A Resurrection of Justice - A Sermon (Luke 24: 13 - 35)

The world around us has already moved on. They celebrated Easter with chocolates, and bunnies and then moved on to other things – but in the church we are still in Easter. The world outside is already gearing up for graduations and summer vacations – but in the church we are still in Easter. Our scriptural reading for today (Luke 24: 13 – 35), like last week’s reading (John 20: 19 – 31) takes place “that very same day” (Luke 24: 13 New Jerusalem Bible) Easter Sunday. We take our time here; we linger in this, the “Lord’s Day.” The world may have already moved on to the next shopping holiday – but in the church we are abiding for a while in this resurrection day.

“Now that very same day, two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together about all that had happened. And it happened that as they were talking together and discussing it, Jesus himself came up and walked by their side.” (Luke 24: 13 – 15)

These two disciples – Cleopas and another unnamed disciple (in later tradition, named Simon) (Maclean 422) – may not have recognized Jesus as their risen Lord and master, their eyes may have been supernaturally blinded against seeing him for who he was, but the risen Jesus did not want them to remain in the darkness of ignorance. As they walked those seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus he walked them through the scriptures, “starting with Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself.” (Luke 24: 27)

We cannot know what passages Jesus explained to them on that dusty road, but let’s take our own little trip through the scriptures, through Moses and the prophets, and try to understand the resurrection a little better.

The first thing that we should understand – and this may help us to understand why the Cleopas and ‘Simon’ were so disappointed that day – in the Hebrew Bible / Old testament, especially the earliest parts of it, there is little that speaks about a resurrection.

The idea of a resurrection of the dead “does not appear except in texts that are rare, obscure with regard to their precise meaning, and late” (Martin-Achard 680). In the Old Testament there is no concept of resurrection, life after death, or rewards or punishments in the afterlife. In the Old Testament, the dead, all of them –the good, the bad, and the ugly- go to the grave, the pit, to sheol. And that’s it. Sheol, the place of the dead, was a place of no return. No one came back from there. No one gets out alive.

“A cloud dissolves and is gone,
so no one who goes down to Sheol ever comes up again,
ever comes home again,
and his house knows that person no more.” (Job 7: 9 – 10)

The road to Sheol was a “road of no return. (Job 16: 22). For the Jewish people, the grave was an inescapable prison.

But this thought caused a sort of crisis of faith for them. IF God is good, and IF the world belongs to him and is under his sovereign control – then why, they asked, do the righteous sometimes die horrible, painful deaths at the hands of powerful and wicked men? IF God is good, and IF the world belongs to him, then there must be justice for the righteous – if not in this life, then … perhaps in the next.

And so, slowly, over time, an idea developed among them that in the later days, in the time of the end, everything would be made right; the righteous dead would be rewarded and wicked, powerful men would receive the punishment due to them. And there would be, they began to understand, a resurrection of the dead.

In the book of Daniel (written during a time of intense persecution and struggle, during the Maccabean wars against the tyrannical Antiochus Epiphanes) we find this newly developing hope expressed: “Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. Those who are wise will shine as brightly as the expanse of the heavens, and those who have instructed many in uprightness, as bright as stars for all eternity.” (Daniel 12: 2 – 3)

The origins of Jewish belief in a resurrection after death are unclear (Nickelsburg 685). But by the time of Jesus, many (but not all) Jews accepted the idea of a life after death; the Sadducees did not accept this new and still developing theological point, and they argued with Jesus (and presumably with others who believed in the coming resurrection).

But the idea of resurrection was, at its foundation, about justice.

So, while Cleopas and ‘Simon’ may have believed in, and hoped for the resurrection of the dead, they still grieved the great injustice that had been done to their Teacher, their master, Jesus – the one that they had hoped would be the one to set Israel free (Luke 24: 21) And, while Cleopas and ‘Simon’ may have believed in, and hoped for the resurrection of the dead, they did not expect Jesus to be raised from the dead.

They thought of the resurrection of the dead as a great and general event all at once, at the time of the end. They did not expect a dying Messiah, and they did not expect his singular resurrection. As the New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright has said, “Nobody expected the Messiah to be raised from the dead, for the simple reason that nobody in Judaism at the time expected a Messiah who would die, especially one who would die shamefully and violently” (Wright 19). And no one expected the Messiah (or anyone else for that matter) to be raised up in resurrection before the general resurrection at the end.

But as they walked those seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, with their eyes still blinded and their understanding still darkened, Jesus walked them through the scriptures again, explaining how Moses and all the prophets pointed to him and to the justice that his resurrection promised.

And this is what the resurrection is really about; this is what we must understand. The resurrection is about Justice. “The resurrection stories in the Gospels do not say Jesus is raised, therefore we’re all going to heaven, or therefore we’re going to be raised.” The resurrection stories in the Gospels are not there to give us a rosy hope for justice someday. The resurrection stories are there to say that the Kingdom of God – which is the kingdom of life, the kingdom of the living, the kingdom of the resurrected – has broken into this world of death and is bringing life and justice with it. The stories of Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels say that “Jesus is raised, therefore God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do” (Wright 21).

The hope and promise of our resurrection is not (not merely) the hope of life after death someday – but life after life, and of renewed life and full life in this world now.

We cannot begin to answer the question of how did the resurrection happen – the resurrection of Jesus is a supernatural event, outside the realm of observation and quantification. But we can answer the question of why. Why is there a resurrection? Why is Jesus resurrected? Why does he promise this resurrection to us, his followers? For Justice. For Righteousness. For the renewal of all creation. Jesus is resurrected and we’ve got a job to do.

I’m always disappointed when I hear people say - and when I hear Christians especially say with a sigh and resignation, “well… that’s just the way things are.” Or “that’s just the way the world is.” No. I do not accept that. If we do not believe in change, the possibility and the necessity of making change for the good in this world, then why do we bother to speak of the resurrection of Jesus? Look again at the scriptures that Jesus opened for Cleopas and ‘Simon’ – the Law and the Prophets – passages of Holy Scripture concerning justice for the poor and the oppressed. The resurrection of Jesus may not be about our politics – but it doesn’t change our political belief, why bother to believe in the resurrection at all? “A deeply orthodox theology about the resurrection… is the proper seedbed of radical politics” (Wright 23).

