Uncovering Jesus's Radical Message, Part 2: Love for Enemies

Consider this teaching from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5:43-44 and Luke 6:27: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I tell you, 'Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.'"

Let's plug that into modern America: 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love America and hate terrorists,' but I tell you, 'Love terrorists and pray for ISIS and al-Qaeda.'"

Or how about this:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your country and hate North Korea,' but I tell you, 'Love Kim Jong Un and pray for North Korea.'"

Or plug in your own best friend together with that person at work who you can't stand. Or that guy from high school who was cruel to you. Or that old boss who treated you badly. Or that politician or celebrity you just despise.

I saw a post on Twitter recently that I really liked. It went something like this:

Jesus says there are two kinds of people:

Our neighbors, whom we are to love.
Our enemies, whom we are to love.

It's pretty simple, but radical and even subversive.

And hard to do.

How many Americans, after all, feel love for Kim Jong Un? How many victims feel love for their oppressors?

Being a follower of Christ isn't easy. If it is, I'd argue you're not following Christ. 

Uncovering Jesus's Radical Message: The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector

It's been a while since I've written about Christianity, but I'm reading a book right now by a Jewish scholar about understanding the Jewish context in which Jesus lived and worked, and I've been inspired. This might be the first in a series of posts about uncovering the radical message of Jesus, or it may be a one-off thing. We'll see. 

The Gospel of Luke preserves a parable of Jesus known as the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector. It goes like this: 

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.

To modern Christian ears, this parable is both familiar and totally not radical. We know pharisees, after all, were self-righteous hypocrites that Jesus was constantly bickering with, while tax collectors were common symbols of "sinners" who received the gift of forgiveness from Jesus (in addition to this parable, recall the story of the tax collector Zaccheus [the "wee little man" of children's song] and the tax collector Levi who became the disciple Matthew). So it comes as no surprise that the pharisee in this story is a hypocrite who extols his own virtues while the humble tax collector admits his sin and receives Jesus's grace.

The 21st century moral of the story is this: don't be a condescending hypocrite; humble yourself, confess your sins, and be forgiven. Full stop.

That was the 1st century moral of the story too, except for the "full stop" part. We've lost today the radical and even potentially offensive edge of the story that would have been fully appreciated by 1st century Jewish listeners.

In Jesus's day, pharisees weren't bad guys. They weren't regarded as self-righteous hypocrites. They were, in fact, well-respected and highly regarded religious leaders and scholars who represented the largest and most mainstream Jewish religious group. Think of them today like Roman Catholics in the northeast or Southern Baptists in the south.

But even that analogy isn't good enough, because today we are so accustomed to religious leaders who are corrupt or evil or perverts or whatever. We've all heard numerous accounts of pastors and priests and televangelists getting caught with strippers or prostitutes, putting hits out on people, laundering money, or molesting children. A bad priest? Big deal. A corrupt televangelist? Duh.

But in the 1st century, Jews wouldn't have had that sort of cynical view of their religious leaders. They didn't, after all, have 24-hour news stations, social media, whistle-blowers, or investigative reporters. Like Americans of an earlier, more innocent generation, Jews of the 1st century would have put their religious leaders on a special, almost untouchable pedestal at the pinnacle of society.

So in this parable, think of the pharisee not so much as an average religious leader, but think of him as someone like Mother Theresa or Billy Graham - a virtually universally-respected religious leader that no one would dream of criticizing. 

As for tax collectors, they weren't just guys who collected taxes and so therefore were looked down upon by society - they weren't, in other words, just agents of the IRS doing their unpleasant, but necessary, jobs. And they weren't looked down upon because they sometimes stole from people by taking more taxes than they should have, as is commonly assumed (I have an old "study Bible" which makes this argument in the accompanying commentary). Instead, they were looked down on because they were local Jews collaborating with a foreign power (Rome) that occupied and oppressed the Jews, taking hard-earned Jewish money and sending it to support the Roman emperor and his regime - and getting rich in the process, while everyone else suffered.

In 21st century America, it's hard to find a modern parallel for this. We aren't occupied by a foreign power, after all. Instead, imagine that Germany won World War II and took over and occupied the United States. In that scenario, imagine an English-speaking American - perhaps your neighbor - born and raised under Old Glory, now working with the Nazis collecting a huge war reparation tax from people, taking a cut of it, then sending the rest to Berlin to support Hitler and his regime of world domination.

You'd probably hate the guy, right? He's not only robbing you for the benefit of the Nazis - which is bad enough - but he's also a traitor and a betrayer and a collaborator with an evil foreign oppressor. Screw that guy!

Now you may be a little closer to understanding how Jesus's 1st century listeners would have responded to a story about a native Jewish tax collector working for Rome.

So let's plug our two analogies into the parable and read it again:

Two people went up to the church to pray, one was Mother Theresa and the other an American-born tax collector for the Nazi overlords. Mother Theresa, standing in front of the cross, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, drunks, cheaters, or even like this tax collector. I've won thousands of souls to Christ; I give millions of dollars to the poor.’ But the tax collector, standing at the back of the church, would not even look up at the cross, but fell to his knees with his face in his hands, crying ‘God, please forgive me for the terrible things I've done!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than Mother Theresa.

How does the parable strike you now? There may be a number of reactions. You might think it's preposterous to describe Mother Theresa this way. You might even find it offensive. Mother Theresa wasn't a self-righteous jerk! She was a humble servant of Christ who brought people together and served the poor with humility! How dare you! Further, while you might grudgingly appreciate the tax collector's apology, you won't soon forget the thousands of dollars he took from you, which helped him build that huge house in the fancy neighborhood, bought him that Ferrari, and otherwise went to Hitler's treasury in Berlin so that the Nazis could continue their conquest of the civilized world. Meanwhile, you couldn't pay your bills because of the heavy tax burden, the bank subsequently foreclosed on your house, and you're now living with your family of 5 in a 1-bedroom apartment. Maybe if he sells everything he owns and personally repays you, THEN you might feel a little better. Otherwise, screw him!

This is how that parable would have sounded to and struck a 1st century Jewish listener. Preposterous. Offensive. Outrageous. But also challenging in the extreme. Challenging because it asks you to take a totally different perspective, to completely change your way of thinking. In the kingdom of heaven, well-respected religious leaders are not necessarily the winners, and people like Nazi collaborators are not necessarily the losers. Instead, it's the humble and repentant that inherit the kingdom of God, regardless of their past or their background or what good they think they've done.

Jesus's rural and largely uneducated Galilean listeners would have likely found the parable preposterous because it turned the world on its head, but they would also have undoubtedly liked it's message. Many Galileans, after all, tended to look down on the urban Jerusalem ruling elite - represented by the pharisee in the parable. Think of how many people in modern rural America look down on suburbanites and "the big city."

Still, it's not hard to see why Jesus made enemies and pissed people off - especially in Jerusalem, which is where he was eventually arrested and executed. A lot of people loved his subversive message, but some - especially those who stood to lose by his vision of the world - didn't care for it at all. It's no wonder they thought he was a rabble-rouser and wanted to get rid of him. He threatened the status quo by giving the oppressed Jewish people hope and by undermining the powers that be - both the political and religious powers that be, represented by Rome, its governors, and its legions, and by Jewish religious leaders who were seen as traitorous collaborators with those Roman overlords.

And before you condemn all those "Jews" who rejected Jesus, it's important to keep in mind that if Jesus were to come around today, preaching a challenging and subversive message like the one above, most Christians would reject him too. (I would argue most Christians HAVE rejected him, accepting in his place a watered-down, domesticated shadow that they find comforting and not at all subversive... but that's for another blog.)

Book Report: Zealot by Reza Aslan

Zealot is the latest in a very long line of books by various religious scholars on the life of the historical Jesus.  Because it received a lot of attention in the press, it has very quickly become one of the best-selling such books of all time.

Like all books about the historical Jesus, Zealot attempts to draw a portrait of what the Jesus of history was really like, stripped of later theological language and images.  Where did he come from? What motivated him?  What was the core of his message?  How did he perceive himself and his own place in history?  What was he like, as an individual?  In short, books about the historical Jesus are biographies written by historians, not religious books written by theologians.

Aslan does a masterful job of setting the historical context of Jesus's life and times in first century Palestine.  Of all the books I've read about the historical Jesus, I don't think any other writer has built the historical context quite as well, or quite as deeply, as Aslan does.  I'd go so far as to call it brilliant.  It is definitely the best thing about the book.  The first six chapters are essentially a brief primer on Jewish life, culture, and religion from roughly 50 years prior to Jesus's life, through about 50 years after his death, with a specific focus on all the "messiahs" who came and went during that time.  First century Palestine was literally "awash in messianic energy" and this is vital to understanding who Jesus was and how his followers understood him.

As the title implies, Aslan's main argument is that Jesus was motivated by the Jewish notion of zeal - which he defines as "a strict adherence to the Torah and the Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master...and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God." This, according to Aslan, is what lay at the core of Jesus's personal philosophy and theology - a zealous devotion to God and to, ultimately, ridding the Jewish homeland of its Roman overlords.

