Where Did Jesus Die?

Yesterday I noticed that the map “Jerusalem in Jesus’ Time,” bound as Map 17 in my LDS Bible, shows two locations for the crucifixion of Jesus. I don’t know if the folks who included this map knew what they were doing, but in keeping with the Easter themes that have distinguished FPR during this Christmas season, I thought I’d have a say.

Narnia

I saw Narnia last evening and quite enjoyed it. There’s a few differences from the book, but they seem to have been included in an effort to take advantage of the difference between movies and books. I was particularly curious to see how the violence associated with the death of Aslan would be portrayed in view of the intended (child or child-like) audience.

Afterwards, three things struck me:

Edmund goes through most of the rationalizations for cooperating with evil, from rank self-interest to the preservation of others, only to find out that, in the end, no good comes of it.

As in the Gospels, it is the women who keep the vigil.

As in the Gospels, the sight of the empty table precedes the appearance of the risen Aslan. (The fact that the table is also broken is something of an “improvement” on the imagery of the Gospels.)

And of course, who can do other than love Mr. and Mrs. Beaver? Anyway, it’s a good story and if I owned a TV, I’d buy the video when it comes out.

When Did Jesus Die? (Year)

Or when was he born, because the two questions are not unrelated.

When Did Jesus Die? (Date)

This is where things get interesting from the historical-critical perspective. None of the Gospels actually specifies the date. All of them talk about the time frame under discussion in terms of the Passover, and the Synoptics mention Unleavened Bread. However, it is important to remember that the Synoptics never say that Jesus died on Passover. Talk of Passover and Unleavened Bread in the Synoptics is always done with respect to the meal we now call the Last Supper. By the time the events of the arrest, trial, death, and burial are recounted, all mention of these festal days is missing.

Historical Mormon Smackdown: Multiple spouse edition!

Okay folks, back to the show!

What is the more personally disturbing form of plural marriage to you: Polygyny vs. Polyandry?

Vote early, but don’t…er…vote often.

ed. corrected per will’s suggestion (polygamy equates with polygyny for the purpose of the poll, though).

When Did Jesus Die ? (Day)

We have looked at what the Gospels have to say about the time that Jesus died in a post below. In this one, we take the next step and look at what they say about the day of the week.

Mk 15:42 is clear that Jesus died on the day before the Sabbath (PROSABBATON). Mt 27:62 and 28:1 indicate that day after Jesus’ death was the Sabbath. Lk 23:54 says that Jesus was buried on the “preparation,” that is, the day before the Sabbath. Jn 19:31 says that precautions were taken to ensure that Jesus’ corpse did not remain on the cross on the Sabbath.

All of the Gospels, then, are unified, indicating that Jesus spent some time with his disciples on what we would call Thursday evening and was arrested later that night. He was crucified the next day, which was Friday, and died before the beginning of the Sabbath at sunset.

I have used the expression “what we would call Thursday evening” just for clarity. In fact, the Jewish day started at sunset and ran to the next sunset. So provided this meal was celebrated after nightfall, the activities from that event until his death took place on one day – the day before the Sabbath.

What are the theological implications of this timing? The fact that Jesus died on an afternoon, just before the beginning of the Sabbath at sundown, sets the stage for the urgency that characterizes his burial. I think two things are worked out here.

First, the irony developed earlier in each PN (passion narrative) now become excruciating as it spills over and splashes just about everywhere. In each case, Jesus is buried by just about the oddest people you could imagine, with all that implies about the disciples and discipleship.

Second, the burial narratives give the alert reader some major hints that the story is not over, as I alluded to in my third response on the “hour.” And more interestingly, they also give some hints about what the future will hold for the followers of Jesus – not for the old disciples in the Gospels, who are pretty much out of the picture at the moment, but for the new disciples who will shortly rise to join them.

Now, however, I have to prepare my GD lesson for tomorrow. We are reading the Matthean infancy narrative together, and I must organize my thoughts on that matter. Please, please, add your own thoughts. I look forward to reading them late tomorrow afternoon, when I come back and try to finish my own.

Introducing Chris H.