Further, I may not agree with the conclusions of John Dominic Crossan, a New Testament Scholar who believes that the resurrection of Jesus was not a ‘real’ event[i], but I fully embrace his conclusion that while we might disagree over whether or not Jesus’s resurrection was a real event, a literal, physical, bodily et cetera… resurrection, what really matters is what we do as the result of our belief in Jesus’ resurrection; “I want really to know how we are going to take back God’s world from the thugs” (Crossan 29).

This is what the resurrection means. This is why we linger here in Resurrection Sunday two weeks after Easter. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote at length about the nature Jesus’ resurrection and concluded by saying, “Thank God, then, for giving us the victory [over sin and death] through Jesus Christ our Lord. So, my dear brothers, keep firm and immovable, always abounding in energy for the Lord's work, being sure that in the Lord none of your labors is wasted.” (1 Corinthians 15: 57 – 58). 

The resurrection of Jesus (and the promise of our resurrection) does not mean we sit back and hope for that ‘pie in the sky, by and by’ – but that we are to be at work in this world, in the here and now, creating the justice and righteousness that is the character of the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ victory over sin and death does not mean we kick back and relax until we are raptured away, but that we get to work, that we make things better for our neighbors, for the immigrant, for the sick, and the poor. He arose a victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign” (Lowry). And this is what is to believe in his victory over the dark domain of death, to believe in the resurrection – to reign with him in this world by working for justice.We have a hope and a mission in this world because Jesus’ resurrection (and the promise of our own) is about Justice.

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Lowry, Robert. “Up from the Grave He Arose (Low in the Grave He Lay)” 

MacLean, Gilmour S. “The Gospel According to Luke: Exegesis” The Interpreter’s Bible Volume 8. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1952. Print.

Martin-Achard, Robert. “Resurrection (OT)” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5. New York. NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Resurrection (Early Judaism and Christianity)” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5. New York, NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

Wright, N.T. and John Dominic Crossan, “The Resurrection: Historical Event or Theological Explanation? – A Dialogue.” The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue. Ed. Robert. B. Stewart. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press. 2006. Print.

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[i]  …though we do have to be careful about that word “real.” “The word real is one of the slipperiest ones in modern English…” (Wright 32)

Not “Palm Sunday” but a Certain Inevitability

We call it Palm Sunday and in Christian churches around the world the faithful are celebrating Jesus’ ‘triumphal entry’ into the city of Jerusalem by waving palm branches and shouting “hosanna!” Palm branches were considered a symbol of victory and triumph. When Simon Maccabeus defeated the Jewish people’s Gentile enemies and recaptured the city of Jerusalem, “the Jews entered the city amid a chorus of praise and the waving of palm branches, with lutes, cymbals, and zithers, with hymns and songs, to celebrate Israel’s final riddance of a formidable enemy.” (1 Maccabees 13:51 Revised English Bible) In the Revelation given to John on the Island of Patmos he saw: “a vast throng, which no one could count, from all races and tribes, nations and languages, standing before the throne and the Lamb. They were robed in white and had palm branches in their hands, and they shouted aloud: ‘Victory to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7: 9 -10 Revised English Bible)

But in Luke’s telling of this story, there are no palm branches.

The word Hosanna is “a liturgical word used in Judaism and Christianity that means ‘save, we pray’” (Cameron). It was usually shouted by the Jewish people as part of the autumnal Sukkot celebration – the Feast of Tabernacles. Once a day the worshippers would walk around the altar and shout, “Save us now, we beseech thee, O Lord, send prosperity!”(Psalm 118:25) On the seventh day of the festival, this shout was repeated seven times-known as the Hoshana Rabbah-the Great Hosanna. This Hosanna ritual “combines the idea of praising realized victories over nations and sympathetic prayers for salvation” (Avery-Peck qtd. in Cameron).[i]

It also makes a nice connection to Jesus himself as his name in Hebrew is Yeshua meaning “Yahweh is Salvation,” because “he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 New Jerusalem Bible) Hosanna! Save us! Jesus! Our salvation!

But, again, In Luke’s telling of this story, there are no shouts of “Hosanna!” [ii] Suddenly our “Palm Sunday” begins to feel a little empty-no waving palms, no “Hosannas!”

Compared to the other gospel accounts of Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem, Luke’s version seems relatively restrained, almost (but not quite) subdued. Luke may have quieted the noise and hubbub of Jesus’ entrance somewhat, but he has not entirely softened or quieted the story, not by any means.

In fact, we find the pilgrim crowds following Jesus that morning joyfully praising God at the top of their voices, praising him for all the miracles and works of power that they’d seen and experienced in Jesus of Nazareth. They are shouting in full voice:

“Blessed is who is coming as King in the name of the Lord,
peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens!”

Luke may have eliminated the waving palms and the shouts of Hosanna but there’s still a lot of excitement here. But not everyone in the crowd was quite so thrilled. There were some Pharisees in the crowd who seemed to be a little irritated by Jesus and his crowd of followers. They urged Jesus to restrain, reprove, and rebuke them.

Luke doesn’t describe their motivation for us.  It could be that they were fearful of a Roman backlash. The crowds were hailing Jesus as a King, something that the Roman occupiers could have interpreted as the beginnings of political uprising. Perhaps the Pharisees feared a violent Roman response to the excited crowd.

It could also be that the Pharisees were concerned for Jesus’ health and safety. I know that we’re somewhat conditioned to thinking of the Pharisees as the bad guys; that’s the way their usually depicted in the gospels, as the enemies and opponents of Jesus. But earlier in Luke’s gospel (13:31) we read of the Pharisees warning Jesus of Herod’s threats against his life. It could be that the Pharisees were warning Jesu for his own safety.

And, of course, it could be that the Pharisees here are expressing their own personal disagreement, disgust, and disbelief. As I said, Luke doesn’t describe their motives for us. So take your pick. It could be any of these or maybe something else altogether.  Whatever their motivations might have been, Jesus ignores their demand that he silence his followers. He tells them that if his followers are silenced, then the very stones would begin to sing and shout the praises of God.