The majority of Aslan's arguments are in keeping with mainstream Christian scholarship of the last thirty years.  There is nothing particularly new or ground-breaking for someone (like me) who is fairly well-read on this subject.  However, for someone reading their first book on the historical Jesus, Zealot is a treasure-trove of information written with a very readable style.  I can hardly think of a better place to start a study of the historical Jesus.  One of the book's strengths is that it reads a bit like a novel, so there is no need to fear a dry, scholarly treatise with this book.

Ultimately, I only had a few quibbles with Aslan's arguments. For instance, while he agrees that there is no evidence that Jesus ever advocated armed rebellion against Rome, he argues that Jesus was not the pacifist that he is commonly portrayed to have been.  He states that when Jesus said "love your enemies," he meant that in a purely Jewish context; i.e., love your Jewish enemies, but you can hate foreign or non-Jewish enemies all you want.

While I can agree that Jesus was much more fanatical than modern Christians like to imagine, I don't think the evidence suggests that Jesus excluded non-Jews from his worldview.  In fact, I think the evidence is overwhelming of exactly the opposite.  It is undoubtedly true that Jesus, like most Palestinian Jews of his day, avoided the impurities associated with non-Jews, but I think the evidence is strong that Jesus ultimately viewed his message as being for everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.  Ultimately, I don't think Jesus was as militant as Aslan implies.  I think he viewed the "Kingdom of God" as something that all people would take part in.

The only other significant quibble relates to how Aslan makes his arguments.  He tends to make strong assertions, as though he is stating a widely-accepted fact, when in reality most conclusions about the historical Jesus (whether Aslan's or anyone else's) are up for debate.  There are also a few times when he draws conclusions on what I think is very sketchy evidence, but most of those examples relate to his narration of events after Jesus's life - events involving the early Christian communities.  
   
All in all, Zealot is a worthwhile book to pick up if you are interested in the historical Jesus.  If you've read books like this before, you won't necessarily find anything new or earth-shattering, but the historical detail about first century Palestine, alone, will make the book worthwhile.  And if you're new to this subject, Zealot is a good place to start.

Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Theological Argument

Read Part I - Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Constitutional Argument

In this first part of this two-part series, we looked at how religious opposition to gay marriage goes against the principles of liberty and secular government, outlined in the Constitution.  It's not that religious people don't have a right to voice their opinion or to be opposed to something they view as sinful; but when religious opinions dictate legislation (as with recent gay marriage laws), the Constitution and civil liberties are thrown out the window.

In that first part, we saw how some modern political groups - most notably the Tea Party - claim to uphold the Constitution and to be rigorous defenders of Constitutional rights, but many of those same Tea Party groups are vocally opposed to gay marriage rights on religious grounds.  I stated that this is but one way in which many gay  marriage opponents are hypocritical.

The other way, of course, is within Christianity itself.  

Most people seem to think the question of gay marriage in general, and homosexuality in particular, is a "no-brainer" as far as the Bible is concerned.  The Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality and homosexual relationships, so any self-respecting Christian should be opposed to it.  In this regard, a Christian friend of mine, who is a minister, stated: "Scripture is clear.  Homosexuality is wrong.  There is no gray area."  In another place, he stated: "I can't just accept the parts about God's love and mercy and forgiveness, and skip over the parts about His holiness and judgement."  In other words, he can't just pick the nice parts, and ignore the difficult parts.  For this reason, he says, "I can't justify [a homosexual lifestyle] with a holy God who calls it a sin."

This "Pick and Choose" argument, as I call it, is one of the most common arguments that Christians use when discussing hot-button topics facing modern society.  I have heard it used in discussions on everything from gay marriage and homosexuality, to abortion, gender roles, and whether or not Jesus is the only viable means of salvation.  Indeed, this argument may be the most commonly used weapon evangelicals wield against "moderate" and "liberal" Christians who they see as watering down the Holy Word.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that there is no such thing as a Christian who does not pick and choose what they like from the Bible and discard or ignore the rest.  Even the most stringent Bible literalist doesn't actually believe everything the Bible says, and doesn't actually follow all of the Bible's teachings.  More on this in a bit.

First, I want to briefly discuss what the Bible does actually say about homosexuality.  I have written extensively on this topic in the past, so if any reader wants more information, they can find it here: Homosexuality and the New Testament.

To put it simply, the Bible has very little to say on homosexuality - but it seems like it says a lot more.  The Torah codifies homosexuality as a sin punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13).  Other passages in the Torah also condemn homosexuality as detestable to God.  In still other parts of the Old Testament, homosexuals are either put to death or expelled from the Jewish kingdom (for instance, 1 Kings 15:12).

There is a two-fold problem here, however.  First of all, anytime critics of Christianity point out all the absurd, and sometimes even downright horrific, rules of the Old Testament, Christians will defend themselves by pointing out that the Old Testament was replaced by the New Testament, and so the rules and regulations of the Old Testament are no longer valid.  Jesus did away with them.  If that's true, of course, it also applies to the Old Testament rules and regulations about homosexuality.  After all, many modern Christians may think homosexuality is a sin, but they don't advocate the death penalty for it.  So for Christians, using Old Testament passages to condemn homosexuality is theologically inconsistent.  Those rules aren't in place anymore, having been "fulfilled" by Jesus.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Old Testament doesn't actually say nearly as much about homosexuality as it appears.  In fact, outside of those outdated Torah rules about putting gay people to death, the Old Testament doesn't ever refer to homosexuality.  In all the many passages that have long been understood as referring to homosexuality, the Hebrew word used there doesn't mean "homosexual" at all, but instead refers explicitly to a temple prostitute.  In the ancient world, fertility cults were extremely common, and part of the way these cults worshipped included ritual sex acts, involving both men and women.  In the Old Testament, when kings are shown expelling "homosexuals" or "sodomites" from their kingdom, the text is actually referring to pagan fertility cults being disbanded.  This is so widely recognized today that even the widely-read NIV and the New King James Version have translated the word as "male temple prostitutes" instead of the traditional King James word "sodomites."

At this point, you might be asking, "But what about the New Testament?"

Like the Old Testament, the New Testament only seems to say a lot about homosexuality.  Famous passages in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy use a Greek word that has been translated as "homosexual" or "homosexual offenders" (or the classic King James phrase "abusers of themselves with mankind"), but linguists and scholars today understand that this word's meaning is basically unknown.  It is never attested in any Greek text prior to Paul's usage of it in 1 Corinthians, and it simply isn't clear what he was referring to - it has even been suggested that Paul coined the word himself.  There were, in fact, several widely-used words in ancient Greek that referred to homosexuality - "pedophilia," which referred to men having sex with boys, and "kinaidos," which basically referred to the size of one's rectum.  Whatever Paul's word meant, there simply isn't any reason to assume it meant "gay men."  In my own study of the issue, I think the most appropriate translation of the word is "pimp" - that is, someone who benefits monetarily from sex.  The link I provided above goes into a lot more detail about this issue.

In any case, we are left, in the New Testament, with just one passage that definitely talks about homosexuality, and that is a text found in Romans 1, where Paul laments men and women who give up natural relations in order to have sex with people of the same gender.  But here, as in the Old Testament passages, this reference to homosexuality is related to ritual sex in pagan temples.  The context of the passage makes that crystal clear, and Paul almost certainly had an eye on the Old Testament passages we saw above that talk about ancient Jewish kings expelling fertility cults from the land.  And remember, Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome, where fertility cults were commonplace.  He was encouraging them not to be led astray by these false gods, which were "man-made things" made to look like birds and reptiles (think of the animal gods of ancient Egypt).

With all these issues in mind, is it actually true that the Bible is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality, as asserted by my minister friend?  Or are the waters much, much murkier?  In fact, I think the waters are unquestionably murky.  About the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Bible clearly condemns pagan fertility cults and those who take part in them.  Just about everything else is debatable.

As such, should Christians be attempting to legislate morality on an issue that is not even particularly clear in the Bible?  Shouldn't Christians be more concerned with issues that are, in fact, clear in the Bible, like feeding the poor, helping the sick, and living a lifestyle of unrestrained love and mercy?

Of course, I think the answer to that first question is no, and to the second question yes, but my theological argument goes even farther than that. I want to turn now to the "Pick and Choose" phenomenon I mentioned above.

As I explained, one of the first arguments sophisticated Christians make when confronted with social issues is that a Christian can't just pick and choose what they want to believe.  You have to accept the whole deal; you can't just follow some things, and reject the others.  This is sometimes referred to as "buffet-style Christianity," taking what you want and ignoring the rest.

And this is where the real hypocrisy comes into play in regards to Christians who are opposed to gay marriage on Biblical grounds.  Let's agree for a moment that the Bible actually is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality.  Let's agree that homosexuality is an unquestionable sin and should be condemned.

