A possible solution to a long-standing puzzle
(Originally published at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at 'permalink' below.)
Of all of the many alleged discrepancies in the Gospels, the one that I have mulled over most of all for the last couple years concerns Luke 9:51. As long-time readers know, I don't regard myself as an inerrantist per se, though I am a big advocate of harmonization as good historical method. But if the best case seems to be that there is some trivial error in the Gospels or Acts, I will consider that possibility. The trouble concerning Luke 9:51 and other matters associated with the so-called "travel section" of Luke is that it did not look to me like it would be a trivial error but rather a fairly obvious one. I'll give the general layout of the problem, trying not to be too tedious, and then the interesting solution that has recently occurred to me.
Luke 9:51 reads, in the ESV,
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Here are a couple of other translations.
And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem...KJVAnd it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem; NASB
The Greek word for "received up" or "ascension" doesn't appear to be used anywhere else in the NT, which makes things more difficult. But the problem arises whether one regards this as referring to Jesus' ascension into heaven or his crucifixion. An extremely literal translation of the phrase for "days drew near," etc., is "in the completion/filling up of the days."
The problem is this: Jesus doesn't go immediately to Jerusalem and die, rise, and ascend in Luke's gospel at this point. He goes wandering all around the lower part of Palestine and even almost back up into Galilee. In this part of chapter 9 he leaves Galilee, passes through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem (the Samaritans aren't very happy about his going to Jerusalem), heading south. In Luke 10 he's at the home of Mary and Martha. Luke may not have known where they lived (he doesn't mention the town name), but we know that this was in Bethany, very close to Jerusalem. Bethany was the "bedroom community" where Jesus stayed at night during Passion Week. If Luke is placing this event chronologically after Luke 9:51, then Jesus has nearly reached Jerusalem at this time. But Luke never describes his entering Jerusalem in these chapters, and in Luke 17:11 Jesus is said to be "on his way to Jerusalem" but back up north again "passing along between Samaria and Galilee." This is an incredibly circuitous route for someone who set his face to go to Jerusalem when the days were being fulfilled for him to be received up back in Luke 9:51! If he traveled through Samaria on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem in chapter 9, what is he doing back up on the border of Galilee and Samaria in chapter 17? In Luke 19 Jesus is back down south and traveling through Jericho, healing the blind, and at this point Luke once more walks in parallel with the other synoptic Gospels and moves on through Jesus' actual final trip to Jerusalem, approaching from (roughly) northeast, passing Bethany on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, picking up a donkey en route and carrying out the Triumphal Entry.
To make things more confusing, in Luke 10:1 the narrative states explicitly that it was after these things--presumably, after Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem because the days were being fulfilled for him to be received up--that Jesus sent out the seventy.
A walking trip from Galilee to Jerusalem, even taken at leisure, in those days could easily be accomplished in a week. There's no way that Jesus was traveling directly to Jerusalem for his final visit there and his death and sent out the seventy only after leaving Galilee on such a final trip.
But that just makes more clear what becomes evident as one reads these chapters of Luke: That Jesus didn't travel directly to Jerusalem when he left Galilee in Luke 9:51. But then why the wording in 9:51? Could Luke possibly have been so ignorant of Palestinian geography that he thought a trip to Jerusalem, or even just from Galilee through Samaria, would take all that time? Surely not.
There are a few more considerations that are true and helpful, but don't go quite far enough:
--There is a lot of material in Luke 9-18 (at least through 18:30) that is just "chunked in" and hence shouldn't be assumed to be chronologically narrated. Luke's time indications are often indefinite in these chapters. He collects sayings in some chapters by topic. So by no means should we assume that his whole narrative here is chronological, nor should we manufacture discrepancies based upon indefinite chronology.
--As mentioned, Luke may not have known where Mary and Martha lived; that narrative in Luke 10 is just "chunked in" and doesn't necessarily indicate that Luke was thinking of Jesus as being down in Bethany so close to Jerusalem at that time.
--John 7-10 make it clear that Jesus went to Jerusalem for other feasts besides Passover--at least one Feast of Tabernacles (in the fall) and one Feast of Dedication (Hannukah, in the winter). The references in Luke 9:51 and 17:11 to his being on the way to Jerusalem may refer to times when he was going to other feasts. I think that this harmonization is correct, but it does not take care of everything without adding some further considerations.
--Most relevantly, Jesus left Galilee in John 7:10 and is never seen in John in Galilee again. If John 7:10 corresponds to Mark 10:1 and Matthew 19:1, where it says that Jesus left Galilee and stayed in Judea and in the trans-Jordan, and if both of these correspond to Luke 9:51, then Luke 9:51 may be describing Jesus' leaving Galilee for the south for the last time, even though six more months or so passed before his death. This goes some distance, but more will need to be said.
--Luke may not have heard explicitly that Jesus visited Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication in the fall and winter as well as going there for the Passover before his death, so he might be reflecting, in his repeated references to Jesus traveling to Jerusalem, his own uncertainty about how many times Jesus went to Jerusalem.
In all of this, the wording of Luke 9:51 remains a sticking point, coupled with the fact that in Luke Jesus is never described as arriving in Jerusalem until the Triumphal Entry in Luke 19.