There is a certain inevitability here. “Attention must be paid,” (Miller Act 1, Part 8). Praises must be sung. “Somethings simply must be said; the disciples are expressing what is ultimately and finally true. God will provide a witness though every mouth be stopped; opposition to Christian witness cannot succeed, and the truth will come out. It cannot be silenced” (Craddock).

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,” (King) and, I would add, towards praise. The two are linked. With justice will come praise for the just and holy God. Blessed the one who comes in the name of the King, bringing peace in heaven and on earth for those who he favors. (Luke 2:14)

In Luke’s retelling of the “triumphal entry” there may be neither waving palms nor shouts of Hosanna- save us now- but we have an intimation of the inevitable and glorious end: Praise and peace and justice in the Kingdom of God.

Palm Sunday (with or without the palms) is a ray of bright sun before the dark, tenebrous gloom of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday. There is an awkwardness to our praise today because we know we still must go through the passion-that is, pain- the suffering, and blood, and death.

Ride on, ride on in majesty
in lowly pomp ride on to die. (Milman)

But this is not the end. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends, not toward suffering and death but towards justice and praise. And the universe is bent towards these wonderful ends because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

O Christ the triumphs now begin
o’er captive death and conquered sin. (Milman)

So today, instead of the traditional palm waving and “Hosanna” shouting, we will shout with the crowds:

“Blessed is he who is coming
as King in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest heaven
Glory to God in the highest heaven
and on earth, peace for those he favors.”

We move inevitably towards justice and peace and praise because of Jesus’ triumph over sin and death.

Cameron, Daniel J. “Hosanna” The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015. Print.

Craddock, Fred. Interpretation: Luke. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990. Print.

Crossan, John Dominick. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1995. Print.

Gilmore, S. MacLean. “Luke: Introduction” The Interpreter’s Bible.  Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1952. Print

King jr., Martin Luther. "Keep Moving from this Mountain” – sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood. 1965. 

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. 1949.

Milman, Henry H. “Ride On, Ride On, in Majesty” The Salvation Army Songbook, The Salvation Army, London.

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[i] Because of the odd combination of details from the autumnal Sukkot celebration with Jesus’ springtime entrance into the city of Jerusalem just before Passover, some scholars have suggested that his triumphal entry occurred during Sukkot and that that story has been combined with the events of Holy Week. 

John Dominic Crossan doesn’t believe the triumphal entry (or, as he calls it, the “antitriumphal” entry) “ever actually happend, except as later symbolic retrojection. (Crossan 128-9)

[ii] In fact, Luke has eliminated almost all Semitic “barbarisms” from his gentile oriented gospel. (Gilmour 3-4) 

Psalm 22 and the Death of Jesus

Psalm 22 is among my favorite psalms, and I don’t say that lightly.  I am annoyed by people who tell me that that they love to read the psalms because they’re soooo encouraging and uplifting.  I really have to wonder what collection of psalms these people are reading.  Some of the psalms in our bible – many of the psalms in our scripture are ugly, fierce, and dark.  Many of them are quite troubling.  And some of them, let’s be honest, are a bit dull.  (Psalm 119, I’m looking at you…)So when I find a psalm that I like, I really like it.  And I like Psalm 22.

It is a powerful work. From a literary viewpoint it is a marvel of poetic expression.  From an emotional viewpoint it is a perceptive and accurate expression of those emotions we usually bottle up and hide from public display.  From a religious view it is a profound expression of faith in the face of adversities of life.  Psalm 22, in my opinion is just about perfect.

It divides neatly into two parts – 1) and individual’s lament and 2) a corporate expression of praise.  Though it is described as “a psalm of David” there is nothing in it that connects specifically to any event in David’s life (at least as recorded in the scriptures…) and it isn’t necessary to posit a Davidic authorship to understand it.  (In fact it’s probably easier to understand without getting it all mixed up with David.)

Some have suggested that the two parts (which don’t have any real connecting material between them) were written by two different authors.  Others have suggested that they were written by the same author at different times, and, of course, some maintain that the two parts were written by the same person at the same time.  Who’s to say? 

The first part – the individual’s lament is a bit bi-polar (though I don’t mean that in a clinical way). It swings (wildly, perhaps) between expressions of utter despair and misery and desperate expressions of hope in God.  I (vs. 1 – 2) You [God] (vs. 3 – 5) I (6 – 8) You (9 – 11) I (12 – 18) You (19 – 21 or 22 depending on how one translates vs. 22) These are some serious mood swings. The psalmist is enduring the worst sort of pain (physical is indicated, but it’s mostly mental, emotional, spiritual anguish…) and he (or she) is desperate for God’s attention and for God’s redemptive strength…. But God does not appear to be listening, or if he is, he’s not answering. 

Humanity is all but lost in the pain of this psalm.  The psalmist is a worm, not a man (6).  His enemies are bulls (12), lions (13, 21) dogs (16), and wild oxen (21) (or, as in the KJV, unicorns!).   They have already encircled him, trapped him.  He’s not dead yet, but he might as well be; they’re already dividing up his possessions among themselves (18). 

And the psalmist cries out for the same sort of salvation that God has provided in the past.  He saved and rescued our ancestors in the past – and unless he saves and rescues the psalmist now, there is only death and disgrace.  Save me, he says, “that I might proclaim your name to my brethren, [and] in the midst of the congregation praise you,” – as Mitchell Dahood translates vs. 22 in the Anchor Bible [i]

The second part of the psalm moves suddenly- without transition – from an individual’s lament to a corporate, communal expression of joy and praise.  The psalmist encourages those present to worship and praise God because he does hear and does answer the prayers of the afflicted.  (Which is why I think that the two parts were written by the same person - either at different times, or at the same time but after a long period of reflection.) 

And there is an ever expanding sphere of joy and worship in this part of the psalm; it grows from the those present in the assembly, to all of Israel, to all the families of the Nations (that is the gentiles) – to even the dead who’ve gone down into the netherworld, and larger still – to those who are not yet born.

