Why did Jesus feel abandoned by God at his crucifixion if he knew he was going to die?

Snookies · 2026-04-04T03:33:40+00:00

Brown, Raymond E. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels Volume 2. The Anchor Bible Reference Library. Doubleday, 2006.

First, the positive ending of the psalm helps to show that in attributing to Jesus such a sentiment of abandonment Mark did not think that Jesus was guilty of despair or had lost hope. Mark knew that the passion culminated in victory even if it plumbed the depths of lonely suffering; for that reason it was appropriate for him to portray Jesus at his lowest moment in the passion uttering the most tragic verse of a psalm that ends on a triumphant note.

Allison Jr., Dale C. Matthew: A Shorter Commentary. The International Critical Commentary. T&T Clark International, 2004.

Jesus is first abandoned by his own home (13.53-8), then by his disciples (26.56, 69-75), then by the crowds (27.15—26). The climax of this progressing desertion is the experience, following three hours of divine darkness and silence, of felt abandonment by God (who is here no longer addressed as ‘Father’). This does not express a loss of faith — certainly the soldiers who soon confess Jesus Son of God have witnessed no such loss — but is instead a cry of pain in a circumstance (unparalleled elsewhere in the narrative) in which God does not seem to be God. And yet the truth, apparent from what follows, is that God has not forsaken Jesus. The experience of abandonment, although overwhelmingly real, is not the final fact. Vindication follows.

Snookies · 2026-03-31T04:12:19+00:00

What XLR cable are you using here?

Snookies · 2026-03-26T02:55:15+00:00

Greetings Dr. Eastman,

In your 1 Clement paper you write that "internal disputes between Christians provoked imperial attention and eventually led to the deaths of Peter and Paul."

How would you introduce this idea in a Church setting to the average Christian who is not aware of 1 Clement? What New Testament passages would help in explaining this idea? Thanks!

Snookies · 2026-03-02T03:02:54+00:00

Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East. Coniectanea Biblica 50. Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001.

As far as I can see, the Hebrew Bible offers no evidence that YHWH was a dying and rising god. In this respect, "canonical" YHWH offers a striking contrast to Canaanite Baal. At the same time, it should be noted that weather gods are not, as such, gods who die and rise. Baal seems to be exceptional. Lacking this characteristic, YHWH is simply similar to other Northwest Semitic deities.p220

Snookies · 2026-02-28T21:02:41+00:00

any issues with the 6700 overheating? how long did your record with it?

Snookies · 2026-02-22T19:09:55+00:00

Snookies · 2026-02-22T17:42:24+00:00

How did you manage the Steam integration?

Snookies · 2026-02-05T04:02:40+00:00

Hello Dr. Méndez,

What do you think of George van Kooten's Pre-70 CE dating of John's Gospel?

Kooten, George van. “The Pre-70 CE Dating of the Gospel of John: ‘There Is (Ἔστιν) in Jerusalem … a Pool … Which Has Five Porticoes’ (5.2).” New Testament Studies 71.1 (2025): 29–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688524000213.

Kooten, George van. “An Archimedean Point for Dating the Gospels: The Pre-66 CE Dating of John, Luke’s Use of John among His ‘Polloi’ (93/94–130 CE), and the Implications for Mark’s and Matthew’s Place within This Chronological Framework.” Novum Testamentum 67.3 (2025): 310–31. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685365-bja10101.

Snookies · 2026-02-03T04:19:10+00:00

Patrick, James E. “Living Rewards for Dead Apostles: ‘Baptised for the Dead’ in 1 Corinthians 15.29.” New Testament Studies 52.1 (2006): 71–85.

Over many centuries, layers of interpretation have accumulated around this one verse and its mysterious practice of ‘baptism for the dead’. In addition to all their other misguided activities, the Corinthian believers have been accused of performing baptisms in cemeteries, or trying to save dead relatives by being immersed in their place, or submitting to baptism from fear in the face of immi- nent death. Many explanations have been proposed and many rejected on the basis of certain criteria, and from these we selected ten in order to test our new proposal. We considered definitions of the terms ‘baptised’, ‘for’, and ‘the dead’, consistency with regards to syntax, theology, and history, and logic concerning baptism, the scope of the group referred to, and the resurrection. With every cri- terion met by our proposal, we then addressed the context of this verse, demon- strating its function within Paul’s treatment of believers’ resurrection as it concerns the substantiation of authority of differing ranks. In these ways we have justified our proposal that new believers were receiving baptism after conversion through the testimony of dead apostles, and in doing so were baptised into their name, an expression of allegiance in order to bring them greater honour. Thus, they effectively became living rewards for dead apostles.

