John Dominic Crossan

Why Did Jesus Go To Jerusalem? A Holy Week Reflection

2012-03-31T20:11:50-04:00

These are my questions based on the historical fact -- yes, fact -- that Pilate executed Jesus at Passover. Did Jesus go to Jerusalem to get himself killed? If he did, why, in the tinder-box atmosphere at Passover, did it take him so many days to get his wish?

My answer is that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to make twin demonstrations, first against Roman imperial control over the City of Peace and, second, against Roman imperial control over the Temple of God. In other words, put personally, against the (sub)governor Pilate and his high-priest Caiaphas.

It is not necessary, by the way, to demonize either of those two officials -- even though they represented very bad administration. Pilate was weak because he could be fired by the Syrian governor and Caiaphas was even weaker because he could be fired by Pilate. Be that as it may, why was Jesus not already killed by (our) Palm Sunday evening?

Two reasons. One is that he was protected by a "crowd" composed not only of those who came with him from Galilee but also of those others who had invited him to bring his message of God's Kingdom-on-Earth to Jerusalem for maximum publicity precisely at Passover. Notice how often Mark's gospel emphasizes that protective "crowd" on (our) Sunday (11:8), Monday (11:18) and Tuesday (11:32; 12:12,37) of Holy Week.

Another reason is that every night Jesus withdrew from Jerusalem into the safety of friends and security of supporters away from the city and around the Mount of Olives to Bethany. Notice, again, how Mark emphasizes that point as well (11:1,11,12; 14:3). Bethany was Jesus's protected staging area. In plain language, Jesus was planning, despite those dangerous demonstrations, to leave Jerusalem without getting himself killed. And he almost made it -- until (our) Thursday.

The first demonstration was programmed for (our) Palm Sunday and it was not just a criticism but a lampoon of Roman power. For security and crowd-control at Passover, Pilate came up to Jerusalem with extra troops from his base at Caesarea on the coast. Imagine him coming in from the west on a powerful stallion as Jesus was coming in from the east not just on a donkey but on a nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her -- see my leading image above.

That story is told in Matthew 21:1-11 and explained by a quotation from the prophet Zechariah contrasting Macedonia's Alexander and Israel's Messiah. The latter will enter Jerusalem "humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Why? "To cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall com-mand peace to the nations" (9:9-10). Peace on earth, yes, but not peace by Rome's violent victory, rather peace by God's non-violent justice.

The second demonstration came on (our) Monday. Once again it was an action clarified by a prophetic word, that is, an action-parable. The Temple was, of course, the House of God -- for all the nations, in fact, within Herod's huge Court of the Gentiles. But it was also the House of Rome as symbolized by imperial control of the high-priest's sacred vestments and the great golden eagle above its western entrance from the Upper City.

In an earlier demonstration, around the time Jesus was born, a Pharisaic group had been martyred for their attempt to remove that golden eagle. Jesus's own demonstration against Roman control of God's House was accompanied by a quotation from the prophet Jeremiah. He had warned against using worship to replace justice, against turning the Temple into a "den," that is a refuge, safe-house, or hideaway for "thieves." If it continued, said Jeremiah, God would destroy the Temple itself (7:1-15). And that divine threat almost cost Jeremiah his life (26:1-14).

Jesus' action-parable against the Temple fulfills God's threat in Jeremiah 7 just as his action-parable against the City had fulfilled God's promise in Zechariah 9. He symbolically destroys the Temple's fiscal basis by overturning the tables where monies were changed into the standard donation-coinage (Mark 11:15-17). And, again, he got away with it because of the protective screen of "the whole crowd" (Mark 11:18).

By (our) Wednesday morning "the chief priest and the scribes" had decided not to arrest Jesus because it might cause "a riot among the people" (Mark 14:1-2). But by (our) Thursday evening they had discovered -- with or without Judas -- where to intercept Jesus as he went "across the Kidron Valley" from Jerusalem to Bethany every evening (John 18:1).

Jesus was arrested in the darkness apart from his large protective "crowd" and was crucified as swiftly as possible. By the way, do not confuse Jesus' large protective "crowd" with that small "crowd" (six or seven partisans?) who came before Pilate to get Barabbas and not Jesus freed from prison (Mark 15:6-8). If Jesus proclaimed the 'Kingdom of God," sneered Pilate, let him die as "King of the Jews" (Mark 15:2,9,12,18,26).

In Matthew's parabolic aside, the wisest advice Pilate got that day -- our Good Friday -- was from his wife: "Have nothing to do with that innocent man" (27:19). But Pilate replied, I imagine, "What happens in Jerusalem, stays in Jerusalem."
(Image from Art Resource)

What Really Happened to Paul on the Road to Damascus?

