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Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Lives of Jesus series)

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Strauss's 1835 Life of Jesus is a classic work which was the first to systematically examine the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life with the express purpose of trying to determine what is "mythical" as opposed to historical in them. The criteria he used to make this distinction are substantially the same as those used by critical scholars today, starting with a fundamental conviction that events in the Gospels which require a suspension of ordinary physical laws (walking on water, stilling storms, raising the dead, healing the blind) cannot be accepted as historical but should be understood as myths added to the narrative to bolster the early Church's claims of Jesus' divine commission. In Strauss's day, it was fashionable for rationalist scholars to try to provide naturalistic explanations for miraculous happenings. Strauss effectively demolishes their arguments by showing that they do not fit the plain sense of the texts and are usually harder to swallow than simple belief in the miracle itself.

To a modern student of critical historical Jesus literature, Strauss's approach to the texts will seem naïve. There is little in his exegesis that takes into account evolving strains of tradition reflected in the texts, rather he reads them as literally as possible, pointing out difficulties and inconsistencies that arise, particularly when more than one evangelist reports the same incident. He also demolishes, often with wry wit, the still popular tactic of claiming that if different Gospels report what sounds like the same incident, but these accounts are irreconcilable, then the only explanation is that there was more than one incident of the kind, for example, Jesus must have cleansed the temple in Jerusalem on two separate occasions since the synoptics place this immediately prior to the passion, while John places it early in Jesus' career. Strauss's detailed analyses are still very much to the point in dealing with conservative apologists, such as Gleason Archer, who maintain in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that everything in the Gospels presented as historical fact must be true, regardless of the contortions needed to reconcile the accounts.

There are probably few books that can compare with Strauss's in being very well known and often referred to, but never in fact read. Fortunately, Sigler Press now has an excellent inexpensive edition in print, so readers can see for themselves, in George Eliot's superb translation, what put critical Jesus scholarship on the scholarly map and also cost Strauss his career as a theology professor. While not an "easy read," Life of Jesus is remarkably accessible. Yes, it sometimes quotes Latin, Greek and Hebrew without translation, but if you have your New Testament handy, as you should when you read it, it's pretty easy to follow the references, especially with the additional aids provided by Peter Hodgson, editor of the Sigler edition. It also, thankfully, at 800 pages, is not a work that needs to be read cover to cover. The discussions of individual events are largely self-contained, and can be read with great profit on their own. Life of Jesus deserves a place in every thinking Christian's library, as well as in the library of those interested in the history of critical scholarly research.

This book is an English translation of a classic German work written by David Strauss in the middle of the nineteenth century; most of the translation was done by the well-known novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). This is no lightweight monograph: Strauss is a scholar who draws on the relevant ancient sources and sprinkles his text with quotations in Greek, Latin and, to a lesser extent, Hebrew. However, only rarely does the argument turn on a lexical or grammatical peculiarity of one of these languages.

Strauss was one of the first theologians to perform a systematic analysis of the text of the New Testament from an essentially modern viewpoint. (For example, he does not believe in the existence of angels or demons.) Strauss works his way through the NT, taking each event or story as it occurs and subjecting it to a painstaking analysis. He relentlessly, one might even say mercilessly, exposes contradictions and inconsistencies in the NT text, considering and eliminating one-by-one all the attempts of conservative theologians to reconcile the irreconcilable. As Albert Schweitzer wrote in "The Quest for the Historical Jesus", Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so."

Thus most of the book is still relevant, because it explodes harmonizing explanations that are still found today in popular Christian literature. However, there can be no doubt that Strauss is too single-minded in his desire to reduce everything in the NT to myth.

The book shows its age; for example, Strauss is of the opinion that Mark is little more than an abridgment of Matthew and Luke, although it is widely held today that Mark in fact has precedence. Almost all of Strauss's references to his contemporaries are to other German scholars, and the majority of these references are now difficult if not impossible to find. (It's easier to find the ancient works cited, such as those by Origen, Augustine, etc.) The book unfortunately lacks an index, and, considering the book's bulk, it is often very difficult indeed to find out if and where Strauss treats a particular NT story.

