2008-04-30

Resurrection: more responses to Bishop Wright’s study

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by Neil Godfrey

I have no intention of committing myself to a chapter by chapter detailed response to Durham Bishop N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God as I did for Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, but since Wright has (at least in discussions with me) been touted as a touchstone of scholarly authority among some fundamentalists, I can’t help but make periodic observations about his tomes, if only to hopefully leave a seed in minds of some that will one day germinate genuinely independent and honest questioning. (I’ll collate my posts that have some commentary on Wright’s works in my blog’s Book Reviews and Notes category beneath the archives links.)

The so-called early-origin of the resurrection appearances “traditions”

Wright argues that the narratives of the resurrection appearances in our canonical gospels are based on traditions that were set and hardened well before the gospels came to be written. His reasons include:

  • the absence of Old Testament allusions in their narratives, in contrast to the OT riddled pre-resurrection narratives in the gospels — the argument is that the use of OT allusions were proclivities of the gospel authors, but each gospel author relied on transplanting much older traditions when it came to the resurrection scenes
  • the differences among the respective resurrection accounts do not reflect theological differences and arguments found among the later church, so variant theological dispositions of the gospel authors cannot explain their narrative differences
  • the different gospel accounts do not betray any textual or narrative interdependence
  • I will include here Wright’s reasons for thinking it noteworthy that the gospel authors did not describe the resurrected Jesus as a shining resplendent star or such — this fact supposedly demonstrates that the early “traditions” were based on some real historical experience

These Wright arguments are by no means conclusive. They are certainly debatable, even wrong.

I’m sure more can be added to any of my comments on these below. And maybe I have missed some relevant point among Wright’s 800 pages. I’m sure someone will let me know.

Old Testament allusions in the resurrection narratives

The Gospel of Mark does not have a resurrection appearance narrative. The verses 9-20 of its final chapter are well recognized as late additions by scribes who were dissatisfied with their copies of the original all ending abruptly with the audiences’ attention directed to focus on a conclusion of silence and fear. (One might compare the conclusion of the Aeneid, even the Primary History and the Elijah-Elisha Cycle, but each of those is, well, . . . “another story”.)

The Gospel of Matthew‘s narrative of Jesus’ appearance after his resurrection is most clearly embedded in Old Testament allusion. While Dale Allison (The New Moses, A Matthean Typology) discusses the tendency of scholarship of his day to deny special Mosaic comparisons in Matthew (partly a reaction against the Straussian challenges it posed to the historicity of the gospel narrative), he nonetheless alerts us to specific stories and redaction in Matthew that demonstrably link Jesus to OT and other Jewish legendary tales about Moses. While Matthew’s gospel does not depict Jesus as a Moses figure himself, it does make use of comparisons with Moses traditions in its presentation of Jesus:

  • the circumstances of his birth, with the slaughter of the infants and his divinely orchestrated escape, is undoubtedly intended to bring comparisons with Moses to mind from the beginning of the gospel
  • redactional details (in comparison with the gospels of Mark and Luke) in Matthew’s telling of Jesus crossing the water and going into the wilderness to spend “forty days and nights” fasting
  • the Sermon on the Mount, with its overt comparisons to Mosaic law, hits many readers as a patent transvaluing of Moses delivering the law to Israel from Mount Sinai
  • Allison cites 12 points within Matthew 11:25-30 resonating with details of Moses’ unique character, and his special relationship with God and Israel
  • Jesus’ specifically transvalues details of Moses in the Matthean mountain transfiguration scene
  • Jesus’ final appearance, like that of Moses, is on a mountain (Deut. 32:48-50 — also, along with associated Jewish legends of this passage, a tie back to the temptation in the wilderness). Like Moses at his end, he commissions his successors (Deut 31:6-9); and as with the successor of Moses, the successors of Jesus are instructed to go out faithfully and are promised they will never be forsaken (Joshua 1:1-9).

The Gospel of Luke likewise draws on OT passages from which to construct at least one of its resurrection appearances. I have discussed these in an earlier post. Some of the key passages from there:

The Road to Emmaus story contains easily recognizable literary motifs associated with similar stories in Genesis and Judges . . . .

In Genesis Abraham sees three strangers on the road and exercises hospitality by inviting them in to eat with him; it emerges in the course of the narrative that the three strangers were angelic messengers, and one is even named “the Lord” (Genesis 18). Then two of those same strangers travel to Sodom where Lot has to work to persuade them to stay at his place before continuing their journey. It is late in the day, as in the Emmaus road story. He is unaware of their identity until later in the narrative (Genesis 19). Joshua also encountered a stranger he assumed was a fellow mortal at first but who went on to reveal himself as a divine being (Joshua 5:13-15).

When Jacob was travelling the sun set (early Jewish legends explained the pointed reference in Genesis 28:11 by saying God had caused it to set prematurely to force Jacob to stop there) and he had a dream that he was in the presence of God. God spoke to him there. And the name of the place was originally known as Luz — in the Septuagint it is Oulammaus. In the Codex Bezae this is the name used for Emmaus in Luke 24. In an early reading of Luke (perhaps the earliest) the Emmaus road revelation happened at the same place that Jacob dreamed he was visited by God.

In Judges we read about an unnamed woman who meets a “man of God”, but whom the audience knows is an angelic messenger. Her husband is named, Manoah, and he prays to God to send the same man again but this time “to us” — both of them. So God sent him again but only to his unnamed partner. She had to call Manoah to meet him. The couple, Manoah and his wife, press the “man of God” who speaks to them of divine promises to come in and stay with them in their house. A sacrifice is offered and the “man of God” reveals his true identity by disappearing before their eyes carried up into heaven by the flames and smoke of the sacrifice. (Judges 13)

This story in Judges contains many of the motifs used in Luke 24:

a. Two people receive a visit from a supernatural being.

b. Only one of the two persons is named. How readers would love to know the name of the both – in both stories. The authors of both are in some way playing with their readers’ curiosity. (Readers are told the names of both parties in all other stories where an angel comes to announce a special birth.)

c. The supernatural being speaks of divine plans and knowledge.

d. The couple invite this stranger to stay with them and eat.

e. A meal or sacrifice is begun.

f. Before the stranger eats he miraculously vanishes before the couple’s eyes

g. By witnessing this disappearing trick the couple are made aware of the identity of their guest

h. The couple speak to each other about their experience and what they have just seen and express their emotional responses.

Conclusion: It is at the very least by no means certain that at least the authors of Matthew and Luke did not construct huge chunks of their resurrection appearance scenes out of OT references.

These posts always take longer than I anticipate. Will have to discuss the other points later.


2008-04-27

Resurrection and Monotheism, and an odd case for uniqueness

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by Neil Godfrey

Note 30th May: Currently updating my notes on Wright’s resurrection arguments here.

My previous post was a jotting down of some points I had found of interest in Martin West’s chapter explaining how the distance between monotheism and polytheism was very narrow indeed. It is not at all difficult to imagine how monotheism gradually evolved from polytheism.

Since I am currently perusing sections of Durham bishop N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God, and it is impossible to avoid noticing the sharpest contrast between styles of arguments of West and Wright. Continue reading “Resurrection and Monotheism, and an odd case for uniqueness”


Linking the women’s, demons’ and storm’s silence in Mark gospel

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by Neil Godfrey

Rambling ruminations follow.

Mark’s gospel opens with a series of commands of Jesus compelling demons to be quiet and not to proclaim his identity: 1:25; 1:34; 3:12.

But Jesus does not have the power to hold a healed leper to silence about him: 1:44-45.

Jesus can also compel a storm to be silent: 4:39.

He can command a man he has just liberated from possession by demons to go and preach in Decapolis (5:19), and he gave his twelve disciples power over demons and the power to preach also, at least for a time (6:7-13).

Jesus had the power to heal a man who had a spirit that rendered him unable to speak or hear: 7:35.

But he did not have the power to make him or his friends silent once he was freed from that spirit: 7:36.

After the disciples proved to be repeatedly faithless and incorrigibly hard-hearted, as evidenced by their fear and incomprehension (4:40; 6:49-50; 8:17), Jesus called their leader Satan, and had the power to command them to be silent, too: 8:33; 9:9-10.

