It is widely held within Christian circles that the resurrection of Jesus was an event that involved the physical resurrection of Jesus’ crucified body. That is, Jesus is believed to have physically died and then physically risen back to life three days later, leaving his grave clothes behind him in an empty tomb.
Indeed, this belief is so foundational to Christianity that many would argue that one could hardly call themselves a Christian if they denied the physical nature of Jesus’ resurrection. Most modern Christians, of course, do not conceive of their own resurrection as a physical one; instead, they assume that when they die, their spirit will go to heaven. In the Middle Ages, mainstream Christianity conceived of Jesus’ Second Coming as a time when all those who had died in Christ would come rising out of their graves, but in the modern age, this has more or less been replaced with the idea that our souls simply go to heaven upon our deaths. It has been my experience that only the most fundamentalist branches of modern Christianity still widely believe in a physical resurrection at the end of time.
Be that as it may, the idea that Jesus’ resurrection was a physical one is still widely believed and vitally important to many Christians.
Debates about the nature of Jesus’ resurrection were a central part of the emerging Christian religion in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and were ultimately put to rest by the ecumenical councils of the 4th century which asserted that Jesus’ resurrection was a physical one, and which outlawed as heretical any group or text that suggested otherwise.
Although discussions continued on a small scale among philosophers and mystics throughout the intervening centuries, it was not until the development of modern Biblical scholarship in the 19th century that debates about the nature of Jesus’ resurrection started up again on a wide scale.
Despite the fact that scholars and historians have been debating this issue for the last two centuries, most of this debate does not seem to have filtered down into the pews of most churches. I certainly have not administered any scientific polls on the topic, but it has been my overwhelming impression through a lifetime of involvement in various churches that most Christians do not give much thought to whether Jesus’ resurrection was physical or spiritual in nature. Most seem to see the issue of resurrection as an issue about whether it happened or not. Either Jesus was physically raised from the dead, or the stories about resurrection are simply unreliable myths. In my experience, the nature of the resurrection is not at issue among most Christians. They accept on faith that the resurrection of Jesus happened, and for them, “resurrection” unquestionably means a physical reanimation of a dead body.
My purposes here are not to argue whether the resurrection happened or not. There is a time and place for that debate. My purposes here are to discuss the traditional viewpoint of a physical resurrection, list its strengths and evidentiary support, provide commentary on its weaknesses, and ultimately draw a conclusion about what the earliest generations of Christians most likely believed about Jesus’ resurrection.
Evangelical New Testament scholars (and, of course, many theologians) generally agree that the earliest Christians came to believe that Jesus had been physically resurrected from the dead. In fact, for scholars like N.T. Wright and William Lane Craig, this is one of four “widely accepted facts” of Christian history. They substantiate this position by pointing to a number of clues.
First, they believed so strongly that Jesus had been physically raised from the dead that they were willing, themselves, to die for the belief. No one would have died for a belief in a spiritual resurrection. The motivation, these scholars contend, would not have been strong enough.
Second, the Gospels universally agree that Jesus’ tomb was found empty. An empty tomb implies very strongly that when the Gospel writers spoke of resurrection, they were talking physical resurrection, not spiritual. Otherwise, Jesus’ fleshly body would have still been inside the tomb. The tomb need not be empty if the resurrection was only spiritual in nature.
Finally, they argue that no 1st century Jew would have conceived of resurrection as anything other than a physical resurrection. This is perhaps their foundational claim when suggesting that the earliest Christians believed Jesus had been physically raised from the dead. They point out that Jewish resurrection theology developed in the last two centuries before Jesus’ birth, and it was a theology that asserted a general resurrection of observant Jews at the end of time. God would justify the world – right all the wrongs – by raising back to life those Jews who had died in the faith. Central to this theology was the belief that the dead body would physically come back to life, rising up out of the ground to live eternally in a world justified by God. Thus, “resurrection” to 1st century Jews – such as those Jews who made up the earliest generations of Christians – must by necessity have meant a physical resuscitation of a dead body.
While these arguments are certainly historically reasonable, I believe there some weaknesses that are important to discuss.
First, the assertion that the earliest Christians were willing to die for their belief in the physical nature of the resurrection.
This is more of a historical assumption based on Church tradition than anything else. In fact, we know very little about what actually became of the disciples and followers of Jesus who started spreading his message after his death. That they were profoundly changed by Jesus seems apparent. But that they went to their deaths for a belief in physical resurrection is not. Our sources that discuss the deaths of some of the disciples are not Biblical sources, and are not early sources. Instead, they come from writings of early Church fathers, writing, in most cases, a century or more after these disciples had died. Even Paul’s death, which is widely understood to have occurred as a martyrdom in the mid-60’s C.E., is not described in any of the texts of the New Testament – not even in Acts, which was certainly written after his death, and which otherwise gives the story of his life. Based on the lack of early sources for traditions about the deaths of the earliest Christians, it is by no means certain that they actually went to their deaths for the message of Christianity.
And that, of course, does not even address whether they died believing Jesus had been physically resurrected. Craig, Wright, and others argue that no one would have died for a spiritual resurrection, but this seems to be an unsubstantiated opinion. In my mind, if a man was convinced that Jesus had been resurrected by God, this would be sufficient motivation for martyrdom regardless of whether it was understood as a spiritual resurrection of Jesus’ soul or a physical resurrection of Jesus’ body. Ultimately, the meaning would be the same – Jesus was raised by God (either spiritually or physically), and so we too will be raised.
Second, the empty tomb tradition. On the surface, this seems to be a fairly strong argument. The earliest Christians must have been talking about physical resurrection; otherwise, there would have been no need for an empty tomb.
It is important first to note that Paul, our earliest source for the resurrection, does not ever mention a tomb, empty or otherwise. Our earliest surviving source for an empty tomb tradition does not come until the Gospel of Mark, about 40 years after Jesus’ death. Yet, perplexingly, folks like William Lane Craig argue that Paul is, in fact, our earliest source for the empty tomb tradition! The only comment that Paul ever makes about Jesus’ burial is simply that Jesus “was buried” (1 Corinthians 15:4). He does not say, or imply, the method of that burial, whether inside a rich man’s tomb, or in a common grave.
It is noteworthy, however, to point out that the word Paul uses here (the Greek word thapto) meant, quite literally, to bury something in the ground. It is used 11 times in the New Testament, with all the occurrences happening in the Gospels and Acts, the one exception being Paul’s usage in 1 Corinthians. Every time it is used, it is used when referring to the burial of a person in a grave. When the Gospels speak of Jesus’ burial in a tomb, they use a different word – the Greek word thithemi. This was a verb that literally meant “to lay” to “to place.” The Gospels never say Jesus was buried in a tomb. Instead, they assert he was placed in a tomb. Grammatically speaking, you do not bury something in a tomb. Burying implies putting a body in the ground, not in a sepulcher. So if Paul’s phrase “was buried” implies anything at all about the type of burial, it implies a burial in the ground, not the placement of a body in a tomb. In my opinion, it is clear that Paul either did not know anything about a tomb tradition surrounding Jesus (which seems unlikely if it were a fact of history), or in fact no tomb tradition existed at the time Paul was writing.
Scholars, like John Dominic Crossan, who doubt the empty tomb tradition point out that we know from countless secular sources that criminals who were executed by the Romans were not given the luxury of a private burial. They were either left, quite literally, to the dogs, or otherwise thrown into a mass grave. The likelihood, these scholars argue, that Jesus was given an honorable burial in a tomb is very low, given the historical context. Added together with Paul’s simple comment that Jesus “was buried,” as opposed to “was placed in a tomb that was later found empty,” it seems likely that the empty tomb tradition is a later development in Christian history.
But putting Paul’s story aside, there can be no question that the Gospel writers depict Jesus being laid in a tomb which was later found empty. Even if this is only a legendary development, how can that be reconciled with any argument suggesting that the earliest generations of Christians (including the Gospel writers) conceived of resurrection as anything other than physical? Again, a spiritual resurrection would have left the body in the tomb; it would not have been empty.
Scholar and theologian John Shelby Spong, drawing on the work of British scholar Michael Goulder, offers an interesting hypothesis. He argues that the Gospels were not works of factual journalism, nor were they ever intended as such. Instead, he argues that the Gospels were literary creations, told in the Jewish scribal tradition of midrash. Midrash was a writing style that was prominent during the era in which the Gospels were written, and it involved a creative re-telling of modern events against the backdrop of the collective Jewish past. Important figures would have their stories retold through the lens of important figures and events in Jewish scriptures.
Thus, it was a creative and literary overlapping of reality and fiction, history and imagination, and its purpose was to convey spiritual truths which could not otherwise be captured with normal language.
With this in mind, Spong argues that the empty tomb tradition began as midrash on the Jewish festival of Tabernacles. This was a harvest festival that involved setting up booths, or tents, in the wilderness to reenact the lifestyle of the Israelites in the Exodus period. At the end of this week-long celebration, the Jews would ritually “emerge” from their booths, drawing parallels with the Israelites of the Exodus finally emerging from their tent-dwelling in the wilderness into a new life in the Promised Land. The midrashic parallel between this tradition and the empty tomb of Jesus should be clear – like the celebration of Tabernacles, Jesus emerged from his booth into newness of life.
The aforementioned Crossan, and other scholars like Marcus Borg, make similar points, arguing that the Gospels are parabolic in nature. Thus, it may be that the empty tomb stories were intended to be parables conveying the idea of dying to the old self and being born again into the new, leaving the old life (the tomb) behind.
Ultimately, it is the difference between interpreting the Gospel stories as metaphor, midrash, and parable, versus interpreting them as literal, journalistic accounts of events that occurred in history. When you read the Gospels through the lens of the former, it is easy to understand how empty tombs and spiritual resurrections – two seemingly poorly-matched bedfellows – could have gone hand in hand. If empty tomb stories are midrash or parable, then they do not necessitate a physical resurrection.
Finally, the foundational argument of evangelical New Testament scholars: that no 1st century Jew would have conceived of resurrection as anything but physical.
Like the argument about the empty tomb, this seems, on the surface, to be a rather solid argument. There can be no question that 1st century Jews conceived of resurrection as a physical event that happened to the flesh and blood body. The body would literally be raised back into life. This is widely known and understood from Jewish sources.
The question, then, is not whether 1st century Jewish thought conceived of resurrection as physical; the question is whether a group of 1st century Jews might have broken from this tradition. And in that context, the assertion that the earliest Christians would not have broken with this Jewish tradition is a spurious one, for at least two reasons.
First, to suggest that a group of people – even 1st century, pre-Enlightenment people – could not have reinterpreted a deeply-held bit of theology is simply not supportable by all that we know about human nature. The fact that Jesus clearly broke with, and reinterpreted, many ideas within Jewish scripture is evidence enough of this fact. If Jesus could do it, so could his followers.
This, then, leads to the second point: is there any textual evidence to suggest that the earliest Christians tended to break with deeply-entrenched Jewish thought?
The answer to that question is, of course, a resounding and unequivocal “YES!”
In fact, the entire Christian religion is a break with deeply-entrenched Jewish beliefs. The earliest Christians, following in the tradition of their master, broke in many profound and dramatic ways with traditional Jewish theology. They came to reject Old Testament dietary restrictions; they came to believe that the kingdom of God was for all people, not just Jews; and most importantly, they completely altered Jewish messianic thought.
This last point is the most significant. Jews conceived of the Messiah as a conquering king, a man who would come from the genetic line of David and restore the Jewish kingdom to its former glory, overthrowing earthly oppressors (like the Romans) and inaugurating a new Golden Age of Jewish history. This was a piece of Jewish theology that was just as entrenched, and just as widely understood, and Jewish resurrection theology.
No one – certainly no evangelical – argues that the earliest Christians did not dramatically break with Jewish Messianic thought when they came to believe that the Messiah was an illiterate peasant from the backwoods of Galilee who was executed as a criminal. This was such a profound break with Jewish Messianic expectations that the Jews and Christians became bitter enemies by the end of the 1st century.
If the earliest Christians could break so intensely with Messianic theology, is it so difficult to imagine that they could not have also broken with resurrection theology?
The fact is, when seen contextually, it is insupportable to suggest that the earliest Christians would only have viewed resurrection as a physical event. If they could claim that the Messiah – someone who was supposed to be a conquering king – could instead be a peasant teacher who was executed as a criminal, they could most certainly claim that resurrection was a spiritual event and not a physical one.
There is still one important question to be asked, however. Did the earliest Christians break with traditional Jewish resurrection theology, and is there any evidence for such a claim in our Biblical texts?
I have already pointed out that our earliest Biblical source is the apostle Paul, and that Paul mentions no tomb, empty or otherwise. Paul does, however, talk about resurrection and even goes so far as to list those whom the resurrected Jesus appeared to. This is found in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul states that Jesus appeared to Peter and the twelve disciples and a group of 500 people, among others. He concludes his list of those the resurrected Jesus appeared to with himself. This is a vitally important clue.
No one supposes that Paul was around in Jerusalem at the first Easter experiencing the resurrected Jesus. We know from Paul’s own account, as well as from the second-hand account of his life in Acts, that Paul was a persecutor of the early Church before converting to Christianity several years after Jesus’ death. He certainly was not around at the first Easter to see the resurrected Jesus. Instead, his experience of Jesus was an ecstatic vision of Christ raised to glory in heaven. The fact, then, that Paul does not include any language about an empty tomb, and the fact that he includes himself in his list of those people that the resurrected Christ appeared to, is strong evidence that resurrection, for Paul, was a spiritual, apparitional, event, not a physical flesh and blood event. For Paul, Jesus was raised to glory at God’s right hand; he never got up out of his tomb and walked into Jerusalem.
From here, we move to the Gospels. Surely the Gospel language implies physical resurrection? In some cases, absolutely. The story of Doubting Thomas, found in the Gospel of John, is clearly a polemic against those who suggested that Jesus’ resurrection was not physical. Thomas, after all, is shown touching the healed wounds in Jesus’ hands and flanks. Yet even in that scene, the target was not people who claimed Jesus’ resurrection had been spiritual; the target of that polemic was people who claimed Jesus’ had not been resurrected, period.
In fact, most of the Gospel depictions of the resurrected Jesus seem to imply the exact opposite of a physical flesh and blood body. Jesus is able to appear and disappear. He is able to enter rooms that have the windows and doors barred. He is not recognizable to his friends and followers. He cannot be touched. He ascends into the sky.
These are all things that point strongly to an understanding that the resurrection – even for the Gospel writers – was a spiritual event, not a physical event that happened to Jesus’ body. And while both Luke and John have scenes that depict a human-like resurrected Jesus, demonstrating that his resurrection was real as opposed to myth, these Gospels are also the two sources that have the majority of the “ghostly” or “apparitional” language about the resurrected Jesus. It is Luke and John who say Jesus is not recognizable. It is Luke and John who say that Jesus appears and disappears. It is Luke and John who say that Jesus shows up inside rooms that have the windows and doors barred. It wasn’t that the Gospel writers couldn’t make up their minds about whether Jesus’ death had been physical or spiritual. It was that they were telling some stories with a human-like resurrected Jesus to contradict those who suggested Jesus’ resurrection was not real. Even in the Doubting Thomas story, prior to Jesus showing his pierced hands to Thomas, Jesus appears like a ghost amidst the disciples in a room that was otherwise locked down. Clearly the Gospel writer did not envision the resurrected Jesus being a flesh and blood body.
