Luke Chapter 23:33-53

Well, this is it. The end of Luke’s gospel.

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33 καὶ ἀναστάντες αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ, καὶ εὗρον ἠθροισμένους τοὺς ἕνδεκα καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς,

34 λέγοντας ὅτι ὄντως ἠγέρθη ὁ κύριος καὶ ὤφθη Σίμωνι.

And standing, at that very hour, they returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven having gathered and those with them, (34) saying that the lord was risen indeed, and was seen by Simon.  

Just as a reminder, we ended the last section with Jesus’ abruptly becoming invisible as soon as they recognised him. The “they” are Kleopas and the other disciple who remains unnamed. Interesting to note that it is not just the eleven (the Eleven has an entirely different set of implications) who are gathered, but those with them. Recall Luke has the commission of the 72, rather than just 12; by this point the legend has grown and expanded and come to include more than just the Four: Peter and Andrew, James and John. Then we get the Five; the four named plus Judas. Those are the only disciples who are specifically named as doing something specific, or even having lines. The rest of the Twelve are no more than names, and names that do not carry through faithfully from the Synoptics into John. There we have a few more disciples who are given specific actions. So the legend has grown to this point, and will continue to grow into John. There is a significant number of scholars who will claim that John had his own set of sources that were not available to the Synoptic writers, and that is likely to be accurate. It is most likely also accurate to say that Luke had sources that M&M didn’t have. The question is whether these sources trace back to anywhere near the time of Jesus. The answer to that question is probably “No”, and a resounding “No!” at that. We need to be really and truly suspicious of a later account that has details missing from an earlier one. Assuming that Luke or John got material from other sources, there is no reason to believe that these new sources are reliable. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Interesting. “He was seen by Simon”. Um, when, exactly? In none of the gospels that we have read does Jesus appear to Simon before appearing to the gathered Eleven, which (spoiler alert!) is coming up in a few verses. However, in 1 Corinthians, Paul says that he first appeared to Cephas, and then the Twelve. Note that: the Twelve; not the Eleven as in the Synoptics. IOW, Judas had not been removed from the group, which, on face (i.e., prima facie) implies that there was no “betrayal”. Here, as in Mark. Jesus appears to Mary of Magdala and then to the two disciples out walking (destination unspecified), and then to the assembled Eleven. In Matthew, Peter doesn’t see Jesus until the whole gang of them meet in Galilee. So what are we to make of this? That Luke is following Paul here? Given that Luke was aware of Paul, this is not impossible; however, “aware of Paul” is not necessarily the same as “has read anything by Paul”. Really, it’s hard to tell what to make of this. The simplest answer is that Luke sort of got muddled. But how? It’s not like he got this from Matthew or Mark, so by process of elimination this seems to point to a different source. Paul would qualify, but so would any other source; moreover, “source” could mean stories that got told. In fact, any source available to Luke or John that was not available to predecessors would most likely consist of stories that got told by all sorts of people, who weren’t even necessarily Christian. My latest suspicion is that Luke and Josephus had influence

33 Et surgentes eadem hora regressi sunt in Ierusalem et invenerunt congregatos Undecim et eos, qui cum ipsis erant,

34 dicentes: “ Surrexit Dominus vere et apparuit Simoni ”.

35 καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐξηγοῦντο τὰ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ καὶ ὡς ἐγνώσθη αὐτοῖς ἐν τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου.

36 Ταῦτα δὲ αὐτῶν λαλούντων αὐτὸς ἔστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς, Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν.

37 πτοηθέντες δὲ καὶ ἔμφοβοι γενόμενοι ἐδόκουν πνεῦμα θεωρεῖν.

And they related at length the things on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (36) Saying these things he was in the midst of them and he said to them, “Peace to you”. (37) Being terrified they became afraid thinking they were beholding a spirit.

First, and I should have noticed this in the previous section, we have to ask why they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Of course, we read this and our immediate thought goes to Jesus breaking the bread at the Last Supper. But Kleopas was not at the Last Supper, and presumably neither was the unnamed companion. (We presume that this companion would have been named had he been anyone of note.)

The other interesting point is the last bit. They thought he was a spirit. The KJV, NASB, and ESV all translate this as “spirit”, which is the basic meaning of pneuma; the Latin is the accusative case ofd spiritus, the meaning of which is pretty obvious. The NIV, interestingly, renders it as “ghost”. This derives from the German Geist; I’m no expert on German, especially regarding nuances of words, but I think “ghost” has some unfortunate connotations. Trying to pin down this word, especially as it relates to psyche and the Latin anima is difficult at best. The base meaning in Greek is “blast” as in “blast of wind”. It comes to mean “breath”, which is more or less synonymous with “life”; but beware, it can also mean “flatulence”. Per Liddell & Scott, It is not until Christian usage that the idea of a disembodied spirit truly becomes part of the meaning of the word. This gets a bit convoluted as we enter the Common Era and the term pneumatikos, “spiritual” becomes an integral part of the belief system of those accused of heresy by Christians like Hippolytus Romanus and Irenaeus. Those they call Gnostics, in particular, posit a tripartite kosmos, material, psychikos, and pneumatikos. Material is obvious; the psychikos, Latin form animalia, are creatures like humans, that have an element of material but also breath, in short a psyche. The third division are entities that, whether created or non-created, are pure spirit. This last element was never really taken into Christian theology, which considered the psyche the immortal soul to be the pinnacle. Purely spiritual creatures did exist; angels, daimones, demons, and the Holy Spirit. Like most philosophical or theological definitions, they are not hard and fast, so there is a good deal of one concept bleeding into the other. The point is that a certain amount of controversy exists about how, or even if, ancients “believed” in ghosts in any sense as we use the term. I read a book some time ago that argued that Elizabethan audiences would have understood the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father not as a ghost as we understand the term, but as the devil who sought to steal Hamlet’s soul. The argument was not terribly convincing, but the real point is that the author felt that it could be made at all. As time has progressed, and I’ve read more about ancient beliefs, I am coming to the conclusion that, more likely than not, the idea of a spirit of a departed person hanging around in our realm–more or less what we would call a ghost–was not all that foreign to someone in the ancient world. I do need to pay more attention to the words used to describe these entities, but it’s not always possible to get to the original text. In the end, all this is to say that in this instance we can perhaps forgive the NIV for using the word “ghost”, with all its modern implications.

