Jesus and Q-Anon

I was listening to a lecture by Bart Ehrman this morning about whether or not Jesus was God and I had an epiphany. I see a very direct connection between the Bible and the Q-Anon conspiracy theories circling around today and it has everything to do with prophecy. 

He was talking about whether or not historical Jesus believed he was God, whether or not we can reasonably believe he said he was God or if, just maybe, that part was added later. Very interesting lecture. He was focusing on the gospels and spent a lot of time focusing on the book of John. 

So, basically Bible scholars agree that the evidence suggests Mark was probably written first (it's the most vague) and was probably written 50 or so years after Jesus died. Matthew and Luke were probably written 60 years out and were written after Mark. John was written last, 70 or so years after Jesus died. This is interesting because it means none of the gospels were written by eye witnesses and we know they were written anonymously. These were written versions of what had been several decades of oral traditions and story telling because most people couldn't read and write back then. It's odd that the book of John adds things to the story that we don't see in the other gospels. He has Jesus saying things in situations that nobody else mentioned. This is the only place we see someone quoting Jesus as saying he was God. 

Ehrman suggests that these additions were done to sort of force the fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah. His assessment was that historical Jesus likely considered himself a prophet, but not God. Ehrman kind of asserts that Jesus may have seen himself as the person who would fulfill the "king of the Jews" prophecy but that the Son of Man was going to come and fulfill the rest of the prophecy, meaning Jesus did not believe himself to be the Son of Man (Son of God, God incarnate). Also interesting. Bart also has some thoughts on Jesus's birth and it honestly is a call back to the mythical archetype of the virgin birth. Everywhere in history there has been a chosen one they have been rumored to have been the product of a virgin birth with a God as a father. I am studying that as well, but that's a different post.

So, listening to this, my wheels started turning. There were all of these prophecies that the Jews were convinced were going to come true in their lifetime. Even Jesus seemed to buy into that. Ehrman called it apocalyptic prophecy and called Jesus an apocalyptic. This whole idea that the world is being run by evil forces and God is going to come and make everything right by sending a savior who will defeat all of the evil and then good will take over and everything will be perfect. 

Fast forward two thousand years. All of those things that were absolutely going to come to pass in the Bible in that generation, did not. None of it came to pass. It looks like historical Jesus was killed for being a threat to the government. There's also a whole lot that points to the resurrection part of the story being added later to make the story fit the prophetic narrative of the time. So what we have is that good ole, "the prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet which means it's yet to come" thing that happens every time a prophet is wrong. So, instead of anyone just accepting that the prophets in the Bible were wrong, everyone is still waiting for God to intervene and for the Son of Man to come and defeat the evil in the world. They keep moving the goal post. 

I immediately thought of Q-Anon. It's the same exact thing! The believers in the Q-Anon conspiracy have their prophets and this follows the same narrative of someone being sent by God (Trump) to defeat the evil ruling the world (Democrats). A lot of evangelical preachers and televangelists jumped on the Trump prophecy train. And just like all of the other prophecies, as the days come and go and the dates pass by without these prophecies coming to fruition, the goal post keeps getting moved instead of people admitting to themselves that the prophecies were wrong and the prophets were full of shit. It's the same! God isn't talking to these people. They are talking to themselves. It was the case in the Bible times and it is the case today.

The story of the gospel of Jesus and the Bible just might be the biggest conspiracy theory ever told. It also explains why so many people have been sucked in by it.