In the end, it is my opinion that the earliest generations of Christians probably did not conceive of Jesus’ resurrection as being physical in nature. They broke with Jewish traditional thought in a variety of ways, including on the subject of what resurrection meant. They believed that Jesus had been raised to the right hand of God. They did not believe, I am increasingly convinced, that Jesus’ actual body had reanimated.
With this conclusion in mind, what does this mean for Christian theology and beliefs? Well, frankly, not a thing. Is there really any difference, after all, in a spiritual resurrection and a physical resurrection? Does it really matter whether Jesus’ actual body came back to life, or whether it was simply his spirit – his self-aware nature – that was resurrected into eternity? In my opinion, the answer is no, it does not matter. Ultimately, it is important only because it helps us to move closer to the truth of what the earliest forms of Christianity looked like, and how the earliest Christians believed and behaved.
There is one issue with this assertion, however, that is important to note. And it centers on reliability.
If Jesus was only spiritually raised, then how could there have been any eyewitnesses? His tomb (or grave) would still have been occupied. No one could have proved anything because no one would have actually seen anything. You cannot witness a soul being glorified to heaven, after all. A spiritual resurrection would seem, at the very least, highly suspicious. One can imagine a 1st century discussion of the matter between a Christian and a pagan.
Christian: Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so we know that we can be raised too.
Pagan: How do you know Jesus was raised? Did you see him?
Christian: Well, no. I know he was raised because I just…know it.
Pagan: But how do you know? Aren’t his bones still lying there in his grave?
Christian: It’s the only thing that makes any sense. If Jesus was the Messiah, and I believe he was, then God must have raised him. The Messiah can’t get executed without actually doing anything first. Besides, Bill and Joe and Fred saw visions of Jesus at God’s right hand. So his soul must have been raised.
Pagan: How do you know they aren’t making it up?
Christian: Because I trust them. They wouldn’t make up something like that.
Pagan: How do you know they weren’t drunk or something?
Christian: Come on, I know these guys. They’re sincere.
You can see how the discussion would play out. Could Christianity have spread as far and wide and quickly as it did if it was based only on the assumption, no matter how sincere, that Jesus’ soul had been raised to glory at God’s right hand?
And these sorts of thoughts would play out in the modern mind as well. If Jesus’ resurrection was only spiritual, how can we be sure that anything actually happened? It’s only because we have first-hand accounts from those who saw the risen Jesus that we can be certain that there was a resurrection. So the resurrection must have been physical.
The problem here, of course, is twofold. First, we can’t be sure of anything, even if we do assume physical resurrection. They might have been making it up. They might have been hallucinating. Faith is an integral part of Christian belief, and that does not change whether you assume physical resurrection or spiritual.
Second, we do not actually have any first-hand accounts from those present at the first Easter. The Gospels and letters attributed to the disciples Matthew, John, and Peter are widely accepted across the scholarly spectrum to be accounts written only in those disciples’ names, not written by those disciples. And aside from those three figures, no other text in the New Testament even claims to be written by a witness to Jesus’ life.
So most of our “first-hand accounts” are actually accounts told second- and third- and perhaps even fourth-hand.
It is interesting and profoundly important to note, however, that we do have one first-hand account of the risen Jesus. That, of course, is the aforementioned vision by Paul. So our only first-hand account of resurrection is one that speaks strongly of spiritual resurrection, not physical.
That still leaves the question of how a spiritual resurrection belief could have led to the rise of Christianity. If nothing physical had happened to Jesus’ body and no one had actually seen anything, would anyone have bought the story? We know, of course, that people did come to believe, and came to believe in multitudes. Christianity spread quickly and widely, perhaps more quickly and widely than any new religion in history, with the possible exception of Islam.
It is an interesting question, and one which cannot be answered absolutely. I do not know if spiritual resurrection would have convinced people the way that people were obviously convinced.
But to address the question adequately, it is important first to separate our 21st century worldviews from 1st century worldviews. In the modern age, we are skeptical of visions. Even among religious believers, when we hear stories of ecstatic visions, we tend to assume it is either a lie or hallucination. We understand that disease processes like epileptic seizures and other brain disorders, as well as extreme stress and lack of sleep, can produce hallucinations. I recall a teacher in high school who told a story about how he stayed up for three straight days in college studying for finals. On the third day, he specifically recalls having an hour-long conversation with his friend in the cafeteria. Yet he later learned that his friend never saw him in the cafeteria that day, and the conversation never took place. So we understand, in the modern world, the scientific processes that produce visions or hallucinations.
But when it comes to the 1st century, we are dealing with a pre-Enlightenment era that did not fully understand the mind the way we understand it today. For folks living in that primitive time period, visions were a routine and even objective part of life, and were, in fact, a way that people came to understand their God or gods. Jewish scriptures, for instance, are rife with prophets explaining their visions of God, and those visions were certainly taken as “gospel” by Jews. The same was true among pagan religions.
So it may not be so hard to imagine, given the historical, pre-Enlightenment context, that people of the 1st century might have been just as persuaded by the evidence of ecstatic visions of Jesus as they would have been by claims of a physically resurrected Jesus. For those people, an ecstatic vision would have carried the same weight as a real-world sighting. In fact, the two would not even have been fully separated in the mind of a person living in the 1st century. Their lives were lived in a God-filled world. There were no atheists in the 1st century. There were no agnostics and skeptics. Gods were everywhere, involved in day-to-day life, controlling nature, controlling politics, controlling daily life. Ecstatic visions of those gods were commonplace and an accepted part of life.
Christianity, I believe, could still have risen the way it did, even if resurrection was understood spiritually and not physically. That certainly would not be true today of a new religion based on ecstatic experience, but it would have been true in the 1st century.
In the end, there is no question that this is a topic that will continue to be debated and discussed among scholars and theologians and armchair enthusiasts like me for decades to come. Ultimately we cannot have absolute answers about anything in history, but we can study the texts and the contexts, and reach conclusions about what is probable and what is not probable. It is my opinion that it is probable that the earliest Christians did not view Jesus’ resurrection as a physical event that happened to his body, but rather a spiritual event that happened to his soul.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Defining the Decades in Film
A writer friend of mine (see her blog here) suggested a series of blog discussions from various writers about various topics. The first centers on favorite films from each decade. I decided to accept her invitation to throw in my two cents, so this is my list of the best films by decade as I see it.
1930's - I haven't seen very many 1930's movies in their entireties, so I am going with the only one that I can think of off the top of my head - The Wizard of Oz. This is a film that was always a yearly favorite of mine when it was played on network TV in the spring (seems like it was typically around Easter). It set the standard for all sorts of things that would eventually become standard film fair - color picture (of course), special effects, wardrobe, and artistic filming. This last standard was used to great effect when the film changed from black & white to color. What better way to artistically demonstrate the switch from boring old Kansas to the land of Oz? Just brilliant filmwork.
1940's - It's a Wonderful Life. Panned by critics and unpopular with audiences at the time, this movie saw a resurgence in the 1980's. I was right there in the surge, and this has been a Christmas favorite in our house ever since. If I try hard enough, I can still squeeze out a tear when Clarence gets his wings.
1950's - Rear Window. Another Jimmy Stewart classic that has always been one of my favorite old school thrillers. Admittedly, I don't think I've seen it since I was a teenager, but I was always amazed at the how Hitchcock pulled off a great thriller despite the fact that the entire movie, with the exception of one brief scene, takes place in the same room with a main character who is laid up in a bed. And yet it's almost that filming style that makes the movie such a great thriller. As the viewer, you are Jimmy Stewart's character.
1960's - The Sound of Music. From here forward, they'll all be tough calls. But for the 60's, I think the pinnacle is The Sound of Music. Such a moving story, memorable sing-along-with songs, and superb acting.
1970's - Star Wars. Yeah, it's the easy choice, but I was the Star Wars generation. It's as defining of my childhood as Guns n' Roses was to my teenage years. I remember finding a Yoda action figure in K-Mart, sitting on a random shelf where someone had deposited it, and being so excited that I was finally going to add Yoda to my growing collection. An older kid walked by and saw it and was impressed, and begged me to tell him where I found it, since there were none left in the Toy aisle. I pointed to the shelf where it had been laying, and I remember him and his friends literally swarming the shelf to try to find another one.
1980's - The Indiana Jones Trilogy. The defining set of movies for me growing up in the 1980's. Action, adventure, perfectly constructed stories, and an intellectual who doubled as a treasure-hunter as the star. The perfect combination. I have probably seen these three movies at least 100 times a piece, no exaggeration. And yes, I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, too.
1990's - Braveheart. This movie is really the pinnacle of the 90's for me because it was made at a time when I was first discovering my love for history. Obviously the Indiana Jones obsession implies that too, but it wasn't until I was older that I discovered that I am a historian at heart. Braveheart, of course, is full of historical inaccuracies, but I didn't know that at the time :) I admit it's a little hard for me now to name this as my favorite 90's movie, because I have grown to despite Mel Gibson so much, but I try not to let my opinion of him now affect my affection for his older movies. I have to mention that Titantic is a very, very close second for this decade. Also, Schindler's List is right up there as well. My grandfather's funeral in 1988, when I was 13, is the only time in my life that I can remember crying harder than what I cried at the end of this movie.
2000's - Frankly, I don't see movies very often any more, and those from the 2000's that I have seen have not impressed themselves indelibly upon me. I really enjoyed Old School and the Lord of the Rings trilogy was okay. A much bigger fan of Harry Potter books than Harry Potter movies. I suppose I'll pick Gladiator. Good historical fiction, good story, and was at least somewhat of an inspiration for a book idea that I am still working on.
1930's - I haven't seen very many 1930's movies in their entireties, so I am going with the only one that I can think of off the top of my head - The Wizard of Oz. This is a film that was always a yearly favorite of mine when it was played on network TV in the spring (seems like it was typically around Easter). It set the standard for all sorts of things that would eventually become standard film fair - color picture (of course), special effects, wardrobe, and artistic filming. This last standard was used to great effect when the film changed from black & white to color. What better way to artistically demonstrate the switch from boring old Kansas to the land of Oz? Just brilliant filmwork.
1940's - It's a Wonderful Life. Panned by critics and unpopular with audiences at the time, this movie saw a resurgence in the 1980's. I was right there in the surge, and this has been a Christmas favorite in our house ever since. If I try hard enough, I can still squeeze out a tear when Clarence gets his wings.
1950's - Rear Window. Another Jimmy Stewart classic that has always been one of my favorite old school thrillers. Admittedly, I don't think I've seen it since I was a teenager, but I was always amazed at the how Hitchcock pulled off a great thriller despite the fact that the entire movie, with the exception of one brief scene, takes place in the same room with a main character who is laid up in a bed. And yet it's almost that filming style that makes the movie such a great thriller. As the viewer, you are Jimmy Stewart's character.
1960's - The Sound of Music. From here forward, they'll all be tough calls. But for the 60's, I think the pinnacle is The Sound of Music. Such a moving story, memorable sing-along-with songs, and superb acting.
1970's - Star Wars. Yeah, it's the easy choice, but I was the Star Wars generation. It's as defining of my childhood as Guns n' Roses was to my teenage years. I remember finding a Yoda action figure in K-Mart, sitting on a random shelf where someone had deposited it, and being so excited that I was finally going to add Yoda to my growing collection. An older kid walked by and saw it and was impressed, and begged me to tell him where I found it, since there were none left in the Toy aisle. I pointed to the shelf where it had been laying, and I remember him and his friends literally swarming the shelf to try to find another one.
1980's - The Indiana Jones Trilogy. The defining set of movies for me growing up in the 1980's. Action, adventure, perfectly constructed stories, and an intellectual who doubled as a treasure-hunter as the star. The perfect combination. I have probably seen these three movies at least 100 times a piece, no exaggeration. And yes, I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, too.
1990's - Braveheart. This movie is really the pinnacle of the 90's for me because it was made at a time when I was first discovering my love for history. Obviously the Indiana Jones obsession implies that too, but it wasn't until I was older that I discovered that I am a historian at heart. Braveheart, of course, is full of historical inaccuracies, but I didn't know that at the time :) I admit it's a little hard for me now to name this as my favorite 90's movie, because I have grown to despite Mel Gibson so much, but I try not to let my opinion of him now affect my affection for his older movies. I have to mention that Titantic is a very, very close second for this decade. Also, Schindler's List is right up there as well. My grandfather's funeral in 1988, when I was 13, is the only time in my life that I can remember crying harder than what I cried at the end of this movie.
2000's - Frankly, I don't see movies very often any more, and those from the 2000's that I have seen have not impressed themselves indelibly upon me. I really enjoyed Old School and the Lord of the Rings trilogy was okay. A much bigger fan of Harry Potter books than Harry Potter movies. I suppose I'll pick Gladiator. Good historical fiction, good story, and was at least somewhat of an inspiration for a book idea that I am still working on.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
The Epistle of Jude
INTRODUCTION
The Epistle of Jude is the last letter in the Christian New Testament, wedged between 3 John and Revelation. Only 25 verses in length, it is written not as a letter to a specific person, but rather to Christians in general. Clearly the author’s intent was that his text would be read and copied and passed from congregation to congregation. It may well be that the author himself made numerous copies from the start, sending them to all the churches he knew.
THE WRITER’S IDENTITY
The writer identifies himself as “Judas” – Ioudas in Greek, which is from the Hebrew name Yehuwdah (Judah). That our modern Bibles call him “Jude” is simply a tradition borne out of an effort to differentiate the writer of this letter from Judas Iscariot, the man who is the betrayer of Jesus in the four Gospels. In fact, the writer of the letter of Jude, and the betrayer Judas Iscariot, had identical names.
In addition to identifying himself as Judas, he also calls himself a servant of Jesus and a brother of James. It seems a reasonably certain fact that Jesus had a brother named James, who went on to become a prominent figure in the early Christian church, specifically as head of the Church at Jerusalem – home base for Christianity, as it were. The Epistle of James in the New Testament is traditionally attributed to him. Any religious reference by a 1st century Christian to “James” could well be referring to James the brother of Jesus. Therefore, in noting that his brother is James, the writer of Jude may also be claiming kinship to Jesus.
Both Mark and Matthew refer to Jesus’ brothers, and both include a James and a Judas. This may seem to support the idea that the writer of Jude was, in fact, Jesus’ brother. However, Church tradition has generally attributed this text to a different person – the disciple known as St. Jude (hence the name of the letter). St. Jude the disciple is referred to as “Judas, brother of James” in the Gospel of Luke. However, only Luke and John mention this disciple. The list of 12 in Mark and Matthew contains no “Judas, brother of James” as a disciple of Jesus. Instead, Judas is replaced in these two Gospels with a disciple known as Lebbaeus Thaddaeus. Traditionally, the Church has simply argued that Judas, brother of James, and Lebbaeus Thaddaeus were one and the same. Other than contradicting lists between Luke and the other Gospels, however, there is no evidence to support this assertion. Furthermore, the English translation “Judas, brother of James,” is probably inaccurate, as the original Greek grammatical context actually calls this Judas the son of James. Since the writer of Jude definitely calls himself a brother, and not a son, of James, it would appear that St. Jude and the writer of the Epistle of Jude cannot be the same person.