What did Luke think? What did he expect his readers to think? Surely both he and his readers knew enough basic geography of the region and had enough common sense to realize that Jesus wouldn't have taken that long to make a beeline from Galilee to Jerusalem and that he wouldn't still have been "hanging out" on the border between Galilee and Samaria in chapter 17 after all the things that had happened since chapter 9, if he'd really been traveling to Jerusalem to die in chapter 9. Even postulating a certain amount of uncertainty on the part of Luke as to how many times Jesus visited Jerusalem doesn't answer all of these questions; it especially doesn't answer the question as to what he meant by the wording of 9:51 and whether he was giving the (almost certainly incorrect) impression that this was the last time Jesus went to Jerusalem in his life.
I have developed a tentative answer to these questions after reflecting on the women who came with Jesus out of Galilee, discussed here, and the words of the angel to them in Luke 24:6. The angel tells them to remember what Jesus said to them while he was in Galilee, when he predicted his death and resurrection, and they remembered his words.
Several of Jesus' followers might well have had what we could call a "Galilee-centric" viewpoint. Philip and Andrew were both from Bethsaida, on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. (John 1:44) Peter apparently had a house in Capernaum. (Mark 1:29) James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. And, as already discussed, there was a whole group of women from Galilee, including Joanna, Mary Magdalene, Susannah, the "other Mary," and more, who were Jesus' followers. (Luke 8:2-3, Mark 15:40-41) To these people, Jesus' leaving Galilee for the last time, six months before his death, would have been very significant, especially if they themselves left Galilee and followed him into the region of Judea at this time, not returning to Galilee until after his death and resurrection.
The next piece of the puzzle is Jesus' own emphasis, while in Galilee, on his leaving Galilee and going to Jerusalem as a sign that his death is near at hand.
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Matthew 16:21
Notice the emphasis upon travel to Jerusalem and its connection with Jesus' death.
In John 7, Jesus' own brothers taunt him and suggest that he go and perform miracles at the Feast of Tabernacles. This may have been the feast in the autumn just before Jesus' death. In his answer, Jesus connects his journeying or not journeying to Jerusalem with the question of whether his "time" has come.
So Jesus said to them, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. 8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.” 9 Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.10 But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret. John 7:6-10
Jesus' words in verse 8 can be translated, "I do not yet go up to this feast."
If his disciples heard this exchange (as apparently someone did, since it's recorded in John), they would have likely thought of his later decision to go to the feast after all as an indication that perhaps his time had come.
Luke's account of the transfiguration (which takes place in Galilee) also places an emphasis upon Jesus' going to Jerusalem to finish his work.
And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Luke 9:30-31)
It seems, then, that in Jesus' own conversations while in Galilee there was a sense of portent in his leaving Galilee for the last time and traveling to Jerusalem. This was the beginning of the end, one might say, even if in fact there were about six more months before his actual death. John, of course, recounts repeated occasions probably during this period when the religious leaders in Jerusalem do attempt to seize Jesus or when he is almost stoned to death for claiming to be God. The Temple guards are sent to seize him but are so impressed by him that they back off in John 7:44ff. He is almost stoned in John 8:59. And he is almost stoned in December in John 10:31. In John 11:7ff, he is in the trans-Jordan area in the south and proposes to go back into Judea, to Bethany near Jerusalem, because Lazarus is dead, but his disciples try to dissuade him because the Jews almost stoned him the last time he was there. This was presumably some time between December and the next Passover in the spring.
In other words, the entire period after Jesus leaves Galilee for the last time is a time of great tension, a portentious period when Jesus himself is predicting his death and when the disciples never know at what moment Jesus will be stoned to death or arrested. It is a time of plotting against him when his danger in Judea and Jerusalem is common knowledge. (See John 7:13, 25.) Jesus himself has expressly connected his journeying to Jerusalem from Galilee with his approaching death.
It then becomes not at all unlikely that one or more of Jesus' followers would refer to his leaving Galilee for the last time and going to Jerusalem as the time when "the days were being fulfilled for him to be received up" or "in the completing of the days when he was to be received up," or some such expression. The person might have done this even if he (or she, if it were one of the women) knew quite well that Jesus was not actually crucified for another six months and that at that particular time he was traveling to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, not for the final Passover. If such an expression were used by one of Luke's sources, he could very well have simply recorded it in his own Gospel. The rest of the material between chapters 9 and 19 can be accounted for by chronologically non-specific "chunking in" of teachings and incidents and by Luke's own uncertainty or lack of knowledge concerning how many times Jesus actually visited Jerusalem during this period. In that case, the seventy might indeed have been appointed and sent out during the final six months of Jesus' life. Jesus would have spent this time doing a certain amount of traveling. He spent some time in Jerusalem but then would leave Jerusalem and go over the Jordan to the place where John the Baptist had previously been baptizing, as recorded in Mark 10:1 and Matthew 19:1 and in John 10:40. (I note that John 10:40 says that he went again to that place where John had been baptizing, possibly alluding to a similar but unmentioned movement between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication, approximately falling between John 10:21 and John 10:22.) During this same period he might well have gone back north as far as the border between Samaria and Galilee, as mentioned in Luke 17:11, but not back into Galilee.
Nonetheless, given all the portentious sayings, in the minds of the disciples the departure from Galilee recorded in Luke 9:51 could have been thought of as the time when the days were being fulfilled that he should be received up. And they might have spoken of it in this way.
I find this a fairly satisfactory solution. It makes use of real-world imagination, and it brings together verses and hints from all four Gospels to form a single, consistent picture.
We know independently that Luke is a careful historian and deserves a lot of credit. I have puzzled over this geographical and chronological oddity in Luke for some time, and it is satisfying to have a plausible solution that does not attribute to Luke a confusion concerning obvious matters.
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