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Our review of the Gospels has shown why competent New Testament scholars have given up hope of writing a biography of Jesus. The nature of the Gospels themselves and the relations between them make any serious attempt to reconstruct the history behind them tend to resolve itself into a discussion of a series of problems, largely insoluble. A biography, moreover, involves an interpretation of personality and character. Many scholars are even more skeptical about this than they are about Jesus’ life and teaching.

From some points of view all this is not important. When stress is laid primarily on redemption by Jesus’ death and resurrection, his life becomes merely an interim between birth and death; and what kind of man he was is comparatively irrelevant. If the essence of his mission on earth is found in his teaching, what he taught is true or false regardless of his conduct or character.

The Christian church has never been willing to go that far. From the beginning the example of Jesus has been held up for imitation, although with the exception of patient suffering and love for others, it has proved difficult to apply this principle to specific situations.

Certainly any attempt to recover from the Gospels even a dim picture of Jesus should be undertaken with a sense not only of facing a difficult problem but of treading on holy ground. Much of what will be said in this chapter may be condemned as unwarranted "psychologizing"; but when a meticulous academic procedure has taken us as far as it can go, there is still a legitimate place for imagination, properly guarded. Everything that is said in the Gospels about the character of Jesus must be subjected to the same tests of historical accuracy used in dealing with the events of his life and with his teaching. After all is said and done, however, it will be the total picture, visible through the screen of particular incidents and utterances, that must be our final evidence.

There is such a picture. Through all the variations and uncertainties, the Gospels give us vivid glimpses of a definite, real, and extraordinary personality. After all, there was no sharp break between the ministry of Jesus and the experience of the church. The Lord of the church in the first generation was still the same Jesus who had lived among them and was still remembered. Colored by pious imagination, and perhaps also — God forbid that we should deny it! — by genuine spiritual communion, the memory was still there, and it is enshrined in the Gospels.

In the character of Jesus as it is reflected in the Synoptic Gospels, nothing is more certain or more typical than his devotion to the will of God. To fulfill the Father’s purpose he was willing to make any sacrifice, and he demanded the same willingness in his followers. The disciple’s eye must be single; having put his hand to the plow he must not look back; if an eye, hand, or foot should cause him to do wrong, he must get rid of it; he must even be prepared to hate those dearest to him.

Related to this utter devotion was the transparent sincerity and scorn of pretense or compromise shown by Jesus’ attitude toward the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees and the complacency and lack of compassion of the rich. His complete commitment was also the root of the courage that enabled him to set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem and to stand with quiet dignity before the high priest and Pilate. The conviction that he must do what had been written of him by the prophets was of a piece with his consecration to the Father’s will.

Throughout the tragic last events of Jesus’ life, except perhaps in the anguish of Gethsemane and the desperate cry from the cross (if it is authentic), "Why hast thou forsaken me?" the Gospels picture Jesus as accepting everything with patient endurance. When the writers of the New Testament hold up this aspect of his life for imitation, they make clear allusions to Isaiah 53. Possibly in applying this prophecy to him they unconsciously drew from it some of the colors for their portrait; but if Jesus himself did not see in it the divine plan for his own mission, it must have been the fact that he so notably exemplified these qualities that reminded his followers of the prophecy, or that reminded them of him when they read it. If later they went on to assume that he must have fulfilled everything in the prophecy, this could not have happened unless they remembered him as that kind of person.

The ultimate source of his devotion to God’s will was his love for his heavenly Father, with his consciousness of being God’s son. Not only did he say, as other Jews did, that the first of all the commandments was to love God with all one’s heart and soul and strength. In his life "the law appears Drawn out in living characters" (Isaac Watts).

The second quality of Jesus’ personality stressed by the evangelists is the impression of authority that he made on people. He spoke with a firm confidence that amazed those who heard him. The temptation story may dimly reflect a time or many times of doubt and earnest searching, but for the evangelists it was a demonstration of Jesus’ Messianic authority.

In Mark and Luke the first explicit reference to Jesus’ authority has to do with his teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum at the beginning of his ministry; Matthew makes the same statement at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus spoke with the conviction of immediate personal experience and knowledge. This must have seemed to his hearers either presumptuous or refreshingly new. The same sense of authority is heard in the characteristic and unique expression, "Amen I say to you" (usually, for lack of a better rendering, translated "Verily" — or "Truly" — "I say to you").

There is no suggestion of omniscience in such language. Jesus could be surprised. He marveled at the extraordinary faith of the Roman centurion, and at the lack of faith of the people of Nazareth. Several times he is said to have asked for information. "What is your name?" "Who touched my garments?" "How many loaves have you?" " Who do men say that I am? . . . But who do you say that I am?" "How long has he had this?" (referring to a boy’s epilepsy) "What are you discussing with them?" "What were you discussing on the way?" "Say to the householder, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’" When he said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away," he added, "But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

He did not even claim to be good. To the rich man who addressed him as "Good Teacher" Jesus replied, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." Charged with exorcising demons by the power of Beelzebub, he said, "And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

This is a very different picture from the one presented by the Gospel of John. In addition to such examples of apparently supernatural knowledge as Jesus’ saying to Nathanael. "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you" (Jn 1:48), or telling the Samaritan woman that she had had five husbands and was then living with a man who was not her husband (4:18), the Fourth Gospel also stresses the "autonomy" of Jesus. Though he still says, "The Son can do nothing of his own accord" (5:19) and "I can do nothing on my own authority" (v 30), he will not do anything at the bidding of others but only on his own initiative and in his own way, as in turning the water to wine (2:3-4) or going up to Jerusalem for a festival (7:2-10). Equally characteristic of the Johannine Jesus and even more conspicuous is the series of "I am" discourses.

The Synoptic Gospels have two sayings that to some degree resemble these declarations. One is the "Johannine saying"; "All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Following this in Matthew is the saying, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden," with the promise of rest, an easy yoke, and a light burden. In neither case is the probability that the saying is authentic sufficient to outweigh the evidence that he considered his own knowledge limited.

The authority of Jesus in the Gospels is not only a matter of his teaching; it applies also to his acts. In the synagogue at Capernaum, when the people exclaimed, "A new teaching!" they continued, "With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." When the chief priests, scribes, and elders in the temple demanded that he tell them where he got his authority, what they questioned was his right to "do these things."

The Roman centurion takes it for granted that because he himself is "under authority" and obeys his superiors, and his soldiers obey him, Jesus can order a sick person to get well and he will. Jesus did not keep this authority to himself. When he sent the twelve out through the country, he "gave them authority over the unclean spirits"; and they exercised it.

Still another form of authority is attributed to Jesus. The healing of the paralytic is said to show "that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." This authority, however, is not committed to the disciples, unless it is what is meant by the power of binding and loosing.

Jesus’ authority is most prominent in Mark. The question has been raised, and it is a fair one, whether this emphasis, rather than being an authentic tradition, is an article of Mark’s theology. It may be both. The fact that it is important for Mark does not prove that he invented it. He may have underlined, so to speak, what was already an important feature of the tradition. And that tradition probably had a solid basis in historical fact.

The same emphasis is found also in Luke, including his unique material. In the temptation story as he tells it, Satan, showing Jesus the kingdoms of the world, says, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory." When the seventy disciples return from their mission and report that the demons are subject to them, Jesus says, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy."

One root of Jesus’ sureness in word and act was his insight into human nature. His parables reveal a close and sympathetic observation of everyday life: the farmer’s sowing and reaping, the shepherd and his flock, the house built on the rock, the leaven in the dough, the lost coin and the lost sheep, the father’s joy in the return of a wayward son and the elder brother’s peevish jealousy, the mother forgetting her agony for joy that a man has been born into the world, the workers standing idle in the marketplace because no one has hired them, and many other instances.

When the disciples argued about which one of them was the greatest, Jesus "perceived the thought of their hearts," as Luke says. There are many instances of his sharp insight into human nature. When he met a man who was sincere and dissatisfied with himself, "Jesus looking upon him loved him." Yet he saw right through pretense and sham. People who encountered him found in him a disconcerting clearness and directness of perception. When his adversaries tried to trap him with the question about paying taxes to Caesar, he at once recognized their insincerity. This incident and the other conflict stories manifest a skill in debate partly explained by the same quick insight into motives and thoughts, and partly also by a notable keenness of intellect.

His own thinking, so far as we can judge, was characterized by directness and clarity rather than analytical subtlety. He went straight to the heart of an issue, brushing aside the incidental details and insisting on essentials. This is evident in his interpretation of Scripture and his attitude toward traditional interpretations. His independent use of Scripture was a part of the contrast between his teaching and that of the scribes. He could cite proof texts on occasion in debate with Sadducees or Pharisees, and it is entirely probable that from his youth he had read and deeply pondered the Scriptures for himself; but his ideas were not arrived at by deductive analysis of texts or compilation of pronouncements by recognized "authorities." Without the prestige of official position, without the sanction of precedents or the support of respected names, he declared with the confidence of immediate perception what God would do and what man must do. No less dedicated than the most earnest of the scribes to God’s will, and to the Scriptures as the revelation of God’s will, he was indifferent or opposed to the traditional definitions of what the law required.

His perception of real issues and his sense of proportion are exemplified by his rejection of asceticism. This is vividly expressed in his comparison of John the Baptist and himself. The people who have rejected both him and John, Jesus says, are hard to please. They ascribe John’s austere way of life to demonic influence, but denounce Jesus because he enjoys eating with all sorts and conditions of men. They are like petulant children who will not join their playmates in playing either wedding or funeral. (Taken strictly, those who accept neither John nor Jesus are compared, not to the children who would neither dance nor mourn, but to those who complained of their attitude. The exact words, however, cannot be pressed. The piping and wailing clearly represent Jesus’ and John’s preaching, and the refusal to dance to the one or weep with the other corresponds to the rejection of both by the nation.)

The situation indicated fits perfectly the circumstances of Jesus’ ministry, and devout tradition would never have invented the criticism of Jesus as a glutton and a drunkard. It is unnecessary, of course, to suppose that these terms correctly described Jesus’ conduct. The fact that he did not conform to conventional ideas of what a religious teacher should do or should not do would be enough to evoke such opprobrious epithets.

The second part of the charge against Jesus was true enough: he was indeed a friend of tax collectors and sinners. The exclamation, "This man receives sinners and eats with them!" was no doubt a frequent expression of shocked surprise at the disreputable company he kept. His own answer to those who asked why he did so was that not those who are well but those who are sick need a physician. His conclusion to the stories of the lost coin and the lost sheep was, "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" The parable of the prodigal son rebukes the self-righteous, uncharitable attitude of those who like the elder son, do not rejoice when a lost brother is found.

Jesus could also associate easily and naturally with the rich and prominent. When invited, he dined at their homes. These indications, it is true, are found in the editorial and traditional framework of the narratives, but the picture of Jesus as one who "came eating and drinking," quite willing to join high or low, rich or poor, at the table, seems to be a fixed feature of the tradition.

He evidently had no fear of contamination from associating with those called sinners. This is not a fact to be documented by specific texts; it is an implication of the whole story. He was not afraid that his purity would be soiled if he came into contact with tax collectors and harlots, or that their impurity would rub off on him. He was not concerned that people might think this had happened.

So far as we can tell, with the exception of the charge of gluttony and drunkenness, no one ever said of him, "He is just one of them, and no better than the company he keeps." Instead, observers expressed surprise that he would associate with people so obviously unlike him. When he spoke kindly to a notorious woman, the Pharisee in whose house he was dining did not think, "So that is the kind of man he is!" but "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him." Jesus’ attitude is notably evident in his relations with women. There is never any indication of self-consciousness or condescension when women, good and bad, poor and rich, approached him. He was not a crusader for women’s rights; he simply regarded them and treated them as people. How high his moral standard was could not be better demonstrated than by his declaration that to look at a woman with lust is to commit adultery in one’s heart.

We have seen indications of strain between Jesus and his own family, but also reason to believe that the division was not permanent. Whether he ever married we do not know. Some argue that as a normal Jewish young man he would almost certainly marry, but there were Jews who did not — witness the Essenes. If he did, it is futile to speculate about what happened to the marriage. If he did not, it was not because he condemned marriage as a concession to the flesh, or regarded it as a lower, less holy state than celibacy. He considered it sacred and permanent, and based his conviction on the purpose of God in creating man and woman. If a statement reported by Matthew is authentic, he said there were some who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven; but this did not mean abjuring all associations with women. His friendship with Martha and Mary, his many recorded conversations with women, and the accounts of the women who accompanied him and his disciples and served them are sufficient to prevent such a misunderstanding.

