2008-05-20

The offering of Isaac: its evolution into the template of the Jesus event: 2

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by Neil Godfrey

Continuing from the previous post on this topic . . . . . (discussing Levenson’s Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son . . .

Continue reading “The offering of Isaac: its evolution into the template of the Jesus event: 2”


2008-05-18

The offering of Isaac: its evolution into the template of the Jesus event: 1

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by Neil Godfrey

An intriguing read is Jon D. Levenson’s The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity. (There are public domain reviews online here and here.)

Levenson’s argument is that the Jewish interpretations of the Aqedah (the story of the Binding of Isaac at his moment of sacrifice by Abraham) developed into an etiology of the Passover, and Isaac himself eventually became a willing sacrificial victim for the redemption of Israel. These interpretations can be traced from the second century b.c.e. Chistianity displaced this Isaac legend with its theology of the Jesus crucifixion.

There is too much in the book for me to cover here, but will share a few of the highlights. Continue reading “The offering of Isaac: its evolution into the template of the Jesus event: 1”


“Archaeology has become a weapon of dispossession” — Israeli archaeologist

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by Neil Godfrey

I found the following linked on the JAO-Sydney (Jews Against the Occupation) site:

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review (April 25 2008 edition), an article by Yigal Bronner and Neve Gordon:

Beneath the Surface
Are Jerusalem digs designed to displace Palestinians?

“Archaeology has become a weapon of dispossession,” Yonathan Mizrachi, an Israeli archaeologist, said in a recent telephone interview with us. He was referring to the way archaeology is being used in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in the oldest part of Jerusalem, where, we believe, archaeological digs are being carried out as part of a concerted campaign to expel Palestinians from their ancestral home.

That effort is orchestrated by an Israeli settler organization called Elad, a name formed from Hebrew letters that stand for “to the City of David.” For several years, Elad has used a variety of means to evict East Jerusalem Palestinians from their homes and replace them with Jewish settlers. Today Silwan is dotted with about a dozen such outposts. Moreover, practically all the green areas in the densely populated neighborhood have been transformed into new archaeological sites, which have then been fenced and posted with armed guards. On two of these new archaeological sites, Jewish homes have already been built. . . . . . . .

The full article can be accessed here.


2008-05-17

Authenticity of Paul’s letters: Holding versus Detering

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by Neil Godfrey

I recently posted reasons to question the Pauline authorship of Galatians, which was a distillation of Detering’s challenges. Since some fundamentalists prefer J. P. Holding’s arguments against these challenges, am posting these little ripostes:

Holding 1:

Detering seems to be under the impression that where Paul offers his credentials (eg, “an apostle”) this somehow could indicate that someone else wrote the letter. He claims (with no documentation, other than quoting a single such greeting from a letter, “Cicero greets Atticus”) that the greetings employed by Greeks and Romans were “very unpretentious.” Not that, again, Detering provides examples, much less examples of letters from a person in authority to a person or persons under them. Oddly enough, we find here no comment from a classical scholar about Paul’s greeting in Philippians being more “pretentious” than that of the one Detering uses as an example. Much less does Detering quote any authority that regards Paul’s openings as unusual; it’s the usual case in higher criticism of inventing a problem out of whole cloth.

Either Holding is simply not familiar with ancient letters or assumes his audience would not be familiar with them or both. Anyone who is familiar with ancient letters knows that the example Detering provides is quite sufficient to jog their memories.

It appears Holding has no interest in checking the evidence for himself, but complains that Detering does not quote an authority to support his claim. No doubt an argument from authority comes easily to one who argues on the authority of God. I don’t know if this could be attributed to laziness or fear of what he might find if he checked all the other letters in a collection of Cicero or Pliny. Or any of the fictional letters that set themselves the task of convincing readers of their plausible authenticity and to this end contained the same unpretentious introductions.

Holding’s hyperlink at “here” points to a classical scholar who does not remark on the unusualness of Paul’s letters. I clicked on that link to be taken to a classicist’s email discussion relating indirectly to the matter. So I googled that classicist’s name and university, found his homepage in one shot, and lo and behold, there in its left hand margin is a nice bright golden crucifix link that takes one to that classicist’s homepage of zillions of bible-study tools. So much for Holding attempting to give the impression he was appealing to “the authority” of an umpire with no conflict of interest.

In fact, Paul’s assertions of his credentials make perfect sense in an honor-based culture, given Paul’s unusual situation as one whose authority was a question mark at times;

Okay, so Paul was the only one who wrote letters from an unusual situation in that culture? Paul’s situation was so unique that he was the only one to use the letter’s introduction to argue a controversial point?

There are other contextual reasons for the length in these cases: matters of identity and honor, and the insertion of Christological material, for example, which would not apply to something like “Cicero greets Atticus

Yes, the honor based culture thing again. Didn’t Paul pass on Christ’s teaching to come out of the world’s ways and follow humility? But of course it is surely obvious that Holding is arguing in a circle here. He is simply repeating the contents of the introductions as if that is sufficient to explain why the introductions contained such material in the first place.

Holding 2:

Detering also makes some rather silly remarks, such as commenting on Gal. 1:1, “to the churches in Galatia,” saying, “The poor letter-carrier!” Yes, I’m quite sure the experience was unbearable, but despite Detering’s ignorant sarcasm, people had ways of getting letters around: For example, you looked around for someone heading out the same way as the letter’s destination, or hired a messenger, or got a slave to carry it. Then again, if Detering thinks one person carrying a letter around Galatia may have been a hardship, I suppose he thinks that no one in antiquity ever got up from their seats. . . .

Holding appears not to have comprehended Detering’s argument. It was all about the vagueness of the addressees. Holding completely ignores this, the only point Detering was discussing.

