A NOW YOU KNOW MEDI A STUDY GUIDE
The Historical Jesus
Presented by Professor David Zachariah Flanagin, Ph.D.
THE HISTORICAL JESUS STUDY GUID E
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Table of Contents
Program Summary ...... 5
About Your Presenter ...... 6
Theme #1: Introducing the Quest ...... 7
Topic 1: So Many Jesuses ...... 8
Topic 2: Looking behind the Gospels: The Oral Window and Translation ...... 12
Topic 3: Genre and Redaction ...... 15
Topic 4: Understanding the Gospel Texts: Redaction as Transformation...... 19
Topic 5: What Do We Mean by the Phrase, “The Historical Jesus”? ...... 24
Topic 6: Understanding the Evidence for Jesus ...... 28
Theme #2: Radical Portraits of Jesus ...... 33
Topic 7: Jesus, the Near-Eastern Sage ...... 34
Topic 8: Double Dissimilarity ...... 38
Topic 9: Multiple Attestation, Coherence, and the Coptic Gospel of Thomas ...... 42
Topic 10: Jesus, Jewish Mystic ...... 47
Topic 11: Jesus, Social Reformer ...... 52
Topic 12: Why Did Jesus Die? ...... 56
Topic 13: Jesus, Cynic Philosopher ...... 61
Topic 14: Magic and Meal ...... 65
Theme #3: Jesus in His Jewish Context ...... 70
Topic 15: Jesus the Jew ...... 71
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Topic 16: The First-Century Jewish Context ...... 75
Topic 17: Diversity and Conflict in First-Century Judaism ...... 80
Topic 18: Jesus in Conflict with the Jewish Leadership ...... 85
Topic 19: Jesus, Herald of the Kingdom, Part I ...... 90
Topic 20: Jesus, Herald of the Kingdom, Part II ...... 94
Topic 21: The Resurrection ...... 99
Suggested Readings ...... 104
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Program Summary
Embark on the quest for the historical Jesus.
For nearly 2000 years, Christians have followed the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, called Messiah or Christ in the New Testament. But in the Enlightenment, some began to question whether the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith were indeed one and the same, or something radically different. This has led to an explosion of scholarly activity undertaking what has come to be known as the “quest for the historical Jesus.”
In The Historical Jesus, you will explore the assumptions and methods of this quest as we encounter it in contemporary scholarship and popular culture. In the first part, you will look at the major issues: Why can’t we read the gospels as simple presentations of fact? What other resources do we have that can give us insight into Jesus? And finally, what can history actually tell us—and what can’t it tell us—about our past?
Next, you will look at three well-known, and often radical, reconstructions of Jesus in the works of the Jesus Seminar, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan. By looking closely at each of these portraits of Jesus, you will learn a great deal about often-overlooked aspects of Jesus’ teaching and ministry, while also realizing some of the pitfalls of historical reconstruction. Finally, you will explore the most fruitful current line of inquiry into the historical Jesus: research that situates him firmly within the cultural and theological world of first-century Palestinian Judaism. Following the work of E. P. Sanders, John P. Meier, and N. T. Wright, you will examine how Jesus and his followers would have understood his ministry, death, and resurrection.
The portraits of Jesus do not end here. Indeed, to read all that has been written about Jesus would take several lifetimes. This course, however, will help you to understand the key issues, the illuminating insights, and the problematic uncertainties that surround the fundamental question, “Who is Jesus?”
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About Your Presenter
David Zachariah Flanagin, Ph.D. received his doctorate in the History of Christianity from the University of Chicago. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he teaches courses in the development of Christian thought and in biblical studies. His teaching has earned him recognition by the student body as Faculty Member of the Year. He is the author of a number of articles on late-medieval ecclesiology and biblical interpretation. He is the co- editor (with Christopher M. Bellitto) of Reassessing Reform: An Historical Investigation into Church Renewal, published by the Catholic University of America Press. In addition to his academic duties, he lectures frequently at churches on topics in biblical theology.
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Theme #1: Introducing the Quest
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Topic 1: So Many Jesuses
I. Summary: This lecture introduces the quest for the historical Jesus by examining some of the portraits of Jesus that have been painted by recent writers and scholars. The large number and great diversity of these portraits points to ongoing interest in the person of Jesus, but also the challenge that many people have in distinguishing the quality of scholarship about Jesus, which varies widely. While some may be tempted to ignore so many contradictory voices, Catholics and other Christians are bound to keep asking historical questions because of their belief in the full humanity (in addition to the full divinity) of Jesus. This lecture ends by looking ahead to the course of upcoming lectures.
II. A portrait gallery of Jesuses A) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003) 1) Jesus was not really divine but was a normal human being: an inspirational teacher, married to Mary Magdalene, whose children became ancestors of Merovingian kings of France. The Emperor Constantine and the Roman Church transformed Jesus into the Son of God in the 4th century at the Council of Nicaea. Their goal was power and control. Their means was the creation of the New Testament and the suppression of other gospel texts in which Jesus was described differently. B) Reza Aslan, Zealot (2013) 1) Jesus was really a political revolutionary who desired to overthrow the Romans and become the new King of Israel. All of the religious language about Jesus as Son of God (and much of the rest of what is contained in the gospels) was created by Jesus’ followers, who transformed him in ways that would not lead to war with Rome. C) Barbara Thiering, Jesus the Man (1992) 1) Jesus was really the leader of a rival sect (to John the Baptist) of Essene Jews near the Dead Sea. He was crucified there (not in Jerusalem), but did not really die. Instead, he was revived by medicine and became a traveling preacher. D) Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (1978) 1) Jesus was really a Galilean magician, more pagan than Jewish. The Jewish elements in the gospels are additions by Jesus’ followers from later. E) Other popular images of Jesus today: 1) Jesus the Greek philosopher 2) Jesus the Jewish rabbi
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3) Jesus the hippie (e.g., Jesus Christ Superstar) 4) Alongside more traditional images of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God F) Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (1819) 1) Jesus was really a great philosopher and moral teacher. Miracles and references to Jesus’ divinity are later additions. 2) Given to all members of Congress from 1904 to 1950s
III. Assessing the portrait gallery A) Good: The sheer amount shows widespread interest in Jesus. B) Bad: The quality of what you encounter varies widely, and what the public is most likely to encounter depends more on novelty and a good PR campaign, rather than the quality of the scholarship.
IV. Two false paths A) Overestimating History: To assume that one or another of these reconstructions of the “real Jesus” has disproven the gospels and the Christian faith. B) Underestimating History: To assume that historical questions don’t matter and thus can be ignored. 1) Theological excursus: Why Catholics and other Christians have to care (a) Theological belief = Jesus is fully divine and fully human (i) 1 John 4:2 (late 1st c.): “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” (ii) Council of Chalcedon (451 CE, drawing on Hebrews 2:17, 4:15): Jesus is “like us in all things but sin” (b) To know the human Jesus—a Jewish male who traveled Palestine in the 1st century, teaching and healing, and ultimately being crucified under the Roman governor in Jerusalem—we turn to history. History is what helps us to understand what it meant to teach, to heal, and to die in THAT time and place.
V. Three-fold division of these lectures A) Introducing the Quest for the Historical Jesus 1) The resources and limitations that we have in our pursuit of the historical Jesus 2) How the academic study of history works, i.e., what it does with these resources and limitations
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B) A Critical Analysis of Three Radical (Non-Traditional) Portraits of Jesus: the Jesus Seminar, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan 1) All are qualified biblical scholars, who have received tons of media attention. 2) All offer “non-traditional” portraits of Jesus, i.e., reject the presentation found in the canonical gospels and replace it with something else. 3) Goal—to help you understand not simply WHAT they are saying, but WHY they are saying it (pulling back the curtain) and thus make more informed judgments about what is and is not useful C) Understanding Jesus in the Context of 1st Century Judaism 1) E.g., when Jesus says the phrase “kingdom of God” or “messiah,” what did those words actually mean in 1st century Judaism? 2) There must have been some continuity between what Jesus was teaching and wider Jewish culture. Otherwise, none of the Jews listening to him would have understood a thing he was saying. 3) There must also have been some discontinuity between what Jesus was teaching and wider Jewish culture. Otherwise, he would not have had his own group of followers, nor would he have been killed.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What portraits of Jesus have you encountered in your lifetime? Have you read any of the books discussed in this lecture? What did you think of them? What other portraits would you add to this list?
2. Do you find Jesus’ divinity or his humanity more challenging? Why do you think that many Christians since the beginning have struggled with accepting Jesus’ humanity?
3. Why does the Christian theological commitment to the full humanity of Jesus require asking historical questions?
4. What questions about the historical Jesus are most interesting to you?
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Topic 2: Looking behind the Gospels: The Oral Window and Translation
I. Summary: Something never comes from nothing. This lecture discusses the first of several reasons why historians do not read the New Testament gospels as exact reports of what Jesus said and did. We begin with the 35 to 60 year period (known as the “oral window”) in which the stories of Jesus were passed down primarily by word of mouth, exploring how memories are both preserved and adapted in their retelling. We conclude with the issue of translation, discussing the significance of the move from Jesus’ own Aramaic tongue to the Koine Greek that we find in the written gospels.
II. Questions addressed 1) Addressing a common sentiment: “If you want to know about the life of Jesus, you should just read the gospels.” 2) Why can’t we just read the four gospels as straightforward historical accounts of what Jesus said and did? (following especially the work of James Dunn)
III. Issue #1: Time Gap A) There was a 35 to 60 year window between the events described (e.g., the death of Jesus, ca. 30 CE) and the texts describing them (Mark, ca. late 60s CE; Matthew, Luke, and John, ca. 80s-90s CE), which are our access to those events. 1) A long time: Memory of events from decades before is not the same as memory of events from yesterday. 2) But not too long: Still within the frame of living witnesses (a) Preference in that culture for living witness over texts (i) Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (early 2nd century): still finds it better to listen to those who knew the apostles than to read any text B) The Oral Window: period in which early Christians are remembering and preaching about Jesus, but before any of our written texts been composed 1) Does not mean that the stories were confused (a) Oral society: very good at memory (e.g., Homer’s Odyssey) (b) Jesus was important to those telling the stories (c) Public, communal retelling (not private like “telephone game”)
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(d) Does mean that there would have been some changes (i) Oral performances are not rote (ii) Audience shapes telling of message (iii)Basic meaning would have been more important than secondary details C) Conclusion: Gospels are not “tape recordings” of Jesus. They preserve real memories but were written down after having been told and retold in a variety of contexts.
IV. Issue #2: Translation A) Jesus conducted his ministry in Aramaic, the common language in Palestine in Jesus’ day. B) E.g., God as “abba” (Aramaic for “daddy”) C) But the four gospels in the New Testament are composed in a common form of Greek (called “Koine”), almost certainly because Greek was the more common language around the Mediterranean, and among the early Christians, as the movement spread outside of Palestine. D) Thus, the gospels don’t actually tell us what Jesus said, but rather offer us a translation of what Jesus said. E) Translations are never exact. 1) Words mean different things (a) E.g., Hebrew ruah = “wind”, “breath”, or “spirit” (i) Cf. Genesis 1:2: “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a ruah from God swept over the face of the waters.” (b) E.g., Greek agape, eros, philia = “love” 2) Grammar structures don’t match 3) E.g., in Hebrew, verbs do not indicate past, present, and future (as in English), but only indicate whether an action is complete or incomplete. (a) Conclusion: Gospels contain a real memory of what Jesus said, but not the actual words— because they are not the same language.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What kinds of difficulties are raised by the time gap between the ministry of Jesus and the writing of the gospels? What do you think would have been the easiest elements to remember clearly? What elements would have been the most likely to change?
2. How does the Oral Window differ from the telephone game?
3. What are some of the challenges associated with translation from one language to another? How do those challenges affect questions about what Jesus really said?
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Topic 3: Genre and Redaction
I. Summary: This lecture continues the discussion of why historians do not read the New Testament gospels as exact reports of what Jesus said and did. First, we explore the genre of the gospels, comparing them to ancient biographies, whose primary intention was transformational rather than simply informational. Second, we examine one common type of redaction (i.e., editing of source material) in the gospels: the clustering or grouping of sayings or stories to highlight a particular theme. A) Question: What do we find when we examine our gospel sources?
II. Issue #1: Genre A) What is genre? – Group of works (whether literary, musical, or visual) that share similarities in both form and content B) Key element – Genre indicates the intention of the author (forming a contract between author and reader) 1) Are you supposed to laugh, to cry, to get angry? 2) Are you supposed to take it literally or figuratively? (a) E.g., parable of Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32): There are no actual father or sons, but the point is the moral of the text. (b) E.g., resurrection of Jesus: For early Christians, everything hinged on whether this literally happened or not (cf. 1 Corinthians 15). C) What genre are the gospels? And therefore what do they intend to communicate? 1) Ancient Biography (see Richard Burridge, What Are the Gospels?) 2) Similar to modern biography (a) Narrative writing (graphē) about the life (bios) of a person considered important 3) Different from modern biography (a) Goal is not information, but transformation (i) I.e., ancient biographies were not written to preserve “facts” for their own sake, but to present “facts” in such a way that the audience is transformed by them. The intended transformation often concerns an exhortation to pursue virtue or avoid vice. (ii) Not simply “event”, but “event + meaning” (iii)Details are organized, explained, and/or omitted in order to highlight this moral point.
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4) Exactly what we find when we read the gospels in the New Testament (a) John 20:30-31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
III. Issue #2: Redaction (editing source material) A) First type of redaction: Clustering / Grouping the source material 1) E.g., Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) (a) Series of teachings by Jesus that include the Beatitudes, turn the other cheek, love enemies, the Lord’s Prayer, how to pray, fast, and give alms in secret, and much more… (b) Almost all of these same teachings appear in Luke’s gospel, but scattered across the whole gospel and in very different contexts from the Sermon on the Mount. (c) What is going on? (i) Most likely, you have a lot of different teachings of Jesus that were passed down orally as individual sayings / stories (pericopae; sg. pericope). When Matthew and Luke sat down to write their gospels, they had to insert the teachings in what they felt were the most appropriate places in the narrative. Matthew put them all in one big sermon. Luke inserted them into various conversations that Jesus had with different audiences throughout his narrative. (d) What are the implications? (i) Did Jesus actually say these things? – Probably (ii) Do we know where and when? – No. They are being arranged by the gospel authors to give them some structure and to highlight important themes or elements. (I) E.g., in Mark 2–3, there are five consecutive stories in which Jesus debates with Jewish leaders. Probably not consecutive historically but clustered to highlight tension between Jesus and Jewish leaders (II) E.g., Mark 4: parables of God’s kingdom (III) E.g., Mark 8–10: series of discussions about the identity of Jesus and what it means to follow him (iii) Result: We cannot have any confidence in the chronology of Jesus’ words or deeds between his baptism and the week of his death in Jerusalem. The arrangement is more thematic than chronological (which was typical of ancient biographies of teachers like Socrates). (iv) Remember the purpose of ancient biography: not information for its own sake, but information presented in such a way as to transform the reader.
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B) If we look at the arrangement of stories in the gospels like the ordering of pearls on a string, then the arrangement of pearls tells us a lot about each gospel author’s message, but it is often the pearls (pericopae) that historians are going to focus on in their quest for the historical Jesus.
Carolingian miniature of the evangelists with their symbols, from the Aachen Schatzkammer Gospels, ca. 820
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What sorts of genres are you familiar with from literature, music, or film? What kinds of expectations do you know that you are supposed to have as you encounter these different sorts of works?
2. What sort of genre are the gospels? What are they trying to achieve in their readers? How does an awareness of genre affect the way that you read the gospels?
3. What is redaction? How does grouping or clustering material affect the meaning of individual stories?
4. The official Catholic dogma about biblical revelation (Dei verbum, 1965) states,
“The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told the honest truth about Jesus” (par. 19).
How does this theological declaration compare to what has been discussed in the last two lectures about the gospels?
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Topic 4: Understanding the Gospel Texts: Redaction as Transformation
I. Summary: This lecture concludes the discussion of why historians do not read the New Testament gospels as exact reports of what Jesus said and did. Our focus is again on redaction, but here looking at editorial changes to the stories themselves that shape and reshape the meaning of those stories—or sayings— of Jesus. The lecture ends with some short reflections on the difference between the questions that the gospels are seeking to answer and the questions that historians are posing to the gospel texts, and on the distinction between inspiration and factual information.
II. Second type of redaction: Changes to the sayings or events A) Comparing two boat scenes 1) Mark 6:45-52: Right after the feeding of the 5000, Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him across the Sea of Galilee in a boat, and they are struggling against the wind. Later, Jesus approaches the boat by walking on the water. The disciples are scared because they think it is a ghost. Jesus gets into the boat, reassures the disciples, and the wind ceases. (a) What is this about in Mark’s text? (i) One of the primary themes in Mark’s gospel is how Jesus was not the sort of messiah that everyone expected, i.e., a political conqueror who would overthrow the Romans. This unexpected Jesus confused everyone, including his followers. Each time they misunderstand, Mark uses that occasion to describe Jesus’ teaching about the true nature of the kingdom and discipleship. (ii) The three boat scenes are key moments in building this theme of misunderstanding, and Mark emphasizes that at the end of the story when he adds the final line, “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mk 6:51b-52). 2) Matthew 14:22-33 repeats the story as part of the same sequence of events, right after the feeding of the 5000. (a) Indeed, biblical scholars are quite confident that Matthew has read Mark and is copying him as one of his sources. (About 90% of Mark’s gospel is reproduced in Matthew’s text.) (b) All of the key elements of the plot are repeated, yet Matthew makes two changes that totally alter the meaning of the story. (i) First, a new event is included. Before Jesus gets into the boat, Peter walks on the water, too, before becoming afraid and sinking.