A very likable trait, the love of children and the ability to gain their confidence, is shown by two incidents. The first is Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question about greatness in the kingdom of God, when he put a child in their midst. It is interesting that there was a child there within Jesus’ reach or near enough to respond to his call, and that the child allowed Jesus to hold him while talking to the disciples. The other incident is the blessing of the children whose parents brought them to Jesus, with his indignant rebuke of the overzealous disciples who presumed to protect him from being bothered for such a purpose. He had younger brothers and sisters, and during their childhood he may have had to take the place of a father for them after Joseph died.

Another amiable and admirable quality, perceptible not in acts but in his sayings and parables, is Jesus’ love of nature. It was not a mystical, Wordsworthian communion with nature as a personified abstraction, but a more common, everyday appreciation of natural beauty and awareness of the life about him. Its most notable expression is the passage in the Sermon on the Mount about God’s loving care for his creatures. One can easily imagine that such thoughts had often occupied Jesus’ mind in his boyhood and adolescence. But the reverent pondering of his earlier years was carried over into his mature manhood as a firm assurance that, despite all appearances to the contrary, the Lord is mindful of his own.

In keeping with his love of children and nature was his concern for animals. There is not much in the Gospels about this, but he assumed that the owner of an animal would lead it to water on the Sabbath as on every other day; and if an animal should fall into a pit on the Sabbath, the owner would pull it out without regard to any rule of Sabbath observance. Perhaps he was better acquainted with practical farmers than with theoretical expounders of the law, though on this point the Pharisees undoubtedly agreed with him. The Essenes had a regulation that he would certainly condemn: "Let not a man help an animal to give birth on the Sabbath day; and if she lets her young fall into a cistern or ditch, let him not raise it on the Sabbath" (CD xiii. 14).

Attention has been drawn in several connections to another distinctive trait of Jesus, his keen sense of humor, manifested especially in grotesque hyperbole. In the light of such expressions it may be suspected that even the sternest demands for renunciation were spoken with a gentleness that took much of the sting out of them. This does not mean at all that he took lightly the sorrow and suffering and sin of mankind. Far from it. Even Mark never says that Jesus laughed or smiled. Jesus’ humor was of the kind that springs from a sense of proportion, a clear perception of what is important and what is not. In spite of the lack of explicit statements, the very nature of his sayings and acts themselves makes it incredible that he did not sometimes smile and on occasion laugh freely.

With all his utter sincerity and scorn of compromise, a rather surprising spirit of tolerance is shown by his disapproval when John the son of Zebedee reported that they had forbidden a man to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. A person who performed a "mighty work" in his name, he said, would not then speak evil of him. "For he that is not against us," he added, "is for us." He is reported also to have said, in a different connection, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." The two sayings are not contradictory if they mean that every person is either for Jesus or against him, there is no middle ground. In the same context with the second statement Jesus asks the Pharisees, "And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?" He who said this might well say of a stranger who used his name to exorcise demons, "Do not forbid him."

Jesus did not react to all situations with humor or tolerance. One of the human traits that Mark mentions but Matthew and Luke pass over in silence is capacity for anger. In his account of the healing of a man with a withered hand Mark says that Jesus "looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart." This is the only place in the Gospels where the Greek noun meaning "anger" is used of Jesus. Apart from such direct statements, however, his words and conduct are sufficient to show that he was capable of blazing anger, which found expression in vivid, scorching language and at least once in direct action. It is true that he pronounced one who is angry with his brother liable to judgment. (In adding "without cause" the KJV is supported by many manuscripts and versions, but not the best ones.) The statement does not imply, however, that anger is never justified. If it did, Jesus would stand condemned by his own words.

The angry language he is said to have used appears especially in two groups of sayings, the condemnation of the Galilean cities that failed to repent and the denunciation of the Pharisees and scribes. If Jesus said even a fraction of the things attributed to him in these passages, he was a master of eloquent invective. In the first group he may have been expressing grief and disappointment rather than anger. This can hardly be said, however, of his denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. Here, especially in Matthew, he voices a flaming wrath and withering scorn undiluted by sorrow or pity except for the victims of Pharisaic hypocrisy.

One act of Jesus, the cleansing of the temple, can best be explained, I believe, as an unpremeditated explosion of righteous indignation like that of an Old Testament prophet. We have noted other, more widely held views of it. In defense of my interpretation I will point out only that when Jesus the next day indirectly suggested that his authority was from the same source and of the same kind as John’s, he implied that he claimed and needed no other authority than that of a prophet, who spoke and acted on a divine impulse, reacting spontaneously to an immediate situation.

Sometimes it is not such fierce wrath but rather annoyance or disappointment that is manifest, as in some of the questions Jesus asked: "Have you no faith?" "Why did you doubt?" "How long must I bear with you?" When the disciples tried to prevent parents from bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed, Mark says, "he was indignant." Matthew and Luke, as usual, omit this reference to a common human emotion. The Greek verb used here by Mark expresses disapproval and displeasure rather than anger. When the Pharisees demanded a sign from heaven, Jesus "sighed deeply in his spirit," says Mark; and again Matthew and Luke omit the statement. We have observed that Jesus’ denunciation of the Galilean cities was evoked by grief as much as anger, as in his expression of grief over Jerusalem. So too when he looked around at the bystanders with anger before healing the man with a withered hand, Mark says it was because he was "grieved at their hardness of heart."

Far different was the grief Jesus felt in Gethsemane, when, according to Mark and Matthew, he said to the three disciples, "My soul is very sorrowful." Luke omits this, but a few verses later he tells of Jesus’ agony as he poured out the prayer that is the supreme expression of his dedication to his Father’s will. The evangelists stress this spiritual struggle in the garden much more than the physical pain he endured on the cross. What most of all caused his bitter anguish we can only dimly imagine. He had long faced the fear of death, and had set his face to go up to Jerusalem, telling his disciples that it awaited him there. Perhaps some hope that it might not be so never quite left him until that night in the garden. The desertion of those closest to him, and the treachery of one of those whom he had hoped to see judging the tribes of Israel, must have bulked large in his thoughts. Perhaps what was hardest to bear, however, was the fact that the whole consummation of his hopes, as he had contemplated it, seemed to be in doubt. He could accept the Father’s will; but he had thought he knew what God intended, and now he must trust without knowing. In the end, the Son, who knew the Father as no one else knew him, had to take his Father’s hand and step out into the dark.

Next to his dedication and the authority which it brought him, the quality of Jesus’ character that stands out most sharply in the Synoptic Gospels is his ready and sympathetic responsiveness to the needs of others. If on the Godward side, so to speak, the motive power of his life was devotion to God’s will, on the manward side "he was moved with compassion." It can be argued that the references to Jesus’ compassion like those to his authority, must be ascribed to the evangelists rather than the earliest tradition. Of the six places in which at least one Gospel speaks of Jesus’ compassion, not one reference appears in all the Synoptic Gospels. The fact that the evangelists all refer to his compassion, though in different places, may indeed be attributed to editorial procedure; but it also attests a unanimous tradition that this was a distinctive trait of his character.

There is some suggestion of tension between Jesus’ devotion to God and his compassion for men early in the story, when he goes out before dawn to a lonely place to pray, and says to the disciples, who tell him that every one is looking for him, that he must go on to other cities. The real tension, however, was between two aspects of the service of man to which God had called him. The physical needs of the people about him pulled one way; the inner compulsion to carry his good news to as wide an audience as possible pulled the other way. Moved as he was by the sight of distress, he steeled himself to sacrifice the immediate need to his wider mission.

Compassion was blended with insight in his readiness to forgive and to declare that God had forgiven. "My son," he said to the paralytic, "your sins are forgiven." When a woman anointed his feet while he was dining at a Pharisee’s house, he said to host, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." And at the end there is the prayer on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Whether Jesus’ spiritual experience included ecstatic visions or auditions, such as prophets often have, is a very difficult question to answer with any assurance. The descent of the Spirit at his baptism can be so understood; but, as we have noted, the accounts differ in such ways that it is impossible to tell whether the Spirit was seen and the voice heard by Jesus alone or by the bystanders also. For him the experience may have been profound and decisive without being ecstatic; yet it may have been that too. Even the struggle with Satan in the wilderness can be interpreted as an experience involving hallucination. Fasting is a common part of the technique for inducing a trance. Altogether more likely, however, is a symbolic description of a completely conscious and rational inner conflict. The transfiguration bears a striking similarity to the experience at his baptism, but here the narratives indicate a vision seen and a voice heard by the three disciples rather than an experience of Jesus himself. The significance of the event is in any case much too uncertain to throw light on the nature of Jesus’ spiritual life. Another possible but uncertain instance of ecstatic experience may be mentioned. When the seventy disciples reported to Jesus that the demons had submitted to them, he said, Luke reports, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." In spite of the shaky historical basis of this mission, the saying may be authentic.

Jesus was a Jew, not a Hindu. He was not a mystic in the sense of one who enjoys that "beatific vision" in which individual personality is absorbed in the undifferentiated unity of the All. There was mysticism in ancient Judaism: the tradition back of the Kabbala is its most notable manifestation. The characteristic form of Jewish mysticism, however, is the "I and Thou" type, in which the consciousness of distinct identity is maintained, if not heightened, and along with the feeling of communion there is also a keen sense of the distance between God and man.

If mysticism means "practicing the presence of God," then Jesus was a mystic. His praying is mentioned often by the evangelists. The children brought to him, Matthew says, were brought "that he might lay his hands on them and pray." Mark says twice and Matthew once that Jesus went out to a lonely place or up into the hills to pray alone. Twice Luke speaks of his withdrawing to the wilderness or the hills to pray, saying once, "and all night he continued in prayer to God." There are also five other places where Luke mentions Jesus’ praying. If some or all of these references express a special interest of Luke or of the circle he represents, they also reflect something that must have been characteristic of Jesus.

Such general statements do not indicate the content of Jesus’ prayers. Just before the prediction of Peter’s denial of his Master, Jesus tells him, according to Luke, that Satan has desired to win the disciples (the "you" here is plural), and adds, "But I have prayed for you" (here it is singular) "that your faith may not fail." Such intercessory prayer may well have been a frequent theme in Jesus’ devotional life.

How much use Jesus made of regular prescribed prayers is unknown, but he evidently followed the Jewish practice of giving thanks at meals. We have also one report of a special, spontaneous thanksgiving; "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will." Matthew and Luke report this in quite different connections but in exactly the same words. It is entirely probable and in keeping with all we know about him that Jesus thanked God, perhaps often, for revealing to simple folk what the learned scribes could not perceive.

The climax of what is recorded about Jesus’ prayers is the story of his agony in Gethsemane. Here is a soul wrestling in bitter torment and perplexity, yet with unshaken commitment to the Father’s will. One word is preserved by Mark in the language that Jesus spoke, the Aramaic word abba. As he does elsewhere, Mark gives with the original word its Greek equivalent. Matthew and Luke give only the Greek translation. If nothing else in his recorded sayings could be accepted with confidence as the very word Jesus used, we could be quite sure that he used this word constantly in addressing God and in speaking of God. So great was the impression made by the way he used it that even the Greek-speaking church evidently continued to use it in worship, for Paul quotes it twice (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Like Mark, Paul adds the Greek translation. Perhaps Greek-speaking Christians commonly did so in prayer.

According to Matthew, when the mob came with Judas to take Jesus, and one of the bystanders cut off an ear of the high priest’s slave, Jesus condemned the act and spoke of a prayer he might have made but did not; "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?"

The last prayers of Jesus reported in the Gospels are some of the words from the cross, which we have discussed in connection with the crucifixion. Of these the first and the last seem most in keeping with the other prayers that we have been considering. Both are reported by Luke; "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"; and "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!"

In the picture of Jesus as we encounter him in the Synoptic Gospels, how much is tradition? How much is editing or interpretation? Each may claim many details, but in the aggregate the records reveal a real personality. Not only the lack of evidence, or the kind of evidence available, prevents giving a satisfying description of him. A sense of his incomparable greatness strikes us dumb.

After all, listing and documenting characteristics can no more convey a vital perception of a person than a face can be visualized through describing its features one by one. To get a clear and vivid impression of the man Jesus we have to live with the Gospels and let the whole picture take possession of us. When we do that, we sometimes receive an overwhelming impression of a person who almost frightens us. To me this has come in a few widely separated experiences. Such an experience, like the disciples’ Vision on the Mount of Transfiguration, cannot last. The splendor fades, because human nature is not capable of retaining it. Yet something is left that can never be lost, unless one becomes utterly unfaithful and estranged, and perhaps not wholly even then. Some day perhaps we shall really see Jesus, not as reflected in the dim mirror of our knowledge but face to face, know him as we are known, and see him as he is (I Cor 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2). Meanwhile we can at least try to see him as he was. That is all the more important if he is indeed (Heb 13:8) "the same yesterday and today and for ever."