Most scholars in the modern world suggest that if the writer of Jude was attempting to call himself Judas the brother of James and Jesus, or if he was claiming to be St. Jude the disciple, then he was probably writing pseudonymously – that is, claiming to be someone else for the purpose of sounding authoritative. This is known to have been extremely common especially in the first few centuries of Christian history. Even Paul, the earliest New Testament writer, warns about people writing forged letters in his name (although this warning, ironically enough, comes in a letter than many scholars believe was, in fact, a forgery). On the other hand, it is not entirely clear that the writer of Jude was claiming to be Judas the brother of James and Jesus or St. Jude the disciple. He doesn’t identify himself as one of the 12, after all, and he certainly doesn’t claim to be Jesus’ brother. It may be that he was just an anonymous Judas, who had a brother named James, and therefore referred to himself as such. This, however, would cast doubt on the authority of the text itself, and there can be no question that the early Church councils of the 4th century, who ultimately decided on which texts to include in the canon, included Jude out of the belief that it came from St. Jude the disciple, and was therefore authoritative.
Such is the tenuous nature of the origins and authority of the texts we call Scripture.
TEXTUAL STYLE
As for the letter itself, many scholars have noted the chiastic form of the text. “Chiastic” writing is a poetic form of writing wherein the wording of successive phrases is reversed: “He climbed up the hill, and up the hill climbed she.” In its more complex form, a succession of entire topics will be followed, and then reversed. Outlined, it may look something like this: A, B, C, D, C, B, A.
Scholars have argued that Jude is written chiastically, with five opening sections, a pinnacle, and five closing sections that reverse the five opening sections.
A1. Assurance for the Christian.
B1. The Believer and the Faith.
C1. Apostates Described.
D1. Apostasy in Old Testament history.
E1. Apostates in the Supernatural Realm.
F. An Ancient Trio of Apostates.
E2. Apostates in the Natural Realm.
D2. Apostasy in Old Testament prophecy.
C2. Apostates Described.
B2. The Believer and the Faith.
A2. Assurance for the Christian.
(Source: Coder, S. Maxwell, “Jude: The Acts of the Apostates.” Chicago, Moody Press, 1958, p. 6.)
WARNINGS AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS
After identifying himself, the writer of Jude opens his short letter with a warning to Christians about false teachers, a problem that seems to have become epidemic by the start of the 2nd century when the writer of Jude was probably composing his letter.
By this time, Christianity had spread far enough that many people in many different areas were teaching and practicing varying forms of Christianity, some of which were so different as to almost be separate religions. Debates raged among these congregations about the nature of Jesus, the nature of God, Jesus’ relationship to God, the meaning of Jesus’ life and death, the meaning of the resurrection, which apostolic tradition was primary, and so on. In short, all the things that many Christians are still debating and discussing today!
In verse 4 of his letter, Jude says: “For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
To a modern reader, this may seem to be a simple reference to an unbeliever – a non-Christian. However, taken in its historical context, it is a clear reference to a style of early Christian faith known as Docetism.
DOCETISM
Docetism was a fairly widespread and popular form of Christian practice in the first three centuries of the common era, and was ultimately outlawed as heretical by the Church councils of the 4th century. It involved the belief that Jesus had not really been human, but had instead simply been a spirit who only appeared human. This belief was based on two things: first, the idea that the “flesh,” that is, humanity, was fallen and sinful and beneath God; second, the idea that Jesus was God. If Jesus was God, and if humanity was beneath God, then God could not have become a human being, because the divine cannot become un-divine, the supernatural cannot become natural. Therefore, Jesus must have simply been the spirit of God appearing as a human. This naturally led to different ideas about Jesus’ death and resurrection as well. Jesus had only appeared to suffer and die on the cross. In fact, as the perfect spirit of God, he had not suffered and died at all, as that is only something that happens to human beings.
This may seem outrageous to any modern self-respecting Christian, but that is only because we now have 1600 years of post-Constantine Christian history behind us. As I noted above, throughout the first few hundred years of Christianity, Docetism was very common and widespread among Christian believers. Historians such as Charles Freeman have even argued that Docetic forms of Christianity constituted the primary form of Christian belief throughout most of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The enormous time and effort spent by New Testament writers and early Church fathers to counter Docetic beliefs testify to its popularity among average Christians.
But this very tendency among the New Testament writers to denounce Docetism is one that may offer an interesting clue into the mindset of the earliest Christians and how they viewed Jesus.
JESUS: HUMAN OR DIVINE?
I have already noted that Docetists believed that Jesus had been God. It was Jesus’ humanity that Docetists denied, not his divinity. So when New Testament writers such as Jude referred to Docetists as people who “deny Jesus Christ,” they were suggesting that a denial of Jesus’ humanity constituted a denial of Jesus. For these New Testament writers, Jesus’ humanity was an incontrovertible truth; to deny it was not only absurd, but even heretical.
Yet these same New Testament writers rarely, if ever, refer to Jesus and God being one and the same – something that was foundational to Docetic belief. Instead, these Christians believed that Jesus’ divinity was a phenomenon that was bestowed upon Jesus upon his resurrection from the dead. Paul says this explicitly in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans: Jesus Christ was “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (1:4). Thus, Jesus was a human man, “born of a woman” as Paul says in Galatians 4:4, who became divine – the Son of God – by his resurrection.
In this context, it is easy to understand why writers such as Jude viewed a denial of Jesus’ humanity, and a suggestion that Jesus and God were one and the same, to be heretical – to be equal to “deny[ing] Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” The Trinity doctrine of the 4th century, which attempted to connect Docetic beliefs about Jesus’ divinity with Orthodox beliefs about Jesus’ humanity, was still 200 years in the future for the writer of Jude, who would no doubt have viewed the Trinity doctrine with the same level of suspicion with which he viewed Docetism.
APOCRYPHAL IMAGES
The writer of Jude devotes about half his letter to berating the Docetists, calling them, among other things: “clouds without rain,” “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted, twice dead,” and “wandering stars for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.”
In his diatribe against Docetism, however, there are several curious references that would no doubt confuse the average Christian reader. These include:
Verse 6: And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home – these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
Verse 9: But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Verses 14-15: Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
What is the writer of Jude talking about in these passages? Angels bound in everlasting chains? A dispute over the body of Moses between the archangel Michael and Satan? A prophet named Enoch? These are stories and references that certainly do not appear anywhere else in the Bible, so just what is Jude referring to?
In fact, Jude is quoting from, and referring to, apocryphal books that are not actually included in the Christian canon of Scripture.
The Epistle of Jude is unique in the New Testament as being the only book that directly quotes another religious text that is not found in the Bible.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH
Verses 6, 14, and 15 come from a piece of Jewish apocryphal literature known as the Book of Enoch. This book has an interesting history. Written in five sections, like a 5-act play, it appears to be a conglomeration of earlier texts, which themselves were no doubt based on older story-telling traditions. Most scholars think the stories originated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C.E., and were put together into what we know as the Book of Enoch during the late 1st century B.C.E. – that is, perhaps 50 years or less before the birth of Christ. Some historians date at least one section of Enoch as late as the 1st century C.E., into the Christian era. The stories claim to be written by Enoch, who is named obliquely in the Old Testament as one of the ancestors of Adam (the 7th generation after Adam, as noted by the writer of Jude). They entail visions Enoch was shown as he toured heaven and hell.
This book was very popular among both Jews and early Jewish Christians, and continued to be influential in Christian circles well into the Middle Ages. It was clearly considered authoritative by the writer of the Epistle of Jude, and its influences are seen throughout other New Testament texts such as 1 Peter and Revelation. Early Church fathers such as Tertullian and Iranaeus believed it to be authentic, and it is referenced as authoritative in several non-canonical early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas. Even much later, its influences are seen widely in Dante’s famous work “The Divine Comedy” – which itself has become a much stronger source for modern concepts of hell and damnation than anything contained in the actual New Testament. To this day, the Book of Enoch is considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which also claims to have the original copy written by Enoch himself (incidentally, this church also claims to have in its possession the Ark of the Covenant).
However, outside of Ethiopia, the text is not considered authoritative by any modern Christian denomination, and was rejected by the 4th century councils who created the Christian Bible. The primary reasons the book was rejected included its ambiguous and certainly pseudonymous origin, and the fact that it includes scenes that were too vicious and outrageous even by 4th century standards (fallen angels with horse-sized penises having sex with human beings, God slaughtering children born of fornication, etc.).
For this reason, inclusion of the Epistle of Jude into the Christian canon was met with much debate in the 4th century Christian councils. How could the Church include a text in its canon which quoted another text that had been justifiably rejected from the canon? If the Book of Enoch was not authoritative, how could the Epistle of Jude be authoritative, considering that it quoted the Book of Enoch?
THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
To compound these matters, the Book of Enoch was not the only non-canonical work referenced by the writer of Jude. Verse 9, quoted above, which references a story about the archangel Michael in a dispute with Satan over Moses’ body, comes from another work of Jewish apocrypha called The Assumption of Moses. This text is a bit harder to pin down, as only one copy of it exists – an incomplete 6th century text discovered in the 19th century. This particular copy, in fact, does not even contain the scene referenced by the writer of Jude. It is assumed that the scene comes from the portions of the text that are missing. The only reason, in fact, that historians have long been aware that the Jude reference comes from The Assumption of Moses is because several early Church fathers made note of it in their writings.
Scholars who have studied the Moses text generally date it to the 1st century, meaning it would have been a rather “modern” text to the writer of Jude. It does not appear to have ever been considered for inclusion in any Christian canon of Scripture.
We won’t ever know with certainty exactly how the discussions played out, but the Epistle of Jude was ultimately included in the Christian canon, despite its overt references to other texts that were rejected for inclusion.
This, of course, brings up some bothersome issues – the same issues the Church councils no doubt debated heatedly in the 4th century: is Jude authoritative, despite referencing, and even quoting, non-authoritative texts?
JUDE’S DIVINE AUTHORITY
Modern evangelicals believe the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God. Everything in the Bible can be accepted as true and accurate representations of God’s revelation to humankind. The Bible is incapable of being wrong on anything. Yet God certainly did not fax the New Testament down from heaven (to borrow an image from Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”). As I have noted, the New Testament as we know it was compiled from an array of available sources in a series of Church councils in the 4th century. Twenty-seven texts were included in the official New Testament canon, and as many or more were excluded.
As such, anyone who has faith that the Bible is the infallible, inspired, and complete Word of God must first have faith that these councils chose the right books to start with. It is a fact that the Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses were excluded from the canon. As such, they were deemed non-authoritative forgeries that contained unreliable information. Yet, it is also a fact that the Epistle of Jude quotes and relies heavily upon their content. As I have already noted, content from the Book of Enoch also served as a basis for content within several other New Testament texts. If the Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses are unreliable forgeries, does that not cast doubt on the claim of inspired infallibility for those books that rely upon them for content?
Stated a different way, if we take Jude as the inspired, infallible Word of God, we must assume that the archangel Michael had a dispute with Satan over Moses’ body. Yet this is a story that we know comes from a text rejected by the Church councils whom modern Christians believe were working on behalf of God in compiling our sacred scriptures. It would seem that we cannot have it both ways. The content referring to Michael, Satan, and Moses cannot be both authoritative and non-authoritative, inspired and forged, fallible and infallible.
It cannot be an unreliable forgery in The Assumption of Moses, but the inspired Word of God when copied into the Epistle of Jude.
THE “SCOFFERS”
After warning his readers against false prophets and “godless” men within their communities, the writer of Jude offers some words of encouragement. He reminds them that the apostles foretold that “in the last times there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires” and that these people are the ones “who divide you.” The writer then encourages his listeners to stay strong in the faith as they await Jesus’ second coming.
Jude’s words here are interesting for several reasons. First, his reference to the apostles in the third person implies strongly that whoever this writer was, he was not St. Jude the disciple, nor was he attempting to forge a letter in that disciple’s name. Otherwise, why would he refer to the apostles as a group of people apparently separate from himself? This hasn’t, however, stopped Church tradition from attributing the text to St. Jude.
Second, Jude’s words in this passage help in the effort to date the text. His reference to the apostles seems to imply that they are men long dead, who foretold the events now playing out within the communities he was writing to. In fact, his phrase “in the last times there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires” sounds a lot like a similar warning found in the book of 2 Peter, which of course is attributed to Peter the apostle: “In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires” (3:3b). 2 Peter, however, is regarded by most scholars to be a very late work – perhaps the latest work in the entire New Testament, written sometime in the first part of the 2nd century, and certainly not written by Peter. It may be that 2 Peter and Jude both referenced some other apostolic writing with a similar warning, or that the writer of 2 Peter – in an effort to bolster his claim to be Peter himself – borrowed the phrase from Jude, who had asserted it was an apostolic prophecy. More than likely, the texts are simply 2nd century contemporaries and were merely repeating a sentiment that was common in that time period.
Either way, the writer of Jude, like most of his fellow New Testament writers, clearly believes that he and his contemporaries are living “in the last times.” Like Paul, writing some 50 years earlier, Jude believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent, perhaps even something that would happen in his own lifetime. Paul had clearly been wrong in his own belief about this, but that did not stop later generations of Christians, like Jude, from believing the same thing. And, of course, such ideas have continued to exist in every generation of Christianity since that time. Even to this day, there are Christians who seem convinced that “signs of the times” suggest that Jesus’ return is near. There is nothing new under the sun in that regard – it is literally one of the oldest traditions in Christianity.
Another interesting phrase that comes from this passage is the one that follows the “scoffers” phrase. Jude points out that such men follow “mere natural instincts” and do not have the spirit of God. This may be a reference to Gnosticism, which was another branch of Christianity eventually deemed heretical in the 4th century.
GNOSTICISM
Related to Docetism in terms of being more mystically-oriented than Orthodox Christianity, Gnosticism asserted that the God of the Old Testament – Yahweh – was an evil god and that the real God of the universe decided to set things straight by sending Jesus as a sort of “emissary” to humanity. Jesus imparted secret knowledge to his various disciples before finally being crucified and taken back to heaven. This secret knowledge varied among Gnostic sects, but generally involved the belief that humans in their purest forms were perfect and godlike, but that worldly sin had corrupted them. The only way to attain salvation, then, was to get in touch with one’s own inner divinity, or inner light. Just how to go about this self-actualization was primarily what separated one Gnostic community from another, but in either case, Gnosticism in general was a much more mystical and personal form of Christianity than the Orthodox form, and focused far more on finding salvation for one’s self than on receiving salvation through the mercy of God.
This tendency among Gnostics to look inward for salvation rather than upward may be the idea behind Jude’s assertion that the “scoffers” were men who followed “mere natural instincts,” rather than the external spirit of God.
If this was indeed a reference to Gnosticism, then it also supports a 2nd century date for the Epistle of Jude, as Gnosticism did not really begin flourishing and spreading until about that time.
JUDE’S DOXOLOGY
The writer of Jude ends his short letter with a doxology that is perhaps one of the most beautiful from a literary standpoint in all the New Testament:
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
This passage demonstrates the highly literary Greek with which the entire text is composed. Such a learned style of prose may be yet another clue implying a later date (early 2nd century) for this text.
CONCLUSION
The Epistle of Jude is one that is frequently overlooked and understudied in many Christian circles. In three decades of association with various churches, I cannot remember any time ever hearing a sermon, or a Biblical reading, from this letter. This is, no doubt, due to a variety of reasons. First, the letter’s short length and non-primary authorship relegates it to second class status among the Pauls and Peters and Johns of the New Testament. Second, its content is comprised mostly of warnings against false prophets and encouragements to stay strong in the faith – topics covered in depth by other more prominent New Testament texts. Finally, its questionable authorship, and especially its references to non-Biblical content, have led to suspicion about the letter’s authority since its acceptance into the canon. Even Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers of the 16th century questioned whether or not it should remain in Protestant scriptures. This history of disputed authority, then, may also play a role in why the letter has traditionally been ignored in Christian circles.
