Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
The Jewish historian Josephus had a bit to say about the nature of historiography, and why he believed his historical writings were more truthful than those of Greek historians. His criticisms of Greek histories have some interest when compared with modern questions about the historical reliability of the Gospels. . . . Continue reading “What Josephus might have said about the Gospels”
Another recent gem on Australia’s Radio National program, Encounter, 5 October 2008, were interviews with Mandaeans (followers of John the Baptist) describing their lives and challenges since the invasion of Iraq. Mandaean scholars also discussed some of the Mandaean beliefs about their own origins and practices.
The transcript of the program is available
here.
According to the Encounter transcript, Mandaean belief is that John the Baptist:
This is according to the Haran Gawaita, a Mandaean text dating at least from the 6th century, and possibly from the 3rd century.
Of course this historical view leads to interesting questions:
Some late Christian literature (the Pseudo-Clementine — also from 3rd century) is also consistent with the Mandaean belief that John the Baptist was a gnostic teacher.
An open letter to Sarah Palin, from Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
Dear Sarah,
As a former fundamentalist, I’d like to call you on what you are doing.
This is not about disrespecting your private beliefs. But you have a huge conflict of interest here by running for office and you can’t have it both ways (see Jesus’ words in John 2:15).
You have not been honest about the most important thing about you: the fact that you are a born-again, literal Bible-believing, fundamentalist Christian. Voters need to know you are not merely a “Christian” – a follower of Christ’s teachings.
Most people who have never been entrenched in the subculture of fundamentalist Christianity may not understand what this really means, but I do. Like you, I was raised in the Assemblies of God and I was a zealous part of the Jesus Movement. Like you, my life was consumed with seeking God’s will for my life and awaiting the imminent return of Jesus. It’s clear to me that you want to do the Lord’s will; you’ve said and done things like a true believer would. You are on a mission from God. If that is not true, then I challenge you to deny it.
Former fundamentalists like me know that your worldview is so encompassing, authoritarian, and powerful that it defines who you think you are, the way you view the world, history, other people, the future, and your place in the world. It defines you far more than hockey mom, wife, woman, hunter, governor, or VP candidate.
You believe that every bit of the Bible is God’s perfect word. You have a supernatural view of reality where Satan is a real entity and where good and evil beings are engaged in “spiritual warfare” (Ephesians 6:12). Like Queen Esther, you believe that God has “called” and “anointed” you to lead America. This is why you have accepted blessing for office through the “laying on of hands” and prayer to protect you from witchcraft.
So what does this mean for governing? What could Americans expect with you at the helm?
You cannot affirm basic human decency or capability, because according to your dogma, we are sinful, weak, and dependant on God. And so, your decisions would not be based on expert advice or even your own reasoning, but on your gut-level, intuitive interpretation of God’s will. This would allow you to do anything and claim you were led by God.
Your thinking necessarily is black or white. People and policies are either good or bad. After all, Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me” (Matt. 12:30). Under your leadership, diplomacy and cultural nuance would be less important than not blinking. In a spiritual war, you don’t negotiate with the devil.
Regarding social policy, as a believer in individual salvation, you would emphasize individual morality and responsibility, not a community approach with structural solutions. You would be judgmental and controlling of personal choices regarding sex, reproduction, and library books instead of addressing global warming, torture, poverty, and war. Your belief in eternal hell-fire, your deference to a literal Bible despite its cruelties and vengeful god, and your indoctrination to disbelieve your own compassionate instincts, are likely to leave you numb at your moral core. You might recall the verse, “If a man will not work he shall not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). However, faith-based initiatives would be okay because they would use caring to evangelize.
How about science? As it has in your governorship, your interpretation of the Bible would trump scientific scholarship and findings. You would deny the human role in global warming because God is in control. More importantly, you would not make the environment a priority because you do not expect the earth to last.
