Was Jesus a False Prophet?

Episode Outline:
0:00 Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet: why this matters
0:26 Bart and Megan catch up on grading, creative assignments, and grant interviews
5:01 Why scholars see apocalypticism as central to understanding Jesus
7:32 What apocalypticism actually means in ancient Judaism
9:11 What it means to call Jesus an apocalyptic prophet
10:29 John the Baptist, the Essenes, and other apocalyptic figures of the time
13:06 What was distinctive about Jesus’ message
16:35 Did Jesus expect to be crucified, or to rule in the coming kingdom?
20:19 How the Gospels reinterpret Jesus’ death as part of God’s plan
21:55 If Jesus expected the end soon, does that make him a false prophet?
26:08 How later Christian sources soften or change Jesus’ apocalyptic message
31:21 Bart’s Weekly Update: reading ancient moral philosophy for his next book
34:19 Outsmart Bart: Melchizedek, Malchus, and the Bodmer Papyri
39:50 Final summary: Jesus, apocalyptic expectation, and later reinterpretation

Episode Description
Historical scholars for over a century have maintained that Jesus predicted that the end of history as we know it was to come in his own generation. Conservative Christians -- laypeople and scholars alike -- have insisted that this is a complete misportrayal of Jesus. And many people -- possibly most? -- believe that if Jesus really did preach this message, not only was he obviously wrong but also Christianity cannot possibly be true. A Jesus who was demonstrably mistaken about a central element of his preaching could not be a prophet of God, let alone the Savior of the world. In this episode we consider the issue and its implication: did Jesus proclaim the imminent end of the world? If so, can Christian faith even be possible, let alone reasonable?

Also watch these episodes:
The Coming Apocalypse! Jewish and Christian Views of the End of the World
The Coming Apocalypse! Jewish and Christian Views of the End of the World

Did Jesus Predict his Own Death?
Did Jesus Predict his Own Death?

Am I Going to Hell? What the New Testament Says About Death and the Afterlife
Am I Going to Hell? What the New Testament Says About Death and the Afterlife

Bart and Megan tackle such questions as:

-What actually is apocalypticism?

-What does it mean when we say that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet?

-Were there other apocalyptic prophets in the ancient world, or was Jesus a one-off?

-Was there anything different about Jesus’ message compared to his prophetic peers?

-How were they viewed by the general population - were they taken seriously, or were they viewed in the same way that we may view people on a street corner with “the end is near” signs??

-If Jesus was anticipating that the Kingdom of God would be a physical reality before the end of his life, is it fair to say that he wasn’t expecting to be crucified?

-How do the writers of the gospels deal with this complication, and how do their reactions differ?

-Was Jesus, then, a false prophet?

-How did early Christian cults and sects deal with the world not ending?