Tag: Christian Origins

2010-01-28

Starting a New Religion with The Gospel of John

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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One of the more absorbing books I caught up with about a year ago is Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed) by John Ashton. (I had read somewhere that this is the book to read for anyone wanting to understand what could be understood about this gospel. It obviously had something of interest for me — since writing this post I noticed I have written on snippets of this book several times before, now collated here.)

Of many insights I would like to revisit and share, here’s one I opened up again just now. It shows how this gospel, unlike other Jewish literature and, say, Matthew’s gospel, declares itself (through its Jesus) as the foundation of a new religion. Nothing new really in the big scheme of things here, but it does give another glimpse into the mind and context of the author of this gospel.

The life of Moses furnishes an ample reservoir of legends from which Jewish writers of all persuasions could draw when searching for fresh models, symbols or arguments to encourage and inspire their own contemporaries.

Thus Deuteronomy gives a new twist to some of the earlier episodes involving Moses in Exodus and Numbers.

The same book anticipates further room for story development by announcing a future prophet “just like Moses”.

Since the Exodus story is, among other things, a foundation myth, the frequency with which other writers turn to it should not surprise us. What may cause surprise is the number of guises in which Moses appears . . . .

  • leader and legislator
  • inventor and engineer (Artapanus)
  • prophet (Josephus)
  • sage in an allegorical country where the wise man is king (Philo)
  • a shepherd of his people (Testament of Moses; Pseudo-Philo)

Moses figure in:

  • Attic style drama (Ezekiel the Tragedian)
  • allegory (Philo)
  • historical romance (Artapanus)
  • history (Josephus)
  • testament genre (Testament of Moses)

But Moses was not the only inspirational option available to writers.

Books were also written in the names of Enoch, Baruch, Ezra.

The key thing to note about all of the above:

Yet although they were proposing new revelations they were not repudiating the old.

Where the Gospel of John is different:

Where the fourth evangelist differs from all of these, as well as from those who exploited the Moses tradition, is in his conscious substitution of this tradition by the story of Jesus: ‘You search the scriptures,’ Jesus tells ‘the Jews’, ‘and I am the one to which they bear witness’ (5:39). The deliberate replacement of one founder-figure by another (the same step would be taken centuries later by Mohammed) is effectively the proclamation of a new religion. We may compare John with Matthew here, for whom Jesus is a second Moses, refining and purifying the law, but not replacing it (5:17). John, by contrast, puts the law aside, offering instead, in the name of Jesus Christ, ‘grace and truth’ (1:17). Similarly the Temple, the second pillar of contemporary Judaism, was for Matthew a place where Jesus’ disciples continued to offer their gifts: whereas in John the locus of Christian worship has shifted to a place of ‘spirit and truth’ (4:23) [p. 448]

2009-12-07

The Missing Testimony of the Earliest Gospel

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Now that’s what I call missing.

Of all the debates and controversies surrounding the Gospel of Mark, the one I find the most teasing is its absence from the record when it was supposed to be present.

No explicit clues till the mid-second century

There is no explicit hint that it was known to anyone until around 140 c.e. when Justin Martyr spoke of the names of three disciples being changed by divine fiat. It is widely assumed that he is referring to the passage in Mark that speaks of this.

140 c.e. is two generations after the date most New Testament scholars suggest it was composed.

But those scholars who still argue that Mark was the last composed of the canonical gospels appear to be a small minority now. At least one exponent of this late date that I have read seems to have a Church-based confessional interest in arguing this point and maintaining the argument for the primacy of Matthew.

But there is little doubt among most scholars, it seems from the range of literature and discussions I have encountered, that Matthew and Luke knew about Mark’s gospel, and used large chunks of it. Some strongly argue that John’s gospel also shows signs of using Mark. So whatever date we assign for Mark’s first appearance into the world, we need to allow room for the other gospels to follow.

Why the need to reuse Mark?