International affairs? Since your subculture has identified the establishment of Israel in 1948 as the beginning of the end, you would see war, epidemics, climate change, and natural disasters, all as hopeful signs of Jesus’ return. You would be a staunch supporter of Israel and deeply suspicious of countries like Russia identified with the antichrist in the end times literature. (You have publicly said that you expect Jesus to return in your lifetime and that it guides you every day.)
The Christian fundamentalism that has shaped your thinking teaches that working for peace is unbiblical and wrong because peace is not humanly possible without the return of Jesus (1 Thess. 5:2,3). Conflict, even outright war is inevitable, for Jesus came not to bring peace but a sword (Matt: 10:34-37). Like millions of fundamentalist Christians, you may actually find joy in global crises because these things portend His return (Luke 21:28).
But all of this certainty and fantasy in today’s complex world is dangerous, Sarah. There was a time when all of humanity thought the world was flat. Today, the stakes for such massive error are much higher.
So we want to know, Sarah, Warrior Princess for God — How dare you presume to take responsibility for our country and our planet when you, in your own mind, do not consider this home? I mean home for the long haul, not just until your rescue arrives from space. How dare you look forward to Christ’s return, leaving your public office empty like a scene from the movie, Left Behind?
What if you are completely wrong and you wreak havoc instead with your policies? If you deny global warming, brand people and countries “evil,” support war, and neglect global issues, you can create the apocalypse you are expecting. And as it gets worse and worse, and you look up for redemption, you just may not see it. What then? In that moment, you and all who have shared your delusion may have the most horrifying realization imaginable. And it will be too late. Too late to avoid destruction and too late to apologize to all the people who tried to turn the tide and needed you on board.
And you, John McCain, how dare you endanger all of us for the sake of your politics? How dare you choose a partner who is all symbol and no substance, preying on the fears of millions of Americans? Shame on both of you.
Leave this beautiful, fragile earth to us, the unbelievers in your fantasy. It’s the only heaven we have and you have no right to make it a hell.
Sincerely,
Marlene
Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
October 21, 2008
Marlene Winell is a Bay Area psychologist who specializes in recovery from fundamentalist religion. She is author of Leaving the Fold: A guide for former fundamentalists and others leaving their religion. She is the daughter of Assemblies of God missionaries. A longer article about Sarah Palin’s religion is on Dr. Winell’s website: www.marlenewinell.net
Some aspects of Marlene’s book, Leaving the Fold, are covered in my Winell: Leaving the Fold tag.
While I’ve been waylaid by real life from getting to my blog as often as I would like a new blog has since emerged covering in depth the sorts of issues I would have loved to have written up first, but it’s great to see them addressed as extensively as Tom has on his Musings blog.
Recent posts:
But Tom, if you are reading this, let me warn you of a bitty bug with WordPress that it took me too long to discover — if your settings allow for smileys, then every time you type an 8 followed by a bracket, you will get a smiley instead of a page, issue or verse reference! i admit, though, that readers who like to browse quickly will find such little graphics throughout the posts easier on the eyes.
Imagine the author of the Gospel of Mark wrote about the coming of the Son of Man in clouds from the same perspective as frequently found amongst the Jewish Wisdom, Prophetic and History writings. (Leave aside for this discussion the perspective of the Deuteronomist, who on other grounds appears to have spawned a separate tradition about the deity anyway — see posts on Margaret Barker’s work for details.)
Last time I posted something here without taking time to check my bookshelves to remind myself what “the professional scholars” had written I got thoroughly roasted. That was a good, if lazy, way to be brought up to speed. Now my excuse is that I am separated by thousands of kilometers from my library, and am likely to remain so for some months yet. But what’s a blog for if not to toss out off the cuff thoughts anyway? Besides, I know the following interpretation is by no means novel. But it is one that I have been a long time refusing to accept — till about now.
What I’m moving towards is the view that Mark’s depiction of the coming of the Son of Man in clouds was intended to be as metaphoric as his description of the stars falling from heaven. Further, when he spoke of everyone “seeing” this advent, he really implied a “spiritual” seeing just as surely as he meant the miracles of Jesus to be interpreted as a restoring of spiritual insight.
