 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dr.
Michael - The Bible Guy
FORGIVE THEM FATHER
Dear Bible Guy
Question:
The first of the three principles that Dr. Peebles gives to us is: Loving allowance for all things to be in their own time and place starting for yourself. In having loving allowance for all things then there is no need for forgiveness. That being said, why during His crucifixion did Jesus say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do’?
Response:
Because before The Gospels or any part of the New Testament were ever written down they were passed along from person-to-person, and congregation-to-congregation orally, all across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia Minor. The accounts began with the apostles, disciples, and eye witnesses, and spread out from there. It wasn’t long before people who had never seen or heard Jesus were passing along the accounts of His life and ministry, each placing their own emphasis on what they deemed important, while to an extent supplementing them with their own traditions. Quite naturally, it wouldn’t take many generations of these various accounts of Jesus, His life and His sayings to begin to posses a life of their own so to speak. It’s not at all surprising that a word or phrase would have been added here and dropped there, or re-worded altogether, with tonal inflection changes; the sort of thing that happens anytime messages are passed from one person or group of people to another. After some years of this, conflicting accounts began to arise. Soon there arose disputes between various sects of the early Christians as to which accounts were true and authentic and which were not. They soon realized that they had better write this stuff down. So naturally, many different accounts began to be circulated among the growing numbers of the early Christians.
It was at the behest of Bishop Irenaeus in 185 C.E. that the four Gospels we are familiar with today were pronounced as the authoritative renditions. The problem here though is twofold, 1) these four accounts of the gospel, (the good news), of Jesus had the better part of 150 years to morph into their then current state, and 2) Gutenberg had not yet invented his printing press, and scribes educated in the skills necessary to reproduce these texts were hard to come by. This of course meant that there were not many written texts to begin with, and having just one of these “originals” survive to modern times would itself had to have been a miracle of biblical proportion.
The oldest complete text of the New Testament to survive to modern times is the Codex Sinaiticus, dating back to the middle of the fourth century, written more than 300 years after the events it is purporting as gospel. The oldest surviving fragments of New Testament literature date back to the second century but only contain bits of the Gospel of John. But still, whether a fourth century or a second century document, all New Testament writings known to exist today are written in ancient Greek. Jesus and His disciples spoke Aramaic. So here again is another potential obstacle to getting back to the true and unaltered words that Jesus spoke.
Then came the various councils; Nicea, Constantinople, etc. during the 4th and 5th centuries, the members of which took it upon themselves to decide for everyone else, including us, which of the often conflicting books and writings in circulation at the time were to be deemed “authentic” and which ones were not. Although Irenaeus had put the might of his office and influence behind the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there were still a number of other gospels and writings in circulation and use by the mid 300’s. Mind you, the people making these decisions of authenticity for all of us were 3 to 4 hundred years removed from the events that they were passing judgment over. I think it’s useful to note the criteria used in determining Scriptural authenticity: 1) authorship by an apostle or direct follower of Jesus, 2) current widespread usage within established churches, and 3) the document’s agreement with the orthodox views of the day. I don’t know about you, but that #3 bothers me a bit. An absolutely true and valid accounting placed under the scrutiny of the council that did not line up with their view of things could very well have been judged unauthentic, never making it into the canon of the New Testament. In the best of Christian tradition, those documents deemed not to be authentic were ordered destroyed. The possession of any “unauthorized texts” was punishable by death.
So, to summarize thus far, our accounts of what Jesus actually said and did began as reports passed on orally from one group of people to another, perhaps slightly modified to adhere to a particular point of view. Over time these accountings began to be written down, passed from congregation to congregation, again subject to modification, until the middle of the 4th century when various councils of the established church leadership began to decide which of these documents were authentic and beneficial and which were to be destroyed. The oldest writings we have today, those written closest to the events of which they report, are hundreds of years removed from the events themselves, and are written in a language foreign to what Jesus spoke to His disciples.