Of all the sins and unrighteous ways of living outlined in the Bible, why is this one so important?  Not just so important that Christians need to voice their opinion about the sinfulness of the gay lifestyle, but so important that they actually need to amend their state constitutions - and maybe even the U.S. constitution - in order to deny gay people the right to get married?  Why this sin, and not something else?

In 1 Corinthians, there is a passage that is very frequently referred to by people arguing against gay marriage.  This is one of the passages I noted above where the meaning of the word used is unclear and probably did not refer to homosexuality.  But, as above, let's agree for a moment that it does refer to homosexuals.  In that passage, Paul is imploring his audience to live righteous lives and to flee from immorality.  He lists several sins which will keep believers from "inheriting the kingdom of God."  Among these are sexual immorality, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality.  Why is homosexuality the most important thing in that list?  Why not focus on greed, or drunkenness?  Why not re-enact the 18th Amendment and put Prohibition back in place?  Why not amend the constitution to outlaw sex outside of marriage?

The fact is, there is no legitimate justification for putting homosexuality above the others.  There is no Biblical justification for denying gays the same rights as everyone else, even if you think it's a sin.  You may think sex outside of marriage is a sin too, but you sure aren't trying to keep those who have had premarital sex from being able to get married!

And the biggest one here, of course, is adultery.  If you judge a sin's importance by how often it is referred to or condemned in the Bible, adultery is probably the Number One Biblical Sin.

And just what is adultery, by the Bible's definition?  Quite simply, adultery is when a married person has sex with someone other than their spouse, or when a non-married person has sex with someone who is married to someone else.  At its core, adultery is about infidelity and unfaithfulness.  This is why, throughout the Bible, "adultery" is used as a metaphor for unfaithfulness to God.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks about adultery on several occasions.  In fact, Jesus uses the word "adultery" no less than fourteen times.  One of his teachings, which is repeated in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, dealt with adultery and divorce.  Here, Jesus states that even looking lustfully at someone who is not your spouse is the same as adultery.  He goes on to say that Moses was wrong in allowing people to get divorced for any reason.  In fact, he argues, if you get divorced for any reason other than infidelity, and then get remarried, you are committing adultery.

This passage, of course, has been the basis for many rules and regulations within modern churches about divorced people.  I grew up being taught that getting divorced for any reason other than unfaithfulness was a sin, and so was remarriage after such a divorce.  I also grew up in a church that did not allow divorced people to have leadership roles like minister or deacon; many modern churches still have rules like that.  If a divorced person wants to remarry, some churches won't allow them to have the ceremony in their church, and some ministers won't marry anyone who has been divorced.      

So with this in mind, and considering that adultery is essentially the biggest sin in the Bible, why aren't Christians fighting to ban divorced people from getting remarried?  Why aren't they arguing that such marriages harm the sanctity of marriage, as ordained by God?  Why aren't they pointing out that divorced people who get remarried are living a sinful lifestyle of adultery?

Scripture is clear.  Remarriage after divorce is wrong.  There is no gray area.

I hope you get my point here.  Christian opposition to gay marriage is inconsistent with the way Christians react to other teachings in the Bible.  I don't know any Christians who are fighting to amend a state constitution to ban divorced people from getting remarried.  I don't know any Christians who would disallow a divorced-and-remarried person to  be an active and accepted member of their church community.  I don't know any Christians who are "hung up" on people getting divorced and remarried.

And yet there are millions of Christians out there trying to ban gay marriage, ostracizing unrepentant gay people from their churches, trying "cure" gay people of their sins, and who are, in general, definitely "hung up" on gay rights.

And these same people, of course, will turn around and accuse a gay rights Christian of "picking and choosing" what they believe, while ignoring the fact that virtually no Christian believes it's a sin for a woman to have short hair, or a man to have long hair (1 Corinthians 11), virtually no Christian believes a woman should not be permitted to have authority over a man (1 Timothy 2), and virtually no Christian believes that slaves should be content in their way of life and faithfully obey their masters (1 Corinthians 7; Ephesians 6).

The Pick and Choose argument, in the end, is just a lot of hypocritical smoke and mirrors to justify prejudice against gay people, and legislating discrimination based on that prejudice.  It is an inconsistent argument that makes false assumptions about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, and presupposes that "good" Christians follow everything the Bible teaches, even though that is demonstrably not true.

In the end, opposition to gay marriage is not about religion at all.  It's about the fact that many people are simply uncomfortable with gay people, afraid of gay lifestyles, and generally find the whole issue of homosexuality distasteful.  Many of those people then simply open their Bibles to find ways to justify their prejudice.  It's a method of operation that has been going on in Christian society for many hundreds of years.  700 years ago, Christians used the Bible to persecute Jews and other non-Christians.  500 years ago, Christians used the Bible to condemn Galileo.  200 years ago, Christians used the Bible to support and condone the institution of slavery.  100 years ago, Christians used the Bible to deny equal rights for women.  And today, they are using the Bible to justify discrimination against gay people.

Fortunately, history shows that they will lose this argument as they have lost all the others.  Fifty years from now, no one will have a problem with gay marriage, except for a few nutty people on the fringes of mainstream religion.  Gay people are going to win their rights to get married, and it will eventually happen in every state.  Christians today who are opposed to gay marriage will either die out or will reluctantly give in to the changing times and the irresistible force of progress, just as they did with slavery and women's rights.  In the future, the fact that there was so much opposition to gay marriage will be an embarrassment to self-respecting Americans.            

That, at least, gives me some hope.








 

Arguing Gay Marriage Rights

With North Carolina's passage of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, passions have run very high very fast, and I am certainly among those who has been fairly vocal and public in my opposition to this amendment.  I have probably said too much; have probably argued too forcefully.

A friend of mine who pastors a church in Indiana made a blog post calling for calmer heads and more respectful discussions.  He ended by using the example of Jesus, who, he says, always debated respectfully with the Pharisees.  I appreciate his thoughts and I think his post is worth reading.

However, I ultimately didn't agree completely with him.  Some issues require passion.  Some issues even require anger and calling people to the carpet.  Sometimes, that's the only way you can get people to listen.  Without putting too fine a point on it, we certainly don't look back now at the 1960's and suggest that African-Americans shouldn't have been so angry.  Their anger fueled social change.

Anyway, in order to explain my perspective on this, and to explain why I am so vocal on this issue, I thought it might be worthwhile to post my response to him here on my own blog, where my own readers can see it.  Of course, you can also just follow the link above, read the original post, and also read my response.  

------

On many subjects, there are opinions, beliefs, and perspectives that are equally valid. Should the government cut taxes or raise taxes to spur the economy? Which is better and why, Papa John’s or Pizza Hut? What’s the best play in sports, the Grand Slam or the Triple Double? Is the Gospel of Thomas a mid-1st century, or a mid-2nd century text? What killed the dinosaurs, a cosmic disaster or a climatic disaster?

These are all questions that have valid arguments on both sides.

But not ALL subjects are like that. Should women be allowed to vote, or not? Should slavery be legal or illegal? Should we mandate jury trials in all criminal cases, or should we be allowed to convict people without a trial? Should we have religious freedom, or should the government tell us what we can and can’t believe?

On issues like that, there is only one perspective that has any real validity or legitimacy, and if someone argues against it, they certainly have the RIGHT to their perspective, but that doesn’t mean their perspective deserves any respect, or that their perspective has any legitimacy.

For me, the issue of gay marriage falls into the latter category. You are entitled to believe whatever you want to believe. But that doesn’t mean it has any legitimacy or deserves respect.

So while I agree that we should approach this topic with humility, that doesn’t mean that there is no right and wrong. That doesn’t mean that both perspectives are equally just and equally valid. Just as there was a right and wrong over the issue of slavery, and later of civil rights, there is also a right and wrong about gay marriage. And sometimes, you have to get angry in order for people to wake up.

And this, actually, is reflected in the gospel accounts of Jesus, which leads to another point about what you said….you say Jesus debated with the experts of the Law, but always respected them. There may be much lost in translation, but it seems pretty clear to me that Jesus didn’t just “debate” with the experts of the Law, but got into heated debates with them, and even downright angry arguments.

Matthew 23 is a great example. Jesus starts off by basically mocking and degrading the “teachers of the Law and the pharisees” and going into a long exposition about what incredibly unreasonable and enormous hypocrites they are. Then he goes on to deliver the so-called “Seven Woes” wherein he basically calls these people a bunch of nasty, dirty names, condemns them to hell, and states that all the “righteous blood shed on earth” is squarely on their heads.

There is nothing kind, conciliatory, or respectful in his tone.

Jesus’s clearing of the Temple is another example, especially the version in the Gospel of John where he’s brandishing a whip!

Finally, in Matthew 15, where again Jesus is giving a tongue-lashing to the Pharisees, he seems to have gone so far in what he said that even his disciples seem embarrassed. They approach him afterwards to tell him he “offended” the Pharisees. Jesus is unrepentant and basically says they deserved it, because they are “blind guides,” and he likens them to weeds that will be uprooted by God.