35 Et ipsi narrabant, quae gesta erant in via, et quomodo cognoverunt eum in fractione panis.

36 Dum haec autem loquuntur, ipse stetit in medio eorum et dicit eis: “Pax vobis!”.

37 Conturbati vero et conterriti existimabant se spiritum videre.

38 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Τί τεταραγμένοι ἐστέ, καὶ διὰ τί διαλογισμοὶ ἀναβαίνουσιν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν;

39 ἴδετε τὰς χεῖράς μου καὶ τοὺς πόδας μου ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι αὐτός: ψηλαφήσατέ με καὶ ἴδετε, ὅτι πνεῦμα σάρκα καὶ ὀστέα οὐκ ἔχει καθὼς ἐμὲ θεωρεῖτε ἔχοντα.

40 καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἔδειξεν αὐτοῖς τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας.

41 ἔτι δὲ ἀπιστούντων αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τῆς χαρᾶς καὶ θαυμαζόντων εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Ἔχετέ τι βρώσιμον ἐνθάδε;

42 οἱ δὲ ἐπέδωκαν αὐτῷ ἰχθύος ὀπτοῦ μέρος:

43 καὶ λαβὼν ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν ἔφαγεν.

And he said to them, “Why are you disturbed, and on account of what debates ascend in your hearts? (39) Look at my hands and feet, that I am he; touch me and behold, that spirit does not have flesh and bones accordingly as you see me having. (40) And saying these things he showed them his hands and feet. (41) Yet some of them not believing from joy and, and yet marveling he said to them, “What have you for eating there?” (42) They gave him a portion of broiled fish, (43) and taking (it) before them he ate (it). 

Note here we have Jesus doing all he can to disprove that he is a ghost, as was feared in Verse 37. Indeed, it’s as if he read their thoughts and knew that they were fearful of him for this reason. He even goes so far as to say that a spirit does not have flesh and bone. And, of course this is true. 

All of this has effectively demonstrated that, far from being a ghost, he is the same man that was crucified, and that indeed, he was a man, but not just any man, but the very man who was crucified, as demonstrated by the nail marks in his hands and feet. Now, for modern folk who have been raised on this story, on the idea that he was raised bodily and not just spiritually, so my explanation here seems completely unnecessary. But let’s step back a moment into the world of Jesus and his disciples. Throughout most of their history, Jews did not believe in a body/soul dichotomy. They did not particularly believe in a soul. Rather, they saw humans as undifferentiated, basically a body. If you think about it, this explains a few things about why the Christian Jesus was a novelty, one that, in the end, a lot of Jews had trouble accepting. Now, I don’t know that in any real sense that I can prove, but one has to suspect that this played a role in why more Jews remained Jewish rather than becoming Christian, and, conversely, why Christianity ultimately became a pagan phenomenon. If humans do not have a soul, then the idea of a non-worldly kingdom would make little sense to most mainline Jews. If there is no spirit that is independent of the body, then the concept of a “spiritual” or “other worldly” kingdom of God is essentially meaningless. And since humans had no soul, then of course the messiah would be a human who would restore the worldly Kingdom of David, (despite the fact that it had never really existed). In addition, this explains the controversy about the “resurrection of the body”, in which the Pharisees believed but the Saduccess didn’t. If something was going to come back from the dead, it had to be the body since there was no soul, so there was nothing else to rise from the dead. So the spiritual kingdom, the (semi-)divine messiah, and the soul coming into a spiritual paradise after death made no sense.

Please to note that Luke is the first evangelist to go to these lengths to demonstrate that Jesus had a physical body. Mary of Magdala clutched Jesus’ knees–although in John, Jesus admonishes Mary not to touch him. Jesus shows the nail marks, and insists that they touch him, and the pièce de résistance is eating the fish. So one could argue that, in a sense, the insistence on the Jesus’ physical nature is directed at Jews. This is the culmination of what Pharisees believed; with that, let’s remember that Paul proclaimed himself a Pharisee, so belief in the resurrection of the body was part of his makeup. To this, let’s add that Paul refers to Jesus as the “first fruits”, that is, the first one whose body has been raised. The rest of us would follow suit, although there was a change in plan between 1 Thessalonians 4 when we the living would rise up to meet the Lord descending from  heaven (ouranou, genitive singular) on a cloud. There, Paul has to assure us that those who have fallen asleep will not be left behind, or left out, but will also join in the ascent to heaven. This has changed by the time we get to 1 Corinthians, when Paul tells us that Jesus was the first fruits and that we will all rise again with him. 

So, in a sense, the emphasis on Jesus’ physical body is very Jewish. Or is it Pauline, derived from Paul’s belief in the resurrection of the body? Or is it both? At the moment, I’m coming down on the side of the latter. My suspicion is that Luke had indeed read at least some of Paul; and perhaps 1 Corinthians is the most likely candidate. This, I believe, is why we have this emphasis on the physical body of the Risen Jesus.  

38 Et dixit eis: “Quid turbati estis, et quare cogitationes ascendunt in corda vestra?

39 Videte manus meas et pedes meos, quia ipse ego sum! Palpate me et videte, quia spiritus carnem et ossa non habet, sicut me videtis habere”.

40 Et cum hoc dixisset, ostendit eis manus et pedes.

41 Adhuc autem illis non credentibus prae gaudio et mirantibus, dixit eis: “Habetis hic aliquid, quod manducetur?”.

42 At illi obtulerunt ei partem piscis assi.

43 Et sumens, coram eis manducavit.

44 Εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς, Οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι μου οὓς ἐλάλησα πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔτι ὢν σὺν ὑμῖν, ὅτι δεῖ πληρωθῆναι πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα ἐν τῷ νόμῳ Μωϋσέως καὶ τοῖς προφήταις καὶ ψαλμοῖς περὶ ἐμοῦ.