The disciples are pointedly said to have been without power over a mute spirit. Only Jesus had power to release a victim from a mute spirit: 9:17-29.

All the male disciples ended their careers having “stumbled” and failed, their fear once again demonstrating their faithlessness (14:27). That left the women. They too fearfully — that is, faithlessly — fled at the end. The young man in the tomb had no power to make them speak. (He was just as much a young man as the young man who earlier fled naked — not an angel with powers on behalf of Jesus.)

Is this where the stories of possession by mute demons have been leading us? Is what has been happening in the demon world, where Jesus has been establishing a controlling mastery over demons and the very elements of nature, being mirrored in the fates of followers and would-be followers? The demons have been silenced, and so have the incorrigibly fearful and faithless.

The spirit of fear and mute spirits can only be removed by Jesus, at least if the seed has fallen in good soil. And the women were no better soil than the men had been: that the women were looking for a corpse and worrying about a sealed tomb was to the author of the Gospel of Mark a sign of unbelief, not commendable loyalty as it was in later gospel versions (Matthew, Luke, John).

Only Jesus has the power to make the dumb speak. And Jesus has moved on, as was his habit after healing people and silencing demons, even when others were (belatedly?) looking for him — 1:37-38.

And the young man also said he would be going before his erstwhile disciples into Galilee. Should we be reminded of how twice before Jesus was passing by them. The first time they followed him (1:16; 2:14); but on a later occasion when he was passing by/as if to be going before them the disciples only “caught up” with him after mistaking him for a ghost (6:48-49). Had it not been for their fearful cries at that point they would have missed him altogether way back then. Since there is little in the narrative to suggest that the disciples improved their faith and understanding between then and Gethsemane we can fairly conclude that the final announcement that Jesus is going before the twelve disciples to Galilee will not mean they catch up with each other at all.

But there are a couple of passages where the author does not tell us how others responded to Jesus’ command to be silent: 5:43 (after healing Jairus’s daughter) and 8:26 (after healing the blind man). As with so many other passages in Mark we are left with tantalizing ambiguity. It is easy to assume that those commanded remained silent, but elsewhere the author appears to be stating a general recurring pattern when he explains that the more Jesus commanded silence the more they spoke out. I have no idea of those passages poke holes in my above interpretation of the women’s silence or if they are the answers to another question I know nothing about.


2008-04-19

Why did no-one edit gospel gaffes about the Second Coming?

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by Neil Godfrey

When prophecies of the end fail those who placed their hopes in them commonly attempt to explain and understand differently what they once expected to happen. When Christ failed to return to earth between March 1843 and March 1844, the schedule was re-written as April 1844. When that passed, it was revised again to October that year. After Christ failed to show up the third time, other groups insisted the date was right but they had misunderstood the event it marked: Seventh Day Adventists reinterpreted the event to a heavenly venue, unseen here below; Bahais claimed the advent happened in the form of Bab beginning his public teaching in Iran at that time. But many disappointed Millerites, not least Miller himself, turned their backs on specific event-based steps in a timetable and opted for the more general “Be ready; we don’t know when; he could come any time; we believe it will be in our life-time, but if not . . . .”

The question

Our earliest gospels are clear that Jesus promised an event of cosmic import in which he would “be seen” on earth again within the lifetime of his own generation. Thus in Matthew 24 we read:

Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately . . . And Jesus answered and said to them . . .

Therefore when you see the Abomination of Desolation, spoken by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place . . . then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been seen since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be . . . Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his elect . . .

Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things are fulfilled. . . . Therefore you . . . be ready, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour when you do not expect him.

Today popular understandings and many fundamentalist teachings find various ways to “see” subtle nuances in the text to enable them to apply Jesus’ promise to today’s generation. They cannot change the text, so they must find ways to read the text to remove its meaning from its original context and make it relevant to subsequent generations. The problem they face when they do this is that they can only hope to find tentative re-readings and subtleties in the hope of convincing themselves.

But the earliest transmitters of our gospels faced no such quandary. Even if the original authors did write within the life-times of Jesus’ generation, and had fully expected Jesus to swoop down visibly from heaven and bring fiery judgment to the entire world in their own time, those custodians of their narratives who soon followed them and succeeded that generation were living with the proof that such a prophecy had failed. Why is there no evidence that they attempted to re-write or re-interpret the literal import of the prophecy?

It took a long time after the gospels were first written before they achieved a sacred enough status to forbid copyists from re-writing or revising any awkward bits in them. When “Matthew” re-wrote “Mark”, for example, the opening account of John the Baptist was ruffled with a few extra lines to find a way for both John and Jesus to apologize to readers for letting the superior be baptized by the inferior:

Compare Mark 1:9

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

with Matthew 3:12-15

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John . . . to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, ‘I have need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me?’ But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he allowed him.

But even within the one gospel we find evidence in the different manuscripts of attempts by various editors to re-write passages that were not congenial to someone’s theology, doctrinal tastes or were thought to be simply inaccurate:

  • Thus in Mark 10:19 some copyists simply dropped the “Do not defraud” command from Jesus’ citation from the Ten Commandments, presumably because it is not one of the Ten. The authors of Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels likewise changed Mark’s original.
  • Not all scribes liked the text of Mark that claimed Jesus was a carpenter (Mark 6:3) so some changed it to read that he was thought to be the son of a carpenter. The church father Origen indicates that he did not know the passage familiar to most of us declaring that Jesus was a carpenter.
  • Similar variation in the texts surrounds the problematic circuitous itinerary of Jesus in Mark 7:31.

Most famously, we have among the manuscripts 4 different endings of the Gospel of Mark:

  1. And they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus)
  2. And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. (Bobiensis . . . )
  3. Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping. And when they heard that He was alive, and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. And after that, He appeared in a different form to two of them, while they were walking along on their way to the country. And they went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either. And afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. “And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. (Many manuscripts underpinning the Textus Receptus)
  4. And they excused themselves, saying, “This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not allow the truth and power of God to prevail over the unclean things of the spirits [or: does not allow what lies under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of God]. Therefore reveal thy righteousness now” — thus they spoke to Christ. And Christ replied to them, “The term of years of Satan’s power has been fulfilled, but other terrible things draw near. And for those who have sinned I was delivered over to death, that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness which is in heaven. (Washingtonianus)

So there is little doubt that the early texts of the gospels were not, well, engraved in stone by the finger of God. Early generations found it permissible to re-touch them here and there for perceived inaccuracies, embarrassments, theological disagreements.

There was a time when there was time to likewise edit the prophecy of Jesus to make it less necessary to tax the interpretive ingenuities of subsequent generations.

Yet throughout the synoptic gospels and their textual variants the prophecy that Jesus is to be seen coming in judgment within the life-time of his original disciples does appear to be engraved in stone. There is no evidence of embarrassment attached to it during its transmission even after the first generation had passed away. (The Gospel of John’s complete omission of it is not evidence of embarrassment over its failure, as discussed below.)

The answer

They answer is, I believe, not novel, but not popular either. Yet the question raised above adds weight to its certainty.

The authors of the synoptics understood that they were adapting metaphors from their Jewish sources to an historical event that did happen within the lifespan of the generation of Jesus. There was no embarrassment over prophetic failure. They were writing in apocalyptic language about an historically apocalyptic event — the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of its Temple. That is, the end of the old Jewish kingdom that had once been God’s, leaving the followers of Christ free to feel they had been vindicated as the new kingdom of God.

The apocalyptic signs Jesus’ disciples are told to expect are the same as used by earlier prophets to describe the historical fall of Babylon to invading armies:

The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. . . . For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine . . . . And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, . . . will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. (Isa. 13:1, 10, 19)

The author was writing from a time when Babylon was lying in ruins and describing in typical Jewish apocalyptic metaphors the fall and end of that great city-state and kingdom.