According to all the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus had repeatedly foretold not only his rejection and death but also his resurrection from the dead (Mk 8:31: 9:31: 10:34 and parallels: cf. 14:28; 16:7). Did he indeed expect to be raised from the dead? The evangelists had no doubt that he did. He was the risen Lord, now seated at the right hand of God in heaven and eagerly expected to return at any time. It would not have occurred to them to question his ability during his earthly ministry to foresee what had happened since then. A modern student of the Gospels, however, must consider the development of the tradition and the presuppositions and procedures of the evangelists themselves. We cannot enter into the mind of Jesus. We can and must examine the records.

The idea of resurrection was more familiar to Jesus contemporaries than it is to us — not only the general resurrection for judgment at the end of the age, but separate individual resurrections which we might call reincarnations. Herod Antipas had thought that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead. while others thought that he was Elijah or some other prophet (Mk 6:14-16; 8:28 and parallels). Matthew’s story of the saints who left their tombs and entered the city after Jesus’ resurrection (27:52-53) is another case in point. Against this background it is quite possible that Jesus would tell the disciples that after his death he would rise again.

Is it likely, however, that he went to his death with such an expectation? Why should Peter so violently reject Jesus’ warning of suffering to come if it ended with a promise of joyful victory? The words "and after three days rise again" or the like, which Luke omits in one instance (9:44). seem almost casual and out of keeping with the emotional tone of the predictions of rejection and death.

Within a very few years at most the resurrection had become so prominent and so firmly joined with the crucifixion in Christian faith that Paul would speak of "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead" (Rom 8:34), and would give as the substance of the gospel he had received and passed on "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures . . .and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve," and to others (I Cor 15:3-5). It would then be entirely natural for a preacher or teacher or writer, reporting Jesus’ predictions of his death, to add almost as a matter of course, "and after three days rise again."

However that may be, the evangelists agree on the fact of the resurrection. All tell of the finding of the empty tomb (Mk 16:1-8; Mt 28:1-10; Lk 24:1-12; cf. Jn 20:1-18), with just enough differences among them to prevent an assured reconstruction of exactly what happened, while at the same time demonstrating the existence of independent traditions. All agree in naming Mary Magdalene as a witness. Mark names with her Mary the mother of James; Matthew says "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary." Luke, having said that the women from Galilee saw Jesus buried and went home to prepare spices and ointments, continues: "On the sabbath day they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb." Later he names "Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them" as those who told the disciples of their experience at the tomb.

According to Mark, the women were wondering as they went to the tomb who would roll the stone back for them. Finding the tomb open, they entered and "saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed" (Mk 16:5). The "young man" then told them that Jesus had risen, and instructed them, "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you" (cf. 14:28).

Matthew’s account is more full. There was another earthquake, he says, and an angel of the Lord came down, rolled back the stone, and sat on it. In the customary language of angelic or divine apparitions (cf. Dan 7:9: 10:6), Matthew describes the angel as "like lightning, and his raiment white as snow." The guards. Matthew continues, "trembled and became like dead men"; but the angel reassured the women in practically the same words as given in Mark. According to Mark, the women fled from the tomb and "said nothing to any one, for they were afraid." Matthew. however, says, "So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples."

Luke’s account is quite different. The women entered the tomb, he says, but did not find the body. "While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel." They said to the women, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Most manuscripts add, "He is not here but has risen," as in Matthew and Mark. They did not say, however, that Jesus was going to Galilee, but, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." The women, Luke says. "remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest." After naming the women, Luke continues, "but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them."

Most of the manuscripts and versions have here a verse (Lk 24:12) not found in the "Western" text and therefore omitted by the RSV and the NEB. It reads, "But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves: and he went home wondering at what had happened." Apparently this is a condensed account of an incident reported at greater length in the Gospel of John (20:1-10). where "the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved," goes to the tomb with Peter.

As the women were running to tell the disciples about the resurrection, Matthew says, Jesus "met them and said ‘Hail!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

Jesus then repeated what the angel had said: "Do not be afraid: go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me (Mt 28:9-10). The Fourth Gospel relates an appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene. who did not recognize him but supposed he was the gardener (Jn 20:11-18).

The guard at the tomb, Matthew reports, went to the chief priests and told them what had happened (Mt 28:11-15; cf. 27:62-66). After taking counsel with the elders, the priests gave the soldiers money and instructed them to say that while they were asleep the disciples had come and stolen the body from the tomb. This, Matthew explains, was the origin of the story still current in his time among the Jews.

Matthew’s final paragraph (28:16-20) records the reunion of Jesus and the eleven disciples in Galilee, according to his promise. When the disciples saw their risen Lord, Matthew says, "they worshiped him; but some doubted." Jesus then delivered to them what is often called "the Great Commission" (cf. Mk 16:15-20): "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." This promise recalls an earlier saying (Mt 18:20): "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Luke (24:13-35) reports an entirely different series of appearances of Jesus after the resurrection. After mentioning the incredulity of the disciples on receiving the news brought by the women, Luke continues, "That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened."

Assuming that there is some historical basis for this incident, we face a difficult question when we try to determine the location of Emmaus. The indicated distance of about seven miles (literally sixty stadia) from Jerusalem would narrowly limit the possibilities if its accuracy were not made doubtful by a different reading in a few important manuscripts, which read a hundred and sixty stadia, i.e., about eighteen miles. Corresponding to these two readings, traditions have attached themselves to two different places. One, about seven miles northwest of Jerusalem, was venerated at least as far back as the time of the Crusades. About eighteen miles from Jerusalem, however, in the plain near the mouth of a valley, there was a town named Emmaus in the time of the Maccabees (1 Macc 3:40, 57; 4:3-25; 9:50); and it still bore the Arabic name Amwas until it was destroyed a few years ago. In spite of the greater weight of textual evidence, it seems to me practically certain that the latter place was the one referred to by Luke. Eighteen or twenty miles is not too much for a day’s walk. All this applies to the geographical background of the story even if the incident is not historical.

As the two walked along, Luke tells us, Jesus joined them but was not recognized. When he asked what they were discussing, one of them expressed surprise that even a stranger in Jerusalem would not have heard of the events of the past few days. When Jesus asked what had happened, he was told about the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, and his crucifixion. The disciples had hoped, they said, that he was the Messiah. They told also of the news brought by the women, and said that some of their companions had confirmed the fact that the tomb was empty but had not seen Jesus. Jesus reproved them for not believing what the prophets had foretold. The Messiah, he said, had to suffer these things; and he "interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

On reaching Emmaus the two disciples urged the unknown traveler to lodge with them, and he went in and joined them at the table. Only when he "took the bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them," did they recognize him, whereupon he vanished. Returning at once to Jerusalem, they reported their experience and were told that the Lord had appeared also to Simon. Only here and in 1 Corinthians 15:5 is there any mention of an appearance to Simon (Paul calls him Cephas).

An appearance to the group assembled in Jerusalem now follows in Luke (24:36-43). This too is mentioned elsewhere only in 1 Corinthians 15:5, unless Paul refers there to the appearance in Galilee related by Matthew (28:16-20). While the men who had been to Emmaus were telling their story, Luke says, "Jesus himself stood among them." He told the frightened disciples to look at his wounded hands and feet and touch him, and ate a piece of broiled fish.

In the Fourth Gospel there is a similar account (Jn 20:19-29), according to which Jesus showed the disciples his hands and side, and they were convinced. Thomas was not present on that occasion and declared that he would not believe unless he could see and feel Jesus’ wounds for himself. Eight days later Jesus appeared again to the disciples, and Thomas was convinced by the evidence of his own senses.

Luke’s account of the appearance to the disciples at Jerusalem ends with what may be called his equivalent of Matthew’s Great Commission (Lk 24:44-49; cf. Acts 1:1-5; Mt 28:18-20). Jesus reminds the disciples that what was written about him must be fulfilled, and continues: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high." This looks like a deliberate correction of the immediate return to Galilee stressed in Mark and Matthew. Luke’s final paragraph (24:50-53) says that Jesus led the disciples "as far as Bethany," where he blessed them and "parted from them, and was carried up into heaven." This is more fully related in the book of Acts (1:6-1 1).

We do not know how the Gospel of Mark originally ended. If verse 8 of chapter 16, ending with the clause, "for they were afraid," was not Mark’s concluding sentence, what followed it was lost very early. The oldest manuscripts have different endings. What is commonly called the longer ending (16:9-20) appears in most but not all of the oldest and most important manuscripts and versions and became the standard text of later centuries. Instead of it, however, or combined with it, a few important manuscripts have a shorter ending, which reads: "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this, Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation." Both endings differ notably in style from the rest of the Gospel of Mark and can only be considered attempts to supply a suitable conclusion to what seemed incomplete.

The longer ending includes a unique promise that those who believe will cast out demons, be immune to the venom of serpents and to poisons, and heal the sick by laying their hands on them (Mk 16:17-18). A brief statement of the ascension (v 19) ends with the assertion that Jesus "sat down at the right hand of God" (cf. Ps 110:1; Mk 12:36; Acts 2:33-35; 7:56; Rom 8:34). The last verse (v 20) says that the disciples "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen."

The Fourth Gospel has another appearance of the risen Jesus in Galilee (In 21:1-23), not on the mountain mentioned in Matthew but by the Sea of Tiberias (that is, the Sea of Galilee). It is told in the appendix (chapter 21). Seven disciples, including Nathanael, who was not one of the twelve, and two others, whose names are not given, participated in a miraculous catch of fish with the help of the risen Christ, whom they did not recognize until "that disciple whom Jesus loved" said, "It is the Lord!" Reaching the shore, the disciples found a charcoal fire burning, and Jesus bade them bring some of the fish and have breakfast. He then gave them bread and fish, but it is not said that he ate with them.

With these varied accounts we must compare Paul’s survey of the tradition that he had received (1 Cor 15:5-8). After recording that Jesus "appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve," Paul continues: "Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." The appearances to James and to more than five hundred people are not referred to anywhere else in the New Testament. Paul’s account was written only about twenty years after the death of Jesus, and is thus probably earlier than the earliest of the Gospels by ten years or more. This makes it all the more noteworthy that Paul includes his own vision on the road to Damascus among the resurrection appearances, with no suggestion that it differed in kind from the others (1 Cor 9:1; Gal 1:15-17; cf. Acts 9:3-9; 22:6-11; 26:12-18).

Through all this confusing conglomeration of traditions three emphases stand out distinctly. The first is the stress on the incredulity of the disciples when confronted with the manifestations of the risen Christ. Such surprise may seem strange if Jesus had told them that he would rise again, but perhaps it was only natural.

Another emphasis in several of the stories is the reality and identity of Jesus’ body. To convince the disciples that he was not a ghost, he showed them his hands and feet, or his side, and told them to touch him and satisfy themselves that he had flesh and bones. He is even said once to have eaten in their presence (Lk 24:43; cf. Acts 10:41).

At the same time, equal stress is laid on the difference between the risen Christ and the Master the disciples had known. Repeatedly they failed to recognize him. In Luke (24:18) the disciples on the road to Emmaus think the traveler who has joined them is a visitor to Jerusalem.

The Synoptic Gospels do not say, as the Fourth Gospel does twice (Jn 20:19, 26), that the doors of the room where the disciples assembled were shut when Jesus "came and stood among them." Luke does say that as soon as the two at Emmaus recognized him "he vanished out of their sight" (24:31); and while they were relating their experience to the others at Jerusalem (vv 36-37) he "stood among them" so suddenly and silently that "they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit." In short, the body in which Jesus appeared was the one that had been laid in the tomb, but altered.

What may be called the standard view of Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 1:3, 9; 2:24, 32-33) involves three stages: the empty tomb, the forty days of intermittent association with the disciples, and the ascension to the right hand of God. Paul, our earliest witness, mentions none of these. He tells of appearances to many but speaks of "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God," as though the resurrection and the exaltation to heaven were immediately connected (Rom 8:34). In fact, apart from the circumstantial account in Acts, the ascension is mentioned only at the end of Luke’s Gospel (where the text is doubtful) and in the longer ending of Mark (Lk 24:51; Mk 16:19).

Such are the records. What really happened? It has been fashionable lately to shrug that question off with platitudes about the inevitable subjectivity of historical judgments. As a preventive of dogmatism such considerations have their value, but they should not be used to evade responsibility for defining the limits of our knowledge and determining as far as we can the possibilities of the matter.