We are proud to welcome another addition to the FPR staff. Chris H is a colleague of mine at a college where I teach and he was excited to come here and discuss that thing that we spend most of our time here discussing: political philosophy. He introduces himself as follows:

I am political philosopher with a BA and MA in political science for the University of Utah. I also have an associates degree from Ricks College. I specialize in liberal theory with primary interest in the works of the late John Rawls, who you will surely hear more about. I also have interests in Kant, Locke, and Hobbes, though I am convinced that Rawls is the greatest. I have special interest in looking at Mormon political and moral theory. What does Mormonism theology have to say about justice? This is my question and I feel that it has been neglected within Mormon intellectual circles.

I am married to Lyndee, a social worker and super mom. We have three kids (2 boys, 1 girl).

I served my mission in Anaheim, California — Vietnamese speaking.

Please welcome Chris H. to FPR.

When Did Jesus Die? (Hour)

When did Jesus die? The Gospels do not provide a single, unambiguous, answer.

This issue may be most easily addressed by breaking it down into more specific questions:

what hour of the day?
what day of the week?
what date in the month?
what year?

Hour of the Day

The Synoptics write that Jesus was near death by the ninth hour (Mk 15:34; Mt 27:46; Lk 23:44). In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is before Pilate at the sixth hour (Jn 19:14). The most common way of counting the hours was to begin at 6 AM. This means that in the Synoptics, Jesus is near death at 3 PM, while in John he has yet to be crucified by noon.

Folks who feel the need to harmonize suggest that John starts his numbering of the hours from midnight, while the Synoptics numbered the hours from 6 AM, as above. John then reports that Jesus is in front of Pilate at 6 AM. This fits more comfortably with Mark’s indication (Mk 15:25) that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, that is, 9 AM.

Since there is no need to harmonize, I am satisfied to say simply that Jesus died sometime in the late afternoon.

Your thoughts?

Introducing Mogget

Faith-Promoting Rumor is please to announce the addition of another perma-blogger to the staff. Please welcome Mogget to our blog. Mogget is a graduate student in New Testament Exegesis back east, working on her dissertation (as I ought to be doing, instead of blogging) and she graciously agreed to class up the place over a pizza in Philadelphia. I haven’t asked her if she would like her real name or interesting history revealed, so I will let her make that decision. I can say that she has a greater probability of having killed a man than I have. With that, please give a warm reception to Mogget.

The Idiot Mormon’s Guide to Orthodox Christianity, Part 2

The responses to part 1 were great. Here are some additional things I’ve observed that are noteworthy. Again, for brevity’s sake, I may have referred to non-Mormons as “Christians,” so I expect everybody to be on the same page with that. As with part one, sometimes these are terms we use that will sound strange to Christians, and sometimes these are terms they use that will sound strange to us. Enjoy.

1. Gethsemane. To Christians, it appears as though we attribute virtually all of Christ’s suffering to the episode in the Garden, and this can be very offensive for Christians. We do dwell on this event much more than the climax of the atonement – the crucifixion. I have found in my life that avoiding our particular view of what happened in the Garden (up front) is best. True, there is a passage in Luke which indicates that Jesus sweated great drops of blood in the Garden, but this passage largely eludes commentators; and rightly so. They don’t use the D&C to help them understand it (logically). Moreover, the cross is central to the message of the Synoptics (and John), as well as for Paul (I’m thinking Phil. 2) and it is there that the Gospel authors indicate the climax and fulfillment of Jesus’ sufferings. It’s all about the Cross until one comes under the influence of the D&C material. One may wonder – how did the Garden so seamlessly replace the Cross in our history?

2. Jew. Adam wasn’t Jewish. Neither was Moses, really. The tribal distinctions came much later, even after Jacob’s blessings (Gen. 49). These distinctions, so far as the Bible reveals, occurred during and following the conquest of Canaan. Judah’s prominence can’t be easily located (again, there are hints of it in the Joseph story and again during Jacob’s blessing of his children – this may be an indicator of a late date for the composition of the Pentateuch, but that’s for another day), but to say the very least, “Jewish” probably didn’t occur until the time of the schism between the Northern and Southern kingdoms (8th century BC). Our Christian friends might think it strange that we seem to suppose (unknowingly yet innocently) that Judaism goes back much, much farther than most.