2012-03-21T00:10:07-04:00

The vision of Jesus that changed Paul from a Pharisaic Jew to a Christian Jew happened, says Luke's Acts of the Apostles, on the road to Damascus. That event is so important that Luke records it three times for maximum emphasis: first, as it happens (9:1-19); next, as Paul tells it to the Roman officer in Jerusalem (22:3-21); and, finally, as Paul tells it to the Jewish king, Agrippa II at Caesarea Maritima (26:1-18). But that triple account, written around 50 years after Paul's death, has two major historical problems.

The first problem is that, according to Acts, Paul is travelling to Damascus empowered with authority from the high-priest to arrest dissident Christian Jews and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. But, whatever about high-priestly power in Judea, it could never have been exercised across Roman provincial borders as far away as Damascus.

On the other hand, Paul himself tells the Galatians that after that vocational vision, "I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus" (Galatians 1:11-17). Paul's vision, in the city of Damascus is much more likely as venue than on the road to Damascus.

Persecutor and persecuted were probably members of the Damascus synagogue where Paul had most likely received his previous Pharisaic education.

The second problem is that Luke's triple version describes Paul as seeing "a light" and hearing "a voice" (9:3-4; 22:6-7; 36:13-14). According to Acts, Paul does not see Jesus' face but only hears Jesus's voice.

On the other hand, Paul himself insists that his sight of the heavenly Jesus makes him equal in authority with the Twelve Apostles who saw the earthly Jesus. As he argues in his first letter to the Corinthians: "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (9:1). And later: "Last of all, as to one untimely born, he was seen also by me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God" (15:8-9).

One major conclusion from those divergent accounts is that Acts never gives Paul the title of an apostle sent by and therefore subordinate only to God and Christ. Paul is, for Acts, a messenger sent by and therefore subordinate to Jerusalem and Antioch. His call was emphatically inferior to that of the Twelve Apostles.

For Acts, only those first 12 were "apostles" and Judas' replacement had to be "one of the males [Greek andres] who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us" (Acts 1:21-22). Acts not only excludes Paul from ever being an apostle, it insures there will never be any more apostles and, above all else, not any women apostles.

The other major conclusion is just as important. Paul already knew enough about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to persecute his followers for proclaiming its implications to their fellow Jews at Damascus. In Christian gospel, Christian art and Christian mysticism, the risen Christ always retains the wounds of historical crucifixion even or especially on his glorified and transcendental body. Those wounds do not heal or fade. They are forever there.

I take seriously Paul's claim to have seen the risen Jesus and I think I suggest that his inaugural vision was of Jesus' body, simultaneously as crucified (by Rome) and as glorified (by God). That, of course, put God and Rome on a collision course. Such a stunning vocational vision already contained foundationally the full message of Paul's faith and Paul's theology, the full meaning of Paul's life and Paul's death.

Finally, as with his arrival in Damascus, so also with his departure. Paul and Luke both superficially agree and profoundly disagree there as well. They agree that the the city's gates were guarded against Paul and that he escaped by a basket lowered through a window in the wall. Today, Damascus' Bab Kissan Gate is the traditional site of that hurried exit.

But who guarded those gates? For Acts, "the Jews plotted to kill him" and they were "watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him" (Acts 9:23-25). But, for Paul, it was not the Damascene Jews but the Nabatean Arabs who were the actual threat. "The governor," he says, "under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me" (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).

It is not that Luke lacks correct information about Paul. It is that he interprets all he has from the viewpoint of at least two generations after Paul. It is also a viewpoint within which Paul would have been unable to recognize his own mission or message, purpose or intention.

The Challenge of Christmas

2011-12-12T18:04:47-05:00

The story of Jesus's infancy was created differently by Matthew and Luke as parabolic overtures to their quite different gospels. But there is one aspect of Jesus's infancy upon which they both agree, namely, the frequent arrival of angels, heavenly messengers who give to mundane events a transcendental purpose. Think of angels as ultimate meanings radiantly personified.

In Matthew, an angel explains Mary's pregnancy to Joseph (1:18-24), warns him to flee Herod's murderous designs (2:13-18), and tells him when it is safe to return home (2:19-23). Matthew's angels work through dreams to insure the fulfillment of prophecy.

In Luke, angels have a somewhat divergent function in establishing the parallel lives of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. First, an angel -- identified as Gabriel -- tells Zachary that, although he and Elizabeth are aged and infertile, their soon-to-be-born son John "will be great in the sight of the Lord ... even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit ... to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (1:5-25).