The same author describes the fall of other nations before imperial invasion in similar apocalyptic metaphors:

And the mountains shall be melted with their blood. All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; all their host shall fall down as a leaf falls from the vine . . . (Isa. 34:3-4)

Another author uses the same metaphors to announce a historical judgment on Egypt:

Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him . . . When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens and make its stars dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. . . . (Ezek. 32:2, 7)

Joel describes an earlier military conquest of Israel in the same language:

The heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. (Joel 2:10).

This is the Day of the Lord, when God is said to stand in Jerusalem itself:

For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord will also roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem . . . (Joel 3:14-15).

The image is metaphorical. The author does not visualize God literally standing on earth, or his voice being literally heard.

The author of Isaiah 52 also spoke of a generation, his own, seeing God at the time of the restoration of Israel (God’s “Servant” nation) under the Persians:

The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations (Isa. 52:10)

The appearance of God is apocalyptic, not literal, imagery.

David likewise wrote that he saw God descend to earth to rescue him out of threatening waters. No-one takes his poetry literally:

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook . . . He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet. He rode upon a cherub, and flew; and he was seen upon the wings of wind. . . . He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. . . . (2 Samuel 22: 8, 10-11, 17).

The prophecy put into the mouth of Jesus by the gospel authors described the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of its Temple. This was the end of a world for most Jews at that time. A traumatic life-changing experience can result in an individual feeling as if his entire known world has vanished, as if he no longer has ground to walk on, or the sky above that he had known all his life to cover him. That, at least, is how I know I felt some years ago when passing through such a trauma. Apocalyptic language seemed to be the most apt way to describe the experience. It was real, if not literal, enough, to me. No doubt seeing ones world, one’s nation, proud capital city, the monumental centre and foundation of one’s faith, all crumble and be destroyed in blood by invading armies, brings apocalyptic imagery and interpretations most readily to mind.

Jesus was seen returning in judgment upon the city that had crucified him and persecuted his followers. He was seen coming down to that city in the Roman armies just as surely as God had been seen coming down in historical acts of vengeance by earlier prophets, including David.

The Gospel of John’s omission of the prophecy

It is significant, furthermore, to note that among early Christians, when the canonical gospels were still being written, it is clear that this prophecy of the cosmic second coming of Christ represented an alternative eschatological belief.

If we accept the arguments of those scholars that the author of the Gospel of John knew the Gospel of Mark, then we find that this author chose to deliberately omits the prophecy altogether. If he did not know the synoptics, then he knew many of the “traditions” that found their way into the synoptics, yet not this end-time prophecy of Jesus. Either way, there can be little doubt that he would have found such a prophecy pointless because he disagreed with its fundamental doctrinal assumptions. Rather than judgment coming upon the world and the gathering of the saints all happening in a future cosmic event, these things befell the world from the moment Jesus was crucified:

Now is the judgment of the world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. (John 12:31-32)

Whether or not this author knew Mark, he holds to a theology that renders Mark’s prophecy of end times redundant. It is not a bed-rock of Christian faith like the crucifixion is, however that be interpreted, but an optional extra. You are free to wear it if it fits. If the authors of the synoptic gospels saw the replacement of the earthly Jerusalem by the spiritual kingdom of God as fulfilled in 70 c.e., John saw its complete fulfilment 40 years earlier.

The irony

It is ironical that many Christians who read Jesus’ prophecy of his “second coming” literally also stress the importance of understanding Jewish as opposed to Greek or gentile thought when interpreting the Bible, yet fail to do so themselves in this instance.


2008-04-10

Some reasons to question the authorship of Galatians

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by Neil Godfrey

Herman Detering in The Falsified Paul [link downloads a 2 MB PDF file] lists a series of brief points to alert readers to “some questions and problems which could give a moment’s pause even for those who until now have never doubted the authenticity of all the Pauline writings.” (p.54) I have singled out those that apply (though not exclusively) to the letter to Galatians, generally taken as indisputably by Paul.

Reason 1: The introductory description of the author Continue reading “Some reasons to question the authorship of Galatians”


2008-04-05

The post 70 construction of Jesus’ tomb

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by Neil Godfrey

The earliest narrative involving the tomb of Jesus constructs that tomb from images and scenarios that suggest the author was looking back on the 70 c.e. destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Firstly, in none of the writings of Paul, generally dated well before 70 c.e., is there any mention of a tomb of Jesus. Even when Paul is attempting to advance his most persuasive arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, he does not even hint at any knowledge of a tomb, empty or otherwise.

Secondly, Crossan et al have pointed out that the hard realities of ancient crucifixions make the most likely historical scenario one where Jesus’ body was left to scavenging animals once (if) removed from the cross. (The character Joseph of Arimathea is a literary invention to ease the pain of this reality and/or develop another prophetic fulfilment scene.) This historical fact about crucifixions and the crude methods of Roman “justice” in relation to perceived troublemakers in Palestine make sense of Paul’s silence over a tomb.

The image of the destroyed Temple

The first narrative of the tomb burial of Jesus is in Mark’s gospel. The metaphor that comes to the author’s mind as he writes is one that reminds him of the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. Isaiah, when speaking of an earlier destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, compared the Temple to a tomb hewn out of a rock:

Go . . . to Shebna who is over the house and say, . . . You have hewn a sepulchre here, as he who hews a sepulchre on high, who carves a tomb for himself in a rock . . . (Isaiah 22:15-16)

So Mark wrote:

And he [Joseph of Arimathea] laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock . . . (Mark 15:46)

The words for “hewn” in both the Greek Old Testament passage of Isaiah and Mark’s Gospel are variants of “latomenw”, and the same words for rock and tomb are also used. Given that the author of Mark’s gospel liberally constructs his entire Passion Narrative from allusions to OT passages, so the correspondence between Isaiah and Mark here is not likely to be coincidence.

The gospel author, it should further be noted, had this tomb scene in mind when he wrote his earlier narrative of the paralytic being lowered by 4 friends through the roof of the house to be healed by Jesus (Mark 2:1-12). There the place where Jesus was staying could not be accessed through the normal entrance because of the enormous crowd, and entry had to be gained by digging out the roof. Similarly with Jesus’ burial, the normal entrance to this place that had been dug out of the rock was blocked by a massive bolder. In both cases the one placed in this place rose up and miraculously walked through the main doorway.

So the gospel’s reference to the tomb being “hewn out of rock” is not an incidental aside, but an integral part of the image in the author’s mind.

And the origin of this image is its metaphorical use to describe the destroyed Temple of Jerusalem.

This was the origin of the earliest narrative image of the tomb of Jesus.

The image of Joshua’s captives in the cave

A few commentators have also suspected that the idea of the rock tomb for Jesus derived from the account in Joshua of the king of Jerusalem (with others) being “buried” in a cave, or at least sealed in the cave by rocks at its mouth, and then subsequently emerging alive from that cave, and being hung to die on a tree until sunset (Joshua 10:16-27).

Farrer raised the possibility that the author of Mark may have been drawing on the theology of Paul in order to make the link between these scenes in the Book of Joshua and the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

Before explaining that possible connection, it is worth recalling the tropes of dramatic reversals found throughout Mark’s gospel. One of these is the way the author portrays the crucifixion of Jesus in terms of a reverse Roman Triumphal march. Schmidt’s detailed argument for this can be read here. (One little detail not included by Schmidt is the description of Simon of Cyrene coming in out of the country. A third century c.e. Roman novel by Heliodorus speaks of those carrying the weapons used to make the sacrifice typically being brought in from and wearing the dress typical of the countryside.)

With the author’s penchant for ironic reversal with the way he plays on the Roman triumph to depict Jesus’ ironic victory on the cross, the possibility of a Pauline theological interpretation of the Joshua narrative comes more sharply into focus.

Colossians 2:14-15 (Colossians being one of the debated letters as to Pauline provenance) proclaims Jesus as making a public humiliating spectacle of spiritual enemies, of himself nailing them to the cross. Jesus’ crucifixion is seen as not a passive event but as an ironic action by Jesus crucifying all that stands against the people of God.

Given this theological understanding of the death of Jesus, it is less difficult to imagine an author reading a book of the namesake of Jesus (Joshua being the Hebrew, Jesus the Greek) conquering resoundingly the land of Canaan, tearing down city walls, enslaving or slaughtering the native population.