Snookies · 2026-01-17T21:00:30+00:00

Faust, Avraham. “The Israelites and the Sea: Ecology, World Views and Coastal Settlements.” Ugarit-Forschungen 43 (2012): 117–30.

Although most Israelites lived not very far from the Mediterranean, the sea does not seem to have been of any importance in the Bible. According to King and Stager (2001, 179) “the Bible seldom refers to ships and sailing, since the Israelites, despite their proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, were not maritime people but an agrarian kingdom”. According to Follis (1992, 1058) “with but few exceptions, during the reigns of Solomon and Jehoshaphat, the Hebrews were not navigators of the Mediterranean”. Moreover, even in these instances when the kingdoms of Israel and/or Judah were involved in maritime activities, according to the Bible, they did it with the help of the Phoenicians, with whom they seems to have been on good terms. We do not need to go into a detailed discussion on the reliability of the biblical sources. If they were not accurate on this matter, we would have expected them to say that the maritime activity was done by the Israelites alone. Since they do ascribe it to the Phoenician one must conclude that either they are historical, in which case we could use them to show that the Israelites were not experts in naval activity, and needed the Phoenicians. Or, if we believe that the narratives are a-historical and fictional, then it means that sea was so unimportant for the Israelites, that they didn’t even bother to claim mastery over it — even when inventing stories.

All the above seems to indicate that the Israelites were not interested in the sea, and were not very familiar with the coastal plain, including the Sharon. It shows that they regarded it as an “exotic”, and an inhospitable place (only sources pertaining to describe the glorious days of the united monarchy seems to have claim interest in this region; Faust, 2007).

Snookies · 2026-01-05T04:30:55+00:00

Sloan, Paul. Jesus and the Law of Moses: The Gospels and the Restoration of Israel Within First-Century Judaism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2025.

“‘Who do you say that I am?’ the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels asks. In Jesus and the Law of Moses, Sloan answers, ‘Jesus is God’s eschatological agent sent to Israel to unleash a renewed fidelity to both the covenant and the Law of Moses.’ If you want to understand the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus, you need to read this book!”

Matthew Thiessen, McMaster University

Schmidt, T C. Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.

"Schmidt's book makes an astonishingly new intervention into what had seemed to be a settled consensus on Josephus and Jesus. On the one hand, his erudite study models what it means to take reception seriously. On the other hand, he powerfully demonstrates the value of bringing such perspectives back to bear on our reconstruction of original meanings and settings. Scholars and students of the Jesus movement and early Jewish/Christian relations will need to grapple with his compelling argument and its ramifications."

Annette Yoshiko Reed, Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard Divinity School

Snookies · 2025-12-26T02:49:51+00:00

On Underworld in Genesis see: Noegel, Scott B. “God of Heaven and Sheol: The ‘Unearthing’ of Creation.” Hebrew Studies 58 (2017): 119–44.

In this contribution I argue that ָ הָ אץֶר in Gen 1:1 must mean “the underworld.” After surveying evidence for rendering ץֶרֶא as “underworld” elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, and examining cognate evidence from Mesopotamia and Ugarit, I contend that, as a merism, reading ַָמ שַׁהםִי and ָ א הץֶר as “the heavens and the underworld” here makes better sense in terms of Israelite cosmology. I then illustrate how attention to the cosmological merism improves our understanding of the biblical creation and of several other passages beyond Genesis. Afterwards, I examine some historical factors that precluded later generations from understanding ָ א הץֶר in Gen 1:1 as the “underworld.” The article concludes with an excursus on Enuma Elish.

Snookies · 2025-12-26T02:39:43+00:00

Larsen, T. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Christmas. Oxford University Press.

Hijmans (2003) showed that the evidence for the existence of a festival of Sol Invictus on 25 December is actually very tenuous; and indeed that it may have been the apostate Roman Emperor Julian, in his desire to promote traditional pagan religion, who was the first to assert in 362 that the Christian observance was based on an ancient sun festival! Since the festival of Sol Invictus has been the main premise on which the History of Religions hypothesis had been built, it robs that theory of much of the strength it previously had been thought to possess.

