the apostle paul tells us clearly what the gospel is for i handed on to you as of first importance
what i in return had received that christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures
and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures
1 corinthians chapter 15. now this belief is absolutely crucial and it helps it's a test case
it helps us to decide whether or not the uh the gospel as presented in the in the new testament
is based on truth and has a firm foundation in the prophecies and predictions uh of the torah of the
jewish bible or not it's a very simple matter to test paul's claim that these beliefs about a
suffering messiah who died for our sins buried and rose again on the third day are in accordance with
the scriptures as we read in the scriptures so um to help us navigate this i want to as always share
with you the thoughts of this book bart ehrman new testament and historical introduction to the early
christian writings this is an undergraduate text which i strongly recommend if you want
to really get a good grounding in the scholarly academic understanding of the new testament
texts and it is very readable lots of lovely photographs and he's and he writes in a very
pleasing and attractive way in my view so i also want to read to you what bart ehrman has uh
surveyed of this whole subject of the old testament the jewish scriptures speaking of
the suffering messiah and he's and he said this would help you to help us all to make up our mind
on how well grounded this claim of paul is in the jewish scriptures and then you can make your own
mind up what to do with it bart ehrman writes on page 300 to our knowledge prior to the advent of
christianity there were no jews who believed that the messiah to come would suffer and die for the
sins of the world and then return again in glory christians today of course believe that this is
precisely what the messiah was supposed to do the reason they think so however is that the earliest
christians came to believe that the jewish bible anticipated the coming of a suffering messiah
the earliest christians were jews who believed that god spoke to them through the sacred writings
for them the scriptures were not simply the records of past deeds they were the words
of god directed to them in their own situation not only the earliest christians but most jews
that we know about from this period understood scriptures in a personal way as a revelation of
meaning for their own lives thus even though the hebrew bible never specifically speaks
of a messiah as one who is to suffer there are passages in the psalms for example that speak of a
righteous man who suffers at the hands of god's enemies and who comes to be vindicated by god
originally these psalms may have been written by jews who were undergoing particularly difficult
times of oppression and who found relief in airing their complaints against the evil persons who
attacked them and expressing their hopes that god would intervene on their behalf for example see
psalm 22 psalm 35 and 69 christians who read such psalms however saw in them not the expressions of
oppressed righteous jews from a distant past but the embodiments of the pain suffering and ultimate
vindication of the only true righteous jew who had recently been unjustly condemned and executed
as they reflected on what had happened to jesus these christians saw in his sufferings and death a
fulfillment of the words of the righteous sufferer described in the psalms in turn these words shape
the ways the christians understood and described the events of jesus own passion they took the
words of psalm 22 for example as expressions as expressive of the events surrounding jesus
own execution my god my god why have you forsaken me verse one all who see mock me they have they
make mouths at me they shake their heads verse seven i am poured out like waters and all my
bones are out of joint my mouth is dried up like pot shed and my tongue sticks to my jaws 14 and 15
and so on for the early christians the suffering of the righteous jesus was the sufferings were
foreshadowed by the sufferings of the righteous jew of the psalms his sufferings were therefore
no mere miscarriage of justice they were the plan of god other portions of scripture explain
why this suffering was god's plan again these were passages that did not mention the messiah
but christians nonetheless took them to refer to jesus whom they believed to be the messiah
most important were the passages to be found in the writings of the prophet isaiah who also
speaks of the suffering of god's righteous one whom he calls the servant of the lord according
to the songs of the suffering servant as scholars have labeled the four different passages in isaiah
the most important of which is isaiah 52 13 to 53 12 this servant of god was one who suffered
a highness and shameful fate he was despised and rejected 53 3 he was wounded and bruised 53 4-5
he was oppressed and afflicted he suffered in silence and was eventually killed
53-78 this is one who suffered and died to atone for the sins of the people 53 4
to 5. the interpretation of the original meaning of this passage is difficult but
the widely held view amongst new testament scholars is that it was originally speaking
of the suffering of the nation of israel during the babylonian captivity see isaiah 49 3
we have no indication that any jew prior to christianity ever took this passage as
a reference to the future jewish messiah you may notice in reading it that the author refers to the
servant suffering as already having taken place in the past this is not a prediction of the future
so uh christians however understood jesus own sufferings in the light of this
and similar passages for them these ancient words described well what jesus went through