In Joshua 10 when Joshua/Jesus takes on the King of Jerusalem and his allies, there is a great sign in heaven (the sun stands still for a whole day). Similarly when Jesus is on the cross, there is a great sign in the heavens when darkness descends over the land for 3 hours at midday. (It is a miracle, not an eclipse, because it happens at the time of the full moon — the Passover.) Joshua/Jesus then orders the “burial” of his enemy king in the cave which is sealed with boulders, and then releases him, but only to hang him till sunset on a tree. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:13 that Jesus was hanged on the tree. And in Colossians we read that in doing so Jesus was hanging the things that were against the godly on that tree.

But why would an author even think of a book about a military conqueror of Canaan in the first place, if that is indeed what he did, when constructing his story of the death and resurrection of Jesus?

The Book of Joshua follows the death of Moses. The Moses cult had suddenly ended with the invasion of Palestine by the Romans and their destruction of the Temple in 70 c.e. Mark 13 looks towards Jesus (Joshua) coming in clouds to usher in a new Kingdom in place of the old. The apocalyptic imagery used there is the same as we read in the Old Testament when it speaks of God descending and destroying cities and armies. Was the Roman invasion seen by some as an act of God or Jesus, coming on clouds with thunder etc, to destroy his old kingdom and declare its replacement with a new spiritual kingdom?

Destroy this temple . . .

Mark declares that those who accused Jesus were false witnesses when they charged Jesus with challenging others to destroy the temple to see if he would rebuild it in 3 days. But the gospel of John holds that Jesus said just that. The reason Mark claimed that this charge was false needs to be seen in the context of the other sayings of Jesus in his gospel and in the way they were falsely interpreted by the disciples. Mark’s gospel mocks the understanding of those hearers of Jesus who could not distinguish the spiritual meaning from the physical images. The disciples are criticized for not understanding the miracle of the loaves was not about bread supplies. Similarly, the reason that the witnesses were making false testimony in regards to Jesus’ saying about the temple, was that they wrongly took his image literally, and not figuratively about his body.

But what is significant about this “false testimony” is that it appears to be yet one more image that can be added to the constellation of images used by the author to relate Jesus’ death and burial to war, conquest, Roman Triumphal marches and the destruction of the Temple.

Finally, it should be further noted that Mark’s gospel is clear that Jesus will be seen again by those in his generation when he comes in his power to judge Jerusalem (Mark 13:26; 14:62). The imagery, as commented above, is the same as that found in the Prophets and Psalms for God’s coming down to destroy kingdoms and cities and peoples. He is seen in the bloody judgment of his rod, his axe, his spear, . . . . that is, the armies he uses to do his work (c.f. Isaiah 10:15).

Post 70 c.e. construction of the tomb narrative

None of the above of course “proves” that the tomb story originated after the fall of Jerusalem. But the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple does undeniably provide a most plausible backdrop for the development of the story. Indeed, the whole gospel story itself fits such a time. The era of Moses as traditionally known was ended, or at least under severe challenge and questioning in the wake of the 70 c.e. destruction. How natural to turn to images that spoke of a resurrection, a transformation, a new start with a new Israel, from the ruins of the old! Out of the invasions of Rome could be fantasized transforming and hopeful images of another invasion by Joshua; after the end of Moses hope could be found in Joshua; and out of the ruins of the old Temple could rise a new Israel, a new people of God, led by Joshua/Jesus rising out of that metaphoric tomb.


2008-04-01

Luke denies an early (pre-70) date for the Gospel of Mark

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by Neil Godfrey

The gospel of Mark is said by some to have been written soon after the time of Jesus, possibly as early as the 50’s or even 40’s c.e. A significant part of this argument asserts that the events sequenced in the Little Apocalypse in each (Mark 13; Matthew 24) can be found in the historical events facing the church as early as that time. Luke’s gospel re-words this prophetic speech by Jesus in a way that informs readers that its author did not believe any of the events prophesied had happened so early. Firstly, a look at the sequence of events as found in the gospels of Mark and Matthew. . . .

Mark 13:6-8; Matthew 24:5-8 (all text references are hyperlinked)

The first prophetic event attributed to Jesus is that many deceivers would come in His name claiming “I am (Him).

Arguments for an early date for the recording of this in Mark’s gospel (the earliest written) say that this could have been fulfilled by Christian leaders boasting that Christ was speaking through them (Theissen). The Samaritan prophet who led a group up Mount Gerazim in search of Temple vessels according to Josephus, and the self-promoting claims of Simon Magus, are also tossed in as possible referents. This despite the fact that there is no evidence that either of these latter two made the sort of potentially deceitful claim touted by Jesus. The earliest evidence for what Simon Magus did say, Acts 8, in fact denies absolutely that he presented himself making his proclamations in the name of Jesus.

The next event are the wars, among both “kingdoms and nations (peoples/races)”

Early daters of Mark refer here to the Antipas-Nabatean war of 36-37 c.e. and rumours of war or at least intrigues involving more distant Parthians and Armenians. Greek-Jewish riots in Alexandria led to the Roman emperor Caligula sending legions to enforce the placement of his statue in the Jerusalem temple around 40 c.e. The only actual war then affecting Judea in any way at all was the Antipas-Nabatean war, but the other events can be talked up to create the impression of a more objective state of “wars and rumours of wars among kingdoms and nations” than everyone will feel comfortable accepting.

Next, earthquakes, famines, etc.

There was a major earthquake in Antioch/Syria in 37 c.e. Some have seen agrarian tax alleviation policies as signs of famines, although there could be other reasons for these. Occupying Roman legions, for example. Besides, does one earthquake to the north of Judea and several years old justify a claim that earthquakes (plural) point to Judea being under apocalyptic threat?

All of these are the beginning of sorrows; don’t fret; the end is not yet

Both gospels of Mark and Matthew make it clear that all of these things must first happen, but that readers should take them in their stride. They will be daily news when they happen and will not themselves be signs of the end.

Luke 21:8-11 follows the same sequence as found in Mark and Matthew above.

Luke changes direction

Comparing Luke 21:12 ; Mark 13:9-13; Matthew 24:9-13

Both Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels structure the sequence of events, along with notices of what must first happen, etc, to lead readers to understand that after the above events, persecution will fall upon the church. Not only persecution, but betrayals from within.

Don’t worry, what you see is not the sign you want to see, just be careful you are not deceived. Next: persecution follows. Now it gets serious for believers. More than simply be alert to avoid deception, they must now consider whether they can endure to the very end. That’s the message of the first two gospels.

But not Luke’s gospel. Luke changes the words of Jesus to say something else, to throw the whole sequence up into the air. And there would appear this author had a good reason for this change which I will come to.

Luke 21:12

But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you . . . (The English translation accurately enough reflects the Greek here.)

In other posts I have argued (or will argue) that our gospel of Luke was a redaction of an earlier gospel, redacted by the same who authored Acts (Tyson). However that may be, many accept some form of unity of authorship or redaction of Luke-Acts. The final author of Luke worked with Acts in mind. And Acts establishes a foundational history of the church that begins, first and foremost, with persecutions. Persecutions had to come first in the words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke.

So how does this impact on the dating of the gospel of Mark?

It establishes that the author of our gospel of Luke (and Acts) either did not know of, or rejected, the so-called historical fulfilments of the sequential events in the Little Apocalypse as found in the gospels of Mark and Matthew.

To the author of our Luke-Acts, the threat of mass deception of the faithful was still an event waiting to happen in the future, specifically after Paul departed Miletus and Ephesus for the final time (Acts 20:28-30).

In other words, the very first event Jesus warned about in the Little Apocalypse is still a future event as far as the author of Luke-Acts is concerned. It was an event that the author warned would begin from the time that the events in the Book of Acts draw to a close.

The author of the gospel of Luke, by changing the sequence of the prophetic events spoken by Jesus, in fact denied that any such events had been fulfilled until much closer to the time of the fall of Jerusalem, certainly after 60 c.e. He denied that Mark’s gospel was grounded in social and political events of the late 30’s and early 40’s c.e.