45 τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς.

46 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι Οὕτως γέγραπται παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ,

47 καὶ κηρυχθῆναι ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ μετάνοιαν εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἀρξάμενοι ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλήμ:

48 ὑμεῖς μάρτυρες τούτων.

He said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you yet being with your, that it was necessary that all the writings be fulfilled in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms about me. (45) Then he opened the mind of them to understand the writings. (46) And he said to them that, “Thus it was written the Christ to suffer and he rose from the dead on the third day. (47) You are witnesses of these things.

My hard copy Greek NT is nicely annotated with parallel, or corresponding passages in other parts of the Bible, whether HS or NT. In Luke Chapter 24, the references are almost all to the NT, indeed to other gospels. There is a cite of 1 Timothy, another of 1 Corinthians, and a couple to Acts. The references to HS are mostly not passages per se; the cites come in a group with Verse 27, during the trip to Emmaus. This is where Jesus explains the passages pointing to him in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and Psalms. The references are to Deuteronomy 18:15, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53. But I am frankly suspicious that the passages are referred to as important and pertaining to Jesus, but they are not quoted, or even named by Jesus. Are we to assume that Luke could, and did, assume that his audience would simply know what the references were? That all of them had been so thoroughly grounded in their Torah, or Tanakh, that they would know the passages without them being named? Now, maybe, way back when in the days when most if not all of Jesus’ followers were Jews such an assumption, or understanding, may have had some basis in reality. By the time Luke wrote, however, I find it hard, if not impossible, that this assumption would have been, or could have been made. By this point most of the new Christians were coming from pagan backgrounds, and so would not have known their Hebrew Scriptures very well, if at all.

So, to present Jesus as glossing over the specifics about chapter and verse tells us one of two things. That Luke did not want to bog down the narrative by going into too much detail. These sorts of particulars could have been discussed after the reading. This would have been consistent with Hebrew exposition, where a passage was read and then explained to the congregation. There is probably a good case to be made for this idea, and I suspect most biblical scholars would suggest this as the proper understanding of how this should be understood–assuming, of course, that the question had been presented to them. I suspect it rarely has been presented. There is another possibility: that the early teachers were playing rather fast and loose with the facts. Naturally, such a suggestion would be roundly scorned by most scholars; but then, most scholars believe in Q. I did a quick look through Strong’s Words to see when and where and how often the term “writing”, as in “scripture” was used, and it’s a lot less frequent than I think most would expect. There are, apparently, no uses where someone says, this was written about the coming messiah. The times when “it is written” include the stories of the Temptation, or that his house shall be one of prayer, or that he would be called a Nazarene. This has all the feel of ideas being retrofitted into the story after the fact.

This is a big deal. If these ideas had to be retrofitted, that means that they were not present at the beginning of the movement. That, in turn, diminishes the likelihood that Jesus was executed for his teaching. After all, if he was not claiming to be the messiah when he was alive, then the “King of the Jews” charge falls a little flat, as does the idea that he was perceived as a threat by the Temple authorities who then advocated for his removal. And really, Paul supports this by presenting Jesus as the Christ only after the Resurrection. In turn, if Paul was indeed the first to espouse this belief– which is no sure thing by any stretch– then this means that not only was this not a belief dating to Jesus’ lifetime, there was a period of some years after Jesus’ death when he was still not considered to be the Christ. Indeed, it’s debatable whether the Didache considered Jesus as the Christ. That work used the term “Christian” once, and only used “Christ” as part of a compound, referring to fraudulent prophets as “Christ-sellers” (to use Crossan’s translation). Indeed, “Jesus” only appears twice, both in the context of the same prayer which is directed to God and refers to Jesus as “your son/child”. There are a couple of other references to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but, all in all, very scant references. This seems to indicate that even at a later date than the Gospels, the idea of Jesus as Christ may not have taken root in all the various forms of Jesus followers. 

Given the lag between Jesus’ life and the Christ-logos, one wonders if the development of the Passion Narrative perhaps spurred the idea of Jesus as Christ; or perhaps the causation ran the other way. It matters not. The salient aspect is that one likely reinforced the other. So, if not the Christ, and if the execution were not for posing a threat to the Temple authorities, then what? My working hypothesis is that Jesus was executed for magic, and there is a surprisingly large body of evidence to support this idea. Origen tells us that the pagan philosopher Celsus accused Jesus of having been a magician, a charge that Origen vehemently disputes. The Christians go after Apollonius of Tyana, often called the “Pagan Christ” as a magician, in no small part to counteract the charges leveled against Jesus. The best defense, after all, is a good offense. There are instances where pagan invoke the name of Jesus, especially the crucified Jesus, as counter-magic. So the notion is not without substance. I can’t prove this one way or another here, but the point is that we have to come to grips with the idea that there was no single Jesus. There existed a variety of opinions about who–and what–Jesus was. Time was required for the “orthodox” beliefs about Jesus took hold and created the Jesus that we know. Of course, there were several hundred years of Arianism to come, but that’s a tale for another day. 

44 Et dixit ad eos: “Haec sunt verba, quae locutus sum ad vos, cum adhuc essem vobiscum, quoniam necesse est impleri omnia, quae scripta sunt in Lege Moysis et Prophetis et Psalmis de me”.

45 Tunc aperuit illis sensum, ut intellegerent Scripturas.

46 Et dixit eis: “Sic scriptum est, Christum pati et resurgere a mortuis die tertia,

47 et praedicari in nomine eius paenitentiam in remissionem peccatorum in omnes gentes, incipientibus ab Ierusalem.

48 Vos estis testes horum.

49 καὶ [ἰδοὺ] ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ πατρός μου ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς: ὑμεῖς δὲ καθίσατε ἐν τῇ πόλει ἕως οὗ ἐνδύσησθε ἐξ ὕψους δύναμιν.