Jesus, clearly, understood that sometimes you can’t “debate” with people. Sometimes, people are just wrong. And sometimes, the only way to get people to wake up is to call them to the carpet.

I believe all of these things pertain to the issue of gay marriage.

The Theology of Jesus

I've been thinking a lot recently about the theology espoused by Jesus.  Yes, I admit, I sit around thinking about things like this.

In thinking about these things, I have come to realize - and even marvel at - how different Jesus's theology was compared to modern Christian theology.  For those who read my blog a lot, it may come as a surprise to discover that I have only just recently come to grips with a firm and clear understanding of what Jesus's basic theology entailed.  More on that in a minute.  

First, it might be important to define what I mean by "theology."  Simply put, theology refers to what you believe about God or supernatural things.  Ancient Egyptians, for instance, believed that when you died, you were judged by a divine tribunal, headed by the god Osiris.  Your heart was weighed against the feather of the goddess Ma'at.  If you had lived by Ma'at's precepts during your life (in other words, if you were a "good" person), you would pass that test and be presented to Osiris, who would ultimately grant you eternal life.  If your heart did not pass the test against the feather of Ma'at, you would be fed to the goddess Amemet, who was part hippo and part lion, with the head of a crocodile, and who had the job of devouring the hearts (and thus the life force) of the wicked.

This, then, is theology.  It's what you believe about divine things.  

When we look at the theology of modern Christianity, we find, of course, that it is all over the map.  This is why both Mother Theresa and a member of the KKK can claim to be Christians.  But it is certainly possible to describe the most common aspects of modern Christianity - those theological beliefs that are most widely adhered to by everyday, practicing Christians. 

In a nutshell, modern, mainstream Christian theology states that Jesus was the divine son of God who became a great prophet and healer, doing the work of God and spreading God's message to his followers.  He was crucified and buried, and then was physically resurrected through the power of God.  Because of his resurrection, human beings can be reconciled to God by accepting Jesus as their savior and asking forgiveness for their sins.  If they do this, they will go to heaven when they die, to live eternally.  If they do not accept Jesus, they will spend eternity in separation from God, which, for most Christians, means going to hell.

But when we turn to the pages of the New Testament itself, to see what Jesus, himself, actually did and said during his life, we find something completely different - virtually nothing like the theology of mainstream Christianity.  

Before I even begin here, I want to point out that what follows is not my own pet theory about Jesus.  It's not some harebrained idea that I've put together.  It is basically Jesus Theology 101, similar to what any student would be taught at any mainstream seminary across the country.  I stick to the basics and discuss only those things that are widely-accepted and established among scholars, historians, and theologians.     

To begin with, Jesus said explicitly that his message was only for Jews - for the children of Abraham.  This wasn't an effort on Jesus's part to be ethnocentric, or to exclude someone who was not ethnically Jewish.  Anyone could follow him, but following his teachings included following the teachings of the Jewish scriptures - including all the purity laws of Moses.  Doing so, however, would by definition make you a Jew.  A Jew is not just someone of a specific ethnic background, but also of a specific religious background.  In the same way that a person today can be ethnically non-Jewish, but Jewish by religion, this was true in the 1st century as well.  Jesus welcomed everyone, but he also taught that Jewish laws and customs had to be followed, because they came from God.  Ethical teachings from the Jewish scriptures were essentially the basis of Jesus's own ethical teachings.    

Secondly, Jesus was a firm and outspoken apocalyptist.  What I mean by that is that Jesus believed the end of the world was right around the corner.  He says this explicitly in the gospels, even affirming that the end would happen within his own generation, and within the lifespans of many of his followers.  No matter how uncomfortable this might make people, it is a fact that simply cannot be ignored.  It's right there in the texts of the New Testament.  For instance, in Mark, chapter 13, he tells his disciples all the things they are going to see at the end of the world, and then goes on to say: "When you see these things happening, you will know that [the end] is near, right at the door."  He follows this up even more explicitly by saying: "This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."  

So Jesus was a dyed-in-the-wool apocalyptist, believing that the world was coming to an end.  But what, exactly, did this end-of-the-world scenario look like?  What was going to take place?

In short, the world would descend farther and farther into chaos.  Wars would occur between nations.  Many people would die.  Eventually, Israel itself would be consumed and overrun.  But then God would intervene and establish what one scholar has called "the Great Divine Clean-Up" of the world.  His agent for this clean up would be a figure called the Son of Humanity (or "Son of Man" in earlier Christian parlance).  Many debates exist about who Jesus thought this person was, with the most common conclusion being that it was Jesus himself; but many other scholars argue that Jesus was talking about a different person all together, or maybe even using an expression meant to refer to the Jewish people as a whole.     

In any case, how can a person ensure that they are on the right side of God when the Son of Humanity comes to institute the Great Divine Clean-Up?  Easy; by following the path of righteousness taught by Jesus, which essentially meant being a good person and following God's commandments as outlined in the Jewish scriptures, especially the commandments about loving others, helping others, and performing acts of loving-kindness.  If you do that, Jesus said, you will be among God's chosen people; you will be on the right side of the fence when the end of time occurs.

So what, then, will happen during the Great Divine Clean-Up?  Put simply, God will sweep away all the powers and nations of the earth, which have grown out of the corruption of sin, going all the way back to Adam.  Essentially, God will push the "reset" button.  The kingdom of God, sometimes called the kingdom of heaven, will be enthroned here on earth, and will rule a new earth, transformed from the old, corrupted earth on which we now live.  It will be an earth like God originally envisioned for humanity, where human beings will live in harmony together, loving God and one another, and living for eternity in this blissful paradise that is essentially a remaking of the Garden of Eden.  No one will "go to heaven."  Instead, heaven, essentially, will come here, to this planet, to earth.  

Jesus says that the coming Son of Humanity will institute all of this, and will "gather his chosen ones from the four corners of the earth."  In other words, all of those who followed Jesus's path of righteousness will be gathered together, where they will become the inheritors of God's renewed earthly kingdom.  When Jesus said that "the meek" and "the poor" and "the persecuted" will inherit the earth, he wasn't talking metaphorically.  He meant that statement quite literally.  The ones who follow God will literally become the future rulers of God's renewed earth.

So what about evil people?  And what about those who are already dead when all this takes place?

As for those wicked people who are still alive at the end, they will effectively be cast out of God's renewed earth.  Their bodies (presumably still living), will be thrown into hell.  Hell, for Jesus, was not the supernatural dimension of Medieval Catholicism and modern day fundamentalism, but was instead a quite literal place, right here on earth - just as God's kingdom is a literal kingdom right here on the literal earth.  The word Jesus uses, which is translated into English as "hell", is the Greek word "Gehenna."  This Greek word, in turn, was a reference to the Valley of Hinnom, which was a literal valley on the southwest side of ancient Jerusalem that you can still walk through to this day.  At its most southern point, it met up with the Kidron Valley, which is also mentioned in New Testament writings (in the Gospel of John, Jesus crosses the Kidron Valley to get to the Garden of Gethsemane).

In ancient times, the Valley of Hinnom was essentially where Jerusalem's garbage dump was located.  As such, it was an immensely "unclean" place, where no self-respecting 1st century Jew would ever venture.  In addition to dumping refuse there, corpses would be placed there as well, if the deceased had no one to pay for a burial (such as a homeless person or criminal).  Ancient writers indicate that this enormous pile of garbage burned year-round.  

The Valley of Hinnom had long been associated with punishment and judgment in Jewish thought.  Jewish scripture (specifically, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah) indicates that the Valley of Hinnom was the place where Canaanites performed religious rituals, including the sacrificing of children in fire, and another account - this time in Isaiah - indicates that the fires of the Hinnom Valley would consume the enemies of Israel (specifically, the Assyrians).  

So by the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom was viewed as the unclean place where pagans, in the "olden days," had burned their children in sacrifices to their evil gods, and where now an enormous pile of garbage, topped with the corpses of criminals and other evil-doers, burned in perpetuity.

It is not hard to understand, then, why Jesus, and other Jews of his day, began imagining the Hinnom Valley as a place of divine retribution - Isaiah had indicated that very thing more than 700 years earlier.  

So whenever Jesus mentions "hell" in the New Testament, he is explicitly referring to the literal Valley of Hinnom, ancient Jerusalem's burning garbage dump.  His teachings indicate that the wicked who are still alive at the end of time will be cast into the Valley of Hinnom, where their bodies will be consumed and ultimately destroyed by the fires that never go out.  

And this is a key, and quite eye-opening, aspect of Jesus's theology.  He never says, not even one time, that wicked people will go to hell and suffer there forever (as many modern Christians, particularly evangelicals, believe).  I remember growing up and wondering how someone could live forever in hell, without ever dying.  It made me shudder to imagine experiencing the scorching pain of fire, for all eternity, without the ability to "die" and make it go away.  In fact, Jesus never, ever, ever, not even once, says such a thing about hell.  Instead, he says that the bodies of the wicked will be destroyed there.  It is the fire that is eternal, not the body inside the fire.  