But why would Matthew and Luke lean so heavily on Mark when they clearly had a different agenda about Jesus, his teaching and his disciples to push? (Here I’m thinking within the parameters of my previous post, Tactics of Religious Innovation.) Mark’s gospel was originally almost certainly “Separationist“. (See also my Jesus nobody post.) Jesus the man was just a man, while the Son of God was a heavenly spirit that entered and possessed that man at baptism, but left him at the crucifixion, presumably reuniting with him in the resurrection.

So why would Matthew and Luke, pioneers of what became the orthodoxy, ever rely so heavily on Mark and bother to re-write him? Why not create alternative “correct” gospels without the taint of such an opposing theological agenda?

Does not heavy reliance on Mark imply that Mark was very well and widely known, and that it had a widespread authoritative status? Does it suggest that the authors of the later gospels felt a need to take on Mark and use his gospel against his theology? Was anything as innovative as a new gospel from scratch so unlikely to take hold that it was simply a non-starter? Was Mark so well established that subtly rewriting it, and expanding on it in ways that subtly overturned its message, the only opening for rival theologians?

But if it were so well grounded as the earliest gospel and for some time the only gospel, how is it we hear nothing of it — and that is only a hint of it — until the mid-second century c.e.?

Matthew or Matthew’s matrix?

Another significant fact is that early church documents show a decided preference for the Gospel of Matthew. But this is an interpretation of the evidence. There is a wealth of evidence for early church documents citing passages that also appear in Matthew.

How can we be sure that these sources really are quoting “our Matthew” rather than a collection of sayings, or that they are not simply drawing on a cloud of sayings in the culture that were later set down in Matthew’s gospel?

Mid second century Justin Martyr speaks of the Memoirs of the Apostles, and the little he speaks of their contents matches material in our canonical gospels. And when he describes the birth of Jesus he comes tantalizingly close to something we read in Matthew’s gospel, but he also even more frustratingly moves away from Matthew’s account and brings in other images from his interpretation of the prophets. In fact, his whole birth narrative is, not unlike Matthew’s, openly drawn from his interpretation of the Old Testament prophets. He does not appear to be citing a gospel or Memoir of an Apostle at all.

The earliest indisputable evidence

The earliest overt evidence we have of Mark’s gospel itself is from the first harmony of the four gospels to have been composed. This was by Tatian, sometime between 160 and 175 it is believed. So when we first see Mark clearly we also see the other canonical gospels at the same time — in a gospel harmony. And this is up to three generations after the gospels are widely assumed to have been composed.

One more question before I go

Now another question. Tatian’s harmony is touted as the earliest gospel harmony. Can we really imagine no widely distributed harmony following the appearance of four varying and contradictory gospels until after the passing of three generations?

It is human nature to establish patterns in what we see. We are creatures that like to tie things together as well as blow them apart. We don’t like leaving loose threads or contradictions hanging. I would think a harmony would be the very next publication to follow any general awareness and overlapping acceptances of four different gospels.

It is generally accepted that Mark was written soon after or around the time of the first Judean rebellion against Rome (around 70 c.e.) — the one led by Simon and John. Is it just barely conceivable that it was rather written soon after or around the time of the second Judean rebellion instead (around 135 c.e.) — the one led by Simon Bar Kochba?

2009-12-06

Tactics of Religious Innovation: Deuteronomy and Gospels

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Religious Cultures, Biblical Studies, New Testament, Old Testament
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Of the authors of Deuteronomy Bernard M. Levinson writes

. . . their concern was to implement their own agenda: to reflect a major transformation of all spheres of Judaean life — cultically, politically, theologically, judicially, ethically, and economically. The authors of Deuteronomy had a radically new vision of the religious and public polity and sought to implement unprecedented changes in religion and society. Precisely for that reason, the guise of continuity with the past became crucial. The authors of Deuteronomy sought to locate their innovative vision in prior textual authority by tendentiously appropriating texts like the Covenant Code [esp in Exodus], while freely going beyond them in programmatic and substantive terms to address matters like public administration, the role of the monarchy, and the laws of warfare.