This idea that the dead will praise God is an interesting divergence from other parts of the Hebrew bible / Old Testament.  Usually it is thought that the dead do not praise God, don’t do much of anything really.  “It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to the place of silence” Psalm 115:17

There isn’t much middle ground in this psalm.  It swings from the worst possible human misery to the exalted heights of praise in one verse.  But that only heightens the contrast between the two parts. 

Psalm 22 becomes especially important for the Christian during this week – holy week – as it comes into play in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. But there are wildly divergent understandings of how psalm 22 is related to the crucifixion.

Some treat the psalm as a predictive psalm.  Ray C. Stedman’s description of this psalm is representative of the way that I have heard many other Christians talk about psalm 22. 

“In many ways the twenty-second Psalm is the most amazing of the psalms.  In it we have a picture of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, painted by David the psalmist one thousand years before Jesus Christ was born.  It constitutes one of the most amazing predictions of all time.

“At least nine specific events or aspects of the Crucifixion are described here in minute detail.  All of them were fulfilled during the six hours in which Jesus hung on the cross… Moreover, the latter part of the psalm clearly depicts the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The probability that the prediction of these nine events would be fulfilled by chance in one person, on one afternoon, is inconceivably small.  The chance that all this could occur by accident is beyond any realm of possibility our minds could imagine.  Yet it was all fulfilled as predicted in this psalm (Stedman, 65)[ii]” (emphasis added by me….)

In this view, Psalm 22 is just another part of the checklist of prophecies that Jesus had to fulfill in order to prove that he was who we claim that he is.  And I think this really diminishes both the power of the psalm and the person of Jesus.  If the psalm is predictive in this way, then Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God why have you abandoned me?” becomes less an expression of despair and more of a going through the motions.  After all, if he already knows that the psalm “clearly” predicts his resurrection, then where is the fear? Where is the overwhelming sense of abandonment?  Where is his humanity?

And, I’m not sure that I should have to say it, but I will – it is not at all “clear” that there is a resurrection in mind in psalm 22.  That is shoehorn theology.

At the other extreme end of the spectrum are people like John Dominic Crossan who argues in his book, Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest, trial, abuse, crucifixion, and resurrection were not actual historical events that have been colored in the gospel accounts by reflection on Old Testament texts, but rather exegetical fabrications created whole-cloth from those OT texts.  In his words, “The passion narratives are not history remembered but prophecy historicized.”[iii]

While I understand (somewhat) how he gets to that conclusion, I don’t accept it.  I remain in the middle somewhere, believing that Jesus was crucified and buried and resurrected, but also that the gospel writers were not eye witnesses to the events.  And may not have had access to precise courtroom style transcripts of what occurred.  Instead they told the story of his death and resurrection as a theological story – using the scriptures as their template.  This allowed to be sparse and laconic in their description of the event – but to cram huge amounts of context and meaning into the few details they described.  Did Jesus scream out “My God, why have you abandoned me?”  Did the soldiers gamble for his clothes?  Maybe not – but in describing it this way, Jesus’ death is connected back to psalm 22 and there to a powerful expression of faith in the face of the worst of human misery.

Without having to spell it out explicitly – his death is linked to the ever expanding joy of the disciples taking the good news from the assembly, to all of Israel, and to the nations at the ends of the earth.

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[i] Dahood, Mitchell, Psalms 1 – 50: Introduction, Translation and Notes, Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City, NY, 1966.

[ii] Stedman, Ray C. Folk Psalms of Faith, G/L Regal Books, Glendale, CA, 1973.

[iii] Crossan, John Dominic, Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of

Jesus, Harper, San Francisco CA,  1995.

What I’m Reading: The Apocalyptic Jesus- A Debate

Was Jesus an apocalyptic preacher?  Did he preach and teach with an urgency rooted in the belief that God was – soon – to intervene in the affairs of human history?  The debate has gone on for nearly a century, and shows no signs of being decided.  The book, The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate, represents not the final word in this ongoing discussion, but an opportunity for those involved in the debate to clearly present and argue their position.

In this volume Dale Allison presents the pro argument – yes, Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. While Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Stephen J. Patterson present the con – no, Jesus was not an apocalyptic preacher.  It does feel a little weighted to one side, yet Allison holds up well against his three opponents.  All of the participants in this debate present their arguments with clarity and without ad hominem attacks.

The outline of the book follows a standard debate format:  Allison presents his case, the three opposed present their arguments against, and then Allison responds.  This is followed by an interesting chapter in which each of the participants answers 4 questions: What is the strongest point in my argument?  What is the weakest part in my argument?  What is the weakest part of my opponent’s argument?  What is the strongest part of my opponent’s argument?  

I like this book – but there are some caveats to that.  1) Though the terms “apocalyptic” and “eschatological” are defined by the editors in the preface, it still seems that they’re being used in different ways by the different authors.  This causes them to appear to be arguing past each other at various points.  2) It feels a bit like jumping into the middle of a discussion that’s already been going on for some time about a book that I haven’t read yet.  Much of the debate in these pages refers back to Allison’s book Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (1998).  3) (and this one has nothing to do with the quality of the various arguments…) the book seems to have been published on the cheap… This is minor and nit-picking, I know.  But the text is fuzzy – like it’s been reproduced, a copy of a copy on a copy machine.

I’ve enjoyed reading this debate – but find myself not altogether convinced by either side, not completely anyway.   I agree with Allison against his opponents, somewhat.  I believe that apocalyptic concerns were probably very important for the “historical Jesus” – but I am not impressed by Allison’s assessment that “Jesus, the millenarian prophet, like all millenarian prophets, was wrong,” or that Jesus, like other millenarians, was “irrational.”  I’m not prepared to accept his description of Jesus as a failed apocalyptic visionary whose followers have carried on in spite of their leader’s failure.

But I’m also not convinced by the opposing voices in this debate (at least the portion of the larger debate captured in the pages of this book).  Patterson makes much of hypothetical developments of apocalyptic material in the Q traditions.  This doesn’t convince me.  It’s an argument built on hypothetical developments in a hypothetical book.  Even as inclined to accept the existence of the Q source as I am, I still think this argument is a house of cards.  As is Patterson’s appeal to the “competing Christianities.” It is one thing to acknowledge that Christianity was (and is) not a monolithic uniform body – it’s another to build an argument based on hypothetical reconstructions of that these various traditions might have taught.