For many modern Christians, the punishment of not following Jesus is having to burn eternally in hell.  Jesus wasn't nearly that vindictive.  For Jesus, simply dying, having your body permanently annihilated, and not getting to take part in the renewed earth, was punishment enough. 

As for the wicked who have already died, Jesus never really mentions this group of people explicitly, but one can assume that they will simply remain dead.  Their bodies have already been destroyed by natural processes.  They have already gotten their just desserts.  

So what, then, about the good people who have already died?  Those who followed Jesus's path, but who died before the End?  Unlike the wicked who have died, the righteous will be resurrected - their bodies will literally come back to life and rise up out of their graves and tombs.  The Son of Humanity, through God, will restore them back to life, to join up with the others who were are still alive.              

All these things, then, make up the gist of Jesus's theology.  The world is coming to an end, very, very soon.  Jesus, himself, brings the good news of the coming kingdom of God, and tells people what they need to do to prepare - essentially, they need to follow the teachings of Jewish scripture.  When the End comes, God will send the mysterious Son of Humanity, who will gather the living from around the earth, and separate the good from the wicked.  The good will inherit God's renewed earthly kingdom, and becomes its rulers from Jerusalem.  The wicked will be cast into the Hinnom Valley where their bodies will be destroyed.  Of those who are already dead, the righteous will be resurrected to join in the festivities of the new earth.  The wicked who are already dead will, presumably, just remain that way.  All of this is going to happen within a few years, or maybe a few decades at most.    

This is Jesus's theology in a nutshell.

And, of course, it doesn't take a theologian or Biblical scholar to point out that it is practically nothing like what modern Christians believe.  To modern Christian sensibilities, in fact, it would no doubt seem absolutely preposterous.  Heaven isn't on earth, it's up in the sky, or it's in some kind of otherworldly dimension.  You don't have to wait until the end of time to be resurrected - your soul is resurrected to heaven immediately upon your death.  People aren't sent to hell to be killed, they go there after they die, and they live there forever in torment and agony.  Jesus's message wasn't just to the Jews of his own day, it was to all people in all time periods.  Jesus didn't expect the world to end in the 1st century - that would mean Jesus was wrong about something!  

Unfortunately, these things simply are not consistent with what the New Testament gospels explicitly tell us about Jesus and his life and beliefs and theological dispositions.  For Jesus, heaven was the place God lived, not the place where humans go after death.  Human beings don't go to heaven.  They die and await resurrection at the end of time, where they will be raised up to live again on a renewed earth.  The end of time is not thousands of years in the future; it's literally going to happen in the next few years.  Jesus's message is for anyone who wants to hear it, but it involves essentially becoming Jewish by following Jewish laws and religious customs.  Wicked people don't burn in hell for all eternity.  If they are still alive at the End, they are thrown into the burning garbage dump of the Hinnom Valley, where their bodies are destroyed.  

It is my firm and passionate belief that if Christians want to step more fully into the lifestyle that Jesus taught and gave his own life for, it is vitally important to understand who he was, and what he taught, and why he taught it, even if those things are uncomfortable.  As many great theologians and Christian scholars have come to realize over the centuries, the fact that Jesus was, effectively, a failed apocalyptist, does not mean that Jesus, himself, was a failure, or that Christianity is a fraud.  It simply means that Christians have to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus and to be a practicing Christian in the 21st century.  And this frequently means jettisoning old ideas and old ways of thinking that simply do not hold up to scrutiny of the texts of the Bible.  It means joining Jesus on his path of righteousness, following him in his lifestyle of love, kindness, and living for others.  For Christians in the 21st century, this is what it means to attain salvation and commune with God.    

Was Jesus Born in a Stable?

Outside of his death and resurrection, there is perhaps no story from the life of Jesus as well known and widely imagined as his birth in a Bethlehem stable.

Though we have two New Testament gospel accounts of the events surrounding Jesus's birth, the version of events found in the Gospel of Luke has easily played the most significant role in developing Christian images of the Nativity.

From the King James Version of Luke, chapter 2:

And Joseph also went up from Galilee...unto the City of David, which is called Bethlehem...to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife...And while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.


Although Luke's account provides most of the commonly-known details of Jesus's birth, we use the Gospel of Matthew to add a guiding star "in the east," leading three wise men to Jesus's side, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

As a result, Christian tradition has created a sort of combined image of the Nativity: wise men together with shepherds, worshipping the baby Jesus, who lies in a wooden manger inside a covered stable, cows and lambs resting contentedly in the background, as a magnificent star glows in the sky overhead, superimposed over a host of singing angels.

This image is reinforced in everything from great works of art by Renaissance masters, to modern Christmas hymns and nativity scenes.  Ask most people to describe the scene of Jesus's birth, and they will talk about stars and stables, mangers and three wise men, shepherds and a "heavenly host" of angels, and the gentle lowing of the cattle.  A few might even throw in a little drummer boy in the shadows.

Of course, as many folks realize, a number of these images are either downright absent from the New Testament accounts all together, or are twisted out of context.

I have written before about the varied discrepancies between the birth accounts of Matthew and Luke, including how we tend to combine images from these two otherwise differing accounts of the same event, to effectively create a third account that does not actually exist, so I won't repeat myself here.

Instead, I want to focus on the actual place where Jesus is said to have been born - inside a stable in Bethlehem.

To begin with, it may come as quite a surprise to many readers to discover that, in fact, no writer in the New Testament ever once mentions anything about a stable.  There is, quite simply, no stable in any New Testament account of Jesus's birth.  


This may almost seem shocking to some people.  Why in the world do we imagine Jesus born in a stable when the birth stories of the New Testament don't actually mention any such thing?

The widespread nature of Christian belief in a stable can be illustrated by a very brief survey on the Internet. At a website called www.JesusAnswers.com, they have this to say: "When they arrived at Bethlehem in the evening, Joseph wanted to find a comfortable place for his wife Mary...The only place they found was a stable with camels, donkeys, and sheep."

Apparently this website doesn't realize camels aren't native to Palestine, and are also considered ritually unclean.  But I digress.

Another article, this time at www.christianity.about.com, puts it like this: "While in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Probably because of the census, the inn was too crowded, and Mary gave birth in a crude stable."

Clearly, the notion that Jesus was born in a stable is quite widespread, and it would seem that very few people actually realize that no writer of the New Testament ever places Jesus in a stable at birth.

It doesn't take a scholar of the New Testament to figure out why the image of the stable has developed in Christian tradition.  The Gospel of Luke does tell us that Joseph and Mary were unable to find a place to stay in Bethlehem, and therefore Jesus was placed "in a manger."  And a manger, after all, is a feeding trough.  Surely, some might argue, this implies a stable?

As it turns out, the answer to that question is no.

There are two reasons why Luke's account cannot be taken to imply a birth in a stable.  One is a purely archaeological reason, the other is essentially a historical reason.

Archaeological discoveries in modern Israel have demonstrated that within ancient Jewish cities, feeding troughs - or mangers - were stone basins placed, essentially, along the curb in front of ancient buildings.  To put it simply, when travelers brought donkeys into the city, they tied them up in front of the building and left them there to eat - much the same way that a cowboy in the Old West might have tied his mount in front of the saloon.  If a resident inside an ancient Jewish city owned a donkey or some other grazing animal, that animal would typically be kept within the courtyard of the house, where a manger would be situated.

This is evidenced, among other things, within another passage from the Gospel of Luke itself.  In chapter 13, Jesus is teaching about working on the Sabbath, and states: "Does not each of you, on the Sabbath, untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?"  Animals were fixed to the feeding trough, which itself sat on city streets or within residential courtyards.  If mangers were understood to be situated inside an enclosed structure like a stable, what reason would there be to have the animal tied to the manger?  

Simply put, when Luke tells us that Jesus was placed "in a manger," because there was no room inside the inn, he is saying, in effect, that Jesus was born either on the sidewalk in front of the inn, or perhaps more likely, in the courtyard appended to the inn.  But in either case, there would certainly have been no stable involved.  (Interestingly enough, the word translated in this passage as "inn" is probably better translated as "guestroom," implying that Joseph and Mary weren't trying to get lodging at an inn at all, but rather inside a relative's house.)  

And this moves us to the second reason why Luke could not have been implying a stable for Jesus's birth.  From a historical standpoint, stables simply didn't exist, in any widespread fashion, in ancient Israel.  The climate of Israel is mild, with average temperatures ranging from the low 40's in winter to the mid 80's in summer.  Some areas are dry, and others are more rainy, but snow and bitterly cold temperatures are a rarity.  There was simply no climatic need for stables - or barns - to house cattle.  It's interesting to note that at least one ancient stable area has been excavated in ancient Israel, in the area of Meggido, a city which was abandoned around 500 B.C.E.  This stable, however, was made of stone (unlike the typical Nativity image of a wooden stable looking like something found in 16th century Europe), and there are a number of archaeologists who have argued that, in fact, it wasn't a stable at all, but a warehouse or storage building of some type.