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(ii) Second, the final line is totally changed. Instead of a statement about the disciples’ failure to understand and their hardness of heart (a clear reference to Pharaoh in the Exodus story), Matthew concludes the story with the following line: “And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (14:33). (iii) While most of the plot elements stayed the same, the story changed from (a negative) one that was about the disciples’ lack of understanding to (a positive) one that was about their faith (and there correct understanding of who Jesus is). 3) These are the things that historians are really going to wrestle with. (a) Clearly, this is the same story (basic plot). (b) However: (i) Did the disciples really fail to understand Jesus because of the hardness of their hearts? If so, that means that Matthew has added the worship and confession of Jesus’ true identity to the story. (ii) Conversely, did the disciples really worship Jesus and call him Son of God at the end of it? That would mean that Mark added the details about the misunderstanding and hardness of heart. (c) It is easy to see how both conclusions make a strong moral point. However, it is extremely difficult to imagine that both could be historical at the same time. (d) And if one—or both—of them are adapting the remembered deeds and sayings of Jesus to make strong moral points, then how do you tell what was originally said at the event? This is a very difficult problem that scholars encounter over and over again. B) Other examples 1) The Beatitudes (Matthew 5 and Luke 6) (a) Blessed are the poor in spirit vs. Blessed are you who are poor (b) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness vs. Blessed are you who are hungry now (c) Ethics (in Matthew) vs. physical poverty (in Luke) 2) The teaching on divorce (Mark 10:11 and Matthew 19:9) (a) In Mark, Jesus declares unequivocally that a man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery. (b) In Matthew, the exact same words are used, and again as part of the same sequence of events, but in Matthew there is an exception. Divorce and remarriage means adultery, unless the divorce was on the grounds of porneia (illicit sexual behavior, perhaps incest or adultery) (c) Again, did Matthew add an exception? Or did Mark remove it? What did Jesus really say?
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3) When did Jesus drive the moneychangers out of the Temple? (a) In Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19, this happens a few days before Jesus is crucified. In John 2, this happens at least two years before Jesus dies. It is extremely unlikely that such a provocative event would have happened twice. C) In a few lectures, we are going to turn to the criteria that modern scholars have used to try to answer these questions about what really happened.
III. A word of caution A) The gospels were written to say something very specific—a word of persuasion and transformation that aids readers in following Jesus. They do this very effectively. The reason we have four gospels is that each speaks passionately about different aspects of Jesus and discipleship. In this sense, they complement each other very well and challenge readers in different ways. 1) Historians, on the other hand, are asking a set of questions—i.e., what really happened—that are not what the gospels are primarily trying to communicate. 2) Certainly, things really happened. There would not have been an early Christian movement to write the gospels if people had not had powerful experiences of the deeds and words of Jesus and had not believed that God raised Jesus from the dead. 3) However, if you think about those original events as flour, each of the gospel authors has baked that flour into a loaf of bread so that it is edible (i.e., meaningful to the Christian audience). Historians are interested in the flour, not the bread. But you can’t un-bake bread. (a) The result: lots of hypotheses about the original historical events (the flour), some good, some not good
IV. Final reflections A) Factual disagreements between the gospels are not something that the gospels have a problem with. It is something that modern people have a problem with, when we assume that the texts are primarily trying to give us information (because that is what we are familiar with from our own culture). This is true of both skeptics (who think these disagreements prove the Bible is wrong) and fundamentalists (who assume that there must be a way to make all the details agree). B) But a belief in inspiration (i.e., that God is the driving force behind the biblical texts) does not require that a text be a perfect encyclopedia of facts. 1) Catholics and other Christians believe that the Psalms are inspired, and they are poetry and prayer. Song of Songs is a love song between a woman and a man who are infatuated with each other, which Jews and Christians have often allegorized to describe the love between God and people. Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings. Paul writes letters. The gospels present information in such ways as to make a transformative point. (a) These are some of the many genres of the Bible, each with its own form and content and its own expectations for the reader.
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2) The Catholic understanding of inspiration is very insistent that inspiration happens in many different genres, each with their own way of saying what is true—some of which are interested in information, others not. (a) See Dei verbum, par. 12: “For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse.”
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Read Mark 6:45-52 and Matthew 14:22-33 side by side. Where are the two stories similar? Where are they different? How do those differences change the meaning of the stories?
2. Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and Luke 6 side by side. Where are they similar? Where are they different? How do those differences change the meaning of the teaching?
3. Read Mark 10:11 and Matthew 19:9 side by side. Why do you think they are different?
4. How are the questions of modern historians different from the answers that the gospels are trying to give? Does that make historical questions inappropriate? Or just difficult to answer?
5. What do you think about the Catholic notion that truth is communicated not just literally, but in different ways according to the genre of biblical texts?
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Topic 5: What Do We Mean by the Phrase, “The Historical Jesus”?
I. Summary: This lecture explains the way that the discipline of history works, as an attempt to reconstruct past events based on the limited evidence that survives from them. In contrast to the way that history is sometimes presented (i.e., as a matter of universally acknowledged facts), we will discover that the work of history is a lot closer to that of a trial jury, working in probability and reasonable doubt, rather than certainty, and always wrestling with the reliability of insufficient witnesses. These limitations on history (which cannot be avoided) require us to distinguish between the “real” Jesus (as he was 2000 years ago) and the “historical” Jesus (as he can be reconstructed based on the evidence that survives).
II. What historians actually do: A) They study things that are gone. B) And then they try to recreate them.
III. Helpful three-fold division (James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus, 1985) A) Event: something that happened in the past 1) Most important thing to note: The event is gone. Barring the invention someday of a time machine, the historian has no direct access to the event. 2) But, the historian is a person who wants to know about an event that has occurred. (a) Indeed, the word “historian” comes from the Greek verb historeō, which means “to inquire” / “ask questions.” 3) Thus, the historian turns to the things that survive from the event. B) Data: anything that links the historian to the event being studied 1) Two major kinds of data (a) Physical (e.g., buildings, pottery, bones) (i) For ancient history, this is primarily the province of archaeologists. (ii) Physical data can tell us how people lived, what they ate, what kind of technology they had available. (iii) In rare cases, it can tell us something about an individual person. E.g., the Arch of Titus (Via Sacra, Rome) celebrates and records Titus’ defeat of the Jews and destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.
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(b) Eyewitness testimony (e.g., writings of ancient persons that preserve a memory of the event) (i) Ancient historians (I) E.g., Suetonius: Lives of the Caesars (early 2nd c. CE) (ii) Autobiographical writings (very rare) (I) Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (late 2nd c. CE) (II) Josephus, Life (late 1st c. CE) (III) Augustine, Confessions (ca. 400 CE) (iii) Personal letters (more common) (I) E.g., Pliny the Younger (early 2nd c. CE) (iv) If someone felt that these texts were important enough to keep copying them—or they survived by accident in some desert—historians can access them today. 2) But just having data does not mean that it is good, quality data (a) What historians want (and almost never get): (i) First-hand testimony (i.e., the writer of the text was actually present at the event described) (ii) Multiple, independent witnesses (iii)Trustworthy witnesses C) Reconstruction: recreation of the event based on the data that is available 1) Always incomplete (like a jigsaw puzzle missing most of its pieces) (a) Not all elements are remembered. (i) E.g., if someone did something in private and did not write about it, then it is lost to history. It is still very real, but not accessible to history. (b) People only remember what they deem important. (i) E.g., the crucifixion is remembered, but not what Jesus looked like. 2) Often, the best we can do is form a HYPOTHESIS (educated guess), based on what does survive
IV. The Real Jesus vs. the Historical Jesus (John Meier, A Marginal Jew) A) The Real Jesus = the total reality of Jesus as he experienced his life 2,000 years ago (i.e., the event). 1) This is gone and can never be fully known by the tools of history.
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2) For a famous modern person (e.g., Ronald Reagan), historians could offer a “reasonably complete” reconstruction of the real person because of resources like the Reagan library (footage, interviews, correspondence, etc.). But even this does not give us access to much of his childhood or much of his internal life. Thus, even a history of Ronald Reagan cannot capture the total reality of Reagan. B) Historical Jesus = a reconstruction of Jesus based on what we do have access to 1) And it is not much. E.g., aside from one story about the 12-year-old Jesus in Luke, we have no information whatsoever that survives about Jesus’ childhood or early adulthood. 2) So, when we talk about the quest for the historical Jesus, we are talking about the attempt by historians to know as much of Jesus as can be known, based on the surviving evidence. (a) This is always tentative, because the puzzle is missing most of its pieces. And there are serious disagreements about the importance and the reliability of the pieces that do survive. C) Thus, while there was only one real Jesus, there are so many historical Jesuses. 1) This is why it remains a quest: something we are seeking, not something we have fully discovered
The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple by William Holman Hunt, 1860
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What kinds of history do you know the most about? What data survives to help us understand events in that time and place? Where do we have to fill in the gaps with educated guesswork?
2. Have you ever served on a jury or had some other occasion to test the reliability of witnesses? What were your criteria for trusting them?
3. What is meant by the distinction between the Real Jesus and the Historical Jesus? Why is such a distinction essential to keep in mind as you study the quest for the historical Jesus?
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Topic 6: Understanding the Evidence for Jesus
I. Summary: This lecture explains the evidence that historians have to work with in their attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus. We look first at non-Christians sources, especially Tacitus and Josephus, and discover that they confirm some of the basic details about Jesus, but do not offer any new information. Then we look at Christian sources, discovering that the four gospels in the New Testament remain our most important evidence. Here, it is essential to understand the relationship between the four gospels in order to recognize when they are speaking as independent witnesses and when they are deriving their information from a common source.
II. What is the evidence that historians currently have to work with in the quest for the historical Jesus? (following especially the work of John Meier)
III. External (i.e., non-Christian) evidence A) Long-sought after either to corroborate (e.g., biblical archaeology) or disprove biblical events B) Very limited: as Jesus was a poor, rural teacher from an unimportant corner of the empire, not a great politician or military commander C) Roman sources 1) Some references to Christians, but only one piece of evidence that offers historical information about Jesus 2) Tacitus (Roman historian), Annals (ca. 100 CE) (a) When describing the execution of Christians in Rome by the Emperor Nero in the 60s CE, he explains that Christians get their name from “Christ”, who was killed by Pontius Pilate in Judea. (b) Significance: This corroborates some of the details (who, when, where) of Jesus’ execution, but it does not tell us anything more. D) Jewish sources 1) Josephus (37–ca. 100 CE) (a) Our most important source for Judaism in the 1st c. CE (i) Biography: Josephus was a well-educated Jewish priest who studied all the major branches of Judaism (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes). At the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome (66 CE), he became military leader of the Jewish forces in Galilee. He was defeated by the Romans, but he survived by predicting that the
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Roman general (Vespasian) would soon become emperor (which he did). Later in the war, he worked as an interpreter and intermediary for the Romans as they besieged Jerusalem. After the war, he spent the rest of his life in Rome under imperial patronage. (ii) Major writings: Jewish War (history of the war), Jewish Antiquities (history of the Jews), Against Apion (defense of Judaism), Life (autobiography) (b) Historical information about Jesus: two references to Jesus in the Antiquities (i) In his description of the death of James, Jesus’ brother and leader of the Jerusalem church, in the early 60s CE, Josephus tells us that Jesus is called “Messiah”. (ii) In another passage, Josephus appears to have described Jesus as a wise man (i.e., miracle worker and teacher), who had a following of Jews and Gentiles, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leadership, and whose followers continued to love him after his death. (I) This description is problematic, however, since Christians (who were the ones who preserved Josephus’ writings) added to the description over time (as they copied the text). Distinguishing what was original and what was interpolated is challenging. (c) Significance: Josephus is important because it is the strongest evidence to counter the occasional accusation that Jesus never really existed. While Josephus did not know Jesus personally (being born a few years after Jesus died), he clearly knows of Jesus from others in Galilee and Judea. Josephus confirms (very broadly) the basic characterization of Jesus found in the gospels, though he tells us nothing specific about any saying or deed of Jesus. 2) Other Jewish texts (a) Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered at Qumran, 1947): an amazing collection of resources for a sect of Judaism that was around at the time of Jesus, but contain no information about Jesus himself (b) Rabbinic material (e.g., the Mishnah [ca. 200 CE], later incorporated into Talmud): There are a few mentions of Jesus, but all come from much later in history and are polemical, so historians don’t treat them as useful historical sources. E) Summary: Josephus and Tacitus are our only two external sources of significance, and all they do is confirm some key elements of the story of Jesus. They do not add anything new.
IV. Internal (i.e., Christian) evidence: Canonical texts A) Paul’s letters (50s CE): our oldest Christian sources 1) Paul clearly knew about Jesus (as he devoted his life to preaching about him), but his letters do not say much. The reason is that he had already told his churches about Jesus (when he was with
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them in person). The letters that we have are responses to specific problems, not occasions for repeating the story. 2) What we find in Paul’s letters are frequent references to what Paul considered the key events of Jesus’ life—his cross and resurrection—and occasional references to Jesus’ teachings, e.g., on divorce (1 Corinthians 7:10) and his words at the last supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). B) The four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (late 60s-90s CE) – our primary sources 1) The Synoptic Problem: Why are Matthew, Mark, and Luke so similar? (a) Synoptic = syn (“with” or “together”) + optic (“seen”) (b) Two-Source Theory = the dominant explanation
Mark Q
M L
Matthew Luke
(i) Mark: First written gospel; copied by Matthew and Luke (II) E.g., same sequence (and much the same wording) in Mark 10, Matthew 19- 20, and Luke 18, where Jesus gives his teaching on being like a child, followed by his encounter with the rich man and the statement about a camel going through the eye of a needle, followed by his third prediction of his upcoming death (ii) Q: (I) Q = Quelle (“source”, German) (II) Another written source of Jesus’ sayings that are shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark (III) E.g., the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4), turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39, Luke 6:29), John the Baptist’s warning to the crowds to repent (Matthew 3:7-10, Luke 3:7-9) (iii) Other sources: (I) M: stories unique to Matthew, e.g., the wise men visiting Jesus (Matthew 2), the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25)
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(II) L: stories unique to Luke, e.g., the annunciation (Luke 1), the parables of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) (c) Why does the Synoptic Problem matter? (i) Historians seek corroborating sources, but Matthew or Luke repeating a story from Mark won’t be understood as corroboration of that story because they are not independent traditions. (ii) Only Mark, Q, M, and L are treated as independent witnesses. 2) The Gospel of John: a 5th source (a) Very different (90% unique) from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, both in the style and content of Jesus’ teaching (much longer and more esoteric), and in the stories told (e.g., the Samaritan woman at well [John 4], the raising of Lazarus [John 11], the washing of the disciples’ feet [John 13]) (b) Thus, assumed to be a different, independent tradition from the Synoptic Gospels.
V. Non-canonical Christian texts A) These are fascinating texts from early Christianity such as the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of James. Almost all of them were written much later than the canonical gospels (late 2nd century CE and beyond). Thus, while they tell us a lot about how Christian ideas were developing in later years, they are not useful in quest for historical Jesus. B) The one possible exception is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus (with no framing narrative) that is called the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Scholars debate whether this text represents an early, independent tradition or is a later text, dependent on the canonical gospels. [To be discussed in lecture #9.]
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What do Tacitus and Josephus tell us about Jesus? Why do historians consider them important texts in the study of Jesus?
2. Are you surprised that there is so little mention of Jesus outside of Christian sources?
3. What are the Synoptic Gospels? Look at Mark 10, Matthew 19-20, and Luke 18 side by side. Are you convinced by the theory that there is copying from Mark? Look at Matthew 3:7-10 and Luke 3:7-9 side by side. Are you convinced that they are copying from the same source?
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Theme #2: Radical Portraits of Jesus
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Topic 7: Jesus, the Near-Eastern Sage
I. Summary: This lecture begins the critical analysis of three radical portraits of Jesus that have garnered a great deal of public attention in recent years. We start with the Jesus Seminar, a think-tank in religious studies founded by biblical scholar Robert Funk, which has vigorously promoted a portrait of Jesus as a Near-Eastern Sage. In particular, we will focus on their assumptions about the unreliability of the canonical gospels and the discontinuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.