Borg raised a good point in his refutation; namely that interpreting everything Jesus said and did through an apocalyptic millenarian grid flattens the dynamic ministry of Jesus into a monotone.  But Allison counters that we don’t do this to people like Billy Graham, who believe that end is near, why would we do that to the historical Jesus?

I found Crossan’s argument that his own ideas were built by allowing the ‘material to precede the method’ – to be a distinction without a difference.  The material he allows / disallows to construct his “historical Jesus” was chosen by a method…  He is not a disinterested, unbiased scholar.  This is not really possible.

The debate contained in this book may not have convinced me of the singular merits of any one its participants, but it has allowed me to continue to rethink my thinking on this issue.  If nothing else it has succeeded in this.

Faith in the Face of Empire: Seven Marks of the Empire

In the previous chapters of Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, author Mitri Raheb has said that the normal state of affairs in Palestine is occupation.  Through its long history it has been ruled by many various empires: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Ayyubid, Tartar, Mamluk, Mongol, Ottoman, England, Israel (Raheb, 4)…[i] And even though each successive empire is singularly different, they all develop and utilize a number of similar tactics, policies and theologies (Raheb, 55).  They’re all cut from the same imperial cloth.

In chapter 5 “The Empire” Raheb focuses on Israel as “the expression of empire in Palestine,” - not because Israel is the only empire ever, or the worst expression of imperialism ever.  It is not.  But it is the current expression of the imperial ideology in Palestine.  He acknowledges that this will be shocking to some because of the way our theologies have been shaped in order to support Empires - of which Israel is a singular example (Raheb, 55)

Raheb enumerates 7  imperial patterns that can be observed in Israel today.

1 – Control of Movement – Empires are all about control.  They rule by control.  They control by building up an army and by building watch towers, fortresses, walls and gates.  Israel control’s the movement of the Palestinian people with security checkpoints and rarely granted official permissions.  “Gaza is 360 square miles surrounded by walls and seas, making it the biggest open-air prison in the world to date (Raheb, 56).”  The Palestinian village of al-Walaja near Jerusalem is about to be completely encircled by the massive concrete wall that increasingly cuts off the Palestinian people.  When this section of the wall is completed there will be a single check point in and out. The people of the al-Walaja village will be cut off from their farms and fields and olive tree groves.  

Israeli forces deny Palestinian Christians access to churches - 

2- Control of Resources – Water is the big one here.  And Israel controls the water.  Most of the water in the region comes from the Jordan River.  But even in places where water can be found in underground aquifers, that water is diverted to Jewish settlements and Palestinians are not permitted to dig for water (Raheb, 58).  And as this year has been an especially dry year in Israel, the situation is nearing crisis levels. 

  

While in Israel we saw a desalinization plant being built along the Mediterranean coastline. This will provide another much needed source of water to the area.  A desalinization plant has been proposed for Gaza as well, but this only heightens the concern for the Palestinian people.  What happens if they are cut off from the aquifers that supply natural fresh water, and the desalinization plant is damaged by Israeli bombings? 

3 – Settlements - Empires have always built new colonies, outposts, cities, and settlements as a way to control occupied lands.  These settlements provide an administrative base for the empire and crowd out troublesome natives.  “While native villages and cities grow and evolve naturally over time and at a ‘normal’ speed, settlements are established strategically and deliberately to control (Raheb 59).”

Despite a repeated international condemnation, including a UN General Assembly resolution and a ruling by the International Court of Justice, the population of these illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, which currently number 121, has grown by an average of 5% annually since 2001. That compares to an average growth of just 1.8% for the population of Israel proper.  These settlements and outposts are inhabited by a population of some 462,000 Israeli settlers.

4 – State Terrorism – We usually reserve this word for the “bad guys” - those fighting against the empire.  Terrorists crash planes and blow themselves up.  But Empires effectively use terror to control and suppress native peoples (Raheb, 60). 

Providentially, perhaps, I am reading this chapter on the anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre - 

This is not to say that there are not Palestinian terrorist groups.  There certainly are.  But the state of Israel – like every other empire before it – effectively uses violence and terror against the people it controls.

5 – Exile – When Assyria conquered Israel the tribes of the north were scattered.  When Babylon conquered Judah, the people were taken into captivity.  When European settlers pressed into North America, the native populations were forced from the land and eventually into “Reservations.”  This is how empires work. This is what they do.  Israel is no different. When the state of Israel was established in 1948 some 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes, land, and possessions.  Today the number of refugee Palestinians is approximately 5 Million (Raheb, 61 – 62).

6 – The Temple – In order to demonstrate their superiority, empires have always defaced and defamed the gods of conquered nations.  Temples are burned.  Shrines are looted.  When Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem his forces looted the temple and carried the sacred objects off to Babylon.  Christian armies turned Muslim mosques into Christian cathedrals by replacing the crescent moon with a cross. Muslim forces converted the Hagia Sophia in Turkey into a mosque.  Today, Israel claims complete control over the city of Jerusalem – sacred to Palestinians of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths.  (Yes.  There are Palestinian Jews – 17% of those in the Palestinian West Bank. )

7 – Imperial Theology – It isn’t enough to have military, political, and economic power, though.  Empires also have to provide some sort of moral validation for their existence.  From the “Divine Right of Kings” to “Manifest Destiny” and Apartheid – theology has always been utilized by empires to justify themselves.  “From day one, theology has provided the narrative glue that keeps Israeli society together (Raheb, 66).”  [ii]

Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 – Longview of History 

Chapter 2 – Dispelling the Myth of Judeo-Christian Tradition 

Chapter 3 – The Geo-Politics of the Middle East 

Chapter 4 – Omphaloskepsis 

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[i] Raheb, Mitri, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 2014.

[ii] Perhaps Raheb is cribbing a phrase from John Dominick Crossan who writes about imperial theology as the “ideological glue” that held Roman civilization together. 