50 Ἐξήγαγεν δὲ αὐτοὺς [ἔξω] ἕως πρὸς Βηθανίαν, καὶ ἐπάρας τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ εὐλόγησεν αὐτούς.

51 καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εὐλογεῖν αὐτὸν αὐτοὺς διέστη ἀπ’ αὐτῶν καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν.

52 καὶ αὐτοὶ προσκυνήσαντες αὐτὸν ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ μετὰ χαρᾶς μεγάλης,

53 καὶ ἦσαν διὰ παντὸς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ εὐλογοῦντες τὸν θεόν.

And behold, I send you [out] (to take/carrying/having) the good news of my father upon you; sit in the city until which you put on the power from on high.” (just a note: “sit” is an aorist imperative; how does one construct a command in the past tense?) (50)  He led them out until towards Bethany, and lifting his hands he blessed them. (51) And in the blessing them he became he separated from them and was carried up towards the sky. (52) And they groveled like dogs to him turning towards Jerusalem with great joy, (53) and they were through all in the Temple praising God.

And there you go. The End of Luke. I just noticed something that should have evoked comment when we got to the end of Matthew. At the end of his gospel, Mark told us that Jesus was taken up to heaven and they saw him at the right hand of God. It’s been so long since we did Mark (back in October of 2013, so over seven years) that I had to go back and refresh my memory. There has always been controversy whether Mark 16 was actually part of the original gospel as written by “Mark”, or if it was added later. I took the view that, not only was it added later, but that the author of the last chapter wrote it with an awareness of Luke. This was largely based, as far as I can tell, upon the existence of the Ascension story. This is not exactly bullet-proof evidence. But this is yet another topic that is too large to be discussed here.

In the final analysis, this gospel seems to go out no so much with a bang as with a whimper. This chapter has a rather compressed feel to it, as if Luke is simply condensing the stories available to him so he can get on to the exciting new material he’s going to introduce in Acts. IOW, this feels like another example of Luke feeling like the information has been presented sufficiently well by his two predecessors. After all, he introduces nothing new here, outside of the name of Kleopas and and a shorthand summary of the discussion. The remainder of the chapter is repetition, more or less. The last thing to mention is the very end, where they joyously return to Jerusalem. This does not exactly match the very beginning of Acts, but this may be an issue of compression again, with Luke being more eager to move onto the new material. And notice they return to Jerusalem; in Matthew, all of the post-Resurrection narrative which includes Jesus takes place in Galilee. That is something else to leave for the summary.

Since what I was starting to write was more appropriate to a summary of either the chapter or the gospel in toto, here perhaps is where a wise man simply has the wisdom to bid adieu to the gospel of Luke. There will be a chapter summary, and then a summary of the gospel as a whole, and then perhaps something to synthesize the three of them so far. In the meantime, it’s become clear that the proper course of proceeding is to move to John. Then perhaps Romans will be in order, which may help inform our reading of Acts, which will follow John. Overall, not bad. One gospel to go. And it’s on the short side, I believe. Well, the smallest number of chapters save for Mark, but the length of a chapter is not exactly uniform. 

So, with no further ado, it’s adieu to Luke.

49 Et ecce ego mitto promissum Patris mei in vos; vos autem sedete in civitate, quoadusque induamini virtutem ex alto”.

50 Eduxit autem eos foras usque in Bethaniam et, elevatis manibus suis, benedixit eis.

51 Et factum est, dum benediceret illis, recessit ab eis et ferebatur in caelum.

52 Et ipsi adoraverunt eum et regressi sunt in Ierusalem cum gaudio magno

53 et erant semper in templo benedicentes Deum.

Luke Chapter 28-32

This is a short section. The end of the chapter (and so the gospel!) approaches, and to maintain some sense of narrative cohesion, might have to make some odd arrangements. And it really does end in the middle of an action, or of two actions that occurred sequentially with no real time lapse in between.

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28 Καὶ ἤγγισαν εἰς τὴν κώμην οὗ ἐπορεύοντο, καὶ αὐτὸς προσεποιήσατο πορρώτερον πορεύεσθαι.

29 καὶ παρεβιάσαντο αὐτὸν λέγοντες, Μεῖνον μεθ’ ἡμῶν, ὅτι πρὸς ἑσπέραν ἐστὶν καὶ κέκλικεν ἤδη ἡ ἡμέρα. καὶ εἰσῆλθεν τοῦ μεῖναι σὺν αὐτοῖς.

And they approached the village where they were going, and he made as though to go farther. (29) But they held him back, saying, “Remain with us, that towards evening it is and and the day has reclined.” And he came in for to remain with them.

Some grammar/vocab points. In Classical/pagan usage, the verb I translated as “held back” has a connotation of actual force, presumably physical. The Latin verb overlaps, but has a broader meaning. It could be used to “round up”, as in cattle, for anyone familiar with Western/Cowboy movies. Obviously, I don’t think they literally held him back, but the sense is there. And there are plenty of words in English where the original, or deep meaning has been sort of submerged into a less drastic meaning. Such as… perhaps “shooting a movie” would be a reasonable example. The violence of “to shoot” has been buried so deeply that the connexion to a gun is entirely secondary when the word is used thus.

The second vocabulary lesson comes with “the day has reclined”. The verb is klinō, which should be recognizable as the root of “recline”, or “decline”, or “incline”. In Greek, one of the most common uses for this word is to “recline,” as in “recline on couches while dining”, which is how meals were taken, at least among elites, and at banquets. Just occurred to me: Da Vinci’s The Last Supper shows Jesus & the gang sitting on chairs, rather than reclining on sofas. The reclining was a Greco-Roman thing, perhaps something only Hellenizing Jews like Herod did. And checking Luke’s version of the Last Supper, he does use a word more properly translated as “to sit”.

“For to remain with them”. This isn’t even literal; literal would be “of to remain”. The Greek verb “to remain” is just that: a verb, an infinitive, to be precise. It is preceded by the demonstrative in the genitive, the main use of which is to show ownership. So, “of to remain”, which is the hyper-literal rendering. One of the quirks of Greek is that the infinitive form of the verb almost functions as a gerund, a noun with a verb form: the running of the Kentucky Derby, e.g. So here the infinitive actually is given a demonstrative pronoun to make this more apparent. There is no way to make this work in English. We see this with my translation, which is deliberately awkward to signal how awkward the Greek is. But my render doesn’t go far enough.