Let’s imagine the same author did not call Peter “Satan” because he got his timing wrong over exactly when Jesus would act apocalyptically as in returning with angelic hosts and burning up the old physical world before inaugurating a new cosmic order, but because he was opposed to the very idea root and branch, totally, absolutely. Mark’s Jesus did not tell Peter, “Yes yes, you are right, I will come as a conquering hero, but not just yet — I have to make atonement for sins first, THEN I can do the world-conquering thing, you Satan you!” Continue reading “When they saw the Son of Man coming in the clouds”
Jewish settlers punched and kicked two news photographers and a British woman helping Palestinians pick olives in a West Bank town, and Israeli police responded by stopping the harvest.
The scuffle in the town of Hebron on Saturday was the latest of a series of efforts by settlers living in the occupied land to disrupt an annual harvest critical to many Palestinians’ livelihoods.
The rest of this Reuters story — one all too common and becoming significantly increasingly common yet all too under-reported in mainstream English speaking media — can be read here.
See journalist Jonathan Cook’s report on the recent Acre riots.
Do Americans realize that a military trained and equipped by the US government attacked a civilian population as they slept in their beds? Can they justify sending another billion dollars to Georgia and nothing for those Georgia attacked?
I have made an urgent appeal to the world for humanitarian relief for our people at the website helpossetianow.org. I beg the United States and the world to find out the truth. Please hear our voices.
From I survived the Geogian war. Here’s what I saw in the Christian Science Monitor.
Historian Richard Carrier and theology scholar Jake O’Connell debate whether Paul believed that Jesus rose from the dead in the same body that died, or in a new body, leaving his old body behind to rot in the grave. . . . . . access this site: On Paul’s Theory of Resurrection: The Carrier-O’Connell Debate (2008)
From the above debate site,
Richard Carrier: Richard Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University. He specializes in ancient science and religion, and has written on early Christianity both online and in print. He is also a published philosopher, prominent atheist, and author of the book Sense and Goodness without God. For more about him and his work see RichardCarrier.info.
Jake O’Connell: Jake O’Connell is a theology student at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has articles on Jesus’ resurrection forthcoming in Tyndale Bulletin, Conspectus, and the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. He also has book reviews forthcoming in Expository Times, Restoration Quarterly, and the International Journal of Parapsychology.
Have just visited some of the most spectacular museums and galleries, and one exhibit with the theme of the “myth and truths of Babylon” at the Pergamon Museum. Lower floor consists of displays of artefacts and reconstructions from ancient and medieval Mesopotamia – from Sumerian to Arabian arts and sciences (along with monuments from Pergamon); upper floor looks at the myth of Babylon through the ages up to modern times, and includes spectacular arts from medieval scripts right through to 20th century film.
By the way I do love these late night Berlin (or rather Lichtenberg) internet cafes (where I am right now ) that are more like mini-bars — beer, smoke, music, warm conversation noise — than anything like the functional but sterile internet cafes I know in Australia. Wonder if this is a more general European (East European??) thing?
But was struck by the displays that related to two or three biblical areas –
Babylonian medicine is often seen as remarkably advanced (surgery, diagnoses and remedies etc.) — but we also saw the evidence here that that apparent “science” was in league with “faith” of sorts. All those healing “sciences” were really only a part of a more comprehensive religious practice. The real goal of healing physically was to assist restoring the body in the right relationship with the deity who had, presumably, been offended, and so effected the disease in the first place. It reminded me of the healings of Jesus. After all, what is “forgiveness of sin” if not a restoration of a “right relationship with the deity”? In the context of this Museum exhibit, the healings of Jesus in the Bible are nothing more than an extension of ancient Mid/Near East medicine. Or at least just as “magical”.
Another biblical theme paralled at this exhibit was the myth (though on the “fact” floor) of the king — chosen by the deity etc, but especially noted as “a shepherd” of his people.
Do those who love the biblical myths really want to restore ancient Babylonian concepts of governance and medicine?