The simple fact is, people in ancient Israel kept animals in pastures or within residential courtyards.  They did not house them in stables or other walled and covered structures.  Such structures, for the most part, would have been unnecessary, except, perhaps, in cases of kings housing their battle horses and so on.  Regular cattle and beasts of burden - donkeys, cows, oxen, sheep, etc. - would have lived out-of-doors.

In the end, it seems that we are forced to accept that our common and widely-accepted image of Jesus's birth in a stable simply is not true, whether from a Biblical, archaeological, or historical standpoint.  The New Testament does not tell us Jesus was born in a stable, and archaeology and history demonstrate that there is no reason to suppose an implied stable in Luke's account.

Based on historical context, the implication in Luke's account is that Jesus was born in an open-air courtyard (or maybe even on the side of the road!), placed in a feeding trough for lack of a bed, and bundled in soft blankets to protect him against the night air and the cold stone interior of the manger.  

Book Report: The Jesus Dynasty

The Jesus Dynasty is a book written a few years ago by religious scholar James D. Tabor.  Tabor, according to his website, is the head of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC-Charlotte, and his specialty is Christian Origins and Ancient Judaism.  He apparently leads a lot of archaeological expeditions in and around Jerusalem and modern Israel and Galilee.

It's taken me a long time to get through the book, but that isn't because the book wasn't any good - I just haven't had nearly as much interest, in the last year or so, in critical historical Jesus scholarship.  I've gotten a bit burned out, I think.

But in any case, the book presents a very provocative reconstruction of the historical Jesus and particularly of the early Christian church that sprang  up in his name.


To put Tabor's thesis simply, he argues that early Christianity was split into two main groups - Jewish Christians, based in Jerusalem, and led by James the brother of Jesus, and Gentile (or non-Jewish) Christians, spread in pockets throughout the Roman empire, and led by Paul.

He goes on to argue that the Jerusalem Christians - that is, the Jewish Christians - were the ones who were staying true to the teachings of Jesus, and the non-Jewish Christians, led by Paul, were the ones really creating a whole new religion - one which diverged from the teachings of Jesus in dramatic ways.

He also argues - and this is where the title comes from - that the "Jesus Movement," as he calls it, was really a dynastic movement.  He argues that Jesus started as a follower of John the Baptist, and that these two men - Jesus and John - viewed themselves in prophetic terms as the ones God had chosen to bring a message of repentance to Israel, in preparation for the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.  The Jewish scriptures spoke of two lines uniting Israel - the priestly line of Aaron, and the royal line of David.  John the Baptist, Tabor argues, represented this priestly line, while Jesus - descended through the house of David - represented the royal, or messianic, line.

When John was executed, this threw the movement into confusion for a while, but Jesus eventually returned to the scene, leading the movement by himself, and increasingly viewing himself in messianic terms.  He genuinely believed, Tabor argues, that God was going to intervene to free Israel from its Roman oppressors and that Jesus himself would become the new leader of a new Israelite nation.  Even on the cross, Tabor believes, Jesus still believed God was going to intervene.

As a result of this, his eventual death came as a great shock to his followers.  But once they had recovered from their mourning, they kept his movement alive by coming to understand him through Jewish scriptures as the "Suffering Servant" who had to die for the sins of the world.  And they continued to believe that Jesus would eventually return in a Second Coming to rule as God's authority on earth from a new Jerusalem.

Since this entire movement, according to Tabor, was predicated on the fact that Jesus was the Davidic Messiah, it stands to reason that after his death, one of his relatives would take over the movement - like a son ruling after a father.  Jesus had no son to inherit his "throne" as it were, so it went to his brother - James.  After James died, Tabor argues that it passed to another of Jesus's brothers, Simon - the same Simon known as "Simon the Zealot" from the gospel lists of Jesus's 12 disciples.  After Simon's death, it passed to yet another brother, Jude.  Jude, according to James, was the last of the Jesus Dynasty, because by that time - around 100 C.E. - the Jewish Christian movement was virtually dead (except for a few pockets here and there).   It had been marginalized and ultimately killed by Paul's movement.

Much of these arguments are not so earth-shattering.  Many scholars argue that Paul's movement marginalized those Christians who believed in practicing Judaism, and many scholars agree that Jesus had an apocalyptic worldview and saw himself as God's messiah.

What is ground-breaking about Tabor's argument is the assertion that the movement was dynastic - that Jesus really did come from the line of David, and that leadership of the movement passed on successively after his death through his brothers.  Tabor argues that three of Jesus's 12 disciples - James son of Alphaeus, Judas brother of James, and Simon the Zealot - were all Jesus's half brothers.  He argues that Jesus was Joseph's son with Mary, but that these other sons were the sons of Joseph's brother and Mary - his brother having married Mary after Joseph's death, which was customary.

I'm not really sure what to make of this argument.  I find it provocative, but ultimately I think he is on very shaky ground from a historical perspective.  He bases his conclusions on very questionable passages within the Gospels and in a few 2nd century texts, and I simply don't know if there is enough reliable evidence there to make some of the assertions he makes.

For instance, he relies on the genealogies of Jesus to support his assertion that Jesus was from the royal line of David.  For those who don't know, the genealogy of Jesus is provided by both Matthew and Luke, and is somewhat notorious for the fact that each writer gives a completely different genealogy.  Most modern scholars (that I am aware of, anyway), don't put much stock in the accuracy of these genealogies, simply because they are, in fact, contradictory.  Furthermore, how could the writers of Luke and Matthew have known this information?

But Tabor relies on them as factual, and reconciles their discrepancies by arguing that Matthew's genealogy is through Joseph, while Luke's is through Mary.  This is not a new argument - it has been the position of the Catholic Church since time immemorial.  And I find it totally insupportable.  Both writers make it obvious and explicit that their genealogies are given through Joseph.

Matthew's starts with Abraham, and ends like this: "Mathan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus."

Clearly that's a genealogy through Joseph's line.

Luke provides his genealogy the other way around - starting with Jesus and going all the way back to Adam.  Here's what Luke says: "He [Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat...."

Clearly both these writers are explicitly providing a male genealogy.  I just can't see how any argument can be made to the contrary.  Yet the notion that Luke's genealogy provides Mary's line is an important argument in Tabor's overall thesis, underlying the claims he makes later.  It's a problem, for sure.

He also accepts Luke's story about John the Baptist's heritage - with a priestly father named Zachariah and a mother who was a cousin to Mary - making John and Jesus cousins themselves.  This is what Luke tells us, but most scholars I am familiar with do not take these passages seriously.  This story of John the Baptist is Luke's way of writing theology, not history.

The problem with all these background arguments is that so much of what comes later in the book - all his arguments relating to the Jesus Movement and the Jesus Dynasty - are built on these assumptions about the biological background of Jesus and John.  If those assumptions are shaky, it casts doubt on all the subsequent arguments.

In the end, I have to say that the book provided a very thought-provoking perspective on Jesus and the movement that sprang up in his name after his death, but I am not sure that I agree with all of Tabor's ultimate conclusions.  At the very least, I feel like he has not adequately provided reliable evidence for these claims.  It comes across to me as a lot of speculation based on shaky evidence and the occasional grasping at straws.

Still, despite that rather harsh criticism, I think the book is a valuable asset in the growing body of work on the "historical Jesus," and I would certainly recommend it to anyone who has a serious interest in this field.    

Jesus' Occupation: Was Jesus a Carpenter?

Jesus was a carpenter, right?  It’s one of the most widely known “facts” about Jesus’ life prior to his ministry.  In many ways, it is the only “fact” we know about Jesus’ life before his baptism by John the Baptist. 

Surprisingly, no text of the New Testament tells us that Jesus was a carpenter.

In only one Gospel is there any hint as to what Jesus’ occupation was prior to the start of his ministry.  This comes from the Gospel of Mark, where he notes that Jesus was a tekton – that is, a builder or craftsman.  In the Greek version of the Old Testament, this same word (tekton) is used to translate the Hebrew word charash, which means the same thing – artisan, craftsman, engraver, etc.

The only other time the word tekton appears in the New Testament is in the Gospel of Matthew, where the writer tells us that Jesus was the son of a tekton.  Perhaps Matthew was implying that Jesus followed in his father’s footsteps, but in any case, the only explicit reference in the New Testament comes from Mark.

Tekton, as stated above, is a word meaning “builder” or “craftsman.”  Literally, it means “someone who creates.”  It certainly can refer to something like a carpenter – that is, a woodworker.  But, like our own word “builder,” it does not exclusively refer to the profession of carpentry.  Unfortunately, there is no context in Mark’s passage (or Matthew’s, for that matter) to imply exactly what sort of tekton Jesus was. 

The tradition that tekton, in the Gospels, referred specifically to carpentry seems to be an early one.  Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-2^nd century (only about 80 years after the first Gospel), states that Jesus was a carpenter who built yokes and plows like his father before him.  Justin tells us that Jesus used his woodworking trade to teach “the symbols of righteousness” to his followers and to encourage them to be productive. 