Holding 3:

But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person) Detering blows his stack over the use of “were,” supposing it means the apostles in question were dead, so this means this was written well past Paul’s time. It’s funny how a forger this clever can miss such an obvious point, but it’s the usual case of overblow we get from the radical criticism school: Contextually, “were” just as well refers to former positions of status within a community (such as, “I used to be the top student under this rabbi”).

Oh dear, Holding must have been writing this late at night. He completely fails to see that he (Holding) is actually arguing that the author of the letter of Galatians believes that Peter, James and John were only apostles by a “former status” within the Jerusalem community. So what had changed by the time the letter was written for the author to say they “were” of this status?

It’s “funny how” Holding, in his own words, so “clever, can miss such an obvious point”.

Holding 4:

Gal. 6:11: See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand! Detering goes gaga over this, wondering why Paul wants to guard against falsification of letters in his own lifetime. As before, Detering seems to be the only person who thinks this would not happen; as if indeed forgers only worked with dead people, which is obviously true today. That said, more informed scholars like Witherington (Galatians commentary, 442) have an obvious reason for this authentication: Given the sensitive nature of the letter, Paul wishes to affirm that though (as was normal for the period) a scribe penned the bulk of it, he stands fully behind it; no one can say that someone else is trying to cover for Paul or speak on his behalf, which would be a sensitive issue of honor under the circumstances.

Curiously, Holding fails to provide “an authority” that ancient forgeries had different targets from those today. But I would rather he pointed to other ancient examples of letters forged in the names of contemporaries. Even more interesting had he explained how they got away with establishing such forgeries as the generally accepted authentic writings while the contemporaries were alive to expose them.

As for the specifics of the argument cited as Witherington’s (the obligatory authority), I agree that it would make perfect sense for Paul to write a bit of it with his own hand. No doubt all the churches in Galatia had access to a file which contained a copy of Paul’s handwriting, kept in secure vaults and verified by Justices of the Peace or local magistrates, and also to professional handwriting experts, to establish to the readers that the parchment or whatever really was from “the Paul”.

Of course, no scribe could ever make a second copy of the letter. Or if he did, he would have to omit those last words or at best add a gloss to them. (Why has such a gloss not come down to us in any manuscripts?) Let’s leave behind this “hermeneutic of suspicion” a moment and suggest that the letter was finally faithfully copied without qualms after the original readers had died out or the issue addressed was long since dead. (In which case what would have been the purpose of copying this very tattered parchment or papyrus at all . . . — and if according to Justin Martyr the issue was still alive in the mid second . . . . ??)

If my point is still unclear, this claim for evidence of authenticity can only “work” in a late forgery. An original author making such a claim would, if he had half his wits about him, have realized the vacuousness of such a claim. Or perhaps Holding can cite an authority that this was the most obvious and normal practice authors used to authenticate their letters.

Holding 5:

Detering cannot understand why Paul would go into Arabia and not Jerusalem. It’s not too hard to figure: Paul is perhaps following the path of the Exodus, and perhaps even visiting Mt. Sinai, as Wright has suggested. However, it is just as well to suppose that he chose this as a nearby mission field after Damascus; and has every reason to NOT return to Jerusalem to face his Pharisee superiors who are naturally not going to be pleased that he botched on his job of arresting Christians by becoming one.

It’s quite exciting fun to make up imaginary itineraries to explain away the implausible, as Holding and Wright do here. Besides, can’t you just imagine the Paul whose every breath was in opposition to the Mosaic law making a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai in preference to the empty tomb in Jerusalem! This the man who counted all his past life in the law as dead from the moment Christ revealed himself in him. Holding also likes to pretend Paul might have set up a missionary station in Arabia, despite the passage in Galatians clearly conveying the idea that Paul went hermit, like Jesus into the wilderness, rather than make contact with “flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:15-17). But I like the last ‘let’s pretend’ best: Paul being too timid to face his superiors after being so profoundly converted that he was quite prepared to take on the leading apostles who knew Jesus personally, the high priest, the king, stonings, shipwrecks, scourgings, Caesar himself. This the man who could strike blind any who mocked his message (Acts 13:11). Too fearful even to enter Jerusalem secretly, if only to pay quiet apologetic respects at the tomb of Stephen.

Holding disputes Detering’s argument of psychological implausibility by fantasizing even bigger psychological implausibilities.


2008-05-09

Resurrection: bodily ambiguities (response to Wright 3)

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by Neil Godfrey

Darn it. I mixed up the numbering of my response to Wright series and left out “3”. So let this one be #3, even if it’s only an indirect response.

The gospels failed to settle the argument

The mere fact that John’s gospel presents Jesus as a palpable body, one that could be felt by Thomas, did not necessarily “prove” to ancient readers that Jesus was physical flesh and blood. I listed some of the different accounts of spirits in my previous (#5 response) post that showed they could in several cases eat and drink, wear clothes, touch and be touched, etc.

In the gospel of Luke the author chose to have Jesus explain to his disciples that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, “as you see that I have”. Yet the Greek word for “have” can also have the sense of “be” or “am”. Accordingly Marcionite Christians read this passage to mean that Jesus was telling his disciples to touch him and see that he really was a spirit body, without physical flesh and bones. Riley (1995) p.65 citing Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.43.7

The different meanings of “body”

Yet it is also true that many ancients found the idea absolutely repulsive that very same flesh and blood which one had inhabited before death would be reinhabited after death. Many of us today are probably more sheltered from the reality of death than were many who lived in earlier days, and the ugly reality that this idea suggested probably sprang to mind more naturally than it does for some of us. So how did the early Christians interpret the gospel narratives of Jesus appearing in a recognizable “body“?