There was another feature I was going to mention here but it is getting late (takes a long time to master the subtle intracies of a European keyboard!) and I have a day of workshops tomorrow so it will have to wait.
It’s nice to be in a city where everyone I meet, including complete strangers, is so friendly and helpful. It almost seems to be a rule that the less prosperous a place, the more traumatic the recent history of a place, the friendlier the people. And only 50% of the population here claim adherence to a religion. 50% are presumably atheist or agnostic. Religion makes no difference, it seems to me, to how decent and good people are and can be.
This is my first visit to Berlin. Love the historical reminders everywhere, never expected to still see old buildings with scars of battles from the 1940’s in the midst of the city among the new buildings that had replaced those more totally destroyed. The conference I am attending is at Humbolt University . Right outside between the main historic building and the library on the other side is the square where Jewish books were burned in 1933 – it’s difficult to grasp such an event in the midst of buildings and monuments famous as reminders of the highest and best of human culture. Nearby are other monums anents to the values of respect and tolerance — French style churches opposite German ordered by royalty of Enlightenment years wanting to assert a type of multiculturalism opposed to the idea of one national culture claiming superiority over others. Ditto for a Catholic church allowed to be built in Protestant region. And then in the midst of it all, reminders of how it all fell apart with the Night of the Broken Glass and the Book burning of 1933.
It’s a moving reminder, to me anyway, how peoples can change when they find themselves degraded and humiliated and desperate for a restoration of self´-respect.
Okay, bad juvenile pun, I’m sure.
But I’m having trouble outlining Margaret Barker’s Israel’s Second God here. Firstly because work commitments have made it difficult for me to take the time to synthesize and then restructure the contents adequately, and secondly because Barker refers to many studies and theses that really require much unpacking for the uninitiated. (The following has taken weeks and weeks of broken bits of ten or twenty minutes to write, which makes for a very disjointed piece!) I’d find more enjoyment in taking time to explore some of those studies she refers to instead of her “grand thesis” that builds on them. I do have years-old notes from some of those studies filed away, and I would enjoy more digging those out and editing them to place here. But unfortunately I am currently working in “the most isolated city in the world” – Perth, Western Australia – over 4,000 k’s from my home and where my library is stored. I’d need my library to cross-check my old notes. And my next job and residence (only a few weeks from now) is to be even more distant from my library (Singapore!). Blogging here and on Metalogger will become a series of snatched ad hoc moments.
Continuing from Israel’s Second God, ch. 2 contd . . . .
It has widely been accepted among scholars that El was the most ancient name for God and that this name was later replaced by Yahweh. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God as El, but from the time of Moses and the Exodus he was known as Yahweh.
Exodus 3:15
Yahweh, the God [El] of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you; this is my name for ever, and thus [as Yahweh] I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
Exodus 6:2-3
I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them.
Names for god such as El Shaddai appear in “early stories” in Genesis and Exodus, and in ancient poetry such as found in the Balaam oracles in Numbers 24.
But Margaret Barker points to a problem with this idea:
The name of EL is used more often in texts from later periods, especially from the time of the Babylonian exile, such as in – – –
Second Isaiah
Job
Later Psalms
Daniel
Apocalyptic writings
Hellenistic Jewish literature
If it were the more ancient name that had been replaced by Yahweh, then why does it not eventually disappear? Why is it used more often at a later period in the texts listed above?
Explanations (or ad hoc rationalizations?) proposed hitherto to explain this “anomaly” include:
a cultural interest in reviving old liturgical forms
vicissitudes of fashion
influence of the Hellenistic Zeus Hypsistos
Barker suggests another explanation:
Maybe El never fell out of use at all.
Maybe there were many who resisted the attempted reforms of the Yahwists and Deuteronomists when they attempted to displace (or merge) El with Yahweh.
