But in this chapter I was almost persuaded. Almost. Not that I agreed with everything in the chapter, but I could understand and allow for the possibility that Vermes was right. It was that concluding statement that blew it.
“…it may be summarized
in a blunt statement: the Acts of the Apostles contains nothing that could
possibly be interpreted as pointing to a divine Jesus. It contains no prefiguration, not even a
shadowy foretaste of Paul’s Christ/Son of God, let alone John’s eternal Logos.” [i]
First of all – I’m not
sure how the Acts of the Apostles could have a “prefiguration” or an
anticipatory “foretaste” of Paul’s Christology considering that Paul’s letters
were written many years (as many as 50 years based on Vermes’ dating) before the
Acts of the Apostles.
But setting aside that anachronism…the petulant part of me read Vermes’ unqualified and absolute statement as a challenge. And it didn’t take me very long to find several points that would seem to contradict his claim.
But setting aside that anachronism…the petulant part of me read Vermes’ unqualified and absolute statement as a challenge. And it didn’t take me very long to find several points that would seem to contradict his claim.
One
The repeated use of the word “lord” (kyrios)
should at least give pause. It is a
slippery word – sometimes meaning “sir” or “master” but also often times meaning
“God.” C. Kavin Rowe has argued in his
book Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke that “…Luke positions
Κύριος [kyrios – Lord] within the movement of the narrative in such a way
as to narrate the relation between God and Jesus as one of inseparability, to
the point that they are bound together in a shared identity as Κύριος.”[ii] Granted, Rowe’s book
deals specifically with the Gospel of Luke – and not directly with the Acts of
the Apostles (except in an excursus on Acts 2:36), but without sufficient
reason to dismember the two part work (Luke-Acts) it seems that Rowe’s
conclusions for the one should apply to the other. [iii]
Two
Given that Vermes deals
with the various titles applied to Jesus in these different parts of the New
Testament, (Lord, Son of God, Son of Man, the Holy Servant etc…) it seems odd
that he failed to mention a rather striking title applied to Jesus in Acts 3:15[iv]. In that verse Jesus is described as “the
author of life” (NIV) or the “prince of life” (ASV). I doubt that the earliest Christians –Jewish Christians
– would have applied that kind of title to any but God.
Three
In Paul’s farewell
address to the Ephesians there is an interesting verse: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock
of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he
bought with his own blood.” (Acts
20:28) That would seem to indicate that
Jesus is God. Some early manuscripts,
however, have “lord” instead of God. But
the difference between the two words is slight (one letter). One of the main
principles of textual criticism is that the more difficult reading is the
stronger or more likely to be the original.
In this case “God” would be the more difficult reading – and thus,
should be the preferred reading.
The thing is… no one of
these arguments (or any others that I could throw up) have to be entirely
convincing in order to challenge Vermes conclusion – they only have to be
possible. If only he’d not said that
last bit.
[i] Vermes,
Geza The Changing Faces of Jesus, Viking Compass, New York, NY, 2001 –
page 156
[ii]
Rowe, C. Kavin Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke,
Baker Academic, Grand Rapids
MI, 2006, page. 27
[iii]
Vemes does imply that the Acts had a different author than the Gospel – but gives
no rationale or justification for this. Page
126
[iv]
No… not odd, really. It’s called
cherry-picking. But I’m trying to be
generous.
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