28 Et appropinquaverunt castello, quo ibant, et ipse se finxit longius ire.

29 Et coegerunt illum dicentes: “ Mane nobiscum, quoniam advesperascit, et inclinata est iam dies ”. Et intravit, ut maneret cum illis.

30 καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ κατακλιθῆναι αὐτὸν μετ’ αὐτῶν λαβὼν τὸν ἄρτον εὐλόγησεν καὶ κλάσας ἐπεδίδου αὐτοῖς:

31 αὐτῶν δὲ διηνοίχθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ καὶ ἐπέγνωσαν αὐτόν: καὶ αὐτὸς ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ’ αὐτῶν.

32 καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους, Οὐχὶ ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν καιομένη ἦν [ἐν ἡμῖν] ὡς ἐλάλει ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, ὡς διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς; 

And it happened in the to be reclined he with them taking the bread he blessed (it), and breaking (it) he gave (it) to them. (30) Of them were opened the eyes and they recognised him; and he became invisible from them. (32) And they said to each other, “Were is not that the heart of us was burning [ in us ] as he spoke to us on the road, as he explained the scriptures?”

And to demonstrate two points of the previous comment about Greek infinitives and the reclining to eat. Here, “in the to be reclined” is another example of a Greek infinitive as the object of the preposition (en, = “in”) and also being given a demonstrative adjective. In this case, the infinitive is passive, so we get the “to be” aspect. And, the verb is kata-klinō, which could be translated as “lying down” without actually doing violence to the Greek. The kata- prefix and/or preposition indicates downward motion. Ana-basis, to march up/to ascend; kata-basis, to come down/to descend. So here we get the Hellenized form of eating, rather than everyone sitting down as depicted by Leonardo. And seriously, one has to ask what this tells us about Luke’s view on the matter of eating while reclining or sitting. Seems to me that he more or less used the ideas interchangeably, and that, in his mind, reclining is the default position, so even when he uses a verb more properly translated as “to sit”, he really means “to recline”. Or, the alternative is that both of these positions simply mean “to eat”.

The rest of Verse 29 is a very economical piece of Greek. “Bread” is only used once, and there are no pronouns for which “bread” is the antecedent. Hence the use of (it) in parentheses, to indicate that there is no pronoun, but one can be understood; indeed, English pretty much requires that it be present, so I included it as I did. 

In English, the combination of “became invisible” and “from them” doesn’t really work. Or, it’s certainly not standard usage. However, that is the literal Greek. We would say “became invisible to them”, or more likely, “he disappeared from them”. But the word is an adjective (invisible) and not a verb (disappeared). The verb is “he became”, and “from them”. The preposition apo indicates motion away from, as the Latin ab, which is what is used below: ab eis. And rather than becoming invisible, he “vanished” in the Latin.

Kind of an awkward place to break, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Transitions are not always smooth. 

30 Et factum est, dum recumberet cum illis, accepit panem et benedixit ac fregit et porrigebat illis.

31 Et aperti sunt oculi eorum, et cognoverunt eum; et ipse evanuit ab eis.

32 Et dixerunt ad invicem: “Nonne cor nostrum ardens erat in nobis, dum loqueretur nobis in via et aperiret nobis Scripturas?”.

Luke Chapter 24:13-27

We are on the Road to Emmaus. Apparently, it’s 12 km (approx 7.5 miles) from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The question thus becomes: why? Why are we going to Emmaus? Why is this otherwise completely overlooked place mentioned here and nowhere else. At least, that is the question, or at least a question, that should be asked at this point. Why Emmaus? Why Nain? Why does Luke mention these places? Okay, a quick glance at a couple of commentaries tells me there is the village of Emmaus, mentioned by Josephus, which is not far from Jerusalem. This village was, apparently, the site of medicinal springs. There is also a town of Emmaus in Galilee, which is mentioned in 1 Maccabees. So which Emmaus is it? Well, Luke tells us that the village 60 stadia outside. A stadion is a furlong, 1/8 of a mile. So the village is approximately 7.5 miles distant. (60 * 220 yards = 13,200 yards = 7.5 miles). This would represent 2-3 hours of walking time, probably on the lower end for two adult men, assuming neither is too old. Galilee is much further away, so the safe assumption would be the village nearby.

But here’s an interesting point. I had not noticed this before, but Mark mentions (16:12) that Jesus appeared to two disciples while they were on their towards the fields (agros; lit = “field”, but “country” is a perfectly acceptable rendering. Then as now, fields are in the country.) The commentators make note of this, and assume/infer that Luke is providing an expanded version of the same story, even though Mark says nothing about a town/village, let alone providing the name of said town. Let’s consider the implications of that statement, that Luke is expanding on Mark, for a moment. First, let’s note that the existence of an “expanded” version* is very much consistent with what I’ve been saying about how legends grow. Original characters slip into an expanded role; Peter, e.g., becomes the rock of the church. New characters are introduced: the centurion and his pais; new characters and episodes are created as areas not immediately affected by Jesus wish to be included, such as the Widow of Nain or Zaccheus. This story could be taken as an example of either #1 or #2. Strictly speaking, it’s an example of original characters getting an expanded role, but that’s more or less irrelevant. It does matter what the original purpose of the story was. We may want to note that the “story” is two sentences long; as such, can it really be considered a story? Is that enough for a pericope?