II. History of the Jesus Seminar A) Begun in 1985 by biblical scholar Robert Funk (1926–2005) as the first major project of the Westar Institute (a think-tank on matters of religious studies), the goal was to gather together a collection of scholars studying Jesus to collectively determine which of the sayings and deeds contained in the gospels could be considered authentic to the historical Jesus and which ones likely were not. What makes them really unique is that, from the beginning, the plan was to communicate their findings to the general public as the primary audience, rather than to the rather technical world of biblical scholarship. B) Produced two major publications on Jesus 1) The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? (1993) 2) The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? (1996)
III. The Jesus of the Jesus Seminar A) Jesus was a sage (or wise man) of a type common in the ancient Near East. His main activity was traveling around Palestine and offering an assortment of sayings and parables that “cut against the social and religious grain” (e.g., his declaration that impurity comes from within not without, which undercuts kosher rules), that “surprise and shock” listeners by reversing or frustrating normal expectations (e.g., the parables of laborers in vineyard and the prodigal son), that “are often characterized by exaggeration, humor, and paradox” (e.g., “blessed are the poor”), and that use “concrete and vivid” images and are “customarily metaphorical and without explicit application” (e.g., the parable of the kingdom that compares it to a mustard seed) (The Five Gospels, 31-32). B) Jesus apparently did cure some sick people (e.g., Peter’s mother in law, who was in bed with a fever), but he did not perform any major miracles (e.g., walking on water, feeding 5000 people with only a few loaves and fish, turning water into wine, or raising the dead). C) Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, which was the end of his career. There was no resurrection.
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D) Jesus’ self-understanding: Because, “as a rule, the sage is self-effacing, modest, unostentatious” (The Five Gospels, 32), Jesus must have been passive unless questioned or challenged by others. That is, he did not initiate teaching or cures on his own. Also, he would have never made claims about himself. 1) Thus, he never would have described himself as “son” of God (in any form) or as Messiah. 2) All claims in the text that Jesus is Son of God or Messiah come from later Christian beliefs, not Jesus. In fact, Jesus’ identity and teaching are seen as radically distinct from the beliefs of his followers. Jesus is also seen as radically distinct from the Judaism of his day. (a) Essential result: Jesus is neither Jewish nor Christian.
IV. How do they get this Jesus? – Assumptions affect everything… A) Starting assumption: The traditional image of Christ (as found in the Christian creeds) cannot be true. 1) They claim that this traditional image must be rejected because it is incompatible with modern “science”. That is, if you accept modern science, you must reject traditional Christian faith. (a) “The Christ of creed and dogma, who had been firmly in place in the Middle Ages, can no longer command the assent of those who have seen the heavens through Galileo’s telescope” (The Five Gospels, 2). 2) What does this mean? (a) If we have decided that the traditional view of Christ (as Messiah and Son of God who saves us) cannot be true before we even look at the gospels, and the gospels present this traditional view, then we have already decided that the gospels are not true before we even look at them. B) Second major assumption: The gospels are mythical embellishments of a (poorly understood) memory of Jesus. 1) Methodological skepticism (a) Nothing in the gospels should be accepted as “real” history without some compelling reason to do so. (b) Very different from assumption that the gospels are basically reliable unless evidence indicates otherwise. C) Result: 82% of sayings of Jesus and 84% of the deeds of Jesus are NOT authentic 1) Goal: to find “the Jesus behind the Christian façade of the Christ” (The Five Gospels, 2).
V. The Jesus of History vs. the Christ of Faith A) In Christian tradition (since the beginning), the Jesus of history was understood to be the same person as the Christ of faith.
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B) For the Jesus Seminar, Jesus and Christ are two radically different entities. One was a real human person; the other an imagined construct. C) This distinction is where historical Jesus scholarship began. 1) Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768): A German professor of ancient languages, who, like the Jesus Seminar, saw reason and faith as an all or nothing, either/or choice. He introduced this distinction in the first major work in the quest for the historical Jesus, presenting Jesus as a political revolutionary who failed and was killed (cf. Reza Aslan more recently), and whose disciples fabricated a new religious system about delivery from sin and death after Jesus’ death on the cross. 2) David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74): The most towering proponent of historical Jesus scholarship in the 19th century and author of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835, and subsequent editions), he also distinguished strongly between the historical Jesus and what he called the Christ of “myth.” D) Assessment 1) Clearly there was development in Christian ideas about Jesus that continued after his death. Even in the canonical gospels you see such developments. The key question, however, is whether that development was one of continuity or discontinuity. That is, are early Christians developing a deeper understanding of what is already there in the words and deeds of Jesus? This is the starting assumption of the vast majority of Christians, including the Catholic Church. Or, do early Christians radically change the words and deeds of Jesus, either through an unintentional misunderstanding or through an intentional misrepresentation of the truth? This is the assumption of the Jesus Seminar.
Christ Blessing the Children by Hendryk Siemiradzki (1900)
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Have you ever encountered the work of the Jesus Seminar in one of their books, in reporting by the news media, or in a TV program based on their work? What did you think of it?
2. What elements of Jesus are emphasized by the Jesus Seminar? What elements are ignored or rejected?
3. Do you think that one must make a choice between traditional Christian belief and modern science?
4. Why does the Jesus Seminar reject so much of what is found in the canonical gospels? Is methodological skepticism a good or bad attitude to take when reading the gospels—or interacting with the world in general?
5. What is the difference between assuming continuity or discontinuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith?
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Topic 8: Double Dissimilarity
I. Summary: This lecture continues the analysis of the Jesus Seminar by outlining their methods, both their system of voting and the primary criteria that they—and many biblical scholars—use to determine the authenticity of a saying of Jesus. Many scholars find a saying more likely to actually derive from Jesus if it is dissimilar to both early Christianity and to the larger Jewish context of Jesus’ day. We will also look at the limitations on such a criterion, especially what happens when we only pay attention to the qualities that make a person unique.
II. Basic division in historical scholarship on Jesus A) Assumption of continuity between Jesus and the presentation of Jesus in the canonical gospels 1) Leads to a traditional portrait of Jesus, i.e., Jesus who is a Jewish teacher proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom, who sees himself as bringing about that kingdom, and who is known for healing and exorcisms. B) Assumption of discontinuity between Jesus and the presentation of Jesus in the canonical gospels 1) Leads to a rejection of the traditional portrait of Jesus and replacing that portrait with something else. In the case of the Jesus Seminar, the replacement is with a portrait drawn in the pattern of a Near-Eastern sage.
III. The Methods of the Jesus Seminar A) Voting System 1) Colored beads (a) Red: Jesus definitely said it. (b) Pink: Jesus probably said it. (c) Gray: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas are similar to his own. (d) Black: Jesus did not say it; the idea comes from somewhere else. 2) Result: Numerical computation of average scores that have led to color-coded translations of the gospels by the Jesus Seminar. 3) This method is deeply flawed both in its use of numbers (i.e., averages don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the group) and, more importantly, because the group was pre-selected to be dominated by scholars with little ideological, geographical, or institutional diversity (i.e., it does not reflect the full community of biblical scholars, but only one particular segment, which predetermined the results).
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B) Criteria for judgment of authenticity: That is, on what grounds can I determine the probability of whether a saying or deed is authentic or the addition of a later voice? 1) This is a basic question that all historians have to wrestle with, just like jurors listening to witnesses in a trial. 2) It is about probability, not certainty. 3) Historians have attempted to articulate objective criteria. 4) The Jesus Seminar relied primarily on three criteria, which are common in the field. (a) Double Dissimilarity (b) Multiple Attestation (c) Coherence
IV. Criterion #1: Double Dissimilarity A) Essentially, this is a principle that states that, if a saying is different from Judaism AND different from later Christianity, it more likely derives from Jesus. The logic is as follows. 1) If I am a Christian, I am claiming to base my life and my values on the life and teachings of Jesus. Thus, I have a strong motivation to find and promote stories and sayings of Jesus that conform to and support the way I am living. Many historians are cautious about me as a witness when I tell stories that support me because they are suspicious that I am shaping the story to support my agenda. If, however, I claim that Jesus said or did something that does not support— and perhaps is completely irrelevant to—how I live and worship, then that bias seems to be absent. Historians tend to see a greater likelihood that I am telling the truth because I have nothing to gain. 2) Likewise, many historians are cautious about situations in which Jesus is reported to agree with the virtues and values of Jewish culture because they have a suspicion that what is culturally accepted as “good” or “wise” by the author is simply assumed to come from Jesus, since Jesus is believed to be “good” and “wise”, too. 3) Thus, some historians (including the Jesus Seminar) put great weight on instances where Jesus does not conform to Jewish culture or early Christian culture. (a) E.g., in Mark 2:19, Jesus defends the reason why his disciples do not fast. Yet, we know from a variety of sources that Jews did fast (on Mondays and Thursdays), as did early Christians (on Wednesdays and Fridays). Thus, Jesus’ statement about not fasting appears dissimilar from both contexts, and, for some historians, this makes it more likely that Jesus really said it. (The Jesus Seminar colors it pink.) B) Embarrassment: a version of the dissimilarity criterion 1) Sometimes elements of the text not only do not support early Christianity, but actually seem to weaken it.
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2) For example, the canonical gospels speak of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This has embarrassing implications. First, it might imply that Jesus has sin that he needs to repent of. Second, it might imply that John the Baptist was superior. Early Christians seem to be “embarrassed” by this fact, because they keep adjusting and explaining it. In Mark (the oldest gospel), the event is simply described without explanation. Matthew tells the story a couple of decades later, but adds a conversation in which John the Baptist does not want to do it, and Jesus tells him that it is God’s will. Luke also tells the story, but changes it to passive voice and mentions it after he describes the arrest of John the Baptist. John mentions the elements surrounding the baptism (e.g., the dove), but never mentions the baptism itself. 3) Historians assume that people do not make up stories that embarrass themselves, and so they tend to consider the story of Jesus’ baptism by John as very probable. (The Jesus Seminar colors it red.) C) Assessing the criterion of double dissimilarity 1) Helpful when used positively, i.e., to declare something more probable 2) Critiques: (a) This criterion cannot be used negatively. (i) That is, we cannot assume that something isn’t authentic just because it is similar to Judaism or Christianity. For example, in Luke 13:1-5, Jesus calls on all people to repent. The Jesus Seminar colors this black because John the Baptist (representing Judaism) and the early Church promoted repentance. Thus, this statement is clearly not unique to Jesus, and the Jesus Seminar interprets “not unique” (not dissimilar) as “not authentic.” (ii) But this logic breaks down almost immediately. Jesus was a teacher, and a teacher can only teach by using language, concepts, and images familiar to the students. Even when he was offering new insights, Jesus would have had to speak in ways that would have been familiar to his Jewish listeners. (This is why he spoke Aramaic and not English.) A completely unique Jesus would have been incomprehensible to his listeners. (b) This criterion only points to what is unique or peculiar to Jesus; it cannot tell us about what is important to Jesus. (i) An over-reliance on such “unique” data is why the Jesus Seminar ended up with a Jesus who was so non-Jewish and non-Christian.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What do you see as some of the greatest problems of the voting method used by the Jesus Seminar? Does it have any virtues?
2. Why is it important to have explicit criteria by which we make historical judgments?
3. What is the logic of the criterion of dissimilarity—and that of embarrassment? Do you think that the logic is solid?
4. What are the limitations of the criterion of dissimilarity?
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Topic 9: Multiple Attestation, Coherence, and the Coptic Gospel of Thomas
I. Summary: This lecture concludes the discussion of the Jesus Seminar and focuses on two additional criteria for judging authenticity. First is the criterion of multiple attestation, which says that multiple witnesses are more trustworthy than single witnesses. Second is coherence, which asks how particular stories or sayings conform to the overall picture of Jesus. We will conclude with a discussion of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which the Jesus Seminar calls the Fifth Gospel and strongly promotes as an alternative to the canonical texts.
II. Criterion #2: Multiple Attestation A) Essentially, this criterion says that, if there are multiple, independent witnesses to the same event or saying, it must derive from further back in the tradition and is more likely to originate with Jesus himself. This is the same principle that leads us to seek multiple witnesses in a courtroom to corroborate each other. Almost all scholars, of whatever ideological background, are going to use this criterion. B) For example, Jesus speaks about the Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Mark, in material shared by Matthew and Luke that is not from Mark (= Q), in material unique to Matthew (M), in material unique to Luke (L), in the Gospel of John, and in other early texts like the Gospel of Thomas. Thus, it is extremely likely that Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God. C) Another example is Jesus’ crucifixion by Pontius Pilate, which is described in all four canonical gospels, Josephus, and Tacitus. Again, the historical probability of this detail is very high. D) Assessing the criterion of multiple attestation 1) Helpful when used positively, i.e., to declare something more probable 2) This criterion cannot be used negatively. (a) That is, just because there is only one witness does not mean that it did not happen. It just means that I am less confident that it happened. (b) For example, only Luke tells the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. This does not mean that Jesus did not say them. It just means that we don’t have secondary confirmation that Jesus said them. 3) Critique of the Jesus Seminar’s use of multiple attestation criterion: (a) One of the main historical problems with the Jesus Seminar’s work is not that they use this criterion (everyone does), but that they do not use it consistently. They regularly ignore instances of multiple attestation when they do not fit with their reconstruction of Jesus. For example, slightly different versions of Jesus’ words over bread and wine at the Last Supper,
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comparing them to his body and blood, appear in Mark 14:22-25, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, and (in a different context) in John 6. Despite the fact that three witnesses this event, the Jesus Seminar colors the text gray, simply because it reflects Christian theological ideas about the significance of the death of Christ, and they started with the assumptions that Jesus was different from Christianity and that Jesus never talked about himself. (b) Conversely, the Jesus Seminar colors the parable of the Good Samaritan red, even though it appears only in Luke. The reason is that it fits with their final criterion.
III. Criterion #3: Coherence A) Essentially, this is the statement that Jesus is more likely to have said or done something if it conforms to (or “fits” with) his overall character: both what he says / does and how he says / does it. Obviously, this assumes that we have an already agreed upon portrait of Jesus to compare things to. B) The reason for the Jesus Seminar’s confidence in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when they are so skeptical of everything else, is that its breaking down of barriers between Jews and Samaritans “fits” with their characterization of Jesus as one who “cut[s] against the social and religious grain” (The Five Gospels, 31). Indeed, when we look at the 10 sayings that the Jesus Seminar thinks are most likely original to Jesus (including the Good Samaritan, as well as turn the other cheek, love your enemies, and blessed are the poor), we discover that in 7 of those cases, Coherence is given as one of the—and in many cases, the only—criteria supporting authenticity. C) Critique: The logic is circular. 1) Why do the top ten most likely authentic statements go back to Jesus? Because that is how Jesus characteristically talked. How do you know that is how Jesus talked? Because he made those ten statements. 2) This is one of the clearest indications that the Jesus Seminar already had a portrait of Jesus in mind before they voted on the particular sayings and deeds. That is, the presentation of Jesus as a Near-Eastern sage is not the result of the voting process but its starting point. But that means that all the rhetoric about discovering or finding the historical Jesus was misleading.
IV. Coptic Gospel of Thomas A) Any portrait of Jesus needs an overall framework that makes sense of all of the individual sayings and deeds of Jesus. For most biblical scholars, this framework is the narrative provided by the canonical gospels, especially Mark, as it is the oldest. B) The Jesus Seminar, however, is deeply skeptical about the canonical gospels, and thus they must rely on another framework. They turn instead to the Coptic Gospel of Thomas as their “control group” (The Five Gospels, 15). C) What is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas? 1) Not to be confused with the other Gospel of Thomas (a mid- to late-2nd c. collection of legends about Jesus as a miracle-working child)
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2) Part of the Nag Hammadi discovery (1945) (a) A collection of Coptic (Egyptian) texts, most of which were translations of earlier Greek originals, and most of which reflect a Gnostic vein of Christianity (i) Gnostic = a blending of Christianity with Greek philosophy in the 2nd and 3rd centuries that, broadly speaking, taught that human souls are imprisoned in evil bodies and could be freed by a special knowledge (gnosis) that was brought to earth from the heavens by Christ (ii) The Nag Hammadi collection contains several texts called “gospels”, though they do not look like the canonical gospels. Instead of being concerned with the life of Jesus, they instead focus on this tradition of secret knowledge. D) What does the Coptic Gospel of Thomas say? 1) There is no narrative, only a string of 114 “secret” teachings by Jesus, many of which have a Gnostic flair, but others of which have a strong parallel to material found in the canonical gospels. For example, the 114 teachings include “blessed are the poor” and the parable of the sower and the seed. E) Why is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas important to the Jesus Seminar? 1) The key issue is the dating of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, about which there is a major historical debate. Our only complete version (found in the Nag Hammadi collection) was written in the 4th century CE. However, we know that the Coptic Gospel of Thomas had been composed by 200 CE at the latest because we have a few fragments of the Greek original that exist from that time. 2) Because of its Gnostic elements, most scholars date the Coptic Gospel of Thomas to the 2nd century, because that is when Gnosticism arose. But other scholars, including those in the Jesus Seminar, assert that an earlier version of Thomas (without Gnostic elements) was written ca. 50 CE, i.e., 20 years earlier than Mark, the oldest Gospel. This is possible (as are many things in life), though not probable. However, it is essential for the Jesus Seminar because it means that the earliest source for Jesus would be just a collection of sage-like teachings. It is this that provides the framework for their sage-like Jesus. F) Critique: a building built on sand 1) Even if there was a very early version of Thomas (which is doubtful), we don’t actually have it. All we have is a much later, Gnostic version. Thus, the “control” for interpreting Jesus is itself something that must first be reconstructed (i.e., getting back behind the Thomas we have to another Thomas we don’t have). We can’t ever be sure of what such an original would have said. More importantly, we have no idea of what it didn’t say. That is, we can’t say that Jesus did not say or do something that was not in early Thomas (or Q, about which a similar argument revolves), because we can’t look directly at early Thomas (or Q) to see what is and isn’t there.