When we try to clarify our ideas on this subject, there are several important points to be kept in mind. One is that if we wish to come as close as possible to historical fact, we shall not do it by supposing that the faith of the first Christians was based on imposture and fraud. Of all conceivable explanations, that is the least plausible. In the history of religions there are demonstrable instances of oracles and miracles fabricated by professional religious promoters and officials. Far more often, however, legends and superstitions have been and are caused by wishful thinking and self-deception.

If we approach the narratives in the spirit of serious research, recognizing that they are at least in part legendary, but rejecting the assumption of deliberate imposture, we can hardly avoid the impression that something extraordinary must have happened to convince the disciples that Jesus had been dead but was alive again. That they did believe this, few if any competent historians would deny.

The question whether Jesus really came back to life cannot be answered by historical evidence. It is outside the area accessible to historical research. In all probability the Christian church would never have existed or survived without the conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead. It is hard to believe that the whole history of Christianity is grounded in a delusion, but we cannot prove that this was not so. Each person’s position on that question necessarily depends on his presuppositions, his understanding of the kind of universe we live in and God’s relation to it.

On that basis, speaking only for myself, I cannot believe that Jesus came back to life with the body that had been crucified and buried. What matters, after all, is that he is not dead but alive now. If he belonged to a different order of being from mankind, what is incredible and impossible for us might be possible for him; but then what bearing would his resurrection have on what is in store for humanity? How could it have such significance as Paul (1 Cor 15:12-15) insists it has? In explaining the resurrection of believers. Paul emphasizes the distinction between the physical body. which is buried, and the spiritual body, which will be raised (vv 35-50); and he says that Jesus has risen as "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (v 20).

Assurance that Jesus was alive again was found by the disciples in experiences which they took to be personal encounters with him. What were these experiences? What was Paul’s experience? Were they merely hallucinations brought about by mental and emotional stress? We do not have sufficient data for a psychological or physiological analysis. Even if we did, such an analysis would not necessarily be a full explanation.

The more the disciples endeavored to convince others of the reality of their experience, the more they would stress the identity of the risen Lord and the crucified Jesus. This might easily lead to emphasis on the physical reality of his body. The idea of his bodily presence might then suggest a bodily translation to heaven and a physical, bodily return (Acts 1:1 1).

Perhaps the tradition of the empty tomb grew out of this chain of ideas. That the tomb was actually entered and found empty is of course not impossible. The use of a new tomb near the place of execution might have been only a temporary measure taken in view of the approaching Sabbath. Guesses of this sort, however, are unnecessary. If it was believed that Jesus had appeared bodily to the disciples and had been taken up bodily to heaven, this would imply that he had left the tomb, and that inference would be read back into the accounts of what had happened when the women went to the tomb. At some time, somehow, the realization of what the angel is reported to have said to the women was borne in upon some of the mourners: "He is not here: he is alive."

To the disciples the resurrection meant that all was not lost; Jesus was not dead but living, not defeated but triumphant; he was Messiah after all. They were not forsaken and alone; he was with them (Mt 28:20). He was also reigning with the Father in heaven (Acts 2:33; 7:55-56); and at the end of this age he would return to judge the world (10:42; 17:31) and inaugurate the eternal kingdom of God on earth. Paul and later writers found also in the resurrection of Jesus assurance of resurrection for believers (I Cor 15:12-23).

Having had their cruel fun with Jesus, Pilate’s soldiers "led him out to crucify him" (Mk 15:20-21; Mt 27:31-32; Lk 23:26). For some reason not stated Jesus was not compelled to carry the heavy crossbar to which his hands were to be nailed. There is a tradition that he tried but was unable to carry it. The second station on the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route from the praetorium to Calvary, is the place where the cross is thought to have been laid upon him. The third station, a little way down the street to the west, marks the place where, according to the legend, he fell under the burden.

The Gospel of John (19:17) implies that Jesus carried the cross all the way himself. The Synoptic Gospels, however, say that a man from Cyrene named Simon was compelled to carry it for him. Mark calls Simon a passerby; Matthew says that the soldiers came upon him as they were starting out. Both Mark and Luke say that he "was coming in from the country." Mark further identifies him as "the father of Alexander and Rufus." Alexander is not mentioned elsewhere, but Paul sends greetings (Rom 16:13) to a man named Rufus, "eminent in the Lord," and his mother. Cyrene was in North Africa. Simon may have come to Jerusalem as a pilgrim for the Passover (cf. Acts 2.10), or perhaps he had come to Palestine previously and was living in one of the villages near Jerusalem.

Luke mentions (23:27) "a great multitude of the people" who followed, "and of women who bewailed and lamented him." Jesus turned to the women and told them to weep not for him but for themselves and their children, because a time was coming when to be childless would be considered a blessing (Lk 23:28-31; cf. Mk 13:17 and parallels). Quoting Hosea (10:8), Jesus added, "For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" Luke notes also that two criminals were led away at the same time to be crucified (23:32).

Like the site of the praetorium, the location of Calvary is at best uncertain. None of the stations of the cross between them, therefore, has any claim to historical validity. Only about half of the incidents thus commemorated are recorded in the Gospels. In fact, the records of early pilgrims show that the stations have not always been placed where they are now. Furthermore, the level of the ground in the central valley that is crossed by the Via Dolorosa is much higher now than it was in New Testament times. The whole series of events, however, so far as it is historical, took place not far from here, especially if the traditional sites of the praetorium and Calvary are authentic.

The place to which Jesus was taken was called Golgotha (Mk 15:22; Mt 27:33; Lk 23:33), which is a Greek transcription of the Aramaic word for "skull." The familiar name Calvary is from the Latin Calvariae, which is used in the Vulgate. The traditional site of Golgotha is just inside the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to the right as one enters. It is a portion of the native rock, left standing in approximately the form of a cube by cutting down the sides to the level of the floor of the church.

That this is indeed the place where Jesus was crucified can probably never be proved or disproved. There is much in its favor, as well as some reason for doubt. Unfortunately there was a radical break in the history of Jerusalem in the second century, which to some degree interrupted the local tradition of the sacred sites. When the emperor Hadrian, after putting down the Jewish revolt of AD. 135, undertook to eradicate Palestinian Judaism and Jewish Christianity, he destroyed Jerusalem and built in its place a Roman city, which he named Aelia Capitolina. Where Jesus was believed to have been crucified and buried, Hadrian had the ground filled in and a temple to Venus built over Jesus’ tomb. Not until the time of Constantine, two hundred years later, was this destroyed.

It may be, however, that the temple of Venus, intended to blot out the memory of what had happened there, served instead to preserve that memory. When the Jewish Christians were expelled from the city with the Jews, Gentile Christians were not banished. Among these there must have been many who had known the place before it was altered and desecrated. They could tell their children and grandchildren that the temple covered the place where Jesus was buried. When Bishop Macarius got permission from Constantine to excavate the area, he apparently knew where to dig.

The discovery of Calvary by Constantine’s mother, the empress Helena, is another matter. She went to Jerusalem while Macarius was preparing to build the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The story of her dream, leading to the finding of the cross, is not mentioned by Eusebius, who was bishop of Caesarea at the time and left the chief contemporary account of the discovery of the tomb. Perhaps Macarius had no such definite tradition concerning Calvary as he had for the tomb.

The main objection to the traditional site lies in the fact that it is now inside the city walls, whereas the crucifixion took place outside the city (Jn 19:20; Heb 13:12; Lev 16:27). Just where the northern wall was in the first century is not yet conclusively established, but it is difficult to find a convincing course for it that would leave the traditional Calvary and tomb outside. The persistence of the tradition in spite of this fact is a point in its favor. Some remains of what may have been a city wall have been found, but the area cannot be thoroughly excavated because it is covered with buildings. No other site, however, has any evidence at all to support it.

Some difficult questions are raised by the accounts of Jesus’ death. Our brief review of the facts will have to give more attention to the data in the Gospel of John than was necessary or feasible in the earlier parts of the story.

The amount of variation among the Gospels is obscured by the traditional practice of "harmonizing." This is conspicuously evident in the "Seven Words" of Jesus from the cross, commonly used in Good Friday services. Only one of these appears in more than one Gospel, and it is the only one recorded by Mark or Matthew: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34; Mt 27:46). Luke alone has three of the Words: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (23:34); "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (v 43); and "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit" (v 46). The rest are in John: "Woman, behold your son!" and "Behold, your mother!" (19:26-27); "I thirst" (v 28); "It is finished!" (v 30).

Some of the Words are quotations from the Psalms. The cry of despair in Mark and Matthew is the first verse of Psalm 22. The statement, "I thirst" is said to have been made to fulfill scripture (Jn 19:28-29). in this case Psalm 69:21. The final expression of commitment (Lk 23:46) is a quotation of Psalm 31:5. Is it credible that in such moments Jesus would quote scripture? What might seem likely once becomes less so with three instances: yet it is not inconceivable. In any case, the variations among the Gospels show that we cannot know what Jesus said, if anything. as he hung on the cross.

Unlike the Seven Words, most of the sixteen incidents in the accounts of the crucifixion are found in at least three Gospels, though not always in the same order: six are in all four Gospels. five in all the Synoptic Gospels, and one in Mark and Matthew only.

According to Mark and Matthew, before Jesus was crucified he was offered wine mixed with myrrh or gall, but refused to drink it (Mk 15:23; Mt 27:34). Psalm 69:21 says in the Hebrew. "They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Instead of "poison" the Greek version reads "gall," as Matthew does. Mark has no such scriptural reference; myrrhed wine" was given as a humane measure to dull the pain of one crucified.

The crucifixion itself is mentioned almost incidentally in the Gospels (Mk 15:24; Mt 27:35; Lk 23:33;Jn 19:18). Matthew even puts it in a subordinate construction, making the division of the garments the main part of the sentence. The story of the soldiers dividing Jesus’ garments by lot (Mk 15:24; Mt 27:35; Lk 23:34; in 19:23) is a reflection of Psalm 22:18. There is nothing intrinsically improbable in it; possibly, however, after Psalm 22 came to be regarded as referring prophetically to Jesus, the inference was drawn that his clothes had been so divided.

Mark and Matthew record next (Mk 15:26; Mt 27:37) "the inscription of the charge against him" (Mk): "The King of the Jews." Luke puts this a little later (23:38). Mark and Matthew note here also the crucifixion of the two robbers or bandits, which Luke has already mentioned. The Romans used crucifixion for executing common criminals, especially slaves. It was considered unsuitable for a Roman citizen. Subjecting Jesus to this indignity was an expression of contempt.

As if the mockery he had already endured was not enough, Jesus had to endure the jeers of passers by, who "derided him, wagging their heads, and saying. ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross’" (Mk 15:29-30; Mt 27:39-40). The words "wagging their heads" echo Psalm 22:7. The chief priests and scribes said: "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe" (Mk 15:31-32; Mt 27:41-42: cf. Lk 23:35). Matthew adds (v 43) an almost exact quotation of Psalm 22:8.

Luke now says (23:36-37). "The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar," which recalls Psalm 69:21, as Matthew did with the offer of mixed wine. Here the act is one of mockery. Mark and Matthew have later another drink of vinegar, apparently given in a different spirit. Here they report that the robbers crucified with Jesus joined in reviling him (Mk 15:32; Mt 27:44). According to Luke (23:40-42) only one of them railed at Jesus, and he was rebuked by the other, who then said to Jesus, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus’ response to this plea is the second of the Seven Words (Lk 23:43): "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Both the term Paradise and the idea of entering Paradise immediately at death are unique in the Synoptic Gospels and almost without parallel in the whole New Testament. Lacking any corroborative evidence, it is at best uncertain that the promise to the penitent robber represents Jesus’ conception of the future life.

The crucifixion had taken place at about nine o’clock. From the sixth hour to the ninth (that is, from about noon until three o’clock in the afternoon) "there was darkness over the whole land" (Mk 15:33; Mt 27:45; Lk 23:44-45). The Greek noun may mean "earth," as the KJV reads in Luke but not in Mark or Matthew. Whether the darkness was a physical phenomenon or a poetic expression of horror at the death of Jesus is uncertain. Luke adds, "While the sun’s light failed." A solar eclipse, which could be exactly dated, would be a welcome help to the historian, fixing the year when Jesus was crucified. No such eclipse occurred, however, during Pilate’s term of office. Many manuscripts and versions, in fact, have the reading followed by the KJV, "the sun was darkened," which might refer to a heavy cloud. Luke notes here also the rending of the curtain in the temple, which comes a little later in Mark and Matthew.

After Jesus’ despairing cry and the misunderstanding of some who thought he was calling upon Elijah, Mark and Matthew relate the offer of a sponge soaked with vinegar (Mk 15:36; Mt 27:48-49), recalling again Psalm 69:21. This was an act of compassion, as also apparently in John (19:29). The variant versions of the story, however, make it appear likely that the verse in the Psalm suggested that Jesus had been offered vinegar.