Maybe those who maintained their independence from the Deuteronomists continued to think of the god El and the god Yahweh as a separate deities all along, perhaps even as Father and Son gods
1. The Old Testament contains polemics against a number of Canaanite deities, especially Baal, but no polemic at all against the head Canaanite deity, El. (Here Margaret Barker is drawing heavily on O. Eissfeldt’s article, “El and Yahweh”, published in the Journal of Semitic Studies (1956), pp.25-37.) Is this because El was never viewed as a threat to Yahweh? Baal and Yahweh were very similar deities. Both were storm gods. Both loved roaring around in clouds and making thunderous noises and terrorizing mortals with their flashes of lightning. And if both were sons of El (see previous post notes for details) one can understand the need for one to displace the other.
But Yahweh also takes on some of the characteristics of El in some passages. He takes on El’s role as king presiding over a heavenly court. Why was there no apparent conflict with El as there was between Yahweh and Baal?
2. The patriarchs in Genesis did things forbidden by the author of Deuteronomy — such as setting up local altars throughout Canaan and having their sacred trees or groves and pillars. But if Deuteronomy is a sixth century text or later, then such practices must have been practiced as late as that time. Otherwise the author would have had no need to condemn them.
Margaret Barker draws on studies that have argued that El worship was practiced throughout Canaan at local altars, and that various of these altars and pillars were given special significance as a part of the Genesis narratives about the travels and adventures of the patriarchs of Israel.
Just as the Canaanite barley festival came to be associated with the Exodus, and as the Canaanite wheat harvest was linked with the law being given at Sinai, and the grape harvest with the enthronement of the king, so also were the Canaanite customs of local altars and pillars given special meanings from narrative associations with the patriarchs.
Would this explain the El epithets associated with these altars and places of groves and pillars? (e.g. Bethel, Penuel)
This worship of El, at local altars, may indeed have continued right through in exilic times, despite efforts or hopes of the Deuteronomists to replace it with a centralized worship of Yahweh.
Other advocates of Yahweh (not necessarily hostile Deuteronomists) may have merged the stories referring to El into their accounts of Yahweh. El and Yahweh may have been merged by these authors without thoughts of tension or conflict existing between the two, as was the case with Yahweh and Baal.
John Van Seters (Abraham in History and Tradition; In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History) has pioneered significant challenges to the documentary hypothesis that proposes that much of the Old Testament was composed by combining two “national epics” labelled by scholars as J and E. And as Margaret Barker stresses, J and E are only hypotheses. They are not “facts”. Repetition and ongoing references to J and E have led to them becoming “facts” in the minds of many, but they are still hypotheses.
Van Seters and other scholars have compared the Pentateuch with the work of Greek historian, Herodotus. Its author, who was a Yahwist, was collecting and compiling materials in a way similar to the way Herodotus worked to compose his Histories. Both use a
“mixture of myths, legends and genealogies to demonstrate the origin of Athenian society, its customs and institutions”
The Greek historian, not unlike the author or compiler of the Pentateuch, used several sources:
“some were written, some were tales he heard on his travels, and sometimes he used ‘to fabricate stories and anecdotes using little or no traditional material, only popular motifs or themes from other literary works.”
Both wrote with the same purpose: to give their audiences “a sense of identity and national pride”. This would have been particularly necessary for Jews who had been dispossessed by the exile.
If this is how the Pentateuch was compiled, then we cannot expect to find in it evidence for anything but the concerns of the exiles, and one of these seems to have been to relate the El practices to those of Yahweh’s cult. (p.22)
Barker refers to R. N. Whybray (The Making of the Pentateuch) to dismiss the old idea that oral traditions of Israel’s history were handed down rigidly without change throughout generations before being written down. Tellers of tales were more likely to adapt stories to the needs of their audiences.Thus the history in the Pentateuch more likely reflects the needs and interests of the later audience for whom it was written than any accurate ancient history of Israel. If so, then the references to El in the Pentateuch were not archaic relics from yesteryear, but were part of the religious interest and life of audiences as late as the sixth century b.c.e.
The Pentateuch very likely represents but one religious point of view in ancient Israel. And this is perhaps easier to grasp if we concur with modern studies that argue that the Pentateuch’s complex patterns are evidence for a literary artistry that must have come from the creative mind of a single author. The old idea that the Pentateuch is a higgledy piggledy clumsy pasting of various traditions and sources together no longer stands scrutiny.