What I’ve Read this Year- 2013

These are not  listed in the order I read them, or in order of my favor, or alphabetical order either... just a list.  My reviews and comments are in the links

Fiction
Stephen R. Lawhead – The Silver Hand
Stephen R. Lawhead – The Endless Knot

Stephen R. Lawhead - Byzantium

Alan Goldsher - Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion
Seth Grahame-Smith - Unholy Night

Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle -A Wind in the Door

Madeleine L’Engle - A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Madeleine L'Engle - Many Waters

Katy Stauber - Revolution World

Robert A. Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Ace Collins -Jefferson Burke and the Secret of the Lost Scroll

C.S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet

C.S. Lewis – Perelandra

C.S. Lewis - That Hideous Strength

Franz Kafka -The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories

Paul L. Maier - Pontius Pilate: A Novel

Jonathan Maberry - Rot and Ruin

Walter Wangerin Jr. - The Book of the Dun Cow

Tad Williams - The Dragonbone Chair

Tad Williams - Stone of Farewell

Tad Williams - To Green Angel Tower (Parts 1 & 2)

Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle

Philip K. Dick - VALIS

Phillip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly

Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death

Jim Butcher - Summer Knight

Brandon Sanderson - The Rithmatist

Frank Herbert – Dune

Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah

Frank Herbert - Children of Dune

Orson Scott Card - Seventh Son

Orson Scott Card - Red Prophet

Orson Scott Card - Prentice Alvin

Orson Scott Card – Heartfire

Orson Scott Card - Alvin Journeyman

Orson Scott Card - The Crystal City

Ben Bova - Jupiter

George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones

Cullen Bunn - Deadpool Killustrated  

Clive Barker -The Thief of Always

Richard Adams - Watership Down

Robert Penn Warren - The Cave

Glenn Beck - Agenda 21

William Shakespeare - Hamlet

Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers

Henning Mankell - The Dogs of Riga

Newt Gingrich - 1945  

Dan Brown - Inferno

William Golding - The Inheritors

William Golding - Lord of the Flies

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness  

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

Stephen King - Carrie

Stephen King - Joyland

Stephen King - From a Buick 8

Stephen King - The Shining

Stephen King - Firestarter

Stephen King - The Dark Half

Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne

Kim Paffenroth- Dying to Live

Matt Bronleewe - Illuminated

Jeff Lindsay - Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Non-Fiction

John Dominic Crossan - Who Killed Jesus?  Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus

Madeleine L'Engle - Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation

James F. McGrath - The Burial Of Jesus: History And Faith

John P. Meier - A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume One, The Roots of the Problem and the Person

Deborah Blum - The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Richard A. Burridge - Faith Odyssey: A Journey through Life

Archibald MacLeish - J.B.

Marvin Meyer -Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends about the Infamous Apostle of Jesus  

Irwin Ginsburgh - First, Man Then, Adam! A Scientific Interpretation of the Book of Genesis

Charles R. Pellegrino - Return to Sodom and Gomorrah: Bible Stories from Archaeologists

Laurence Gardner - Bloodline of the Holy Grail (here, here, and here)

John Larsson - 1929

Edward Jay Epstein - The Annals of Unsolved Crime

Jay Michaelson - God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality

Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes

Thomas Cahill - Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus

Bill Bryson - Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States

Marion L. Soards - Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church Today

Valerie Mindlin - The Epic of the Maccabees

E.P. Sanders - The Historical Figure of Jesus

Travis Walton - Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience

Louis Untermeyer - The Pan Book of Limericks

Lee Gurga  - Haiku: A Poet's Guide

Susan Stryker - The Transgender Studies Reader

Joseph Reino - Stephen King the First Decade: Carrie to Pet Sematary

Sandra Lowerre - The Cross Dressing Female Saints in Wynkyn De Worde's 1495 Edition of the Vitas Patrum: A Study and Edition of the Lives of Saints Pelage, Maryne, Eufrosyne, Eugene and Mary of Egypt

Kenneth E Bailey - Open Hearts in Bethlehem: A Christmas Drama

Raymond E. Brown - An Adult Christ at Christmas

Michael J. Nelson - Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters

Jason Draper – A Brief History Album Covers

Marcella Althaus-Reid - Indecent Theology

What I'm Reading: The Burial of Jesus

I have already written once this year about how I can accept that the gospel nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are exegetical fictions – that is, that they are theological stories about the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Because the details of Jesus’ birth in Matthew’s story cannot be harmonized with the details in Luke’s we cannot be certain which of the two is more accurate, more historical – in fact we cannot determine if either of the gospel nativities is historical.

And I can accept that. I can accept that these are theological stories and not biographical accounts. 

In fact the gospels themselves, though grounded in the historical reality of Jesus – are in many ways adapted and even fictionalized.  Some scenes have been created. Some dialogue has been supplied. Some characters have been combined.  Some events have been rearranged in order to tell the theological stories intended by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (whoever they might have been…)

I can accept this.  It took me a long time and some careful consideration, but it has not damaged my faith in Jesus.  I even thought well of myself (pride… nothing but pride) for being able to go beyond the baby steps of my faith.

However, I have not been quite as willing to concede that the same sort of exegetical adaptation and fictionalization occurred in the stories of Jesus’ passion – his arrest, trial, and execution – or in the accounts his resurrection.   

Yet I am being forced to reconsider my inconsistency. 

A few days ago I finished reading John Domminc Crossan’s book Who Killed Jesus? in which Crossan argued that the passion narratives in the gospel accounts are complete (or nearly complete) fabrications – that the gospel writers built the stories of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution and the stories of his resurrection from the writings of various Old Testament texts; that they were not in any way historical accounts. 

I do not agree with Crossan on this point.  I believe – still believe – that the passion narratives are grounded in historical realities. I do not believe that they were created whole cloth from the gospel writers’ imaginations, but I can allow that the details have been shaped by reflection on these Old Testament passages.   

Now I am reading my friend James McGrath’s short little book The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith.  (It was one of the books I bought with my Christmas gift card...) And he is causing me to reconsider the question: what if, like the stories of his birth, the various details of Jesus’ burial and resurrection can’t be completely harmonized either?   