The reserve with which the evangelists record the moment of Jesus’ death is notable (Mk 15:37; Mt 27:50; Lk 23:46; in 19:30). Their simple statements of the fact are more moving than any emotional comment or any attempt to bring out the significance of the event. Here Mark and Matthew appropriately tell of the rending of the curtain in the temple (Mk 15:38; Mt 27:51; cf. Lk 23:45). Though recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels, this item is undoubtedly legendary, perhaps originally intended as symbolic, signifying the coming destruction of the temple and the end of the old dispensation.

Matthew alone adds (27:51-53) that there was an earthquake, which split the rocks; "and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many."

Like the preceding phenomena, all this points up the cosmic significance of Jesus’ death. For the prescientific mind it was easy (and still is) to assume that signs and wonders must have occurred at such a time.

The idea of a resurrection of "many" of the righteous who were "asleep" goes back to Daniel 12:2, where it is associated with the end of the age. These verses in Matthew stand alone in regarding such a resurrection as connected with the death and resurrection of Jesus and therefore already past. The phrase "after his resurrection" is confusing at this point, because the opening of the tombs is associated with the earthquake when Jesus died.

All three Synoptic Gospels tell of the Roman centurion’s testimony (Mk 15:39; Mt 27:54; Lk 23:47), though differing somewhat as to what he saw and what he said. According to Mark and Matthew he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God." or a Son of God" (the Greek text omits the definite article). Being presumably a pagan, the centurion could have used the expression "a son of God" or "a son of a god," meaning simply "a god." In Luke, however, he says, "Certainly this man was innocent!" Possibly this is a paraphrase of what Matthew and Mark quote literally. By "son of God" the centurion might have meant a righteous man. In the Wisdom of Solomon the unbelieving enemies of a righteous man complain (2:13, 16-18) that he "calls himself a child of the Lord" and "boasts that God is his father." Scornfully they say, "Let us see if his words are true, . . . for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him."

The three evangelists go on to say that a group of women, who had ministered to Jesus in Galilee and followed him to Jerusalem. stood at a distance looking on while these things took place (Mk 15:40-41; Mt 27:55-56; Lk 23:55). Mark and Matthew mention Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses (or Joseph). These two appear again later in connection with Jesus’ burial and resurrection. A third woman also is named. Mark calls her Salome; Matthew, presumably referring to the same woman, calls her the mother of the sons of Zebedee (cf. Mt 20:20-21). Mark names Salome with the two Marys again in the next verse (16:1). She does not appear anywhere else in the New Testament.

The Fourth Gospel relates (in 19:31-37) that the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and to have the bodies taken away, but the soldiers found Jesus already dead and did not break his legs, "that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’" This refers to a law concerning the Passover lamb (Ex 12:46; Num 9:12); thus the idea that Jesus was the true Passover lamb finds expression again. One of the soldiers, John continues, pierced Jesus’ side with his spear, "and at once there came out blood and water." Thus another scripture (Zech 12:10) was fulfilled: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced."

All four Gospels tell of Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pilate for Jesus’ body and gave it a proper burial (Mk 15:42-47; Mt 27:57-61; Lk 23:50-56; in 19:38-42). Joseph, we are told, was "a rich man" (Matthew), a "member of the council" (Mark, Luke), "respected" (Mark) and "righteous" (Luke), "who had not consented to their purpose and deed" (Luke). Matthew and John say that he was a disciple of Jesus; Mark and Luke say that he was "looking for the kingdom of God."

Mark adds that Pilate was surprised at Joseph’s request and granted it only after learning from the centurion that Jesus was already dead. Joseph then took the body down from the cross, wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid it in a tomb hewn out of the rock. Matthew says it was Joseph’s tomb. Luke and John say that it had not been used before, and John says that it was in a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified. Perhaps the newness of the tomb is explained by Joseph’s having moved to Jerusalem from Arimathea, where his family tomb would have been.

The tomb under the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is about 125 feet west-northwest of the traditional Calvary. The case for its authenticity is if anything somewhat stronger than the case for the traditional Calvary. No other place that has been suggested has as much in its favor as this site. That there was an ancient tomb here can hardly be doubted. What remains of it in the tiny chapel erected over it is so encased in marble that a visitor can see nothing of it. At the western edge of the rotunda, however, some ancient rock-hewn tombs are still to be seen, showing conclusively that the area was used as a burial ground before it was enclosed within the city wall.

In the fourth century, as at the nearby traditional site of Calvary, the rocky slope around the tomb was cut away, so that the floor within the rotunda was made level, and only a small mass of rock immediately around the tomb was left standing. In the eleventh century a fanatical Muslim ruler tried to demolish not only the chapel but the tomb itself, going so far as to have part of the rock in which it was cut removed. There is therefore no room for hope that the authenticity of the tomb can ever be proved or disproved by archaeological research. The evidence is cumulative and at best can establish only a relative probability.

Mark, telling of the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea, says "and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb" (15:46). Matthew also mentions this (27:60), calling the stone "a great stone." There are still to be seen at Jerusalem several rock-hewn Jewish tombs of the Roman period with round stones like large millstones set on edge in grooves so that they can be rolled across the entrances. Mark concludes (15:47; cf, v 40), "Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid." Matthew says (27:61) that they "were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre." Luke says in a more general way (23:55-56), "The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid; then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments."

Matthew has a paragraph here (27:62-66) which begins, "Next day, that is, after the day of Preparation," which amounts to saying "the day after the day before the Sabbath." The chief priest and Pharisees, it seems, did not allow the observance of the Sabbath to interfere with taking precautions against a possible fraud by Jesus’ disciples. They told Pilate that "that impostor" had said he would rise again after three days, and asked him to have the tomb made so secure that the disciples would not be able to steal the body of Jesus and claim that he had risen from the dead. Pilate assigned soldiers to go with them and told them to make the tomb as secure as they could. They went to the tomb, sealed the stone, and left the soldiers on guard.

No other incident in the Gospels seems quite so patently a bit of counter-propaganda. If the disciples had not proclaimed the resurrection, and the tomb had not been declared empty, no one would have thought of accusing them of stealing the body. The whole story of the guard and the sealing of the tomb was probably devised to refute that charge after it had been made (cf. Mt 28:11-15).

Since the eighteenth-century "Enlightenment" it has been suggested now and then that Jesus was not dead when he was taken down from the cross. A recent revival of this notion postulates that to fulfill prophecy, Jesus simulated death with the aid of a drug, and the disciples kept him hidden until he recovered. There is no sound basis for this fantastic theory. It is arrived at by inventing far-fetched rationalistic explanations of the most obviously legendary details in the biblical narratives. No fact in the whole Gospel story is more certain than that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried under Pontius Pilate.

In all that the Gospels tell us about the crucifixion there is a notable lack of anything about the divine purpose of Jesus’ death and what it accomplished. There have been scattered allusions to Isaiah 53 in the narratives; but when the evangelists come to the event itself, they are content to tell their story and let us deduce what they believe about it from the way they tell it. For doctrinal interpretations of the cross we have to read on into the rest of the New Testament.

And they came to a place which was called Gethsemane" (Mk 14:32; Mt 26:36; cf. Lk 22:40). Just where Gethsemane was is unknown. It is called a garden in the Gospel of John (18:1), but the Synoptic Gospels call it only a place. The name, which appears nowhere else and is omitted by Luke even here, means "oil press," suggesting that when the name was given the oil from the olives grown on the hill was extracted here. An ancient tradition locates the place in the valley just north of the foot of the Mount of Olives, where a church now marks the traditional site of Mary’s tomb. Two locations on the western slope of the hill are revered by different groups as the sacred place. Each has a church on it. On the modern road to Jericho, which runs around the bottom of the Mount of Olives, is the Roman Catholic church, with a small, reverently tended garden beside it containing some old, gnarled olive trees. Above this, in another enclosure, is the Russian Greek Orthodox church, surrounded by a quiet grove. There is no way to determine the exact site, but it must have been somewhere in this vicinity, though possibly farther up or even on the eastern side nearer Bethany.

When they came to Gethsemane, Jesus left most of the disciples and went on, presumably deeper into the garden or orchard, taking with him only Peter, James. and John (Mk 14:32-42; Mt 26:36-46; Lk 22:40-46). Then, "greatly distressed and troubled," he told these three to wait and keep watch. "And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me yet not what I will, but what thou wilt’" (Mk 14:35-36; cf. Mt 26:39; Lk 22:41-42; and Mt 26:42).

Just what the cup was that Jesus begged to be spared we cannot say. He had spoken before of a cup that he must drink and had told the sons of Zebedee that they would have to drink it too (Mk 10:38-39; Mt 20:22-23). The immediate reference both there and here may be to martyrdom; yet it can hardly have been only his death that Jesus wished he might avoid. He had long been prepared for that. More probably, if such speculation is permissible, it was his rejection and the frustration of his hopes for his people that he still could not help wanting to have changed. In any case, this prayer is a sublime expression of the devotion to his Father’s will that governed Jesus’ whole life.

After quoting the prayer, in the traditional text, Luke reports two unique items (22:43-44) — the appearance of "an angel from heaven, strengthening him," and the sweat "like great drops of blood falling upon the ground." Like the descent of the Spirit at his baptism, this may have been an inner personal experience. The reference to blood is merely a simile expressing the intensity of Jesus’ wrestling with God and with his own feelings. Neither of these items is accessible to historical research; in fact the best text does not have these two verses.

When Jesus came back to the three disciples, he found them asleep (Mk 14:37-38; Mt 26:40-41); Lk 22:45-46). "Simon," he said, "are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." This is ambiguous. Some interpreters understand it as telling what is to be prayed for. This is clearly the meaning where in Luke (22:40) Jesus says on first reaching the garden, literally, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." Now, however, the Greek uses a conjunction that usually means "in order that." The Aramaic conjunction back of the Greek would be as ambiguous as our English "that," but the meaning intended is almost certainly "Pray, in order that you may not enter into temptation."

The expression "enter into temptation" recalls the petition in the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:13; Lk 11:4), "lead us not into temptation." The noun translated "temptation" in both places means being tried, put to the test. Our English words "tempt" and "temptation," as a matter of fact, were used in that sense when the KJV was made, as in the repeated statement that the Israelites tempted God (e.g., Ex 17:7), or the story of the lawyer (Lk 10:25) who tempted Jesus (RSV "put him to the test"). The disciples were told in Gethsemane to keep praying in order that they might not be tried beyond their strength (cf. 1 Cor 10:13).

To this exhortation, in Mark and Matthew, Jesus adds a gentle expression of sympathetic insight (Mk 14:38; Mt 26:41) that has become proverbial: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The disciples meant well; but disappointment, perplexity, confusion, and sheer physical exhaustion were too much for them; they could not keep their eyes open. Probably also they could not quite believe that the end was so near or that it would be so disastrous as Jesus anticipated. They did not have his conviction that God so willed it.

A second and a third time, according to Mark and Matthew, Jesus went off by himself and prayed, and again came back and found the three disciples asleep. When he returned the third time (Mk 14:41-42; Mt 26:45-46), he said: "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." And as he spoke, a crowd armed with swords and clubs came from the chief priest and scribes and elders, with Judas at their head. Every reader knows who Judas was; but the evangelists add to his name "one of the twelve," as though to stress the horror of such a betrayal by one of the privileged circle.

The evangelists differ somewhat in their accounts of the arrest of Jesus, the variations consisting mainly of insertions or omissions (Mk 14:43-52; Mt 26:47-56; Lk 22:47-53). This time Mark’s narrative is the shortest and simplest of the three. Mark and Matthew relate that Judas had agreed beforehand to identify Jesus by kissing him, and that he did so, at the same time greeting Jesus as Master (literally, Rabbi). Luke, however, suggests that Judas was not allowed to carry out his hideous intention: "He drew near to Jesus to kiss him; but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?’"

One of the disciples, all the Gospels agree, drew his sword and cut off the ear of a slave of the high priest. The Fourth Gospel says that the disciple was Peter, and even gives the name of the slave, Malchus (Jn 18:10). Matthew reports (26:52-53) that Jesus said: "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" According to Luke Jesus said only, "No more of this!" Luke adds, however, that Jesus touched the slave’s ear and healed him. This is the last miracle related in the Synoptic Gospels, and the only healing miracle performed during the last days at Jerusalem. It is obviously a legendary embellishment of the straightforward tradition of Mark and Matthew.

