resolve the dialog in Jesus' favor, and so chose to leave a gap instead.

Matthew 27:1-14, with some clarifying word changes, is essentially identical to Mark's account, except that Matthew aggregated into that passage the parallel account of Judas repenting his act of betrayal, throwing his money back to the Priests, and then hanging himself in shame.

Luke, of course, was a better editor than Matthew. While Luke missed the lack-of-eye-witnesses issue, he fixed the issue with the out-of-nowhere question from Pilate about Jesus being a King by having the Priests make their accusations first, as Luke 23:2 shows:

And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king." NIV

So now we know why Pilate asked Jesus about being a King, but Luke created some other problems. For starters, where is the blaspheme charge? Next, why are the Priests accusing Jesus of opposing taxes when He did not oppose taxes? Of course, this does paint the Priests as being all the more evil, as they were willing to distort the truth in order to have Jesus killed by appealing to Roman law as opposed to God's Law.

Yet with that fix, it makes Pilate's investigation appear all-the-more inadequate, as Pilate goes straight from asking Jesus if He is King (Luke 23:3) to declaring Jesus' innocence (Luke 23:4).

Luke also added in more detail. After Pilate (miraculously?) found no basis for charges against Jesus, the Priests mentioned how Jesus had been stirring up people all the way from Galilee. Galilee was Herod's district, who just happened to be in Jerusalem, so Pilate sent Jesus to Herod for investigation. Herod asked Jesus "many" questions, and the Priests accused Jesus in front of Herod, but Jesus gave no replies. So Herod sent Jesus (with an elegant robe) back to Pilate (Luke 23:5-11). Pilate gathered the Priests and the people together (Luke 23:12-13) to make the public (and therefore witness-able) declaration we find in Luke 23:13-15:

and [Pilate] said to them, "You brought me this man (Jesus) as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined Him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against Him. Neither has Herod, for he sent Him back to us; as you can see, He has done nothing to deserve death." NIV

It is strange that this public declaration, including the mention Herod's judgement, is not covered by any of the other three Gospels. (In fact, Herod is not mentioned at all in John; not for the Massacre of the Innocents, for the beheading of John the Baptist, or for his role in examining Jesus.)

Even more strange is how Luke later spun Herod's involvement in Jesus' death. Referencing the first couple of verses of Psalm 2 as "prophesy", in Acts 4:25-28 we see:

"You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David:

‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed one.’

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will had decided beforehand should happen." NIV

So somehow Pilate and Herod finding Jesus to be innocent adds up to conspiring against Jesus! That is ludicrous! This is yet another instance were we find the truth stretched to fulfill a prophesy.

If Luke is ludicrous, John is laughable. There, Pilate's investigation of Jesus happens inside the palace with no eye-witnesses, because the Jews did not want to sully themselves on the holiday (John 18:28). So Pilate went out and asked the Priests what charges they had against Jesus, to which they responded that Jesus was a criminal, without giving any specific charge (John 18:29-30).

Pilate then did what any Roman law keeper would do: he told the Priests to judge Jesus according to Jewish Law (John 18:31)! Ha! That seems extremely unlikely, but it certainly is possible, especially if Pilate was just trying to get rid of this annoyance so early in the morning. Anyway, the Priests objected because they did not have the authority to conduct executions (John 18:32).

So Pilate went back inside the palace to question Jesus. And his first question? You guessed it. From out of nowhere, Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews (John 18:33). Instead of Jesus essentially answering "yup" as in the other Gospels, we get more dialog (recorded without eye-witnesses) of Jesus explaining that His Kingdom was "not of this world" and "from another place", and that people "on the side of truth" listen to Him (John 18:34-37).

Based on that, ahem, painstakingly thorough line of questioning, Pilate asked "What is truth?" and then went out to tell the Priests that he finds that Jesus is innocent (John 18:38).