And if the Pentateuch does represent but one author’s viewpoint, and that of his sect or group, then what other viewpoints existed beside it? The prophets have long been recognized as religious innovators, and it is quite possible that the author of the Pentateuch was another.
The Canaanite deity El was an “ancient of days” father god, creator/procreator of heaven and earth, merciful, presiding over the heavenly council of lesser divinities.
The Canaanite Baal was a god of storm and thunder. He appeared in clouds with terrifying displays of lightning and thunder. He was a king and judge. But he was also subordinate to (and a son of) El.
The Bible portrays deadly conflicts between Baal and Yahweh. Witness Elijah’s slaying of the prophets of Baal. But there is no similar conflict between Yahweh and the Canaanite god El. Yet there was no similar tension with El.
Barker’s explanation is that the religion of Israel long acknowledged two gods, El and (like Baal, his son) Yahweh. The biblical storm and cloud imagery attached to Yawheh (from Exodus to Ezekiel) marked Yahweh as an alternative to Baal. But biblical literature also refers to El throughout the history of Israelite literature, and not just in the earliest periods. El is used throughout the late Second Isaiah, for example. Barker believes that this points to Israelite religion in many quarters acknowledging both El and Yahweh as distinct deities.
The Deuteronomist (and Yahwist) did attempt to fuse El and Yahweh, but their re-writings and beliefs did not change the thinking and writings of all. Some authors, particularly those of Jewish texts that did not become part of the later orthodox Jewish canon, continued to think of El and Yahweh as separate deities, even as father and son deities, just as El and Baal had been in Canaanite mythology.
The biblical Yahweh appears to have taken on the attributes of both El and Baal.
If, as the evidence testifies, the early name for the god of Israel was El, one question to ask is when Yahweh replaced (or took on the attributes of) El. And at what point were the earlier stories of Israel overwritten so that El was replaced with Yahweh? The prevailing documentary hypothesis (J and E) has indicated that this fusion occurred early in the kingdom of Israel. But this is not a fact, as Barker is at pains to point out, but only one of several hypotheses. The fusion may well have been as late as the exilic period.
But more significantly, Margaret Barker argues that these questions are not just about the different names.
Psalms, for example, that address both El and Yahweh have traditionally been interpreted as using two names for the one god:
Psalm 18:13
Yahweh thundered in the heavens, and Elyon uttered his voice
But compare a Canaanite religious poem from Ugarit:
Lift up your hands to heaven;
Sacrifice to Bull, your father El.
Minister to Ba’l with your sacrifice,
The son of Dagan with your provision.
Does the Canaanite poem inform us how we should be reading the Psalm — not seeing the different names as poetic synonyms for the one person, but in fact different names for different deities?
Matthew 25:31-46 depicts the king sitting in judgment, but the king also acknowledges a higher authority than himself — his Father.
Compare Baal, who also was a king who sat in judgment, yet was himself subordinate to his father, El.
Barker asks us to question the survival of an ancient Canaanite image of gods appearing in a Christian text. She proposes that it makes sense to think of those ancient images in fact being maintained throughout Israel’s history, and this despite the impression we easily pick up by assuming that the Pentateuch and re-written biblical texts are representative of ancient Israel’s religion. These texts should, rather, be seen within the context of nonbiblical literature as well, and we should also consider more critically the implications of the biblical texts having been edited by later Yahwists or Deuteronomists.
The same parable in Matthew 25 also refers to the King as the Son of Man.
And the Son of Man kingly image is clearly pulled from Daniel 7.
J. A. Emerton (The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery, JTS New Series ix (1958), pp 225-42) cited by Barker discusses this more fully. Too fully to summarize here. Daniel 7:13-14, he notes, speaks of the Son of Man “coming in clouds” and “like” or “in appearance as” a son of man. The same latter description coheres with the description of Yahweh in Ezekiel 1:27. Yahweh is also regularly associated with appearing and traveling in the clouds.