Jesus then (Mk 14:48-49; Mt 26:55-56; Lk 22:52-53) spoke to "the crowds," according to Matthew; Mark says only "to them." Luke says, "to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him." though according to Mark and Matthew the crowds came from the chief priests and elders. "Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me?" Jesus asked scornfully, and reminded them that they had made no attempt to take him while he was teaching publicly in the temple. "But let the scriptures be fulfilled." he concluded as reported by Mark. Matthew reads, "but all this has taken place, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." In Luke, Jesus says, "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness." There is no way to tell which, if any of these, is correct.

"And they all forsook him, and fled." as Jesus had said they would (Mk 14:50; Mt 26:56; cf. Mk 14:27; Mt 26:31). The shepherd had been taken, and the sheep scattered. Mark alone adds the curious incident of the young man clad only in a linen cloth who tried to follow, and, when he was seized, slipped out of the cloth and fled naked (Mk 14:51-52). The conjecture that this was Mark himself is unfounded, but it is hard to see how the story arose unless it was a personal memory of someone.

In spite of the hour, Jesus was brought before the high priest and the chief priests, elders, and scribes, who were already assembled (Mk 14:53-54; Mt 26:57-58; Lk 22:54-55). Luke says that Jesus was taken to the high priest’s house, and all three Gospels in the next sentence mention the courtyard of the high priest. Only Matthew among the Synoptic evangelists gives the high priest’s name, Caiaphas.

There is much uncertainty concerning what ensued. Mark and Matthew agree closely, but what they report as occurring at a single appearance before the high priest is divided by Luke into two episodes, with a different order of events (Lk 22:56-62). Luke tells of Peter’s denial of Jesus and the soldiers’ mockery as taking place at the high priest’s house, with no suggestion that the high priest or the other dignitaries put in an appearance until morning. when "the elders of the people both chief priests and scribes," assembled and "led him away to their council" (v 66). Luke in fact, does not mention the high priest at all; it is "they" who do everything. The Gospel of John also seems to have two arraignments (18:13-27), but they are not the same as those in Luke.

Contrary to the statement in John 18:16 that Peter stood outside at the door until he was brought in to the fire, the Synoptic Gospels agree that he followed Jesus and his captors at a distance. went directly into the courtyard, and sat with the guards by the fire (Mk 14:53-54; Mt 26:57-58; Lk 22:54-55). If he had fled with the other disciples when they forsook Jesus, he must have turned back immediately.

Mark and Matthew report that the council tried to get testimony against Jesus that would justify a sentence of death, but though many false witnesses were found, they did not agree in their testimony (Mk 14:55-59; Mt 26:59-61). Finally the high priest challenged Jesus directly to answer the accusations. Receiving no reply. he asked specifically, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" Matthew reads, "the Son of God," which of course is what Mark’s expression means.

What Jesus said in reply is reported in different ways, and it is very difficult to interpret. We too should like to know whether he considered himself the Messiah. The evangelists never doubt it (cf. Mt 16:17. 20; Mk 8:30; Lk 9:21), but that fact makes it all the more remarkable that their records disclose so many reasons to question it — reasons that lead many New Testament historians to the definite conclusion that Jesus did not believe himself to be the Lord’s Anointed. It is perhaps the greatest irony of Christian history that the affirmation that alone distinguished the first Christians from other Jews may have been after all contrary to Jesus’ own intention and belief.

What may seem to be the strongest evidence that he did believe he was the Messiah is his reply to the high priest. In all three Gospels this consists of two distinct parts, but each part is reported in three different forms. According to Luke (22:67-68), when "they" said. "If you are the Christ, tell us," Jesus answered evasively. "If I tell you. you will not believe; and if I ask you. you will not answer." According to Matthew (26:64). Jesus said "You have said so." which in Aramaic would be understood as affirmative (cf. v 25).

There are seven places in the Synoptic Gospels where Jesus himself is reported to have used the term "Christ." Only in four places does he clearly use the term of himself; and two of these, being post-resurrection sayings, cannot be used as sayings of the historical Jesus. One of the remaining two speaks of being given a cup of water "because you bear the name of Christ," where the parallel in Matthew reads, "because he is a disciple." In the other, "you have one master, the Christ," the title seems obviously an explanation inserted by an editor, scribe, or later reader. The evidence that Jesus ever spoke of himself as the Messiah is thus decidedly weak. That he even approved or accepted the title when others used it is equally doubtful, as we have noted in relevant passages (e.g., Mk 8:29 and parallels; Mt 11:2; Lk 4:41).

Many have held that Jesus believed he was the Messiah but rejected a type of Messianic hope that expected the Messiah to "restore the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6). This is quite possible. Christians tend to overemphasize the military aspect of the Jewish Messianic hope. There were other kinds of expectation, more peaceful and more spiritual, and the term "Messiah" was used with them also. Warfare is not the only function of a king. From very ancient times a major responsibility of the ruler was to establish, and maintain justice, to prevent the exploitation of the poor and weak by the rich and powerful, and in particular to maintain the rights of orphans and widows.

Under foreign oppression it was natural to feel, as the Zealots did, that only by rebellion could the Roman yoke be cast off; but many of the Jews must have agreed with the Pharisee that an attempt to take matters into their own hands would be both impious and futile. That this was Jesus’ position is therefore no evidence that he rejected entirely the idea of himself as Messiah. Quite possibly he only discouraged the public use of the term because of the danger of fomenting revolutionary acts and provoking punitive action by the Romans.

The second part of his reply to the high priest, as given by Mark (14:62), reads, "and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." (The use of "Power" here reflects the Jewish practice of avoiding a direct mention of God where it might seem anthropomorphic.) Instead of Mark’s "and you will see," Matthew has (26:64). "But I tell you, hereafter you will see," as though Jesus said, in answer to the question whether he was the Messiah, "As you say, but never mind about me! From now on you are going to see the Son of man," and so on. There was the same quick shift from Messiah to Son of man in Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi. Luke (22:69) reads only, "But from now on the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God." Both Matthew’s "hereafter" and Luke’s "from now on suggest an extended process now about to begin rather than an instantaneous event. Neither Greek expression refers to an indefinite future time, such as the English "hereafter" suggests.

The image of sitting at God’s right hand comes from the same verse (Ps 110:1) quoted earlier by Jesus in the temple (Mk 12:36 and parallels): "The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’" This was evidently understood as addressed to the Messiah. Jesus, however, is speaking here of the Son of man. This implies that for him they were the same.

The stress on the coming of the Son of man, here and throughout the New Testament, raises a difficult question: what is the relation of the coming of the Son of man to the coming of the kingdom of God? They are almost never mentioned together. Sometimes the problem is further complicated by references to the kingdom of the Son of man in connection with his coming. These may not be authentic, but it is quite probable that Jesus connected the idea of kingship with the coming of the Son of man. In some way, moreover, which is never made clear and may now be impossible to determine, the coming and kingdom of the Son of man and the coming of the kingdom of God are bound up together.

The whole question of Jesus’ use of the term Son of man is an unresolved problem. Some scholars hold that Jesus did not use it at all, others that he used in one way but not in another. To me it still seems not at all improbable that the whole complex of ideas associated with the expression in the Gospels originated with Jesus himself. Its common idiomatic use by him, as by other Aramaic speaking people, may be taken for granted. Perhaps when he faced rejection and death he found an answer to the question "What then?" in Daniel’s vision of the one like a son of man, to whom dominion and glory would be given. He might then think of himself as already the Son of man during his ministry. By the time he applied the term "Son of man" to the suffering servant prophecy, "the Son of man" must have meant to him practically "I." Obviously all this cannot be proved; other possibilities must be recognized. It is no more speculative, however, than current theories of the origin of the whole idea in the church.

In Luke’s account (22:70) of the hearing before the elders, chief priests, and scribes, when Jesus was asked whether he was the Messiah and replied with the statement about the Son of man, they asked him, "Are you the Son of God, then?" (Mark and Matthew have combined this title with Messiah in the initial question.) He answered, "You say that I am." Like the high priest in Mark and Matthew, the council received this as a blasphemous affirmation that made further evidence unnecessary (Lk 22:71; cf. Mk 14:63-64; Mt 26:65-66). The high priest, say Mark and Matthew, tore his robe and called on the council to condemn the blasphemer. and "they all condemned him as deserving death." Here Mark and Matthew tell of the insults and abuse that Luke has already reported as inflicted at the high priest’s house (Mk 14:65; Mt 26:67-68; cf. Lk 22:63-65).

The story of Peter’s denial follows in the same two Gospels. Luke has reported it before the mockery and beating (Mk 14:66-72; Mt 26:69-75; cf. Lk 22:56-62). Otherwise the accounts are in substantial agreement. Only Luke has the poignant note, "And the Lord turned and looked at Peter." All three say that Peter, hearing the cock crow, remembered what Jesus had told him and wept.

Regardless of discrepancies, this story surely bears the marks of historical truth. Not much later Peter became one of the foremost leaders in the church. Such a story about him would not have been invented or preserved without a solid historical basis, resting ultimately on his own acknowledgment. Perhaps when he said, "I do not know the man," he was not so much being a coward as expressing his confusion and despair. "I thought I knew him," he may have felt, "but I don’t understand him at all. Why didn’t he let me use my sword to defend him? Why didn’t he call down the angels? Why does he let these men treat him like this without saying a word?"

Perhaps Peter and Judas shared something of the same disappointment; but the results were entirely different. According to Luke, Jesus had said to Peter after their final meal together (22:32), "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren." Peter did turn again and became a rock worthy of the name Jesus had given him, though, at least to Paul’s way of thinking, he was still capable of hesitation and compromise (Gal 2:11-13).

Mark and Matthew now proceed with a statement that Luke made earlier in almost the same words (Mk 15:1; Mt 27:1-2; Lk 23:1; cf. Lk 22:66). to the effect that when day came the chief priests and the rest, after further consultation, bound Jesus and led him away. Luke says, however, "led him away to their council"; Mark and Matthew say, "led him away and delivered him to Pilate." Here Luke says simply "Then the whole company of them arose, and brought him before Pilate."

Matthew tells here (27:3-10) what happened to Judas after he betrayed Jesus. Luke gives another version of the story in the book of Acts (1:18-19). According to Matthew, Judas repented when it was too late, went back to the chief priests and elders, confessed that he had betrayed an innocent man, threw down in the temple the thirty pieces of silver they had paid him, and "went and hanged himself." The chief priests used the money to buy a field known as the potter’s field, but the people of Jerusalem named it Akeldama, meaning in Aramaic "Field of Blood." In Acts, Judas buys the field with his blood money, and it is called Akeldama because "falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out." Both stories may be legends.

Matthew adds that Judas’ death fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah about buying the potter’s field with thirty pieces of silver. As quoted by Matthew the prophecy combines bits from Jeremiah (18:2-3; 32:6-15) and Zechariah (11:12). Such combinations of verses from different books have been explained by the hypothesis that the evangelists quoted from collections of Messianic proof-texts. New support for this has been found in scraps of similar collections in the eaves of Qumran.

Not much is known about Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator before whom Jesus was now arraigned, but there is enough to show that he had little understanding and less concern for the sensitive pride of the Jewish people and their explosive mixture of religious devotion and nationalistic ardor. He allowed Roman soldiers to enter Jerusalem without removing the idolatrous images from their standards. Later he had golden shields bearing the emperor’s name hung on the walls of the palace he occupied when in Jerusalem. In both instances he was compelled to rescind his orders. Luke mentions (13:1) some Galileans whose blood Pilate "mingled with their sacrifices."

Another act, which he doubtless considered beneficial, provoked rioting. To provide an adequate water supply for the crowds that filled Jerusalem during the festivals, Pilate had an aqueduct made to bring water from a place near Bethlehem. Unwisely he paid for it out of the temple treasury.

For ten years (AD. 26-36) Pilate governed Judea until an oppressive act in Samaria brought his term of office to an end. When a crowd assembled on Mount Gerizim expecting to see the sacred vessels of the tabernacle excavated, Pilate’s soldiers massacred them. In response to tn appeal to the legate of Syria, Pilate was summoned to Rome. What effect the death of the emperor while Pilate was en route had on his reception at Rome is not clear, but he was not sent back to Palestine.

Such was the man before whom Jesus was now brought (Mk 15:2-5; Mt 27:11-14; Lk 23:2-5). The accounts of the appearance or appearances before Pilate involve as much uncertainty and confusion as those of his trial before the high priest. The quite different narrative in the Gospel of John only increases the complexity of the problem. Much intensive research has been done on this subject in recent years, without reaching clarity or certainty. Each item must be examined in the light of what is known about Jewish and Roman legal procedure, but we cannot assume that every recognized principle and precept was strictly observed. It seems clear, in fact, that there were some irregularities. For the present we can only follow the reports in the Gospels, noting what items are contributed or omitted by each evangelist.