Sometime later, around 200 C.E., another Church father – this time the prolific writer Origen – denies that Jesus was a carpenter and notes explicitly that the Gospels do not, in fact, tell us this widely known “fact” (clearly Origen understood that “tekton” was not a specific reference to carpentry). 

We are left them with a problem: the word used in the New Testament is vague, and the debate about what, exactly, this word referred to is as old as Christianity itself.  How can we possibly hope to clear up the confusion?  Our only option is to look at other available evidence, both textual and historical, and when we do, it seems likely that Jesus was not, in fact, a carpenter.

One of the ways that scholars attempt to better understand the so-called “lost years” of Jesus’ life is by looking at the content of his parables.  What sorts of things did Jesus talk about?  What images and metaphors did he like to use in teaching?  In his parables, we never find references to anything having to do with woodworking – nothing about boat building, for instance, or fashioning plows or yokes (as per Justin Martyr), etc.  What we do find there, however, are parables about stone-working – consider, for instance, the parable of the foolish builders, where Jesus brings up the image of a man digging into solid ground to build a firm (i.e. “stone”) foundation for his house; or consider when Jesus quotes a passage from the Old Testament dealing with “the stone the builders rejected” and how it would become “the cornerstone.”  Think also of when Jesus nicknamed his closest companion, Simon.  Simon did not become “the Hammer.”  No, he became “the Rock” – the foundation on which Jesus’ movement would be built.   

In fact, Jesus brings up images of stone-working quite frequently in his sayings.  The parable of the wise and foolish builders, in particular, seems to imply a fairly intimate understanding of stone building practices in general. 

In addition to these clues, consider also the historical context.  It is known that there was very little in Galilee during Jesus’ lifetime that was made of wood.  Wood, in fact, was a scarce commodity in 1^st century Galilee.  Houses, for instance, were made of stone or mud-brick, typically with thatched roofs.  Carpentry would not have been a very common trade.  Masonry, on the other hand, would have been a major industry, employing hundreds, if not thousands, throughout Jesus’ homeland. 

During the “lost years” of Jesus’ life, the major Galilean town of Sepphoris was rebuilt.  Sepphoris had been destroyed in the wake of the death of Herod the Great, and his successor, Herod Antipas, wanted to rebuild it to honor his Roman overlords.  Sepphoris, as it happens, was about 4 miles away from Nazareth – literally a new, shining white city on the hill visible from the valley in which the village of Nazareth set.  If Jesus and his family members had anything at all to do with the building industry, it is a virtual certainty that they would have spent a significant amount of time working in Sepphoris.  The buildings in Sepphoris were not made of wood.  They were made of stone.

Might Jesus have lain these stones inside a ritual Jewish bathing pool in Sepphoris?
It's not outside the realm of possibilities.

Considering these textual and historical clues, it seems probable that Jesus was, in fact, someone who worked with stone rather than wood.  Given his background and the historical context, it is likely that he was simply a laborer who helped haul stones and put them in place, rather than actually carving the stones himself.  He was probably not, in other words, an actual stone mason.  Of course, we can never know for certain.  But then again, we can rarely know anything in ancient history “for certain.”  The best we can do is collect evidence and piece together the resulting puzzle.  And in this case, the puzzle puts a rock in the hands of Jesus, not a hammer and nails.  

Christianity and Paganism: A Casual Discussion

After being asked a few months back about my views on how paganism may have influenced Christianity, I have spent quite a bit of time attempting to write out a nice essay explaining my opinions.  Unfortunately, I have found it next to impossible to "get it on paper," as the saying goes.  After several valiant efforts, I have abandoned the originally essay.  Instead, I want to just talk briefly and casually about my thoughts on this subject.

In recent years - thanks in large part to the Internet - there has been a lot of talk and discussion about the influence of pagan ideas and beliefs on the rise of Christianity.  A few years back, there was an Internet movie called Zeitgeist that caused quite a sensation in this regard.  It was ultimately a film about how 9/11 was an inside job, but the first segment of the film discussed some incredibly provocative theories about the origins of Christianity and its connection to pagan beliefs - particularly the religion of ancient Egypt.

I wrote a long and scathing critique of the movie's religion segment a few years back, so I won't repeat myself here, other than to say that virtually the entire thing, from beginning to end, was balderdash of the most insidious kind.  Be that as it may, the movie has helped to spark some healthy debate on the subject.  There have also been some books out recently discussing these topics, though I have not personally read them.

To put it simply, I think the question of pagan influence on Christianity turns first on what aspect of Christianity one is talking about.  In terms of Christian theology and doctrine, there can be no doubt that paganism had a profound effect.  Beginning in the 2nd century, Christianity had become almost exclusively "Gentile" - that is, non-Jewish.  A a full-blooded Jewish sect in the 1st century, Christianity went through a painful separation in the last few decades of that century and by the year 100 or so, it had essentially become a whole new religion.  

As a Gentile religion, it sought converts from among the pagan religions of the Roman empire.  Like any religion, most of its adherents eventually came from within - that is, they were born to Christian parents.  But in the first few centuries of Christian history, many, many former pagans converted to the new religion, particularly in the 300's C.E., after it became the official religion of the empire.  It was during this same time, of course, that much of the theology and many of the doctrines Christians still follow today were developed and put into practice.  As such, pagan beliefs that converts brought with them deeply and greatly influenced the development of Christian theology and doctrine.  

Consider, for instance, the doctrine of the Trinity, which could easily be viewed (particularly by an outsider) as watered-down polytheism: three gods in one, separate but equal.  This doctrine was formulated during those early centuries when pagan (i.e. polytheistic) beliefs were still common.  

Related to that issue is the question of the divinity of Jesus.  This was a huge issue in the early church, particularly during the 2nd century.  Was Jesus God or man?  Divine or human?  The Trinity, of course, ultimately answered that question for Christians, but the very nature of the debate was the result of non-Jews attempting to understand the distinctly Jewish stories about Jesus.  I am firmly convinced that no self-respecting Jew - even a Jewish Christian - would ever have considered Jesus to be one and the same with God.  Such a notion would have been so fundamentally contrary to all that it means to be Jewish that only non-Jews could have considered it.  Jesus-as-God is a notion that did not arise in Christianity until it became a Gentile religion.  Among pagan religions, the belief that humans could be gods was commonplace, so common, in fact, that it's one of the defining characteristics of many ancient religions.  It is not surprising, then, that the Gentile-dominated early Christian church was amenable to the notion of Jesus being one and the same with God - a notion that would likely have left Jesus's earliest followers, not to mention Jesus himself, in the stunned silence of a major blasphemy. 

So on that subject - pagan influences on Christian doctrine and theology - there is no doubt that it played a major role.  

This, however, is not particularly controversial.  What is far more provocative is the idea that paganism influenced the very telling of the Jesus story itself.  Forget 2nd and 3rd century institutional doctrine; these theories suggest that Jesus may never have existed at all, and whether he existed or not, the stories about his life were developed from pre-existing themes in ancient religion and don't really represent anything historical.

These theories and arguments make for good fiction - and if you ask the producers of Zeitgeist, probably a lot of money too - but in my opinion there is very little of substance to them.  Zeitgeist, as I said, is a pack of lies from beginning to end, but even among the more "mainstream" theories of pagan influences on Christianity, most of it is unfounded speculation.

One thing that any reputable historian of early Christian history will tell you is that the stories of Jesus, and the entire gospel tradition, is a deeply and profoundly Jewish one.  Indeed, the inability (or unwillingness) over the ages of institutional Christianity to recognize the distinctly Jewish nature of Jesus and the stories about his life is, in my opinion, one of its biggest failures.  There is virtually nothing in the gospel tradition about Jesus that cannot be traced to some aspect of Judaism and Jewish history and tradition.  

Consider, for instance, the story of Jesus' birth.  This is one of the more popular stories that the revisionists like to link to paganism.  There's no question that Jesus wasn't the first person in history to have a virgin birth story connected to him.  Therefore, Luke and Matthew must have drawn it from pagan sources, right?  Not necessarily.  All the themes from these accounts of Jesus' birth can actually be traced right back to the Old Testament - the Jewish scriptures.  For crying out loud, Matthew even quotes Isaiah to back up his claim that Jesus was conceived by a virgin.  This idea doesn't come from pagan influence - it comes right out of the sacred scripture of the Jews!   