Beyond all this, it was common practice for the scribes who were copying the documents to make their own notes and comments in the margins of the text they were copying. These scribal margin notes would also then be included as scribal margin notes when subsequent copies of the document were made. Over time some of these scribal margin notes would actually make their way out of the margin and into the main body of the text. A well known example of this occurring is found in none other than the Matthew, chapter 6 version of The Lord’s Prayer. The last line of the prayer, “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”, started its life as a scribal note; it does not exist in the oldest extant copies of Matthew’s gospel that we have today.
So, with that as a rather drawn out but still truncated explanation of how our New Testament writings came to us in their current form, let me get on to answering the question of why, during His crucifixion did Jesus say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do’?
I think it’s interesting that we find only in Luke’s Gospel Jesus asking God to forgive those who were crucifying Him. Luke was never with Jesus; he never met Him or talked with Him. Luke was a close companion of the Apostle Paul, who I believe anyway, had quite an agenda of his own. I mean, much of what Paul had to say in his writings is very good stuff; but there are also some points of diversion between what Jesus had to say and what Paul wrote. Anyway, Luke was such a close companion of Paul; it is quite possible that some of Paul’s concepts crept into Luke’s account of the Gospel. By the way, Luke also wrote the Book of Acts with, I believe, a good deal of input from Paul.
The “forgive them for they know not what they do” ‘quote’ is not found in The Gospel According to Matthew. Matthew was an apostle of Jesus from the beginning. Matthew was at the “Last Supper” gathering, and though not recorded in any text specifically, while being an apostle of Jesus, was likely whiteness to the crucifixion. If he was not there, he was surely close enough to those that were to get a first hand accounting. Why didn’t he include the forgiveness statement in his account of the Gospel?
“The Apostle Jesus loved”, John, was present at the crucifixion. He did see and hear everything. Why aren’t those words recorded in his gospel account? Hmmm, curious.
Then there is Mark. Mark, though not an apostle was a very close friend and companion of the Apostle Peter who also had been with Jesus from the beginning. In the book of Acts Mark was a traveling companion of Paul on his first journey from Antioch to Jerusalem. Mark also accompanied Paul and Barnabus on Paul’s first missionary trip to Cyprus, where he was their “helper”. Mark and Paul must have had some sort of a falling out because while they were in Perga, Mark left them there to return to Jerusalem. When Paul was getting ready to make a return trip to Cyprus, Barnabus wanted to bring Mark along with them again but Paul flatly refused. According to Paul, Mark wasn’t doing the work that Paul thought he should be doing. So Barnabus and Mark went off to Cyprus without Paul. That was the end of the relationship between Paul and Mark.
Makes me wonder what they were butting heads about. A conflicting theology perhaps? A power play? It is well documented throughout the New Testament that there were more than a few power plays run between Paul and Peter, the good friend of Mark during the early days. Paul also butted heads with the Apostle James, the brother of Jesus, on a few occasions.
Mark’s was the first gospel to be written. Most scholars believe that both Matthew and Luke borrowed from, or used Mark’s gospel as a template for their own. There is little doubt that Mark got much of his information from the Apostle Peter. Luke on the other hand, relied on Mark’s Gospel, but also on council he received from Paul. There is no forgiveness statement from Jesus on the cross in Mark’s gospel.
All that I suppose, to say that it is quite possible that Jesus may not have said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
This is not to say that Jesus never spoke of the need for forgiveness. Indeed, in His teaching on prayer where He gives us the aforementioned Lord’s Prayer, he admonishes us to forgive our debtors, or those who have trespassed against us, depending on the translation. In other places throughout the gospels He also tells us that we must forgive if we would expect to receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is necessary for those of us who have yet to master, in every instance, Dr. Peebles’ first principle of “Loving allowance for all things to be in their own time and place starting for yourself.” Unconditional forgiveness–starting for yourself, I believe is a first step in mastering Dr. Peebles’ first principle of Loving allowance for all things. There is no doubt that Jesus had completely mastered this principle, and therefore is beyond the need to forgive.
Forgive Them Father
The Number 40
Mediums - Stoning - Burnt Offerings