*Expanded version: a great NT example is the three magoi, the Three Kings, or Wise Men, or Magi who came to bring gifts to the newborn king are introduced by Matthew. Their names are Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior, but these names are not in Matthew. Where did they come from? Answer: the story has been expanded, because someone “invented” them. Who? Well, that’s the question. What is the likelihood that these were, indeed, their names? Perhaps not zero, but awfully darn close. Just so this episode here. Mark mentions it, Luke expanded it. Probability of historical accuracy? Well, you decide. I need to be clear: there were numerous sources that Luke or Matthew used, many of them not available to Mark. But ask: what is the probability that these extra sources actually date back to the time just after Jesus, and were related by people in position to know? Again, it’s not zero, but…It’s like the names of the Magi: who “remembered” them? Who would have been in a position to know them? After all, it was Mary & Joseph. Or did these come from someone in Herod’s retinue, some 70 or 80 years later (Herod died 4 BCE). These questions are never really addressed; they are brought up, but nicely glossed over by “oral tradition”. No one makes any serious attempt to return to the original story and then ask: who transmitted this story? What was the chain of transmission thereafter? Why did it skip Mark, who was, supposedly, Peter’s scribe? Peter would be an excellent primary source, but we really don’t know anything about him, other than what Paul tells us. The point is that there is a 20 year gap between Jesus and Paul, who was the first to write down anything, at least anything that has survived. That gap has not been addressed in any serious manner. It needs to be. Perhaps JD Crossan will get to that in the last 100 pages of The Birth of Christianity. Finding that sort of analysis has proven the pursuit of a non-domesticated aquatic fowl. (HT to Mr Spock on the original Star Trek.)

In both Mark & Matthew, we are told that the entity in the tomb states that Jesus is not here, meaning in the environs of Jerusalem; rather, he has gone on ahead to Galilee. Luke does not mention this last part, but this can be explained as another compression; he omits something that was adequately covered by his predecessors. In the same way, Luke omitted that Jesus was scourged by the Romans prior to crucifixion. We have noted this aspect of Luke a number of times; however, it bears to mention that none of the commentators, or the historians, seem to have noticed this about Luke. It is redactionally consistent. But, bear that in mind as we wade into the

Text

13 Καὶ ἰδοὺ δύο ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἦσαν πορευόμενοι εἰς κώμην ἀπέχουσαν σταδίους ἑξήκοντα ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἧ ὄνομα Ἐμμαοῦς,

14 καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡμίλουν πρὸς ἀλλήλους περὶ πάντων τῶν συμβεβηκότων τούτων.

15 καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ὁμιλεῖν αὐτοὺς καὶ συζητεῖν καὶ αὐτὸς Ἰησοῦς ἐγγίσας συνεπορεύετο αὐτοῖς,

16 οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐκρατοῦντο τοῦ μὴ ἐπιγνῶναι αὐτόν.

17 εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς, Τίνες οἱ λόγοι οὗτοι οὓς ἀντιβάλλετε πρὸς ἀλλήλους περιπατοῦντες; καὶ ἐστάθησαν σκυθρωποί.

And two of them on that same day were proceeding to the village 60 stadia from Jerusalem, to which the name was/is Emmaus, (14) and they were speaking to each other about of those occurrences. (15) And it became that in the discussion and the seeking Jesus himself having drawn near proceeded with them, (16) but their eyes were overcome and they did not recognize him. (17) And he said to them, “What are these thoughts which you throw back at each other (while) walking?” And they stood, sad.   

There’s not much here requiring comment. We covered most of the sticking out (i.e., salient) points in the intro. The main thing, perhaps, is the treatment of logoi (λόγοι). Those with even a smattering of Greek will doubtless recognise this as the plural of logos, which in John 1:1 is translated as “The Word” (which is often capitalised.) Perhaps looking ahead to that passage, the NASB translates this as “what are these words you exchange?”. For once the KJV surprises me and gives it, not as the NASB, but as “communications” The ESV updates to “what is this conversation”, while the NIV gets even more colloquial by having Jesus ask, “what are you discussing?” I deliberately chose “thoughts” to expand the range of the word even further. I have never liked “word” in John 1:1. We have Jerome’s Vulgate to thank for that, since he uses verbum in the Latin; the linguistic field of this word in Latin is much closer to the linguistic field of “word” in English. If there has been one thing I’ve tried to do in this it is to shake us out of our complacency. We have been reading these words for so long, and have gotten so accustomed to certain translations that we tend to think we know more than we actually do. I’ve always found “word” horribly limiting; logos is a much richer word than, well, “word”.

And I chose “there eyes were overcome” because the root meaning of the Greek word is “to beat”, as in to “overpower”. The root is krat-, which is the base word for “power”. As in, “demo-kratia”, or “aristo-kratia”. But you knew that, no doubt. Of course, read the other translations and chose the rendering that makes the most sense to you; but always bear in mind what the word means at its base. This word gets used frequently by historians–Xenophon comes to mind, since I’m currently working thru Hellenika–to describe what the victor of a battle does to the loser. People who spoke ancient Greek as a native language would recognise this root immediately. The translation provided by the NT lexicon on the https://thebible.org/ site is woefully lacking, almost completely failing to convey the power (pun intended) behind the word. This is why I recommend using Liddell & Scott. And then, when you cite the definition, you can tell everyone the story about Alice Liddell who popped through the looking glass. (Of the two, I’ve always preferred that one. A bit more formally logical. Oops, there’s logos again! That’s what I mean about its linguistic field; “word” completely lacks that implication.)

13 Et ecce duo ex illis ibant ipsa die in castellum, quod erat in spatio stadiorum sexaginta ab Ierusalem nomine Emmaus;

14 et ipsi loquebantur ad invicem de his omnibus, quae acciderant.

15 Et factum est, dum fabularentur et secum quaererent, et ipse Iesus appropinquans ibat cum illis;

16 oculi autem illorum tenebantur, ne eum agnoscerent.

17 Et ait ad illos: “ Qui sunt hi sermones, quos confertis ad invicem ambulantes? ”. Et steterunt tristes.

18 ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ εἷς ὀνόματι Κλεοπᾶς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτόν, Σὺ μόνος παροικεῖς Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ οὐκ ἔγνως τὰ γενόμενα ἐν αὐτῇ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις;

19 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Ποῖα; οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Τὰ περὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ναζαρηνοῦ, ὃς ἐγένετο ἀνὴρ προφήτης δυνατὸς ἐν ἔργῳ καὶ λόγῳ ἐναντίον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ παντὸς τοῦ λαοῦ,

20 ὅπως τε παρέδωκαν αὐτὸν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες ἡμῶν εἰς κρίμα θανάτου καὶ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν.