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2) In reality, all of this is probably a moot point. It is likely that the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, like most 2nd and 3rd centuries gospels, does not represent an independent witness to Jesus, but rather knows the canonical gospels and is dependent on them for much of its information.
Coptic Gospel of Thomas and The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John), Codex II of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why do historians seek multiple attestation for an event? What are the limits on how this criterion can be effectively used? Why does the Jesus Seminar often reject sayings of Jesus, even when they have strong multiple attestation?
2. What is meant by the criterion of coherence? Why is it so problematic as a criterion?
3. What is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas? Why does the Jesus Seminar emphasize the importance of this gospel so strongly? What are some of the problems with trying to rely upon this gospel in a historical reconstruction of Jesus?
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Topic 10: Jesus, Jewish Mystic
I. Summary: This lecture begins the discussion of Marcus Borg’s portrait of Jesus. We will examine the assumptions that govern his reconstruction of Jesus as a Jewish mystic, first exploring the conception of mysticism that comes out of the field of comparative religions, and then turning to Borg’s argument about how Jesus conforms to this cross-cultural character type.
II. Marcus J. Borg (1942–2015) A) Spiritual biography: traditional Lutheranagnostic young manbiblical scholarEpiscopalian and leading representative of Progressive Christianity B) Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University C) Member of the Jesus Seminar D) Author of more than 20 books, most of which focus on Jesus or the Bible more broadly: 1) The “best-selling” author in historical Jesus books 2) Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (1987) 3) Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994) 4) Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (2006)
III. The Jesus of Marcus Borg A) Emphasizes the intersection of two axes 1) Vertical: Jesus as mystic (a) Mystic = a human being who had an “intensely vivid relationship to the world of the Spirit” (Jesus: A New Vision, 15) (b) i.e., Jesus doesn’t just know about spiritual things, but he knows them, by EXPERIENCE. This intimate experience of the world of the Spirit is the center of Jesus’ identity. 2) Horizontal: Jesus as cultural critic and social reformer (a) i.e., Jesus had a new vision for human life and community and was trying to bring it to reality. B) What Jesus is not: a divine figure who came to die for our sins and who literally rose from the dead C) Jesus was very special, but not unique. Thus, he is to be followed but is not to be believed in. (This is one of the key emphases of Progressive Christianity.)
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IV. How did Borg get this Jesus? A) Like the Jesus Seminar, Borg begins by defining himself against positions that he rejects, in this case, what he considers two erroneous extremes. 1) ERROR #1: Popular (supernaturalistic) Christianity (a) The Jesus of the creed, a divine figure whose death saved us from sins (b) Like the Jesus Seminar, Borg views these faith elements as something that arose after Jesus’ death and thus as distinct from what the real Jesus was saying and doing. 2) ERROR #2: Scholarly skepticism (a) In this case, he is rejecting two different forms of scholarly skepticism. (b) The first form is a generic kind of scholarly skepticism which asserts that we cannot actually know much about Jesus and that he is not relevant to modern life anyway. By contrast, Borg believes that we can know quite a bit about Jesus and that Jesus is very relevant to modern life. (c) The second form is a philosophical form of materialism that is common in modern scholarship, which limits reality to the measurable world of matter and energy and rejects the supernatural. By contrast, Borg is confident that more happens in the real world than science can currently explain—i.e., that visions, cures, etc., really do occur and are not just psychological projection or hallucination. (This is different from the Jesus Seminar.)
V. Jesus as Mystic A) Borg’s Theological Assumptions: 1) There is such a thing as a “world of Spirit” that lies beyond the visible, material world and can be experienced by humans in this life. These people are called “mystics” or “charismatics.” When mystics or charismatics experience this world of Spirit, it overwhelms them and their vision of reality, appearing as more real than the physical world. 2) These assumptions derive from a field of scholarship known as comparative religions, especially the work Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy, 1916) by Rudolph Otto (1869–1937). (a) Argues that every religion, at its core, is rooted in the human experience of transcendent reality. This transcendent reality (the holy) overwhelms humans by the power of its presence, making clear to us how small and insignificant this world is. Otto calls it a mysterium tremendum et fascinans (a mystery that frightens and fascinates us). 3) For Borg, Judaism and Christianity are particular expressions / manifestations of this larger reality of “religious experience,” and Jesus is a human being who is particularly rooted in such experiences (but not unique in them). (a) Moreover, Borg assumes that such experiences, while real, do not communicate specific, objective information. That is, they are matters that are felt in the gut rather than the intellect.
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A mystic can “feel” the world of Spirit and thus see the physical world from this larger perspective, but the mystic receives no new information from the world of Spirit. (b) This is how all religions can be “true”—because all are believed to be rooted in same basic experience of the transcendent, what Borg calls “almost a ‘cultural universal’” (Jesus: A New Vision, 26). But all the particular doctrines and rituals of any religion are just human attempts to organize and structure this experience and thus bear no divine imprimatur. B) How does Borg support the thesis that Jesus is a mystic? 1) First, Borg identifies a stream of Jewish mysticism as a context for Jesus: e.g., Jacob’s ladder, Moses encounter with God on the mountaintop, Isaiah’s vision of God enthroned in the Temple, Paul’s vision of Jesus on the Damascus Road, and also other Jewish holy men in Jesus’ day (Honi the Circle-Drawer and Hanina ben Dosa). 2) Second, Borg points to a few stories in the gospels that seem to reflect a sort of mystical experience. (a) The key example is the story of Jesus’ baptism, in which Jesus has a vision of the heavens opening, the Spirit descending on him, and a voice calling him his “son”. Borg accepts this event as authentic because its description fits broadly within what we know of mystical experiences from other traditions. (i) In this context, the label “son” would be interpreted as Jesus’ feeling of intimacy with this world of Spirit, which is the same reason he is able to call God “abba” (daddy) in prayer. (b) He also assumes that Jesus’ temptations in the desert, his vision of Satan falling (Lk 10:17- 18), and the frequent references to Jesus’ prayer are part of his mystical experience. (c) One of the bigger weaknesses of this part of Borg’s reconstruction of Jesus is that this is really all the evidence there is to support the idea of Jesus having visionary experiences (and it is not much). C) Jesus’ Authority 1) One of the more frequent refrains in the Synoptic gospels is that people were surprised because Jesus taught them on his own authority, and not as the scribes (i.e., by basing judgments on tradition). (a) Borg explains this authority as a result of the intensity of his spiritual experience, which empowered him to act from that larger perspective. In particular, Jesus’ role as cultural critic and social reformer are going to be rooted in this perspective of the Spirit. 2) Jesus as healer and exorcist (a) Again, because charismatics in a variety of religious traditions function as healers, Borg accepts as historical that Jesus was a healer and an exorcist. Though he does not attempt to
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explain what was actually happening in such healings or exorcisms, Borg does think that something really happened. (b) However, Borg is much more suspicious of the other, more spectacular deeds of Jesus (e.g., raising the dead, calming the storm, feeding the 5000). He does not state that they are, by definition, impossible, but he does state that he would need to be convinced that other people (other charismatics) can do them before he can accept that Jesus could, too. Again, the controlling framework is that Jesus is one example of the larger type of mystic / charismatic, not the unique Son of God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ by James Tissot, 1886–1894
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What does Borg mean by calling Jesus a mystic? What do you know about mystics in the Christian tradition? In other religious traditions?
2. What are Borg’s theological assumptions about the world of the Spirit? Do you believe that all religions are rooted in a common experience and thus, in essence, the same? What are the implications of such a position?
3. Read the baptism scene in the Gospel of Mark (1:9-11). Does this seem to support the notion of Jesus as a mystic?
4. What does it mean to say that Jesus is special but not unique?
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Topic 11: Jesus, Social Reformer
I. Summary: This lecture continues the analysis of Marcus Borg’s Jesus, focusing on his program for social reform. First, we will examine the given realities of the 1st century CE, an economic and political reality marked by domination and exploitation, and an ideological reality that emphasized separation from what is unholy. Second, we will turn to the alternative vision of God and community promoted by Jesus, which emphasized compassion and inclusion.
II. Jesus as cultural critic and social reformer (the horizontal dimension of Jesus) A) According to Borg, this (and not his mystical experience) is what really made Jesus distinct among charismatics of his day. Borg fundamentally rejects the idea that Jesus’ ministry and mission were about going to heaven. B) Instead, Jesus was trying to transform the world (like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.).
III. What was Jesus trying to reform? A) i.e., in order to understand reform (offering an alternative way of being in the world), we first have to understand the given way of being in the world (i.e., life as it was normally encountered). 1) Concrete reality of the 1st century CE = the Domination System (i.e., the basic structure of pre- industrial agrarian society) (a) Economic: fundamental class division (i) Urban elites: roughly 10% of the population; consumed roughly 2/3 of production (ii) Rural peasants: roughly 90% of the population; source of production; exploited by taxes and forms of slavery (b) Political: Peasants have no say in the system. (c) Religious: Religion justified the system as the will of the gods (e.g., the divinity of Rome / emperor, the divine appointment of the aristocratic priests in Jerusalem) (d) In Jesus’ day, this Domination System was in force, with a few special characteristics. (i) Rome was the ultimate dominator. (ii) Roman domination was experienced by the locals primarily through intermediaries: client kings (Herod the Great and Herod Antipas) and tax collectors. (e) In sum, this was a concrete economic and political reality marked by oppression, injustice, and daily struggle for the poor majority.
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2) Ideological reality of the 1st century CE = Conventional Wisdom and the Politics of Holiness (a) God was a God of reward and punishment. If you lived according to the dictates of the Torah, you were righteous, and you would be rewarded on this earth and maybe in heaven. If you did not follow Torah, you were a sinner, and you would be punished. (i) Performance principle = You get what you deserve. (b) The central command of Torah: Leviticus 19:1, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” (i) Holiness was understood primarily as separation from unclean things. Hence, kosher, which is separation from unclean food. More important socially was the separation from unclean people (i.e., sinners). Borg assumes that the category of shunned “sinners” included not simply murderers and adulterers but also poor people who simply could not afford to pay the Temple taxes on top of the Roman taxes. [In lecture #18, we will see E. P. Sanders critique this point.] (c) The politics of holiness is the attempt to organize Jewish society to achieve holiness. (i) This was a shared goal of separating the holy from the unholy in order to avert God’s punishment and attain God’s blessing (and also to preserve Jewish identity within a dominant culture). (ii) However, the shared goal was expressed differently among the distinct Jewish groups. (I) The Essenes promoted holiness as separation from society (hence, moving to the Dead Sea). (II) The Pharisees promoted holiness as keeping Torah according to priestly standards and separation from non-observant individuals (especially not eating with them). [Again, we will see E. P. Sanders critique this point in lecture #18.] (III) Revolutionaries (probably after Jesus’ day) promoted holiness as expelling the unclean Romans from the land.
IV. Jesus’ alternative way A) Alternative vision of God (World of the Spirit) 1) Jesus rejects the notion of reward and punishment and replaces it with a notion of God as gracious and compassionate. 2) Borg’s two main pieces of evidence are the parables of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20). In both cases, the performance principle is rejected, as God graciously does good far beyond what people (the prodigal son, the laborers hired later)
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deserve. And in both cases this violation of the conventional wisdom leads to protests by those who maintain the performance principle (the elder son, the laborers hired earlier). B) Alternative vision of community 1) Borg calls Jesus a “revitalization movement founder” = Jesus is not founding a new religion but trying to restore Israel to what it should be (i.e., putting an existing community back on its proper course). 2) Ethos of the movement: As in the Hebrew Scriptures and 1st century Judaism, the focus is on being like God. However, for Jesus, the central characteristic of God that must be imitated is compassion, not holiness. Borg’s points especially to Luke 6:36, where Jesus says, “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.” This shift in emphasis from holiness to compassion is also how Borg understands the repeated disputes about healing on the Sabbath. 3) The result of such an emphasis on compassion was a community that negated the boundaries created by the politics of holiness. (a) Eating with sinners: To eat with someone in that culture (and most cultures) is to accept them and to proclaim your acceptance of them. That is why there is such frequent shock at Jesus’ eating with sinners in the gospels. Borg summarizes this by saying that “Jesus’ table fellowship with outcasts was an enacted parable of the grace of God, both expressing and mediating the divine grace” (Jesus: A New Vision, 102). (b) Inclusion of women: e.g., traveling with Jesus (Luke 8), Jesus’ approval of Mary of Bethany as disciple (Luke 10) (c) Outreach to the poor: e.g., blessed are the poor, the hungry (Luke 6); you can’t serve God and wealth (Matthew 6:24) 4) In Borg’s judgment, this vision of a transformed way of living in the world is what Jesus meant when he spoke about the presence of the Kingdom of God.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What were the characteristics of the domination system of the 1st century? How do they compare to our world today?
2. What were the characteristics of the ideologies of the performance principle and the politics of holiness in the 1st century? How do they compare to our world today?
3. What alternatives does Jesus offer to these given realities? What teachings and actions of Jesus illustrate this alternative vision of God and community? If this is an important element of Jesus’ mission and ministry, what are the implications for Christian life today?
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Topic 12: Why Did Jesus Die?
I. Summary: This lecture concludes the discussion of Marcus Borg’s Jesus. After a brief assessment of the social / political themes highlighted by Borg in the last lecture, we turn to other aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry that are also illuminated by looking at Jesus as a social reformer. First, we analyze the probable reasons why Jesus was arrested and condemned by the Jewish and Roman elites in Jerusalem. Second, we turn to some of Jesus’ teachings on non-violent resistance that have inspired modern social reformers.
II. Assessment of Borg’s reconstruction of Jesus as a social reformer A) There is a lot in the gospels to support such an interpretation of Jesus’ teaching and ministry. For example, the climax of Jesus teaching before he enters Jerusalem and the Passion story begins, says, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mk 10:42-44). Such a statement (and many others like it) shows that Jesus is aware of the political contrast between his community and the way the world normally works. B) The problem is the confusion of the part and the whole. That is, to say that Jesus was a social reformer does not mean that Jesus was “just” a social reformer. Borg does a very good job of highlighting this element of Jesus’ ministry, but he tends to ignore other parts. But this is also the same mistake that many traditional Christians have made over the centuries, focusing only on parts of Jesus’ story dealing with sin, death, and resurrection, and often blind to the radical political message of Jesus.
III. Why did Jesus die? A) Classic answer (from the New Testament): Jesus died to save us from our sins. 1) This may indeed be why Jesus chose to go to his death (even if Borg doesn’t think so), but it does not fully answer the question. It does not tell us why others would kill him in the first place. B) The basic facts – Jesus was crucified by the Roman governor, and the charge over his head was “king of the Jews”. 1) INRI = Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews C) The clear implication: The Romans considered Jesus to be a political threat, a rival to the true king, Caesar. It is possible that this was just a giant mistake, but Borg thinks that there is something to it. It is not that Jesus was a violent revolutionary (contra Reza Aslan). There is no evidence for this, and if it were the case, Jesus’ followers would have been arrested and crucified, too. But there is evidence that Jesus was intentionally challenging the dominant social order, and that is a different sort of political threat.