Next, that same Gabriel tells Mary, that although she is an unwed virgin, her soon-to-be-born son Jesus will "will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David" (1:26-38).

Finally, when Jesus is born in Bethlehem -- ancestral city of David, the once and future king of Israel -- an angel tells shepherds that, "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord" (2:11-12).

Angels direct, as it were the narrative traffic of both those infancy stories but there is one very special case of angelic intervention found only in Luke. This involves not just a single angel but the entire heavenly choir who descend to earth and chant in the reversed parallelism of typical biblical poetry: "Glory to God / in the highest heaven / and on earth peace /among those of [God's] favor" (2:14). But, since this is poetic parallelism, divine glory in heaven is human peace on earth. Not either, but both, or neither.

A lovely couplet of hymnic hope, to be sure, but where is the challenge of that first Christmas vision? To find it watch the titles already given to Jesus and to Caesar. Jesus was proclaimed as "Son of God," "Savior of the World," and "Messiah/Christ" (1:32; 2:11). In between those titles appears the name of "Caesar Augustus" (2:1). But, before Jesus the Christ was ever conceived, Caesar the Augustus had been already proclaimed by Roman imperial theology as "Son of God," "Savior of the World" and "Imperator/Autocrator." Also, the vaunted Pax Romana was already incarnated and embodied in Caesar himself by the consecration of a magnificent Ara Pacis Augustae, the Altar -- not just of Roman -- but of Augustan Peace at Rome.

Granted Luke's Roman matrix for this Jewish child, what precisely was the difference between those identical titles and identical proclamations of "Peace on Earth"? If the Roman Augustus had already established peace on earth, what was left for the Jewish Jesus to accomplish? How was the presence of Roman imperial peace different from that promise of Jewish messianic peace -- on this one and only earth?

The difference was not in the that of peace but in its how, not in the purpose and intention of peace but in the mode and method of its accomplishment. For Rome, as you can see clearly on the beautiful bas-reliefs of that above-mentioned Altar of Augustan Peace, the mode and method was: religion, war, victory, peace. Rome believed, as did every empire from the Assyrian to the American, that the future of civilization demanded peace through victory. But the messianic vision of the Jewish Jesus proclaimed a different program: religion, non-violence, justice, peace. Its mantra was peace through justice. Or, as Jesus told Pilate in John's powerful parable: God's Kingdom, as distinct from Rome's Kingdom, precludes violence -- not even to liberate himself from imperial power (18:36).

Victory's violence establishes not peace but lull -- until the next and always more violent round of war. The Christian challenge of Christmas is this: justice is what happens when all receive a fair share of God's world and only such distributive justice can establish peace on earth. But how can we ever agree on what is fair for all? Hint: ask what is fair -- in first or 21st century--of the 99 percent of earth's people and not of the 1 percent.

The Search for the Historical Paul: How to Read The Letters of Paul

2011-09-23T15:10:54-04:00

It was the sheerest of sheer coincidences, and I cite it as such only to introduce my present subject. It happened in early May of 2011 as Marianne and Marcus Borg along, with Sarah and myself, were leading our annual pilgrimage In the Footsteps of Paul across western Turkey.

On Saturday the seventh we visited Antioch in Pisidia -- you will recall that Paul was there in Acts 13:14-52 -- and our group had lunch in nearby Yalvaç. Since the local museum was not on our itinerary, Sarah and I gulped some soup and left the group to visit it for ourselves.

In the garden we found what looked like the funeral stele of a laborer whose Greek name was clearly: PHILEMON.

Next day, Sunday the eighth, our group was walking through the northern cemetery of Hierapolis, with its ancient mounds, broken sarcophagi and shattered house-tombs tossed one upon another as if by some irreverent giant (earthquake?). Amid those multiple inscriptions in wall-to-wall Greek, one name suddenly jumped out at us:

ONESIMUS.

To its right was an etrog, a lemon-like fruit usually associated with the Jewish Feast of Booths and therefore symbolizing a Jewish presence.

How, then, do you read a letter by the Apostle Paul to another Philemon about another Onesimus? Remember, first of all, that Paul's missives are closed letters to specific recipients -- not open epistles like, say, our "Letters to the Editor." In other words, reading them is reading somebody else's mail. If we do not understand them, Paul and his recipients did, and so the problem is mine and yours, not his and theirs.

The only way, therefore, to understand such a not-intended-for-you letter is to imagine its narrative -- that is, to expand over, under, around and through its given content until textual letter has finally morphed into contextual story. What, then, is the story behind Paul's Letter to Philemom with its one chapter of 25 verses?