Be that as it may, the letter, as I hope I have illustrated here, offers a great deal of insight into what was going on in the world of Christianity in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.
The Epistle of Jude is the last letter in the Christian New Testament, wedged between 3 John and Revelation. Only 25 verses in length, it is written not as a letter to a specific person, but rather to Christians in general. Clearly the author’s intent was that his text would be read and copied and passed from congregation to congregation. It may well be that the author himself made numerous copies from the start, sending them to all the churches he knew.
THE WRITER’S IDENTITY
The writer identifies himself as “Judas” – Ioudas in Greek, which is from the Hebrew name Yehuwdah (Judah). That our modern Bibles call him “Jude” is simply a tradition borne out of an effort to differentiate the writer of this letter from Judas Iscariot, the man who is the betrayer of Jesus in the four Gospels. In fact, the writer of the letter of Jude, and the betrayer Judas Iscariot, had identical names.
In addition to identifying himself as Judas, he also calls himself a servant of Jesus and a brother of James. It seems a reasonably certain fact that Jesus had a brother named James, who went on to become a prominent figure in the early Christian church, specifically as head of the Church at Jerusalem – home base for Christianity, as it were. The Epistle of James in the New Testament is traditionally attributed to him. Any religious reference by a 1st century Christian to “James” could well be referring to James the brother of Jesus. Therefore, in noting that his brother is James, the writer of Jude may also be claiming kinship to Jesus.
Both Mark and Matthew refer to Jesus’ brothers, and both include a James and a Judas. This may seem to support the idea that the writer of Jude was, in fact, Jesus’ brother. However, Church tradition has generally attributed this text to a different person – the disciple known as St. Jude (hence the name of the letter). St. Jude the disciple is referred to as “Judas, brother of James” in the Gospel of Luke. However, only Luke and John mention this disciple. The list of 12 in Mark and Matthew contains no “Judas, brother of James” as a disciple of Jesus. Instead, Judas is replaced in these two Gospels with a disciple known as Lebbaeus Thaddaeus. Traditionally, the Church has simply argued that Judas, brother of James, and Lebbaeus Thaddaeus were one and the same. Other than contradicting lists between Luke and the other Gospels, however, there is no evidence to support this assertion. Furthermore, the English translation “Judas, brother of James,” is probably inaccurate, as the original Greek grammatical context actually calls this Judas the son of James. Since the writer of Jude definitely calls himself a brother, and not a son, of James, it would appear that St. Jude and the writer of the Epistle of Jude cannot be the same person.
Most scholars in the modern world suggest that if the writer of Jude was attempting to call himself Judas the brother of James and Jesus, or if he was claiming to be St. Jude the disciple, then he was probably writing pseudonymously – that is, claiming to be someone else for the purpose of sounding authoritative. This is known to have been extremely common especially in the first few centuries of Christian history. Even Paul, the earliest New Testament writer, warns about people writing forged letters in his name (although this warning, ironically enough, comes in a letter than many scholars believe was, in fact, a forgery). On the other hand, it is not entirely clear that the writer of Jude was claiming to be Judas the brother of James and Jesus or St. Jude the disciple. He doesn’t identify himself as one of the 12, after all, and he certainly doesn’t claim to be Jesus’ brother. It may be that he was just an anonymous Judas, who had a brother named James, and therefore referred to himself as such. This, however, would cast doubt on the authority of the text itself, and there can be no question that the early Church councils of the 4th century, who ultimately decided on which texts to include in the canon, included Jude out of the belief that it came from St. Jude the disciple, and was therefore authoritative.
Such is the tenuous nature of the origins and authority of the texts we call Scripture.
TEXTUAL STYLE
As for the letter itself, many scholars have noted the chiastic form of the text. “Chiastic” writing is a poetic form of writing wherein the wording of successive phrases is reversed: “He climbed up the hill, and up the hill climbed she.” In its more complex form, a succession of entire topics will be followed, and then reversed. Outlined, it may look something like this: A, B, C, D, C, B, A.
Scholars have argued that Jude is written chiastically, with five opening sections, a pinnacle, and five closing sections that reverse the five opening sections.
A1. Assurance for the Christian.
B1. The Believer and the Faith.
C1. Apostates Described.
D1. Apostasy in Old Testament history.
E1. Apostates in the Supernatural Realm.
F. An Ancient Trio of Apostates.
E2. Apostates in the Natural Realm.
D2. Apostasy in Old Testament prophecy.
C2. Apostates Described.
B2. The Believer and the Faith.
A2. Assurance for the Christian.
(Source: Coder, S. Maxwell, “Jude: The Acts of the Apostates.” Chicago, Moody Press, 1958, p. 6.)
WARNINGS AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS
After identifying himself, the writer of Jude opens his short letter with a warning to Christians about false teachers, a problem that seems to have become epidemic by the start of the 2nd century when the writer of Jude was probably composing his letter.
By this time, Christianity had spread far enough that many people in many different areas were teaching and practicing varying forms of Christianity, some of which were so different as to almost be separate religions. Debates raged among these congregations about the nature of Jesus, the nature of God, Jesus’ relationship to God, the meaning of Jesus’ life and death, the meaning of the resurrection, which apostolic tradition was primary, and so on. In short, all the things that many Christians are still debating and discussing today!
In verse 4 of his letter, Jude says: “For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
To a modern reader, this may seem to be a simple reference to an unbeliever – a non-Christian. However, taken in its historical context, it is a clear reference to a style of early Christian faith known as Docetism.
DOCETISM
Docetism was a fairly widespread and popular form of Christian practice in the first three centuries of the common era, and was ultimately outlawed as heretical by the Church councils of the 4th century. It involved the belief that Jesus had not really been human, but had instead simply been a spirit who only appeared human. This belief was based on two things: first, the idea that the “flesh,” that is, humanity, was fallen and sinful and beneath God; second, the idea that Jesus was God. If Jesus was God, and if humanity was beneath God, then God could not have become a human being, because the divine cannot become un-divine, the supernatural cannot become natural. Therefore, Jesus must have simply been the spirit of God appearing as a human. This naturally led to different ideas about Jesus’ death and resurrection as well. Jesus had only appeared to suffer and die on the cross. In fact, as the perfect spirit of God, he had not suffered and died at all, as that is only something that happens to human beings.
This may seem outrageous to any modern self-respecting Christian, but that is only because we now have 1600 years of post-Constantine Christian history behind us. As I noted above, throughout the first few hundred years of Christianity, Docetism was very common and widespread among Christian believers. Historians such as Charles Freeman have even argued that Docetic forms of Christianity constituted the primary form of Christian belief throughout most of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The enormous time and effort spent by New Testament writers and early Church fathers to counter Docetic beliefs testify to its popularity among average Christians.
But this very tendency among the New Testament writers to denounce Docetism is one that may offer an interesting clue into the mindset of the earliest Christians and how they viewed Jesus.
JESUS: HUMAN OR DIVINE?
I have already noted that Docetists believed that Jesus had been God. It was Jesus’ humanity that Docetists denied, not his divinity. So when New Testament writers such as Jude referred to Docetists as people who “deny Jesus Christ,” they were suggesting that a denial of Jesus’ humanity constituted a denial of Jesus. For these New Testament writers, Jesus’ humanity was an incontrovertible truth; to deny it was not only absurd, but even heretical.
Yet these same New Testament writers rarely, if ever, refer to Jesus and God being one and the same – something that was foundational to Docetic belief. Instead, these Christians believed that Jesus’ divinity was a phenomenon that was bestowed upon Jesus upon his resurrection from the dead. Paul says this explicitly in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans: Jesus Christ was “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (1:4). Thus, Jesus was a human man, “born of a woman” as Paul says in Galatians 4:4, who became divine – the Son of God – by his resurrection.
In this context, it is easy to understand why writers such as Jude viewed a denial of Jesus’ humanity, and a suggestion that Jesus and God were one and the same, to be heretical – to be equal to “deny[ing] Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” The Trinity doctrine of the 4th century, which attempted to connect Docetic beliefs about Jesus’ divinity with Orthodox beliefs about Jesus’ humanity, was still 200 years in the future for the writer of Jude, who would no doubt have viewed the Trinity doctrine with the same level of suspicion with which he viewed Docetism.
APOCRYPHAL IMAGES
The writer of Jude devotes about half his letter to berating the Docetists, calling them, among other things: “clouds without rain,” “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted, twice dead,” and “wandering stars for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.”
In his diatribe against Docetism, however, there are several curious references that would no doubt confuse the average Christian reader. These include:
Verse 6: And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home – these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
Verse 9: But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Verses 14-15: Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
What is the writer of Jude talking about in these passages? Angels bound in everlasting chains? A dispute over the body of Moses between the archangel Michael and Satan? A prophet named Enoch? These are stories and references that certainly do not appear anywhere else in the Bible, so just what is Jude referring to?
In fact, Jude is quoting from, and referring to, apocryphal books that are not actually included in the Christian canon of Scripture.
The Epistle of Jude is unique in the New Testament as being the only book that directly quotes another religious text that is not found in the Bible.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH
Verses 6, 14, and 15 come from a piece of Jewish apocryphal literature known as the Book of Enoch. This book has an interesting history. Written in five sections, like a 5-act play, it appears to be a conglomeration of earlier texts, which themselves were no doubt based on older story-telling traditions. Most scholars think the stories originated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C.E., and were put together into what we know as the Book of Enoch during the late 1st century B.C.E. – that is, perhaps 50 years or less before the birth of Christ. Some historians date at least one section of Enoch as late as the 1st century C.E., into the Christian era. The stories claim to be written by Enoch, who is named obliquely in the Old Testament as one of the ancestors of Adam (the 7th generation after Adam, as noted by the writer of Jude). They entail visions Enoch was shown as he toured heaven and hell.
This book was very popular among both Jews and early Jewish Christians, and continued to be influential in Christian circles well into the Middle Ages. It was clearly considered authoritative by the writer of the Epistle of Jude, and its influences are seen throughout other New Testament texts such as 1 Peter and Revelation. Early Church fathers such as Tertullian and Iranaeus believed it to be authentic, and it is referenced as authoritative in several non-canonical early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas. Even much later, its influences are seen widely in Dante’s famous work “The Divine Comedy” – which itself has become a much stronger source for modern concepts of hell and damnation than anything contained in the actual New Testament. To this day, the Book of Enoch is considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which also claims to have the original copy written by Enoch himself (incidentally, this church also claims to have in its possession the Ark of the Covenant).
However, outside of Ethiopia, the text is not considered authoritative by any modern Christian denomination, and was rejected by the 4th century councils who created the Christian Bible. The primary reasons the book was rejected included its ambiguous and certainly pseudonymous origin, and the fact that it includes scenes that were too vicious and outrageous even by 4th century standards (fallen angels with horse-sized penises having sex with human beings, God slaughtering children born of fornication, etc.).
For this reason, inclusion of the Epistle of Jude into the Christian canon was met with much debate in the 4th century Christian councils. How could the Church include a text in its canon which quoted another text that had been justifiably rejected from the canon? If the Book of Enoch was not authoritative, how could the Epistle of Jude be authoritative, considering that it quoted the Book of Enoch?
THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
To compound these matters, the Book of Enoch was not the only non-canonical work referenced by the writer of Jude. Verse 9, quoted above, which references a story about the archangel Michael in a dispute with Satan over Moses’ body, comes from another work of Jewish apocrypha called The Assumption of Moses. This text is a bit harder to pin down, as only one copy of it exists – an incomplete 6th century text discovered in the 19th century. This particular copy, in fact, does not even contain the scene referenced by the writer of Jude. It is assumed that the scene comes from the portions of the text that are missing. The only reason, in fact, that historians have long been aware that the Jude reference comes from The Assumption of Moses is because several early Church fathers made note of it in their writings.
Scholars who have studied the Moses text generally date it to the 1st century, meaning it would have been a rather “modern” text to the writer of Jude. It does not appear to have ever been considered for inclusion in any Christian canon of Scripture.
We won’t ever know with certainty exactly how the discussions played out, but the Epistle of Jude was ultimately included in the Christian canon, despite its overt references to other texts that were rejected for inclusion.
This, of course, brings up some bothersome issues – the same issues the Church councils no doubt debated heatedly in the 4th century: is Jude authoritative, despite referencing, and even quoting, non-authoritative texts?
JUDE’S DIVINE AUTHORITY
Modern evangelicals believe the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God. Everything in the Bible can be accepted as true and accurate representations of God’s revelation to humankind. The Bible is incapable of being wrong on anything. Yet God certainly did not fax the New Testament down from heaven (to borrow an image from Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”). As I have noted, the New Testament as we know it was compiled from an array of available sources in a series of Church councils in the 4th century. Twenty-seven texts were included in the official New Testament canon, and as many or more were excluded.
As such, anyone who has faith that the Bible is the infallible, inspired, and complete Word of God must first have faith that these councils chose the right books to start with. It is a fact that the Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses were excluded from the canon. As such, they were deemed non-authoritative forgeries that contained unreliable information. Yet, it is also a fact that the Epistle of Jude quotes and relies heavily upon their content. As I have already noted, content from the Book of Enoch also served as a basis for content within several other New Testament texts. If the Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses are unreliable forgeries, does that not cast doubt on the claim of inspired infallibility for those books that rely upon them for content?
Stated a different way, if we take Jude as the inspired, infallible Word of God, we must assume that the archangel Michael had a dispute with Satan over Moses’ body. Yet this is a story that we know comes from a text rejected by the Church councils whom modern Christians believe were working on behalf of God in compiling our sacred scriptures. It would seem that we cannot have it both ways. The content referring to Michael, Satan, and Moses cannot be both authoritative and non-authoritative, inspired and forged, fallible and infallible.
It cannot be an unreliable forgery in The Assumption of Moses, but the inspired Word of God when copied into the Epistle of Jude.
THE “SCOFFERS”
After warning his readers against false prophets and “godless” men within their communities, the writer of Jude offers some words of encouragement. He reminds them that the apostles foretold that “in the last times there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires” and that these people are the ones “who divide you.” The writer then encourages his listeners to stay strong in the faith as they await Jesus’ second coming.
Jude’s words here are interesting for several reasons. First, his reference to the apostles in the third person implies strongly that whoever this writer was, he was not St. Jude the disciple, nor was he attempting to forge a letter in that disciple’s name. Otherwise, why would he refer to the apostles as a group of people apparently separate from himself? This hasn’t, however, stopped Church tradition from attributing the text to St. Jude.
Second, Jude’s words in this passage help in the effort to date the text. His reference to the apostles seems to imply that they are men long dead, who foretold the events now playing out within the communities he was writing to. In fact, his phrase “in the last times there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires” sounds a lot like a similar warning found in the book of 2 Peter, which of course is attributed to Peter the apostle: “In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires” (3:3b). 2 Peter, however, is regarded by most scholars to be a very late work – perhaps the latest work in the entire New Testament, written sometime in the first part of the 2nd century, and certainly not written by Peter. It may be that 2 Peter and Jude both referenced some other apostolic writing with a similar warning, or that the writer of 2 Peter – in an effort to bolster his claim to be Peter himself – borrowed the phrase from Jude, who had asserted it was an apostolic prophecy. More than likely, the texts are simply 2nd century contemporaries and were merely repeating a sentiment that was common in that time period.