Other issues arising

This post has only touched on one sliver of one facet in relation to the whole question of the dating the gospels, and of questions arising from the various redactions of the Little Apocalypse. Perhaps I’ll touch on a few more in future post discussions — one sliver at a time.


2008-03-11

A slightly revised parable of the pounds for modern times

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by Neil Godfrey

Traveling through Thailand one cannot avoid the national focus on the Thai king as benefactor of the poor, the good shepherd of all his people. (Sound familiar to any of us raised in company of a religious tradition with Mid-Eastern roots?) So on a long drive back to Bangkok from a beach resort this evening I could not help but compare the wealth of royalty, multinationals, religious institutions (hidden in real estate and treasure troves of sacred trinkets and ornate architecture and statuary) and a relatively few locals with the mass of ordinary citizens eking out what seems to this new outsider to be surely very little more than subsistence wages.

I found it hard to relate to the arguments that (1) the multinational intruders sincerely believe that their operations are doing much more than tokenism in raising living standards, or that (2) the royal and its subsidiary establishments are moving mountains as fast as they possibly can. I still have a hard time swallowing the Dalai Lama’s giggling suggestion that a village without even public sanitation should raise funds for a Buddha statue or temple on some rationalization that made Jesus’ “you have the poor with you always” quip sound banal.

So what does my Western Christian tradition have to offer as an alternative?

A thought experiment started working itself out on my drive back to the home of my hosts. . . . . 

The New Testament is not alien to the thought of a central government or any rich company or person instituting a plan to assist in money creation. We all know the parables of the talents and pounds in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27. But those had to do with the rich man’s money and methods by which he utilized his employees or staff to make him even richer. And the poor timid bugger who did his best not to take any risks with losing someone else’s money got sent off to suffer death by torture.

But maybe with a little tweaking perhaps this antiquated Christian parable can still inspire some virtue.

My slightly tweaked parable for modern times:

What if the king in the parable, instead of distributing his money to his servants to see how much they could increase the royal coffers in his absence, opted rather to distribute a small portion to each and every citizen who had an idea how he/she could use the money to establish some enterprise that would make a better living for themselves and their friends and kin.

Then when the king returned he had his servants check how each recipient had done. Those who had done well with the money on behalf of themselves and their loved ones were offered reasonable terms by which they could repay the loan without interest. Those who had managed to improve their lot a little were offered more appropriate repayment terms. Those who had not managed to succeed with their hoped-for enterprises were offered consolations and best wishes that some time still not too distant they might still make good. Till that day, the topic of repayment was not even raised.

So the king would lose a few bucks in the short term. But balance that against the mushrooming prosperity and living standards within his kingdom, and the wealth that would inevitably still find its way to the royal coffers.

A morality parable for an alternative to a mercantilist / capitalist system that current Christianity appears to favour?


2008-02-18

“They pierced my hands and my feet”: Psalm 22 as a non-prophecy of the crucifixion

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by Neil Godfrey

It is an axiom among fundamentalists and even many mainstream conservative Christians that Psalm 22 contains an incontrovertible prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus, and that the key verse establishing this “fact” is the one that reads: “They pierced my hands and my feet” — Psalm 22:16

There is no doubt that two of the gospel authors took the first verse of this Psalm — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — and placed it in the mouth of Jesus on the cross. All four gospels used the 18th verse too, which says, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” And one drew on the mocking: “All those who see me laugh me to scorn . . . saying, He trusted in the Lord, let him rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him!” (22:7-8 )

All of these verses are found in the gospels as part of the crucifixion scene:

And when they crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them . . . . (Mark 15:24; Matt 27:35; Luke 23:34; John 19:24)

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “. . . . My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46)

Likewise the chief priests, also mocking with the scribes and elders, said . . . . “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him, . . . .” (Matt. 27:41-43)

Is it not strange that the verse in that same Psalm that says “they pierced my hands and my feet” should not be used at all in any of the gospels? This verse, after all, is the one singular verse that would establish that it is speaking, at the very least metaphorically, of a crucifixion. Yet it is totally absent from the gospels. There is not even any narrative detail that makes special mention of nails going through the hands and feet of Jesus at the time he is being crucified. (The closest any gospel comes to this is at the time of the resurrection when Thomas refers to nail-prints in Jesus’ hands. But there is no whiff of allusion to the Psalm.)

The rest of Psalm 22

But one might as well ask, Is it not strange that the Psalm spoke of hands and feet being pierced (presumably a crucifixion image) at all? Such a verse does not sit well at all with the rest of the Psalm. The psalmist begins with a cry to God and a complaint that he has been uttering that cry for days and nights without an answer:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? . . . . I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent. (22:1-2)

Jesus was not on the cross for days and nights, and the Gospel of Luke informs us that God certainly heard the prayer Jesus uttered the previous night. He sent an angel to help bolster his courage. Yet this Psalm opens with a cry that is the desperation felt from having no answer for, at the very least, a whole day and night.

This cannot be reconciled with the crucifixion scene of the gospels.

Then there is the verse that says the Psalmist was attached to God from the time of his birth.

From my mother’s womb you have been my God (22:10)

That surely must raise some eyebrows among those who believe that Jesus was, and knew he was, part of the Godhead from eternity. But it gets worse for those who assume this Psalm is depicting a man on a cross:

Be not far from me, for trouble is near . . . (22:11)

Um, yes. A person nailed to a wooden stake to die a slow agonizing death cries out, “I see trouble up ahead”?? Now that is an optimist. Always thinking that no matter how bad the present situation it could always be worse. “Please God, I can handle you deserting me at this moment, but I do hope you hurry up and come to help me when I’m in real trouble!”

Then there is that strange plea to be saved from the sword!

Deliver me from the sword . . . (22:20)

Always worth remembering to ask God to deliver you from a sword when he lets you experience the niggling inconvenience of being crucified.

So the broader context of the Psalm speaks against it being a foretelling of a crucifixion.

But there is metaphoric imagery throughout that also needs to be appreciated to understand it fully. Wild animal imagery dominates.

Many bulls have surrounded me;

Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

They gape at me with their mouths,

As a raging and roaring lion.

For dogs have surrounded me

Deliver . . . my precious life from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion’s mouth

And from the horns of the wild oxen!

It is not surprising therefore to find that the Hebrew Bible contains a passage with the same wild lion imagery that happens to be missing from a Greek text of this Psalm that was preserved and copied by a later generation of Christians:

Like a lion they are at my hands and my feet

In place of this Hebrew verse the Greek translation of this Psalm (which has been the work of Christian, not Hebrew, scribes) reads: “They pierced my hands and my feet”. “Pierce” has replaced “Like a lion”.

“like a lion” or “pierced”?

How could that have happened? A Rabbi Singer on the Outreach Judaism site writes:

The word kaari, however, does not mean “pierced,” it means “like a lion.” The end of Psalm 22:17, therefore, properly reads “like a lion they are at my hands and my feet.” Had King David wished to write the word “pierced,” he would never use the Hebrew word kaari. Instead, he would have written either daqar or ratza, which are common Hebrew words in the Jewish scriptures. . . .

Bear in mind, this stunning mistranslation in the 22nd Psalm did not occur because Christian translators were unaware of the correct meaning of this Hebrew word. Clearly, this was not the case. The word kaari can be found in a number of other places in the Jewish scriptures. Yet predictably, the same Christian translators who rendered kaari as “pierced” in Psalm 22 correctly translated it “like a lion” in all other places in the Hebrew Bible where this word appears.

For example, the word kaari is also found in Isaiah 38:13. In the immediate context of this verse Hezekiah, the king of Judah, is singing a song for deliverance from his grave illness. In the midst of his supplication he exclaims in Hebrew. . . . . [Hebrew text missing here]

Notice that the last word in this phrase (moving from right to left) is the same Hebrew word kaari that appears in Psalm 22:17. In this Isaiah text, the King James Version correctly translates these words “I reckoned till morning that, as a lion . . . .” As I mentioned above, Psalm 22:17 is the only place in all of the Jewish scriptures that any Christian Bible translates kaari as “pierced.”

Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures

Among those who know a little of the Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint such an explanation seems problematic. Did not the Jews themselves translate their Hebrew scriptures into Greek long before the Christian era? Yes they did, but according to legend gleaned from the letter of Aristeas and the preface of Josephus to his Antiquities, only the Torah, the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of Moses. Singer in the same article referenced above also cites the Talmud, Jerome and the 12th book of Antiquities.

The broader context of the setting of the Psalm as discussed above is strong evidence in support of this. A verse speaking of a literally crucified Psalmist simply would not make any sense in the context of the other verses.

The first appearance of “they pierced my hands and feet”

Christians first began to use this Greek translation after our gospels were written. Justin Martyr refers to this passage (they pierced my hands and feet) in his Dialogue of Trypho, paras 97 and 104. The Gospel of Peter likewise appears to know of it. At least it says explicitly narrates a scene where nails are being pulled from Jesus’ hands. (It is possible, of course, that this is taken from the allusion to the nail prints in the hands of Jesus in the Gospel of John — which also may have been written much later than the other gospels.) Whatever the case with this gospel, it is clear that the earliest indisputable knowledge of this Greek text of Psalm 22:16 is from the mid-second century with Justin Martyr.

It appears that some time between the time the canonical gospels were written and the time of Justin Martyr, this famous “prophetic” verse was introduced in a Greek translation of the Psalms by Christian scribes.


2008-02-09

The literary genre of Acts. 10: historical novels – ancient cyrogenics and lost cities

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by Neil Godfrey

Following is my own elaboration of Pervo’s introduction to a discussion of ancient historical novels. My Stadter citations are independent of Pervo’s book. I do not refer to Acts in this post. Others can think through the comparisons. But will discuss a few more historical novels before returning to Acts.

The Cyropaedia by Xenophon – the first historical novel

The author Xenophon, ca 400 b.c.e., wrote histories of Greek wars (Hellenica) and of his expedition in the Persian empire (Anabasis). Some of his works have been translated as modern Penguin classics and all can be found online.

He also wrote “a historical biography” of the Persian king Cyrus. In this account we read of historical characters who at times are true to known historical actions. The Cyropaedia reads like history.

He begins by explaining how careful he was to research his facts:

Believing this man to be deserving of all admiration, we have therefore investigated who he was in his origin, what natural endowments he possessed, and what sort of education he had enjoyed, that he so greatly excelled in governing men. Accordingly, what we have found out or think we know concerning him we shall now endeavour to present. (From the Perseus Project text.)

That sounds impressive and reassuring enough to a first time reader.

But Philip Stadter (Fictional Narrative in the Cyropaideia) compares this research-statement by Xenophon with others written by Herodotus and Thucydides (p.462):

Herodotus

  • noted his desire to preserve and understand the past
  • gave a sample of the oral traditions upon which he would draw
  • claimed he would start from what he himself knew, showing no partiality

Thucydides

  • stressed the analytical and investigatory effort needed to get to the truth
  • presented a schematic example of his mode of inquiry by analyzing the growth of unified action and maritime power re the Trojan War

Contrast Xenophon

  • makes no overt claim to factual accuracy
  • no statement on the difficulties of ascertaining the truth in a distant time and country
  • no allusions to the weaknesses of memory or the reliability of informants

Stadter writes:

In telling his story, Xenophon composed the first extant novel, and demonstrated the power and flexibility of fictional prose narrative. His work is heavily influenced by earlier narrative in poetry and prose, and yet developed new possibilities and emphases. (p.461)

The Cyropedia was an ancient historical novel.

Xenophon does on occasion accurately preserve customs – such as wearing high-soled shoes – or names, at least within the limitations of his own knowledge. But these items are subservient to the narrative, the source of which is Xenophon’s invention, not historical tradition or research. . . .

Xenophon shapes a story of Cyrus which is composed of dialogues that were never spoken, battles that never took place, and people summoned and dismissed from the written page without any shadow of historical reality. . . .

The creation and selection of narrative episodes, the temporal and geographical framework in which they are set, and the mode in which the reader is expected to respond are fictional. (p.463-4)

The purpose of this historical novel? To teach readers the principles of an ideal government and the qualities of an ideal ruler.

Yet as Stadter points out, the reader is assured from the beginning that the story is based on the author’s diligent enquiries into the facts. It is not until one reads “some 21 pages” of unrelenting success stories that one begins to dsicern the fictional nature of the work. (Stadter, p.462). Not that any one story is incredible on its own, but it is the steady avalanching of success stories that eventually collapses under its own weight, at least in the minds of savvy readers.

Ancients recognized its fictional character.

Cicero wrote:

Take the case of the famous Cyrus, portrayed by Xenophon, not as an historical character, but as a model of righteous government, the serious dignity of whose character is represented by that philosopher as combined with a peculiar courtesy. (Letter to Quintus)

In Diogenes Laertius we read:

Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropaedia and the other a book on Politics ; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropaedia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book.

Richard Pervo (Profit with Delight, p.177) adds a third citation, the letter to Pompey 4 by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, to the same effect.

The power of the historical novel format

Stadter lists the following advantages (not necessarily his words) of the narrative format:

  • A long narrative is an effective way to convey complicated information or concepts.
  • Narrative also permits the interweaving of a number of themes.
  • Narrative replicates the human experience of “one durn thing after another”, creating a vivid sense of reality in the telling of each piece of information.
  • Narratives are a form of teaching by example rather than abstract precepts or summary statements, and thus naturally more memorable and even plausible.
  • If the events are credible, the reader may accept them as possible. If the events are contrary to common experience, the reader will either place them in a distant time and place (e.g. The Odyssey) or treat them as allegory or parable (e.g. Aesop’s fables). Either way, narrative is persuasive by its nature.
  • Narratives (good ones) are enjoyable, and listeners generally want to hear more.
  • Narratives are memorable. The lessons or messages they convey are easily recalled.

One can add three points to Stadter’s list the value of historical fiction:

  • added verisimilitude
  • added verisimilitude
  • added verisimilitude

Recall how all the more enthralled we were as children when a fairy tale ended with words like, “And we know this really happened because you can see to this very day . . . ”

That eternally persuasive “historically-true” story of Atlantis

Pervo does not discuss Plato’s story of Atlantis but Stadter helpfully brings it in to the discussion.

The history of Atlantis is a fictional morality tale within a larger work by Plato, Timaeus. But it has taken a life of its own, as everyone knows. Most of us treat the story as a fable. But that was not how it is introduced, and those people today who believe it was real have a good case, at least by the standards often set out for believing the historicity of ancient writings accepted into religious canons.

Plato goes to great pains to explain through Critias how he carefully he decided to introduce the story in the first place, since his concern was to get the true details right in his own mind before expounding it. For though it might be seen as a quite extraordinary story, it nonetheless definitely “was true”. To remove any doubt from readers’ minds Plato writes that

  • the story is actually documented by custodians — in Egypt — who can be trusted to preserve such records
  • the story was passed on via a chain of highly reputable and credible named witnesses
  • these witnesses took pains to be sure they got the story exactly right and passed it on without deviation
  • the transmitters were conscious of the risk of normal memory lapses so took specified preventive measures to minimize this risk

Plato insisted in his writing through his characters that the story was definitely and without a shadow of doubt true and factual. An abundance of references to what appear to be the records of eyewitness details follow.

And many remain persuaded even today. And many more, though not persuaded, are open to wondering if maybe there was some truth to it after all. And it all started with Plato’s simulation of history — his mini historical novel within Timaeus.

Such is the power of a narrative that reads like history.


2008-02-03

Dating the Book of Acts: Characterization of Paul

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by Neil Godfrey

Continuing notes from reading of Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts. . . .

After discussing the shifting directions of the scholarly debates over Paul’s characterization in Acts vis a vis the Paul we find in the epistles, Tyson asks if a more definitive answer is to be found to the question of whether the Paul of Acts is a most appropriate response to the Paul of the Marcionites.