Paul is in a governor's jail, chained to a soldier in the barracks, probably at Ephesus, capital of Rome's Asia Minor province. (From there, by the way, he also wrote a Letter to the Philippians.) He mentions his imprisonments four times and his advanced age once (1,9,10,13). That is not to whine -- something Paul never learned to do -- but is simply part of the powerful rhetorical persuasion unleashed by Paul on Philemon in this letter. But persuasion to do what?

Onesimus was a slave under threat of serious or maybe even fatal punishment from his master Philemon. Following an option allowed by Roman Law, he fled for intercession to Paul as his master's most important friend. But when Paul converted Onesimus to Christianity, a problem arose immediately. Could a Christian master own a Christian slave since "as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" so that "there is no longer slave or free ... for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28). How could Christians, as Christians, be equal and unequal at the same time?

Paul, therefore, writes this letter and sends it back to Philemon by Onesimus, calling him "my own very heart," and proclaiming him "no longer a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother -- especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord" (16). Imagine Onesimus knocking on Philemon's door to announce that he had good news and bad news for his master: good that he was back, bad that he was free.

But why such a long letter to say, in effect, "Dear Philemon, Free Onesimus. Yours, Paul"? Because Paul is trying -- paradoxically -- to command Philemon to free Onesimus freely since, as he says, "I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced" (14). Poor Philemon is on what we might see as a yo-yo of emotional manipulation but which advanced Greco-Roman education would have seen as a small masterpiece of very successful rhetorical persuasion created by a relentless oscillation of Good-Cop and Bad-Cop verses.

As just one example, compare these two verses at either end of the letter. Good-Cop Paul: "Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love -- and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus" (8-9). Bad-Cop Paul: "Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say" (21).

Did Philemon free Onesimus? Oh yes, because otherwise it would not have been necessary for those later post-, pseudo- and anti-pauline letters -- seen in an earlier blog -- to deradicalize Paul back into a compassionate conservatism acceptable to Roman cultural normalcy. To repeat, once again: Constantine, here we come.

The Search for the Historical Paul: What Paul Thought About Women

2011-08-11T13:04:07-04:00

On the mid-Aegean coast of Turkey, half-way up the northern slope of the Bülbüldag and high above the excavations of ancient Ephesus, is a long, narrow shrine-cave. On your immediate right as you enter its 50-foot length is a fresco depicting a scene from the Acts of Thecla, a set of stories now preserved as Chapters 1-43 of the second-century Acts of Paul. (Google: "Early Christian Writings.")

Three characters are identified by name on that fresco. Paul is seated in the middle addressing Thecla to viewer left. She is a virgin -- hence unveiled -- but house-bound -- hence nubile. An elegantly veiled matron, her mother Theoclia, is to viewer right. Both the right hands of Paul and of Theoclia are raised in identical authoritative teaching gestures. Since Paul lacks any halo, my inexpert opinion would date that fresco to the 400s.

We saw, with slavery in my previous post, that the de-radicalization and re-romanization of Paul was already well underway in those post-Pauline letters attributed to him. So also here with regard to gender. Those two women -- poised on either side of Paul -- represent two linked controversies which would change the radical Paul of Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon, first into the conservative Pseudo-Paul of Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, then, finally, into the reactionary Anti-Paul of 1-2 Timothy and Titus.

Patriarchy. One controversy is represented by Theoclia to Paul's left. As noted above, her right hand was originally raised in a teaching gesture every bit as authoritative as that of Paul. But it was later both gouged out and burned off. Furthermore, since only her eyes are obliterated, that erasure was not just general iconoclasm but individual assault. She is represented, in other words, as a woman teaching with authority whose image is then effaced with prejudice. This is simply a visual image of that reactionary post-Pauline and anti-Pauline command that "no woman [is] to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent" (1 Timothy 2:12).

That is not, of course, the view of the historical Paul whose letter to the Christian communities of Rome was delivered -- that is, read and explained -- by a woman named Phoebe, an administrator of a house-church near Corinth (Romans 16:1-2). Neither is it the position of the historical Paul who described the woman Junia as "prominent among the apostles" (Romans 16:7) -- an "apostle" is somebody "sent" by God with authority to found new Christian communities.

Celibacy. The other controversy is represented by Thecla, to Paul's right. In the story of that scene from the Acts of Thecla, Paul is advocating celibate asceticism. Recall, for comparison, that his contemporary, the Jewish philosopher Philo, described women and men who lived similar lives in the desert outside Alexandria. Not, of course, because sex was evil in any way, but because they could not live lives of justice and equality in the midst of urban family pressures (On the Contemplative Life 1.2; 2.17; 9.70).