Before looking at different Christian views, a look at how pagans among whom they lived used the word:

Virgil used the word “corpora” (the equivalent of the Greek σωμα), what we would take for a corporeal body, to refer to dead souls in the Aeneid VI, 303-308. Describing the people in or entering into Hades (and Latin specialists kindly excuse my schoolboy level attempts at translation):

[Charon] . . . ferruginea subvectat corpora cymba,
matres atque viri, defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum:

[Charon] carries over the bodies in his reddish-dark boat
mothers and men, deceased (yet) living bodies
great hearted heroes, boys and unmarried girls
youths placed on funeral pyres before their parents’ eyes

Of course it would be preferable for us to translate ‘corpora’ as ‘souls’ in this context given our cultural understanding of what is meant. The point is the word for “body” (Latin corpora or Greek soma) can be understood in ancient parlance as a synonym for “soul” or “spirit” or “ghost”.

Wright (p.43) dismisses Virgil’s use of “corpora” to describe the dead as “occasional”, and in fact irrelevant to his argument because to Virgil these bodies were without their former power and strength, and are elsewhere described as mere shadowy forms. He misses the point. Even “mere shadowy forms” were still “bodies” in the ancient schema.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:44 of our bodies:

It is sown a soulish body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a soulish body, and there is a spiritual body.

σπειρεται σωμα ψυχικον, εγειρεται σωμα πνευματικον ει εστιν σωμα ψυχικον και πνευματικον

English Bibles usually translate the word ψυχικον “natural” or “physical”. The Latin equivalent would be “animale”. It refers to the essence that “animates” the body, “the animating life sustaining force in man and animals”. It is the root of our word “psychic”. Paul here contrasts it with the “spiritual” or “pneumatic” body. Stong’s Concordance contrasts it with “spiritual/pneumatic” above and “physical/phusikos” below, which pertained to the animals.

Gregory Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered, p.62f, writes that unless the original passage is translated “soulish body” readers will miss the focus of the ancient arguments over the verse’s interpretation. Tertullian debated with other Christians who interpreted 1 Cor.15:44 to mean that it was the “soul” that was called the “soulish body” and that it was this soul (soulish body) that was resurrected, while the flesh remained behind in decay. The soulish body (soul) was said to be changed to a spiritual body when it was filled with the spirit at the resurrection.

Unfortunately for Tertullian he had one arm tied behind his back in his debate. Both he and his opponents accepted the belief that the soul was itself a corporeal substance. Otherwise it could not be tormented with physical pain in hell. (Riley, p.62)

We know from Paul, Polycarp, Justin, Tertullian and Origen that many Christians did indeed believe that the physical body was not resurrected, or that the resurrection pertained to “the soulish body”. To counter this widespread “heresy” church fathers like Irenaeus and Athenagoras put themselves through intellectual contortions to explain how a physical body could simultaneously be a spiritual body when resurrected. Irenaeus “explained” that the fleshly body was a spiritual body by virtue of being possessed by the Spirit. Athenagoras was even “clearer”: while we have flesh, it will not seem as if we have flesh, because we shall be heavenly spirits. (Adv. Haer. 5.7.2 and Legatio 31 in Riley, p.64)

Conclusion

That the word “body” and the term “resurrection of the body” ramained ambiguous into the fifth century, capable of being interpreted either as “flesh” or “spirit-soul”, we have the complaint of Jerome:

We believe, say they, in the resurrection of the body. This confession, if only it be sincere, is free from objection. But as there are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial and as thin air and the æther are both according to their natures called bodies, they use the word body instead of the word flesh in order that an orthodox person hearing them say body may take them to mean flesh while a heretic will understand that they mean spirit.

He wanted them to use the unambiguous expression “resurrection of the flesh”.

The resurrection of the body, bodily resurrection, was not so black and white a concept when Christianity was born and established itself as it is to many Christians today.


2008-05-08

Resurrection: response to Wright’s arguments, 5

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by Neil Godfrey

apols for posting this before serious proof-reading — ongoing editing under way . . . (9th May)

Continuing from previous post:

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. Discussed one in previous post and attached comments. One more to go:

  • 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

One reason Jesus does not appear as anything other than a normal human after his resurrection in two of the gospels is because these gospels reflect the popular literature of the period by concluding with a series of dramatic recognition scenes at the end of their stories. It was a popular trope for novelists to conclude their stories of adventure with their long lost (and thought to be dead) hero appearing at the end, with his or her associates only gradually come to recognize their loved one through a series of recognition scenes. Homer’s Odysseus was only recognized by his former nurse when she, like Thomas in the gospel, placed her hands in his old wounds. But the pattern is repeated many times in other popular literature, too.

Luke does this first with the unrecognized and then flash in the pan appearance with the Emmaus disciples; and then finally in full bodily presence before the rest of the disciples. But even then they need to be shown ways to prove that it really is Jesus. Ditto in the gospel of John. Mary does not recognize him at first. It takes time and the speaking of her name before she can. Again Jesus has to show them the clues (his wounds) to prove that he really is Jesus. Scars, birthmarks, wounds were common clues to eventually identify the long lost hero in popular stories.

Another reason is specific to Luke’s gospel. Luke is using his narrative to address (counter) the claims of docetic views that rejected the humanity/fleshiness of Jesus. This is evident from the earliest chapters when he traced Jesus’ genealogy right back to Adam, the first human. Luke’s Jesus contrasts a spirit body with a body of flesh and bones. John’s Jesus does not make this contrast, but only shows his body, with its wounds, to identify himself as their earlier leader, Jesus himself, who has come back from the dead. This was discussed in my second post in this series. Additional novelistic motifs in the gospel of John were discussed previously in yet another post.