The same is true for many of the other stories about Jesus's life.  Consider the 12 disciples of Jesus.  I tend to think that the notion of an inner group of exactly 12 men is a creation of the primitive Christian community.  I think the truth is that Jesus probably had a lot of followers, some of whom came and went.  There was probably a core group that was with him the longest, but it wasn't necessarily exactly 12, and later there was a lot of controversy over who, precisely, had been part of this inner circle.  If this is correct, then we need to explain where the notion of "12" came from.  The pagan-influence theories suggest the 12 signs of the Zodiac (I think this is an argument made in Zeitgeist, in fact).  But this, of course, is silly.  Clearly the 12 Tribes of Israel would be the logical conclusion about where the notion of 12 disciples may have originated.  There is even a quote attributed to Jesus making this explicit comparison, when he tells his disciples that they will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.  Furthermore, it is a perfect literary creation: just as the original 12 sons of Jacob became the patriarchs of the Jewish people, so the 12 disciples would become the patriarchs of the new Christian community, with their converts becoming the new 12 "tribes" - the new people of God. 

Ultimately, whether the existence of exactly 12 disciples is history or legend, it is distinctly Jewish, not pagan.  

In the end, I think it goes without saying that pagan beliefs had a lot of influence on later Church doctrine and theology.  I do not, however, think that pagan traditions had much influence on the telling of the stories about Jesus.  In fact, I'm not sure there is any reason to suppose that any of what we find in the gospels comes primarily from pagan tradition.  Now it's true, of course, that Judaism itself, by the time of Jesus and the gospels, was greatly Hellenized.  But only inasmuch as Judaism itself had been influenced by Greek culture and philosophy did any pagan thought, myth, or tradition play a role in the development of the gospels about Jesus.   

Christianity and Old Testament Law, Part II

In Part I of this series, we saw that Christian tradition has long rejected the need for Christians to follow Old Testament Law. This tradition goes back a long way; indeed, all the way back to the mid-1st century and the Apostle Paul. We looked briefly at what exactly this Law is – called by various names, it was the complete set of legal, cultural, and religious codes outlined in Jewish scriptures, called the Old Testament by Christians.

We also saw, however, that Jesus – as depicted in the Gospel tradition – seems to have strongly affirmed adherence to Jewish Law. Indeed, most scholars today agree that Jesus is best understood as a 1st century Jewish male living in the Jewish homeland and working and teaching within Judaism and its practices. We looked at several pieces of Gospel text that confirm this portrait, including an eye-raising teaching from the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus explicitly denies that his purpose was to “abolish” Jewish Law. In this passage, Jesus instead affirms that his followers are expected to follow Old Testament Law down to the letter, so that their adherence to the Law surpasses even that of the Pharisees, who were famous in Jesus’s day for their commitment to these traditions.

CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS

Christian apologists frequently explain that God’s Law from the Old Testament was given to and for God’s chosen people, the Jews. The “Law of Christ,” however, was given for all people, and superseded the earlier, uniquely Jewish, Law. In this understanding, Jewish Law was the original “path of salvation,” but was provided only to Jews. The Law of Christ, however, replaced the old ways, providing a new “path of salvation” and given to all people, not just Jews.

Apologists will additionally argue that while Jesus’s earthly message was directed at Jews, God used Paul to expand Jesus’s “mission field” and bring the message to Gentiles. Paul himself makes this argument, stating that the message was “for the Jew first, but also for the Greek [i.e. ‘non-Jew’]”.

Thus, even though Jesus came only to Jews, his mission was just the beginning. Paul came along next, almost like a “part two,” to continue God’s plan and expand the message to non-Jews. Paul understood Jesus’s death and resurrection as the ultimate atonement for human sin, and thus argued that the Law of Moses was no longer necessary for salvation. It had been replaced by the Law of Christ, a phrase Paul himself uses at least twice in his letters, and which involves faith in the atoning nature of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In Romans, Paul also states categorically that: “Christ is the end of the Law.”

This would work well as an explanation of Christian rejection of Old Testament Law if not for that pesky, absolutist statement of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s look at it again:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

As we saw in Part I, Jesus makes it clear in this statement that Jewish laws and customs – the Old Testament Law of Moses – is not simply for Jews. After all, this is a statement recorded in Christian scripture for Christian readers by a Christian evangelist. Nor is the Law only valid for a short period of time, until Paul comes along in a few decades. No, according to Jesus, the Law is forever, and he specifically and explicitly counters the notion that his purpose is to “abolish the Law or the Prophets” (as Paul asserts in Romans). In fact, Jesus says, one cannot enter the kingdom of God unless one not only adheres to the Law, but adheres even better and more stringently and more loyally than the Pharisees, who were famous for their righteousness.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

So how are Christians to understand this passage? How can we reconcile Jesus’s words with our own Christian practice in the modern world? To begin with, let me make one thing clear: I don’t believe the historical Jesus made this statement, and there are several reasons I can give to support this.

First, the teaching that Jesus contradicts – that is, the suggestion that he has come to “abolish the Law and the Prophets” – is a post-Easter, early Christian problem. In fact, it was specifically a problem related to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, which occurred, quite obviously, after Jesus’s death. It was not a problem, or an accusation, that would have existed during Jesus’s life. Thus, there would have been no reason for him to address a problem that didn’t exist.

Secondly, in addition to countering the notion that he has come to “abolish” the Law, Jesus also ominously states that any person who breaks the commandments, and teaches others to do the same (think of Paul and his followers), is excluded from the kingdom of heaven. This is clearly a case of the writer of Matthew attacking notions begun by Paul that Jewish laws and customs didn’t have to be followed.

Finally, scholars and theologians have recognized for centuries that Matthew’s Gospel is the most “Jewish” of all the Gospels of the New Testament. There can be no question that the writer of Matthew was a Jewish Christian writing to a Jewish Christian audience. His readers were concerned about the growing tendency among Gentile Christians to throw away Mosaic Law. Thus, this writer put a statement on the lips of Jesus to directly and explicitly address that problem.

In the end, it seems unlikely to me that the historical Jesus ever actually uttered this statement.

A NUGGET OF AUTHENTICITY

Despite my historical conclusion about Matthew’s use of this quote, there may be a nugget of authentic Jesus material in this saying. In particular, I am referring to the second sentence in the statement: “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” This particular saying comes from the Q Gospel – in other words, it is also present, in a slightly different form, in Luke. From chapter 16: “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.”

If scholars are right about the Q Gospel – and I think they are – then it was a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus that was first written down around the year 50 C.E. – contemporary with the letters of Paul. Used by Luke and Matthew when they wrote their Gospels, it predates the Gospel of Mark – the earliest Gospel in the New Testament – by as many as twenty years. If my own theory is correct, this Q Gospel may have originally been known as the Gospel of Matthew (with our own Gospel of Matthew being an extension of it), written in Aramaic, and composed by the disciple of Jesus known to history as Matthew or Levi.

Regardless of my own pet theory, if the mainstream ideas about the Q Gospel are correct, then this saying may have historical reliability, simply by virtue of being among the earliest written material attributed to Jesus.

Thus, if Jesus did make this statement – that not the least “stroke of a pen” will ever disappear from the Law – then there is something there to be considered for the modern follower of Jesus. What might Jesus have meant with such a statement? It’s clear that Matthew took it to mean that the Law was for all Christians for all time. But Luke had a different perspective and placed it in a different narrative context. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says:

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

Luke’s own perspective on this quote seems to be a negative one. The Law was valid until John the Baptizer – Jesus’s mentor. Since then, the kingdom of God has been preached. Presumably for Luke, as it was for Paul, the “kingdom of God” is an alternative to the Law and the Prophets. Indeed, it is replacing the Law and the Prophets. Thus, Jesus laments how difficult and slow this change has been – it is easier for the universe to disappear than for people to give up their adherence to the old ways. In this regard, the statement is reminiscent of another famous quip by Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

So which way was it? Did Jesus mean this statement positively, as asserted by Matthew, or did Jesus make this statement as a lament about how long it takes people to break old habits? My feeling is that Matthew’s perspective is closer to the truth. Luke’s perspective reflects Christianity of the late 1st century – Christians were breaking away from Judaism, but most Jews refused to give up the old ways and turn to God’s new way. Thus, I think Matthew probably retains the original spirit of the Q material, whereas Luke redacted it towards the negative. Instead of “heaven and earth” disappearing before the Law is abolished (as in Matthew), it is now “easier for heaven and earth to disappear” than it is for the old ideas to give way to the new. This is a distinct reflection of late 1st century Gentile Christianity, and not the early 1st century Jewish Jesus.

CONCLUSION

So we’re left with the same problem. It is historically probable that Jesus said something akin to the quote recorded by Matthew. If we accept this as true, how does this impact our own Christian lives? Should we be following Jewish customs and traditions? Should we not be planting two different seeds in the same field? Should we not be blending cotton and linen? Should we be eating only kosher foods? Should we, in short, be Jewish Christians?

I wish I could provide some valuable and profound theological insight here. I really wish I could. But I honestly don’t have any very good answers. Jesus was a Jew, living in the Jewish homeland, preaching and teaching within the bounds of 1st century Judaism. He taught his followers that Jewish laws and customs were part of God’s eternal plan for humanity. His earliest followers believed ardently that Christianity and Judaism could not and should not be separated.

For those of us who aim to follow Jesus on the Way of personal and spiritual transformation of ourselves and our world, this is a perspective worth pondering.