Albert Schweitzer said that there are two broad epochs of Bible Study - the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss. Strauss belongs to the 18th and 19th century German Protestant rationalist theological movement that tried to explain all the miracles of the Bible 'rationally'. The movement begins about 1776 with H. Reimarus and continues with J. Herder, K. Barhrdt, K. Venturini, H. Paulus, GWF Hegel and F. Schleiermacher. However, it is not ordinarily noted, but Hegel and Schleiermacher were in disagreement on just about everything, and David Strauss as a student of Schleiermacher, not Hegel.

Strauss' troubles began when he crossed the line and used Hegel's name. Hegel was the most famous philosopher of the day, and Strauss decided to drop his name in the marketing of his book. Wrong move. Hegelians, led by Bruno Bauer, hotly contested Strauss' claims to use their mentors name. In his follow-up to this book, IN DEFENSE OF MY LIFE OF JESUS AGAINST THE HEGELIANS (1838), Strauss contradicted himself -- he admitted that Hegel himself would not recognize his writing as representative of Hegel's theology. Ultimately, Strauss ended up alone.

Strauss was the world's first 'demythologizer' and that is saying a great since most 20th century theology centers around demythologization -- even late Catholic theology.

But let's set the record straight -- Strauss was hardly influenced by Hegel at all -- his real strength came from Schleiermacher. (Schleiermacher had his own method of triads.) Strauss tried to capitalize on Hegel's popularity and in fact this worked -- Strauss' book became a best-seller in 1835 and Strauss lived on the royalties for the rest of his life. However, he never wrote a best-seller after this one.

I would point out that Strauss no longer has the last word in Bible criticisms; for example, he did not see the logic in the Marcan Hypothesis, while most every other scholar since 1840 has accepted it. His defense of the priority of JOHN is quite weak. His quest for the historical Jesus was almost nil. His analysis of the mind-set of the Gospel Communities themselves, or of the Gospel authors themselves, was elementary.

Strauss did not create in a vacuum, nor may we say that he had no peers. In many ways his fame was fueled by a fiction, and he did significant damage to Hegelians by obscuring their actual and already complex theological nuances.

I liked this book and I recommend it. One needs to know Strauss before one can be fully fluent in, say, the Jesus Seminar and its authors. I think it is a necessary starting point for today's Bible scholar. To some degree I must agree with Albert Schweitzer: there are two broad epochs of Bible study -- the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss.

Book Abstract: Strauss' main thesis denies the historicity of all supernatural elements in the gospels assigning their creation to mythological speculation between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels by second-generation believers from a mythological template.

Until the Enlightenment, the gospel narratives of the life of Jesus were considered by the majority of Bible scholars to be accurate records of his supernatural person and work. However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries historical-critical scholarship concluded that the Jesus of the gospels was not the Jesus of actual history. The gospel viewpoint became suspect due to the understanding that non-eyewitnesses turned the mundane Jesus of space-time history who preached a political kingdom initiated by the faithful into the supra-mundane Christ of faith who preached an apocalyptic kingdom initiated by a catclysmic act of God.

The skepticism of this movement produced reactions within the liberal and conservative branches of Christianity known as the First Quest of the historical Jesus. The liberals reacted by trying to rationally explain the miraculous aspects of the gospels by way of outright fraud, or pre-scientific explanations of natural occurences; whereas, the conservatives reaffirmed the plausibility of the supernatural face-value reading of the gospels.

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined by the alienated Tubingen University professor David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) is a classic must-read monument to critical skepticism. His main thesis denies the historicity of all supernatural elements in the gospels assigning their creation to mythological speculation between the death of Jesus and the writing of the gospels by second-generation believers.

Strauss uses a dialectical method pitting the opposites of mutually destructive rationalism and supernaturalism against each other. By way of minute observation of the texts, the implausibility of each approach is ably demonstrated by Strauss' razor-sharp analysis. He goes on to salvage what remains by applying a positive mythological template. This synthesis moves the narratives from crass history into the realm of idealism by focusing on the timeless truths conveyed in the stories of the life of Jesus.