First- I like that this little book (and I do mean little) is focused on the burial of Jesus.  Many books focus on the crucifixion.  Many books focus on the resurrection.  But few focus on that crucial event in-between. 

It is McGrath’s argument that the various details concerning the burial of Jesus were fabricated by early Christians who wanted to give to their leader (whom they believed to be the Messiah and to have been resurrected) the honorable burial that he deserved – but did not receive.

From the historian’s perspective it seems likely that Jesus was crucified and then given a burial in a common grave for criminals by the Jewish authorities – that none of Jesus’ followers were present or responsible for his burial.  And that is as far as the historian can go.  The historical Jesus lived and died and was buried. But we do not, and cannot know what did or didn't happen to his body after that.  The stories we have of that first Resurrection Sunday are as much theological stories as the stories of that first Christmas morning.   

But does that mean that there was no resurrection? Does that mean that Jesus’ followers didn't seem him alive after his death?  The historian cannot answer those questions.  The historian cannot prove or disprove the resurrection.  And even if we accept the argument that the burial stories and resurrection accounts are exegetical and theological stories rather than historical accounts, this does not mean that we are left without faith.  As McGrath points out, asking ‘what happened to Jesus’ body?’ is not the same as asking ‘Did God raise him from the dead.’

We should pay attention to the fact that in the gospel accounts of the resurrection there were no witnesses.  No one saw Jesus in the tomb dead one moment and alive the next.  No one saw it happen.  Even in the canonical gospel stories all we have is an empty tomb.  Whether it was an unmarked mass grave reserved for criminals or a borrowed tomb intended for a wealthy dignitary – no one saw the resurrection event.  And even in the gospel accounts, finding the empty tomb wasn't enough to convince Jesus’ followers of his resurrection.  It took something more for them to believe. 

To this point I am willing to agree with my friend. He’s challenged me.  He’s made me uncomfortable –but I’m willing to try taking those bigger steps.

But I do have at least one question to send back his way:

The earliest followers of the Resurrected Jesus were willing and even eager to declare their faith in this paradoxical and oxymoronic idea of a crucified and resurrected God /man– an idea that was foolishness to the Greeks and Romans  and blasphemy to the Jews.  It is usually argued by apologists that the disciples were unlikely to create such an embarrassing, oxymoronic story.  But if they were unlikely to create an embarrassing story of his dishonorable death – why would they feel it necessary to create stories to cover over the (assumed) embarrassment of his dishonorable burial?

** EDIT
James McGrath has responded to my question and an interesting discussion has begun in the comment section at his blog - Exploring Our Matrix.

What I'm Reading: Who Killed Jesus?

Never one to do things in the regular accepted order, during the Christmas season (or, more correctly - the Advent season) I began reading John Dominic Crossan's book Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus.[i]  This might seem like a strange book to read during a season when we’re usually focused on the birth, rather than the death, of Jesus, but, as I said, I’m often doing things the wrong way round.

It’s not a lengthy book – 227 pages before the index – but it did take me quite a while to read; partly because I was very busy during the month of December, and partly because it’s quite dense.  There is a lot of material in this short book and it took me some time to work through it.  Even now that I've finished reading the pages of the book, I’m still working through the ideas that it contained.

This won’t be a regular book report kind of review of Crossan’s book.  Instead, after a brief summary of Crossan’s theory I will note some of my thoughts, reactions, and questions.

John Dominic Crossan argues in this book that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest, trial, abuse, crucifixion, and resurrection are not historical events that have been colored in the gospel accounts by reflection on Old Testament texts, but rather exegetical fabrications created whole-cloth from those OT texts.  In his words, “The passion narratives are not history remembered but prophecy historicized.”[ii] He also argues that the non-canonical Gospel of Peter was the original source of the passion narratives and that the other four canonical gospels borrowed their material from it.

This is, please remember, only the barest, skeletal summary of his ideas. And what follows are my thoughts and reactions, and that my ideas and thoughts are quite changeable.

1 – Right away I was somewhat put off by the book as it seems to be more of reaction to Raymond E. Brown’s two volume work The Death of the Messiah than a defense of his own theory.  After a while it started to feel like a personal grudge against Brown rather than an academic discussion of ideas. 

2 – I recognize that I am nothing more than an interested amateur when it comes to matters of Historical Jesus studies.  I read a lot – but I don’t have the resources or the training to do what Crossan and others like him do.  That said, however, I am not entirely persuaded by Crossan’s theory that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection are not historical events.

 I accept that there is no way for a historian to approach the “fact” of the resurrection. I can accept that the Gospel writers have colored their accounts of Jesus’ passion with references to Old Testament texts, that they have restructured the basic events for narrative flow, that they have created dialogue, and inserted scenes – but believe that the basic grounding in history remains.  

3- And I am even less convinced by Crossan’s use of The Gospel of Peter.  I guess I would be reluctant to build such a grand castle of ideas on such a fragmentary and questioned source.  

4- At the same time I am forced to ask myself: Why am I content to allow that that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke are examples of “prophecy historicized” but unwilling to believe the same of his death?  Am I being inconsistent? 

Perhaps I am.  But I will continue to believe, and to read, and to wrestle with the questions. 

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[i] Crossan, John Dominic, Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of

Jesus, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.

[ii] Page 10

Ante-Nicene Fathers – The Epistle of Barnabas – Early Crack-Pot Theology

So I’ve been carting these Ante-Nicene Fathers (the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325) volumes around for a few years.  If you are interested, you can purchase them new for about a hundred dollars.  Of course, they are in the public domain by now, so you can read them online for free.  I was given them by someone who was clearing out their shelves (someone who didn’t want to carry them around any longer…) I prefer to read actual physical books to e-books so I’ve kept them – even if that means that I have to pack them up every so often.

But I’ve never, until now, read through these books. I’ve been carrying them around for a couple of years.  I’ve consulted them and checked in them for information, but I’ve never really read and studied them.  I’m changing that now.  I’ve decided that I will read all 10 volumes.