If the Son of Man, then, is Yahweh, who is The Ancient of Days?
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
How to explain the presence in this passage in Daniel of TWO divine figures?
How could Daniel, a second century text, and one that was written in a context of pagan efforts (Antiochus of the Seleucid Empire) to subdue that form of Jewish religion that opposed all efforts to impose certain pagan uniformities (banning circumcision, sacrificing unclean animals on the temple altar) toy with the supposedly pagan imagery of El (the ‘ancient of days’ and high god in Canaanite mythology) and Baal (the son of El and one given kingly authority and who rode in clouds)?
Is the simplest explanation that Yahweh replaced Baal among Israelites, but that for many he long continued to maintain his subordinate and clearly separate identity from the high god El? And this situation — one school following the Deuteronomist view that identified El and Yahweh, another that maintained their separate identities — continued through the first century c.e.?
Does Christianity represent one branch of ancient Israelite religion, the branch that maintained the distinction between El and Yahweh, while rabbinism represents another, that which was advanced by the Deuteronomist and Yahwist scribes?
For the sake of completeness I have to tag these notes (Gospel of Mark 14:1 -16:8) alongside the previous two looking at chapters 11-12 (entry into Jerusalem) and chapter 13 (Olivet prophecy).
Once again:
Red are the quotations
Purple are the allusions
Blue are the influences
Black italics represent material from sources other than Kee
[1] After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.
Hosea 6:2 After two days he will heal us
2 Chronicles 35:17 And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days. Continue reading “Jewish Scriptures in Mark’s Passion and Resurrection Narratives”
Still continuing the Margaret Barker series, but interrupting to toss in a couple of posts on another aspect of the Gospel of Mark in the meantime. This continues from the previous post on Mark 13.
Everyone knows how indebted the Passion Narrative is to allusions to the “Old Testament” scriptures (e.g. Psalm 22), and few deny the Elijah, Elisha and other Jewish scripture templates for miracles of Jesus in the early part of the gospel (e.g. raising a dead child in an upper room of a house; feeding large numbers with little), so this post is a draft attempt to fill in an often missing middle bit. And I think it has significant implications in many discussions about how the gospel was constructed and what it can tell us about the origins of the orthodox Christian narrative, and when.
There is an argument that attempts to explain the heavy reliance of the gospel Passion Narrative on Old Testament passages by proposing that these events had to be constructed out of “old cloth” since there was no-one there to witness them. But as demonstrated in my previous post, the same in depth weaving of OT quotations, allusions and influences began in the prophetic discourse of Mark 13, a chapter that is often seen as originally being a separate apocalyptic composition borrowed and adapted by the author of the gospel. In this context, it is interesting that the Passion Narrative itself has sometimes been thought to have been composed separately from the rest of the gospel, and that the earlier chapters were a subsequent afterthought.
Howard Clark Kee sees the thick mixture of OT references beginning in chapter 11, and continuing through the entire section from chapters 11 to 16, as evidence that this entire section, the narrative from the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem up to the time of the empty tomb, as a cohesive literary unit. The author of this gospel chose to create this entire section with the tints and echoes and materials of the Jewish scriptures and other closely related texts such as 1 Enoch.
Red are the quotations
Purple are the allusions
Blue are the influences
Black italics — from sources other than Kee
[1] And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples,
[2] And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him.
Zechariah 14:4-5 And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east . . . Thus the LORD my God will come, and all the saints with him.
Zechariah 2:10 “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the LORD.
Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoiced greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you, He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey.
Zechariah 3:14; Sing, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem
Genesis 49:11 Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine . . .
Deuteronomy 21:3 And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke
Numbers 19:2 This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.
1 Samuel 10:2 And when you have departed from me today, you will find two men by Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say to you, “The donkeys which you went to look for have been found . . .” Continue reading “Gospel of Mark’s use of Jewish scriptures for Jesus’ Jerusalem entry narrative”