Lacking any sense of jurisprudence, in all four of the Gospels, Pilate is portrayed as absolutely inept at getting to the truth of the matter and thereby rendering effective justice. Jesus is declared innocent with only the most superficial and indirect line of questioning. Although many Christians like to vilify Pilate, in a way, he is a model of Jesus. Not that Pilate was a sin-free self-offering of God, but that it is Jesus who will allegedly serve as the mediator of God's wrath, and His ultimate qualifying question determining your guilt or innocence will be of the most superficial nature: did you believe in Me?

Judas Fish, Part 3: The Kiss of Death

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Background
The Disciple Judas secretly met with the Chief Priests, conspiring to have Jesus arrested. Later, during the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of the Disciples. This incredibly shocking display of humility is amazingly only recorded by the Gospel of John.

Also during that supper, Jesus revealed that He knew that one of the Disciples (possibly Judas) would betray Him. This (may have) caused Judas to leave the gathering. Then, or before that, Jesus symbolically shared His body and blood with His Disciples; represented as bread and wine. Sometime around then, Jesus revealed that Peter would thrice deny knowing Jesus that night. According to Luke, Jesus then told the Disciples to prepare for His absence by buying swords. Then, either before or after going to the Mount of Olives, and possibly going to Gethsemane, Jesus prayed His last prayer before His arrest.

If it seems that the order of events is a little confusing, that is only because we are following the Gospels, taking it on faith that they are accurate. ;-).

This is Part 3 of a four part series entitled "Judas Fish." The series entries are:

• Part 1: The Setup
• Part 2: Betrayer Revealed
• Part 3: The Kiss of Death
• Part 4: The Aftermath

Judas Fish, Part 3: The Kiss of Death

In the Christian world, Judas represents the epitome of treachery; a sin so vile that Dante reserved it for the ninth and final circle of Hell, with Satan in its center and Judas occupying the realm just before the center. Perhaps what makes Judas' sin stand out even more, besides betraying his companion and Savior, is the way in which he did it; with a kiss. Or did he? Let us take a closer look at the account of the betrayal made manifest.

In Matthew 26:47-56, Mark 14:43-52, Luke 22:47-53, John 18:2-12, you will find the accounts of Judas leading the squad and the arrest of Jesus. Let us again start with Mark, one of the primary sources for Matthew and Luke.

According to Mark 14:43-52, it went down like this:

As Jesus was scolding the three sleepy Disciples, Judas arrived with men to arrest Jesus. Judas identified Jesus to the arresting party by kissing Him. Jesus was seized. A follower of Jesus, with a sword, struck the High Priest's servant's, cutting off his ear. Jesus scolded the arrest party for not arresting Him while He was teaching them in the Temple, but relented that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. All of Jesus' followers fled, including one man who fled naked when they seized his garment. (My Paraphrase)

Betrayed with a kiss!?!? How wicked! How vile! How... highly dubious. It does not take much consideration of the story before it all falls apart. What do I mean?

Well, for starters, we are informed that Judas had arranged to identify Jesus with that kiss, and we are even provided a quote of Judas' words from when he made the arrangement (Mark 14:44). No Disciple (other than Judas) would have been an eyewitness to this arrangement. This means that someone must have created Judas' words for him... In other words, someone wrote fiction, like the record Jesus' prayer which He made alone.

Then we have to wonder how Judas managed to find Jesus and the group that evening, since presumably he was not with them as they went to Gethsemane. (We will see this objection answered in a moment by Luke and John.)

Next we have the curious fact that the man who lost his ear was the High Priest's servant. How likely is it that the servant of the High Priest, the type of servant that the High Priest obviously had to take care of business for him, had never seen Jesus, and therefor needed Jesus to be identified by Judas.

(Furthermore, why was the guy who cut off the ear not arrested?)

(By the way, this ear-less servant probably did exist, because the fact that he was ear-less would have been used as evidence to support the story. We will discuss this a little more later.)