3. Prophet. Mormons, for the most part, tend to think that anybody who is important or holds some form of leadership role in a given time period is automatically a prophet. It feels almost like a substitute title for just about anyone who leads. Our Christians friends may not agree with some people that Mormons think were prophets, especially Adam (who caused this mess), Enoch (only 2 or 3 verses on this guy in the Bible), etc. This one is just a mere observation, as I’m willing to bet some of you can think of people who actually joined the church because we throw the title around a lot. I can think of two from my own mission (12 years ago). But we do put a lot of (well-placed) emphasis on prophets and prophecy, which may sound cultish to our Christian friends. But hey, we can create some mutual understanding here.

4. “Knowing God.” For the Christian, this is very, very liberal and open. They even say “God told me that…” and then usually continue with what we would call “testimony.” But for a Mormon, I think “knowing God” is something a bit more serious (TPJS p. 149-150?).

5. Testimony. For the mainstream Christian, this term indicates the sharing of one’s conversion to God, or a story which heavily involves God’s workings and presence in their lives. It usually mentions God a lot, and illustrates how he has changed their lives for good. It has nothing to do with how well our kids are doing at school, how much we love our roommates, where we traveled for summer vacation, and is usually devoid of lame allegories.

6. Ward. Most Protestants would agree that the equivalent of a ward is a parish.

7. Stake. As a unit of wards/branches, Catholics might refer to this as a diocese. Some Protestants use state boundaries, and refer to their state area as “The [insert name of state] Annual Conference.”

8. Ordinances. From part one, I indicated this is somewhat of a misnomer on our part. It doesn’t have to mean “ceremony” or “ritual” like we think it means. In fact, the fourth AofF, in its original, used to read “We believe the first ordinances of the gospel are…” The words “principles and” were added later for clarification. I don’t know the history behind the usage of the word “ordinance” in place of “ceremony” or “ritual,” but we’re alone in that usage. Our Christian friends simply don’t use it that way. For them, it is more like a “statute” or “commandment” (Heb. chuqqah). Sometimes it might be best to qualify what we mean by “baptism ordinance” and the like.

9. Original Sin. This one will really upset some of you people, but what I’ve observed withstood the test of fire. When I started my M.A., again, at a Protestant school, I heard this used a lot, and I mentally scoffed it. The more I heard them use it, the more I realized they were simply describing the effects of Adam’s sin, but not necessarily the sin itself. I asked peers and professors repeatedly to clarify this, and became very frustrated because I couldn’t disagree with their definition. Maybe it’s just the Methodists, I don’t know. But when they say “the original sin,” they’re basically just saying “the effects of the Fall.” So you and I live under the curse of the original sin, according to them, and I’m fine with that because I understand what they’re saying. They also think that Adam’s sin could have been forgiven of him, but that if it was, it happened upon the Cross. I tacitly agree, as there may be an indication of this in 1 Corinthians 15 (cf. N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God for more). That should make most Mormons madder than a scalded dog, but from the Protestants I know, it doesn’t have the loaded definition that we attribute to it. Maybe there are other faith traditions that use the term in a more non-Mormon way.

10. Orthodoxy. The feeling I get from most Mormons is that this term only refers to the Greek Church. A Protestant would be deeply and fervently offended by this. True, the Greek Church goes by the name “Orthodox Church,” but context is what gives away that usage (other names are Eastern Church, Eastern Tradition, Greek Church, etc.). Orthodoxy, to a Protestant, is anyone who believes in accordance with the Creeds. I think some blogger-ninjas were calling it “Creedal Christian,” but I have yet to encounter this term among non-Mormons. Protestants feel that they are starkly orthodox (despite what Catholics might think). So when Christians discuss Mormonism, which I’ve heard more times than I can number, we’re referred to as “unorthodox,” which they feel doesn’t apply to Protestants even though they’re not active members of the Greek Church. Protestants feel that they are orthodox (miniscule “o”) Christians.

11. Bishop. Bishops are one of the highest offices in some denominations like the UMC, for example. Our equivalent would be one of the Brethren. And there are lots of bishops for them. The local, congregational leader equivalent would be a “pastor.”

12. Sermon. This is a sacrament meeting talk, only the pastor gives it every week unless he asks someone else to preach, which is rare, but not non-existent.