A Bible-Related Commentary
In a stark, straight-forward statement, the earliest gospel writer, Mark, declares:
“And it was the third hour when they crucified him.”
Since scholars generally agree that the ancient Jews reckoned their daylight hours from dawn to sunset we can be reasonably sure that by “the third hour” Mark (15:25) meant three hours from dawn (= 6 a.m.), or roughly 9 o’ clock in the morning; thus providing us with a remarkably precise chronological record of the time of day Jesus underwent crucifixion.
However, when it comes to the bible, things are often not as dry and clear-cut as they initially seem. The time of Jesus’ crucifixion provides us with just such an example; for if we turn to John 19:14 we learn from that evangelist that Jesus was still undergoing his trial before Pontius Pilate at “about the sixth hour” (or “noon”). Obviously, something isn’t quite right here. What John’s statement does, is not only put into question the time of day the crucifixion took place, but now, even the day of the week it occurred on; and need I add, the accuracy of Scripture itself?
Before we go on to explore these issues in greater depth, however, one more gospel element needs to be inserted into the passion narrative equation to round things out: Jesus’ prophecy of Matthew 12:38-40 and his (alleged) stay in the heart of the earth for “three days and three nights”. It goes to the heart of why some Christians hold fast to the belief that Jesus’ crucifixion actully took place on Wednesday of Holy Week rather than on “Good Friday”.
The Wednesday Crucifixion Date
The origin of the belief that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday stems from a literal interpretation of a prophecy uttered by Jesus recorded in Matthew 12:38-40.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. [RSV]
The Wednesday crucifixion advocates take Jesus’ words “three days and three nights” to mean three literal 24-hour periods of time totaling 72 hours. Thus, working backwards from just before the crack of dawn and before Sunday proper—the last moments of Jesus’ three days and three nights, if you will—we find the first 24 hours ending up being just before dawn on Friday; the next 24 hour mark ending up just before dawn on Thursday (here 48 hours prior to Sunday); and the 72-hour mark occurring just before dawn on Wednesday. Incorporating Mark 15:25 leads to Jesus having undergone crucifixion at nine o’ clock Wednesday morning. Jesus’ prophecy thus comes out being extremely accurate and fulfulled in the minds of the faithful. And, in the end, does not Jesus’ actual words take precedence over what others had to say in regards to the resurrection?
But wait. What about John 19:14 and that report that Jesus was still on trial at about the “sixth” hour?
The Roman-Time Argument
Perhaps the most popular and appealing explanation used by Christian apologists to account for the contradiction between Mark and John’s chronology concerning the time of the crucifixion is the “Roman-Time Argument”. This explanation argues that John used the Roman method of calculating time instead of the Jewish way. The Romans, say Christian apologists, reckoned their hours from midnight instead of the Jewish method of reckoning them from dawn.
Seems plausible at first blush, doesn’t it? Using this “Roman” method of determining time would lead to Jesus being on trial before Pilate at six o’ clock in the morning (“the sixth hour” working from midnight forward) rather than noon. By incorporating Mark 15:25 into the picture, we then have Jesus being crucified three hours later at nine a.m. The discrepancy between John and Mark is removed and the gospels stand harmonious.
But there are several fatal problems with this solution. First, there is no evidence whatever that the Romans counted their daytime hours any differently than did the Jews. In fact, the evidence points to the Romans having divided their “days” into two 12-hour periods: the daytime being divided into twelve individual hours ranging from dawn to sunset (and varying in length depending on the season of the year) while the night hours were divided into four 3-hour watches extending from sunset until just before dawn. The first hour of the Roman day was precisely the same as the Jewish one: from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. And the twelfth lasted from 5 p.m to 6 p.m.; the hours after sunset then began the aforementioned so-called watches rather than “hours” per se. So there is no difficulty in seeing the gospel writers refer to the “tenth hour” as a daylight hour in the report of John 1:39, for example, yet refer to a nighttime hour as part of a “watch” or “watches” as in Mark 6:48 and Luke 12:38 respectively. No, having two different methods of determining time simultaneously would have sown an unacceptable level of confusion. And there is a further problem with the Roman-time explanation: Why would a native Jew opt to employ a Roman method of calculating time that differed from the Jewish method and then fail to explain to his readers that he had done so?