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D) Symbolic political statements in Holy Week: 1) Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), with Jesus riding on the back of a donkey (a) Fulfills Zechariah 9:9-10 – prophecy that Jerusalem’s king will enter the city on the back of a young donkey, and will bring peace and end war (b) Counter-entry from East, while the Roman governor and extra troops were entering with pomp from the West (from Caesarea Maritima) to oversee order during the dangerously large Passover feast, with hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims in the city. Borg considers this a symbolic demonstration (as is common in the Hebrew prophets) of two sorts of kingdom: one of domination, one of peace. 2) Expulsion of the moneychangers and those buying and selling from the Temple: (a) The Temple had a series of courts. Sacrifices were performed in the holy center by the priests. One of the outer courts had a section in which there was a market with moneychangers and people buying and selling animals. The reason was that pilgrims needed to pay the Temple tax to support sacrifices, but only “pure” money (i.e., without images) could be brought into the sacred areas of the Temple. Pilgrims also needed to buy pure animals for sacrifice, as it was too difficult to bring them on the pilgrimage from home. Thus, both groups in the market are key parts of the sacrificial system and the politics of holiness. (b) Why does Jesus overturn the tables and drive them out? (i) Jesus’ two quotes explain the meaning of the event: (I) Isaiah 56:7 – “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” This challenges the SEPARATION that is at the core of the politics of holiness. (II) Jeremiah 7:11 – “den of robbers”: from a passage in Jeremiah that is critiquing the injustice and oppression that the rulers in Jerusalem were inflicting on the poor and threatening to destroy the Temple if the leaders did not learn to practice social justice; thus, a challenge to the domination system. (ii) Thus, Jesus was not critiquing immoral individuals but symbolically challenging the system that they represent. (iii) Borg and most historians think that this is ultimately what got Jesus killed. That is, the leaders in Jerusalem got that he was challenging the whole structure, which they had a stake in defending. 3) “We who live after centuries of Christian accommodation with imperial systems are inclined to think that Rome simply made a mistake—that Rome failed to recognize that Christianity is harmless to empire (and maybe even helpful). But what happened to Jesus and Paul should give us pause. Christianity is the only major religion whose two most formative figures were executed by established authority. Accident? Plan of God? Or is there in Jesus and Paul a vision and a
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program, a message and a mission, that should cause systems of domination, ancient and modern, to tremble?” (Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, 258)
IV. Jesus and non-violent political resistance A) Model for Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.: relied especially on a particular passage in the Sermon on the Mount 1) Matthew 5:38-45 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” 2) Two possible interpretations of this (a) The doormat interpretation = Let people run all over you (b) Contextual interpretation (Walter Wink) (i) Eye for an eye: not a license for violence, but actually a biblical limit on violence, responding to the human tendency to escalate violence (ii) Do not resist an evildoer = Jesus’ further limiting violence (I) In Greek = do not resist violently (II) Breaks the cycle of violence, cf. Martin Luther King, Strength to Love (1963): “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” B) Three examples of non-violent resistance to oppression: 1) Turn the other cheek (a) If anyone strikes you on the right cheek (i) Back-handed, the way superiors struck inferiors 2) Turning to your (left) cheek requires striking one like an equal. (a) Give him your cloak
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(i) Only poor people got sued for their garments, and poor people had only two garments (outer coat and inner cloak). To give him your cloak is to strip yourself naked publicly in court, which forces the suer to share in your shame. 3) Walk a second mile (a) Soldiers could impress peasants to carry their burdens for one mile, but that was the legal limit. To try to go another puts the soldier at risk. C) Love your enemies 1) Ideological ground for non-violent resistance, because that is how God acts
Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 19th century
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Read Jeremiah 7:1-15. What is Jeremiah critiquing? What is he threatening? Why would Jesus quote this passage when he was driving the moneychangers and animal sellers out of the Temple?
2. Read Isaiah 56:3-8. What is Isaiah saying about the place of foreigners and eunuchs (traditionally excluded groups) from God’s people? Why would Jesus quote this passage when he was driving the moneychangers and animal sellers out of the Temple?
3. What is the logic of non-violent political protest? Were Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., correct when they interpreted Jesus as a teacher of non-violent protest?
4. Why does Borg think that Jesus was killed by the authorities in Jerusalem? How can a person be a political threat while practicing non-violence?
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Topic 13: Jesus, Cynic Philosopher
I. Summary: Summary: This lecture begins the discussion of John Dominic Crossan’s Jesus. It examines the teachings and lifestyle of the ancient Greek philosophy of Cynicism. We look at the reasons for Crossan’s controversial thesis that Jesus should be understood in the context of Cynicism and conclude with an assessment of the limitations of this thesis.
II. John Dominic Crossan (born 1934) A) Former Catholic priest (Servite), who left the priesthood in 1969 after disagreements with hierarchy B) Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University C) Co-chair of the Jesus Seminar (with Robert Funk) D) Author of more than 20 books on Jesus, Paul, and early Christianity 1) His most important work: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991) 2) A more accessible summary of that work: Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994) E) Brilliant, controversial (e.g., thesis that Jesus was eaten by dogs), and media-savvy
III. The Jesus of John Dominic Crossan: a “peasant Jewish Cynic” (The Historical Jesus, 421) A) Peasant: the focus of lecture #14 B) Jewish: This is one of the major deficiencies of Crossan’s analysis. For Crossan, Jesus happens to be Jewish ethnically, but Jewish religious beliefs are not central to his reconstruction. C) Cynic: the focus of this lecture
IV. What is a Cynic? A) Cynicism = an ancient philosophical movement, deriving from the Socratic tradition B) First great teacher: Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 400–320 BCE) C) Key teachings: Cynicism sees human beings as enslaved by our desires for wealth and social status (e.g., honor). The goal of Cynicism was a life of freedom and self-sufficiency, achieved through rejecting all of the trappings of culture and civilization. 1) Freedom was achieved through voluntary poverty. That is, there is perfect freedom in wanting nothing and thus not being enslaved to the pursuit of our desires.
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(a) Classic illustration: encounter between Diogenes and Alexander the Great at Corinth in 336 BCE, in which Alexander offered anything to Diogenes and Diogenes asked him to step of his sunlight 2) Self-sufficiency was achieved by relying on what was available in nature. (a) Classic illustration: Diogenes smashing his cup when he sees a boy drinking water from his hand 3) Cynics were known for teachings that were sharply critical of the social order, but they were more famous for acting out their philosophy than for teaching it. (a) Distinctive appearance (i) Poor cloak: symbol of the voluntary poverty (ii) Knapsack (begging-bag, containing their few possessions) over the shoulder: symbol of self-sufficiency (iii) Staff in the hand: symbol of itinerancy (constant travel; no home) (iv) Usually long-haired, barefoot, and filthy (b) The name “Cynic” derives from Greek kyon (“dog”) because they violated all conventions of civilized behavior and lived like animals: sleeping, eating, urinating, defecating, and having sex in public.
V. Is there any specific connection between Jesus and the Cynics? A) In order to make this connection, one has to argue that Jesus would have been familiar with Greek culture. Such an argument generally focuses on the city of Sepphoris, a Greek (not Jewish) city that was located in Galilee less than 4 miles from Nazareth. Some scholars (e.g., Burton Mack, A Myth of Innocence and The Lost Gospel) have hypothesized that the presence of Sepphoris and other cities like it in Galilee means that Galilee was deeply Hellenized and that Jesus would have thus had direct contact with Greek culture. Usually joined to this is the hypothesis that Jesus—as a carpenter— would have worked in Sepphoris. B) Crossan’s thesis of the Cynic Jesus presumes such Hellenization, and he finds strong similarities to the Cynics in Jesus’ missionary actions and in his rejection of social values. 1) Jesus’ directions about missionary work: In Luke’s gospel, Jesus sends out his followers ahead of him two by two, commanding them to “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals” (10:4). Similar directions are given to the Twelve in Mark’s gospel: “He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics” (6:8-9). 2) Jesus’ rejection of social values, especially the rejection of the fundamental social structure of biological family
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(a) Matthew 10:37 – “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (b) Luke 12:51-53 – “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (c) Mark 3:31-35 – “Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’
VI. Serious problems with Crossan’s thesis that Jesus was influenced by Cynicism A) There is no evidence that Jesus ever went to Sepphoris. B) There is no evidence of the presence of Cynics in Sepphoris. C) Everything that Jesus says and does has stronger parallels in Jewish tradition than it does in Greek culture. In particular, Jesus’ teaching is not about self-sufficiency, but God-sufficiency (i.e., relying on God for all things). D) Much of what Jesus says and does contrasts with Cynic philosophy. For example, he specifically tells his disciples not to take a begging bag but to stay with people in their homes. Thus, Jesus emphasis was on community, not individual self-sufficiency. E) In light of such criticisms, Crossan has softened the thesis in the later Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. In it, Crossan interprets Cynicism as a Greek, urban representation of a universal philosophy, that is, a common response to a similar problem. He calls this universal philosophy “world negation”. He then presents Jesus’ teaching as another species of this universal philosophy, also rejecting normal social values and structures, but doing so in a different environment. Instead of an urban, Greek context, Jesus is teaching in a rural, Jewish context.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why is the world of scholarship generally uninteresting to the media? Why is John Dominic Crossan so popular with the media?
2. What was ancient Cynicism? What were its goals, and how did it seek to achieve them? What modern lifestyles are similar?
3. In what ways does Jesus’ teaching look like Cynicism? In what ways does it look different? What do you think are the reasons for those similarities and differences? Think in particular about the ways that the means may be similar, but the ends are different.
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Topic 14: Magic and Meal
I. Summary: This lecture concludes the discussion of John Dominic Crossan’s Jesus. We begin with the ancient peasant experience of inequality, both economically and socially, and continue with Crossan’s presentation of Jesus’ ministry as an attempt to establish a radically egalitarian community through the means of an open table fellowship and an itinerant ministry of free healing. I conclude with some overall assessments of the radical (non-traditional) portraits of Jesus that we have discussed.
II. Theme of egalitarianism in early Christianity A) Galatians 3:28 – “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 1) Most scholars think that Paul is quoting a baptismal formula, i.e., something that was said by or to a new Christian at the time of his or her baptism. The wording reflects entry in a new community where the major social distinctions of the ancient world were rejected, or at least minimized (ethnic: Jew vs. Greek; class: slave vs. free; gender: male vs. female). 2) Such a radical sentiment is so different from the existing contexts (both Greco-Roman and Jewish) and from the direction that Christianity was moving (toward more hierarchical structure), that many scholars assume it must derive from Jesus.
III. The peasant experience of Jesus A) Jesus, as carpenter (tekton), was actually from the lower part of the peasant class, between farmers (the majority) and the lowest rung (beggars, day laborers, and slaves). He thus would have had direct experience of the inequality and oppression characteristic of ancient culture. B) Crossan asserts that the peasant dream (coming out of this experience) is the end of inequality. 1) Objective, i.e., sharing material resources (e.g., the pooling of resources by the first Christian community as described at the end of Acts 2) 2) Subjective, i.e., inclusion and identity (a) The ancient world was a dyadic (“groupist”) culture, in which personal identity is completely defined by how one is seen by others. In particular, it was an Honor / Shame Culture. A person has honor when s/he has a good reputation and shame when s/he does not. 3) The peasant dream is not to be hungry and not to be shamed.
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IV. How does Jesus attempt to enact such radical egalitarianism in his counter-cultural movement? A) Foundation #1: Open Commensality 1) Dining at table was a miniature model of society. That is, the table reproduced the social order. Rich people ate with rich people. Men ate separate from women. And within groups, the table was arranged according to status. For example, see Luke 14:7-11, where Jesus says not to seek to sit in the place of honor at a banquet, because you may be asked to move down, but to humbly seek a lower place so that you may be asked to move up. 2) Like Borg, Crossan strongly emphasizes Jesus practicing an open table (Latin, “mensa”) where all are welcome, including tax collectors and sinners. (a) Crossan’s major emphasis is on the parable of the great banquet (Matthew 22 and Luke 14). In both versions, a wealthy man is giving a great feast, but those invited (the honorable guests) refuse to come. The wealthy man responds by inviting all others: (i) Matthew 22:9-10 – “‘Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (ii) Luke 14:21 – “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” (b) Crossan interprets this parable—and Jesus practicing of eating with sinners—as an explicit rejection of honor / shame values and an enacted symbol of egalitarian society (i) Objective: People literally share food (material resources). (ii) Subjective: All people are declared to matter. (I) This is how Crossan understands Luke 6:20: “Blessed are the poor [literally, the destitute].” They are blessed because they are included and declared to matter. B) Foundation #2: Free Healing 1) Jesus was clearly famous for healing people. Such stories fill the gospels, and Crossan says that this was a central part of Jesus’ setting up an egalitarian counter-culture. 2) Yet, Crossan explicitly rejects any idea that Jesus actually healed disease. 3) How did Jesus heal without actually healing? (a) Disease vs. Illness (i) Disease (objective): medical condition (ii) Illness (subjective): social and psychological experience of disease
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(iii) E.g., men who had AIDS in the 1980s experienced a disease (the HIV virus and its destruction of their immune systems) and an illness (social ostracism). 4) Crossan believes that, while Jesus could not cure any disease (objectively), he did (subjectively) heal illnesses by welcoming outcasts back into the community. (a) For example, several stories speak of Jesus curing lepers (i.e., people with a skin infection, not Hansen’s disease) by touching them. Jewish purity codes required such people to separate themselves from society. They had to call out “unclean, unclean” so people would not accidentally touch them. Because they were considered dead by the community, in a dyadic culture, they saw themselves as dead, too. However, Jesus violated purity codes by touching them, healing them psychologically and socially, bringing them “back to life”. (b) Such “healing” outside of official channels is often called “magic” by those in power. Hence, Crossan’s consistent references to Jesus and magic mean not that he thinks that Jesus was casting spells, but that Jesus was exercising subversive authority.
V. Assessment of radical (non-traditional) portraits of Jesus A) What I hope you take away: Probably the greatest value of the work of scholars like Borg and Crossan is their ability to highlight the radical social and political program of Jesus: how Jesus challenged the structures of power and privilege in the ancient world and particularly how he crossed the lines that his culture drew between acceptable and unacceptable people. B) Why you should be cautious of many of their claims: 1) They often overshoot their target. That is, they point in the right direction but then go too far. For example, compassion (which is a major theme in the teaching of Jesus) does not necessarily mean that there are no standards for which people are responsible. Indeed, the gospels contain some very rigorous ethical exhortations which these portraits of Jesus mostly pass by in silence. Likewise, getting rid of boundaries between insiders and outsiders (which is a major theme in the teaching of Jesus) does not necessarily mean radical egalitarianism. The very well-attested tradition of Jesus’ inner circle (the Twelve) is clear evidence that there were structures inside the community. 2) They often mistake the part for the whole. It is true—and essential to recognize—that Jesus’ ministry had a strong element of social and political critique. However, these portraits often ignore any strong religious message or motivation in the teaching of Jesus, and, in particular, the specific elements of Jewish religiosity are often quite forgotten. Another way of framing this is to ask whether Jesus’ primary aim was social and political transformation—or, if the social and political transformation is just part of a larger mission that is primarily theological / religious in its aim. 3) We must be cautious of the desire to make Jesus relevant to 21st century Western values. The Jesus Seminar, Borg, and Crossan are all quite explicit that they seek to reform modern Christianity based on their new image of Jesus, and they are seeking a Jesus who speaks to modern concerns. However, you find what you are looking for, and the result (intentionally or unintentionally) is the elimination of the parts of Jesus that does seem congenial to this project.
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4) It is essential to have a framework for understanding Jesus, but the frameworks adopted in these non-traditional portraits are problematic. They have largely rejected the canonical gospels as resources for understanding Jesus, primarily because the four canonical gospels are so saturated with both Christian and Jewish religious language. Instead, they have turned to two other sources: (a) Cross-cultural models (e.g., Crossan’s Cynic or Borg’s mystic) that leave us with a Jesus who is not very Jewish. (b) Reconstructions of earlier versions of the gospels (early Thomas, early Q) that don’t actually exist anymore (if they ever did) and thus remain very hypothetical.
Nicodemus and Jesus on a Rooftop by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1899
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How is identity experienced in a dyadic culture? How is that different from the individuality that is part of modern Western culture?
2. Why is table fellowship such an important symbol for society? How was table fellowship structured in the ancient world? How is it structured in our world? What is so radical about open commensality?
3. What is Crossan’s distinction between disease and illness? Why does he understand Jesus’ healing ministry as another example of his larger program of egalitarianism and inclusion?
4. What insights did you gain from this survey of radical (non-traditional) portraits of Jesus? What are the limitations of these portraits?
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Theme #3: Jesus in His Jewish Context
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Topic 15: Jesus the Jew
I. Summary: This lecture introduces the final major theme of these lectures: the Jewishness of Jesus and how understanding Jesus in his Jewish context can illuminate much of his mission and ministry. After reviewing the basic division between traditional and non-traditional portraits of Jesus, I introduce three of the most important scholars whose starting point is the assumption that Jesus was a figure thoroughly grounded in the religious traditions of Judaism.
II. Fundamental division in historical Jesus scholarship (review) A) Non-traditional portraits of Jesus: 1) Assumption #1: There is a fundamental discontinuity (intentional or unintentional) between the Jesus of history (a normal human being, generally seen as a social or political leader) and the Christ of faith (a divine figure, seen to be the creation of the early Christian church). 2) Assumption #2: The canonical gospels (which speak of Jesus in exalted, often divine terms) are products of this early Christian church and thus cannot be trusted as reliable sources for understanding the Jesus of history. 3) Result: A new Jesus is constructed based on comparative and cross-cultural models (and reconstructions of early versions of the gospel), ultimately creating a non-Jewish Jesus. B) Traditional portraits of Jesus: 1) Assumption #1: While there was some development of language and ideas, the early Christian church was in basic continuity with the historical Jesus. 2) Assumption #2: The canonical gospels, produced by the early Christian church, are thus, at least broadly, reliable sources for understanding the historical Jesus. 3) Caveat: Traditional does not mean “believing”. That is, traditional portraits of Jesus assume that the gospels are saying the same basic sorts of things that Jesus was saying (e.g., that he claimed to be the Messiah). It does not mean that either of them are correct (e.g., that he really is the Messiah). Thus, while many Christian historians are found in this camp, so are many Jewish and non-religious scholars. 4) Result: When you read the gospels this way, one of the first things that becomes evident is that Jesus and his followers were deeply rooted in the religious language, ideas, and images of first- century Judaism. That is, that Jesus was Jewish. 5) Thus, one of the most important working assumptions of this group of scholars is that, in order to understanding what Jesus was saying and doing (i.e., to get to the heart of his understanding of himself and his ministry), you have to understand him in his Jewish context. This does not mean that Jesus was the “same” as every other Jewish teacher. If he were, people would not have remembered him, much less worshiped him as Messiah and Son of God. But it does mean that he
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was thoroughly rooted in the religious and cultural language of 1st century Judaism, and thus we have to learn that language to understand what he was saying.