Yet the main objection comes from Jesus' own objection. In Mark 14:49, Jesus began the verse with "Every day I was with you...". With "you"... as in with them... as in with the people who were arresting Him at that moment. Even if the High Priest's servant did not know Jesus from Adam, it sure seems as though Jesus had been speaking to some people of the arresting party based on His words, some people who knew precisely who He was, and therefor would not have needed any help identifying Him. The kiss is pointless.

Then, of course, there is the soft, circumstantial evidence against the episode from the Epistles. In Romans 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:26, and 1 Peter 5:14, you will find a call for fellow believers to greet each other with a kiss. That just seems a little strange if Jesus was betrayed by a kiss, no?

Scholars think that most of the Epistles were written before the Gospels, meaning that these commands for kiss-greetings were established within the Christian community prior to the Gospels being written. Neither Jesus nor the Disciples are recorded as having kissed anyone in the Gospels, at least until you see this act by Judas. With the precedence of kiss-greetings already set in the community, the act of betrayal with a kiss would appear all the more repugnant, as if included by an author for the purpose of evoking a strong emotional response... On the other hand, if the Judas-kiss was in the story first, then greeting each other with a kiss would be like constantly acting out Jesus' betrayal. Which order seems more reasonable to you?

Now, on to Matthew 26:47-56, where you will find that Mark's account has been repeated largely repeated, even word-for-word in some sections. Yet there are differences. In keeping with Matthew's skill of aggregation, the differences are largely additions.

In Matthew 26:50, we have Jesus' added replied to Judas after the kiss, telling him to do what he came to do, which is odd because Judas had just done what he had come to do!

After the High Priest's servant's ear was cut off, in Matthew 26:52 we have an added rebuke, where Jesus scolded the sword user, and claimed that "all who draw the sword will die by the sword." That appears contradictory to the recent study of Luke, where Jesus told His Disciples to buy swords for their protection.

Matthew 26:53-54 directly appends the sword verse; having Jesus sort of bragging about the power at His disposal, and, at the same time, implicitly emphasizing His choice not to use that power, and the reason given for not using that power is so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. Of course, this makes Jesus' earlier prayer about getting out of His fate slightly awkward and contradictory.

Plus, with Matthew's addition, we have a redundant reference to Scripture needing to be fulfilled in this same anecdote, as Matthew followed this up with Jesus' rebuke of the arresting party not arresting Him earlier, and yet needing to fulfill Scriptures (Matthew 26:55-56). Perhaps this is evidence of Matthew attempting to reconcile two different accounts of the betrayal, but he was not willing to drop the details from either one, given that he did not know for sure which one was true.

Matthew's only other change of significance is dropping the naked man running away, but that was not really important anyway! ;-)

On to Luke 22:47-53, where you will find evidence of Luke's editing expertise. Luke made many changes, which resolved many issues in the other two accounts. For starters, back in Luke 22:39, Luke recorded that the path Jesus and His Disciples took that evening was part of a normal practice, making it completely reasonable for Judas to have known where to look for Jesus.

In Luke 22:48, Jesus stopped Judas from kissing Him, thereby keeping the sacrament of the kiss-greeting pure, even at the cost of contradicting Matthew and Mark. In the process of that revision, Luke also dropped the reference to Judas establishing the kiss as the signal with which to identify Jesus.

What about that unsightly scene of the ear lopping? Well, in Luke 22:49-51, Jesus told His followers to stop their aggression, and then Jesus healed the man's ear on the spot! That certainly makes Jesus seem more Jesus-like than bragging about His power, but it is probably not true. Why? Well, first, none of the other three Gospels mention this miracle, and second, Luke records absolutely no reaction by either followers or those in the arresting party to this miracle, which just seems rather strange again. Plus, if Jesus healed the ear, the reference to the High Priest's servant is no longer as important, because he could not be pointed to for an easy, visible "proof" of the encounter.

Finally, Luke 22:52-53 sort of fixed another oddity. Instead of Jesus scolding the arresting party for not arresting Him sooner followed by Jesus noting how an earlier arrest would have broken Scripture, in Luke's version Jesus did the same scolding but then explained that this was their hour. It is essentially the same message, but Luke's version is a little more polished, making the contradiction there much less noticeable.