Either way, the writer of Jude, like most of his fellow New Testament writers, clearly believes that he and his contemporaries are living “in the last times.” Like Paul, writing some 50 years earlier, Jude believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent, perhaps even something that would happen in his own lifetime. Paul had clearly been wrong in his own belief about this, but that did not stop later generations of Christians, like Jude, from believing the same thing. And, of course, such ideas have continued to exist in every generation of Christianity since that time. Even to this day, there are Christians who seem convinced that “signs of the times” suggest that Jesus’ return is near. There is nothing new under the sun in that regard – it is literally one of the oldest traditions in Christianity.
Another interesting phrase that comes from this passage is the one that follows the “scoffers” phrase. Jude points out that such men follow “mere natural instincts” and do not have the spirit of God. This may be a reference to Gnosticism, which was another branch of Christianity eventually deemed heretical in the 4th century.
GNOSTICISM
Related to Docetism in terms of being more mystically-oriented than Orthodox Christianity, Gnosticism asserted that the God of the Old Testament – Yahweh – was an evil god and that the real God of the universe decided to set things straight by sending Jesus as a sort of “emissary” to humanity. Jesus imparted secret knowledge to his various disciples before finally being crucified and taken back to heaven. This secret knowledge varied among Gnostic sects, but generally involved the belief that humans in their purest forms were perfect and godlike, but that worldly sin had corrupted them. The only way to attain salvation, then, was to get in touch with one’s own inner divinity, or inner light. Just how to go about this self-actualization was primarily what separated one Gnostic community from another, but in either case, Gnosticism in general was a much more mystical and personal form of Christianity than the Orthodox form, and focused far more on finding salvation for one’s self than on receiving salvation through the mercy of God.
This tendency among Gnostics to look inward for salvation rather than upward may be the idea behind Jude’s assertion that the “scoffers” were men who followed “mere natural instincts,” rather than the external spirit of God.
If this was indeed a reference to Gnosticism, then it also supports a 2nd century date for the Epistle of Jude, as Gnosticism did not really begin flourishing and spreading until about that time.
JUDE’S DOXOLOGY
The writer of Jude ends his short letter with a doxology that is perhaps one of the most beautiful from a literary standpoint in all the New Testament:
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
This passage demonstrates the highly literary Greek with which the entire text is composed. Such a learned style of prose may be yet another clue implying a later date (early 2nd century) for this text.
CONCLUSION
The Epistle of Jude is one that is frequently overlooked and understudied in many Christian circles. In three decades of association with various churches, I cannot remember any time ever hearing a sermon, or a Biblical reading, from this letter. This is, no doubt, due to a variety of reasons. First, the letter’s short length and non-primary authorship relegates it to second class status among the Pauls and Peters and Johns of the New Testament. Second, its content is comprised mostly of warnings against false prophets and encouragements to stay strong in the faith – topics covered in depth by other more prominent New Testament texts. Finally, its questionable authorship, and especially its references to non-Biblical content, have led to suspicion about the letter’s authority since its acceptance into the canon. Even Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers of the 16th century questioned whether or not it should remain in Protestant scriptures. This history of disputed authority, then, may also play a role in why the letter has traditionally been ignored in Christian circles.
Be that as it may, the letter, as I hope I have illustrated here, offers a great deal of insight into what was going on in the world of Christianity in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.
Friday, April 17, 2009
What Christianity Means to Me, Part II
A continuation of the email discussion outlined in Part I.
---
(His response to me)
Hello Scott. Thanks for your excellent threshing out of your "Here and now" gospel. Your insight on living life right now rather than hoping in the afterlife has several parts that make a lot of sense. Jesus indeed said in Jn ch. 10 that he came to give abundant life now. The details you give regarding living like Christ on earth are excellent.
For me life goes beyond this earth age, as there is much written in the New Testament that does speak of eternity and the afterlife (as well as in the O.T if you care to look.) Since you don't seen to believe those words to be true, though, I see that we have to differ.
-----
(My response to this portion)
Well, I do, actually, believe that Jesus would have talked about an afterlife. 1st century Jews believed in an afterlife, and I don't doubt that Jesus was any different.
Now, as for the Old Testament, there's actually not anything in the Old Testament about eternal life in heaven for believers in God (that I'm aware of, anyway). The ancient Hebrews believed that heaven was where God and his angels lived, and only a select few special prophets (Elijah, for instance) ever went to heaven - and that's because the Jews didn't believe those men had been real humans in the first place - they had been sent by God, and God had taken them back, as it were. But as for normal, everyday people, all that awaited them was the grave - Sheol in Hebrew.
Belief in an afterlife did not enter the Jewish world until just a hundred years or so before the time of Jesus - long after the last Old Testament document was penned.
Now, as for believing that the Bible's words about the afterlife are true - that's where I get a lot of cognitive dissonance. I have a hard time reconciling the eternity of my consciousness with the knowledge that my consciousness is just a function of my brain, and once my brain is dead and decayed, the consciousness must by definition be gone too. How can consciousness survive brain death? Some will speak of a soul, of course, but I think that "soul" is just a way that ancient people referred to the mystery of self-awareness - which, of course, we now know is also tied to our brains. Even if we do have an actual soul that is separate from our earthly body, will our soul still be "us" after we die, since our self-awareness/consciousness is tied to our brain, which must decay?
Again, cognitive dissonance for me on this point, which is why it has become less and less important to my Christian faith.
Now, I will say that *if* there is a heaven/afterlife, I *don't* believe that it is reserved solely for those who have professed faith in Jesus. I believe there are many pathways to God, and Christianity simply happens to be mine. Whether Jesus ever made divine proclamations for himself, or whether he ever made claims of exclusivity for belief in his name - I personally don't think those passages from the Gospels are historically accurate. I don't believe Jesus ever claimed to be anything other than a Jewish rabbi teaching his own interpretation of how to live in communion with God. I've reached that decision not because that's what I want to be true, or because that's what fits best with my own beliefs. Rather, its the other way around. After studying the scriptures historically and contextually, I was forced to change my opinion about who Jesus probably was, what he probably taught, and the sorts of things he most probably said.
I use the word "probably" there because it is vitally important to me to make it clear that neither I nor anyone else can know with certainty what the "facts" actually are. Maybe Jesus really was who the Church says he was. Maybe Jesus really was the self-centered jerk that some atheists like to imagine he was. The point is, we can't know because none of us was there, and we don't have pictures, movies, or transcripts of his life. The best we can do is attempt to investigate Jesus through the available sources. And my investigation in that regard has forced me to come to different conclusions about who Jesus was, and the kinds of things he might have said, than what the Church generally teaches. So I will say that I don't think Jesus ever claimed to be God. I believe he understood himself to be working within Judaism, not creating a whole new religion outside of Judaism.
----
(More of his response)
Your view on the profession of faith being worthless, however, is something I truly disagree with you on. You obviously haven't met me. When I professed my faith in Jesus Christ in 1989, it was just the beginning of my walk of faith in Christ. It hasn't always gone well, and it hasn't been smooth (translation: I've sinned greatly along the way), But my heart has been set on God. That's part of my story. I can relay more to you later.
But you are right about professions of faith which are done for no reason--culturual Christianity as I called it previously.
---
(The remainder of my response)
I think it's important here to clarify my words about professions of faith. When I say that a profession of faith is meaningless, I am trying to state forcefully my views about the primacy of action over faith. Obviously, it requires "faith" of some type to give any credence to the Bible at all. For instance, I have "faith" that the things Jesus taught are wothwhile ways to live and are ways to commune with the mystery of God. Without that faith, I wouldn't even bother. So obviously faith has to exist, and in that sense its not meaningless.
But by saying that professions of faith are meaningless, I'm simply pointing out that without living the life Christ taught us to live, our profession of faith doesn't mean anything.
If I say that I believe this chair will hold me, but I never actually sit in the chair because secretly I don't want to take the risk, then I don't actually have any faith. My faith in the chair is meaningless.
Similarly, if I say I have faith in Jesus, but don't actually do what Jesus taught us to do because secretly it's too much trouble and too inconvenient, then I don't really have any faith in Jesus.
And that's what I see in so many modern Christians. The life of Christ is decidedly inconvenient to our self-centered, materialistic modern way of life. If we're not willing to actually follow Jesus into the life he taught us to live, then it doesn't matter one iota whether we claim to have faith in him or not.
That's why I say that professions of faith are meaningless. It's the changed life that matters.
And this also, of course, ties into my belief that Christianity is not the exclusive pathway to God. I believe one can still be living the life of Christ without ever picking up a Bible or having the first clue who Jesus was. I believe one can still be living the life of Christ through other religious traditions, because the things Jesus taught exist across the religious spectrum. I describe those things - selflessness, compassion, kindness, rejection of materialism, etc. - as the "life of Christ," but that's only because I'm a Christian. I could just as easily call those things the life of Buddha, or the life of David, or the life of Ghandi, or even the life of secular humanism, etc., etc.
---
(His response to me)
Hello Scott. Thanks for your excellent threshing out of your "Here and now" gospel. Your insight on living life right now rather than hoping in the afterlife has several parts that make a lot of sense. Jesus indeed said in Jn ch. 10 that he came to give abundant life now. The details you give regarding living like Christ on earth are excellent.
For me life goes beyond this earth age, as there is much written in the New Testament that does speak of eternity and the afterlife (as well as in the O.T if you care to look.) Since you don't seen to believe those words to be true, though, I see that we have to differ.
-----
(My response to this portion)
Well, I do, actually, believe that Jesus would have talked about an afterlife. 1st century Jews believed in an afterlife, and I don't doubt that Jesus was any different.
Now, as for the Old Testament, there's actually not anything in the Old Testament about eternal life in heaven for believers in God (that I'm aware of, anyway). The ancient Hebrews believed that heaven was where God and his angels lived, and only a select few special prophets (Elijah, for instance) ever went to heaven - and that's because the Jews didn't believe those men had been real humans in the first place - they had been sent by God, and God had taken them back, as it were. But as for normal, everyday people, all that awaited them was the grave - Sheol in Hebrew.
Belief in an afterlife did not enter the Jewish world until just a hundred years or so before the time of Jesus - long after the last Old Testament document was penned.
Now, as for believing that the Bible's words about the afterlife are true - that's where I get a lot of cognitive dissonance. I have a hard time reconciling the eternity of my consciousness with the knowledge that my consciousness is just a function of my brain, and once my brain is dead and decayed, the consciousness must by definition be gone too. How can consciousness survive brain death? Some will speak of a soul, of course, but I think that "soul" is just a way that ancient people referred to the mystery of self-awareness - which, of course, we now know is also tied to our brains. Even if we do have an actual soul that is separate from our earthly body, will our soul still be "us" after we die, since our self-awareness/consciousness is tied to our brain, which must decay?
Again, cognitive dissonance for me on this point, which is why it has become less and less important to my Christian faith.
Now, I will say that *if* there is a heaven/afterlife, I *don't* believe that it is reserved solely for those who have professed faith in Jesus. I believe there are many pathways to God, and Christianity simply happens to be mine. Whether Jesus ever made divine proclamations for himself, or whether he ever made claims of exclusivity for belief in his name - I personally don't think those passages from the Gospels are historically accurate. I don't believe Jesus ever claimed to be anything other than a Jewish rabbi teaching his own interpretation of how to live in communion with God. I've reached that decision not because that's what I want to be true, or because that's what fits best with my own beliefs. Rather, its the other way around. After studying the scriptures historically and contextually, I was forced to change my opinion about who Jesus probably was, what he probably taught, and the sorts of things he most probably said.
I use the word "probably" there because it is vitally important to me to make it clear that neither I nor anyone else can know with certainty what the "facts" actually are. Maybe Jesus really was who the Church says he was. Maybe Jesus really was the self-centered jerk that some atheists like to imagine he was. The point is, we can't know because none of us was there, and we don't have pictures, movies, or transcripts of his life. The best we can do is attempt to investigate Jesus through the available sources. And my investigation in that regard has forced me to come to different conclusions about who Jesus was, and the kinds of things he might have said, than what the Church generally teaches. So I will say that I don't think Jesus ever claimed to be God. I believe he understood himself to be working within Judaism, not creating a whole new religion outside of Judaism.
----
(More of his response)
Your view on the profession of faith being worthless, however, is something I truly disagree with you on. You obviously haven't met me. When I professed my faith in Jesus Christ in 1989, it was just the beginning of my walk of faith in Christ. It hasn't always gone well, and it hasn't been smooth (translation: I've sinned greatly along the way), But my heart has been set on God. That's part of my story. I can relay more to you later.
But you are right about professions of faith which are done for no reason--culturual Christianity as I called it previously.
---
(The remainder of my response)
I think it's important here to clarify my words about professions of faith. When I say that a profession of faith is meaningless, I am trying to state forcefully my views about the primacy of action over faith. Obviously, it requires "faith" of some type to give any credence to the Bible at all. For instance, I have "faith" that the things Jesus taught are wothwhile ways to live and are ways to commune with the mystery of God. Without that faith, I wouldn't even bother. So obviously faith has to exist, and in that sense its not meaningless.
But by saying that professions of faith are meaningless, I'm simply pointing out that without living the life Christ taught us to live, our profession of faith doesn't mean anything.
If I say that I believe this chair will hold me, but I never actually sit in the chair because secretly I don't want to take the risk, then I don't actually have any faith. My faith in the chair is meaningless.
Similarly, if I say I have faith in Jesus, but don't actually do what Jesus taught us to do because secretly it's too much trouble and too inconvenient, then I don't really have any faith in Jesus.
And that's what I see in so many modern Christians. The life of Christ is decidedly inconvenient to our self-centered, materialistic modern way of life. If we're not willing to actually follow Jesus into the life he taught us to live, then it doesn't matter one iota whether we claim to have faith in him or not.
That's why I say that professions of faith are meaningless. It's the changed life that matters.
And this also, of course, ties into my belief that Christianity is not the exclusive pathway to God. I believe one can still be living the life of Christ without ever picking up a Bible or having the first clue who Jesus was. I believe one can still be living the life of Christ through other religious traditions, because the things Jesus taught exist across the religious spectrum. I describe those things - selflessness, compassion, kindness, rejection of materialism, etc. - as the "life of Christ," but that's only because I'm a Christian. I could just as easily call those things the life of Buddha, or the life of David, or the life of Ghandi, or even the life of secular humanism, etc., etc.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
What Christianity Means to Me
This is from an email conversation I have been having with an acquaintence of mine from the Rush Messageboard. This person is a Christian that I frequently debate religion and belief with. I thought my response to him was informative and might give a good summation of my beliefs to the readers of my blog.
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(His email to me)
Hello Scott. One of my best times to write is on my "lunch" break--I work the overnight shift.
You speak of traditional Christianity when referring to what I believe about Jesus. I don't think that you say this in a derogatory way, but I believe that the word "traditional" is interpreted differently by each of us. Since I'm not completely sure of what you mean, I'd like to tell you what I think it is.