III. Three important scholars producing traditional (Jewish-centered) portraits of Jesus A) E. P. Sanders (born 1937) 1) From a Protestant background, though he does not bring his faith into his scholarship in any significant way. 2) Professor at McMaster College (Ontario), Oxford University, and then Duke University 3) One of the central figures in 20th century scholarship on 1st century Judaism, especially the transformation of our understanding of the Pharisees. In particular, he is concerned to challenge the longstanding tendency to stereotype Jesus’ opponents. (a) He roots this tendency in some common assumptions. First, most Jesus scholars (who generally come from Christian traditions) assume that Jesus is right. They also assume (as is normal for human beings) that they are right. Since they assume that Jesus is right and that they are right, then they interpret Jesus in ways that make Jesus agree with them. That means that Jesus’ opponents are seen as the scholars’ opponents, and they tend to be characterized as straw men that represent whatever the scholars don’t like. 4) Major works on Jesus: (a) Jesus and Judaism (1985): his seminal, academic work (b) The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993): a very good popular introduction 5) We will rely especially on his work when trying to understand the broader Jewish context and the question of the precise nature of Jesus’ disagreement with the Pharisees. B) John P. Meier (born 1942) 1) Catholic priest 2) Professor at Catholic University and then at Notre Dame 3) Major works on Jesus (a) A Marginal Jew (1991–2009) – 4 volumes (more coming): a masterful and careful analysis of the historical Jesus 4) We will rely especially on his work when trying to understand the nature of Jesus’ message in the context of Jewish eschatology. C) N. T. Wright (born 1948) 1) Anglican bishop of Durham 2) Professor at University of St. Andrews (Scotland), formerly at Oxford
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3) Major works on Jesus: (a) Christian Origins and the Question of God (1992–2013) – 4 volumes (more coming): a scholarly magnum opus and the touchstone for many of the current debates about Jesus in scholarship (b) Many popular introductions to Jesus scholarship (i) Who Was Jesus? (1992) (ii) The Challenge of Jesus (1999) 4) By far the most public voice in the “traditional” camp, including books and projects that he has completed in dialogue / debate with Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan 5) Many of his arguments make the same basic point. That is, the theological language from and about Jesus that we find in the canonical gospels cannot be explained as later additions to Jesus but must flow out of things that Jesus really did and said. (a) For example, the language about Jesus as “Messiah” must come from Jesus himself. The reason is that the term “Messiah” in 1st century Judaism was primarily understood in that culture as military figure. The canonical gospels don’t alter Jesus to fit this concept, but instead change the meaning of the term “Messiah” to fit a person who died passively on a cross. This move only makes sense if he had already taught his disciples to use this term for him. (b) Wright’s most influential single argument (really a tour-de-force) is his argument about the meaning of resurrection in the 1st century. We will look at it carefully in the final lecture.
IV. Our program for these last lectures A) The Jewish context of Jesus 1) What it meant to be Jewish in the 1st c.: the key beliefs and practices that united Jews and distinguished them from everyone else 2) The diversity of movements and perspectives within Judaism in 1st c. Palestine: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (community of the Dead Sea Scrolls), Christians (a) Jesus’ relationship to that context, especially his disputes with the Pharisees and the reasons for his death (b) The essential theological concepts that Jesus takes from 1st century Judaism: All three of these scholars agree that Jesus was—and saw himself as—an eschatological prophet, i.e., someone who was announcing (on behalf of God)—and perhaps himself inaugurating— God’s kingdom on earth. We will explore what “eschatology” and “kingdom” meant in 1st century Judaism and examine how Jesus both accepts and transforms these concepts. (c) Conclude with the Resurrection—and what historians can say about it
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What are the basic distinctions between traditional and non-traditional portraits of Jesus? How can Jewish and non-Christian scholars produce traditional portraits?
2. Is the notion of Jesus as Jewish obvious or radical to you?
3. What stereotypes of the Pharisees are you familiar with? Why do you think that most scholars view them in such negative terms?
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Topic 16: The First-Century Jewish Context
I. Summary: This lecture explores the question of what it meant to be Jewish in 1st century Palestine, focusing on the shared beliefs and practices called “Common Judaism”. We will discover that Jesus is thoroughly grounded in these shared beliefs and practices, even in cases where he was debating with other Jewish leaders about the proper ways to fulfill them. In this lecture, we will explore the key question: What did it mean to be Jewish in first century Palestine?
II. Two essential elements (following the work of E. P. Sanders) A) “Common Judaism” 1) Orthodoxy: set of essential beliefs shared by all Jews 2) Orthopraxy: set of essential practices shared by all Jews 3) Key point: Since the time of the Babylonian Exile (6th century BCE), Judaism had the experience of being a small community in the midst of much more powerful empires (Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman). They had an intense concern to preserve their identity as the chosen people called by God into Covenant and to resist assimilation (though what such resistance meant was debated.) Orthodoxy and orthopraxy represent the things that meant the most to mainstream Jewish identity. B) Diversity of expressions [focus of lecture #17] 1) First-century Judaism was marked by a variety of competing ideas about the best way to live out the Jewish tradition, both particular understandings of the essential elements of orthodoxy and orthopraxy and additional matters each group considered essential. 2) Major groups: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and eventually the followers of Jesus
III. Jewish Orthodoxy in the first-century CE A) Judaism was not (and is not) a creedal religion. That is, it does not have a long set of doctrines that one must ascribe to in order to be part of the community. In fact, there is much more emphasis on praxis (action) than belief. However, there were certain basic religious ideas that were shared by all mainstream Jews in the 1st century, including Jesus and his followers. B) Monotheism 1) Jews believed that there was one God (YHWH) who created the universe and continues to rule it. This does not mean that YHWH is the only spiritual being. Indeed, the heavens were heavily populated with angels and demons in the minds of many Jews, but these other powers were subject to YHWH.
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2) Most importantly, only YHWH is worthy of worship. Jews abstained from the worship of other gods. This earned them the label “anti-social” from wider pagan culture because pagan worship was an essential part of civic activity. While this was less of an issue in Palestine (where there were not many competing divinities), it still arose on occasion. For example, the Emperor Gaius Caligula ordered (ca. 40 CE) that a statue of himself be set up in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews saw this as an attempt to set up an idol that rivaled God, and revolution was a serious possibility until Gaius was assassinated and the plan was abandoned. 3) As a Jew in first-century Palestine, Jesus must have shared this monotheistic belief. He would not have survived a week in Palestine if his message included a rejection of YHWH as the only true God. This is confirmed in the synoptic gospels, when Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment. He responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (known as the Shema = “hear”), which is the central monotheistic passage from the Old Testament, reminding Jews that there is only one God, YHWH, who must be loved with all one’s heart, soul, and strength. C) Covenant between God and the Jewish people 1) Jews believed that God chose Abraham and his descendants to enter into a covenant (formal agreement) with him. For his part, God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and promised to protect and bless them. For their part, Jews were obligated to keep the laws of the Torah. (a) Note the structure here (which is the same as in Christianity): God acts first (grace). Humans are responsible for the response. It is not a situation of God waiting to love us until we earn it—a common but incorrect characterization of 1st century Judaism. 2) Transgressions of the covenant—whether personal or communal—would be met with God’s punishment. However, God would forgive any transgressor who repented. D) Hope for redemption 1) God had promised protection and blessing, but the experience of Jews did not meet this expectation. Roman occupation, economic struggle, disease, etc., were all part of life. The Jewish hope / expectation is that God would still fulfill God’s promises and would make things right in the end. 2) Various expressions (a) Political: overthrow Romans (b) Afterlife (of reward or punishment) (c) Transformation of the world (eschatological) E) The canonical gospels make clear that Jesus and his followers (like other Jews) believed in all of these things. Jesus conceived of his ministry as part of this big picture, in particular in relationship to the fulfillment of hopes for redemption.
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IV. Jewish Orthopraxy in the first-century CE A) Worship practices 1) The central locus of worship was the Temple in Jerusalem. It was the place where God was believed to be most present (in the central Holy of Holies) and the place where the priests performed animal sacrifices. People participated in two ways: (a) Pilgrimage: Jewish males who lived within a reasonable distance were expected to come to the Temple three times per year (the festivals of Passover, Weeks, and Booths). This is why Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Last Supper (for the Passover feast). (b) Temple tax: All Jews were required to pay taxes to support the priests and the Temple functions. This is the background to the story about Peter finding the coin in the fish’s mouth (Matthew 17:24-27). 2) On a weekly basis (Friday evenings), Jews attended synagogues (houses of prayer). These services included Scripture reading, sermons, prayer, and singing. The gospels contain constant references to Jesus teaching in synagogues. 3) On a daily basis, Jews prayed in the morning and at night, usually reciting the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. The gospels make frequent references to Jesus rising early in the morning to pray. B) Circumcision of infant boys: This was the sign of the covenant given to Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14). By virtue of being a Jewish male, Jesus was circumcised (Luke 2:21). C) Sabbath rest (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday): This was a key element in the covenant given to Moses on Mt. Sinai (one of 10 commandments). However, because the Bible never defines what exactly is meant by “rest”, there were debates within 1st century Judaism about how to properly keep the Sabbath. Jesus enters into such debates, arguing that it is allowed to heal the sick (e.g., Mark 3:1- 5) and pick grain when hungry (Mark 2:23-28). He never argues, however, that one should not keep the Sabbath. D) Prohibition of eating “impure” foods (e.g., pork, shellfish, birds of prey): This was part of Torah legislation (Deuteronomy 14:3-21). The early Christian church ultimately does reject the observance of these food rules. Modern scholars debate about whether or not this rejection derives from Jesus or is a later development (a topic we will cover in lecture #18). E) Purification before entering the Temple: Also part of Torah legislation, the major concern here is not with morality (i.e., good and bad), but with ritual purity (i.e., keeping apart things that are holy from the impure). For example, it is necessary (and good) to bury a dead relative, but touching a corpse makes you impure. Thus, it is necessary to undergo a ritual bath and wait until nightfall before being pure enough to enter the Temple again. Jesus does seem to have had some of his most radical ideas about purity, but even here there is no suggestion in the gospels that he taught that an impure person should enter the Temple.
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F) Ethical / moral rules (e.g., no murder, adultery, lying): While these are standard ethical injunctions in many cultures, Judaism was unique in the ancient world by making them religious rules (i.e., by saying that God cares about human ethics). If anything, Jesus makes such ethical rules even more rigorous (and internalizes them). For example, murder is extended to anger, and adultery is extended to lust (Matthew 5:21-30).
The Ten Commandments of Moses by Anton Losenko, 18th century
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Read Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18, and Mark 12:28-34. Did you know that these famous statements by Jesus were actually quotes from the Old Testament? What does this tell you about Jesus’ relationship to Jewish tradition and other Jews of his day?
2. What are the main elements of Jewish orthodoxy? How does Jesus relate to these elements in the canonical gospels? What is their status in modern Christianity, as you know it?
3. What are the main elements of Jewish orthopraxy? How does Jesus relate to these elements in the canonical gospels? What is their status in modern Christianity, as you know it?
4. What parts of the story of Jesus do you understand better in light of knowing something about “Common Judaism”?
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Topic 17: Diversity and Conflict in First-Century Judaism
I. Summary: This lecture explores the diversity of expressions within 1st century Judaism and how Christians relate to that diversity. In particular, we look at the history and distinct beliefs of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, noting the elements of each group that help us to understand the life and teachings of Jesus. The orthodoxy and orthopraxy of Common Judaism creates a fence that separates Jews from non-Jews, but it does not mean everyone inside that fence agrees.
II. Framing story: Paul on trial before the council of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem (Acts 23:1-10) A) Plot: Paul is charged with bringing non-Jews (i.e., impure persons) into the sacred precincts of the Temple (a charge that he was not guilty of). Paul’s defense is to shift the issue and say that he is on trial because of his belief in the resurrection of the dead. At this point, the council itself splits and reveals a division in the council between Sadducees (who do not believe in resurrection from the dead) and Pharisees (who do believe in resurrection and come to Paul’s defense). B) Key point: Radical differences about something as basic (and important) as the question of afterlife were part of intra-Jewish debates in the 1st century—and did not cause someone to be seen as non- Jewish. To believe that Jesus was the expected Messiah (a part of the tradition of Jewish hope) did not make you non-Jewish either. Acts of the Apostles describes Jesus’ followers as continuing to worship in the Temple after his death, and also continuing to participate in synagogue worship. (Synagogues are always Paul’s first stop in his missionary journeys.) Indeed, the first martyr, Stephen, was killed not for confessing Jesus as Messiah, but because he was believed to be challenging the Temple and the Law (Acts 6:11-14). 1) Thus, when we approach early Christianity, we should see it as a unique sub-group within Judaism (obviously in tension with some of the other sub-groups). Outright division between Christianity and Judaism, however, does not take place until the end of the 1st century.
III. History of groups in 1st Century Judaism: Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees (following the work of John Meier and E. P. Sanders) A) The known history of all three of these groups begins in the middle of the 2nd c. BCE, when the Maccabean revolutionaries overthrew Syrian (Hellenistic) rule and established their own dynasty of high-priest kings. This Hasmonean dynasty lasted roughly 100 years, until the Romans took over in 63 BCE. B) The Sadducees appear to have arisen as a party representing another, older line of high-priests, who traced their descent (and name) to Zadok, high priest under David and Solomon. We do not know a great deal about them (as none of their own writings have survived), but they apparently made up an important section of the aristocratic, priestly class in Jerusalem.
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C) The conflict with the Syrian king Antiochus IV, which had led to the revolution, had largely been a conflict over how much assimilation to Greek culture was acceptable in light of the need to preserve Jewish identity through keeping Torah. The other two groups (Pharisees and Essenes) seem to have arisen out of the group of Jews opposing assimilation and promoting the rigorous observance of Torah. D) The Essenes apparently had a major conflict with the Pharisees and the Hasmonean high-priest kings. They concluded that the Temple and its sacrifices were corrupted (by the wrong high priest and calendar), and they separated themselves from other Jews (some moving to Qumran, near the Dead Sea), believing themselves to be the only ones keeping the Covenant. They remained a small community (roughly 4,000 people in Jesus’ day), waiting for a day when God would defeat their enemies and they could purify the Temple.
IV. Essenes A) Why are the Essenes important? 1) There is no evidence at all that there was any direct contact between Jesus and the Essenes [contra Barbara Thiering]. However, Essene beliefs and practices (which we know well from the Dead Sea Scrolls) show us some of the ideas current in the Judaism of Jesus’ day. B) Essene beliefs 1) Eschatology: The Essenes believed that God was going to intervene in the world soon to defeat the wicked and exalt the just. (Their mistaken belief that the Jewish-Roman War was this moment led to their extermination by the Romans in the late 60s CE.) They also believed that God’s kingdom was somehow already present in their communities, primarily in the liturgy (accompanying angels). Jesus’ own eschatological teaching shared a similar “already, not yet” dynamic [discussed in lecture #20]. 2) Messianic expectation: The Essenes believed that God’s anointed Messiah would lead this transformation of the world. Unlike early Christians, the Essenes believed that there would be two Messiahs: one Priestly and one Royal. 3) Critical of the Temple, at least in its current operation—as was Jesus 4) Practice of celibacy (at least by a majority): something that becomes important in early Christian spirituality and goes back at least to Paul (1 Corinthians 7) and perhaps to Jesus (Matt 19:10-12) 5) Sharing of wealth / goods (common ownership): a key feature of early Christian practice (Acts 2:43-47) 6) Dissimilar from Jesus in other key ways (a) The Essenes were intensely concerned with rigorous observation of Torah, including purity / ritual laws. Jesus had radical ideas at least about the observance of purity / ritual laws. (b) Essene teaching commanded the hatred of one’s enemies. Central to Jesus’ teaching was the virtue of love, including love of enemies.
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V. Sadducees A) We do not know much about their beliefs or practices. B) What we do know: 1) The Sadducees rejected the idea of resurrection or any personal afterlife marked by reward or punishment. The reason is likely because such ideas are not present in the Torah or the vast majority of the Hebrew Scriptures. The only real exception is Daniel, which was written at the same time as the Maccabean revolt (second-century BCE). This tells us that the Sadducees may have been conservative in their theology. (a) Jesus apparently had at least one debate with the Sadducees, and it was about this point— resurrection (Mark 12:18-27). 2) The Sadducees were affiliated with the priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem. They do not seem to have had much popular presence outside of Jerusalem or among the common people, which is probably why we don’t see stories about Jesus encountering them in Galilee. That said, they probably wielded significant authority in Jerusalem in the Roman era. That is because, when the Romans decided to appoint a governor of Judea, they decided to use the high priest in Jerusalem as mediator between the governor and the Jewish people. Such high priests (at least some of which were Sadducees) were technically in charge of Jerusalem, and many members of the council (aristocratic supporters of the high priest) were probably also Sadducees. Such a high priest (Joseph Caiaphas) is the one who had Jesus arrested and handed him over to Pontius Pilate.