Deuteronomy’s reuse of its textual patrimony was creative, active, revisionist, and tendentious. It functioned as a means of cultural transformation. (Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation, p.16)

The authors of Deuteronomy used the very texts they opposed to introduce a contrary set of rules to displace them. The legal code in Exodus knew nothing about an obligatory single cult centre. Sacrifices could be performed wherever the people were — in every place — just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sacrificed in every place where they found God’s presence. So Exodus 20:24:

An altar of earth shall you make for me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record my name I will come to you, and I will bless you.

Twisting your opponent’s words

I cannot repeat here the richness of Levinson’s textual comparison: a broad overview will have to do, so where the detail sounds shallow Levinson is not at fault. The Hebrew for “In every place where” above literally reads: in every [the] place. The Deuteronomist has reused the same words with a slight restructuring in Deuteronomy 12:13-15

Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you. However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike.

The Deuteronomist appears to be explaining more fully the old law in Exodus while in fact he is contradicting its basic assumption and instruction. One of his tools for accomplishing this is to reuse but also restructure the targeted phrase in the Exodus law that he seeks to overturn.

The degree of technical scribal sophistication involved is remarkable. (p.33) Continue reading “Tactics of Religious Innovation: Deuteronomy and Gospels”

2009-05-11

Tim Keller — almost immediately, but a mere hundred years later, everyone knew the 4 gospels were true

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament, Religion and Atheism
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The canonical gospels were written at the very most forty to sixty years after Jesus’s death. (p.101 of The Age of Reason)

The four canonical gospels were written much earlier than the so-called Gnostic gospels. The Gospel of Thomas, the best known of the Gnostic documents, is a translation from the Syriac, and scholars have shown that the Syriac traditions in Thomas can be dated to 175 A.D. (sic) at the earliest . . . . (pp.102-103)

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, however, were recognized as authoritative eyewitness accounts almost immediately, and so we have Irenaeus of Lyons in 160 A.D. (sic) declaring that there were four, and only four, gospels. (p.103)

It appears that the very first evidence Keller can find of anyone accepting the canonical gospels as “authoritative eyewitness accounts” was at the very least 90 years after the first gospel was supposedly penned.

Actually Keller’s 160 date for the composition by Irenaeus against heresies is generous in the extreme. We cannot be absolutely sure if Irenaeus was born earlier than 142 c.e., and it was from 161 to 180 that an imperial persecution against Christians was waged. (See Wikipedia Irenaeus.) It was from 180 c.e. that Irenaeus most likely had the time and circumstances to write his many volumes, and 180 c.e. is the date for his writings I usually see referenced.

Justin Martyr around 140 c.e. appears to quote some gospel passages, but he also appears to quote passages from non-canonical gospels, too. So he can hardly have regarded the canonical four as “authoritative” to the exclusion of others.

Ignatius and Polycarp are also highly debatable re how much of their works were late addition or compilations. Keller has no clear evidence of the belief in the canonical gospels as the authoritative “eyewitness accounts” apart from a late second century bishop and apologist for the church headquartered at Rome.

This, in The Age of Reason, is sufficient evidence for him to proclaim:

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, however, were recognized as authoritative eyewitness accounts almost immediately, and so we have Irenaeus of Lyons in 160 A.D. (sic) declaring that there were four, and only four, gospels. (p.103)

2009-05-06

Why so long before the first gospel narrative?

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by Neil Godfrey

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The answer I have most commonly heard to this question is that the earliest Christians were too much on edge expecting the return of Jesus any day to be bothered or to see any need to write down the things they supposedly heard Jesus did and said.

But the odd thing about this explanation is that so many scholars like to date the Gospel of Mark as early as 70 c.e., in the midst of the Jewish-Roman war, during the siege of Jerusalem. That is, precisely at the time when the return of Jesus would have been the MOST expected any day or hour.

Some even like to date this first gospel earlier, to the 40’s c.e. when Caligula attempted to have his statue placed in the Jewish temple. Again, one would have expected even more apocalyptic fervour that much sooner after the supposed events of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It’s not as if there were no literates among the converts all those decades. If we take the letters of Paul at face value then we see evidence of a number of individuals with scribal skills.