What about John 18:2-12? His account is the same, and yet very, very different. There is no kiss, or any hint at one. Instead, it goes like this:

Jesus and the Disciples went to their usual hangout spot; an olive grove. Judas guided soldiers and officials there to arrest Jesus. Jesus presented Himself for arrest, which made the soldiers and officials fall to the ground. Jesus presented Himself again, and requested that the arresting party let His followers go because the arresting party only wanted Him. Simon Peter cut off an official's ear (who was named Malchus), but Jesus told Simon Peter to stop resisting because this was part of God's plan. Jesus was arrested. (My Paraphrase)

So in John, there is a reason why Judas could find Jesus, there is no kiss and instead has a scene of the arresting party falling to the ground, Jesus acted preemptively to save the others from arrest, and there was no scolding of the arresting party for not arresting Him earlier, but instead the we see Jesus completely accepting this turn of events as all being part of God's plan.

The fact that the High Priest's servant is named again suggests that there was a real servant of the High Priest who had lost an ear (and did not have it miraculously healed), and therefore could have been pointed to in order to add circumstantial evidence to this story.

And a story it is, because there is no way to truly reconcile the events described across these four Gospels exactly as described. This fact is obvious, not only due to the contradictions from one Gospel to the other, but also due to the internal logical contradictions within them, particularly Matthew and Mark.

The End on Hold

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Background
Prompted by being asked, Jesus informed His followers of would be the signs indicating His return, Judgement Day, and the end of the world. There would be false Messiahs, wars, and disasters. His disciples would become witnesses to the world. The most horrendous in all of history, before or after, would occur; the Siege of Jerusalem. Then He would return with great power, and great judgement on all mankind, so they had better be on guard.

The End on Hold

We know that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus had been around. Precisely when each of the four Gospels was committed to ink in its present form is a matter of debate. Most scholars suggest Mark was written first, and that his Gospel provided much of the backbone for Matthew and Luke.

As we saw in the previous series, the implication of Jesus' prophesies about the end of the world was that it would be soon after the Siege of Jerusalem. Quite interestingly, that is about all Mark has to say about timing, but Matthew and Luke appear to emphasize there being some delay before Jesus would reappear. Luke scattered these delay-references throughout his Gospel, but Matthew consolidated his chosen delay-references for us within the section we are studying now.

It started back in the last chapter. You may remember from the previous study, in Matthew 24:45-51, and much earlier in the Luke 12:42-46 parallel, Jesus gave a parable comparing wise and foolish servants. Let us take a closer look at the timing mentioned in these parables.

In Matthew 24:48 we find:

"But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,'" NIV

The phrase "is staying away a long time" weakly implies that the servant knows roughly how long the master will be away. From this perspective, we can infer a way to make sense of this: Jesus had allegedly just given them a list of signs which would forecast His return, so His followers would know that nothing would happen until these signs came to pass. This would give deviant followers living in the span between the death of Jesus and the Siege of Jerusalem decades of time to slack off in their morality before straightening up for Jesus' return, as the parable itself suggests. While the cat is away, the mice will play.

However, in the Luke 12:45 version we see:

"But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk." NIV

The phrase "is taking a long time in coming" instead weakly implies that the servant had expected the master back already, but it appears that the master is delayed for some reason. From this perspective, we can infer a different situation; that perhaps the signs have all happened (up to the Siege of Jerusalem and so Jesus' return was expected) but there is an unexplained delay in Jesus' return.

Because these are only weak implications, they could easily be wrong, or both them could be taken to mean either interpretation noted above. However, if the latter version is true, it could be somewhat revealing. It could subsequently imply something about the timing of when Matthew and Luke were written, in that it could mean that these two Gospels were written after the Siege, possibly by several years, at a time when life seemed to be returning to normal. The closer you get to normal after some catastrophic event, the less it seems like Jesus' return is just around the corner, and, in turn, that means the more doubt springing up from within the community of the faithful. A message like this could be used to motivate the community to stay in the faith despite the apparent lag in manifest divine glory.