Naturally Pilate would not have been interested in questions of Jewish theology or an individual’s claim to be the person referred to by ancient prophecies. Jesus’ accusers therefore alleged that he had been preaching sedition against the emperor. Luke says (23:2) that this accusation was lodged at the beginning of the hearing. Mark and Matthew imply that Pilate had heard of it, for they represent him as opening the proceedings with the question, "Are you the King of the Jews?" (Mk 15:2; Mt 27:11). But Jesus would say only, "You have said so," which Pilate took as a refusal to reply.

The persistent silence of Jesus in the face of the charges against him made Pilate wonder. He appears to have been reluctant to pronounce sentence against a man whom he regarded as at worst harmless. Only to appease the priests and elders and to avoid a charge that he himself was disloyal to the emperor (cf. Jn 19:12), and only after trying various expedients to evade responsibility for the decision, did he finally consent to have Jesus put to death.

One resort that seemed to offer a way out is related by Luke (23:6-12). When Pilate told "the chief priests and the multitudes" that he did not find the prisoner guilty of any crime, they insisted that Jesus had been stirring up the people from Galilee to Jerusalem. Learning that Jesus was from Galilee, the territory of Herod Antipas, Pilate recalled that Herod was in Jerusalem (no doubt for the Passover) and sent Jesus to him. Herod was curious to see Jesus perform a miracle but apparently no longer considered him dangerous. He therefore questioned him but could draw no response from him. At length, tiring of the effort, "Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then, arraying him in gorgeous apparel, he sent him back to Pilate."

By sending Jesus to Herod, Pilate achieved a more friendly relation with the puppet king; but he did not after all get rid of Jesus. He therefore summoned "the chief priests and the rulers and the people," announced that he had found Jesus innocent of any capital offense, and proposed therefore to chastise and release him.

All three evangelists tell of another expedient that may not have worked out as Pilate wished but did dispose of the annoying case (Mk 15:6-11; Mt 27:15-20; Lk 23:17-19). Pilate’s proposal to let Jesus go, Luke says, was met by an outcry, "Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas!" Matthew calls Barabbas "a notorious prisoner"; Mark explains that he was one of "the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection"; Luke says he had been imprisoned "for an insurrection started in the city, and for murder." Both Mark and Matthew say that it was Pilate’s custom to release at the festival a prisoner chosen by the Jews. When the crowd asked that he do so at this time, he asked, as Mark has it, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" That way of putting the question would of course ensure a refusal. According to Matthew, Pilate asked, "Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?" This slightly more diplomatic form of expression would still only harden the demand for Barabbas.

Matthew contributes a detail not reported elsewhere (27:19), a warning from Pilate’s wife because of a dream in which she had "suffered much" because of "that righteous man." When the mob insisted on the release of Barabbas, Mark and Matthew report, Pilate asked what he should do with Jesus, and they replied "Crucify him!" (Mk 15:12-14; Mt 27:21-23; cf. Lk ~3’20~T3). Pilate asked. "Why, What evil has he done?" but they only demanded all the more loudly that he be crucified.

Again Matthew has a unique item. Seeing that the crowd was becoming disorderly, Pilate publicly washed his hands (Mt 27:24-25), declaring, "I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves" — as though letting an innocent man be crucified incurred no guilt! Matthew continues, "And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children.’"

All the evangelists went out of their way to relieve Pilate of the responsibility for Jesus’ death and put it on the Jews. Current studies of Jesus’ trial are much concerned with this fact, seeming sometimes as anxious to blame the Romans as the evangelists were to blame the Jews. Justified resentment on the part of Jews and shame on the part of Christians for the disgrace and horror of anti-Semitism make such a desire natural. A distortion of history in one direction, however, is not remedied by distorting it in the opposite direction. Only an earnest effort to find the truth can promote real understanding and mutual respect. No matter what was done or said by Jews or Romans nearly two thousand years ago, their descendants were not responsible. Even if the mob, or any of them, uttered the frightful curse ascribed by Matthew to "all the people," that would not make the Jewish people of that day guilty, to say nothing of later generations.

The reasons for the tendency of the evangelists to exculpate Pilate are fairly obvious. No doubt they felt genuine indignation at the injustice of Jesus’ condemnation and death, but they were also anxious to counteract any impression that Christianity was a subversive movement and Jesus a political agitator against the Roman government. At the time when the Gospels were written, persecution was becoming a real danger for Christians. It was important to convince the rulers that the church was not a revolutionary organization.

As for the real responsibility of Pilate or the Jewish leaders for the crucifixion, perhaps the most we can say is that the Romans crucified Jesus, but the Jewish authorities probably desired his death and did what they could to bring it about. Both considered Jesus dangerous and had good reason to think so. Whether Jews or Romans were more responsible is a purely historical question, to be investigated without fear or favor.

To return to the narrative. Pilate released Barabbas, had Jesus flogged, and turned him over to the soldiers to be crucified (Mk 15:15-16; Mt 27:26-27; Lk 23:24-25). Matthew says that they "took Jesus into the praetorium"; Mark says, "led him away inside the palace (that is, the praetorium)." This is the only place in the Synoptic Gospels where the word "praetorium" is used, but it appears in John and Acts, and Paul mentions "the whole praetorium" at Rome (In 18:28. 33: 19:9; Acts 23:35; Phil 1:13). Ordinarily the word designates the residence of the chief Roman official, where cases were often tried and judgment pronounced.

Not one of the places where these tragic events occurred can be identified with certainty. Some scholars believe that the praetorium was the fortified palace built by Herod the Great at the western edge of the city, where what is called the Citadel or Tower of David now stands. Herod’s characteristic masonry can still be seen there in the foundations and the lower courses of the walls. This would be a natural place for Pilate to stay when he came up from Caesarea to Jerusalem.

There is another place, however, where he may have stayed, especially at times when it was important to keep an eye on the temple area. Herod had built a strong fortress, which he called Antonia, at the northwestern corner of the sacred enclosure. Some of the masonry of one of its towers is now visible, incorporated in a modern building. Here tradition puts the praetorium. In the courtyard of a Muslim school, on the rock where another tower stood, is the first of the fourteen traditional stations of the cross. Here Pilate is thought to have showed Jesus to the crowd, saying. "Behold the man!" (Jn 19:5).

According to the Gospel of John (19:13), when Pilate finally decided to have Jesus crucified, "he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gabbatha." There is a well-preserved and extensive stone pavement in what must have been the courtyard of the Fortress Antonia. It is clearly as old as the first century, for an early second-century Roman arch rests on it. On some of the huge paving stones are scratched diagrams of curious games, probably used by the Roman garrison. It is thoroughly probable that the Fortress Antonia was the praetorium. and that the pavement under the convent of Notre Dame de Sion is the very one on which Pilate placed his judgment seat when he condemned Jesus to death. If so, it was here too that the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus (Mk 15:17-19; Mt 27:28-30). There is no need to review the painful and familiar details.

The shadows deepen as the end draws near. It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of "Unleavened Bread," says Mark (14:1-2; cf. Lk 22:1-2). Matthew (26:1-5) puts this in the form of a statement by Jesus with another prediction of his betrayal and death. Mark continues, "And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.’" According to Matthew, the plotting was done at the palace of the high priest Caiaphas.

Mark and Matthew relate here the anointing at Bethany (Mk 14:3-9; Mt 26:6-13). Luke omits it, having recounted an incident like it much earlier (7:36-50). Though the stories are similar, there are noteworthy differences. According to Luke, during Jesus’ ministry in Galilee he was invited to eat at the house of a Pharisee. The KJV says that he "sat down to meat," and the RSV "sat at table," but what follows shows that he was reclining in Roman fashion on a couch beside the table, and that is what the Greek verb means. During the meal, "a woman of the city, who was a sinner, . . . brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."

The host thought that if Jesus had been a prophet he would have known what the woman was and would have forbidden her. Seeing what he was thinking, Jesus said. "Simon, I have something to say to you," and said it with a parable (vv 4 1-42):

"A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" The host condemned himself by his answer: "The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more."

Saying "You have judged rightly." Jesus went on to contrast what the woman had done with Simon’s failure to extend to him even the customary courtesies. "Therefore I tell you," he concluded, "her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." To the woman he said, "Your sins are forgiven"; and while the people at the table were saying to one another, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?" Jesus added, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." The parable does not exactly fit the situation: the woman does not love much because she is forgiven much, but is forgiven because she loves much. There is a similar difficulty in the parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:29-37). Precise logical consistency, however, is not always to be expected in ancient Oriental literature.

Instead of a Pharisee’s house in Galilee, the scene of the incident in Mark and Matthew is the house of a leper at Bethany (Mk 14:3; Mt 26:6). Is it a mere coincidence that the host’s name in both instances is Simon? Or do the accounts reflect varying memories of the same event? This is at best a matter of uncertain inference. We still have to account for other differences between the two accounts. As a matter of fact, we have not two but three versions of the story if they are all based on the same event. The Fourth Gospel also tells of an anointing at Bethany (in 12:1-8), with echoes of both of the other stories. Lazarus was apparently one of the guests; Martha served them; and it was Mary who anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. Of all the details of these accounts, the association with Jesus’ friends at Bethany seems most likely to be a legendary development.

Only Luke says that the woman was a sinner and that the host disapproved Jesus’ failure to rebuke her. Neither in Mark’s and Matthew’s story nor in John’s is any criticism by or of the host indicated. The only objection expressed is based not on the woman’s character but on her extravagance. It is voiced by "some" in Mark, by the disciples in Matthew, and by Judas in John. In John as in Luke the woman anoints Jesus’ feet; in Mark and Matthew she pours the ointment on his head, implying that he was seated at the table instead of reclining. Mark alone says that she broke the costly alabaster flask.

In both Mark and John the self-righteous critics say that the ointment could have been sold for three hundred denarii or more to give to the poor. That the criticism was not prompted by genuine concern for the poor is shown by Jesus’ reply (Mk 14:7; Mt 26:11; Jn 12:8): "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me." Incredible as it may seem, this has been quoted to discourage any effort to abolish poverty. It echoes a verse in Deuteronomy, "For the poor will never cease out of the land" (15:11); but that is stated as a reason for generosity. A little earlier in the same chapter (vv 4-5) Moses says, "But there will be no poor among you . . . if only you will obey the voice of the Lord your God." Jesus’ statement is a rebuke of the critics’ hypocrisy.

After the episode at Bethany, Mark and Matthew proceed to the betrayal of Jesus, which in Luke comes directly after the plotting of the chief priests and scribes (Mk 14:10-11; Mt 26:14-16; Lk 22:3-6). Only Matthew specifies thirty pieces of silver (cf. Zech 11:12) as the price paid to Judas. Some connection between the anointing and the betrayal is suggested by Mark’s statement: "Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them," as though Judas, angered by what had happened, went directly to the priests from the house of Simon. Luke says, "Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot." Perhaps it is idle to speculate on the motive that prompted Judas. That he was moved only by greed is hard to believe of a man chosen by Jesus to be one of his chief witnesses and to share his glory. Misguided patriotism and disappointment growing out of false expectations may have been involved.

Preparations for observing the Passover now follow (Mk 14:12-16; Mt 26:17-19; Lk 22:7-13). The disciples asked Jesus where they should prepare for the supper, and he sent two of them (Peter and John, according to Luke) into the city with instructions for finding the place. A man carrying a jar of water would meet them. They were to follow him, enter the house after him, and say to the householder, "The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’" He would then show them "a large upper room furnished and ready." They obeyed and found all as Jesus had said.

Presumably the householder, perhaps a secret disciple, had previously invited Jesus to use his house for the meal and had made the arrangements for him to find the house. As in the case of fetching the colt before the entry into Jerusalem, an unnamed man is given what seems to be a password and provides assistance apparently agreed upon in advance. The hostility of the authorities no doubt made a certain amount of secrecy advisable, in spite of Jesus’ bold activity in public during the daytime, or perhaps because of it. Caution was all the more imperative if Judas had already gone to the priests (Mt 26:25) and Jesus knew it.

"And when it was evening, he came with the twelve" (Mk 14:17; Mt 26:20; Lk 22:14). It is impossible to straighten out the sequence of events at the supper. There are not only three but four accounts of it. The Gospel of John (chapter 13) tells of a supper "before the feast of the Passover," but the breaking of bread and the passing of the cup are not even mentioned. In addition to the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels, however, we have the report of Paul (1 Cor 11:23-25), who says that he received his account from the Lord. This sounds like a claim to a special revelation, but more probably it refers to the tradition handed down from Jesus himself through the apostles. Irregular and scandalous ways of celebrating the Lord’s supper have developed in the church at Corinth, and Paul feels it necessary to appeal to the tradition to correct them.