The fact that two of the gospels describe Jesus as appearing like a mortal after his resurrection is consistent with the novelistic or storytelling motifs and theological interests that shaped their authors’ world.

The gospel of Mark had no resurrection appearance. A missing corpse was another way for ancient literature to alert readers to a resurrection of some sort. Matthew’s gospel does not describe his appearance or body at all.

Wright argues that if the gospel authors made up the story of Jesus being resurrected from the dead they would not have told it the way they did. In fact, this appears to be a regular argument of Wright’s. If it were not true, they would not have written it like that. One is tempted to respond that such an argument really testifies to Wright’s lack of imagination or diligence in seeking to understand, through natural (as opposed to supernatural) scholarly constructs, the texts as we have them. A miracle, he concludes, offers the best “explanatory power” for the origins of Christianity. I suspect he can only get away with such claims because of the “force field” effect of writing hundreds and hundreds of pages alluding to scholarly arguments. The sheer weight of the reading may well bludgeon some less familiar with the arguments into assuming all these pages must really knock natural explanations for the rise of Christianity on the head. The purpose of this mini-series of posts is to expose the emptiness of just a few of the points Wright makes in the midst of his pages of digressions and elaborations of colour and multitudes of footnotes.

Wright claims that if the gospel authors made up the story of Jesus’ resurrection appearances they would have described him more like a shining star, a figure of glorified splendour like the angelic and worship-worthy figures in the Book of Daniel.

So Wright’s argument is based on his ability to read the minds of the authors. No matter that the many ancient authors who did describe living re-appearances of the dead described them as having the same appearance as when they were alive. Wright is confident that the biblical authors would never have written about the living appearances of the dead the way nonbiblical authors did. The nonbiblical authors wrote fiction, so if the biblical authors did write anything resembling pagan depictions of the living-dead, it must be because they were recording facts, and not fiction.

But, Wright argues, they did not write anything truly resembling pagan depictions of the dead-now-appearing-to-be-living, because the pagan bodies did not fit the same description of Jesus’ body. Even though both the pagan bodies and Jesus’ body could pass through material objects, could speak and eat, wear clothes and display their wounds, feel human emotions and care for the living, even (in at least one famous pagan story) be returned to flesh and blood bodily life, Wright insists there can be no legitimate comparison.

One reason he gives is that educated ancients did not believe in the historical truth of their stories. Well, yes, need one even have to raise the obvious? They didn’t believe the Christian story either!

Another reason he gives is that despite some similarities between the pagan and biblical narratives, there are also some differences. Well, there are differences among the various pagan stories, too. Without differences there would only be one story, not lots — by definition we could never have many stories around this idea unless there were differences. Here are some of the variations:

  1. Most remain as shadowy bodies unable to be grasped (Aeneid, Odyssey) — the gospel of Luke is possibly attempting to go one better and set Jesus apart from these by having him demonstrate his flesh bones body-ness (even though he can still go through walls)
  2. But even pagans had stories of their exceptions who indeed did return from dead in their physical flesh and blood bodies (Alcestis) — Wright says there is no comparison with Jesus here because Jesus was to live forever and Alcestis died again. Of course this is special pleading. The fact is that there is a direct comparison to be made, regardless of the subsequent fates of the characters.
  3. Others cower in fear at material swords (Odysseus holding the dead at bay with his sword)
  4. Others take no notice of swords (Aeneas is told he is wasting his time using his sword)
  5. Some can only scream in whispers
  6. And others can speak quite normally
  7. Most appear just as they did when alive
  8. Yet others can or do appear as another person entirely (Astrabacus appeared as Ariston)
  9. One ancient historian, Herodotus, even recorded an account of a dead hero, Astrabacus, returning to embrace and have sex with a living woman, and leave behind a part of his head-gear as a momento of the event. And there was a time when Romans sacrificed young girls so their souls could serve dead soldiers sexually.
  10. Some wrote that the dead were brought back up from Hades (Hercules rescued Alcestis)
  11. One ancient theologian wrote that Jesus went down to Hades to preach to the spirits and then returned with escorting angels to go up to heaven (The Gospel of Peter)
  12. Another wrote that some were raised by a word, others by a touch, others after some days in a tomb, one by touching the bones of a dead prophet, another after three rounds of body to body massage. (The various old and new testament biblical stories)
  13. Some wrote that many were persuaded that the dead reappeared to a mortal witness at dawn, and commanded that witness to go and report to others (Romulus, Jesus)
  14. Some departed dead reappeared in recognizable form with their first words being, “Peace, Take courage, Don’t be afraid.” (Scipio Africanus, Jesus)
  15. The dead would reappear to pass on instructions to the living (Romulus, Scipio, Patroclus, Samuel, Jesus)
  16. Many of them showed off their mortal wounds (Clytemnestra, Eurydice, Hector, Jesus)

The variations we see in the Jesus narrative are all part and parcel of the constellation of mutations of the same basic idea. To make a special case for the unique features of just one of the above characters is pedantic nonsense and special pleading.

Virgil, Euripides, Herodotus and Homer speak of the dead, though “spirit”, still having the form and even feelings of their fleshly bodies. They wore clothes, they could eat and drink, they could play board games, they could inflict pain and death with weapons and their hands on the living, they could feel pain and be seriously threatened by the swords of the living, and they could even have sex both with each other and the living. (See Gregory Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered, p.50ff)

The fact that Jesus is depicted by one or two of the evangelists as having a palpable as opposed to shadowy body is not a common portrayal of the returned dead, but it is not unique either.