Strauss presented negative and positive criteria by which the gospel narratives could be determined to b e unhistorical and mythical. Negatively, an event could not have taken place historically if the normal cause-and-effect chain of events is violated by supernatural intervention, and if the account has internal inconsistencies and/or contradicted by parallel accounts. Positively, an event is legendary or fictional if it appears on poetic or lofty form, and if the account reflects preconceived notions of how and what should have happened based upon a new interpretive understanding of the Old Testament applied to the person and work of Jesus. When Jesus was understood to be the prophesied messiah, Strauss believed the originators of oral tradition and subsequent redactors of the New Testament would present legends of various kinds surpassing the miracles of former leaders and events, along with similar reworked vignettes from pagan and religious mythology just to raise the new religion to a par-of-equality with the dominant religious personages and expressions of the day from Greece, Persia, and Egypt.

An example of Strauss' dialectic can be found in the transfiguration of Jesus found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but excluded from John. In this eight verse account, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain wherein Jesus ". . .was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. . . .Behold a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!'" (Matthew 17:2-3, 5 NKJV).

Naturalistic explanations maintain the disciples were sleeping, and that Jesus implanted the vision in their minds through hypnotic suggestion. The splendor, voice from heaven, and the two prophets are attributed to the waking confusion brought about by the intense glare of a sunrise at a proper angle, lightning, thunder, and two unknown associates of Jesus. The disciples confuse the voice from heaven and the disappearance of the two associates departing in a low-lying fog speaking words of approval as if they were the voice of God.

The above thesis is contrasted with the anti-thesis of a face-value reading of the text by way of the supernatural template. Strauss understood this account as an attempt to represent a real, external, and miraculous event. to interpre it otherwise would be a gross imposition of modern external templates to the text. He correctly observes that Jesus' illumination radiated from within by way of a metamorphosis, not from a reflected external source. He observes the text never mentions the disciples were asleep. And if they were asleep, Strauss discusses the implausibility of implanting the same vision in the minds of three separate individuals. He also wonders why Peter would have wanted to construct physical tents for spirit or visionary beings, and why Jesus would not have corrected him of such a delusion. Lastly, he asks why 2 Peter 1:16 mentions that he and the other disciples were "eyewitnesses" of the transfiguration, not so much as this is actual testimony from the real Peter (Peter's authorship of 2 Peter was doubtful to Strauss), but because this is nonetheless an early interpretation of the gospel passage as representing an actual physical event observed through the sense of the eyes, not the mind.

Then Strauss sets his sights on the implausibility of the supernatural explanation as having its origins in mythological embellishment. First, the gospel of John, which is concernined with showing the divinity of Jesus as the Christ, leaves out such a momentous external miracle as part of his divine sanction. To Strauss, the author of John's gospel is extremely negligent in light of Matthew, Mark, and Luke's accounts.

In a second devastating attack on doctrinal inconsistencies and contradictions, Strauss observes in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) that Jesus repudiates the testimonial value of a prophet rising from the dead to convert the five brothers of the rich man from their fate in hell. Whereas, in the transfiguration account, Moses is raised from the dead and Elijah appears to bolster the divine sanctioning of Jesus' preaching, instruct him concerning his impending death, and produce increasing faith in the three most dedicated disciples. Yet, the accounts relay that Jesus asked them to keep this povotal miracle a secret. Strauss asks, why would such a transcendent miracle be kept a secret until after the resurrection, especially when there was a multitude at the bottom of the mountain looking for the promised one? The account does not ring true to him, and leaves much to speculation as to why the event was produced at a later date.

Lastly, he observes that Matthew and Mark say the event took place after six days, while Luke writes the event took place after eight days (Matthew 17:1 w. mark 9:1 contrad. Luke 9:28).

Strauss proceeds to synthesize his argument by explaining the origin of the text on the basis of early church polemics. He observes that there are multiple instances of divine and human illumination in the Old Testament by way of supposed historical events, along with theological and poetic descriptions. Especially pertinent are the manifestations of light surrounding the person and activities of Moses, along with the taking of Elijah up to heaven in a chariot of fire. He remembers that if Moses and Elijah had such external signs, and the Jews sought signs for divine confirmation, then Jesus should have similar signs to confirm his messianic claims. The early believers, therefore, constructed mythological events similar to those of the Old Testament to give Jesus theological and scriptural credibility. The result is that a myth was built upon a myth, thus compounding the error.