Given that Mark, the earliest of these three Gospels, did not share this sentiment anywhere, it appears that this delay may be an addition to the original story. Somewhat contrary to this theory is the fact that Matthew and Luke share this particular content nearly identically, suggesting a relatively early tradition committed to writing at some point in time earlier than the Matthew and Luke themselves. But given that we still do not know exactly when these two Gospels came into being, that "relatively early" could easily be after the Siege.

Continuing to the next chapter, in Matthew 25:1-13 there is a parable about ten virgins who "went out to meet the bridegroom." Half of them were smart enough to bring oil for their lamps just in case they needed it, but the other half did not. When the bridegroom arrived, he ultimately rejected the five virgins who were not adequately oiled. It seems a little odd that the bridegroom would kick out five extra virgins over such a trivial mistake, but let us leave that alone. ;-) The key verse for us in regards to this study is Matthew 25:5:

"The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep." NIV

In case it was not obvious, the bridegroom represents Jesus. Given that we started with these virgins going out to meet the bridegroom, you have a sense that they expected him to be there, ready for them. Instead we see that it took a long time, longer than expected, for the bridegroom to arrive. This plays into the notion noted above; that perhaps Matthew was written in a time when people were already expecting for Jesus to have returned, and so these verses were written to keep the faithful flock in line. The End was put on hold, and yet held perpetually at the threshold of occurring.

In the next parable the point was briefly emphasized again. Matthew 25:14-28 contains the Parable of the Talents, which somewhat similar to the Parable of the Ten Minas which we studied before from Luke 19:11-27. As noted in the previous study, the many differences between these two parables combined with a similar backbone suggests that this was an oral tradition carried on verbally for a considerable amount of time before being written, much longer than the parable we started this study with, as well as perhaps some intentional "enhancement" of the parable by Luke. Anyway, there is one particular difference we should focus on relevant to the timing aspect. In Matthew 25:19 we find:

"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them." NIV

"After a long time" also appears to be preparing believers for a longer than expected time frame for Jesus' return. If the comparison with Luke's version of the parable is valid, it appears that Matthew may have deliberately inserted the "long time" into the story, as Luke 19:15 does not mention anything about how long it took for the master to return. Luke also used this parable to speak about timing, but explicitly did so to explain that Jesus did not intend to establish the Kingdom of God the first time He was on earth in the flesh (Luke 19:11).

Matthew was generally pretty good at aggregating and consolidating information, and here we can see an example of his work. Back to back to back, we have seen three references where Matthew was trying to communicated that, contrary to what we may have guessed from the previous chapter, Jesus' return would not be immediately after the Siege of Jerusalem. In short, we have seen here how Matthew prepared his followers for a long wait; a wait which may have already been in progress at the time of writing the Gospel.

How about we end on a somewhat positive note? Closing out this chapter, in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus relayed how, on Judgement Day, He would reward people according to what they had done. He explained that such good deeds as feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, and visiting people in prison were actually done to Him vicariously. On the other hand, if you did not help out these people in need, you vicariously rejected Jesus.

On the good side, this is a great way to motivate people to help other people. Followers should literally be thinking that what they are doing to help they are doing to Jesus Himself. Even if Christianity was a deliberate hoax (which I think is an inaccurate, or at least incomplete, assessment), with messages like these it is hard to say that it was a completely malignant hoax. You could argue that church leaders may have been becoming wealthy and powerful as the movement grew, but you would also have to acknowledge that the movement did, and still does, aid the marginalized people in society to some extent.