Answering, one of them named Kleopas said to him, “You alone abiding in Jerusalem and don’t know the events in that place in these days?” (19) And he said to them, “How so?” They said to him, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a mighty prophet in deed and word regarding God and all the people, (20) how the high priests and our rulers handed him over to judgement of death and they crucified him.”

First, go back to Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior. One of these guys now has a name of Kleopas, also translated as Cleopas or Cleophas. Nay, even more, he is given a back story as well. Or, at least, he will be, probably before the three kings of Epiphany get their names. Why? Because Kleopas may be more closely related to the main characters. There is a group following the tradition that Kleopas was the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus, and the father of James, brother of Jesus, which would make him the half-brother of Jesus by our reckoning. He is also reputed to be the brother of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus. Or, per another tradition, Kleopas is a contraction of Kleopatros, which makes him an Alexandrian Jew. As such, he was Luke’s source for this story. Oh, and Luke was the other man, the one Kleopas was talking to. According to the commentary in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, the “mention of so entirely obscure a name alone proves the story is not invented.” This judgement is, IMO, seriously flawed. Rather, what you have is a great example of the legend growing and being fleshed out with detail.

If this sort of confusion and contradiction doesn’t make you question what we know about all of this, then my apologies, but you’re not paying attention. Nor are you appreciating the complexity involved in figuring out the historical analysis that is required. When you have contradictions like this, the conclusion to be drawn is that the story is late and so is extremely unreliable.  And it’s not just this story, but any story that appears in Matthew and even more so those appearing in Luke and even more so those in John. Each passing year decreases the likelihood that any new story told in a subsequent gospel dates back to anywhere near the time of Jesus. Each passing year increases the likelihood that the story has been invented in the interim. We’ve seen this in the US, where the story of George Washington and the cherry tree is a truism, something “everyone know” but it’s also fiction. The NT stories are not immune to these sorts of forces that act on the transmission of historical information, or the way historical information is treated, or the way it behaves. So, beware. When you hear stuff, question it. Almost nothing is a given that can be relied on as accurate and trustworthy. Ask how do we know that? Who told that story? To whom did they tell it? How did it get passed down? If it’s such a significant event, why did Mark. or Mark and Matthew, or Mark and Matthew and Luke all miss the story? How could they not have known? 

Just note, too, the explanation of the crucifixion. The high priests and our (as in Jewish) rulers are the ones responsible. The role of Pilate, or Rome in general, is completely missing. We are more than half-way to John and his indictment of “The Jews”. 

18 Et respondens unus, cui nomen Cleopas, dixit ei: “ Tu solus peregrinus es in Ierusalem et non cognovisti, quae facta sunt in illa his diebus? ”.

19 Quibus ille dixit: “ Quae? ”. Et illi dixerunt ei: “ De Iesu Nazareno, qui fuit vir propheta, potens in opere et sermone coram Deo et omni populo;

20 et quomodo eum tradiderunt summi sacerdotes et principes nostri in damnationem mortis et crucifixerunt eum.

21 ἡμεῖς δὲ ἠλπίζομεν ὅτι αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ μέλλων λυτροῦσθαι τὸν Ἰσραήλ: ἀλλά γε καὶ σὺν πᾶσιν τούτοις τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν ἄγει ἀφ’ οὗ ταῦτα ἐγένετο.

22 ἀλλὰ καὶ γυναῖκές τινες ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξέστησαν ἡμᾶς: γενόμεναι ὀρθριναὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον

23 καὶ μὴ εὑροῦσαι τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ἦλθον λέγουσαι καὶ ὀπτασίαν ἀγγέλων ἑωρακέναι, οἳ λέγουσιν αὐτὸν ζῆν.

24 καὶ ἀπῆλθόν τινες τῶν σὺν ἡμῖν ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εὗρον οὕτως καθὼς καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες εἶπον, αὐτὸν δὲ οὐκ εἶδον.

“We were hoping that he is the one destined to get Israel out of hock; but also with all this three days have led from which these things became. (22) But some women from us astonished us. For they having become in the morning to the tomb. (23) And they did not find the body of him they came to tell (us) and announce the vision they discovered, in which they say he lives. (24) And some of us went off to the tomb, and found it thus even as the women said; we did not see him. 

I’m going to pause here due to the funky grammar. For once I’m trying to maintain the verb tenses of the Greek. Note the first sentence: we were hoping that he is…We jump from the imperfect, conveying the notion of repeated action in the past, or progressive action in the past, to the present. While the imperfect carries the sense of repeated action, the implication is that this action has ceased and is now concluded. As such, we would put the ‘he is’ into some form of the past tense, most likely ‘he was’. The KJV goes further and puts this into the pluperfect, that ‘he had been’ the one. The Greek however, mingles the two tenses. And Greek does this frequently with tenses: where we might expect a past tense, we get the present tense and vice-versa. I’ve always liked to think that this was due to the way the Greeks perceived time: not as something strictly linear, as we do, but as circular, or even simultaneous, that the past and the present are actually in the same moment, or are at least parts of the same moment. The two are connected rather than merely sequential. This is a large part of the reason I have been rather cavalier about maintaining the tense in Greek; their grammatical theory is simply different, and so to avoid being confusing in English, I’ve smoothed out the edges. BTW, a sneak peek at the Latin tells me that it also puts it as “we were hoping”, but it puts the “he is” into the imperfect subjunctive. This combines the idea of a completed action (imperfect) with the sense of unreality (subjunctive). So, “we were hoping that he might have been…” would get the Latin across quite nicely, remaining faithful to the Latin but providing something comprehensible in English.