Thecla hears Paul's challenge and, at about thirteen years of age, she rejects her family-appointed suitor and any possibility of marriage. She refuses to be passed from the authority of one male -- her father -- to that of another male -- her husband. Thecla's option for virginal celibacy is a far more profound rejection of patriarchal power than that of Theoclia's claim to teaching authority.

Thecla, therefore, is condemned to beasts in the arena. But then something extraordinary happens. The crowd splits, not just between Christians -- for Thecla -- and Pagans -- against her. It splits between Women -- for her -- and Men -- against her. In fact, that story is not just early Christian feminism but early Christian femalism because a lioness protects her against a lion. And the Women confuse the animals' sense of smell by casting their perfumes into the arena.

In that cave-shrine scene, those two women, Thecla and Theoclia represent together the full legacy of Pauline radicalism which reactionary letters such as 1-2 Timothy and Titus seek rather desperately to cauterize and contain. Those anti-Pauline letters want Christian teachers to be male and not female (1 Timothy 2:8-15) but they also want those males to be normal not ascetic, married not celibate, and, to be absolutely sure, they want to see their children (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9).

The historical Paul is being pulled -- kicking and screaming -- away from Christianity's radical past and into Christianity's Roman future. As with owner and slave so also with male and female, hierarchies rejected by Christian radicality -- in, for example, Galatians 3:26-28 -- are being retrofitted into Roman normalcy. Once again, then, Constantine here we come.

The Search for the Historical Paul: Which Letters Did He Really Write?

2011-07-05T16:20:54-04:00

The 13th-century Sopoćani monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site near the source of the Raška River, just east of Novi Pazar in the south-western corner of Serbia. After two centuries of attack, desolation and abandonment, its Church of the Holy Trinity is now rebuilt, its frescoes restored and its monastic life revived.

In the southern choir of that eastward-pointing church are frescoes of seven apostles. Five are now unidentifiable, as time and decay has literally defaced them, but each is folding a single scroll. Matthew is identifiable and he is holding the book of his Gospel. But the most clearly identifiable is the leading figure on the choir's east wall. It is the apostle Paul, complete with his recognizable receding hairline. His right hand is raised in the traditional Byzantine teaching gesture of fingers separated into two (for two natures in Christ) and three (for three Persons in the Trinity). What is extraordinary, however, is that his left hand holds 10 clearly distinguishable scrolls -- not a single scroll or book but 10 scrolls in a cluster.

Why 10 scrolls when Christianity's New Testament attributes 13 letters to the apostle Paul: letters to communities such as the Romans, Corinthians (twice), Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (twice) and to individuals such as Timothy (twice), Titus and Philemon.

There is, however, a massive consensus in modern scholarship that those three letters to Timothy and Titus were written in Paul's name but long after his death. It would seen, then, that around 1265 a Byzantine artist at Sopoćani already accepted that viewpoint -- hence, only 10 scrolls for 10 letters.

There is also a strong (but not massive) consensus among much of modern scholarship that a further three of those 10 letters were not written by Paul. In other words, we have seven letters certainly from the historical Paul (Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon), three others probably not from him (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians) and a final three certainly not from him (1-2 Timothy, Titus). Those are all, of course, historical conclusions and not dogmatic presumptions. Well and good, but, even if correct, so what? And why should anyone care?

It is not just that we have factual and fictional letters of "Paul" or that those 13 letters are mixed between a Paul and a Pseudo-Paul. It is not just that, after Paul's death, followers imagined him in new situations and had him respond to new problems -- as if in a seamless if fictional continuity from past into present and future.

The problem is that those post-Pauline or Pseudo-Pauline letters are primarily counter-Pauline and anti-Pauline. What happens across those three sets of letters is that the radical Paul of the authentic seven letters (Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon) is slowly but steadily morphed into the conservative Paul of the probably inauthentic threesome (Ephesians Colossians, 2 Thessalonians) and finally into the reactionary Paul of those certainly inauthentic ones (1-2 Timothy, Titus).

In other words, the radical Paul is being deradicalized, sanitized and Romanized. His radical views on, for example, slavery and patriarchy, are being retrofitted into Roman cultural expectations and Roman social presuppositions. Watch, then, how it works in terms of slavery (I leave patriarchy for my next blog in this series on Paul):

The radical and historical Paul sent back the now-converted slave Onesimus to his owner and told him that a Christian could not own a Christian for how could Christians be equal and unequal to one another at the same time? He reminds him "to do your duty," to free Onesimus, and to consider him "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother -- especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord" (Philemon 1:8,16).