Virgil argued with Homer over the latter’s portrayal of Odysseus being able to hold departed souls at bay with his sword. Virgil said that was a nonsense in his Aeneid. Aeneas was reminded by his companions that was silly to even try to threaten souls that way. In a similar dialogue with other narratives, Luke and perhaps John, decided to prove that their resurrected hero surpassed the pagan dead by being touchable — without stinking or looking like a zombie (if indeed the authors really did imagine him truly physical — not all early Christians interpreted Luke’s gospel that way) — yet still with all the other attributes of spirit (being able to pass through walls, turn invisible, live forever and travel to heaven).

Conclusion

By narrating a reappearance of Jesus after his death in a bodily form the evangelists are not struck by historical reality, but merely following the conventions of the times.


2008-05-07

Resurrection: Response to Wright, 4

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by Neil Godfrey

Revised May 8 2008

Continuing from a previous post:

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. Discussed one in previous post and attached comments. Two more to go:

  • 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

Textual and narrative interdependence

(Following I use Matthew and Mark interchangeably as both the authors of the gospels and as the titles of the gospels attributed to them.)

Matthew clearly used (either copying directly or re-writing) the narrative of Mark. It is said that Matthew repeats about 600 of Mark’s 661 verses. Mark has no resurrection appearance, but that does not hide the fact that Matthew’s resurrection appearance scenes grew out of Matthew’s use and knowledge of Mark.

How Matthew built on Mark’s narrative for the resurrection appearances:

Mark created a narrative in which:

  • Jesus was reported as arranging to see his disciples, after his resurrection, in Galilee.
  • This message was conveyed through a mysterious “young man”,
  • who instructed the women at the tomb to pass it on to the disciples.
  • These women had come to anoint the corpse of Jesus even though it belatedly dawned on them that they would not be able to enter the tomb with its massive stone obstructing its entrance.
  • And when these women heard the message from the young man, they were said to have run off immediately without even telling the disciples after all.
  • They were said to have been too fearful to say a word to anyone. And that is where the original text of Mark’s gospel ends.
  • See Mark 16:1-8.

Matthew then, after reading Mark, wrote a revised narrative:

  • Like Mark, he wrote that Jesus would see his disciples, after his resurrection, in Galilee.
  • But this message was made more authoritative by being conveyed, not by a mere young man whom readers might wonder if he was an angel or not, but by an unambiguous angel who came down from heaven and with superstrength rolled aside the massive stone from the tomb’s entrance
  • As in Mark, this angel instructed the women to pass the message on to the disciples
  • But Mark’s nonsense of the women coming to anoint a body when they knew they could not enter the tomb is removed by Matthew. Matthew re-writes the more sensible account that the women merely came to see the tomb.
  • And when these women heard the message from the angel, they were said to have run off immediately — just as Mark also said —
  • but unlike Mark’s account, they ran off to tell the disciples after all. Matthew had added to Mark’s Fear the emotion of “great Joy” to drive the women to break through the silence barrier and not remain silent after all.
  • See Matthew 28:1-8.

So Matthew followed Mark’s script with a few modifications up to verse 8. At the critical verse 8 (not that the original gospels were written in our verse numberings of course) Matthew essentially copied Mark’s final verse but added a twist to it. The women ran off not only with Mark’s fear, but with fear tinged with a dash of joy. And, contra Mark, they ran off to tell the disciples, as commanded by the angel.

But having twisted Mark’s tail thus, how was Matthew to narrate that meeting? Mark’s original gospel ended at verse 8. The closest Mark offered for a resurrection appearance was the account in an earlier chapter of Jesus’ transfiguration on a mountain.

Matthew began by having Jesus make his first resurrection appearance to the women mourners who had come to see his tomb. But he was clearly floundering. He had no model on which to draw. Only Mark’s narrative where the young man had told the women that the disciples could see Jesus in Galilee. So what does Matthew narrate? Matthew’s Jesus zaps down to the women as they flee from the tomb. The women stop, look and listen. Even hold Jesus by the feet. And Jesus proceeds to utter his first words as a resurrected saviour. They are verbatim what Mark’s young man and Matthew’s angel had already told the women. “Go and tell my disciples they can see me in Galilee.” Yes. We have read that already. Matthew is clearly at a loss here. He is floundering when left to his own imagination.

Next, Matthew finally has that long awaited contact between the disciples and Jesus in Galilee. Again Matthew’s creative imagination is limited. The best he can offer readers is a Moses-like departure on a mountain top. He charges his successors to carry on the good work, just as Moses charged his successor Joshua to do likewise. And it is all done on a mountain top — the same topography where Jesus had earlier been transfigured, and where Moses spent his final moments.

Matthew is grasping at his bland unimaginative straws. All he knew was that he had to do better than end is gospel the same way Mark had ended his. If Mark had more subtle themes to convey with his ending of the women fleeing dumb in fear, they were wasted on Matthew. Matthew re-wrote Mark to give it a more positive ending:

  • The women were not so stupid as to come to the tomb to anoint a body when they knew they couldn’t enter the tomb. They came to just visit the tomb, as mourners do.
  • No mysterious “young man” was there to deliver a message to these women. None other than an angel came down. He was so unambiguous that the tomb guards fainted on the spot at the sight of him.
  • And the women did not run like scared, um, girls, at the sight of him, too scared to say a word to anyone. No, they ran with fear and joy to tell the disciples!

Mark and Matthew share the same characters, the same scene, the same words, the same setting and narrative point of view or vision (camera angle) of events. That last point, the camera angle, is a vital key to establishing a Matthew-Mark interdependence. Authors without any contact would most likely imagine different points of view from which to portray a common event — the mind and/or experience of one of the women, or of a disciple who saw the women, or of someone who first saw or heard from the women, etc.