moreover for them jesus was clearly the chosen one given his resurrection
and exaltation their conclusion god's messiah had to suffer as a sacrifice for the sins of the world
end quote so this uh is absolutely fascinating the passages in the jewish scriptures in the
torah in the old testament on their own standing on their own make no reference
to a messiah dying for the sins of the world being buried and rising today arising
from the third day paul says all these things were in the old testament uh because it says they're
all in accordance with the scripture it actually says this in the scripture that he would die for
the sins that he would buried and that he was raised on the third day as as it talks about in
the scripture but it doesn't say that anywhere in the scriptures you have to read it back into the
scriptures with a christian eye of the christian rose tinted glasses but more than that you
actually have to project back it's called easter jesus as the technical term which some people
have amusingly said sounds like i see jesus i see jesus all over the place in the bible and they do
the other interesting point and this is uh when i first came across this when i was a christian this
really um hit me quite hard because it has a ring of truth in it i'll just re-read what he says as
christians reflected on what and what had happened to jesus these christians saw in his suffering and
death a fulfillment of the words of the righteous sufferer described in the psalms like psalm 22
in turn these words shaped the ways christians understood and described the events of jesus's own
passion now this is a commonplace of of historical analysis that the way jesus is uh presented and
portrayed for example on the cross my god my god wife have forsaken me and the other quotes
these have been shaped and created by christian reflection on old testament texts like psalm 22
psalm 69 psalm and the other psalms and passages in isaiah so that this is like a textual tapestry
of quotations from the jewish scriptures because clearly jesus was the messiah and he would have
said these kinds of things so they're put into his mouth they used to create this portrayal of jesus
and the words that he spoke in other words the historical jesus didn't say them
but this is how christians wish to portray jesus the messiah uh as an object of faith and for the
readers of the gospels um and that's got quite a quite a significant insight from scholarship
but when paul says and i come back to this for i handed on to you as a first importance what i
in turn received that christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried
the messiah was buried in accordance with the scriptures he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures there are no scriptures that say this at all the only way you
can believe that and i think bart ehrman has given a credible historical rationale and explanation
that i find persuasive is that you start from the belief that jesus was the suffering messiah
who died for the sins and then you go back to the jewish scriptures and you read it in there
and then you go hey presto the scriptures speak of the suffering of messiah
and uh that his death and rising on the third day is all in the scriptures so it's a it's
an interesting circle hermeneutical circle they create there but it's not there and the problem
is if you read this historically the jewish texts you'll quickly see that there is no foundation
to the christian claim at all and that's why i think overwhelmingly jews to whom
paul preached in around the greco-roman world you can read about in the book of acts how did they
respond to this message because he proclaimed their scriptures foretold a suffering messiah
he would die and rise again how did they respond according to acts they threw him out they kicked
him out some of them tried to stone him because what he was teaching was not found in the torah
it was a bizarre reading in it simply was absent why would they listen to a man who was being
unfaithful to the plain meaning of their own scriptures so that's why the jews rejected paul
and that's why he himself said oh well i'm now going to turn to the gentiles he says
because the jews don't want to hear well they don't want to hear because his message
was groundless it wasn't founded on the truth it wasn't founded on the scriptures at all gentiles
are a different matter what did the gentiles know about the old testament the jewish bible they
didn't know anything they believed in in gods and demigods and sons of gods and all sorts of things
these people were not part of the abrahamic family of monotheism at all and he found them a much more
congenial and welcoming audience for his message so um sorry to be the the bringer of bad news in
a way but i think particularly isaiah 53 which is probably the most quoted passage of all it doesn't
talk about a messiah is talking about events in the past that have already happened and in the
view of the overwhelming majority of experts and historians is actually referring to the nation
of israel during the babylonian cacti captivity if you read it in context particularly isaiah 49
leading up to isaiah 53 it's quite obvious that's what it's doing is it's a poetic passage using
figurative language to talk about israel's role in vocation vis-a-vis the world um and there we are i
just wanted to share that with you it's not meant to be an anti-christian diatribe it's meant to be
a very honest historical analysis of the foundations of the christian gospel as understood
by paul and if the foundations were good and solid i'd say praise god but i've not found them to be
solid i define them to be empty there is nothing there when you really look at it until next time