Parallell Lives
Tyson first addresses the contribution of Clark’s Parallel Lives to understanding the author of Act’s intention to portray Paul in both continuity and unity with Peter and the Twelve. He adds to Clark’s work the observation that the influence of Plutarch’s influence on the author of Acts “is more credible if we date Acts after ca. 115 c.e., since it is probable that the Parallel Lives [by Plutarch] was not published before that date.” (p.63)

Objective reference
But more significantly, Tyson notes that Clark’s work on the reasons for the author’s creation of parallels between the lives of Paul and Peter is based on internal criteria alone and lacks an objective external reference. Clark’s argument for certain themes and reasons for his parallels would be more credible if one could show how they were a fitting response to a known historical challenge. Tyson is, of course, arguing that the Marcionite challenge was the appropriate historical situation which would best explain Clark’s understanding of Luke’s characterization of Paul (through parallels with Peter et al).

Tyson looks at the history of attempts to reconcile the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the letters.

F. C. Baur
Author of Acts rewrote the characters of Paul and Peter to show them united theologically — in support of the Law. Contrast “the real Paul” who was anti-Torah.

Adolf von Harnack
Paul’s attitude to the Torah was complex and not a blanket opposition to it. Luke had not found the Torah the same theological challenge that Paul had, and in his portrayal of Paul he brings out the more Jewish side of Paul as he (Luke) knew him.

Philip Vielhauer
In natural theology, Luke portrayed Paul as a Stoic philosopher for whom knowledge of God could be acquired naturally and positively, apart from revelation — which was the view of the Paul of the letters.

In Christology, Acts is adoptionist, and the cross of Christ was a wrongful murder of an innocent man for which the Jews were culpable — unlike Paul of the letters for whom the cross was a saving event, a means of judgment and reconciliation.

In eschatology, Paul relegates the coming judgment and resurrection to a tail end position in his message — unlike the Paul of the letters who whom it was central and imminent.

In the law, Acts avoids the real complexities of Paul’s attitude toward the Torah, and presents him as a faithful Pharisee in practice, as demonstrated by:

  • his missionary practice of going to the synagogue Jews first and only turning to gentiles after a formal rejection there
  • his submission to Jerusalem authorities
  • his circumcision of Timothy
  • his spreading the apostolic decrees
  • his vow
  • his trips to Jerusalem to observe religious festivals
  • his concurring with James in participating in a Nazirite vow
  • his emphasizing his Pharisee status when on trial

Ernst Haenchen
The author of Acts justified the gentile mission as simply being God’s will, unaware of Paul’s more complex justification from his arguments about the Law. Author of Acts also missed the real contention at the heart of Paul’s theology. To Luke, this was the resurrection. The real issue, the Torah, was only alluded to in Acts as a false accusation against Paul. Also, to Haenchen, Acts differed from the letters by presenting Paul as a miracle worker and great orator, but not as an apostle.

Jacob Jervell
The letters of Paul addressed specific issues and do not present a full biography. Acts and the letters are needed for a complete picture. Except for Romans 9-11, the points of theological contact are between the Paul in Acts and the marginal notes in the letters.

Stanley E. Porter
Disputes Haenchen’s and Vielhauer’s interpretations of the wide gulf between the Paul of the letters and of Acts. The Paul of the letters can also be seen as a miracle worker and orator. Porter also argues more weight should be given to the two times in Acts when Paul is called an apostle. And the accusations in Acts that Paul taught against Torah argue for the author’s knowing of the importance of the Torah in Paul’s message, and that the different emphases between Acts and the epistles are the result of different genres.

Mark D. Nanos
The letter to Galatians is an “ironic rebuke” of the converts. “Judaizers” are not opposed to belief in Christ but only to the idea that circumcision (becoming a full proselyte) is not also necessary to be part of Israel. Paul had taught them that belief in Christ was all that was necessary. He does not attack Torah observance or question its appropriateness for non-Christian Jews. The issue is not faith in Christ versus Torah observance. Nanos’s understanding of Galatians is that of a Paul close to the one in Acts.

Joseph B. Tyson
Despite interpretations that appear to lessen the divide between the Paul of the letters and Acts, it is difficult to reconcile:

  • Paul’s views in Galatians with the Paul in Acts 16 who would circumcise Timothy
  • Paul’s rejection of his past in Phil 3:1-11 with his maintenance of it in Acts 23:6
  • Paul’s vehement defining of himself as an apostle in Gal 1:1, Rom 1:1; 1:13; 1 Cor 1:1; 9:1, 2; 15:9; 2 Cor 1:1; 12:12 with the almost total denial of the title to him in Acts

A final settlement of the apparent conflicts between the Paul of the epistles and the Paul of Acts still escapes us.

But if “Acts was written in the first half of the second century, . . . its characterization of Paul and Pauline theology may be understood as an extraordinarily appropriate attempt to correct the teachings of Marcionite Christianity.” (p.68 )

Whatever role Paul played during his own lifetime, there appears to be a struggle for his legacy in the second century. (Compare post comparing Pastorals with Acts of Paul and Thecla.) Marcionites used Paul as their authority for rejecting the Torah, Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish customs. Acts responds(?) by representing him as a faithful Jew and Pharisee.

Tyson then singles out three major features of Paul’s characterization in Acts, drawing on features Vielhauser believed were divergences from the epistles, and including observations of their themes and literary patterns, to show how they qualify as responses to Marcionism.

1. Paul’s Missionary Method

Tyson has earlier covered the literary pattern used for the missionary narratives and the themes they support. See Marcionite Context 1 for an elaboration of this and what follows.

The narratives of Paul’s mission work regularly consists of the same fourfold patterning of the following four themes:

  1. fidelity of the believing community to the Jewish traditions and practices — Paul always begins with the synagogue
  2. the community’s inclusion of Gentiles
  3. Jewish rejection of the Christian message
  4. Jewish opposition to the community

Further, “the heart of Paul’s message in the synagogues is that Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish expectation and prophetic promises.” (p.69)

Note how these themes fit hand in glove with the Marcionite challenge:

Marcion insisted that the Christian message consisted of a rejection of the Jewish Torah and Scriptures. Yet in Acts Paul is found returning again and again to the synagogue. There is a rift between Jew and Christian, yes, but the reason for this is clearly the fact that the Jews themselves are rejecting the message. And they are doing so not because the message is anti-Jewish, or anti-Torah or anti-Hebrew-Scriptures, but because of their hard stubborn hearts. The Christian message is that Jesus is the fulfillment of their Scriptures and Messianic hopes, and this is what angers them.

Paul’s repeated attempts to convert the Jews by showing them he was sympathetic and obedient to their customs and by preaching that Jesus was the fulfillment of their Scriptures was the perfectly apt response to Marcionite claims that Christianity had no link with Jewish traditions and that the Jewish scriptures had no relevance for the new message from the Alien God.

Hoffmann, I recall, somewhere makes the point that the irony is that it was the “pro-Jewish” Christianity of the orthodox that was fundamentally anti-semitic, accusing the Jews of congenital hard heartedness; while Marcionite Christianity placed Jews and Gentiles on an equal footing before the nonjudgmental higher God introduced by Jesus.

2. Paul and the Jerusalem Apostles

2 issues here: Paul’s apostleship and his relationship to the Jerusalem leaders.

Apostleship

To Marcion, Paul was the only true apostle and Peter and the other Jerusalem leaders were false apostles.

Acts disputes this divide by its technique of paralleling Peter and Paul. But the parallel is not complete. In Acts the title of apostle is almost exclusively confined to Peter and the Jerusalem leaders. Only twice does the term apostle appear in relation to Paul and Barnabas — Acts 14:4, 14.

Note however that 14:14 in the Western text (Codex Bezae) omits the word “apostles”, and if this is accepted as the original then we only have one reference to Paul as an apostle. Yet even here the word apostle is removed by many verses from the actual names of Paul and Barnabas. Tyson asks if this indicates a subtle distancing of the title from those names. Clark in Parallel Lives thinks the title apostle in Acts 14 serves to equate Paul and Barnabas with the other apostles, only in an an alternate geographical area.

