Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§17.2 Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato
God of forgiveness, a merciful and gracious God 'forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin' (Exod. 34.6-7). 123 Prayer for forgiveness was part of Israel's liturgy.
124 And the sacrificial system, particularly the sin offering and the Day of
Atonement, was designed to provide forgiveness. 125 So talk of forgiveness now
and the reality of forgiveness experienced now would hardly have been strange to
the devout Jew of Jesus' time.
Jesus, however, is recalled as causing surprise or offence by saying 'Your
sins are forgiven' both to the paralyzed man, (Mark 2.5, 9 pars.), 126 and to the 'sinner'
who anointed his feet in Luke 7.48-49. 127 In the former case the story now attests
the Son of Man's authority to forgive sins (2.10), and that affirmation answers
the querulous response of the scribes, 'Who can forgive sins but God alone?' (2.7).
But the statement, 'Your sins are forgiven', is simply a pronouncement of forgiveness,
and the passive form of the verb 128 indicates that it is God who forgives (as
when a Christian priest pronounces absolution in a present-day Christian congregation).
129 Presumably this was the implication too when the Baptist pronounced
sins forgiven (as implied by Mark 1.4/Luke 3.3), 130 or when in the Prayer of
Nabonidus from Qumran, Nabonidus says 'an exorcist forgave my sin' (4QprNab
4). 131 In neither case is there any thought of the individual in question usurping a
divine prerogative, only of human mediation of divine forgiveness. 132
A more likely cause of protest in the incident itself was that Jesus pro-
123. Exod. 34.6-7 is regularly echoed in Jewish Scripture (Num. 14.18; Neh. 9.17; Pss.
86.15; 130.4; 145.8; Dan. 9.9; Joel 2.13; Jon. 4.2; Mic. 7.18; Nah. 1.3).
124. E.g., 1 Kgs. 8.30-50; 2 Kgs. 5.18; 2 Chron. 6.21-39; Pss. 25.11; 32; 51; 79.9;
Prayer of Manasseh. As Ps. 51.16-19 reminds us, while sacrifice without such prayer was recognized
to be vain, effective prayer which could dispense with sacrifice was not contemplated.
Note also, of course, Matt. 6.12/Luke 11.4; Mark 11.25/Matt. 6.14-15.
125. In the legislation governing sin offerings and guilt offerings (Leviticus 4-5) we find
the repeated phrase, 'so the priest shall make atonement for him for his sins, and he shall be forgiven'
(4.26, 31, 35; 5.10, 16, 18). Note also the range of sins against God and the neighbour
covered by such provision (Lev. 6.1-7). Eschatological forgiveness (Jer. 31.34) was presumably
not thought of as a first-time forgiveness but as a complete or final (?) forgiveness.
126. Cited above, §15.7e.
127. But otherwise the Jesus tradition is silent on the subject, apart from John 20.23.
128. The 'divine passive' (Jeremias, Proclamation 11).
129. Already in John 20.23 that is regarded as 'authority to forgive sins' (to echo Mark
2.10 pars.).
130. In a similar way the Qumran sect bypassed the Temple by claiming that atonement
could be experienced independently of the Temple cult (see above, chapter 11 nn. 94, 99).
131. Garcia Martinez reconstructs the preceding phrase (missing) as T prayed to the
God Most High and an exorcist forgave my sin' (3-4) — a plausible suggestion, since
Nabonidus goes on to testify (presumably) to the ineffectiveness of the prayers he had made
previously to the gods of silver and gold . . . (7).
132. Sanders, Jesus 273; Leivestad, Jesus 137-38.
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