The “get Israel out of hock” is a playful (?) reminder that the words that we’re so accustomed to tossing about may have a different sense than we’re used to. I’ve run across Catholic Parishes of Holy Redeemer, and we all understand that concept very well. Jesus redeemed us from the power of sin. But we tend to forget, I think, that we can redeem an item that we’ve sold in a pawn shop. Rather less high-minded than Holy Redeemer, no? And we’ve forgotten, or perhaps neglected, to ask was running the pawn shop where Israel got hocked. Yes, the question seems facetious, but it’s not. This ties in with redemption theology as a whole. Pelagius said we can merit salvation; Augustine and others objected, because by meriting salvation, we are implying that God owes us a debt, and that the idea of God being in debt is simply too ludicrous for words. But isn’t that the implication here? If we need to be redeemed, then someone has to pay off the pawn ticket owed to someone else. Since Jesus died to redeem us from our sins, then Jesus is the debtor, and has to pay…whom? Satan? But Satan was created by God; how could God owe a debt to one of God’s creatures? If God can owe a debt to Satan, then why not to us? After all, we are creatures of God no less than Satan. We may be lesser than Satan in some ways, but we have souls, so how is Satan’s soul more important than ours? Lots of very sticky questions. It’s in times and places like this where we should truly grasp that the NT was not written as a theological treatise; there are just way too many loose ends and unanswered questions like this. People like Thomas Aquinas would later try to tie up the loose ends, and answer the questions, but with what degree of success? It was the inability of the churchmen of the later Middle Ages, the Scholastics, to come to terms with all of these questions that eventually led–perhaps drove is a better description–Luther* to his position of sola fides; which, of course, is at least latent in Paul. Don’t try to answer, or even address all these questions, and don’t try to earn your way to salvation. Just believe.

*Luther: Prior to Luther there was a school of thought moving more or less in this direction. By the mid-15th Century, the Humanists stood in contrast to the Schoolmen; the former believed that the questions were unanswerable, and that they logic-chopping approach of the Scholastics (angels dancing on a pin, anyone?) was futile, if not flat-out wrong. While Luther was the first to declare–successfully, at any rate, meaning he wasn’t burned at the stake–sola fides, the ground had been prepared for him.

21 Nos autem sperabamus, quia ipse esset redempturus Israel; at nunc super haec omnia tertia dies hodie quod haec facta sunt. 

22 Sed et mulieres quaedam ex nostris terruerunt nos, quae ante lucem fuerunt ad monumentum

23 et, non invento corpore eius, venerunt dicentes se etiam visionem angelorum vidisse, qui dicunt eum vivere.

24 Et abierunt quidam ex nostris ad monumentum et ita invenerunt, sicut mulieres dixerunt, ipsum vero non viderunt ”.

25 καὶ αὐτὸς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, *)=ω ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ τοῦ πιστεύειν ἐπὶ πᾶσιν οἷς ἐλάλησαν οἱ προφῆται:

26 οὐχὶ ταῦτα ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ;

27 καὶ ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Μωϋσέως καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προφητῶν διερμήνευσεν αὐτοῖς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς τὰ περὶ ἑαυτοῦ.

And he said to them, “O unknowing and hard in the heart of faith upon all which the prophets spoke! (26) Was it not necessary that the Messiah to suffer these things and come into his glory?” (27) And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things about himself.

In a way we’ve stepped back into Mark. Not only does Mark refer to an incident such as the walk to Emmaus, we’re back to Jesus implying (or stating) that the disciples are dullards! Don’t you understand?! 

Having taken a look back at Mark’s “version” of the story we find that it’s two sentences long and the destination is not named. So this goes along with what we said above, about the legend being filled out with details. We have a destination, and the name of one of the disciples, that there was a discussion between the three, and what the topic of discussion was. But let’s take a moment to revisit the topic of Kleopas’ name. Note the narrative, how he describes to Jesus the events. It is entirely in the first person plural; “we did this”, “the women told us that”. And yet, the other gospels imply if they do not state that the group in the upper room was composed of “the Twelve”, or at least the Twelve minus Judas = Eleven. But nowhere in any of the gospels is Kleopas named as one of the Twelve who were sent out, which would make them Apostles. Given this discontinuity, we have to assume that some of the details provided are not not necessarily accurate; this should not surprise us, but the question of whether we can believe that an event happened is almost never asked.

Since we mentioned the upper room, it’s worth taking a moment to refer back to the section where Jesus dispatched a couple of disciples to make the arrangements for the Passover supper. The story is told in such a way that the audience is to infer that Jesus was predicting the future. He knew what the disciples would find, so he described it to them before the fact. The same was done with retrieving the colt that Jesus rode to enter Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday. I mentioned at the time when discussing one or both of these incidents that one reason Jesus could “predict the future” was because the upper room and the colt were owned and/or operated by persons within Jesus’ circle, or perhaps a friend of a friend relationship. That the remaining disciples gathered in this upper room after the crucifixion provides very strong support for my contention. The room was not something borrowed just for the evening, but was a place to which they could return–and remain–for several days after. And, it’s interesting to note that both of these episodes occur in the Passion Narrative, which is when we are first introduced to Mary Magdalene. At least, her first introduction is during the Passion in Mark; Luke engaged in some foreshadowing by mentioning her back in Chapter 8. There again we get more filling out of the legend; Matthew introduced her in Chapter 27, Mark in Chapter 15, the penultimate chapter of each gospel. Luke starts to give her a backstory. But since Magdalene supported the movement, then it would not be surprising if both the upper room and the colt belonged to someone that Mary M knew, and that she was the one who had made the arrangements which Jesus conveyed to his disciples. There is no evidence for this, of course, but the pattern fits. These suggestions are internally consistent, and not flagrantly contradicted, unlike the role of Kleopas and how it was that he was in the upper room, when only the eleven remaining apostles were there. It’s enough to cause one to question the role–or even the existence–of twelve apostles.

Finally, I find it a bit of a cheat that we are told Jesus adduced all the references to the messiah in the HS, but that we are not told. In fact, the phrase, “according to the scriptures” is a very common expression; however, it is only seldom backed up with an actual citation. A tad suspicious, no?