Next, the later, conservative counter-Paul takes Christian owners with Christian slaves absolutely for granted, addresses both classes and reminds each of its mutual obligations. "Slaves obey ... fearing the Lord" and "Masters treat your slaves justly ... you also have a Master in heaven" (Colossians 3:22-4:1 & Ephesians 6:5-9). Christian-on-Christian slavery is back but now in kinder, gentler mode!

Finally, the still later and reactionary anti-Paul never mentions mutual duties, addresses only the master, and says to "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and ... to be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior" (Titus 2:9-10).

What is at stake in that sad progression from Paul to anti-Paul? Why is it of importance that -- at least with regard to slavery -- radical Christian liberty is being changed back into normal Roman slavery. It means this: Jewish Christianity is becoming Roman Christianity. And this: Constantine here we come!

The Communal Crucifixion of Jesus

2011-04-21T19:08:26-04:00

The Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, and the Christian Apostles' Creed have very little in common. Except for this one thing: that, respectively, Jesus "had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus"; that "Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified"; and that Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate [and] was crucified."

Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea and, appointed by the emperor Tiberius, he ruled from 26 to 36 C.E. He and the Jewish high priest Caiaphas collaborated not wisely but too well and they were both eventually removed from office by their Roman masters. Jesus' execution is as historically certain as any ancient event can ever be but what about all those very specific details that fill out the story? Are they fact or fiction and, if fiction, what is their purpose, intention, meaning?

Think about these examples and, in every case, notice how each one creates an echo or resonance with earlier biblical tradition. The most striking one is the death-cry of Jesus, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" in Mark 15:34 that recalls the opening verse, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" of Psalm 22:1. That recall is left implicit and, if you miss it, you miss it. It is neither proof nor argument but an invitation to thought and a lure for meditation.

Jesus' death-cry as psalm-echo draws attention to further echoes between details of the crucifixion and verses of that same Psalm 22. Here are three examples from Mark, the earliest of the four gospels. Notice that they are all implicit -- if you miss them, you miss them. They are there -- but quietly, like choral music in the background -- for those with ears to hear and hearts to understand.

A first example is the fate of Jesus' clothes. "They crucified him," says Mark 15:24, "and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take." That echoes the verse, "they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots" from Psalm 22:18.

A second example is that, alongside Jesus, "they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left" in Mark 15:27. That echoes the psalm's lament that "a company of evildoers encircles me" in Psalm 22:16b.

A third example is these mocking challenges directed at Jesus: "Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying ... 'Save yourself, and come down from the cross!' ... 'He saved others; he cannot save himself.' ... 'Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe'" in Mark 15:29-32. In the background, hear once again, this taunt: "All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; 'Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver -- let him rescue the one in whom he delights!'" from Psalm 22:7-8. But, once again, the echo is only implicit -- if you miss it, you miss it.

Furthermore, apart from that Psalm 22, there is a clear (but, once again, implicit) allusion to another psalm during the crucifixion of Jesus. Unlike those preceding examples, all four evangelists contain this striking -- and doubled -- reference. Here is an example from Matthew's gospel: "They offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it ... At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink" (27:34,48) That reminds one of this half-verse, "for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" from Psalm 69:21b.

Those are only a few examples but, from start to finish, in larger and smaller chunks of text, the last hours of Jesus resonate repeatedly with prayers and stories from the biblical tradition that preceded them. How is that "coincidence" to be explained?

My proposal is that multiple details about the death of Jesus were deliberately created but not just at random as mere narrative fill-up. They were created to describe Jesus' death amid a tissue of resonances and a volley of echoes from the biblical past. Further, it is especially from the biblical psalms of lament, from the prayers of the just and righteous suffering injustice and oppression, that those details have been taken. In other words, the evangelists have created communal and corporate rather than just individual and private sufferings for Jesus. Starting from the historical basis of imperial indicting, flogging, and crucifixion, those manifold details -- for example, the death-cry, the divided garments, the mockery, and the bitter drink -- were invented and added within the ongoing tradition about Jesus. But why?

Because of this. Jesus was not the first faithful Jew who died on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem -- nor would he be the last. In 4 B.C.E., Varus crucified two thousand Jews there, and in 70 C.E. Titus crucified five hundred a day -- for how many days? Those first followers of Jesus were Christian Jews," that is "Messianic Jews." They believed that Jesus was their awaited Messiah, their expected Christ. They did not think that Jesus' was just another Roman execution. But neither did they think that he died alone.