Matthew owes his resurrection appearance narrative to Mark. From Mark he derived the setting and the words and the characters. When other gospel authors disagreed with both Matthew and Mark, their disagreements were on theological and literary (not eyewitness) source grounds, as already discussed.

The textual and narrative ties between the resurrection appearances in Luke and John

The narratives of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples in Luke and John share the same structure:

  1. Jesus appearance to the disciples takes place in Jerusalem, not Galilee
  2. Jesus appears suddenly in the midst of the disciples
  3. Jesus shows his body (hands and side/feet)
  4. Disciples react with joy to the appearance
  5. Immediately after appearing to the disciples, Jesus speaks to them with identical words: “And said [historical present in both gospels] to them, ‘Peace with you'”
  6. At the appearance Jesus presents his body as a verification [– verification that he is risen, in Luke who may well have been expressing an anti-docetic or anti-Marcionite agenda here; verification that he is indeed Jesus, in John –] and uses very similar wording: “When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet” in Luke; “When he had said this, he showed them his hands and side” in John.
  7. In both gospels the authors are said to be in fear. In Luke, however, it is fear that they are seeing a ghost when they see Jesus; in the more anti-semitic John, they are hiding in fear of the Jews.
  8. Both gospels speak of the disbelief of the disciples. In John the disbelief is a theological issue, and is packed into his discussion of Thomas and the need of all believers to have faith; in Luke, with a different theological agenda, the disbelief is a narrative colouring — they were confused when they saw unexpectedly Jesus, and finally were so overcome with joy that they could scarcely believe that what they were seeing was really happening.

(Adapted, with significant modification of point 6, from Matson’s In Dialogue With Another Gospel (pp. 422-424)

Matson discusses many more verbal and stylistic similarities between Luke and John’s resurrection appearance accounts.

Written sources for the Emmaus narrative in Luke

I have already discussed Luke’s use of Genesis and Judges in his construction of the Emmaus Road encounter with the resurrected Jesus. See points 6 to 10 in the Emmaus post. What follows is adapted from Matson, pp. 410-421.

But there are other indications in the text that Luke’s Emmaus narrative has been edited from other text. (I suspect that the final redactor/author of Luke-Acts has re-worked an earlier Luke, also discussed in other posts here.) The dramatic climax of the story, when the two who had just been with Jesus run off to tell the disciples of their experience, collapses into anti-climax when they completely fail to tell of their experience and instead bring in an entirely new thought nowhere before hinted at, that Jesus had appeared to Peter. Readers are left wondering how and when that could have happened, and are also left with a bland taste in place of savouring a narrative climax.

The author of the gospel was normally capable of much better than this. Indeed, his structure of staged steps to the final appearance of Jesus demonstrates his literary competence: moving from an empty tomb and confusion, then to a meeting and confusion and a mere glimpse of recognition; and finally to the full bodily appearance before all. If this is how a Jesus really did show himself and if the narrative is read as history instead of narrative drama, it reads as if he is having a joking game of hide-and-seek before revealing his resurrected self. A bit like a playfully teasing ghost?

The (final) author has awkwardly inserted the message of the appearance to Peter into an existing narrative. He was probably attempting to give life to the claim in 1 Corinthians 15 that Peter had been the first to see Jesus. (That tradition or passage in 1 Corinthians may well be a later pastoral insertion and not original to Paul anyway. If so, this would tie in with the final redactor of Luke-Acts himself giving narrative form to several Pastoralist ideas.)

Another textual anomaly in the Emmaus account is its tension against an earlier passage where the author claimed the disciples scoffed at the reports of the women about the angels at the empty tomb (24:11). Luke 24:24 in the Emmaus story contradicts that, saying that several of the disciples did pay enough attention to the women to go and investigate. Note that this is scarcely a reference only to Peter running to the tomb. Peter ran alone in Luke. In the Emmaus narrative several of the disciples took the women seriously.

While the Emmaus narrative is woven with Lukan wording and style, the evidence suggests that Luke was struggling with an earlier written story. He did not have eyewitness reports and traditions to help him piece what he wanted to say all into a seamless whole.

Conclusion

So when Wright says that the different gospel accounts do not betray any textual or narrative interdependence, he is “overstating” the case. One may disagree with some of the specifics of the arguments for narrative interdependence, and dispute the interpretation of some of the above passages. But it is misleading to insist that there is no evidence for such interdependence among the gospels in their resurrection appearance accounts.

There are clear structural and verbal links between the gospels in these narratives, and where there are differences, they are readily explained by the larger theological interest of the authors.

One more post to go to finish this mini-series . . . .


2008-05-06

Pentecost, belated birthday of the church

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by Neil Godfrey

Christianity was surely up and running at least a hundred years before someone thought to assign a special day for its birthday. And one might well read the evidence in a way that indicates “orthodox” theologians hijacked Pentecost from the Jews to use it as a hostage in their campaign against “heretical” — Marcionite — Christians.

The earliest evidence we have for the story that the church began on Pentecost, some fifty days after the crucifixion of Jesus, is the Book of Acts. But before we see any evidence that anyone knew of the existence of that Book, some time in the mid-second century, not a single Christian author indicates any knowledge of Pentecost as the birth-day of the Church. Justin Martyr, our first notable Christian apologist and one who was connected with Christianity from Syria to Rome, discusses in his tracts what he knows about Jesus and the beginning of the church. He informs us that as far as he is aware the church began with the sending out of the twelve apostles after Jesus persuaded them

For after His crucifixion, the disciples that accompanied Him were dispersed, until He rose from the dead, and persuaded them that so it had been prophesied concerning Him, that He would suffer; and being thus persuaded, they went into all the world, and taught these truths. (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 53)

So Justin, possibly as late as around 150 c.e., appears to understand that it was the persuasive powers of argument of the resurrected Jesus that catapulted the twelve apostles (not Paul) from Jerusalem into the world to preach to the gentiles. Most of what one reads by scholars about what Justin Martyr knew of our New Testament books expresses the conviction that Justin knew Acts and all our canonical gospels. That may be so but I doubt it, at least in the case of the book of Acts. If he did know the book of Acts, he is mysteriously silent about Paul, and even attributes the preaching to all the gentile world to the original twelve apostles. He is also convinced that the Roman armies invaded Judea and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple within weeks of Christ’s crucifixion. Both of these views of Justin simply fly in the face of what the book of Acts is all about. If he knew Acts he dismissed it.