I don't like traditional Christianity. I perceive it to be the same exact thing as "cultural Christianity." This is generally what goes on at many of the mainline denomination churches. Everyone puts on their best clothes (Sunday Best). They go to their church, and sit in there for what is an excrucitating period, wondering why they are there in the first place. The music isn't exciting, and the message from the preacher is usually negative, something like "don't do this/that" or "pleasure is evil/sinful." Sure, Jesus Christ is proclaimed somewhere in this mix, but that Jesus has no appeal to me."
The Bible reveals God to me much differently. It does declare sin, righteousness and judgement, as the above mentioned churches do, but those mean nothing unless I get the whole picture of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments.
Just some thoughts.
-----
(My email to him)
Well, I suppose that what you call "traditional" Christianity is the same thing that I might refer to as "mainstream Christian practice," or something similar. I think we both agree that what you describe is all to common among Christians.
But what I am talking about when I say "traditional Christianity" is more theologically-based. That is, belief-based. Jesus was born of a virgin. Jesus performed divine miracles. Jesus was physically raised from the dead back into human life and later ascended into heaven. Paul and the other NT writers were inspired directly by God, and everything in the Bible is literally true and historically accurate, etc., etc.
In that sense, I do not identify at all with "traditional Christianity." In fact, I firmly believe that it is demonstrably untrue (particularly the part about the Bible's infallibility - it is my opinion that only those who haven't read much of the Bible would ever claim that it is infallible). Of course, I don't identify with the scenario you described either!
For me, Christianity is about life in the here and now, not about life in the hereafter. While we can never know with absolute certainty what Jesus actually said, did, and preached, I believe we move closer to the truth when we understand Jesus' message as being primarily about how to live and act in the world, rather than about whether we get to live eternally in a blissful afterlife following our deaths presuming we made the right profession of faith.
I'm sure Jesus talked about the afterlife - he was a 1st century practicing Jew, after all, and most Jews in that time period did believe in life after death and a general resurrection. But I don't believe that life after death was the crux of Jesus' message. I think it only became the crux of Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and beyond. Paul's writings, I believe, were instrumental in this gradual change from a religion of "life" to a religion of "afterlife."
For this reason, I am a Christian who attempts to live the way Jesus taught. Who attempts to understand Christianity as a religion of life, not a religion of afterlife. A Christian who believes that the Christian life is about how we live, act, behave, and treat ourselves and others, not so much about what happens after death. I believe Christianity is meaningless as a profession of faith. I do not believe any Christian is "saved" (however one defines that term) unless they are living the life Jesus taught us to live, not just professing faith in Jesus' death and resurrection. (As a side, I do not believe one has to be a "Christian" to be living the life Jesus taught. Jesus' teachings weren't exclusive - the main points exist across the religious and secular spectrum, so my comments here are not meant as a claim of exclusivity for Christianity.) It saddens me that it seems that so many Christians live like this - they have their profession of faith, their get-out-of-death-free card, and that's all that matters. I don't believe those people are "Christians" in any sense of the word.
None of this means that I don't have hope of an afterlife. I certainly do. I love the idea of heaven and living eternally in communion with God and never being separated from my loved ones. I hope desperately for such a scenario, or any sort of pleasant afterlife scenario.
But I also realize that it is rationally fanciful, and in any case it is not what drives my Christian faith. In fact, it is almost irrelevant to my Christian faith. This is why I argue that whether you accept the resurrection as literal or metaphorical does not really matter. J.D. Crossan defines this as the difference between "mode" and "meaning." Mode refers to the how the story is told - is it literal or metaphorical, for instance. Meaning, on the other hand, refers to the ultimate meaning of the story - which doesn't change regardless of your personal take on the mode of the story. So whether you think the resurrection is literal or physical (the mode), in my opinion the meaning of the resurrection stories is the same - that is, that a profound God-presence was met in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and we too can take part in the eternity and timelessness of God if we live the way Jesus taught us to live.
-----
(His email to me)
Hello Scott. One of my best times to write is on my "lunch" break--I work the overnight shift.
You speak of traditional Christianity when referring to what I believe about Jesus. I don't think that you say this in a derogatory way, but I believe that the word "traditional" is interpreted differently by each of us. Since I'm not completely sure of what you mean, I'd like to tell you what I think it is.
I don't like traditional Christianity. I perceive it to be the same exact thing as "cultural Christianity." This is generally what goes on at many of the mainline denomination churches. Everyone puts on their best clothes (Sunday Best). They go to their church, and sit in there for what is an excrucitating period, wondering why they are there in the first place. The music isn't exciting, and the message from the preacher is usually negative, something like "don't do this/that" or "pleasure is evil/sinful." Sure, Jesus Christ is proclaimed somewhere in this mix, but that Jesus has no appeal to me."
The Bible reveals God to me much differently. It does declare sin, righteousness and judgement, as the above mentioned churches do, but those mean nothing unless I get the whole picture of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments.
Just some thoughts.
-----
(My email to him)
Well, I suppose that what you call "traditional" Christianity is the same thing that I might refer to as "mainstream Christian practice," or something similar. I think we both agree that what you describe is all to common among Christians.
But what I am talking about when I say "traditional Christianity" is more theologically-based. That is, belief-based. Jesus was born of a virgin. Jesus performed divine miracles. Jesus was physically raised from the dead back into human life and later ascended into heaven. Paul and the other NT writers were inspired directly by God, and everything in the Bible is literally true and historically accurate, etc., etc.
In that sense, I do not identify at all with "traditional Christianity." In fact, I firmly believe that it is demonstrably untrue (particularly the part about the Bible's infallibility - it is my opinion that only those who haven't read much of the Bible would ever claim that it is infallible). Of course, I don't identify with the scenario you described either!
For me, Christianity is about life in the here and now, not about life in the hereafter. While we can never know with absolute certainty what Jesus actually said, did, and preached, I believe we move closer to the truth when we understand Jesus' message as being primarily about how to live and act in the world, rather than about whether we get to live eternally in a blissful afterlife following our deaths presuming we made the right profession of faith.
I'm sure Jesus talked about the afterlife - he was a 1st century practicing Jew, after all, and most Jews in that time period did believe in life after death and a general resurrection. But I don't believe that life after death was the crux of Jesus' message. I think it only became the crux of Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and beyond. Paul's writings, I believe, were instrumental in this gradual change from a religion of "life" to a religion of "afterlife."
For this reason, I am a Christian who attempts to live the way Jesus taught. Who attempts to understand Christianity as a religion of life, not a religion of afterlife. A Christian who believes that the Christian life is about how we live, act, behave, and treat ourselves and others, not so much about what happens after death. I believe Christianity is meaningless as a profession of faith. I do not believe any Christian is "saved" (however one defines that term) unless they are living the life Jesus taught us to live, not just professing faith in Jesus' death and resurrection. (As a side, I do not believe one has to be a "Christian" to be living the life Jesus taught. Jesus' teachings weren't exclusive - the main points exist across the religious and secular spectrum, so my comments here are not meant as a claim of exclusivity for Christianity.) It saddens me that it seems that so many Christians live like this - they have their profession of faith, their get-out-of-death-free card, and that's all that matters. I don't believe those people are "Christians" in any sense of the word.
None of this means that I don't have hope of an afterlife. I certainly do. I love the idea of heaven and living eternally in communion with God and never being separated from my loved ones. I hope desperately for such a scenario, or any sort of pleasant afterlife scenario.
But I also realize that it is rationally fanciful, and in any case it is not what drives my Christian faith. In fact, it is almost irrelevant to my Christian faith. This is why I argue that whether you accept the resurrection as literal or metaphorical does not really matter. J.D. Crossan defines this as the difference between "mode" and "meaning." Mode refers to the how the story is told - is it literal or metaphorical, for instance. Meaning, on the other hand, refers to the ultimate meaning of the story - which doesn't change regardless of your personal take on the mode of the story. So whether you think the resurrection is literal or physical (the mode), in my opinion the meaning of the resurrection stories is the same - that is, that a profound God-presence was met in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and we too can take part in the eternity and timelessness of God if we live the way Jesus taught us to live.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Taking the Lord's Name in Vain
Make sure to read my newest essay on this topic, a sort of addendum to the essay below: Taking God's Name in Vain.
****
Growing up as I did in the Southern Baptist tradition, perhaps one of my earliest exposures to Biblical content as a child was the instruction from the Ten Commandments not to “take the Lord’s name in vain.”
I understood from a very young age that this was extremely important, and that “taking the Lord’s name in vain” involved using any name of God as a swear word – what a grammar teacher might call an “exclamatory interjection.” This, of course, included not only “God,” but also “Jesus,” “Christ,” and even “Lord.” Among true swear words, “goddamn” was without question the most blasphemous and evil, because it not only included a dirty word, but also tied the name of God into its nastiness. Even into adulthood, long after I gave up the belief that I was in danger of hell fire for saying a swear word, “GD” still remained taboo for me. This is certainly still true for many people who might otherwise say a swear word now and then.
But what does it really mean to take the Lord’s name in vain? Does it refer to using God’s name as a swear word – an exclamation – or does it mean something entirely different? What were the intentions of those Biblical authors who included that command in the Ten Commandments, or, if you prefer a more traditional approach, what did God mean when he instructed his followers not to take his name in vain?
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Few Christians realize that there are actually several incarnations of the Ten Commandments in the Jewish scriptures – Christianity’s Old Testament. In fact, we are given no less than three “Ten Commandments” lists. The lists in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are fairly similar, but the one in Exodus 34 – the “new” list that God gave Moses after the first set of tablets were destroyed – varies quite dramatically from the old list. This new list, interestingly enough, has nothing about taking God’s name in vain.
Why, then, do we tend to go by the “old” list in modern Christian circles, instead of the “new” list, given to Moses after the first chiseled list got broken? If we did, the issue of taking the Lord’s name in vain might not be an issue at all. It’s an interesting question, and it probably has something to do with the fact that this new list is way too “Jewish” for most Christian sensibilities. Among its ten commandments is a command to celebrate certain Jewish festivals; it instructs Jews to sacrifice all their first-born animals to God; it insists that the faithful may not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Be that as it may, what has come down to us as the “Ten Commandments” are those lists found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, both of which include the instruction not to take the Lord’s name in vain. The wording of both instructions is identical.
Exodus 20:7a/Deuteronomy 5:11a (KJV) – Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
The more modern NIV uses a slightly different translation to get across the idea that this verse is dealing with petty things like using God’s name as a swear word: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”
With theologically-tinged translations like the NIV, and with centuries of Christian ideology that says this verse bans us from saying “God” as an exclamatory interjection, most Christians read this verse and probably can’t imagine how it can be saying anything else.
THE VERSE IN HEBREW
A number of discoveries about the meaning of this instruction can be found by looking at the verse in its original language. I don’t speak Hebrew, and I’m certain than few if any of my readers do, so I’ll take it one keyword at a time. I realize that this sort of linguistic exercise is cumbersome for most people, but I hope my readers will stick with me, because understanding what the original words are actually saying is vital to the point I will make shortly.
Nasa’
The first primary word in the passage is nasa’. This word is used some 600+ times in the Old Testament, and generally means to “take up,” or “lift up,” or “accept.”
Shem
This word means “name,” or “reputation.” It is the word used any time that an Old Testament writer referred to the name of someone or something.
Yehovah
The word “Lord” in the NIV and KJV translations is the Hebrew word Yehovah, which would actually have been written as YHWH, the tetragrammaton that was believed to be the literal name of God. It comes down to us in English as “Jehovah” or “Yaweh.” Just as Egypt had Horus, and Rome had Jupiter, the Hebrews had Yaweh.
‘Elohiym
This is the word in the passage that is translated as “God.” In ancient Hebrew, it was a catch-all word that generally referred to “the gods” or the “heavenly host.” When used together with YHWH, it was the official way of referring to the God of the Jews – Yehovah ‘Elohiym – much as Christians might say “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” In English Old Testament translations, it is usually written as “The Lord your God.”
Shav’
This is the word that is translated as “vain” in the King James Version. In ancient Hebrew, it meant “falsehood,” or “emptiness,” or “nothingness.”
Now that we have looked at the Hebrew words making up the first part of the verse, it is instructive to take a look at what they are actually saying: “Don’t take up or accept the name of God with falsehood or emptiness.”
“DON’T TAKE THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN”
As the last phrase of the previous paragraph implies, I find that the original meaning of this familiar commandment is something entirely different than what most people suppose. But before making my argument, it is important to look at just what the logical consequences are of assuming that this commandment has anything to do with how someone physically utters the name of God.
In ancient Judea, Jews believed that God’s name – the aforementioned “Yaweh” – was so sacred and immortal that it literally should not be spoken, ever. It wasn’t used in everyday speech; it wasn’t used in the synagogue. It wasn’t even written out; as I have already illustrated, a tetragrammaton, or 4-letter code, was used instead – YHWH. Gentiles and pagans – like the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, etc. – routinely referred to their gods by name. Since anything that stunk of paganism to the Jews was summarily rejected, it is not surprising that they developed a theology that said even the very name of God was untouchable and unworthy of being spoken by a human being. “God” (or, in Hebrew, “'Elohiym”), of course, was perfectly permissible, and would have been how God was referred to in everyday language. “Yaweh,” however, was not to be uttered.
So to suggest that this verse has something to do with not using God’s name as a swear word (i.e., an exclamatory interjection) is simply not supportable in the context of the ancient Hebrew kingdom. They wouldn’t have ever said the name, as a swear word or otherwise.
There are other issues, of course, with assuming such a meaning. First, if the commandment is talking about not misusing the physical name of God, then it is instructing us not to say “Aw, Yaweh!” when we stub our toe. It says nothing of “God,” “Jesus,” or “Christ.” “God” is not the name of God – “Yaweh” is – and Jesus, after all, was merely the human incarnation of God, and his name – Jesus – is not the name of God either.
One might argue, however, that as the human incarnation of God, Jesus’ name has the same sacredness as God’s name. Even if we take that as fact, “Jesus” was not Jesus’ name! “Jesus” is simply the English transliteration of a Greek transliteration of Jesus’ real Aramaic name. Jesus’ real earthly name was “Yeshua,” which is the same name that the successor of Moses in the Old Testament had – Joshua. In the Old Testament, our English Bibles translate “Yeshua” directly into English – thus “Joshua.” The New Testament, however, was originally written in Greek, so “Yeshua” first goes into Greek and becomes “Iesus,” and then into English as “Jesus.”
So, again, if we want to simplify the commandment in question, then we shouldn’t say “Yeshua!” when we burn our finger. “Jesus,” however, is apparently perfectly permissible.
Finally, “Christ” is at issue as well. “Christ” is – again – an English transliteration of a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Mosiah. That word meant “anointed one,” in Hebrew. In Greek, “anointed one” is translated as Khristos. From there, we get the transliterated word “Christ.” This word, of course, was not Jesus’ last name. “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus the anointed one,” or “Jesus the Messiah.” It was a way of differentiating who he was versus other people with his name. Jesus the Anointed One versus Jesus the Newspaper Man, as it were. A good comparison is to consider the name “John the Baptist.” No one supposes his last name was “the Baptist.”
Thus, yet again, there can be no reason why “Christ” is impermissible as a swear word.
I hope that my tone here has been clear: the point I am trying to make is not to downplay the sacredness of the names “God,” and “Jesus,” and “Christ” to modern Christians. What I am attempting to do is show how silly it is to make an argument that this instruction from the Ten Commandments has anything to do with the physical utterance of a sacred name for swearing or other unsacred purposes. Yet this is what the argument must boil down to if one wants to insist on understanding this Old Testament commandment in this manner.