Given the astonishing deeds and sayings earlier believers attributed to Jesus, it beggars belief that no-one would not have been interested all those decades to be among the first to commit them to writing.

2008-01-14

Marcion’s Challenge

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by Neil Godfrey

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Marcion presented a formidable challenge to those who opposed his theology and practices. Indeed his opponents spent extraordinary energy in combating his influence, attacking his theology, and constructing alternatives to his practices. It was a massive effort, not only because many people found Marcionite Christianity attractive, but also because his was a complex challenge that, if met at all, had to be engaged on several fronts at once. Marcion’s opponents rightly saw that the very definition of the Chris­tian movement was at stake in the outcome. (Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts, p.48 ) Continue reading “Marcion’s Challenge”

2008-01-09

Literal and allegorical Scriptures in Orthodoxy and Heresy

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by Neil Godfrey

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Marcion’s “heresy” was justifiably seen as the main threat to Christian “proto-orthodoxy” in the second century, but I suspect the reason had less to do with his doctrine of two gods and some form of docetism and more to do with what might have been branded his “Jewish error”.

That will sound like nonsense to many who think of Marcion as being opposed to the Jewish scriptures and the god of creation. (Marcion claimed that there was a higher god than the god revealed in the Pentateuch, an Unknown or Alien God, a god of love who sent Jesus to reveal his existence and offer of forgiveness and salvation for Jews and all humanity.)

Marcion certainly was known for his rejection of the Jewish scriptures as a guide to salvation. Irenaeus and Tertullian were among the first to attack him for rejecting the idea that our Old Testament contained any sort of salvific value or prophecies of the Saviour Jesus. Marcion was definitely not one of those who expected Christians to follow Jewish customs. But his “Jewish error” was nonetheless “real” and probably far more threatening to the foundation of “orthodox” Christian beliefs.

Marcion read the Jewish scriptures the way many orthodox Jews did — literally. In modern parlance some might say he took them “seriously”.

According to Tertullian, Marcion accepted that the Christ of the Jews would:

  1. be known as Emmanuel (AM 3.12.1; Isa. 7:14)
  2. take up the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of Assyria (AM 3.13.1)
  3. be by nature the son and spirit of the Creator (AM 3.6.8)

Jewish scriptures could be read to hold out a hope for a conquering and liberating Messiah for the Jews. Marcion accepted this reading as the literal and truly intended meaning. Marcion taught that the Creator god (a subordinate god to the higher god of love, the ‘unknown’ and ‘alien’ god who sent Jesus) in a moment of compassion for the Jews promised them a future all-conquering redeemer king and saviour. He did not deny this prophecy found in the Jewish scriptures. But he had no choice but to concede that its fulfilment was still in the unknown future. In other words, Marcion did not deny the Jewish scriptures and their prophecies. He upheld them but did not apply them to Christians.

Marcion read the Jewish scriptures as literally as any “Judaizing-Christian” who insisted on circumcision as much as baptism for new believers. The only difference was that Marcion did not believe the injunctions of the Jewish scriptures should be applied to Christians. Christians should believe the Jewish scriptures were the product of the Creator God and accept them at face value for what they said. But salvation was the gift of the hitherto unknown God who sent his son Jesus to reveal his existence and die for the salvation of all humanity.

According to Marcion and his followers, the original disciples of Jesus failed to grasp Jesus’ revelatory message of the higher god and of his (Jesus’) true provenance, and continued to hope for a “second coming” of their Savior to judge and destroy the evil powers oppressing the Jews.

According to Marcion, there was no Jewish prophecy that the Messiah would suffer and die on the cross. (Tertullian’s AM 3.18.1f; cf. ad Nat. 1.12; Justin’s Trypho 91, 94, 112)

According to Marcion the Jews had every right to expect a future Messiah who would be sent by the Creator God to restore and save the Jewish nation. That was what their Creator God promised them. Marcion had no dispute with that belief and or its teaching as found within the Jewish scriptures. Marcion’s “problem” was that the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah sent from a god higher than the creator god, that is the Messiah he believed was preached by the apostle Paul.