I have just finished reading The Epistle of Barnabas in volume one.  This epistle should not be confused with either The Gospel of Barnabas or The Acts of Barnabas  and the “Barnabas” of this anonymous epistle should not be confused with Saint Barnabas – the companion of Paul in the book of The Acts of the Apostles.  He is sometimes identified as “Barnabas of Alexandria” (but this, too, is a guess.)

It is suggested that this Barnabas is from the Egyptian city of Alexandria for two reasons:  1) he utilizes the system of allegorical interpretation that was popular in Alexandria and 2) the earliest references to it in other works are found in writers from Alexandria.

It’s often difficult to pinpoint a date for ancient texts but The Epistle of Barnabas provides a couple of clues that allow us to locate it in history with some degree of accuracy.  In his discussion about the Temple in Jerusalem “Barnabas” writes: “For through their [the Jew] going to war, it was destroyed by their enemies; and now they, as the servants of their enemies, shall rebuild it.” [i] The city of Jerusalem and the Temple contained within it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E., and until the failed revolt of the Jewish rebel Simon bar Kokhba in 132 C.E. the Jewish people held out hope of rebuilding the temple. Using those dates we can bracket The Epistle of Barnabas somewhere between 70 and 131 C.E.  Further, John Dominick Crossan suggests that the epistle’s lack of quotations from New Testament books argues for an earlier date of composition – perhaps even in the first century.[ii]

I struggled to read The Epistle of Barnabas, for a couple of reasons.  First, his writing style is confused; he drifts from topic to topic – sometimes without completing his arguments.  I thought at first that I was struggling with the archaic qualities of the translation – with the thee’s and thou’s – but I didn’t have this difficulty with the other works I’ve read so far.  I discovered online that I’m not the only one to have difficulty with Barnabas’ writing.

“From a literary point of view the Epistle of Barnabas has no merit. The style is tedious, poor in expression, deficient in clearness, in elegance, and incorrectness. The author's logic is weak, and his matter is not under his control; from this fact arise the numerous digressions.” [iii]

But even more than that, I struggled against his interpretation of the Old Testament.

The Epistle of Barnabas is written to recent converts to Christianity – known personally by “Barnabas” – who have come under the influence of Jews (or Jewish Christians) who have been telling them that the Mosaic covenant and the rituals and laws of the Jews are still in effect for Christians.  To which Barnabas replies (and here I’m paraphrasing) “The Jewish covenant can’t be still in effect – because they never received it.”

In his own words:

“I further beg of you , as being one of you, and loving you both individually and collectively more than my own soul, to take heed now to yourselves, and not to be like some, adding largely to your sins, and saying, ‘The covenant is both theirs and ours.’  But they finally lost it, after Moses had received it. For Scripture saith, ‘And Moses was fasting in the mount forty days and forty nights, and received the covenant from the Lord, tables of stone written with the finger of the hand of the Lord;’ but turning away to idols, they lost it.  For the Lord speaks to thus to Moses: ‘Moses go down quickly; for the people whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt have transgressed.’ And Moses understood [the meaning of God], and cast the two tables out of his hands; and their covenant was broken, in order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus might be sealed upon our heart…”  [iv]

Nearly every part of the Judaic law and tradition is allegorically reinterpreted by Barnabas – away from the Jews and given to the Christians. 

He explains to his readers that the Jewish mark of circumcision was based on a delusion foisted upon them by an evil angel and that the 318 servants that Abraham circumcised in his house was actually a reference to Jesus.  Since Greek letters also served for numerals (like Roman numerals), 318 could be read as IHT - and this is, obviously, the first two letters of Jesus' name in Greek (IH) and his cross (T)!   [v]

  

The kosher dietary laws weren’t actually about meats to avoid but were really about types of people to avoid.  When Moses gave them the law that said “don’t eat swine” what he really meant was “Thou shalt not join thyself to men who resemble swine. For when they live in pleasure, they forget their Lord, but when they come to want, they acknowledge the Lord. And [in like manner] the swine, when it has eaten, does not recognize its master; but when hungry it cries out, and on receiving food is quiet again.”   The prohibition against eating rabbit actually means that we shouldn’t associate with promiscuous people- who breed like rabbits… The prohibition against eating weasel was really against associating with people who practice oral sex. “Thou shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as committing wickedness with the mouth, on account of their uncleanness; nor shalt thou be joined to those impure women who commit iniquity with the mouth.  For this animal conceives by the mouth.” [vi]

Barnabas of Alexandria, like the apostle Paul, uses the allegorical approach to interpreting the Jewish bible in order to find the basis for Christianity [vii].  But this Barnabas does not understand the Apostle Paul at all.  Where Paul found the Gentiles being added to and included with the Jews in order to make up the full people of God, Barnabas found the Christians completely replacing the Jews. 

It’s strange to realize how quickly the fledgling Christian community disassociated itself from its Jewish roots.  There were, of course, numerous reasons for this movement – the increasing number of Gentile converts who had little or no understanding of Judaism, the hostility of traditional Jews to Jewish followers of the Way (Jewish Christians), the desire of Christians to politically disassociate themselves from the Jews who’d attempted an ill-fated rebellion against the Roman Empire, etc,  and etc… But still it’s strange.

We will never – Never- understand what Jesus taught if we do not understand his Jewishness.  Christianity and the Church have not “replaced” Israel as the chosen people of God.  Nor are there two separate peoples of God with distinct and separate covenant relationships with God.  There is one God, one Savior, one faith for Jew and Gentile alike. 

And here’s a lesson:  It’s not a good idea to put the “Early Church Fathers” on some sort of theological pedestal.  Some of them were idiots.  Some of them were crack-pots. Some of them were bitter old men nursing grudges against perceived enemies. 

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[i] The Epistle of Barnabas Chap. XVI

[ii]  John Dominic Crossan The Cross that Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative

[iii] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02299a.htm

[iv] The Epistle of Barnabas Chap. IV

[v] Chap. IX

[vi] Chap. X  This strange note about the weasel is based on the erroneous idea that weasels copulate via the mouth

[vii] See Galatians 4: 21 - 31