On the other hand, this message is the proverbial gun-to-the-head situation. Help the needy, or get punished. And it is not a proportional punishment, either. Matthew 25:41 sends those who provide no aid "into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels," and Matthew 25:46 confirms that this will be an "eternal punishment." This is one of the most explicit references to the eternally torturing fires of Hell that you find in Matthew. Some Christians who do not like the concept of eternal torture will instead argue that this just means either an eternal "separation from God" or an annihilation (as in, if you cease to exist, that is an eternal punishment). Eternal punishment, of any flavor, for not visiting people in prison seems a little bit extreme to me.

Finally, from another perspective, note that this is explicitly a works-based Salvation plan. Merely having faith in Jesus will not save you if you do not take action to feed the hungry, visit prisoners, clothe the poor, etc.

Sermon on the Backs of the Pharisees

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Background
In the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus explained that He was not the son of David. That seemed a bit strange, given that the prophesies required the Messiah to be of David's lineage, that the Apostles claimed the contrary, and later He Himself claimed to be an offspring of David. Mark and Luke recorded how Jesus praised a poor widow who gave everything she had to the Temple. But before that praise, Mark and Luke show Jesus rebuking the Teachers of the Law a little bit. Matthew took that theme of condemnation, and ran with it...

Sermon on the Backs of the Pharisees

Matthew was great at aggregation. In writing his Gospel, he understood that it would be much more convenient or impressive to have the teachings of Jesus which had no significant background story to be grouped into one cohesive package, as opposed to being scattered throughout the various tales and anecdotes. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount was born. But besides those teachings, another common thread of snippets could be found in the stories of Jesus; that of condemnation of particular groups of the religious elite. So Matthew compiled another "sermon" of sorts.

Matthew 23 is an entire chapter primarily devoted to the condemnation of the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law (a.k.a. Scribes). Luke 11:37-54 is somewhat of a parallel, containing much of the same material, but not all of it and in a different order, and at a much earlier point in Jesus' timeline. Let us quickly step through this rant.

One of the most interesting parts is the very beginning, which is material unique to Matthew. Jesus was speaking to the crowds and His disciples (Matthew 23:1). In Matthew 23:2-3, He opened with:

"The Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." NIV

This is both interesting and frightening, because Jesus is effectively suggesting that you must submit to authority, regardless of whether or not that authority is good. This is a consistent message throughout the Bible, from David refusing to harm the anointed King Saul despite the evil he had done (1 Samuel 24:6-10) and killing the guy who killed King Saul (2 Samuel 1:1-16), to Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-21 stating that God has put the authorities in power, and so they must be obeyed.

In Matthew 23:4, Jesus then laments how They (Pharisees and Teachers of the Law) burden the people. Luke 11:45-46 parallels this, but is targeted to "experts in the Law."

In Matthew 23:5-7, we see that They love ostentatious displays, the various forms of respect they get due to Their position, and being called "Rabbi." Luke 11:43 says some of the same things, as do the later, more synchronized passages of Mark 12:38-40 and Luke 20:45-47, but Mark and Luke lack a reference to the honorable title of "Rabbi." This is interesting, because next we see...

In Matthew 23:8-10, oddly unique to Matthew, and contradictory to the Catholic church, Jesus instructed to call no man a "Rabbi," Master, or Father, because that role belongs to God. And only Jesus Himself should be called Teacher. (You probably started transgressing this command in elementary school.)

Tapping into that theme of humility (not claiming lofty titles), in Matthew 23:11-12 we see Jesus saying that you should be a humble servant if you want to be exalted. Essentially the same message is also found in Ezekiel 21:26, Matthew 18:3-5, Matthew 20:25-28, Mark 9:35, Mark 10:42-45, Luke 1:52, Luke 9:46-48, Luke 14:11, and Luke 22:24-27. Strangely, it is nowhere within the Gospel of John.

In Matthew 23:13, Jesus said that They do not enter the Kingdom of God, and They prevent others from doing so. In the parallel of Luke 11:52, Luke was a better editor. He had in mind the Elect, and so he slightly relaxed the language, in that the "experts in the Law" only hinder people entering the Kingdom, as opposed to preventing them from doing so.