But in fact the failure of the Jews to recognize their saviour was truly far less of a problem for Marcion than for the likes of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian or any other “proto-orthodox” teachers. For Marcion, the Jews who crucified Jesus truly were ignorant of his provenance and identity. They had no knowledge at all of any god higher than their Creator God. According to Marcion’s belief system, the Jews could by no means be held accountable for “despising the Word of God” or “rejecting his Spirit”. They were truly ignorant and thus not accountable of anything so condign. It was “proto-orthodox” belief, as represented by the likes of Irenaeus and Tertullian, who held the Jews reprehensibly and culpably responsible for knowingly rejecting their Saviour. Marcion, backed by his god of love, was much more merciful.

If anyone was to blame it was the god of the Jews, the Creator God, who kept them blinded from, in ignorance of, the higher god. (AM 3.6.8, 9; cf. 1 Cor. 2:8) The Jews were, Marcion conceded, only trying to obey their god according to his and their lights. (AM 3.6.8; 2.28.3; Haer. 4.29.1)

According to the merciful doctrine of Marcion, “Christ comes not to his own, but for the sake of all nations (AM 4.6.3); he comes to the Jews as a stranger (AM 3.6.2) because they have suffered the most under the ‘Creator’s terrible threatenings’ (AM 2.13.3). Had they known that he came from a God of mercy and in order to free them from the law, they would have spared him (1 Cor 2:8).” — Hoffmann, pp.228-229.

Marcion’s threat to orthodoxy:

Marcion’s brand of Christianity was certainly dominant throughout Asia Minor in the early and mid second century, and possibly beyond that area. His threat to what was to become “orthodoxy” was couched in his literal (serious?) reading of the Jewish Scriptures. He read them literally, not allegorically.

As early as the Gospel of Matthew Christian readers of the Bible learn that the Christian dispensation is meant to read the “Old Testament” allegorically.

Justin Martyr, ‘Barnabas’ and the author(s) of Luke-Acts and the Pastoral epistles clearly all agree that the Jewish scriptures must be interpreted “allegorically” or typologically to divine the Truth. Any other (literal) reading is blindness. (Barnabas 1:7; 4:7; 7:1; Justin, Trypho, 7, 11, 12, 44, etc.; 1 Tim 1:7; 3:8a, 16 a; Titus 1:10b, 14, 3.9b)

“Proto-orthodoxy” needed roots. Antiquity was vital for respectability. By embracing the very ancient Jewish scriptures, and then further adopting Philo’s and other allegorical methods of interpreting them — so that a literal Israel could be turned in to an allegorized and “prophesied” Christ — those Christians on the side of Irenaeus and Tertullian had grounds for promoting the “depth” and “truth” of their faith.

What Marcion threatened was to position Jewish scriptures back where they originated — with Jewish literalism. This was far more dangerous than any effort in the past to have male Christians circumcised. Marcion challenged the very foundation of “orthodoxy” — that is, an allegorical reading of Jewish scriptures. (See Siker.)

Ironically(?) even today fundamentalists insist on a literal interpretation of their New Testament and cherry-picked parts of the Old (e.g. Genesis 1) but will settle for nothing less than an allegorical treatment of prophecies that they believe verify the Messiah identity of the Jesus sent by the “Creator” deity.

2006-12-20

Jerusalem/Galilee: Questions/routes to answers?

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by Neil Godfrey

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Thinking aloud re my Questions, — dialogues? post: If part of Mark’s opposition to Peter and the 12 included opposition to the legend of Peter and co going out from Jerusalem (Justin Martyr appears to have known of the latter — without addressing here why he would be a factor in a question about the canonicals….) — If Mark was challenging the Petrine/Jerusalem tradition, then he would need to somehow be able to explain why the apostles themselves were reputed to have founded the eucharist (Justin Martyr says they were given this trad by Jesus after his resurrection — again this is not making much sense to those who date the gospels early. Much of my approach is in synch with Mack’s approach, but my details and conclusions I am sure are not Mack’s — all this is for another post.)