VI. Pharisees A) During the time of Jesus (the Roman era), the Pharisees had no political authority. Political authority was monopolized by Roman appointees (Herod, Pilate, the high priest). It is important to remember this because it means that, despite their opposition to Jesus, the Pharisees are not directly responsible for Jesus’ death. B) The Pharisees were, however, very popular. Thus, while they could not force their teachings on others, they did seek to spread them. C) The Pharisees seem to have been mostly laymen (and a few priests) who were deeply devoted to the observance of the Torah. A portion of them seem to have been trying to extend the more rigorous rules for purity in the Temple (required only of the priests) to day to day life among lay Jews. All of them believed that God would reward those who appropriately observed the Torah, but they were not “separatists” like the Essenes. They clearly felt that other Jews were still part of the Covenant. Like all Jews in the first century, they shared in Common Judaism. They also had a particular set of distinctive beliefs and practices, e.g., particular rules about Sabbath observance (which was a source of conflict with Jesus), traditions about washing ones hands, food and vessels, and belief in the resurrection (which was shared with Jesus and early Christians).
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D) Inevitability of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees: Both were (at a minimum) Jewish teachers with definite ideas about what it meant to observe the Covenant. However, this does not make Jesus (or his followers) any less Jewish. The same kind of fierce debates were happening between Pharisees and Sadducees and between Pharisees and Essenes. 1) It only became an either/or choice after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. At that point, Jewish leaders regrouped at the seaside town of Yavne (Jamnia), apparently led mostly by Pharisees. There, Rabbinic Judaism was born. 2) Those changes and developments in Christianity at the same time are what ultimately led in the direction of two religions, each claiming to be the true heir of the Covenant tradition.
The Pharisees Question Jesus by James Tissot, 1886–1894
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Read Acts 3:1, 6:11-14, 17:1-15, and 23:1-10. What do these stories tell you about the relationship between early Christianity and first-century Judaism?
2. Who were the Essenes? What Essene beliefs were similar to the teachings of Jesus and early Christianity? Which ones were different? What does this tell us about the context of 1st century Judaism?
3. Who were the Sadducees? What role did they play in 1st century Judaism? What role did they play in the story of Jesus?
4. Who were the Pharisees? What role did they play in 1st century Judaism? What role did they play in the story of Jesus?
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Topic 18: Jesus in Conflict with the Jewish Leadership
I. Summary: This lecture explains the nature and substance of Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders of his day, particularly the Pharisees. After explaining the growth in that conflict after Jesus’ death—a fact which makes the canonical gospels problematic as sources on this issue—we turn to three issues: Jesus’ eating with sinners, Jesus’ interpretation of the Law, and what ultimately got Jesus killed.
II. Jesus and first-century Judaism A) While Jesus was clearly Jewish, he must have been distinct from other Jews in important ways, too. B) He would not be remembered, would not have shocked anyone, would not have been killed, and Christianity would not have ultimately become its own religious tradition if were exactly the same.
III. Caveat about what our gospel sources tell us about Jesus’ conflict with Jewish leadership A) Historical reality: Conflict between the followers of Jesus and the Jewish leadership escalated throughout the first century. The starting situation (at the time of Jesus and for several decades afterwards) was that the Jewish followers of Jesus (soon known as Christians) continued to worship with other Jews in the Temple and the synagogues. However, there were major developments between 50 and 100 CE that altered this picture: 1) On the Christian side: The success of the Gentile mission (i.e., incorporating non-Jews into the church) changed the makeup of the Christian community. Moreover, in the 50s CE, the apostle Paul argued vigorously (see Galatians) that these Gentile converts should not have to keep the ritual and purity laws of the Torah (e.g., circumcision, food laws, and holy days). The result was that a growing percentage of the Christian movement no longer conformed to Common Judaism. 2) On the Jewish side: The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and consolidation of power of the rabbis (at Jamnia) led to the standardization of a single form of Judaism. One of the mechanisms was the birkat ha-minim, one of a number of prayers for synagogue worship fixed by the rabbis at Jamnia (ca. 80–90 CE). This prayer called down a curse against “heretics” (minim) and “Nazarites / Christians” (nozerim), asking that they be destroyed and not written in the Book of Life. This is the formal expulsion of Christians from the synagogues in the late 1st century. B) The problem with our gospel sources: illustrated by John 9 1) Plot: Jesus heals a man born blind by making mud with his saliva and rubbing it on his eyes. The man is summoned by the Pharisees and questioned about his healing, since it happened on the Sabbath. Then, they summon his parents to question them, but his parents don’t want to answer. John 9:22 says the reason is “they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.” Shortly thereafter, the Pharisees expel the blind man from the synagogue.
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2) Several things are wrong with this picture. First, the text describes a policy (expelling Christians from the synagogues) that does not exist until 50+ years after Jesus dies. Second, the text uses “the Pharisees” and “the Jews” interchangeably, as if they were the same thing. Third, the Pharisees have power over synagogue life. None of these things reflect the time of Jesus, but they all reflect a time around 80–90 CE, when there is a policy of expelling Christians, when Pharisees (rabbis) are the one group defining Judaism, and when Pharisees do control the synagogues. 3) Most scholars believe that the Gospel of John was written around 90 CE and conclude that this story of a follower of Jesus (blind man) vs. the Pharisees reflects the lived experience of Jewish Christians at the time John is writing, but not the time of Jesus’ own ministry. 4) Conclusion: When we are reading Christian texts written at the end of the 1st century (as all four gospels are), we may be encountering later conflicts rather than ones that took place at the time of Jesus.
IV. What was the conflict during the actual life of Jesus? A) Three issues: Jesus’ action of eating with sinners, Jesus’ teaching about the meaning of Torah, and what ultimately got Jesus killed B) We have already seen the emphasis placed on “open commensality” by both Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Both emphasized the radical action of Jesus in breaking bread with outcasts. Their basic argument was social or political. That is, Jewish leaders (especially the Pharisees) excluded undesirable people from full life in the community, whether because they were poor, impure, or tax collectors. Jesus, by contrast, included all those people and taught a form of radical egalitarianism. Such a move threatened the social order and thus made the people in power angry with Jesus. C) E. P. Sanders’ famous response to this argument: 1) Such a thesis sounds good, but it is built on a false contrast. The Pharisees simply were not like that (i.e., a bunch of bigots). Such a contrast is rooted more in classical Christian theology than actual history. It assumes that, because Jesus is good, his opponents must be bad. 2) What did Jesus do that shocked the Pharisees? (a) While Jesus almost certainly ate with the poor (which was perhaps unusual), the Pharisees would not be shocked or angry that he ate with the poor, any more than you would be angry if someone at your church invited a homeless person over to their house for Thanksgiving. (b) The most frequent protest that we hear in the gospels is that Jesus eats with “tax collectors and sinners.” (i) “Sinner” meant something very specific in 1st century Judaism. It did not mean (contra Borg) someone who was impure because they failed to wash their hands properly or were too poor to meet all Torah obligations (e.g., Temple tax). Indeed, most everyone had to become impure regularly, e.g., from touching a corpse or giving birth to a child. Instead, sinners were “those who sinned willfully and heinously and
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who did not repent” (Jesus and Judaism, 177). For example, to choose to have a job as a usurer or to intentionally violate the Sabbath in some egregious way made one a sinner. The problem here is that such a person has chosen to renounce the Covenant and has become, in effect, a traitor to God (which is probably why sinners are usually linked to tax collectors, who were political traitors). (c) Thus, what shocked people about Jesus’ table fellowship was not that he chose to eat with the poor or the impure, but that he chose to eat with the traitors (tax collectors and sinners). And it gets even more radical. If Jesus had eaten with these people after they repented (or even in order to get them to repent), it would not have been shocking. (i) Repentance was a standard part of 1st century Judaism (and would have been welcome from sinners). It required making restitution to the wronged and offering sacrifice in the Temple. In some gospel stories, something like this occurs (e.g., the repentance of Zacchaeus in Luke 19). But such an outcome is rare. (ii) What seems to have been shocking to the Pharisees was that Jesus intentionally welcomed sinners into his community (and into the promised Kingdom of God) without requiring repentance as normally understood. (iii)Why would Jesus do this? He apparently understood himself to supersede the normal means of repentance. That is, following Jesus and believing in his message superseded the sacrificial system of the Temple, as outlined in the Torah. Such an attitude seems to lie behind some statements that we find in the gospels, e.g., “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here” (Matthew 12:6). (iv) This would have been truly shocking in 1st century Judaism. The Temple was the exclusive avenue for God’s forgiveness. If Jesus is challenging that, at least implicitly by his actions, then he is claiming the highest identity and authority for himself. This would have offended a lot of people—but for religious, not social or political reasons. 3) In sum, did eating with tax collectors and sinners cause conflict with the Pharisees? – Probably, but not the kind of conflict that would likely lead to death. D) What about the debates over the Law, which also seem to have taken place with the Pharisees? 1) Here, scholars struggle to distinguish later debates from debates in Jesus’ day. 2) Key example: Mark 7 (a) Plot: Jesus enters into a debate with the Pharisees about hand washing, which soon turns into a debate about food. Jesus then declares, “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (7:16). Mark then adds the commentary, “Thus he declared all foods clean” (7:19). (b) Did Jesus really say this? Probably not, for two reasons: (i) Most Jews would have stopped listening to him if he had been explicitly rejecting a key part of the Law.
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(ii) We know that Christians were arguing about these points long after Jesus died. In Acts 10, Peter has a threefold vision of a sheet full of unclean animals descending from heaven. A voice tells him to eat, he refuses, and the voice announces, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (10:15). Clearly, the issue of food rules is not settled. We find a similar debate happening in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (50s CE). If Jesus had already clearly settled the issue, it is unlikely that there would be such a fierce debate among Christians decades later. 3) Thus, it is unlikely that Jesus explicitly rejected the Law. Instead, in most cases what we actually find is that Jesus’ debates over the meaning of the Law were fully within the normal range for such debates. For example, Jesus’ principle that saving life or doing good did not violate the Sabbath was actually a pretty normal position for most Jews, even though it was opposed by some of the stricter Essenes and Pharisees. Likewise, the so-called “antitheses” of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-48) are not (for the most part) rejections of the Law, but ways of making it stricter. (a) The only two clear exceptions to this general rule (about Jesus not explicitly rejecting the Law) are Jesus’ rejection of divorce and oaths, both of which were accepted in Torah but forbidden by Jesus, and these don’t seem to have major points of conflict with other Jewish leaders. 4) Again, there is nothing here to get him killed. E) Why did get Jesus killed? 1) The Pharisees did not arrest Jesus. The high priest (Joseph Caiaphas, probably a Sadducee) did. But Jesus may not have had any previous contact with the Sadducees before arriving in Jerusalem. (They had no presence in Galilee.) 2) Traditional scholars have come to basically the same conclusion as Borg (lecture #12)—that Jesus was killed for political reasons. 3) The high priest’s job (as agent of the Romans) was to keep order in Jerusalem. Jesus was performing public demonstrations of a threatening nature. In particular, he overturned tables in the Temple, probably intended as a symbol for the coming destruction of the Temple. Perhaps he also drew attention by his public entry on a donkey. At the very least, Jesus had a group of followers and was drawing a crowd. This created potential for disruption and maybe riots at the Passover. If that happened, Pilate would bring in Roman soldiers and kill lots of people. The practical step was to get rid of Jesus. (a) This does not mean that the high priest was not also offended by some of Jesus’ religious claims, but that is not the major reason he was arrested. John 11:50 makes this explicit, when the high priest says that it is better for one man to die than the whole nation. And the charge above his head on the cross (“king of the Jews”) reflected that political motive. 4) In summary, the conflict with the Pharisees was primarily religious. It was the primarily political conflict with the high priest that ultimately led to Jesus’ death.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why did Christianity and Judaism grow apart in the latter half of the 1st century? Why does this widening gulf make it so difficult to figure out the nature of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leadership during the 30s CE?
2. What was a “sinner” in 1st century Judaism? What was so shocking about Jesus’ eating with sinners? How is Sanders’ understanding of this part of Jesus’ ministry different from that of Borg and Crossan?
3. Why is it unlikely that Jesus’ explicitly rejected the food laws of the Torah?
4. What is the most likely reason that Jesus was killed? Who was responsible?
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Topic 19: Jesus, Herald of the Kingdom, Part I
I. Summary: A) This lecture explains the first-century Jewish beliefs about God’s coming victory over evil in the world (a branch of theology known as eschatology) and how both the notion of the “kingdom of God” and the preaching of John the Baptist are rooted in this eschatological framework. The lecture concludes by introducing the historical debate about Jesus’ role as an eschatological prophet. B) Eschatology = “story (logos) about the end (eschaton)”
II. Key Question: In what ways is Jesus’ message and ministry continuous with or distinct from 1st century Jewish eschatology? A) There is no area of historical Jesus research more disputed by modern scholars. B) Both the concept of the Kingdom of God (lectures #19–20) and the resurrection (lecture #21) arise out of the context of 1st century Jewish eschatology.
III. Kingdom of God A) There is no element of Jesus teaching that appears more often in more contexts than this phrase. It forms the central component of his teaching. B) What did “kingdom of God” mean in 1st century Judaism? (following especially the work of John Meier) 1) Literally, the phrase basileia tou theou means “dominion / rule of God.” It refers to a condition, not a place—i.e., a condition in which God rules the world, as distinct from human (or demonic) governance. 2) The basic assumption is that God rules the universe as a king (a key motif from the OT). However, while God’s rule is eternal, it is not yet fully realized here on earth. Other powers are in charge right now: political (Romans), physical (suffering, disease, and death), and spiritual (Satan, demons). Therefore, things are not as they should be, nor as God promised that they would be. (a) For example, Isaiah 2:2-4 – “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
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3) Here we have basic eschatological hope: the expectation of the ultimate exaltation of God and Israel, the conversion of the Gentiles, God’s rule of the nations, and resulting peace on earth. 4) Other basic elements of Jewish eschatology (a) God will ultimately bring about his reign on earth by God’s own power. That is, it will not be a human achievement. (b) The eschaton will involve God’s judgment of both good and wicked (and thus is perceived as both reward and threat, depending on where one stands). (c) The eschaton will involve the restoration of Israel, i.e., the re-gathering of all 12 tribes (9 of which had ceased to exist as distinct political entities after their destruction by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE). 5) Lots of particular manifestations of this common hope: (a) Individual texts like Daniel, 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra (b) Individual prophets, often in the wilderness, including John the Baptist. C) John the Baptist 1) All the gospels start with him and portray him as an “eschatological prophet”, that is, a person announcing, on behalf of God, that the kingdom of God was coming soon. This is why he was baptizing people in the Jordan River. (a) Baptism was a symbol of repentance, in preparation for God’s coming judgment (e.g., Matthew 3:10). (b) The Jordan River was symbolically important, too. It was the place of entry into Promised Land after the Exodus (Joshua). It was also closely associated with the person of Elijah (2 Kings 2), who was believed to be destined to return at the time of God’s Kingdom (see Malachi 4:5-6). That is why John the Baptist was dressing like Elijah, i.e., wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt (2 Kings 1:8). 2) John’s status as an eschatological prophet is what got him killed. Herod Antipas (the ruler in Galilee) threatened because he was gathering a large following and becoming a potential political threat (according to Josephus).
IV. Jesus as an eschatological prophet A) The gospels also present Jesus as someone announcing the in-breaking of God’s kingdom. 1) Jesus’ opening words in the Gospel of Mark (1:15): “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 2) Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10): “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
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3) Many parables: “The kingdom of God is like…” e.g., a mustard seed (Mark 4:31) 4) Eschatological teachings (e.g., Mark 13): sufferings that will occur before the Son of Man returns to inaugurate the kingdom 5) Mark 13:30: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” B) No phrase is more often on Jesus lips than “kingdom of God”. C) But is this what the historical Jesus really was—someone announcing the coming of God’s kingdom which would transform the world, like John the Baptist? 1) The Jesus Seminar, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan say no. (a) Their stated reasoning: Jesus makes at least one statement that the kingdom is not coming in a visible way but is already present. He says, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). They conclude that the kingdom cannot be both coming and already present. It must be one or the other. Using the criterion of double dissimilarity, they assume that the authentic statement of Jesus must be the one that is different from his Jewish context and from later Christianity. Thus, they conclude that, unlike most Jews, Jesus believed the kingdom of God was present. And therefore, they believe that Jesus is best understood not as speaking about a world to come, but as speaking about this world—i.e., as a social and political reformer. (b) Motive lying just below the surface: They desire to have a Jesus who is relevant to modern Western values. It seems difficult to make a very particular (and, to many, peculiar) Jewish idea about eschatology relevant, so it is rejected. Borg is explicit that this issue of contemporary relevance is the main problem with seeing Jesus as an eschatological prophet. (c) There are several problems here. First, it is bad history to jettison evidence just because it is inconvenient. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of evidence does speak of Jesus as announcing God’s coming kingdom, even though some passages speak of the kingdom already being present. Second, it is not at all clear that an eschatological Jesus would be either wrong or irrelevant. Perhaps teachings different from our culture would be the most relevant. D) Sanders, Meier, and Wright all take very seriously the gospel portrayal of Jesus as an eschatological prophet.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What does eschatology mean? What sorts of eschatology are you familiar with from the contemporary world?