On an idealistic note, the myths of the Old and New Testaments relay a common thread throughout history of the perceived religious necessity for mankind to transcend his earthly existence and transformed into divinity. Those who seek to transcend like to follow those who have supposedly gone before. The only way to know if others have gone before is to have some kind of testimony that such an event has taken place. The transfiguration of the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith conveys the double message of these myths. The church, then, becomes the repository of these messages. Strauss, however, believes the church has literalized these accounts and lowered them back to a mundane level that cheapens the real import of the message.

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined can be used by students to learn rationalistic explanations of the miracles of Jesus, as well as by believers to maintain what the authors said is what they really meant. Either way, the reading can be profitable for both sides of the debate. Howevewr, Strauss eventually comes down hard on both schools by supporting the text, but divorcing it from actual history. He believes he has rescued the eternal truths of Christianity from the naturalism of rationalism, and that he has divorced Christianity from supernatural history, thus allowing true religious idealism to be brought to the forefront of the debate.

David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) was a German theologian and writer. This 1835 book (revised several times) was revolutionary, because it subjected the four gospels to a minutely-detailed critical examination, and pointed out the various inconsistencies between them. It remains the most detailed such examination of the gospels to this day. (Accordingly, Christian apologists---such as John Haley's Alleged Discrepancies Of The Bible---are particularly proud when they feel they can find a way or "harmonizing" the gospel accounts that weave around one of Strauss's criticisms.)

Unlike the earlier rationalists who, like the traditionalists, assumed that there was a historical kernel underlying all the material in the gospels---including the miracles---Strauss boldly argued that the gospel writers were not eyewitnesses to the events they professed to describe, and that many gospel stories (such as the virgin birth, the Transfiguration, the Ascension) were simply historical "myths," created by the community of Jesus' followers in order to illustrate otherwise inexpressible religious truths. Strauss also challenged the historicity of the fourth gospel, calling it much less "historical" than the synoptic gospels.

One cannot summarize an 800-page book (in small print!) within the confines of an Amazon review, so let me just give one quotation to give you the idea: concerning the "soldiers sleeping at the tomb" story in Matthew 28:11-15, Strauss comments, "their (i.e., the "chief priests") conduct, when the guards, returning from the grave, apprised them of the resurrection of Jesus, is truly impossible. They believe the assertion of the soldiers that Jesus had arisen out of his grave in a miraculous manner. How could the council, many of whose members were Sadducees, receive this as credible? ... (they would not) be inclined to believe in his resurrection; especially as the assertion in the mouth of the guards sounded just like a falsehood invented to screen a failure in duty. The real Sanhedrists, on hearing such as assertion from the soldiers, would have replied with exasperation, 'You lie! you have slept and allowed him to be stolen; but you will have to pay dearly for this, when it comes to be investigated by the procurator.'"

Albert Schweitzer (in his equally monumental The Quest of the Historical Jesus) gave the most glowing of reviews to Strauss's book, and any serious student of Jesus, the "historical Jesus," New Testament studies, or Biblical criticism, absolutely MUST devote serious study to it.

This review is on the edition and not the content. The content is excellent - but this edition starts on page 451. There is no indication that this is really volume 2 but it is. Even the introduction that explains that this book is now public domain doesn't point out the book is about to start more than 400 pages into the book. Now if you had to pick one half this would be the half. So buy the book by all means but know what you are getting. If they do put out volume 1 I will happily buy it.

This review pertains only to the paperback edition of the book produced as what is labelled a "High Quality Paperback." It has nothing to say about the content of the book. I was very disappointed in the quality of this edition. It looks like a photocopy of a previous edition. The edition copied is not clean, but has a lot of markings and underlining in the text. Plus the text itself is quite small and not always easy to read. It is printed so close to the edge that it is sometimes difficult to see the inside edge of the text.