A MEANING THAT MATTERS
We return once again to the meaning of the commandment in question, when understood in the original language: “Don’t take up or accept the name of God with falsehood or emptiness.”
It is noteworthy to point out that at least one other verse in the Old Testament uses similar language. Both nasa’ (to “take up” or “accept”) and shav’ (“emptiness” or “nothingness”) appear in the book of Psalms.
Psalm 24:4 (KJV) – He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
The key phrase there is “lifted up his soul unto vanity.” This phrase, in Hebrew, is identical to the phrase from the Ten Commandments, replacing only the noun “his soul” with the compound noun “the name of the Lord your God.” Clearly the meaning of this verse from the Psalms is that one should not give his soul over to emptiness or meaninglessness.
In the same way, I argue that “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain” has a similar meaning. Do not meaninglessly take the name of God upon yourself. In other words: You can profess your faith all you want, but without living the lifestyle that comes with the acceptance of God’s name, your faith is meaningless and in vain.
This idea, of course, has numerous corollaries in the New Testament. In Matthew, Jesus assures us that not all those who say “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God. James reminds us that faith without works is not just unpleasing to God – but actually dead. There is no such thing, James tells us, as faith without a changed nature accompanying it. Paul asserts in Romans that God will judge us by whether we do good or evil.
From where I stand, I see many Christians navigating this way through life. Christianity is just a “get out of death free card.” They’ve made their profession of faith, they “believe in Jesus,” and now they can get on with their life and have a little comfort about what happens when they and their loved ones die. Evangelical theology frequently supports this, with their plans of salvation and their promise that all God requires is that you “believe in him.” In fact, God requires a lot more. And God warns us against taking his name upon ourselves in vain.
I firmly believe that the “profession of faith” that is so common and so primary in many evangelical churches is meaningless and even unbiblical. Yes, the Bible stresses the importance of faith, but it stresses even more the importance of “faith in action.” I said it above, but it bears repeating: James even goes so far as to say that faith without action is dead. It’s non-faith. It’s meaningless. The profession of faith isn’t what matters; it’s how you act that counts.
Jesus called us to have life and have it more abundantly. He called us to new birth. He called us to a celebration of life and an experience of life at its deepest and most human levels. He never called us to get out of death free. The message of Jesus was imminently and forever about living, about breaking down the boundaries that divide us and reduce life, not about what happens when we die.
So a profession of faith – claiming God for yourself so you can have a little comfort – without actually living the life Jesus taught us to live…well, it’s taking the Lord’s name in vain.
****
Growing up as I did in the Southern Baptist tradition, perhaps one of my earliest exposures to Biblical content as a child was the instruction from the Ten Commandments not to “take the Lord’s name in vain.”
I understood from a very young age that this was extremely important, and that “taking the Lord’s name in vain” involved using any name of God as a swear word – what a grammar teacher might call an “exclamatory interjection.” This, of course, included not only “God,” but also “Jesus,” “Christ,” and even “Lord.” Among true swear words, “goddamn” was without question the most blasphemous and evil, because it not only included a dirty word, but also tied the name of God into its nastiness. Even into adulthood, long after I gave up the belief that I was in danger of hell fire for saying a swear word, “GD” still remained taboo for me. This is certainly still true for many people who might otherwise say a swear word now and then.
But what does it really mean to take the Lord’s name in vain? Does it refer to using God’s name as a swear word – an exclamation – or does it mean something entirely different? What were the intentions of those Biblical authors who included that command in the Ten Commandments, or, if you prefer a more traditional approach, what did God mean when he instructed his followers not to take his name in vain?
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Few Christians realize that there are actually several incarnations of the Ten Commandments in the Jewish scriptures – Christianity’s Old Testament. In fact, we are given no less than three “Ten Commandments” lists. The lists in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 are fairly similar, but the one in Exodus 34 – the “new” list that God gave Moses after the first set of tablets were destroyed – varies quite dramatically from the old list. This new list, interestingly enough, has nothing about taking God’s name in vain.
Why, then, do we tend to go by the “old” list in modern Christian circles, instead of the “new” list, given to Moses after the first chiseled list got broken? If we did, the issue of taking the Lord’s name in vain might not be an issue at all. It’s an interesting question, and it probably has something to do with the fact that this new list is way too “Jewish” for most Christian sensibilities. Among its ten commandments is a command to celebrate certain Jewish festivals; it instructs Jews to sacrifice all their first-born animals to God; it insists that the faithful may not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Be that as it may, what has come down to us as the “Ten Commandments” are those lists found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, both of which include the instruction not to take the Lord’s name in vain. The wording of both instructions is identical.
Exodus 20:7a/Deuteronomy 5:11a (KJV) – Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
The more modern NIV uses a slightly different translation to get across the idea that this verse is dealing with petty things like using God’s name as a swear word: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”
With theologically-tinged translations like the NIV, and with centuries of Christian ideology that says this verse bans us from saying “God” as an exclamatory interjection, most Christians read this verse and probably can’t imagine how it can be saying anything else.
THE VERSE IN HEBREW
A number of discoveries about the meaning of this instruction can be found by looking at the verse in its original language. I don’t speak Hebrew, and I’m certain than few if any of my readers do, so I’ll take it one keyword at a time. I realize that this sort of linguistic exercise is cumbersome for most people, but I hope my readers will stick with me, because understanding what the original words are actually saying is vital to the point I will make shortly.
Nasa’
The first primary word in the passage is nasa’. This word is used some 600+ times in the Old Testament, and generally means to “take up,” or “lift up,” or “accept.”
Shem
This word means “name,” or “reputation.” It is the word used any time that an Old Testament writer referred to the name of someone or something.
Yehovah
The word “Lord” in the NIV and KJV translations is the Hebrew word Yehovah, which would actually have been written as YHWH, the tetragrammaton that was believed to be the literal name of God. It comes down to us in English as “Jehovah” or “Yaweh.” Just as Egypt had Horus, and Rome had Jupiter, the Hebrews had Yaweh.
‘Elohiym
This is the word in the passage that is translated as “God.” In ancient Hebrew, it was a catch-all word that generally referred to “the gods” or the “heavenly host.” When used together with YHWH, it was the official way of referring to the God of the Jews – Yehovah ‘Elohiym – much as Christians might say “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” In English Old Testament translations, it is usually written as “The Lord your God.”
Shav’
This is the word that is translated as “vain” in the King James Version. In ancient Hebrew, it meant “falsehood,” or “emptiness,” or “nothingness.”
Now that we have looked at the Hebrew words making up the first part of the verse, it is instructive to take a look at what they are actually saying: “Don’t take up or accept the name of God with falsehood or emptiness.”
“DON’T TAKE THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN”
As the last phrase of the previous paragraph implies, I find that the original meaning of this familiar commandment is something entirely different than what most people suppose. But before making my argument, it is important to look at just what the logical consequences are of assuming that this commandment has anything to do with how someone physically utters the name of God.
In ancient Judea, Jews believed that God’s name – the aforementioned “Yaweh” – was so sacred and immortal that it literally should not be spoken, ever. It wasn’t used in everyday speech; it wasn’t used in the synagogue. It wasn’t even written out; as I have already illustrated, a tetragrammaton, or 4-letter code, was used instead – YHWH. Gentiles and pagans – like the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, etc. – routinely referred to their gods by name. Since anything that stunk of paganism to the Jews was summarily rejected, it is not surprising that they developed a theology that said even the very name of God was untouchable and unworthy of being spoken by a human being. “God” (or, in Hebrew, “'Elohiym”), of course, was perfectly permissible, and would have been how God was referred to in everyday language. “Yaweh,” however, was not to be uttered.
So to suggest that this verse has something to do with not using God’s name as a swear word (i.e., an exclamatory interjection) is simply not supportable in the context of the ancient Hebrew kingdom. They wouldn’t have ever said the name, as a swear word or otherwise.
There are other issues, of course, with assuming such a meaning. First, if the commandment is talking about not misusing the physical name of God, then it is instructing us not to say “Aw, Yaweh!” when we stub our toe. It says nothing of “God,” “Jesus,” or “Christ.” “God” is not the name of God – “Yaweh” is – and Jesus, after all, was merely the human incarnation of God, and his name – Jesus – is not the name of God either.
One might argue, however, that as the human incarnation of God, Jesus’ name has the same sacredness as God’s name. Even if we take that as fact, “Jesus” was not Jesus’ name! “Jesus” is simply the English transliteration of a Greek transliteration of Jesus’ real Aramaic name. Jesus’ real earthly name was “Yeshua,” which is the same name that the successor of Moses in the Old Testament had – Joshua. In the Old Testament, our English Bibles translate “Yeshua” directly into English – thus “Joshua.” The New Testament, however, was originally written in Greek, so “Yeshua” first goes into Greek and becomes “Iesus,” and then into English as “Jesus.”
So, again, if we want to simplify the commandment in question, then we shouldn’t say “Yeshua!” when we burn our finger. “Jesus,” however, is apparently perfectly permissible.
Finally, “Christ” is at issue as well. “Christ” is – again – an English transliteration of a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Mosiah. That word meant “anointed one,” in Hebrew. In Greek, “anointed one” is translated as Khristos. From there, we get the transliterated word “Christ.” This word, of course, was not Jesus’ last name. “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus the anointed one,” or “Jesus the Messiah.” It was a way of differentiating who he was versus other people with his name. Jesus the Anointed One versus Jesus the Newspaper Man, as it were. A good comparison is to consider the name “John the Baptist.” No one supposes his last name was “the Baptist.”
Thus, yet again, there can be no reason why “Christ” is impermissible as a swear word.
I hope that my tone here has been clear: the point I am trying to make is not to downplay the sacredness of the names “God,” and “Jesus,” and “Christ” to modern Christians. What I am attempting to do is show how silly it is to make an argument that this instruction from the Ten Commandments has anything to do with the physical utterance of a sacred name for swearing or other unsacred purposes. Yet this is what the argument must boil down to if one wants to insist on understanding this Old Testament commandment in this manner.
A MEANING THAT MATTERS
We return once again to the meaning of the commandment in question, when understood in the original language: “Don’t take up or accept the name of God with falsehood or emptiness.”
It is noteworthy to point out that at least one other verse in the Old Testament uses similar language. Both nasa’ (to “take up” or “accept”) and shav’ (“emptiness” or “nothingness”) appear in the book of Psalms.
Psalm 24:4 (KJV) – He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
The key phrase there is “lifted up his soul unto vanity.” This phrase, in Hebrew, is identical to the phrase from the Ten Commandments, replacing only the noun “his soul” with the compound noun “the name of the Lord your God.” Clearly the meaning of this verse from the Psalms is that one should not give his soul over to emptiness or meaninglessness.
In the same way, I argue that “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain” has a similar meaning. Do not meaninglessly take the name of God upon yourself. In other words: You can profess your faith all you want, but without living the lifestyle that comes with the acceptance of God’s name, your faith is meaningless and in vain.
This idea, of course, has numerous corollaries in the New Testament. In Matthew, Jesus assures us that not all those who say “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God. James reminds us that faith without works is not just unpleasing to God – but actually dead. There is no such thing, James tells us, as faith without a changed nature accompanying it. Paul asserts in Romans that God will judge us by whether we do good or evil.
From where I stand, I see many Christians navigating this way through life. Christianity is just a “get out of death free card.” They’ve made their profession of faith, they “believe in Jesus,” and now they can get on with their life and have a little comfort about what happens when they and their loved ones die. Evangelical theology frequently supports this, with their plans of salvation and their promise that all God requires is that you “believe in him.” In fact, God requires a lot more. And God warns us against taking his name upon ourselves in vain.
I firmly believe that the “profession of faith” that is so common and so primary in many evangelical churches is meaningless and even unbiblical. Yes, the Bible stresses the importance of faith, but it stresses even more the importance of “faith in action.” I said it above, but it bears repeating: James even goes so far as to say that faith without action is dead. It’s non-faith. It’s meaningless. The profession of faith isn’t what matters; it’s how you act that counts.
Jesus called us to have life and have it more abundantly. He called us to new birth. He called us to a celebration of life and an experience of life at its deepest and most human levels. He never called us to get out of death free. The message of Jesus was imminently and forever about living, about breaking down the boundaries that divide us and reduce life, not about what happens when we die.
So a profession of faith – claiming God for yourself so you can have a little comfort – without actually living the life Jesus taught us to live…well, it’s taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
What Can We Know About the Prominent Women of the Bible?
As a regular Facebook user, I came across one of their myriad quizzes tonight which tests the user to find out which “mighty woman” of the Bible they are most like. I took it and discovered that, despite some obvious anatomical issues, I am most like Ruth, a figure from the Old Testament. Other users found that they are most like Sarah and Mary Magdalene.
The explanations given with these findings are curious. Consider, for instance, what is said about Mary Magdalene:
She was forgiven much & loved much, and you certainly love much! You are a passionate person, who loves God & life. You have a tendency to count your blessings and be very grateful, even in small things. You are an overcomer, and will not allow any life circumstances to hold you down.
This, naturally, caused me to wonder just where the authors of this quiz were coming up with their information. What, in fact, can we actually know about the prominent women of the Bible?
Because an in-depth look at the prominent women of the Bible could take up a whole book, I will instead focus in this essay on Mary Magdalene, since together with Mary the mother of Jesus, she is the most prominent woman in the New Testament.
MARY MAGDALENE
Mary Magdalene appears exactly 13 times in the New Testament, with all occurrences happening in the four Gospels. Never is she mentioned in any other New Testament writing. In the Gospels, she appears almost exclusively in the death, burial, and resurrection accounts. In only one place is she ever mentioned being present during Jesus’ actual life ministry – that comes to us in Luke chapter 8, where Luke mentions that she had “seven demons” driven out of her (although Luke doesn’t say by whom) and that she was present there during Jesus’ teachings.
There are no scenes in the Bible that depict the living Jesus ever actually interacting with Mary. Mary’s interactions with Jesus are exclusively with the resurrected Jesus – and that only happens in one account.
Mary enters the Christian canon in the Gospel of Mark, written around 70 C.E., or 40 years after Jesus’ death. Mark mentions that she and other women were present at the crucifixion, and that this group of women were followers of Jesus who “cared for his needs.” The writer tells us that Mary and the other women saw where Jesus was buried, and then later went to the tomb to anoint his body. While there, they were met by a “man in white” who announced the resurrection to them, instructing them to go and tell the others that Jesus would meet up with them in Galilee. Mary and the others, however, are scared and instead “said nothing to anyone.” Mark’s Gospel actually ends right there, without any appearances of the risen Jesus to anyone.
Mary next appears, chronologically, in the book of Matthew. Using Mark as a source, Matthew simply repeats Mark’s assertion that Mary Magdalene and the others were followers who cared for Jesus’ needs and who were present at the crucifixion and then saw the burial.
However, Matthew veers from Mark’s account of Mary’s actions on Easter Sunday. Instead of coming to anoint Jesus’ body, Mary and the other women are simply coming to “look at the tomb,” as though to check up on it. This fits with Matthew’s account of the guards who were stationed at the tomb to ensure that no one tampered with the body – a story that only appears in Matthew’s account. When the women arrive, instead of seeing a man in white, there is now a great earthquake, and an actual angel of the Lord comes down from heaven, causing the guards to drop dead with fear. The angel gives an instruction to the women that is similar to Mark’s (“Go tell everyone; Jesus will meet you in Galilee”), but unlike in Mark’s account, the women actually follow the instructions, heading off to tell the disciples. On their way, however, Jesus actually meets them on the road, and they “clasped his feet and worshipped him.” Afterward, Jesus meets the disciples as promised in Galilee, giving them what is now known as “the Great Commission.”