Depending on what Bible version you have, you may or may not see Matthew 23:14, where Jesus condemned Them to severe punishment for being unmerciful to widows and making ostentatious prayers. Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 have essentially the same content, but some manuscripts lack this line within Matthew.

In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said They work hard to find any religious convert, but then make him twice the "son of Hell" that They are. This is interesting on many levels. Judaism does not have an explicit call for the form of evangelism described here. There was no "Great Commission" for the Jews. However, that is not to say that God did not expect converts. God expected that, if the Jews actually obeyed His Law, other nations would be both impressed by the wisdom of God and somewhat jealous of the blessings the Jews were receiving from Him, and therefore would become interested in learning His ways (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Psalm 67:1-2, Isaiah 2:3, Micah 4:2).

Besides the evangelism aspect, the "son of Hell" is also an interesting point to ponder. In a previous study, we discussed how there are many who think that references to Hell (Gehenna in the Greek) are to a valley full of tombs and/or trash, and so the reference of that valley was similar to saying "your path leads to death" or "do not throw your life away." However, with the "son of Hell," the "son" carries with it a certain metaphorical weight in the sense of being like its "father," whatever that father is, like what we see in John 8:44. So is this equivalent to saying a "son of trash," a "son of death," or perhaps a "son of the Devil"? Unfortunately, this is unique to Matthew, so we have no other references to help us.

Moving on, in Matthew 23:16-22, Jesus complained that They have Their system of meaningful swearing backwards, because they place the things that can be taken (gold, offerings, etc.) at a higher value than what is more permanent (the altar, the Temple, etc.) That makes sense if you are looking at overall significance, but if you are swearing by something as a guarantee that you will fulfill that oath, it makes more sense to do so by something you can actually lose if you fail to deliver on your promise. This is again unique to Matthew.

In Matthew 23:23-24, Jesus lamented that They focus on the minute details of the Law, but not the more important parts of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. There are no specifics here; just these general charges. It is difficult to know how they were not providing justice. As for faithfulness, Deuteronomy 11:13 is the closest reference to faithfulness within the Law, where it instructs to faithfully obey the Law. As for mercy though, there is none in the Law, literally. The only reference to mercy within the commands of the Law is found in Deuteronomy 7:2, and that says to "show them no mercy." Perhaps this is why Luke (who was a better editor) said that the Pharisees were ignoring "justice and the love of God" instead in his parallel in Luke 11:42.

In Matthew 23:25-28, Jesus accused Them of being hypocrites of cleanliness, giving themselves a clean appearance on the outside, but being greedy, wicked, and unclean on the inside. Luke 11:39-41 is a partial parallel of this section, but has Jesus saying that the Pharisees should give what they have to the poor, and then everything will be clean for them. In a loosely related parallel to the Matthew 23:27-28 reference of whitewashed graves, in Luke 11:44 the Pharisees are called unmarked graves. And while we are on the subject of graves...

Matthew 23:29-36 is the ultimate crescendo of condemnation. Jesus accused Them of being like Their forefathers who killed the prior prophets, despite the fact that They build tombs to honor those same prophets. Just to prove it, Jesus will send Them prophets who They too will kill.

You may ask: "Why is Jesus purposefully sending people to be slaughtered?" You and I know that is a morally repugnant idea, but Jesus thought that would be the ideal way to condemn Them. In Matthew 23:35, we see that They will take the blame for all sorts of injustice, including that which They held no responsibility for:

"And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar." NIV

Luke 11:47-51 is the parallel to this passage, and it carries the same overreaching assessment of blame. This is hardly perfect justice, and not what should be expected or accepted of a perfect God.

This mean-spirited chapter closes out in Matthew 23:37-39 with Jesus generally lamenting Jerusalem's rejection of God, as well as a prophesy of His return when they will have repented. In a different area, the parallel of Luke 13:34-35 has these exact same words, supporting the idea that this lamentable anecdote was just a scrap of a recorded saying without any immediate context, which needed to be fit into the Gospel wherever it seemed appropriate to the author.