When one opens the book, one is startled to see that there is no page indicating the publisher, date or who the translator is. There is no ISBN. Then, when I looked at the end of the book, I discovered that the last page of text was not in fact the end of the book! Something was missing. I went to a local college library and found out that there was one whole page of text missing. Plus there are several pages of annotations to the text and a section of bibliographies. All of this is missing, too.

In short, this edition is very cheap and suitable only for the casual reader who cares nothing about the quality of the book. I will think long and hard before I purchase another book from this publisher.

I ordered this book because George Eliot translated it and I have been a fan of hers for a long time. The book is shocking in that it is a very long, very involved work - over 700 pages in small print. The author is very detailed in his research and leaves no stone unturned in his desire to ferret out the truth of his subject. As the title suggests, this is a critical work and would not suit traditional thinkers who would be wise never to open it. For those who want to read about someone who tried to find truth in the pages of the gospels - truth as a scientist might seek, this book offers much to ponder. I have not finished it, of course, as it will take many months to read the entire work. I am not daunted by that since I am retired and have plenty of time. I recommend this to any scholar to read though much has been discovered since his writing. It will be a good addition to an abundance of books on the same subject written now. When I did get to the last pages of this book, I found that the summation of it was missing - a great disappointment. Still I would recommend it to those interested in it, just don't expect a conclusion.

I read this after downloading it from online and I'm less than impressed. The introduction to this book admits that Bible studies have gone beyond what Strauss says but tries to claim that its value comes from its expression of the thoughts of the age, at a time when science had advanced so far that no Christian could avoid dealing with it in conscious evaluations of their religion. But it's also true that the thoughts of the age were not so far advanced that Strauss didn't repeat conventionalities which have no basis in fact.

So for example as early as section 5 of his introduction, Strauss subscribes to the canard that Christianity finished off Judaism. What an odd thing to write in 1833, the time of the Rothschilds and the Montefiores! What an odd thing to retain up through the 4th edition of 1902, the time of the Bilu and Hovevey Zion immigrations to what is now Israel! So even at first blush, Strauss' book is myopic and insular and fails to incorporate information about real Judaism. It becomes all the more ironic now when Chabad and Daf Yomi have turned more Jews than ever to study of their birthright and its practice.

Another example in the same section shows that Strauss believed in the worth of everything Christianity does, when he devalues the same activity in other cultures including Judaism. That's not logic, or even intelligence, that's apologetics. If allegory, as he says, is a way to explain oneself to outsiders or to the tyros of one's own culture, why is it bad for Jews to use that tactic? Again, he regards the birth, growth, and life activities of the pagan gods as mythical and that these features are important in considering the value of their myths as nonhistorical, but unimportant to the historicity of Jesus who not only was born as the begotten son of God but who also died physically. The only difference is that Origen's allegories support Christianity and that Jesus was its founder, and Strauss cannot conceal that from others as he apparently does from himself.

Strauss goes on a wild goose chase with the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. In showing that there is a historical basis for them, he falls into a common but mistaken concept that an interpretation is inherent in a text and not imposed on it. Thus he first discusses various people born to old parents such as Isaac to Abraham and Sarah, and announced by angels. Later he turns this around to divine participation in the conception which he equates to the status of Jesus. He's trying to show that Jesus really was the son of Joseph and thus inherited David's kingship, but that Christians of the time considered Jesus divine resulting in the verses that call him God's son. In fact Judaism never has and never will consider a divine annunciation the same as divine participation in conception. Strauss shares his mistaken attitude toward interpretation with a lot of people I have discussed the Bible with, who say they believe that Genesis states the exact facts of creation; that is an interpretation and the actual text starts by naming heaven, earth, and water without stating how they came into being.

Strauss commits the fault of asking people living hundreds or thousands of years ago to censor the tales they pass on to suit the prejudices of people nowadays. In other words this is a form of reverse historian's fallacy. Instead of projecting modern attitudes back, he criticizes the past for conforming to the attitudes of that time. Strauss even goes to the unreasonable length of calling it perverted for Jews to interpret their own Scripture in more than one light, a fallacious claim that there can only be one right interpretation. Christianity is dogmatic about everything. Judaism only makes firm decisions in legal cases, or Midrash Rabbah, Midrash Tanchuma and many other works would not exist.