Mary’s next appearance is in the aforementioned Luke chapter 8, where she is noted as being present as Jesus went around teaching, and that someone (not necessarily Jesus) had driven seven demons out of her. After that, she is absent again until the resurrection (Luke mentions only that “the women” who had followed Jesus were there at the crucifixion – one would assume Mary was included in this). For Luke, Mary and the others are once again heading to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. For the first time, the women actually see for themselves that the tomb is empty – in both Mark and Matthew’s accounts, the women never walk in to see the body missing. After this, two angels appear instead of one, and there is no accompanying earthquake. Their speech to the women is different from that of Matthew and Mark, and there is no instruction to go tell anyone. The women, however, do head straight off to tell the disciples – with no subsequent meeting of Jesus on the road, as we find in Matthew. The disciples don’t believe the women’s story, and Peter goes to see for himself. Mary and the other women are not mentioned again after this.
Mary’s final appearance in the Bible comes in the book of John. John agrees with the other three writers that Mary and the other women were present at the crucifixion; however, there is no mention of them necessarily seeing the burial place. On Easter Sunday, Mary goes by herself, instead of with other women, to the tomb. John does not tell us why she went. When she arrives, there are no angels or earthquakes, but Mary simply sees that the stone has been rolled away. She does not look inside, but immediately runs to tell the disciples.
After Peter and the unnamed disciple see the empty tomb for themselves, they go back home, leaving Mary there at the tomb, crying. At this point, two angels appear, asking her why she is crying. “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him,” is her famous response. At that moment, Jesus appears to her, but she mistakes him for the gardener. She assures the gardener that if he knows where they’ve put Jesus’ body, she’ll go and retrieve it. Jesus then says her name, and she realizes it who it is. Jesus, however, instructs her not to touch him (unlike the scene in Matthew, where Mary and the other women clasp Jesus’ feet when they meet him on the road). After this, she goes back to the disciples and tells them that she has seen the resurrected Jesus.
And that’s the last we hear in the New Testament of Mary Magdalene.
From these accounts, we can take only a very few things about Mary.
1. She was a follower of Jesus who, among other things, “cared for his needs.” This is probably a way of saying that she and the other women helped to finance his ministry. If true, then she was a woman of financial means.
2. She had demons driven out of her. We can take this one of three ways: A) it is a 1st century legend born from ignorance about illness or prejudice against women; B) Mary had a legitimate illness (such as epilepsy or porphyria) which she overcame, and was thus said to have been cured of demon-possession; or C) we can take it as a literally true statement – Mary had literal demons inside her, which someone exorcised. Either way, beyond Luke’s parenthetical statement, we know nothing of the circumstances surrounding Mary’s demon possession, or who cured her.
3. Mary was present at the crucifixion, and may have witnessed the burial of Jesus. All four Gospels agree that Mary and the other women were at the crucifixion. This is significant not only because all the Gospels agree (often a rarity, especially in the crucifixion and resurrection stories), but also because the disciples were not present. It was clearly well-remembered in the Christian community that the male disciples had fled and abandoned Jesus. His female followers, however, stayed by his side. This would not have been a happy thing to admit – that the women, who were second class citizens, were more faithful than the men – so it seems likely to be historically accurate.
4. Mary went to the tomb on Easter Sunday, perhaps to anoint Jesus’ body, or perhaps simply to check on the tomb. Again, all the Gospels agree on Mary’s presence on Easter Sunday, implying that whatever the resurrection was (physical or metaphorical), Mary and the other women were at the center of it. This, of course, has dramatic theological implications that are beyond the scope of this particular essay.
5. Mary, along with other women, was the first to discover the resurrection, and may have been the first to see Jesus in resurrected form. Again, this has dramatic theological implications that I won’t go into here.
Based on these things, consider again what the Facebook quiz had to say about Mary Magdalene:
She was forgiven much & loved much, and you certainly love much! You are a passionate person, who loves God & life. You have a tendency to count your blessings and be very grateful, even in small things. You are an overcomer, and will not allow any life circumstances to hold you down.
1. She was forgiven much and loved much. Nothing in the Bible would support the idea that Mary was any more “forgiven” or any more “loved” than anyone else. Medieval theology suggested Mary was a prostitute, which is in no way supported by the earliest texts, and this, no doubt, is where the idea comes from in modern Christian circles that Mary was somehow “forgiven much.”
2. Mary was a passionate person, who loved God and life. Mary’s crying scene in the Gospel of John might support the claim that Mary was “passionate,” but such a claim is tenuous at best. “A weak-willed woman” would probably make more sense in the 1st century context. Otherwise, there is no evidence to suggest that she loved God and life any more than anyone else.
3. Mary counted her blessings and was very grateful even in small things. Again, nothing really exists in the Biblical text to support this as a description of Mary Magdalene. It’s simply an idea that seems like a pretty way for a good Christian woman to act.
4. Mary was someone who overcame adversity and would not allow life circumstances to hold her down. This is perhaps the only thing in the quiz that might be linked to something in the text. While I think that this impression of Mary comes, again, primarily from the medieval idea that Mary was a prostitute-turned-Christian, one could argue that overcoming demon possession (whether that should be understood as a physical illness or an actual spiritual attack) indicates that Mary indeed overcame adversity and bettered herself. The problem, of course, is that we have only one source for this demon possession story – the parenthetical remark that Luke makes in chapter 8. No other Biblical writer says anything about Mary having been cured of demon possession, even though this seems like a rather important nugget to leave out.
All in all, it seems apparent to me that what Christians commonly suppose about Mary Magdalene comes more from Church imagination rather than from the New Testament. In the New Testament, there is very little we can know about Mary, with the primary things being that she was a close follower of Jesus who may have been financially sound, she was somehow intricately involved in whatever the resurrection was, and she may have overcome a serious illness earlier in life.
Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Mary Magdalene is that she – along with Jesus’ other female followers – did not abandon him at his crucifixion, like his male disciples did. This sends me the message that Mary may have been a woman of great devotion, fearlessness, and faith.
Ironically, yet not surprisingly, none of these traits are included in the Facebook quiz’s explanation of what Mary Magdalene was like.
The explanations given with these findings are curious. Consider, for instance, what is said about Mary Magdalene:
She was forgiven much & loved much, and you certainly love much! You are a passionate person, who loves God & life. You have a tendency to count your blessings and be very grateful, even in small things. You are an overcomer, and will not allow any life circumstances to hold you down.
This, naturally, caused me to wonder just where the authors of this quiz were coming up with their information. What, in fact, can we actually know about the prominent women of the Bible?
Because an in-depth look at the prominent women of the Bible could take up a whole book, I will instead focus in this essay on Mary Magdalene, since together with Mary the mother of Jesus, she is the most prominent woman in the New Testament.
MARY MAGDALENE
Mary Magdalene appears exactly 13 times in the New Testament, with all occurrences happening in the four Gospels. Never is she mentioned in any other New Testament writing. In the Gospels, she appears almost exclusively in the death, burial, and resurrection accounts. In only one place is she ever mentioned being present during Jesus’ actual life ministry – that comes to us in Luke chapter 8, where Luke mentions that she had “seven demons” driven out of her (although Luke doesn’t say by whom) and that she was present there during Jesus’ teachings.
There are no scenes in the Bible that depict the living Jesus ever actually interacting with Mary. Mary’s interactions with Jesus are exclusively with the resurrected Jesus – and that only happens in one account.
Mary enters the Christian canon in the Gospel of Mark, written around 70 C.E., or 40 years after Jesus’ death. Mark mentions that she and other women were present at the crucifixion, and that this group of women were followers of Jesus who “cared for his needs.” The writer tells us that Mary and the other women saw where Jesus was buried, and then later went to the tomb to anoint his body. While there, they were met by a “man in white” who announced the resurrection to them, instructing them to go and tell the others that Jesus would meet up with them in Galilee. Mary and the others, however, are scared and instead “said nothing to anyone.” Mark’s Gospel actually ends right there, without any appearances of the risen Jesus to anyone.
Mary next appears, chronologically, in the book of Matthew. Using Mark as a source, Matthew simply repeats Mark’s assertion that Mary Magdalene and the others were followers who cared for Jesus’ needs and who were present at the crucifixion and then saw the burial.
However, Matthew veers from Mark’s account of Mary’s actions on Easter Sunday. Instead of coming to anoint Jesus’ body, Mary and the other women are simply coming to “look at the tomb,” as though to check up on it. This fits with Matthew’s account of the guards who were stationed at the tomb to ensure that no one tampered with the body – a story that only appears in Matthew’s account. When the women arrive, instead of seeing a man in white, there is now a great earthquake, and an actual angel of the Lord comes down from heaven, causing the guards to drop dead with fear. The angel gives an instruction to the women that is similar to Mark’s (“Go tell everyone; Jesus will meet you in Galilee”), but unlike in Mark’s account, the women actually follow the instructions, heading off to tell the disciples. On their way, however, Jesus actually meets them on the road, and they “clasped his feet and worshipped him.” Afterward, Jesus meets the disciples as promised in Galilee, giving them what is now known as “the Great Commission.”
Mary’s next appearance is in the aforementioned Luke chapter 8, where she is noted as being present as Jesus went around teaching, and that someone (not necessarily Jesus) had driven seven demons out of her. After that, she is absent again until the resurrection (Luke mentions only that “the women” who had followed Jesus were there at the crucifixion – one would assume Mary was included in this). For Luke, Mary and the others are once again heading to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. For the first time, the women actually see for themselves that the tomb is empty – in both Mark and Matthew’s accounts, the women never walk in to see the body missing. After this, two angels appear instead of one, and there is no accompanying earthquake. Their speech to the women is different from that of Matthew and Mark, and there is no instruction to go tell anyone. The women, however, do head straight off to tell the disciples – with no subsequent meeting of Jesus on the road, as we find in Matthew. The disciples don’t believe the women’s story, and Peter goes to see for himself. Mary and the other women are not mentioned again after this.
Mary’s final appearance in the Bible comes in the book of John. John agrees with the other three writers that Mary and the other women were present at the crucifixion; however, there is no mention of them necessarily seeing the burial place. On Easter Sunday, Mary goes by herself, instead of with other women, to the tomb. John does not tell us why she went. When she arrives, there are no angels or earthquakes, but Mary simply sees that the stone has been rolled away. She does not look inside, but immediately runs to tell the disciples.
After Peter and the unnamed disciple see the empty tomb for themselves, they go back home, leaving Mary there at the tomb, crying. At this point, two angels appear, asking her why she is crying. “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him,” is her famous response. At that moment, Jesus appears to her, but she mistakes him for the gardener. She assures the gardener that if he knows where they’ve put Jesus’ body, she’ll go and retrieve it. Jesus then says her name, and she realizes it who it is. Jesus, however, instructs her not to touch him (unlike the scene in Matthew, where Mary and the other women clasp Jesus’ feet when they meet him on the road). After this, she goes back to the disciples and tells them that she has seen the resurrected Jesus.
And that’s the last we hear in the New Testament of Mary Magdalene.
From these accounts, we can take only a very few things about Mary.
1. She was a follower of Jesus who, among other things, “cared for his needs.” This is probably a way of saying that she and the other women helped to finance his ministry. If true, then she was a woman of financial means.
2. She had demons driven out of her. We can take this one of three ways: A) it is a 1st century legend born from ignorance about illness or prejudice against women; B) Mary had a legitimate illness (such as epilepsy or porphyria) which she overcame, and was thus said to have been cured of demon-possession; or C) we can take it as a literally true statement – Mary had literal demons inside her, which someone exorcised. Either way, beyond Luke’s parenthetical statement, we know nothing of the circumstances surrounding Mary’s demon possession, or who cured her.
3. Mary was present at the crucifixion, and may have witnessed the burial of Jesus. All four Gospels agree that Mary and the other women were at the crucifixion. This is significant not only because all the Gospels agree (often a rarity, especially in the crucifixion and resurrection stories), but also because the disciples were not present. It was clearly well-remembered in the Christian community that the male disciples had fled and abandoned Jesus. His female followers, however, stayed by his side. This would not have been a happy thing to admit – that the women, who were second class citizens, were more faithful than the men – so it seems likely to be historically accurate.
4. Mary went to the tomb on Easter Sunday, perhaps to anoint Jesus’ body, or perhaps simply to check on the tomb. Again, all the Gospels agree on Mary’s presence on Easter Sunday, implying that whatever the resurrection was (physical or metaphorical), Mary and the other women were at the center of it. This, of course, has dramatic theological implications that are beyond the scope of this particular essay.
5. Mary, along with other women, was the first to discover the resurrection, and may have been the first to see Jesus in resurrected form. Again, this has dramatic theological implications that I won’t go into here.
Based on these things, consider again what the Facebook quiz had to say about Mary Magdalene:
She was forgiven much & loved much, and you certainly love much! You are a passionate person, who loves God & life. You have a tendency to count your blessings and be very grateful, even in small things. You are an overcomer, and will not allow any life circumstances to hold you down.
1. She was forgiven much and loved much. Nothing in the Bible would support the idea that Mary was any more “forgiven” or any more “loved” than anyone else. Medieval theology suggested Mary was a prostitute, which is in no way supported by the earliest texts, and this, no doubt, is where the idea comes from in modern Christian circles that Mary was somehow “forgiven much.”
2. Mary was a passionate person, who loved God and life. Mary’s crying scene in the Gospel of John might support the claim that Mary was “passionate,” but such a claim is tenuous at best. “A weak-willed woman” would probably make more sense in the 1st century context. Otherwise, there is no evidence to suggest that she loved God and life any more than anyone else.
3. Mary counted her blessings and was very grateful even in small things. Again, nothing really exists in the Biblical text to support this as a description of Mary Magdalene. It’s simply an idea that seems like a pretty way for a good Christian woman to act.
4. Mary was someone who overcame adversity and would not allow life circumstances to hold her down. This is perhaps the only thing in the quiz that might be linked to something in the text. While I think that this impression of Mary comes, again, primarily from the medieval idea that Mary was a prostitute-turned-Christian, one could argue that overcoming demon possession (whether that should be understood as a physical illness or an actual spiritual attack) indicates that Mary indeed overcame adversity and bettered herself. The problem, of course, is that we have only one source for this demon possession story – the parenthetical remark that Luke makes in chapter 8. No other Biblical writer says anything about Mary having been cured of demon possession, even though this seems like a rather important nugget to leave out.
All in all, it seems apparent to me that what Christians commonly suppose about Mary Magdalene comes more from Church imagination rather than from the New Testament. In the New Testament, there is very little we can know about Mary, with the primary things being that she was a close follower of Jesus who may have been financially sound, she was somehow intricately involved in whatever the resurrection was, and she may have overcome a serious illness earlier in life.
Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Mary Magdalene is that she – along with Jesus’ other female followers – did not abandon him at his crucifixion, like his male disciples did. This sends me the message that Mary may have been a woman of great devotion, fearlessness, and faith.
Ironically, yet not surprisingly, none of these traits are included in the Facebook quiz’s explanation of what Mary Magdalene was like.
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