The Bundled-Time Argument
There exists a variant of the Roman-time argument that has the ancient Jews bundling their hours into three-hour segments so that, say, nine a.m to the noon hour constituted one time segment, the noon hour to three p.m. a second, and three p.m. to six p.m. a third. Since time measurement was extremely loose in Jesus’ day–or so some Christian apologists would have us believe–certain events can be said to have occurred at either the beginning or towards the end of one of these three-hour time segments and still be held to be reasonably accurate as far as ancient time measurement was concerned. So say the apologists. Adding seeming credibility to this method of computing time is the argument that the ancients didn’t have pocket or wrist-band watches to keep pin-point precision when marking time.
This skeptic’s reply is to remind theists that the bible is supposed to be the words of the most supreme force in the universe imparted divinely to the writers of Scripture. So one would expect rather precise time being recorded. But on a more practical level, the Jews in Jesus’ day utilized the sundial—among other methods—to keep tab of the hour. And an indication of this can be found in John’s gospel itself where the evangelist makes reference to the “tenth hour” in Chapter One, verse 39, and the “seventh hour” in Chapter Four, verse 52. Rather the opposite of what one would expect if the bundled-time theory had any validity. Then too, there are the recent discoveries of Jewish sundials amid the ruins of Qumran and even Herod’s temple itself.
Herodian sundial discovered amid Temple ruins; its base below
A Thursday Crucifixion?
In an attempt to harmonize John 19:14 with Mark 15:25, some Christian scholars have concluded that too many events are packed into a six a.m. to 9 a.m. “Good Friday” time-frame to be credible. So they maintain that Jesus was tried on Thursday and not executed until nine a.m. the following morning. Problem solved. Mark and John are in perfect agreement.
A rather obvious problem develops in accepting this chronology, however: John states plainly that it was the Preparation of the Passover, meaning it was “Thursday” of passover week alright. (More on this passage and its relevance in Part II.) But does the natural reading of the subsequent passages in John allow for an interval of some 21 hours between noon Thursday and Jesus’ crucifixion on Friday morning in keeping with Mark’s account? What could possibly account for John not informing his readers that nearly an entire day had elapsed before the crucifixion proper is a question Thursday crucifixion advocates trying to harmonize events with Mark’s gospel have failed utterly to explain.
The conclusion, next time in Part II of this commentary.
Greywolf’s* Dictum: There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of evil. End of Story.
*Your’s Truly
The Origin of Evil: God’s Dirty Little Secret
July 9, 2009
A Philosophical/Theological Commentary
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that “God” actually exists.
Let us, then, go back in time; to the dawn of time; on a hypothetical journey to the time before time even began; to that time referred to in Scripture as “In the beginning”.
At a certain point during our imaginary journey into preexistence, we will come across God deep in thought mulling over the idea of creating the very universe in which we humans now reside.
A blink of an eye later and we will witness God begin the process of devising and creating the material and immaterial substances that will comprise the theist view of a super-Intelligently designed, perfectly engineered, and lovingly-created cosmos.
At an intensely critical juncture during this process, and armed with the supernatural foreknowledge of the catastrophic results that the creation of evil will bring about, God, nevertheless, will proceed to use his own free-will to not only conceive, design, and create a perfect form of evil in all its vulgar manifestations, but deliberately do so, and then move on to unleash it upon hapless, defenseless, man without mercy—when he had the option not to.
Now what could possibly be more evil?
The answer? There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of evil. End of story. _Greywolf’s* 1st Dictum
*Your’s Truly
Mainstream Christianity’s Viewpoint
In the preceding section we took an imaginary excursion into preexistence from the viewpoint of an atheist watching a supposed God “invent” evil. But that is not how most Christians surmise evil came into being.
By chance, I came across an editorial titled The Origin of Evil and Suffering in a mainstream evangelical magazine recently.** The author asks, then answers, the question of where evil and suffering originated. His response is very typical of Christian publications dealing with this issue. Let us, then, explore the author’s analysis and see from where mainstream Christians are led to believe evil originated.
In a subsection titled “Where and how did evil begin.” the author immediately begins by quoting Jesus; citing John 8:44:
“[He was] a murderer from the beginning” adding that “[He is] a liar and the father of lies.” The author then goes on to say, “Here Jesus identifies the origin of evil and suffering, a being who initiated lying, deceit, hatred and murder—the enemy, the adversary of mankind, the devil” [Lucifer].
And in his summation the author concludes with the words: “He [Lucifer the Devil]] was the first criminal, a being whose mind and thinking grew corrupt, twisted and perverse. He introduced evil into the world. Humanity has struggled against evil ever since.”