Strauss ignores inconvenient details in the Bible or else he assumes some attitudes current in his time without realizing he has done so. Thus he attributes angels in the Bible to Zoroastrian influence, revealing that he thinks of Judaism as a late development in human history. In one sense we can give him a pass on this, because he wrote when Schliemann was only ten years old. Troy had not been rediscovered, let alone Nineveh or the Mesha Stele or Israel Stele of Merneptah. Radiation had not been discovered yet, let alone radioactive isotope dating methods or using satellite imagery to reveal traces left on the landscape by human activity. A conclusion reached on current data must be admitted to apply in the absence of further research, and must be given up in light of that research.

Strauss shares a bad habit with other Biblical commentators. He claims a basis in Jewish scripture or practice for a particular statement, but he either refuses to cite the exact scripture or document describing the practice, or claims the authority of some other commentator. This is something like the fallacy of appeal to inadequate authority. Unless a reader has access to the commentator referred to, that writer's work remains inadequate authority for Strauss and anybody else. The errors I've seen in conclusions reached without adequate citations in works such as Philo, for one, makes me reject writers who adopt that practice.

Finally, Strauss reveals he cannot adequately evaluate texts referring to Jewish practice or thought. In Part I, Chapter 3, section 23 on the conception, he describes an apocryphal work stating that Joseph and Mary both had to drink the waters of bitterness. This not only directly contradicts the Pentateuch (Numbers 5:18) which makes this the responsibility of a woman who is married, but it also has no basis in Jewish law documented in Mishnah and Gemara (Tractates Sotah). If Strauss realized the apocryphal work made this mistake, he should never have brought it up because it adds no value to his arguments. In section 25 he shows he believes that the Moshiach of Judaism was supposed to be a son of God. Judaism never did and never will teach any such thing and that is a point on which all Jews agree. Finally he apparently fails to realize that Judaism has the concept of a Messiah descended from Joseph as well as one descended from David, referred to in both Talmud and in Midrash Tanchuma.

The only other pass I can worm out for Strauss is the nature of historical writing in his time. As late as Thomas Carlyle and Thomas Macaulay, history was still a branch of rhetoric designed to present a point of view, not compare and examine evidence. In Strauss's time there was no conflict between claiming to examine the historicity of Jesus, and at the same time ignoring or mishandling evidence that discredits one's thesis. Gibbon did that and lots of people still think he was a great historian.

I don't recommend anybody to read this book who values logic, let alone impartiality or truth. Strauss is writing completely from the Christian point of view and yet claiming to be a cool historian. From the point of view of 1833, he is correct. In the 21st century we have or should have more stringent criteria.

A controversy on which David Friedrich Strauss dared to express a strong personal opinion as a direct challenge to religious doctrine might easily be imagined by religious readers of this book. Those who chose to defend Strauss during his lifetime as a scholar who rightly reflected the thought of their day merely fall into a pattern that had already been described in scripture. Since the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only surprising thing is that Strauss could get onto so much trouble on an issue which was obviously just theological, if having an end of the world as a day of judgment is merely a religious issue. I might be confused, but a close look at his method of writing reveals a scholarly intent to examine various views that have already been expressly condemned in the scripture. In his search for a scoffer already condemned in 2 Peter iii. 3 f., Strauss referred to "the Wolfenbuttel Fragmentist. No promise thoughout the whole scriptures, he thinks, is on the one hand more definitely expressed, and on the other, has turned out more flagrantly false, than this," that anything is ever subject to judgment. Annotations to the Text on Section 115 observe, "Here we may observe an interesting contrast between Strauss and Reimarus (the Fragmentist)." The contrast that is noted involves a close reading of the first paragraph of Section 116, in which Strauss supposes that Jesus himself expected to do as his apostles said he would: "it follows that in this particular he was mistaken." The terrible error of the scoffers condemned here is their belief that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." The irony which is usually lost in the discussion of these issues is that those who expect the world to become any more modern in its approach to this kind of problem are the most likely to be disappointed at what happens next. Is anyone betting on what that will be?