Luke differs in important details from the other Gospels and from Paul. In Mark and Matthew the story of the supper begins with the words of Jesus, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me" (Mk 14:18-21; Mt 26:21-24, cf. Ps 41:9). Mark adds, "one who is eating with me." The disciples began to ask, "Is it I?" Jesus answered, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me." Matthew adds (26:25; cf. v 64 and 27:11) that Judas asked, "Is it I, Master?" and Jesus replied, "You have said so," an idiomatic way of saying "Yes." In Luke all this is placed later (22:21-23) and much condensed.

While they were eating, Mark tells us (14:22-25), Jesus took bread and, after pronouncing the customary blessing, broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take; this is my body." He also took a cup, gave thanks, and passed it to the disciples. As they drank it, he said, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God" (cf. Mk 10:45; Mt 20:28). Matthew’s account (26:26-29) is almost identical.

Luke begins (22:15-18) with Jesus saying to the twelve, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, ‘Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’" Then, Luke says (v 19), Jesus gave thanks and broke and distributed the bread, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me" (cf. 1 Cor 11:24). In putting the cup before the bread Luke differs from Paul as well as from Mark and Matthew. In what seems to be the best text of this passage, however, the giving of the cup is divided into two acts. The saying about not drinking wine until the kingdom of God comes accompanies the first cup; but after the distribution of the bread Luke continues (22:20), "And likewise the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’" This agrees closely with Paul’s version of the story, except that Paul adds (1 Cor 11:25), "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." What historical basis, if any, Luke had for his variations cannot be determined.

With all these differences it is hardly surprising that ministers in the nonliturgical churches, when conducting communion services, often confuse and combine the different accounts and even insert sentences or phrases not found in any of them. We should not necessarily be any nearer to the real Jesus if we knew exactly what was done and said. Several more or less important questions, however, are raised by the variations in the story.

One is the question whether the supper was a Passover meal. The Synoptic Gospels so regard it. The two disciples were sent into the city (Mk 14:12 and parallels) for the express purpose of preparing to eat the Passover. The meal took place that evening (v 17 and parallels), which by Jewish reckoning was the beginning of the next day. But why is there no mention of the lamb or the bitter herbs? John puts the supper on the night before the Passover (In 13:1; 19:31, 36, 42), so that the crucifixion takes place at the time when the lamb was killed, making Jesus himself the true Passover sacrifice (cf. I Cor 5:7).

Several explanations have been offered for the absence of any reference to the Lamb, but there is nothing in the records to support them. To be sure, if Jesus broke the bread "as they were eating" (Mk 14:22), they must have had something to eat that is not named. Dipping the bread in the dish implies this (Mk 14:20; cf. Mt 26:23; Lk 22:21). It still seems strange that there is no specific mention of the distinctive elements of the Passover meal. Perhaps the evangelists took them for granted.

Involved with these considerations is the question of the year in which the last supper and the trial and crucifixion of Jesus took place. This is a complicated problem, apparently insoluble at present, not because there is not enough evidence but because there is so much of it and it is not consistent. According to all the Gospels the resurrection took place early Sunday morning, the day after the Sabbath and the third day after the crucifixion according to the ancient custom of counting both the first and the last days. The crucifixion must therefore have been on Friday, and the last supper was eaten Thursday evening. If it was the Passover, this would be the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan; if it was the night before the Passover, it would be the beginning of the fourteenth. Unfortunately, since the Jewish calendar was not based on the solar year, we cannot tell in what year the fourteenth or the fifteenth of Nisan began on a Thursday evening.

Nearer to the heart of the matter, but not so unanswerable, is a third question: Did Jesus himself partake of the bread and wine? He had asked for a room where he might eat the Passover with his disciples (Mk 14:14; Mt 26:18; Lk 22:11), but everything in the accounts of the supper itself can be taken to mean that only the disciples ate and Jesus talked to them. According to Luke, who actually says nothing of the meal itself, Jesus said before giving the disciples either wine or bread (22:15-16), "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Many manuscripts and versions read here, "I shall never eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom cf God." It is impossible to determine whether this means that this is the last time Jesus will eat the Passover, or that in spite of his wish he will not eat it now.

Even if he ate the meal, however, it is unlikely that he partook of the bread and wine. When he gave the first cup to the disciples, Luke continues (vv 17-18), he said, "Take this, and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." Mark and Matthew do not have the saying about eating the Passover. They put the saying about the wine after the distribution of both bread and wine, reading, "I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God" (Mk 14:25; Mt 26:29). Both Mark’s and Matthew’s "again" and Luke’s "from now on" may mean either that Jesus would drink the wine this time but not again, or that he would not now partake of it. The latter seems more natural in view of the meaning he ascribed to the bread and wine: "This is my body," and "This is my blood" (Mk 14:22, 24 and parallels).

With these and other complications and problems, no wonder some have concluded that the whole story of the supper is not the record of an event that was remembered and celebrated, but the cult myth of a rite that it served to explain. The rites and myths of the contemporary pagan cults afford impressive materials for comparison, and they undoubtedly had an influence on the later development of the Christian sacrament. Their deities, however, were mythical beings shrouded in he mists of antiquity. The Christian story and observance had to do with a real person, who had been personally known and was remembered by people still living when the story was being told and put on record.

The problems remain, but there is a solid core of reliable tradition. That Jesus not only distributed bread and wine to the disciples but also accompanied the acts with words giving them a new, special meaning cannot be reasonably questioned. All the accounts agree on this much at least. The significance of the event, however, as Jesus intended it to be understood, depends on the authenticity and meaning of the words attributed to him.

All the accounts include the idea of the covenant. Its Old Testament background makes clear what it means. The statement "This is my blood of the covenant" echoes the words of Moses at Sinai (Ex 24:8: cf. Zech 9:11), "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words." This was said as a part of the ceremony ratifying the covenant between God and the people of Israel, when oxen were sacrificed, and Moses, following the ancient custom of the blood covenant, threw half of the blood against the altar and the other half on the people.

What covenant did Jesus refer to when he said, "This is my blood of the covenant"? Paul and Luke call it "the new covenant" (1 Cor 11:25; Lk 22:20, cf. Mk 14:25; Mt 26:28), and the word "new" has crept into many later manuscripts and versions of Mark and Matthew (cf. KJV, "my blood of the new testament"). The idea of a new covenant comes from the Old Testament. Jeremiah, contemplating the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the deportation of king and people, promised a new covenant to replace the old one, which Israel had broken by disobeying God’s laws (Jer 31:31-34).

The community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls made much of the covenant idea. To the Christian church the promise of the new covenant seemed to be fulfilled. Jesus, by his death and his intercession in heaven, had become "the surety of a better covenant" (Heb 7:22). Whether or not Jesus himself used the word "new," he was probably thinking of Jeremiah’s promise when he spoke of the covenant. He was convinced that only through his death could God’s kingdom be established. His own blood would seal the new covenant as the sacrificial "blood of the covenant" had sealed the old one at Sinai.

Was it Jesus’ intention to establish a new rite to be observed by his followers, or was he, like the Old Testament prophets, trying to say by symbolic acts what he had been telling the disciples and they had been unable to comprehend? The only suggestion of an observance to be repeated is in the words reported by Paul and Luke, "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Cor 11:24-25; Lk 22:19). If Jesus said this, however, he need not have meant that what he did was to be repeated as a ritual observance. He may have meant only, "Remember me whenever you eat your bread and drink your wine."

This is apparently what happened in the apostolic church. The breaking of bread mentioned in Acts (2:42, 46) does not seem to have been a formal rite. What evoked Paul’s account of the last supper was the fact that the "love feasts" of the church at Corinth were all too informal (1 Cor 11:20-21). Paul’s indignant declaration (v 34) that those who were hungry should eat at home before coming to the Lord’s table probably influenced the separation of the sacrament from a common meal. That Jesus had any intention of initiating a rite to be repeated is thus improbable. If the church, however, wished to express and nourish its sense of what his life and death meant to them by an act of worship commemorating a particular event, it could not have chosen one more appropriate than the last supper.

At the end of Paul’s narrative (v 26). he adds a comment of his own, giving the supper both a backward and a forward look: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes." In the Gospels the forward look is seen in the references to the fulfillment of the Passover and drinking the wine new in the kingdom of God. For Paul, Jesus’ coming again had taken the place of the coming of the kingdom.

Luke reports here briefly Jesus’ prediction of his betrayal, which Mark and Matthew have given at the beginning of the supper (Lk 22:21-23; cf. Mk 14:18-21; Mt 26:21-25). He then introduces rather abruptly (vv 24-26: cf. Mk 10:42-45: Mt 20:25-28) the disciples’ dispute as to which of them was the greatest, with Jesus’ rebuke, and adds a saying not found in the other Gospels: "For which is the greater, one who sits at table, or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves" (v 27: cf. in 13:3-Il).

After this Luke gives another saying. no part of which appears in Mark and only the last clause in Matthew (Lk 22:28-29; cf. Mt 19:28): "You are those who have continued with me in my trials; and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The word here translated "assign" is related to the Greek word for covenant. The meaning of this saying becomes clearer when we remember that the word translated "kingdom" often means "kingship." The NEB reads, "and now I vest in you the kingship which my Father vested in me"; the NAB reads, "I for my part assign to you the dominion my Father has assigned to me." These renderings may suggest that Jesus abdicates in favor of the disciples. The TEV avoids that misunderstanding by a rather free paraphrase: "and just as my Father has given me the right to rule, so will I make the same agreement with you." The essential meaning is that Jesus will share his royal authority and power with the twelve.

What is the relation of this promise to the idea of the blood of the covenant? The covenant sealed by Jesus’ blood is for many, whereas here he speaks of a special covenant with the twelve. If this is an authentic utterance of Jesus, it was probably not spoken at the last supper but, as in Matthew, at some earlier time before Jesus knew that one of the twelve would betray him. The clause "that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" is lacking in Matthew. It may have suggested Luke’s putting the saying here. The idea of a covenant does not imply a formal transaction, as though Jesus said officially, "By virtue of the kingship vested in me, I hereby confer kingship upon you.

Another statement not reported by the other evangelists follows in Luke (22:31-34). Turning to Peter, Jesus says, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren." Peter replies, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." Jesus, however, predicts that before morning Peter will deny him. Mark and Matthew report this after Jesus and the disciples have gone back to the Mount of Olives.

Now Jesus asks the disciples (Lk 22:35-38) whether they lacked anything when he sent them without purse, bag, or sandals on their mission of preaching and healing (Mk 6:8-9; Mt 10:9-10: Lk 9:3; 10:4). They reply, "Nothing." Jesus says that if one of them has a purse or bag now he must take it; and anyone who has no sword must buy one, even if he has to sell his mantle to do it. "For I tell you," Jesus continues, "that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with transgressors’; for what is written about me has its fulfilment" (Is 53:12; cf. Mk 15:28). The disciples tell him that they have two swords, and he says, "It is enough." What bearing this has on Jesus’ attitude to the use of force, if any, is uncertain. Apparently Jesus, discouraged at the disciples’ failure to understand, said, "Never mind; let it go." For us too it is hard to see what he meant. The sequel shows that it was not a call to armed resistance.

The story of the last supper ends with the singing of a hymn, after which "they went out to the Mount of Olives" (Mk 14:26-27; Mt 26:30-3 I; Lk 22:39). On the way, or after they got there, Jesus declared that all the disciples would forsake him, and quoted Zechariah 13:7: "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." The quotation was appropriate and might well occur to him under such circumstances.

With all reasonable caution against trying to imagine Jesus’ thoughts and feelings, one is surely justified in pausing to consider how profoundly discouraging the situation must have been for him, and to be grateful that there are such clear reflections of his disappointment and disillusionment. Here is no Docetic Christ, moving undisturbed through the frustrations and sorrows of human existence. Here is a real man, subject to the hopes and disappointments of our common lot, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Is 53:3).

In Mark and Matthew the quotation of Zechariah is followed by a promise: "But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee" (Mk 14:28; Mt 26:32, cf. Mk 16:7; Mt 28:7; Lk 24:6). This points forward to the Galilean appearance of the risen Christ narrated at the end of Matthew (28:16). It implies also that Jesus knew the defection of the disciples would not be permanent.

Peter was still unwilling to admit that they would all desert Jesus (Mk 14:29-30; Mt 26:33-34; cf. Lk 22:33-34). "Even though they all fall away, I will not," he declared; but Jesus said to him, "Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times." (Matthew, Luke, and some manuscripts of Mark omit "twice.") Still Peter protested. "If I must die with you, I will not deny you"; and the rest echoed his words. Were they trying to reassure themselves? Vehemence of assertion is often in direct proportion to lack of conviction.