2. What were the major characteristics of 1st century Jewish eschatology? How does the kingdom of God fit into this picture? How does John the Baptist fit into this picture?
3. Why do some scholars reject the notion that Jesus was announcing God’s coming kingdom?
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Topic 20: Jesus, Herald of the Kingdom, Part II
I. Summary: This lecture continues the discussion of 1st century Jewish eschatology by exploring Jesus’ teaching (especially the Lord’s Prayer) and actions (e.g., healings and exorcisms) in an eschatological context. We will conclude by assessing the implications of Jesus’ eschatological teaching, especially wrestling with the question of whether Jesus was wrong or if indeed something transformative has occurred in Christ.
II. Why should we accept the gospel presentation of Jesus as eschatological teacher as an accurate depiction of history? A) First fixed point: Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. No segment of modern scholarship doubts that this happened (because of the criterion of embarrassment). The importance of the event, however, is that it means that Jesus must have believed that John the Baptist’s preaching (which was eschatological) was correct. B) Second fixed point: The early Christian church universally believed that God’s kingdom was coming (and usually believed it was coming soon). Our oldest surviving Christian writing (1 Thessalonians, ca. 49 CE), clearly reflects this belief in the coming eschaton, here marked by the return of Jesus. C) The Argument (assumed by Sanders, Meier, and Wright): If the person that Jesus followed emphasized eschatology, and the people who followed Jesus emphasized eschatology, it is extremely likely that Jesus did, too. And this is what we find in the gospels.
III. Jesus’ eschatological message (word, deed, and symbol), in light of 1st century Jewish context A) Key framework for understanding Jesus’ eschatology: “Already, but not yet” 1) That is, the Kingdom has been inaugurated in the ministry of Jesus (a partially realized eschatology), but it is not yet fully present (a partially future eschatology). B) This framework forms the context that gives meaning to so much of what he says and does (following especially the work of John Meier) 1) Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) (a) “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (i) This is an explicitly eschatological statement—a petition to God that he would bring about his kingdom (rule) and will on earth.
(b) “Hallowed be your name.”
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(i) Literally: “may your name be made holy” (ii) This is the Jewish eschatological hope that God would manifest his power and glory in such a way that the world would recognize it. It is linked to the hope that the Gentiles would convert as a result. (c) “Give us this day our daily bread.” (i) While it is possible that this is simply a reference to physical food, it is more likely a reference to the eschatological banquet. The idea of an eschatological banquet (a celebratory feast in God’s kingdom) seems to be one of Jesus’ unique additions to Jewish eschatology. It is found in many aspects of his teaching and ministry. (I) The parable of the guests invited to the banquet (Matthew 22:1-14, Luke 14:15-24) (II) Jesus teaching (which included Gentiles in the kingdom) that “many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). [“Kingdom of heaven” is Matthew’s preferred way of referring to the kingdom of God.] (III) Jesus’ own “banqueting” is probably a symbol for this eschatological banquet. Here we see the inclusion of all (even sinners). In this sense, the kingdom is already present. It also explains the accusation that Jesus was not an ascetic but liked to feast: “the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” (Matthew 11:19). (IV) The Last Supper also looked ahead to (and was probably a symbol of) the eschatological banquet. Mk 14:24-25 – “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” (d) “Forgive us our debts.” (i) This petition looks to the eschatological judgment and asks for mercy. Characteristic of Jesus was the statement that divine mercy (for us) was linked to our own mercy (toward others): “as we also have forgiven our debtors.” You can see a very similar teaching in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:23-35) and the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). (e) “Do not bring us to the time of trial” (traditionally rendered, “lead us not into temptation”) (i) Another basic element of Jewish eschatology was that the coming of God’s kingdom would be preceded by a time of crisis—a period of testing when people would be tempted to abandon God. You see this same idea in Mark 13, which describes wars, persecution, and false messiahs. (ii) This petition is to be spared from the crisis.
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2) The Beatitudes (Luke 6 [probably the older version] and Matthew 5) (a) These also seem to be rooted in eschatological hope. (b) Why are the poor blessed? – Because they will inherit (enter) the kingdom of God. This does not mean that they are going to go to heaven, but that they are going to be blessed and included in God’s coming kingdom, which will be marked by the judgment of the oppressors and the exaltation of the oppressed. Thus, Jesus already includes the poor in his present ministry. (c) Why are the hungry blessed? – Because they will be filled (probably at the eschatological banquet). 3) The choosing of the Twelve (a) This is explicitly tied to eschatological renewal. Matthew 19:28 says that the 12 will judge the 12 tribes—but the 12 tribes did not exist anymore; their restoration was part of the hope of the eschaton. This is probably why it is so important that there are 12 of them (note the replacement of Judas in Acts 1), despite the fact that only a few of the 12 play an important role as individuals in the story of Jesus or the early church. They exist primarily as a sign or symbol for something else. 4) Healings and exorcisms (a) In the gospels, these “miracles” are a demonstration that the kingdom is already present in some sense. The powers that rival God (disease, death, demons) are being overcome in the ministry of Jesus. Thus, Jesus points to such actions as proof (to John the Baptist) that he is the one to come (Matthew 11:3-5). Similarly, Jesus points to his actions as proof that the kingdom of God has come (Matthew 12:28). Finally, Jesus comments on his own disciples’ success in their ministry of healing, exorcism, and proclamation of the kingdom by saying that he has “watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (Luke 10:18). 5) The title of Messiah, Christ (a) This title does not mean “God”. It literally means “anointed” (in Hebrew and Greek, respectively), i.e., specially set apart by God for a task. A frequent component of Jewish eschatological belief was that there would be a special agent of God who would be part of the inauguration of God’s kingdom (e.g., the two Messiahs, priestly and royal, in the Dead Sea Scrolls). (b) To say that Jesus is Messiah / Christ is to say that Jesus is God’s agent in bringing about God’s kingdom on earth. This seems to be how Jesus understood his own mission and is definitely how Jesus’ followers understood him—so much so that “Christ” effectively becomes his last name.
IV. Was Jesus wrong?
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A) Ultimately, this is a faith question that cannot be answered by history. There are two options: 1) Jesus believed God was going to transform the world within a “generation.” This is what Mark 13:30 seems to say. However, the world clearly is not marked by peace and the defeat of disease and death. Thus, Jesus was wrong. This is the conclusion of E. P. Sanders. It is also, more famously, the conclusion of Albert Schweitzer, who (as a result) left the field of theology in order to become a medical missionary. Apparently, this is what many of the disciples felt after his crucifixion (but before his resurrection). For example, in Luke 24, two disciples are on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the crucifixion and lament, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (24:21). 2) Jesus’ death (and resurrection) did change things. That is, it began the transformation of the world. This is what we find in early Christian writings. Paul calls Christ’s death the “first fruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and expects the rest of the harvest to come in the future. This is also the position of N. T. Wright. Supporting such a position (that Jesus was not wrong) are the statements in which Jesus disclaims any knowledge of the exact timeline of the end. In particular, Mark 13:32 – “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” The criterion of embarrassment makes it likely that such a statement is authentic to Jesus (because it says that Jesus did not know some important things).
Christ with the Crown of Thorns by Carl Heinrich Bloch, ca. 1890
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why is it very likely that the eschatological teachings found in the gospels do derive from Jesus?
2. What do scholars mean when they say that, for Jesus, the kingdom is an “already, but not yet” reality?
3. What elements of Jesus’ teaching and ministry are clarified by viewing them in light of 1st century Jewish eschatology?
4. Do you think that Jesus was wrong in his hope for and proclamation of God’s coming kingdom?
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Topic 21: The Resurrection
I. Summary: This lecture explores the difficulty that historians have in speaking about the resurrection, what historians can say about the meaning of resurrection in 1st century Jewish eschatology, and what Christians meant when they said that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In particular, we will explore N. T. Wright’s thesis that the claim of resurrection was an affirmation of an embodied afterlife and the implications of that for the Christian relationship to the physical world.
II. No single article of faith matters more than the resurrection in the Christian theological tradition. A) The resurrection means that Jesus was not mistaken, but really was teaching and doing God’s will. That is, it proved to early Christians that, despite his shocking death, he really was the expected Messiah. This is the basic point of Peter’s sermon to the Jewish crowds in Acts 2 (after Pentecost). B) The resurrection also becomes the foundation for the Christian’s personal hope in an afterlife. This was most powerfully stated by the apostle Paul, in response to some Gentile Christians who could not accept the notion of a physical afterlife: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:17-19).
III. No single detail of the story is more problematic for historians. A) Difficulties with the evidence 1) There is strong evidence that a group of women, led by Mary Magdalene, found Jesus’ tomb empty on Easter Sunday. (Embarrassment: It is unlikely in the patriarchal world of antiquity that one would invent an implausible story and seek to justify it by claiming that women were the only witnesses.) However, there are no actual descriptions of the resurrection, just before (when Jesus is laid in the tomb) and after (the empty tomb and appearances). 2) Moreover, while there are a number of appearances described, all are unique. That is, no two Christian sources describe the same appearances. B) Difficulties with the miraculous 1) Many historians assume a stance called Methodological Atheism. It does not mean that they are atheists personally; instead, it means that they will not accept any explanation that is based on divine (i.e., non-physical) causes. 2) While we are very familiar with such a methodological stance (which we encounter every time we seek an explanation from a doctor or a journalist today), it makes explaining the resurrection difficult. That is because resurrection (as opposed to resuscitation) never happens “naturally.”
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C) The result: Most historians divide into two camps: 1) Some say next to nothing about the resurrection. For example, E. P. Sanders puts the resurrection in the epilogue of his book, The Historical Figure of Jesus and, while not denying that Jesus’ followers had some kind of powerful experience, says that it is impossible for the historian to reconstruct what really happened. 2) Others deny the historical reality of the resurrection. For example, John Dominic Crossan flatly denies the reality of any sort of miracle, claims that Jesus’ body never made it to the tomb in the first place (recall his eaten-by-dogs thesis), and believes that the resurrection stories were invented by Paul and Paul’s followers as a means of giving authority to certain individuals within the church (i.e., they should have power because Jesus appeared to them). D) The person most responsible for saying that historians can say something important about the resurrection is N. T. Wright. The result is his 800-page The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003). (A nice, short summary of his basic argument is available in The Challenge of Jesus.) Indeed, Wright says that historians have to deal with the resurrection. Otherwise, it is unclear how one could ever explain why Christianity did not simply end at the cross.
IV. Resurrection in 1st century Judaism (following the work of N. T. Wright) A) Diversity of Jewish beliefs about the afterlife 1) No definable afterlife (e.g., Sadducees): This is rooted in the concept of Sheol (a shadowy existence after death) that appears in the Torah and most of the OT. 2) Spiritual afterlife (e.g., Philo of Alexandria and other Jews heavily influenced by Greek philosophy): This is the notion of a non-physical afterlife in which the soul abides in God’s presence without its body. 3) Resurrection (e.g., Pharisees): This is the notion of a re-embodied afterlife. That is, a person’s physical body is restored by God at the time of judgment for an afterlife of bliss (or punishment). We know that this was understood literally because the Pharisees were careful to preserve skeletons in ossuaries (bone boxes). (a) Resurrection had been part of some Jewish beliefs since at least the time in which the Book of Daniel was written (160s BCE), which is our first historical evidence for the idea of resurrection. (i) Daniel 12:2-3 – “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (ii) Here you see most of the major components of the belief: (I) Embodied (physical): rising from “the dust.” Another dramatic emphasis on the restoration of the physical body is found in the contemporary 2 Maccabees 7.
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(II) Transformation of the body: shine “like the stars.” Paul compares such transformation to the continuity and change found in a seed as it becomes a fully-grown stalk of wheat (1 Corinthians 15:37). (III) Linked to eschatological judgment by God: “everlasting life” vs. “shame and everlasting contempt” (IV) Collective / general, i.e., it happens to a group of (perhaps all?) people (iii) Most importantly, it appears in Daniel as part of a larger discussion of the eschaton (which dominates the second half of the book). (b) Key point: In the 1st century Jewish context, resurrection did not mean “going to heaven” or “becoming a spirit / ghost / soul”. It was a word with a very specific meaning—i.e., re- embodied afterlife as part of the eschatological scenario.
V. What did Christians mean when they said that Christ had been resurrected? (Wright’s thesis) A) Christians chose a word with a specific meaning. We have to conclude that they meant to use it that way. B) Thus, they meant that Christ had been re-embodied. They were not claiming a visionary experience of Christ, but an actual physical encounter with him (e.g., eating fish, touching nail wounds) C) They also meant that the eschaton has dawned. Paul makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus’ resurrection is the “first fruits” of all the dead (15:20). The rest of the resurrection will be completed at Christ’s return (15:23), which is also the time when all of the powers that rival God will ultimately be defeated (15:24). Then, God will “be all in all” (15:28). D) Why was this claim so shocking to other Jews? 1) Not because they were inventing the idea of resurrection (which was pretty standard). 2) But because they were claiming that one person had been resurrected—by himself—before God’s kingdom was obviously present. 3) Thus, the debate between followers of Jesus and the rest of the Jews was not ultimately a debate over what the end would look like, but rather a debate over whether it had already begun in the person of Jesus. 4) Christians believed that the new age (God’s kingdom) was dawning. This is probably why Christians felt so compelled to work to convert the Gentiles—because that conversion was a key part of the new age. This is also the source of Paul’s argument that the purity rules of the Torah (which separated Jews and Gentiles) are no longer binding in the church (Galatians 3).
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VI. Do Christians still believe this? – Yes A) Both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed speak of resurrection twice. 1) The first reference is to Christ’s resurrection. 2) The second reference is to our own physical resurrection—and it is joined to the belief in the life of the world to come (i.e., God’s eschatological kingdom).
VII. Why is the idea of a physical resurrection—embodied salvation—important? A) Christians have often been accused (e.g., by Malcolm X) of ignoring problems in this world because their eyes are only on heaven. That is, a heavenly orientation makes Christians passive regarding worldly concerns. B) But the idea of embodied salvation means that physical things matter. Christians are not (or should not be) trying to escape this world to find another. (That was the Gnostic position so forcefully rejected in the early church.) Instead, they are hoping for the transformation and redemption of this world—not going to heaven, but heaven coming to earth (cf. Revelation 21:2-3). 1) This does not mean that we can create paradise on earth by ourselves. 2) However, following Jesus, perhaps we should at least try to symbolize God’s kingdom by how we live in the present.
VIII. Final thoughts about what we can learn from the Quest for the Historical Jesus A) History can never—and should never—replace faith. History simply is not capable of accessing the “real Jesus” in any complete and clear way. B) History can—and should—teach us to know Jesus more fully by recognizing and honoring the context of his human life and ministry in a particular place and time 2000 years ago.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why do historians struggle to say anything about the resurrection? Why is it essential to say something about the resurrection?
2. What did resurrection mean in 1st century Judaism? What did it mean to the early Christian church?
3. What are some of the most important implications of belief in an embodied afterlife?
4. What have you learned from this series of lectures on the quest for the historical Jesus? What stood out to you as the most important lesson or insight? What are you most cautious about? Where do you think you should go from here?
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Suggested Readings *Good starting places are underlined
Background: Introductions to and Analyses of the Quest for the Historical Jesus Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1960; first published 1906). [The classic analysis of historical Jesus research up to the start of the twentieth century, written at a moderately advanced level.] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). [A helpful critique of not only some of the more radical portraits of Jesus but also of the basic assumptions that we bring to the historical project, written at an accessible level.] N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992). [An introductory survey of the history of the Jesus quest and some of the more radical modern portraits, written at an accessible level.] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1997). [A very good survey and evaluation of the various contemporary portraits of Jesus, written at a moderate level.] James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Louisville, KY: The Westminster Press, 1985). [An excellent introduction to the basic historical questions surrounding the gospels, written at an accessible level.]
Traditional Portraits of Jesus (primary explanatory framework provided by the New Testament gospels) E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 1993). [An excellent historical analysis of Jesus, written at an accessible level.] ______. Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). [A seminal study of Jesus in his Jewish context, written at an advanced level.] N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vols. 1-3. [Perhaps the most important set of current theses about Jesus, written at an advanced level.] ______. The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). ______. Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
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______. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). ______. The Challenge of Jesus: Recovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999) – A shorter and very accessible summary of his major theses about Jesus. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vols. 1-3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001) and vol. 4 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). [Still incomplete, but probably the best single resource for understanding the complexity of issues about Jesus and his teaching, written at an advanced level.]
Non-Traditional Portraits of Jesus (primary explanatory framework provided by non-canonical sources) Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987). [One of the more accessible introductions to Jesus, with a focus on the social implications of his teaching.] Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (New York: HarperOne, 2006). [A moderately expanded and adapted version of his basic theses about Jesus, written at an accessible level.] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991). [A brilliant and challenging presentation of Jesus in the context of ancient society and culture, written at an advanced level.] John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994). [A shorter, more accessible, and modestly revised summary of the basic theses of The Historical Jesus.]
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