He died, for them, as the climax of all the suffering of Israel, as the consummation of all those prayers of lament in the psalms, as the fulfillment of all the faithful martyrs of the biblical tradition. The details of Jesus' death were not fact remembered and history recorded. They were prayer recollected and psalm historicized. But, then, if the suffering of others was imbedded in the crucifixion of Jesus, must not those others have been vindicated by God in his resurrection. if Jesus' death was a communal crucifixion, must there not have been also a communal resurrection?

The Communal Resurrection of Jesus

2011-04-11T12:08:32-04:00

In the great Rotunda of the ancient Church of the Resurrection -- or Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- in Jerusalem is a tiny free-standing shrine known as the Aedicule or Chapel of the Tomb and Resurrection of Jesus. It is a tiny space and pilgrims are usually lined up waiting their turn to enter a few at a time.

A processional banner was hanging to our right as we entered that shrine-chapel in May, 2008. It is kept there, presumably, to be used in liturgical celebration on Easter Sunday. It is bright red with golden lettering down either side. To left is the word "Christ" and to right "Is Risen" -- both in Greek upper-case letters. No surprise there since that is Easter's celebratory greeting in Eastern Christianity. But in between those words, in the center of the banner, is a diamond-shaped image. And it surprises us.

That image does not show Jesus arising in splendid triumph from an opened tomb. This is not -- even in miniature -- a Titian or a Rubens with Jesus emerging in muscular majesty. But emerging, however majestically, in magnificent and lonely isolation. Instead, four other individuals are with him in this parabolic vision.

Jesus himself is at the left of the icon. He holds a small cross in his left hand and stands on the bi-fold gates of Sheol, Hades, or Hell which are shattered into a cross-shaped structure beneath his feet. Jesus is bending forward -- gently, tenderly, graciously -- and, stretching out his right hand, he grasps and pulls on the rather limp wrist of Adam. Beside Adam stands Eve. Behind the two of them stand a youthful Abel, with shepherd's staff, and an older John the Baptist, with beard and long hair. They are the first martyr of the Christianity's Old Testament and the first martyr of its New Testament.

At the top of that diamond-shaped image, lest there be any mistake about meaning, is the word Anastasis, Greek for "resurrection". But is not Easter about the absolutely unique resurrection of Jesus alone, so why are any others involved and, if others, why precisely these others? The answer reveals a major difference between Easter Sunday as imagined and celebrated in Eastern Christianity as opposed to Western Christianity. It also reveals for me the latter's greatest theological loss from that fatal split in the middle of the eleventh century.

When you look at Eastern Christianity's images, either for the great feasts of the liturgical year or for traditional events in Jesus' life, they are all -- save one -- quite recognizable to Western as to Eastern eyes. The great exception is how Eastern Christianity portrays the "Resurrection," that is, in Greek, the "Anastasis," of Jesus. Across vast stretches of time, place, art, and tradition, icons and illustrations, frescoes and mosaics show always a communal and not an individual resurrection for Jesus. We can watch that magnificent tradition develop across half a millennium -- from 700 to 1200 -- before its varied elements and successive stages are fully established.

First, the various elements of the tradition. Jesus is shown breaking down the closed and bolted gates of the Underworld -- as Sheol, Hades, or Hell -- the abode of the Dead, the prison of "those who have slept" -- that is the same Greek term used for them in both Matthew 27:52 and 1 Corinthians 15:20. The personified Hades, Prison-warden and Gate-keeper of the Dead, is shoved to one side or even walked on as Jesus barges in to liberate his prisoners. Jesus is usually carrying a cross, his wounds are often very evident.

Only six individuals are identified from the crowd responding to Jesus's arrival among the dead -- they appear chronologically across the tradition's development in this sequence. First, bearded Adam and youthful Eve appeared. In almost every single image, Jesus grasps the wrist of Adam to pull him alive from his tomb. Later, David, with crown and a beard, along with his son Solomon, with crown but without a beard, were added. Finally, as seen above, those twin martyrs, the Shepherd and the Baptist, joined the others. So, in summary, two ancestors, two monarchs, and two martyrs are singled out from the crowd. Still, if Adam and Eve are freed, who is not?

Next, the successive stages of the tradition. In the first stage Jesus is always approaching -- as we just saw above -- and grasping Adam's wrist. A next stage shows him leaving -- often looking backward or forward as he drags Adam by the wrist with the others looking on. A third or facing stage is similar to that last one except that now Jesus looks not backward or forward but straight out of the image -- at you, the beholder.

Finally, there is the last or doubling stage and I must admit that it is my favorite. Jesus has put down the cross -- sometimes an angel holds it for him -- and Adam and Eve are now on opposite sides of Jesus instead of, as earlier, both on the same side. Each gets a hand at this stage. We finally have an equal-opportunity resurrection of the dead.

