Reconsidering Christ: Dr. Ammon Hilman’s controversial exegesis and the naked boy of Mark

by Bishop Ray Taylor, Doctor of Religious Studies

Biblical scholarship is often dominated by consensus. Yet occasionally, someone breaks through the consensus and challenges what others are too afraid to confront. Dr. Amon Hillman is one of those figures. While his public persona is often theatrical, his linguistic observations and textual arguments are rooted in legitimate Greek philology. Scholars may disagree with his conclusions, but they cannot deny that his arguments demand a response.

Among the most controversial of his claims is the reinterpretation of the Gospel of Mark, particularly chapter fourteen, verses fifty-one and fifty-two. It is here that a strange and often ignored moment in the passion narrative occurs. A young man follows Jesus after his arrest, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. When the guards attempt to seize him, he flees naked. The text reads in the Greek as follows:

Καὶ νεανίσκος τις ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ· καὶ κρατοῦσιν αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ καταλιπὼν τὴν σινδόνα γυμνὸς ἔφυγεν.

Translated:

“And a certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.”

This strange episode appears only in Mark. The Greek term for “young man” used here is neaniskos, which typically refers to a youth or adolescent male. It is not the same term as pais or mnēmoniskos, which have also been discussed by Dr. Hillman, but it is part of the same semantic field that includes minors and young servants. Neaniskos appears elsewhere in the New Testament in non-sexual contexts, but the details of this scene are what prompt scrutiny.

First, the young man is described as wearing only a sindōn, a linen garment, and is otherwise naked. This level of exposure is unusual in a Jewish context, especially at night and during a tense political event like an arrest. Second, he is “following” Jesus, a word often used to describe discipleship (ēkolouthēsen). The combination of being alone, underdressed, and closely following Jesus during his arrest has led some, like Hillman, to interpret this as something more than a narrative oddity.

Hillman pushes the boundary further. He argues that this scene may be evidence of an inappropriate relationship between Jesus and the youth. He does not say this flippantly. He bases his interpretation on a broader reading of the Greek, on cultural context, and on Jesus being arrested between two criminals identified in Greek as lēstai — a term that means more than “thieves.” The word lēstēs was used in antiquity to refer to violent insurgents, rebels, bandits, and even pirates. It is a loaded political term. Hillman argues that the way Jesus is framed by the gospel writers — crucified between lēstai, and having close interactions with male followers described in ambiguous ways — suggests a subtext modern interpreters are unwilling to explore.

In his readings, Hillman also highlights the Greek word chriō, meaning to anoint, from which we get Christos, or “anointed one.” He argues that this word originally had medicinal and sensual overtones. To be anointed was to be rubbed with oil, sometimes for healing, sometimes for ecstasy, and sometimes in contexts of initiation or ritual. This reading is supported by passages like Revelation 3:18, where the audience is told to “anoint your eyes with salve.” This is not metaphorical. It is medicinal. It is practical. And if Jesus was known for anointing with oils, then Hillman asks whether these acts were more pharmacological than spiritual.

Dr. Hillman’s theory does not stop there. He connects the practice of anointing with the possibility of drug use in early Christian rituals, drawing from classical sources like Euripides’ The Bacchae, where ritual ecstasy and eroticism are part of divine communion. He even references ancient methods of drug administration, including suppositories using phallic-shaped instruments. Whether one accepts this or not, the presence of pharmacological elements in ancient religion is well documented.

This is not to say Jesus committed crimes. It is to say that the gospels include literary, symbolic, and social elements that we have not fully examined. Dr. Hillman claims that some of these elements point to a more complicated figure than the one taught in church. A man surrounded by young followers. A man anointed. A man seen by Roman authorities as a threat. A man whose execution placed him among rebels and pirates. A man whose history may have been shaped more by mystery cults and rituals than by divine revelation.

Critics like Neil from Gnostic Informant, Jacob Berman, and Dr. Kip Davis have dismissed Hillman’s claims. Some cite decorum. Others say his Greek is being misused. But most avoid the deeper point — what if Hillman is even partly correct? What if we have glossed over difficult questions for the sake of preserving sanitized narratives? What if a story like the fleeing naked boy in Mark has remained unexplained for a reason?

I do not say that Hillman is right. But I say that he may be raising questions others are too afraid to ask. As a doctor of religious studies, I have no interest in defending the institutional church. I am only interested in truth. If the historical Jesus was involved in rituals we now consider questionable, that does not make the inquiry illegitimate. It makes it necessary.

Jesus is not above investigation. He is not immune to criticism. And if someone like Hillman, working through the Greek, sees something the rest of us have missed, then it is worth asking whether we have dismissed the strange moments in scripture too quickly.

I believe Hillman should be heard. I would welcome him on my show, not to attack, but to discuss. To let him explain, word by word, what he believes the texts actually say. There is no threat in hearing the other side. The threat is in silencing it.

In the end, if it is the truth, then it is the truth. No matter how uncomfortable it may be. No matter how scandalous it sounds. That is what scholarship is supposed to be about.

Much respect to Dr. Hillman

Bishop Ray Taylor