“He introduced evil into the world,” this editorial writer categorically says of Lucifer, that he was perfect until iniquity arose from within him. But from where, dare we ask, did this iniquity originate? And how could it enter into a being created “perfect” by a God? From where did Lucifer derive the substance that makes up evil? And how could Lucifer have possibly “introduced” evil anywhere without God’s “blessing”? Just how would that have been accomplished within the confines of God’s perfectly created existence?
Is this not effectively declaring that God created one astoundingly imperfect “perfect” being?
Fact is, the author’s conclusion can hardly be correct if viewed from a biblical perspective. For Isaiah 45:7 states directly that God creates/created evil! John 1:3 declares that God made everything in existence that exists. And Colossians 1:16 proclaims this includes everything both seen and unseen. These are ultra-critical scriptural passages dealing with the origin of evil that the writer simply ignores. And not only he, but countless other Christian exegetes struggling in their attempts to pinpoint the origin of evil; apparently finding God being the author of evil too unpalatable to even contemplate: hence the placing of blame squarely on Lucifer.
The bible cannot make it more plain, however: God created evil. And using the vehicle of our imaginary journey into preexistence made in the first half of this article, we find God did so deliberately; with the free-will not to. There is no escaping this conclusion if one is going to insist the bible is inerrant. And there is no exonerating God from obvious malfeasance and “sinful” conduct simply because He is “God” either. For even God believes evil to be abhorently “evil” if one accepts that the bible is truly the divine word of God.
The Free-Will Argument
There are those within the Christian community, of course, who readily accept God created evil. But they insist that He did so as part of a divine plan we humans have no right to moralize over or contest. These God-created-evil believing Christians maintain that God did not want to simply create mindless human robots or zombies with no capacity for freedom of choice. So he bestowed a “gift” to mankind; that gift being “free-will”; the ability to say “No” to evil and, thus, the gift to be truly human.
There are, however, inherent problems with this “gift” to mankind:
● The very act of creating evil is, in itself, a malevolently evil act. It is an evil endeavor to deliberately create evil and thus impossible for a being perfect in love, mercy, and goodness to undertake.
● God had the ability to endow mankind with the free-will, the freedom of choice to do anything — excepting just two choices: the ability to think or do evil.
● God had the ability to instantly destroy evil once He recognized it for what it was but chose not to do so. What does that tell one about the moral character of God?
I bring up this last point because it has been, and continues to be, the ultimate aim of every single Christian who has ever taken a breath of air on planet earth to end up in God’s heaven in the hereafter. And what is the singular most attractive draw about entering God’s heaven apart from eternal life and happiness? That’s right! The absence of evil. God is set to eradicate every trace of evil once and for all at some future date, we are told. But does that not then beg the question why God created evil in the first place? For does that not mean that heaven will be comprised of nothing but mindless robots, mindless zombies, traipsing all over perfectly created billowy clouds and worshipping God in incomprehensible bliss for all eternity? Or are all of God’s people “upstairs” going to still “enjoy” having the free-will to think and do evil?
Why create Evil in the first place? I’d ask his Godness if he were real. Why not truly have heaven here on earth minus all the agony, anguish, suffering, and misery evil entails? “Why put your “children” though such unspeakable torture when you didn’t have to?” I’d ask his ”Holy” Almightiness. Why be so mean?
We are not to question God on such matters, say the Christians. Okay. Then explain why anyone in their right mind would love, worship, and adore such a fiendish creature with all their heart and soul? I respectfully ask. We atheists are all ears. Well, at least this one is.
So does that mean that I believe in the existence of a God that is evil? Hardly. There is no more proof that an evil God exists than an infinitely good one does. (But if I were forced to pick which one has the closest chance to being “real”, I think the reader can guess which God I think has a distinct edge.)
Greywolf’s 1st Dictum: There can be no greater evil in the world than the Creator of Evil. (Assuming such a Creature actually exists, of course.) The conscious, deliberate, act of creating evil is, in itself, inherently evil. End of story. Most theists, then, actually worship and adore the Creator of evil – albeit in a roundabout, unwitting way. Ironic, to say the very least, I submit. Or am I off-base here?
Greywolf’s 2nd Dictum: If if happened, God wanted it to. If He didn’t, it would never have happened.(Assuming such a Creature actually exists, of course.) Note: This would include every human tragedy, every evil to befall man. Would it not? - A sobering conclusion that needs to be honestly addressed byevery brave, uncompromising, free thinking mind in search of the truth.
** Ashley, Scott. “The Origin of Evil and Suffering” The Good News: A Magazine of Understanding Vol. 4, 3May/June 1999 Web.3 Jul 2009. <http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn22/editorialorigin.htm>.