The Gospel of Mark, arguably the earliest of our canonical gospels, indicates that the twelve disciples, led by Peter, were destined to be converted in Galilee after Jesus was resurrected. The original ending of the gospel (16:8 ) forces readers to focus on the fearful silence of the women who visited the tomb of Jesus. Readers are left with nothing more than a suspicion or hope that the apostles will somehow-maybe meet up with Jesus in Galilee again. Jesus had promised that the gospel would be preached in all the world, but the role of the twelve apostles in this preaching is fraught with ambiguity and uncertainty throughout the text.

The Gospel of Matthew rejects the ambivalence of this first gospel, and makes it clear that the resurrected Jesus did indeed meet up with eleven of his disciples (Judas was eliminated), and that this meeting was in Galilee, on a mountain there. Further, it was from this mountain in Galilee that Jesus sent out most of these eleven remaining disciples (Matthew says that some of them doubted that they really were in the presence of the resurrected Jesus) to the whole world. There is no Pentecost. There is no “holy spirit”. Jesus promises that he himself will be with them always.

The Gospel of John does bring in the holy spirit, but it is breathed out of Jesus’ nose onto the disciples, minus Thomas. (John does not specify if Judas was among those receiving the holy spirit.) Interestingly, Jesus links this nasal gift not with preaching to outsiders but with authority to decide what sins should be forgiven. The closest the gospel comes to any preaching mission is a concluding chapter where Peter is charged with the responsibility to “feed the flock”. The author of the Gospel of John appears to visualize apostolic activity in relation to a flock of other Christians. There is no Pentecost. If there is a starting point of the apostolic activity, it is either on the day of the resurrection when Jesus breathed on most of them, or afterwards when Jesus caught up with seven of the disciples by a seashore in Galilee.

It is only with the arrival of the Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts, joined together as a single work by prologues and certain themes such as a focus on Jerusalem and the Temple as an honourable centre and focus of the new faith, that the Pentecost birth of the church makes its introduction.

It is noteworthy that Pentecost makes this special appearance in a context of a theological debate over the relevance of the Jewish scriptures and heritage to Christianity.

Both external and internal evidence testify that the Book of Acts was written as a second century response to what our “orthodox” Christians saw as the “heretical” Marcionite challenge that began in the first half of the second century. Our earliest evidence that anyone knew of the existence of the book of Acts is from the later second century, when Irenaeus cites it. The name of Luke as the author of these works was also an invention of these later times.

Marcionite Christianity rejected Jewish scriptures as having any sort of foundational relevance to the church. To interpret the Old Testament allegorically as foreshadowing or prophesying Jesus Christ was, to Marcion, just another expression of the Judaizing heresy condemned by the apostle Paul. Marcion insisted on reading the Jewish scriptures literally. The messiah promised in the Jewish scriptures by the creator God of this world was destined to be a messiah for the Jews only. Jesus was not that messiah. He came to reveal the hitherto unknown God. Jewish scriptures and laws were irrelevant to those who worshipped Marcion’s Jesus. And it appears that Marcionite Christianity was a serious rival to what became “orthodox” Christianity. It was certainly the dominant faith in Asia Minor, and appears to have been followed throughout Syria and Greece, through to Rome.

The allegorical reading of the Old Testament secured for the “orthodox” a hoary literary and spiritual heritage worthy of the new faith. Adam and Eve were allegories of Christ and the Church. Israel itself was an allegory of the Church. But some Jewish metaphors for Israel, such as the Servant in Isaiah, were prophesies of Jesus. One can see this allegorization process at its peak in writings like the Epistle of Barnabas and the Dialogue with Trypho. Some see this treatment of the OT as nothing less than a hijacking of the Jewish scriptures that went hand in glove with the anti-semitism of the time. Marcion saw it as a Judaizing heresy.

If the Book of Acts was written to defend the “Jewish-orthodox” Christianity, with its declared roots in an allegorical reading of the Jewish scriptures, and with its coopting of those scriptures as their own (not even understood by the Jews who originally composed them), then it would appear that the Jewish Feast of Pentecost was given its fame as the birthday of the Church as part of the propaganda campaign battle between the Marcionites and the “orthodox”.

Luke-Acts gives central focus to Jerusalem and the Temple in the life of Jesus and the early church. Acts makes regular references to the importance of the synagogues and Jewish feasts, including the sabbath day, to the life of Paul. The earliest apostles preached daily from the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple.

The Jewish Feast of Pentecost as the day on which the miraculous birth of the Church occurred made its first appearance in this second century theological battle between the Marcionites and the “orthodox”. Quite likely it was constructed to affirm the Jewish “spiritual/allegorical” heritage of those Christians who saw themselves in rivalry with their Marcionite brethren.


2008-05-02

Resurrection: more responses to Wright, 2

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by Neil Godfrey

Continuing from previous post:

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. Discussed one in previous post and attached comments. Three more to go:

  • 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

theological differences

Wright sees little if any theological bent behind the resurrection appearance scenes in the gospels and argues that therefore these gospel scenes rely on very early church traditions — before theological debates had time to take over.