But by placing the eucharist BEFORE the death of Jesus, Mark informs his readers why it was that those he opposes also knew of a eucharist rite, (and also why they presumably got it wrong in some ways?).

Matthew tries to outsmart Mark by having the disciples report to Jesus in Galilee anyway, while conceding a few doubted.

Luke restores the Jerusalem/Petrine foundation while still incorporating the Pauline-Mark without a Galilee appearance. (Does he redo John’s postresurrection seaside catch to a pre-passion anecdote tied up with the first call? — following Matson’s argument that Luke follows John.)

N

2006-12-19

Questions, — dialogues?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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What came first? Jerusalem or Galilee? (I’m not interested in the “contradictions” question as such but in the question from a “dialogue” perspective — what are the different theological debates presumably underlying these variations?)

Justin Martyr says that the resurrected Jesus instituted the eucharist, church orders, etc to his disciples in Jerusalem and from there they went out to the whole world preaching to the gentiles — just prior to the destruction of that city by the Romans. There is no hint of a Judas or an 11. 12 is the assumed number throughout.

Mark appears to say that the resurrected Jesus told his disicples to meet him in Galilee but they presumably stayed in Jerusalem (after having had the eucharist given them before his death, not after his resurrection)

Matthew has the disciples going to Galilee to meet Jesus and there the resurrected Jesus tells his disciples (even those who doubted?) to think back and remember what he taught them before his death and go out to the world preaching and converting.

John seems to have two endings: the first one has the resurrected Jesus deliver a commission to his disciples in Jerusalem; the second has him doing something similar in Galilee. (Not from Matthew’s mountain, however, but from a lakeside — c.f. Matthew’s Sermon on Mount with Luke’s Sermon on Plain??) Was this second a later editorial hand or was it the one author deliberately placing in apposition two traditions?

Luke has the Justin Martyr view but, if we regard him as the same author who wrote Acts, with a time delay built in to the time when Jerusaelem was destroyed.

Acts also has Jesus commanding his 11, then 12, to go out from Jerusalem throughout the world, but in the course of the narrative there is no real depiction of them doing this. One has to find ways of reconciling this command to the 12 with the activity of Paul while the 12 appear left in Jerusalem so much of the time.

The Nag Hammadi texts also reflect the different scenarios: scenes of Jesus in Galilee and scenes of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Does any of this relate to the Transiguration scene in Matthew, Mark and Luke being on a Galilee mountain?

Surely this question has been addressed in the literature. Damn not living near a major university library with the appropriate collection! What leads are there in the literature to follow up questions about the origins of these variant Galilee/Jerusalem traditions.

I know of works like Weeden’s and Kelber’s that argue Jerusalem is the place of the old and fading kingdom and Galilee represent the new (multi-racial) kingdom — but how does such a view explain the persistence of the Jerusalem trad for so long, even though to the “final” gospel, Luke, and repeated by Justin Martyr as if there is no alternative?

Help, someone, please! More questions to occupy me in the night and shopping queues….

Neil

2006-12-09

Justin Martyr’s 2nd century understanding of Church origins, heresy & eschatology

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Biblical Studies, Church Fathers, New Testament
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Many detailed studies have been made of what Justin knew of the Sayings of Jesus but there have been fewer works discussing his understanding of the narrative of Jesus and the Church up till his own time. Since so many of the Sayings of Jesus fit well enough with the Sayings found in the Canonical gospels, and since there appear to be also a few narrative overlaps, it is widely held as a given that Justin knew of the canonical gospels.

I have doubts about this assumption, and I have expressed a few of my reasons on a new upload on my website. (I have not, however, discussed there some of the shortcomings of the studies of the Saying of Jesus in Justin — that is a future work.)

So now I have just added the next table. It was originally completed some years ago but hey, I need time to get some of these things out there.

Related post: Justin Martyr and the 2nd century gospel story

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