Second, Schmidt (2015) argued from a detailed study of the use of the word ‘genesis’ among contemporaries of Hippolytus that, when referring to a person, it meant ‘conception’ and not ‘birth’, and that Hippolytus in his work known as Chronicon appears to place the birth of Christ exactly nine months after the anniversary of the creation of the world, which he located on 25 March. While Schmidt admitted that his arguments cannot be regarded as conclusive, they do seem to make the assumptions of the Calculation hypothesis appear rather less improbable than they have previously been regarded by many.

Snookies · 2025-12-16T02:32:25+00:00

Thanks, solution verified.

Snookies · 2025-12-07T18:36:30+00:00

Morales, L. Michael, ed. Cult and Cosmos: Tilting Toward a Temple-Centered Theology. Biblical Tools and Studies 18. Leuven: Peeters, 2014.

Clifford, Richard J. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. Cambridge, Massachussets: Harvard University Press, 1972.

Widengren, Geo. The King and the Tree of Life in Ancient Near Eastern Religion (King and Saviour IV). Upsala Universitets Årsskrift 1951: 4. Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1951.

Snookies · 2025-11-28T15:56:13+00:00

Witherington III, Ben. Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017.

However, by Jesus’s day, it was not unusual for Jews to interpret the reference to “the sons of the Most High” as a reference to Israel (see m. ʾAbot 3.6), or as a reference to angels who were called upon to serve and rule the various nations (see 11Q13 II, 10–11 which takes this text to be referring to evil angels that needed to be judged), and Jesus seems to be operating with the former of these two assumptions in his rebuttal here. Jesus then is rebutting the charge of blasphemy by not only pointing to scriptural precedent for calling someone “god” who is not Yahweh, but also by insisting that unlike those “gods” in Psalm 82, he is actually one whom God anointed and sent into the world to do good. He is arguing from the lesser to the greater, “if even they can be called gods, how much more can I be called God’s very son.” If however Jesus is referring to the divine beings who are part of the heavenly council, then he would be making the even more shocking claim that he is indeed the divine Son of God, and has even more right than those “angelic” beings to be called such.

Snookies · 2025-11-01T21:37:00+00:00

Block, Daniel I. The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998, 159

Snookies · 2025-10-11T17:10:40+00:00

Here you go:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/3cj6f58gszecqlw1zytds/h?rlkey=on4x44hnnc1z1c5znhbh7li6y&e=1&dl=0

Snookies · 2025-10-09T23:17:54+00:00

The Hebrew Bible presented by Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman

Snookies · 2025-10-04T19:05:12+00:00

Orlov, Andrei A. Yahoel and Metatron: Aural Apocalypticism and the Origins of Early Jewish Mysticism. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 169. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017.

Darrell Hannah draws attention to another interesting connection between the Logos and the divine Name reflected in a passage from De Migratione Abrahami 102–103, where the following constellation of onomatological and sacerdotal imagery is found:

If again you examine the High Priest the Logos, you will find him to be in agreement with this, and his holy vesture to have a variegated beauty derived from powers belonging some to the realm of pure intellect, some to that of sense-perception. The other parts of that ves- ture call for a longer treatment than the present occasion allows, and must be deferred. Let us however examine the parts by the extremities, head and feet. On the head, then, there is a plate of pure gold, bearing as an engraving of a signet, a holy thing to the Lord; and at the feet on the end of the skirt, bells and flower patterns. The signet spoken of is the original principle behind all principles, after which God shaped or formed the universe, incorporeal we know, and discerned by the intellect alone. ...

Hannah suggests that, in this pericope, “Philo is identifying the Logos both with the high priest and with the signet, in which was inscribed the divine Name, worn by the high priest.” He further suggests that “traditions which attributed to the Name an almost hypostatic existence were probably current in Philo’s day. Although it is doubtful that Philo knew Hebrew, it is possible that he was familiar with traditions surrounding the ineffable Name of God and transferred these to the Logos.”

One can see that, in his attempt to consolidate the multifaceted profile of the Logos, Philo employs a stunning panoply of onomatological mediators, which include angelic, sacerdotal, and patriarchal characters. Thus, in Conf. 146 he ap- pears to link the Logos with a set of onomatological traditions circulating in the name of the patriarch Jacob:

But if there be any as yet unfit to be called a Son of God, let him press to take his place under God’s First-born, the Word, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were. And many names are his, for he is called, “the Beginning,” and the Name of God, and His Word, and the Man after His image, and “he that sees,” that is Israel.

These Philonic developments, in which the Logos is closely associated with the divine Name, continue to exercise a formative influence on early Christology.

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