The Gospel of John

But the differences in the accounts are readily enough explained by theological interests. John Ashton is cited to this end in a paragraph by April DeConick in her Voices of the Mystics (p.83):

The Johannine scholar, John Ashton, in his balanced monograph on the Gospel of John [i.e. Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 1991. p. 514], warns us about plunging into a morass when inter­preting this story, of reading beyond the intent of the author as, unfor­tunately, Barnabas Lindars has done in his statement: ‘According to the Jewish idea of bodily resurrection presupposed by John, Jesus is touch­able, and perfectly able to invite Thomas to handle him. ‘ Ashton reminds us to keep the author’s point of the story foremost in mind: ‘If John invented this story, as there is every reason to believe, it was not, surely, to stimulate his readers to reflect upon the tangibility of risen bodies, but to impress upon them the need for faith.’

This is obvious when one compares how the authors of the gospels of Luke and John treat similar words of Jesus:

In Luke 24:39 the resurrected Jesus is made to say:

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.

Compare John 20:27

Then he said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at my hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

Which is followed by:

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

In contrast to the author of Luke’s gospel, the author of the narrative in John has no interest in explaining the difference between flesh and spirit in relation to the appearance of Jesus. Rather, the whole point of the scene — the reason for its difference from the one we read in Luke — is to instruct readers that having faith in Jesus without even seeing him is more commendable than having faith because one sees him. DeConick argues that this scene in John is really a rebuke, through the mouth of Jesus, against those Christians who believed in the superiority of seeing Jesus, through visionary experiences, as the Christians whom we associate with the Gospel of Thomas did.

John’s scene of the resurrection appearance is different from Luke’s because John was constructing his scene to illustrate and teach his theological belief in the superiority of faith without seeing Jesus. This is confirmed by the clear statement near the end of this gospel that the author’s goal is to persuade readers to believe — John 20:31.

The gospel of John evidences none of Luke’s interest in explaining the nature of Jesus’ body. His theological purpose is quite different. His different resurrection appearance scenes are crafted to illustrate this theological interest.

The Gospel of Luke

As for the Gospel of Luke, this narrative insists that all the resurrection appearances happened in and near Jerusalem, and pointedly has Jesus forbid his followers to leave that city. This contrasts with Matthew’s gospel that picks up its cue from Mark’s ending and has Jesus appear to the eleven in Galilee only.

This Jerusalem setting for the resurrection appearances in Luke’s gospel is clearly a theological decision of the author. Luke’s gospel begins in Jerusalem and its Temple, with a priestly father of John the Baptist. The newborn Jesus is blessed in Jerusalem, in the Temple. The boy Jesus returns to Jerusalem’s Temple. There is no reference to Jerusalem’s temple being desecrated by an “abomination that makes desolate”. And there is no ominous cursing of the fig-tree outside the Temple, which in other gospels can be taken as a sign that Jerusalem is to be cursed. Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem. The same author/final redactor, presumably, who wrote Acts, likewise makes Jerusalem the centre of apostolic preaching at the founding of the church. The apostles go out from Jerusalem to preach. In Luke, Jerusalem is the ideological centre of the Christian faith.

This contrasts with the Gospel of Mark which depicted Jerusalem as the den of iniquity, the place where Jesus was crucified. Galilee on the other hand was the place of the beginning of the Kingdom of God, or at least where the Kingdom was “at hand”. Matthew’s gospel follows Mark’s gospel here.

This difference in the Gospel of Luke’s resurrection appearance narrative is without doubt spawned by the theological meaning its author attached to Jerusalem.

Conclusion

No doubt a long chapter, if not a book, could be written discussing all that could be covered to bring out the theological differences guiding each gospel’s resurrection appearance narratives.

I have not even touched one most obvious point: that non-orthodox Christians from earliest times read these same gospels but understood their theological message quite differently from the way many literalists do today. They could read them as supporting their beliefs that the resurrected Christ did not have a flesh and blood body. In other words, they inform us that there are at least two ways of reading Luke’s (and John’s) passage. If one of those ways is lost in the culture of antiquity, then it is up to moderns to find it again to understand the debate as it once was. But I’ll be covering some of that in my final post addressing Wright’s 4th point. The point here is that the narratives themselves are clearly theological, and the differences between them identify the different theological slants that shaped each.

But even if one disagrees, the above cases should suffice to establish that Wright’s claims are at the very least anything but conclusive. There is clearly a strong case to be made that the differences in the resurrection appearance narratives were shaped by different theological interests.


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”


How Polytheism morphed into Monotheism: first steps

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by Neil Godfrey

m-typesOne of the more intriguing books I read not many years ago was Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, edited by Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede. Its opening chapter by Martin West looks at some of the earliest signs of the transformation of polytheistic religions into monotheistic thought. He begins with Greek and “Near Eastern” (sic) literature.

The essence of polytheism is that the many gods have independent existences, rarely crossing each others paths as they are respectively called on by devotees to help out with their special talents. A thief would call on a god of thieves for blessing, not the god of justice — unless or until he was himself wronged. The Homeric hero Odysseus was persecuted by the god Poseidon but regularly protected by Athena. The Bible narratives likewise point back to the time when Yahweh was among many gods with his own distinct provenance:

You have the right to take what Chemosh your god gives you, but we will take the land of all whom the Lord our God has driven out before us (Judges 11:24)

But Homer, West argues, also introduces readers to something contrary to true polytheism. The gods meet in council and subsume their individual wills to their exalted chief, Zeus. Continue reading “How Polytheism morphed into Monotheism: first steps”


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

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.