But the author of Acts clearly defines the number of apostles as being limited to Twelve; and that to qualify for the title one must also have been a witness of Jesus from the beginning of his ministry to his resurrection. This clearly disqualifies Paul from the title. Is Paul simply being logically inconsistent? Tyson compares scholars approaching Acts without preconceived ideas about the author’s historical accuracies with their reluctance to presume he might be at least once logically inconsistent. They are willing to concede he is not always accurate in detail — why not also that he is not 100% consistent with his use of this title?

But Tyson comes down with a different bottom line explanation for this inconsistency found in Acts 14:4 (14). In a Marcionite context, the problem facing the author was not Paul’s apostleship but the apostleship of Peter and the Jerusalem leaders. He needed to rebut Marcion’s claim that the Jerusalem Twelve were not true apostles. His purpose was not to argue Paul’s apostleship but to prove that the Twelve were also apostles — to rehabilitate the Twelve. (Compare my earlier post on Tracing the evolution of the Twelve.)

To fulfill this task he “rehabilitated” the Twelve as the authorized bearers of tradition, and he showed that Paul was in every respect in line with them and at some points subservient to them. If he occasionally used the title apostle for Paul, this is only because of the fact that, despite his own definition that would exclude Paul from the group, he never doubted its appropriateness. We may regard the author of Acts as inconsistent at this point, but his inconsistency is understandable. (p.72)

Relationship with Jerusalem leaders

A major theme in Acts, the inclusion of Gentiles, is introduced by Peter. Not by Paul. Yet Paul is the primary leader of the gentile mission. So why is Peter chosen for the role of opening up this theme?

Tyson finds the answer at the conclusion of the lengthy and complex narrative of Peter’s conversion of Cornelius. The narrative concludes with Peter being required to have his actions authorized by the Jerusalem leaders, including the rest of the Twelve. This is important for the maintenance of one of the primary themes of Acts — internal harmony under the collective leadership of the Jerusalem apostles:

the story is not over until the Jerusalem apostles have agreed that Gentiles may be members of the community and that their admission will not create disharmony. (p.72)

It should also be noted that permission for the church to go to the gentiles came to Peter, the leader of the Twelve, and not to Paul, and that the first gentile was a lover of the Jews, observing their times of prayer and fearing their God. Tyson does not single out the point here, but God-fearer in the context of Cornelius here is a clear reference to the Jewish Creator God — the one rejected by Marcion as inferior in preference for the higher Alien God.

So the inclusion of the gentiles opens as a pro-Jewish act and is authorized by the Twelve before the story can continue.

The Acts 15 Jerusalem conference
See How Acts subverts Galatians for details. That a companion of Paul would subvert Galatians in this way is implausible. How could such a one put the words of Paul into the mouth of Peter, as in Acts 15:7-11? Tyson finds it hard to disagree with the Baur and the Tübingen school’s case that the author of Acts was attempting to rewrite history in order to promote a belief that there was harmony between the followers of Peter and those of Paul.

A Marcionite challenge that stressed the gulf between Paul and Jewish-Christians would explain why the author of Acts sought to rewrite the Galatians meeting the way he did. Unlike Marcion’s assertions based on Galatians, there was no rift between Peter and Paul. They were in complete harmony despite an initial hiccup. Paul left proclaiming the decrees ordained by the Jerusalem authorities (16:4), and gentiles and Jews were bound together even by certain (minimal) requirements from the Torah.

3. Paul as a faithful Jew and Pharisee

The Paul of the letters relegates his Pharisee identity to a dead past. Tyson sees the claims in Acts that Paul continued to think of himself as a Pharisee as anti-Marcionite propaganda. Acts also turns Paul’s speeches into anti-Marcionite proclamations: the relevance of the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets and Jewish messianic expectations to Jesus.

Tyson sees a major objective of the trial scenes is to portray Paul as a Torah-abiding Jew:

  • Before the high priest he quotes from Exodus (Acts 23:5)
  • Before Felix he describes himself as a loyal Jew (24:14)
  • He calls attention to his preaching of the resurrection as a Jewish hope (24:15)
  • He emphasizes his return to Jerusalem to bring alms and make sacrifices in the temple (24:17)
  • He reminds us he was seized while in ritual of purification (24:17-18 )
  • Before Festus he says he has done nothing against the Jewish law or people (25:8, 10)
  • Before Agrippa and Bernice he proclaims at length his Jewish allegiance (26:4-8 )
  • He says he preaches nothing except what Moses and the prophets proclaimed (26:22) — a statement in direct opposition to what Marcion believed

The practices of Paul preceding these trial scene proclamations have prepared the reader for this portrayal of Paul:

  • Acts 16:1-3, the circumcision of Timothy — it is debatable whether this would have been performed by the Paul of the letters, but there is no doubt that this was in opposition to Marcion’s Paul. Marcion taught release from the God of the Torah, and from the Creator God of this (fleshly) world.
  • Acts 21:18-28, Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem — tells us there are multitudes of Christians there who are all zealous for the law (an impossible concept for Marcion); and that the accusations that Paul taught Jews to forsake the laws and customs are false, as evidenced by his compliance with the advice of James. The message to readers familiar with Marcionite teaching is that Marcion’s claims about Paul are false.
  • Compare also Acts 18:18 — cutting his hair because of a vow would have suggested a Jewish practice opposed to Marcionite teaching
  • And Acts 20:16 — Paul eager to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost. Again in opposition to Marcion’s Paul.

Tyson concludes his discussion of the characterization of Paul:

The characterization of Paul in Acts is internally consistent. He is a loyal Jew, obedient to Torah and faithful to Jewish practices. His message is that Jesus fulfills the words of the Hebrew prophets: he is the Messiah of Israel. Paul does not act unilater­ally but only in harmony with Peter and the Jerusalem apostle. It is they who establish the authentic Christian tradition, and Paul neither adds to it nor subtracts from it. The characterization of Paul is also consistent with the major themes that the author used in writing Acts, among them: the order of the community; the internal harmony of the community; the community’s inclusion of Gentiles; Jewish rejection of the Christian message; and the community’s fidelity to Jewish traditions and prac­tices. The author of Acts has made use of these characterizations and themes to pro­duce an engaging narrative that responds, almost point by point, to the Marcionite challenge. Readers of Acts learn that the God of Jesus is the God of the Jews, that Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish expectations as announced by the Hebrew prophets, and that the early Christian leaders continued to observe Torah and Jewish practices. (pp 75-76)

In other words, Tyson’s argument is that the question of reconciling the Paul of the letters with the Paul of Acts is the wrong question to ask. The problems that arise in attempting to answer it are the inevitable result. Acts is not addressing the letters of Paul per se, but addressing the Marcionite challenge and the use the Marcionites made of Paul’s letters. This hypothesis leads to a much tidier explanation of the way Paul is portrayed in Acts.


continued at this post



2008-02-01

Prison escapes in Acts — and the non-escape at the end

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by Neil Godfrey

Have just begun reading Plots of Epiphany: Prison-Escape in Acts of the Apostles by John Weaver. What persuaded me to pick this title up for my next read was its concluding chapter. Continue reading “Prison escapes in Acts — and the non-escape at the end”


Clark’s criteria for valid parallels (continuing Tyson on Marcion and Luke-Acts)

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by Neil Godfrey

Tyson draws on the criteria devised by Andrew Clark in his Parallel Lives to further his discussion of Peter’s and Paul’s characterization in Acts. (Have been discussing Tyson’s argument that our canonical Luke-Acts was largely a second century response to Marcionism.) Before continuing with notes from Tyson, am listing here Clark’s criteria. Continue reading “Clark’s criteria for valid parallels (continuing Tyson on Marcion and Luke-Acts)”


That “strange” end of Acts and its equally “strange” middle

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Revisiting Talbert’s “Literary Patterns” I was reminded of that ending of Acts that continues to bother sometimes. I’ve written on the endings before (see Endings post) and think that half of the problem is our literary tastes, matured on an evolving heritage long since distanced from its ancient roots, and the other half is our preconceived ideas about the theme and purpose of Acts having more to do with our sense of what the book should be about than with what the author may have had in mind. Continue reading “That “strange” end of Acts and its equally “strange” middle”