Géza Vermes (1924–2013)

I consider this book good if not great.. Vermes Is at the bottom a sound scholar. And the story of the nativity is based on two sources (Matthew and Luke) and these sources offer two rather different versions. All other writings in the new testament including the two other gospels and pauls letters doesn't mention the nativity at all. other christian and secular later writings do but they are clearly referencing Matthew and Luke. Then the question that Vermes asks: How believable are these stories and examines them in detail. That is what a good historian should do with his sources. Examine them and not take them for granted. The differences are interesting; one has the wise men, the gifts, Herods child killings and the flight to egypt. The other has a global taxation, the stable, the shepherds, the angels and a return trip to Nazareth. They really only have one thing in common, that Jesus is born in Bethlehem.

Historically there are problems too Luke dates by mentioning the census of Quirinius which occurred in 6 CE. Matthew dates by mentioning Herod the great who died ca 4 BCE. So not only does the accounts vary a lot, they differ with at least 10 years in dating the event. Both can't historically, be accurate. Vermes thinks that both are basically inventions and that it was important for both authors to have a beginning for Jesus that is as grand as his death. It makes the story have a nice beginning, middle and end. As he points out Matthew even writes in his nativity chapters so all would understand: "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler that shall shepherd my people Israel". Because he takes the trouble to quote it (i dont actually remember which prophet in the old testament that said it) i think its fair to say the quote was important to him.

All in all i think he is right in that the nativity bit is invented, not because of him but because i have read many other biblical scholars and very few consider it to be true, believers or not. When Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels (say ca 80-90 CE) rather few people where left who had known Jesus or seen him and if they had most of them did not read greek. I think its perfectly undrstandable that they wanted to give a bit of background to the founding figure of the christian faith. (Perhaps they had had questions about it. We will never know.) So they based their stories on Mark and added a nativity. That does not illegitimate the bible or the christian faith. The christian faith is based on what Jesus said and did and if that lives on the faith will too.… (more)

This is a short, very readable book by Geza Vermes, retired Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford and a leading historian on Judaism in the era of Jesus.

In Part One he examines Jewish attitudes towards the afterlife in the times leading up to and including the life of Jesus. Was belief in resurrection a feature of Judaism in the time of Jesus? Definitely not. Pharisees held this belief, but their influence was small, mostly limited to the towns of Judea, and almost entirely nonexistent in the Galilee region of Jesus and his followers. To the vast majority of Jews of this era, the concept of bodily resurrection would have been either repugnant (Hellenized Jews) or unfamiliar (the rural mass of Palestinian Jewry).

In Part Two, he examines the New Testament claims regarding the Resurrection of Jesus, and very briefly offers his own thoughts on what may have happened. He begins by noting that Jesus spent very little of his ministry preaching about the afterlife. He did, however, predict his death and resurrection to his disciples. But they in turn never seemed to grasp what they were being told. Mark writes that the apostles had no idea what rising from the dead meant when Jesus predicted this to them, which confirms the previously established argument that bodily resurrection was a foreign concept to Galilean Jews of this time.

So we come to the accounts of Jesus' resurrection in the Gospels, Acts, and letters of Paul, which contain discrepencies and contradictions between them. Vermes lays these out. He then discusses how Paul was crucially responsible for making the resurrection story into the central defining argument of the emerging Christian Church.

In the last chapter Vermes gets to the question: What Really Happened? We have two classes of evidence presented in the New Testament: the account of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to various individuals. He seems convinced of the veracity of the empty tomb. To mention one reason, every single account has women finding the tomb empty, and in Jewish society the testimony of women had no standing. This would be an exceedingly poor start to making up such a story in that historical era.

As for the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, they are no good at all as evidence for today's historian. They can convince only the already converted believer of today.

He then rules out no fewer than 8 explanations for what may have historically happened to explain the stories of the empty tomb and appearances - ranging from the true belief of the religious fundamentalist to the denial of the entire thing as mere fantasy by the committed skeptic.

What explanation does this leave? In the epilogue Vermes discusses how the apostles are transformed from a fearful, terrified band of followers in hiding following the death of their leader into brave evangelists openly preaching, defying the authorities at risk of death, and seeking converts. Something happened to them. Vermes posits that they heard of the empty tomb and experienced some "apparitions", felt themselves under the influence of the Spirit, ventured forth with some ray of hope and found renewed self-confidence and success.

Note that this does not explain why the tomb was actually empty, which Vermes accepts as a likely historical fact, and that he has previously rejected various theories that would explain this. And that reference to "apparitions" is really begging for further clarification.

Throughout, the book is written in a neutral and scholarly tone, which is most welcome for a book on this topic.… (more)

A descoberta dos Manuscritos do Mar Morto no deserto da Judeia, entre 1947 e 1956, foi um dos maiores achados arqueológicos de todos os tempos. Estes extraordinários manuscritos transformaram a forma como entendíamos a Bíblia hebraica, o Judaísmo no seu período inicial e as origens do Cristianismo.
Esta é a primeira publicação destes textos em Portugal, realizada a partir da edição muito recentemente actualizada de Geza Vermes, o investigador académico de topo a nível mundial em matéria de Manuscritos do Mar Morto.… (more)