In the western Christian tradition we call that tradition the Harrowing -- or Robbing -- of Hell and keep it carefully distinguished from the individual Resurrection of Jesus. "He descended into Hell," says the Apostles' Creed, "on the third day he arose from the dead." But in the eastern Christian tradition it is the communal Resurrection of Jesus. We, to our loss and my grief, have forgotten that corporate vision of Easter.

Eastern Christianity's tradition of the resurrection of Jesus reminds our Western Christian imagination that only poetry -- be it verbal or visual -- speaks to our profoundest hopes, deepest dreams, and greatest insights. It also reminds us that theology is -- no more and no less -- the poetry of transcendence.

With Liberty and Justice For All: Why the Bible Promotes Equality

2011-02-01T18:03:43-05:00

The biblical tradition insists that God is a God of "justice and righteousness," that is, of distributive justice and restorative righteousness. Think, for example, of this divine claim:
"I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord" (Jeremiah 9:24). Furthermore, rulers are expected to participate in that same divine character. "Thus says then Lord: act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place" (Jeremiah 22:3). The most serious and far-reaching misunderstanding of that biblical tradition is to interpret divine justice as retributive rather than distributive, as if it meant a proper punishment for some rather than a fair share for all.

So here is the question. How did that ancient tradition ever arrive at such an absolutely counter-intuitive understanding of God? That biblical vision came from a small people regularly oppressed by great empires -- Egyptians or Mesopotamians, and Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. Faith may have invoked divine justice but experience repeatedly contradicted it. From where, then, did that expectation of a world ruled by a fair and equitable distribution of its resources come?

That biblical vision of a world-for-all did not come from our modern ideas of democratic power or our contemporary claims about human or civil rights. It did not come from liberalism, socialism, or communism. In recognizing its challenge we are not retrojecting any of that modernity back onto antiquity. A world-for-all came, if one needs an -ism, from Godism. That means, of course, that the biblical tradition does not proclaim "social justice" but "divine justice" -- which is something like social justice on steroids. But, still, the question presses. How did they decide that Godism involved distributive justice and restorative righteousness in a world that -- then and now -- experientially denies that proposition?

The biblical tradition got that vision of God from the most obvious source imaginable, from growing up in a decent home and a well-run household. Most children either experienced that normalcy positively or recognized its absence negatively. The Bible simply took that expectation of a decent household and applied it to God as the Householder of the World-House. Given their world's patriarchal prejudices they spoke of God "as Father" but God "as Householder" is what that title meant.

Think, for a moment, about the first-century world of Jesus and especially of that prayer which begins with, "Our Father in Heaven." There is an especially striking irony when God-as-Householder is called God-as-Father by Jesus. Demographers of the Roman world agree that, owing to the late marriage-age of males, one third of young people would have been fatherless by the age of fifteen -- across all strata of society. Women married around 12 or 13, men married around twice that age, general life expectancy was under 30 years, so that a father as actual householder must have been mostly theory rather than practice and nostalgia rather than reality. In other words, in a first-century household across the Roman world, hear "father," think "mother," but understand "householder." And, as on earth, so also in heaven.

If, in that first-century world, you entered a small family farm and its courtyard house, how would you judge the householder? Are the fields well administered, the livestock well provisioned, the family members well-fed, well-clothed, well-sheltered?? Does a sick child get special care? Does a pregnant mother get special concern? Does everyone get a fair share? Does everyone get enough? You would judge the householder not by the criterion of egalitarianism but of enoughism. That is how -- then as now -- you would assess the householder of any home. Is there a fair distribution of goods and resources, of duties and obligations?

But what if some of the children were starving and others were over-fed? What if some received food while others did not? What would you think of that householder -- then or now? That is the mega-model or mega-metaphor underneath the biblical tradition's understanding of its God. That is why the biblical God can demand of the powers-that-be, the rulers of this world, that they,

Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. (Psalm 82:3)

You can see from those parallel verses that "justice" is "the right" of the dispossessed. Distributive justice is not gift, charity, or handout in a world that belongs to us but the simple right of all in a world that belongs to God.

From that same Psalm 82 comes this most searing claim in the entire biblical tradition. It is a warning we should write on our hearts and on our consciences, on our domestic programs and on our foreign policies. "All the foundations of the earth are shaken," says 82:5, by injustice in distribution of the world's resources. A distribution that denies to some a fair share of the world shakes the very foundations of the earth. "Lord," said Shakespeare's Puck, "what fools these mortals be."