My next question was about the the many predictions we read in the particularly
the earlier gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke of Jesus's death and resurrection and almost at
random there's a very clear example in Luke chapter 8 verses 31 where Jesus says you know he
tells his disciples that everything written about the son of man by the prophets will be
accomplished he'll be handed over to the gentiles they will mock him and insult him and spit on him
then they'll flog him and after they have killed him on the third day he will rise again and it's
just one example and sometimes very detailed predictions. But the question is
in terms of the astonishment that is then shown by the disciples the very same people in Luke 24 when the women come back from the tomb they say look he's not there he's risen and Peter
I forget the Greek word but it seems to be saying you don't talk nonsense you're talking
nonsense yeah um i mean did the historical Jesus my question is did the historical Jesus therefore
really i mean supernaturalist issues apart because you can still predict your death and
you know just be human if you like you don't have to have supernatural anointing did jesus
really predict his death and resurrection or is this a a retrospectively inserted idea put in the
gospels to tidy up a narrative which otherwise would be a bit unprovidential shall we say yeah
right yeah exactly that's exactly the issue and it's um i think you usually scholars
look at the specificity of those predictions and and say you know this really you know if
if you if you're pretty sure that early christians are telling stories about jesus and sometimes
changing stories and sometimes changing the way he says things and sounds like putting words
on his lips which christians definitely are putting words on his lips and we have gospels
from early christianity where jesus says all sorts of things that nobody thinks he really said i mean
christians aren't doing this and so the question is which things are they putting on his lips
this is one of the first things to go i think from the gospel because the specificity of this
and especially predicting his own resurrection i think is a clear indication that this is something
that's later put on his lips it does create this delicious irony though that you first
get it you actually get it first in mark of course the first gospel where jesus makes three
explicit passion predictions and the disciples simply don't get it
and a lot of that not getting its stuff gets um gets mitigated a bit in matthew and luke but there
are elements of it still remaining where they just don't you know they they're not expecting the
resurrection even though jesus is spending his in luke he makes four of these predictions and then
they still think that the women are crazy because what are you talking about and the reader of
course is saying yeah well he's been saying it all along but so just to clarify the reason that
people are historians are skeptical it's not because of some alleged anti-supernaturalist
liberal bias it's because the story doesn't make sense uh and so it looks if you know they may
have been tampering with the story is that is that fair assessment i'd say i say it's a combination
of things i think it's that you we we know look we know that the christians are putting on jesus
lips there are things that christians want that would like jesus to say we know we've got these
very very specific predictions you can imagine jesus knowing that his time was up and saying
you know uh i'm going to be arrested and killed but when you look at what's specifically and then
and then you're right the story doesn't the whole story doesn't make sense anymore then
because he keeps telling the disciples this and you know either they were idiots or they
weren't listening or somebody's like you know or luca luke says and not just lucas
oh the their understanding they were kept from understanding as if jesus told them this and then
that they were prevented by god or someone from understanding what was the whole point of them
telling them in the first place are they going to have the understanding taken away from them
never quite understood that but